Comic Roundup: No Place Like Home, Avengers Academy and Green Lantern: New Guardians

It’s Tuesday and that means a new edition of Philly’s favorite comic book review column, the Comic Roundup! This week I look at the first issue of No Place Like Home from Image and the latest issues of Avengers Academy from Marvel and DC’s Green Lantern: New Guardians.

No Place Like Home #1
By Angelo Tirotto and Richard Jordan

It seems like everyone is doing their own take on the Wizard of Oz as of late. From the book and musical Wicked to a prequel of the original movie to even Zenescope announcing a new Oz series for later this year, it seems like L. Frank Baum’s brainchild is everywhere. But No Place Like Home may be one of the best takes on the concept I have seen yet.

No Place Like Home features Dee, returning home to Kansas to bury her parents, killed in a freak tornado. From such a simple premise begins what looks to be a deep, complex series that will take the reader to Oz and beyond.

Tirotto seems to be ready to tell the story slowly, a bit at a time, just the way a book like this should unfold. Mysteries are layered on mysteries and it is all brought to stunning life by Jordan, who could easily be the second coming of Richard Corben. Tight artwork combined with deft storytelling skills make for a great looking comic book.

With No Place Like Home, Image has once again shown that they are publishing some of the best comic books this year. I’ll take a book like this over Avengers vs. X-Men any day. Go get this comic.

Avengers Academy #26
By Christos Gage and Tom Grummett

I’ve been kind of hard on the Avengers books lately, with both Avengers and New Avengers getting less than stellar writes ups in the Roundup. So I thought it only fair to look at one of the non-Bendis titles to see if the Avengers name could be redeemed. The answer is a resounding… kind of.

In issue #26, Jocasta returns to the Academy to shut them down and have the students join her new team of heroes in training made up of ex-Initiative members. It basically reads just like the recent Schism storyline from the X-Men books, just a lot wordier and all done in a single issue. And I do mean wordy.

Gage must have gotten paid by the word because this issue is dense with dialogue. Grummett’s art is neither good nor bad, just solidly average, just what you would expect from him. But the thing is, even with all that against it, Avengers Academy #26 is still better than the Bendis written Avengers titles of the last few months. What does that tell you?

Avengers Academy always had a ton of potential to be a really great Avengers book. That potential is still there, but I think Gage needs to narrow the focus and try to balance the speeches with some action. But like I said, this is till a better read that Avengers, so take it for what you will.

Green Lantern: New Guardians #6
By Tony Bedard and Tyler Kirkham

So far I have been less than impressed with the New 52 Green Lantern titles. Of all the books in the reboot, I think they did the least to capitalize on the influx of new readers and provide a “ground zero” kind of reading experience. But nobody does space opera like Tony Bedard so I gave New Guardians the benefit of the doubt and have been pleasantly rewarded.

As Kyle and his team of ring bearers still try to get used to working together, Archangel Invictus shows up to cleans the darkness from their souls. Yeah, it isn’t the most original story ever put to paper, but Bedard gives it a great sense of big screen spectacle and provides the members of Kyle’s team each distinct personalities and traits. Kirkham’s style, while not the first I would think of for a space/action series, works well here and when combined with Nei Ruffino’s colors, his Lanterns just jump off the page.

Green Lantern: New Guardians is the Lantern title with the most to prove to readers, and it seems to be doing just that. While not the best title of the New 52, it’s still better than most and is well worth your $3.