Worth Every Penny?

Something I've wanted to do for a while now is an article that asks which book of the week did I want my money back after reading. Unfortunately I'm still so behind on my reading that it makes it hard to do that. Instead I've decided to pit two relatively new books together and see which one was actually Worth Every Penny. Today it just so happens to be DC Comics Countdown to Adventure, and Aspen's Iron and the Maiden.

First of all there was no adventure in this book so I don't know why it's called that. In fact this is a cheap cash in on the space characters from 52, and they thought, "Oh hell just throw our new character Forerunner in the mix as well." Not only did the writer not have any sense for who these characters are, but he seemed to not know what to do with them either. I didn't get the point of anyones story. Buddy's wife thinks he's in love with Starfire, his son snapped at him when he yelled at him for taking a picture of Starfire sleeping seductively. Adam Strange is retired by an Ultimate Fighting Champion. Really everyones just hanging out in this book, while the writer tries to figure out what made them interesting in 52. Forerunner's story was okay but not great. Monarch starts off saying, "We've got a few minutes and just so happen to be looking at our Army while hanging out all cutiesy on this cliff, why don't you hurry up and tell me about yourself." No he doesn't say that, but yes that's basically what he saying. How forced of an opening do you need? Really the story could have just been told to us the reader, buy Monarch had to drop the bomb shell on Forerunner and tell her she's the last of her kind and that the Monitors killed the rest of her people. I don't know what DC's obsession with everyone being the last of their kind is. First Superman, then Martian Manhunter, then Lobo, now Forerunner. With the exception of the latter two, they always have someone else show up so it's pretty worthless to say they're the last of their kind. I'm sure some other Forerunner will show up some day and blah blah blah will happen.

Don't be fooled by the cover art, Joe Mad didn't draw this issue. I have to wonder though, if he's been giving classes because the inside art screams of his style. Really this book belongs in the 90's and hell maybe that's why it'll work. Micheal Iron works for the mob, he's an enforcer and all that mob stuff. He busts up a church in the beginning and it's pretty boring, then he gets sent with 2 other guys to get some money from a family. One of the guys (Who likes purple) begins shooting up the family. Iron's tries to stop him, some how he gets his arm blown off and is left for dead. The wife has a doctor magically show up and requests that the doctor save him as well. I have three problems with this book. One, the story was boring and typical. Two, they use the over-used Syndicate BS for the mobsters and the over-used Order for the Church, please think of something that I haven't heard in every mob inspired comic and movie in the last 10 years. I thought I was watching Payback with Mel Gibson all the sudden. Three, it felt like there was panels missing. I was reading and then I'd turn the page and something completly different was happening, I kept turning back and forth wondering what the hell happened. The art's there but the story has a long way to go before it's A interesting or B original.

Since the point of this is to decide which is actually worth every penny, I'm going to base it mostly off the art. Adventure's art was actually really good, so it was disappointing that the story was so bad. Same thing with Iron's art, really good but the story wasn't there. I'm going to have to go with Iron and the Maiden, because the art was 90's good and I'd like to give it another issue before casting it aside. As for Adventure, I will not be counting down any further with it.

Winner: Aspen's Iron and the Maiden