Brave and the Bold #19-22 (DC – Hine / Braithwaite / Reinhold)
The 4-part “Without Sin” comes to its mind-blowing conclusion! On Earth, Green Arrow battles to protect the children of the Arcadia Orphanage. And on the planet Kahlo, Green Lantern and the Phantom Stranger locate the one cosmic power that can stop the evil of The Purge!
Alright, not the most original story ever, starts out spooky and goes someplace I wouldn’t have expected. Having the Phantom Stranger pontificating about God on an alien planet with it’s own god was weird and didn’t seem to make much sense cosmologically or metaphysically (but it is certainly an idea that would be worth exploring) and the Green Arrow bits in #21 & #22 are only okay. It didn’t really seem like he needed to be there for anything except to make it a team up (and why not enlist one of the big three if, after all, the universe was hanging in the balance, AGAIN?).
But what makes this book great is Doug Braithwaite’s art, especially once Bill Reinhold started inking over him instead of just using his pencils (actually, they did some nice things with the combination of ink and pencil and color in these issues). This art is so good, I’d love to pull out individual pictures to show what I’m talking about if it’s not obvious. From the layout to the quality of the lines, to the balance of black and whites. I liked Braithwaite before, and he is definately and under-appreciated talent, but something for me in these issues seemed to gel and pop.
I’d get these books just to flip through and look at the artwork. That alone is worth your money. It is worth noting though, that David Hine has been working alot lately and is due to hit his stride soon. His strongest work to date was the awesome, “Son of M” mini-series for Marvel. Still probably one of the best Marvel books in the last 3 years. It captured what I think of Marvel better than anybook in the last 3 years, that’s for sure.
B- for the story. A+ for the art. If I can find a way to post individual pictures I will.
