Metal Hammer & Superman 678

Metal Hammer

I’ve had the very bad habit of letting things pile up for months (approaching years) on end, at the moment the worst victims are the magazines I subscribe to and books. So with that in mind I’ve made a concerted effort to try and work through the pile of magazines that lurks at the side of my bed and this means I’ve read about a years worth of Metal Hammer magazine in the last 4 days, this run included a change in editor so the shift in tone has been interesting.
The main outcome of this shift seems to be a backtrack to the denim jacket with a backpatch style of metal, Iron Maiden installed as the greatest band ever and the catchphrase Defenders of the Faith being over used. Maybe it proves that trying to keep your hand in on what’s happening musically is a young mans game but I’ve gone from having a good handle on who the bands written about are to feeling non plussed and vaguely swamped with the steady stream of Metalcore and generic Old Skool style bands that make up their interviews and reviews.
I guess it just goes to show I’m a step closer to my impending midlife crisis with the view that the kids are wrong and wouldn’t know good music if it pushed them over in a pit, I enjoyed Metal Hammer when it was a bit more inclusive of different genres of metal rather than it’s current slightly insular view.

Superman #678

James Robinson (writer) Renato Guedes (penciller)

This is James Robinson’s second issue since taking over from Kurt Busiek and I have to say so far it’s been slightly disappointing. Plotwise things seem interesting enough with new superstrong character Atlas being set onto Superman by a shadowy science police type organisation, it’s more a case of the bizarre scripting tics letting things down. Characters will speak a sentence and then repeat it in a shortened slightly jumbled way and it’s really offputting. Offputting to speak shorter and jumbled…
I’m going to stick around as Robinsons work on Starman showed that he’s a slow burner and once everything clicks into gear you get some great work, also Guedes artwork is very nice, reminiscent of Carlos Pacheco.