Digitally Speaking...51

The comics I talk about here were read from my comiXology account...

G.I. Joe #1 (IDW)
From 2009.

When IDW originally acquired the rights to G.I. Joe, it printed up a preview with all the titles it was going to launch.  I immediately identified G.I. Joe: Cobra as the one most likely to interest me, and never looked back (that series panned out nicely), which here means I never really gave the rest of the line a chance.  So this digital version of the debut for Chuck Dixon's flagship title was my first chance to see if I made a mistake.  I was a big Dixon fan in the '90s (he had a knack for Boy Wonders, working wonders in the pages of Robin and Nightwing), and so he's one of those creators who've since floated around that I should theoretically be interested to revisit.  I don't think this was a good fit for him, or at the very least, it's not a good fit for me.  Once I became hooked on Mike Costa's G.I. Joe, all interest in any other version fell completely by the wayside.  Dixon's G.I. Joe is nothing like Costa's.  I guess that's all there is to say about that...

Goblin Hood (Twin)
From 2013.

Interesting if a bit...pointless? head-scratching?  Basically, as the title may suggest, Robin Hood smashed with monsters, with Robin Hood and his crew as monsters, not so much the actual characters but entirely new characters...cast in the familiar roles.  This preview doesn't really sell the idea as particularly...necessary? but it does provide one or two interesting ideas, the more interesting one being the one that's not really explored outside of the character sketches...included in the story itself.  (Yes, this is a somewhat awkward affair overall.)  Little John has become Little Giant, who like Harry Potter's pal Hagrid is something of an undersized giant.  (I can't help but think of the correlation being less than completely coincidental.)  That's a character I'd want to read.  The rest of it...Creator Bobby Timothy is apparently another alumni from DC's Zuda experiment.

God Hates Astronauts #1 (Image)
From 2014.

I first heard of this series from a preview in an issue of Chew.  I thought it looked stupid.  In the interests of objectivity, if you're the kind of reader who takes Garth Ennis seriously, you might like God Hates Astronauts.  However, strictly speaking, this is an incredibly stupid comic that makes you doubt the existence of quality control at Image, and comics in general...

Guardians #0 (Black Magic Wolf)
From 2013.

The general idea here is that God (without calling him God) sends a couple of ready-made superheroes (they're basically angels, but not called angels) to...do superhero things.  And the twist is that these guys don't really know how to interact with humans other than to...save them.  And stuff.  The premise sounds interesting, but Guardians has no idea what to do with it.  Maybe the material previewing the concept just doesn't do a good job of showing its actual potential, but somehow I doubt that.  There are many, many writers out there who just don't know how to execute their material.  Some of them are outright bad, some merely mediocre.  It's not so much a matter of the story not working, but the writer having no clue what to do with it.  They have an idea, and without knowing what to do with it, they just kind of run with it.  And hope that's good idea.  It's not good enough.

 Guardians of the Galaxy Infinite Comic #1 (Marvel)
From 2013.

"Infinite Comic," as in taking full advantage of the digital medium.  Otherwise this is a Drax the Destroyer story, a version of the character movie-goers didn't quite get to see in Guardians of the Galaxy.  This is also part of Brian Michael Bendis's comics relaunch, which is what led to the movie in the first place.  He and artist Michael Avon Oeming (whom I know from Mice Templar, which after some consideration have decided to stop reading after many years) are better known as collaborators on Powers (now a TV show available via PlayStation).  This counts as the best material from everything presented here.  And easily so.