Another week, another half dozen books, another $25. I'll not be lamenting next week's haul, which is only three books. Spoilers and rants ahoy.
Dread's Bought/Thought for 9/22/10 - Part 1:
DYNAMO 5: SINS OF THE FATHER #4: Jay Faerber and Julio Brila (as well as colorist Ron Riley) reach the penultimate chapter of this mini series. Given how low the sales figures are (a Diamond error in shipping to many states likely it missed the Top 300 charts for August, but July's were not pretty), part of or wonders, or fears, that this could be the penultimate chapter of the entire series. Unless, of course, the trades are selling so well that they make up losses for the monthly. Image has a far lower sales threshold than Marvel or DC (even Robert Kirkman's ASTONISHING WOLF MAN rarely sold over 10k a copy for long), but these things do matter, especially when it comes to stuff like paying an artist and earning enough to eat on a book as a creator. Which to me is a damn shame. DYNAMO 5 is a solid superhero book. It's at least as good as quite a few Marvel or DC books that at least sell 19k and make the Top 100 these days, if not better than a slew of them. Unfortunately, it isn't one of Image's big draw titles, and part of me wonders if the fact that there was a 7 month gap between issue #25 and this mini as well as a hike in price, combined with sluggish sales for this quarter all around comics, caused many retailers to cut back on this. I know some of my local comic shop chain (3 stores) used to order maybe 2-3 copies of this each; now they order maybe 3 copies of it COLLECTIVELY. They used to order Mirage Studios' TALES OF THE TMNT in higher numbers (that title, recently ended, used to sell about 4k-7k an issue, which for this mini would be a boost). The regular series at times used to sell at least 10k or so an issue if not more, so I am a little surprised to see this mini sink to the bottom of the Top 300 sales chart.
The battle still continues; out of five issues, at least two so far have been near straight combat. Which I don't mind when the combat is well drawn and paced, and this is. It is ironic that Invincible is guest starring, as the threat of this mini is similar to some alien threats he has faced in his own title. The three children of an alien warrior who was defeated by Image's adult heroes have now returned to restore their honor. They've taken on the kids of those heroes (the Dynamo 5 as well as Invincible, the younger Firebird, and Savage Dragon's kids) and leveled a lot of Tower City in a brawl that has lasted hours. While the assembled young heroes have occupied and challenged the alien trio to a degree, they seem impossible to harm or tire, and the kids are being worn out. In this issue, the secretive government agency FLAG has finally unleashed their own squad of heroes, dubbed "The Primaries". They consist of characters who was introduced towards the second half of DYNAMO 5's ongoing series. Flagstone, a rock-themed 1940's war hero (along with Bald Eagle I think), War-Chest, a former criminal and adversary of D5 (who is a semi-obvious riff on women with large breasts in comics, although not to the level as "Mighty Endowed"), Soldier Ant, and what appears to be a resurrected Captain Dynamo. While FLAG could have released this team at any time, they chose to wait for hours for the right moment to discredit and replace the D5, when it became obvious they could not beat the aliens alone. While the Primaries aid in the fight and help rescue trapped civilians, even THEY cannot overpower the trio. It all comes down to one of the D5 taking a gamble to win it all.
There was a bit more time for characterization this time around, with Gage trading quips with War-Chest (who seems to "distract" certain male heroes) and especially Smasher/Hector in this issue. Bridget is officially the leader of the squad at this point, and Livvie does get a cool power moment with her new abilities (even if, character wise, she still seems a bit bland compared to the other four). Next issue is the conclusion and I anticipate an exciting finale to this series. I do hope there is more, no matter how much I have to chase it.
AVENGERS ACADEMY #4: The second part of "Scared Straight", and while it is a crossover with the THUNDERBOLTS and characters from both books appear in the other, the T-Bolts have very little to do with the story, so while both issues stand alone, they don't demand you read all of them to make sense of it. Some see this as a complaint, but I don't mind it at all. Let both books tell their own stories with their own cast while still offering a greater whole if someone gets both. I mean, the THUNDERBOLTS crossover issue with Academy was damn awesome, so if it did encourage anyone to try it, great. Christos Gage continues on his exceptional efforts with Mike McKone on art with awesome colors by Jeromy Cox. As always with this series, it starts off detailing the origin of one of the recruits and following their POV to a degree, and it is finally Mettle's turn.
Mettle, like Veil, seems another who is apparently a mutant, whose power manifested when he was hit in the head by another surfer in Hawaii. Originally large and mellow, Mettle has tried to maintain that personal in the Academy, although facing Osborn again brought it all back. The confrontation goes as one would expect in some ways (of course the kids don't kill him) while still being interesting and allowing for development. The power outage that Hazmat caused, however, frees the other inmates, so their Avengers instructors have to lay the smack down to save them.
Interestingly, I thought Juggernaut was portrayed as more of an imposing presence here than he has been for a while in THUNDERBOLTS, where nearly anything knocks him over these days.
Some people have criticized this issue for "angst", but I don't think it is justified. The problem is that so many writers have deployed angst as their ONLY narrative tool and then deploy it in ineffective or incompetent (or even extreme) ways, that it can become easy to simply dismiss it whenever it is seen. Mettle is a guy who was a perfectly reasonable, passive "go with the flow" type of guy who has one of the most horrific mutations of the academy happen to him. Only Hazmat has faced something almost as bad, and she is probably the one he has ironically become the closest to. But even Hazmat can at least look in the mirror and see herself, even if in a suit. Mettle is literally a large Red Skull. His only hope for getting attention is sleeping with neo-Nazi fetishists who think Red Skull is "hot", which totally isn't him at all. He also can't feel anything, when being a surfer requires a lot of tactile sensation. This isn't someone with dashing good looks complaining about their powers or their life, as happens very commonly in comics, or someone assuming blame for something that was not their fault (such as Speedball). Mettle, like virtually all of the kids in the Academy, has had his life ripped from him by Osborn's experiments. Arguably, Finesse, Striker, and Reptil have come out of it the best, but we haven't gotten focus issues on two of those. Mettle is part of the three effected the worst, which is why they were the ones who was in for confronting Osborn. It isn't as simple as Mettle just humming a nice tune and what not. He looks like a monster - I'd argue more of one than the Thing. His skull-face is far creepier. It isn't like anyone sees the Ghost Rider as a cuddly fellow. Mettle isn't a violent person, but he's coming closer to cracking under his state.
This brings up another point for me, and that is that of everyone in the cast who is at risk of becoming a villain, for whatever reason, my odds are (sadly) on Mettle. The rule of drama is that the one who most suspect and is the most obvious is NEVER the one who turns out to go bad (unlike in real life), which eliminates Finesse and Striker. Veil is too nice and Reptil can't because he comes from a TV show and isn't being written by his creators (unlike X-23, who was written in comic book form by her TV creators for a while). That leaves either Hazmat or Mettle. While it may be a cliche that "the black guy always goes bad or dies first", it is one that still pops up - even the Eisner award winning RUNAWAYS utilized that trope (Alex Wilder went bad, THEN died first). And it is a shame as Mettle has probably become my favorite of the bunch, at least so far. Perhaps the only element of the "too obvious" rule that is in his favor is the fact that his head IS a red skull, and so thus he should seem, at least visually, as the most obvious - after all, that was the score with Cyborg Superman back in the 90's. Many villains in Marvel are not the "bwahaha" type, but are or were sympathetic figures who were victims of fate too often and snapped. We know from hints from Gage as well as just general sense that at least one of these trainees has to fall that way - if not, the Avengers look paranoid, which isn't the angle that Gage is going for. Now, that all said, not all writers follow "the rule of drama" - some don't always mind going for "the one you most suspect" so long as they execute that properly. But I don't see that too often, and the reality is that with 80% of these kids being Gage's creations, he can have them go in any direction he wants. For all we know, Quicksilver's "guidance" of Finesse actually makes her a better person, for instance. We just have to wait and see, and read.
This was a very good issue for me, and I made it my Examiner Book Of The Week (TM). Maybe that's personal preference, but them's the brakes. In a way this is the most consistently good Avengers title I read, even more so than SECRET AVENGERS over these last four issues. I look forward to Pym's development in issue seven and I look forward to seeing Jorge Molina fill in for McKone next month.
DEADPOOL TEAM-UP #889: If there is one word to describe this one shot, it is "FUN". Jeff Parker writes an issue, and of course he inserts one of the AGENTS OF ATLAS - Gorilla Man. Deadpool is hired to got to a tropical island loaded with weapons to protect a woman from a monster, who turns out to be Ken Hale. Unfortunately, the villain is from GORILLA-MAN #1 and so this issue acts as a nice, unofficial GORILLA-MAN #4. Deadpool is still the lead character in the story, though, and he has the central POV.
The art by Steve Sanders along with the colors by Matt Wilson fit the story perfectly. A good chunk of it is like a LOONY TOONS episode in which Hale and Deadpool use bigger and bigger weapons in an escalating back and forth attempt to kill each other. Of course they unite and fight the bad guy, and there are a lot of Parker's trademark bizarre monsters. But it all works out very well. I bought this one shot purely for Gorilla-Man, and I did not regret my choice in the slightest.
Parker may not be the funniest Deadpool writer, as not all of his lines are instant punchlines as some may expect, but as someone who can only tolerate Deadpool in doses (like sugar; too much can be poison), I thought he was fine. I did like how he built up Gorilla Man for this for another's POV, especially someone as nutty as Deadpool. There isn't much to say about this other than it entertained me quite a bit, and brought a smile to my face. Reading it right after AVENGERS ACADEMY, that was two exceptional Marvel comics still for $2.99. How can you go wrong?
THOR #615: An event almost a year in the making! When J. Michael Straczynski left this title, Marvel were in a scramble to figure out who would replace him as a big name writer, and Kieron Gillen was tasked with taking over the title for an interim period while SIEGE rocked across the Marvel Universe. What was originally supposed to be a six issue run jumped to ten to allow for more time. But now, Matt Fraction (THE ORDER, INVINCIBLE IRON MAN, UNCANNY X-MEN) and artist Pasqual Ferry (HEROES FOR HIRE, ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR, various GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY covers) are ready to take the reigns of the god of thunder. Thus, we get our second issue of the month and third within six weeks. The decks have been cleared and the audience is waiting. So, how was it?
On the plus side, with a 30 page story, the reader may not feel as cheated for paying $3.99 for this issue as he or she may have been with prior issues. Ferry’s art is on the whole exceptional, fitting for the franchise and able to work with bizarre vistas and strange characters as well as with down to earth civilian scenes. In terms of the story, however, Fraction is merely starting to line up his ducks; the fact that a random scientist character spends many pages trying to explain the plot of the arc to one of the Asgardians makes that obvious.
Fraction picks up right where Gillen left off. Asgard is still in shambles after the SIEGE battle in Oklahoma, or “Midguard” as the Earthly realm is known to the Norse gods. After many issues of doing virtually nothing (including most of Gillen’s run), Sif is dusted off for a scene to chat with Thor. The god is still merged with his “mortal” incarnation, Donald Blake, and they seem to share a co-existence similar to that of Firestorm these days. Balder the Brave has become Balder the Bawling over his bone-headed moves on the title the last two years, and despite being responsible for their recent ills, Thor misses his deceased brother Loki because they’re siblings and during their childhood a few thousand years ago, Loki didn’t used to be all bad. The gist of the plot is that there used to be nine realms of existence according to Asgardian lore; Earth was one and Asgard itself was another. With Asgard now on Earth, the rest of the eight realms “feel” a vacuum, and a new threat has emerged.
This threat is so dire that Heimdall, with his ability to see the future, predicts it will cause all of their deaths. That is usually a clear sign of when things get bad; the other is when the Watcher shows up.
Perhaps the worst (and slowest) parts of the story is the segment where the aforementioned scientist explains the plot to the Asgardian. It is loaded with techno-babble that talks about the existence of a “multi-verse” of many realities and dimensions that all interconnect, which may be novel for new readers but old hat to anyone who has read Marvel or Thor for long. A cynic could claim it is borderline condescending and a critic would at least say that these segments are probably the worst parts of this 30 page debut story; alas, they represent roughly a third of it. And while Ferry’s art was exceptional and worth much of the cover price alone, some could say that his love of double page spreads was a tad excessive. He is a bold, cinematic artist who often relies on double page spreads or pages in which all panels are read from left to right over two pages rather than one page at a time, where the most panels he seems able to squeeze onto a page is six. This is fine for an over sized issue, but will this slow the flow of the story when the format shifts back to 22 pages a month? Or is Ferry so far ahead that he can handle 30 pages for an extended period of time?
Future solicitations reveal that THOR may be up for a bit of a return to status quo. This story at least suggests that the move of Asgard to Earth was a bad idea, and that a return to the other realm may be inevitable. Given that we are less than a year from a blockbuster film, a shift back to a status quo isn’t unheard of, but perhaps is a shame given how high Fraction’s profile is. Little has been done with the angle of Asgard on Earth behind having the Warriors Three enjoy some diner cooking, occasional interaction with local cops, Thor’s Donald Blake persona living in a motel and then their floating castle being invaded and destroyed. In the over two years with this status quo, it has maybe been seriously played with for one, and that was by Straczynski himself (who created it). On the other hand, those who prefer Thor fight more mythical and far out things away from the mortal world aside for issues of AVENGERS should be pleased. To me, I do see some missed opportunities. At the very least, however, it seems that Blake (and Thor’s mortal gal-pal, Jane Foster) will be settling down in Oklahoma, which at least gets them out of the already-cramped New York setting.
In summary, this debut isn’t a jaw dropper (aside for the art), but it is a solid step forward on a path. The end result will depend on Fraction’s execution and narrative flow. Arcs of INVINCIBLE IRON MAN have drug on, and reviews on UNCANNY X-MEN can be hit or miss. Hopefully Fraction utilizes things he has learned and applies them for the best on Thor.
NEXT: FANTASTIC FOUR #583, SECRET AVENGERS #5 & SHADOWLAND: MOON KNIGHT #2
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from me.
