Clandestine #3
Alan Davis enjoyable return to his classic Marvel UK property hits the slightly-more-than-halfway point here, and its an interesting piece of work, because while it centres on the family, theres about three or four different plots going here, with no obvious unity to them; in some ways, it feels like seized the opportunity for a return trip to the Clan and shoved in several of the plots he had planned out before he had to leave the original series during the industry bust in the 1990s. Weve got Dominic thrown through time and ending up with the original cast of Excalibur midway through the Cross-Time Caper; the twins about to be attacked by vampires; a coup among the Omegans; something weird going on with Walters powers; and Adam Destine journeying back to Yden (whatever that is) to find out whats going on with him. All this is strung along the central idea of some mysterious guild (completely absent here) surveiling the Clan for some reason.
Needless to say, the narrative is kind of cluttered. That said, its all quite fun to read (I especially enjoy the twist with the seeming supervillain who attacked Newton last issue); the original series was Davis toying with non-traditional superheroes (apart from the twins, no one in this series wants to be one), but in a decidedly light and humourous way, rather than the ultra-serious/cynical way that usually goes. Hes up to the same bag of tricks here, and its enjoyable. He even managed to squeeze a revisit of the classic Excalibur team into this.
Detective Comics #843
On impulse, Im back reading this title, since there wasnt much else coming out, and Dinis issues are enjoyable, if not Must Read material, most of the time; fittingly enough, the previous issues of this title that Ive read were #833-34, which also featured a Batman/Zatanna team-up, which is referenced rather heavily here. Speaking of which, a different kind of team-up may be in Bruce and Zees future.
The plot du jour features a new nightclub being open in Gotham, and some is out to sabotage it. The club is owned by a Mr. Sabatino, apparently a shady figure from past issues, who wants to hire Zatanna to perform at the opening. Zee agrees for an exorbitant fee, and help Batmans detective-ing, but the villain is pretty obvious if you look at the cover. Unfortunately, Scarface and the (new) Ventriloquist are among the least impressive Batman villains you can find, although the new chick is at least easy on the eyes. Zatanna, meanwhile, is wondering if she and Bruce might not be compatible in a romantic way, after his caring for her in their last team-up. Now, we all know that Paul Dini worships Zatanna, and, through his worship, he managed to meet someone who was basically Zatanna in real life and marry her (so there is at least one quantifiable example of comics getting you laid); now hes angling to hook her up with the DCUs biggest bachelor. But its entertaining, so whatever. No relationship will ever last with him, anyway, and Dini knows that.
Art-wise, Dustin Nguyen is an interesting choice for Dinis detective stories; its stylish, and he draws a great Zatanna, but Im not sure its an approach I especially like for Batman and his city.
Secret Invasion #1
The big tamale arrives, and, because Im a huge sucker, Im onboard once again; I had planned to sit out "World War Hulk", but I ended up buying it; its the same story here.
Bendis is an extremely controversial writer among the internet fandom; I count myself among the neutral faction; hes had good and bad ideas, and New Avengers is dreary, but Ive enjoyed most of Mighty Avengers, and the Illuminati miniseries was a lot of fun (maybe because he had a co-writer). Bendis rep is that he shouldnt write stuff above street-level, and its true that he doesnt have the panache for that kind of thing that someone like Millar has (the takedown of Earths defences here doesnt come close to the Liberators assault on the Ultimates and SHIELD in Ultimates 2), but the stuff here is pretty good overall. Unlike a lot of his stories, and perhaps because theres already been so much (pretty bland) buildup, things start off with about seven bangs here, as the Skrulls systematically target the Avengers, SHIELD, and the Fantastic Four. Regarding the final reveal with all the 70s heroes, if we were meant to take that seriously, it was a serious error to include a bunch of characters who they would never make Skrulls (starting with Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man, among others); but, from a writing standpoint, its a great Skrull tactic (and it will doubtless cause message boards to be flooded with inane speculation).
The big X-factor going into this was Leinil Yus art; from what I saw of it on New Avengers, he was really bad. However, here, with the aid of Morales on inks and Martin on covers (M & M), his art becomes not just not bad, but actually rather good (gasp!). So, all in all, this is a pretty good start to the summer event; granted, there are seven issues still to go, and plenty to go wrong, but theyre off to a good start.
Young Avengers Presents #3
Delayed a week into April, resulting in not one but two issues of this miniseries coming out, we now get a spotlight on Wiccan and Speed, writting by Robert Aguire-Sacasa and drawn by Alina Urusov. Overall, its another solid, though not exceptional, installment.
First off, Speed makes his first actual appearance in forever; he appeared in the Civil War tie-in miniseries, but never in the event itself, he never shows up in their guest appearances, and he was even omitted from all the group shots in the last issue; maybe its because he was introduced so late, but, seriously writers and artists, he is in fact on the team. Even here, Wiccan is the focal character, with all the narration, and the main role in the plot. Now, with that said, Aguire-Sacasa does a good job with the brothers dynamic (such as the idea that Speed has, without any evidence, decided that hes the older of the two), and includes some good scenes between Wiccan and Hulkling (although, once again, the teams status quo makes absolutely no sense in light of the fact that Iron Man et al. know their names). The idea of Hulkling subbing for Wiccan to keep his parents happy is fun (where is Teddy living, exactly?). Theres not really much of a plot; the brothers visit the usual locations (Wundagore, Genosha, their parents old home in New Jersey) to try and find Wanda, they fail, but stumble across Master Pandemonium, whose example makes them decide to just leave Wanda alone, wherever she is, and they go home. In a lot of respects, this series defines the pros and cons of done-in-one storytelling; its possible to tell an enjoyable story in one issue, but this is coupled here with the fact that there are not going to be any major changes made to the characters in what is essentially a filler miniseries. Now, theres absolutely nothing wrong with status quo storytelling; in fact, some titles have a major problem because they never settle down to explore theirs (Amazing Spider-Man had this problem for years before BND). However, in retrospect, I think it would have been a better idea to do a six-issue team storyline with one set of creators, to allow for a more expansive canvas. That said, its a good issue, and Urusovs art is nice and clean.
Im really looking forward to the last three issues more than this and the previous one; first, Vision (and Vision/Stature) by Paul Cornell, then some writer attempts the rather difficult task of addressing Statures own status quo, and then Fraction and Davis on Hawkeye. With the recently announced SI tie-in, the Young Avengers will be in publication through August; I hope to God Marvel has something in the works after that, because this property needs some real forward movement.
Young X-Men #1
The other young superheroes; this was another title I wasnt planning to buy, but it was a slow week, and the recent announcement of hack and thief Greg Land on Uncanny X-Men has me contemplating dropping that, so I might as well explore other options for were to spend my X-dollars. I read every issue of Craig Kyle and Chris Yosts run on New X-Men, and I quite enjoyed it, so I was sad to see it end (X-Force, two issues in, isnt up to that books standard). Theyve cherry-picked two of that books minor castmembers, Rockslide and Dust, plus background characters Blindfold and Wolf Cub, and two new characters (198 mutants must be getting pretty close to full at this point), Ink (brief introduction here) and someone called Greymalkin who hasnt appeared yet. Its a rather eclectic mix, and most of the characters I really liked arent here, but Ill let that pass (fans of the old old New X-Men felt the same way when Kyle and Yost arrived, after all).
Cyclops is out to put together a new team of child soldiers, so he makes the rounds to Afghanistan (where Dust has established herself as the protector of various local villages, and gets a very cool scene where as "the wind" she shreds some Taliban goons), Germany (Wolf Cub out to kill a depowered Maximus Lobo; -1000 points for referencing a Chuck Austen story) Florida (where Rockslide is living; an opportunistic Blindfold is also there, since she knows the team is being formed, that she joins, and that somebody will die in a fight with Donald Pierce some time in the future), and California (the "Ink" character), before taking everybody back to Westchester and the ruins of the Mansion. He wants the team to fight a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which, as it turns out, are now Sunspot and various other New Mutants (Magma, Cannonball, and Dani Moonstar); now, this is the point where any longtime X-fan has to reevaluate this, and theres something seriously wrong with Cyclops here. Among other things, no other X-Men appear in this apart from him, hes established the team in the Mansion ruins when everyone else is going to be hanging in San Fran, hes already got a kill-squad (X-Force), and, of course, we know the New Mutants arent evil. Cyclops almost certainly isnt Cyclops; the best theory Ive seen online is that its actually Sebastian Shaw out to eliminate adversaries in the Hellfire Club, which fits, since the targets theyve been given (Sunspot, the current Lord Imperial, and, we know from the future scenes, Donald Pierce) are both rivals of his. It remains to be seen.
Character-wise, Dust and Rockslide are more or less faithfully captured here (both seem a bit wittier than in the last run; Dust rarely talked, and Rockslides jokes are a bit more self-conscious); Blindfolds speech patterns are about the same, although theyve been toned down a bit (thankfully, because they grate on my nerves a lot of the time); I dont really know enough about Wolf Cub to make a judgement, and the other two new characters havent really had any page-time yet. Its a decent enough start, and Paquettes art works pretty well.
