Bought/Thought 7/30

[Darthphere]

What? Dane only appeared in New Excalibur during Tieri's fill-in, as far as I know, and he ended his tenure with the team claiming that something was off with his Ebony Blade and he needed to investigate it.

Ask Nick Lowe dude, he's the one that gave that explanation.

 

[Phaedrus45]

Wildstorm and Vertigo Thoughts

Wildcats-World's End #1: The fourth series of books finally leads us to what was shown in the first set, Armageddon. As seen in Number Of The Beast, all the Superhumans who have been carted away by the government for the past 50 years to spend their life in a virtual sleep have created the "World's End." Luckily for new readers, you don't really need to know what's happened before to get into this new series. Reading each of these series of books, I'm always expecting this to be better than it is. This book had a great action sequence to start things off, and it looks like we'll be getting a great fight next issue with Wildcats vs. Majestic...still, there is some real heart and soul missing from the story. 5/10

New Dynamix #5: The first issue was pretty good, and each additional issue only went downhill from there. Many times, I forgot about what happened before, and was wishing DC and Wildstorm would have a recap page at the beginning of each issue. This final issue in this series just seemed like a mess. I found myself not caring one bit for any of these characters, and was greatful when I finished the last page that this series was over. Skip it, skip it, skip it! 3/10

Northlanders-Sven, The Returned #8: What a different ending to this story than what I was expecting when I first read issue #1. We don't go out with a bang, but a whimper. I think a person's appreciation for this book really depends on how they take these final two issues. This isn't a story about revenge, but about how Sven becomes a different man in the beginning of this story to how he ends up in this last issue. I can't say I was very satisfied. Brian Wood seems to have a talent of getting me excited about his stories, only to have me feeling unfullfilled when they are over. 6/10

 

[TheCorpulent1]

AAAH, bollocks, I missed Wildcats? I gotta go back to the damn shop.

 

[Phaedrus45]

Dresden Files #4: An all-out action issue, where Dresden finally confronts the killers he was tasked to find. Turns out they are three nasty witches, straight out of Shakespeare's Hamlet, all hanging around a cauldon of nasty magic. This series was a nice surprise, and great to see Dabel Bros. is still around and going strong. In fact, compared to the other stories they did in conjunction with Marvel, this one is better than them all. Dresden Files didn't have the complexity of Red Prophet or Anita Blake, and is just a good, quick read. I cannot wait for the next series of books coming in October. 8/10

The Man With No Name #3: I love good western comics, and this title from Dynamite has been pretty decent these first three issues. (Dynamite really has made the western their new forte, with Lone Ranger, Man With No Name, and Zorro.) In this issue, the Clint Eastwood character dupes the greedy ex-military personel who are attacking a church, meant to help the wounded and sick, and discovers the truth about the supposed gold and riches that are held within. If you are longing for another issue of Lone Ranger to come out, this can easily tide you over. 7/10

Frank Frazetta's Creatures: Changing the history of the late 1800's and early 1900's, this tales tells of the final investigation of Theodore Roosevelt's Paranormal Investigation Regiment. What I loved about the previous Frank Frazetta books, the wonderful art, is severely missing here. So, this just ends up being an alternate Earth type of book that we've seen many times before. If there is one Frazetta book to miss, this is it. 4/10

 

[Dread]

I've read most of my comics already but I'm not in a mood to review. I will say, though, that Thor #10 has finally turned me to the side of those who've been crying for something to happen. Seriously, it finally hit me that we're 10 issues in and all we've seen Thor do is resurrect Asgardians and then sit around on Asgard. Maybe it was a mistake to leave Thor as king of Asgard. The issue is good, and I was genuinely intrigued about what Balder's new status may mean in the future, but that's the whole problem: everything interesting about Thor right now is potential for the future. I'm not saying I advocate Thor turning into a brainless smash-'em-up comic, but something needs to start happening in the present because, quite frankly, even I'm starting to lose interest.

When even Corp agrees that THOR is in a rut, that's a helluva rut.

I mean I do like that JMS is establishing things and following characters, but there is such a thing as going too far into the other direction. Most of the build-up has been done already and there is little excuse for the book to be this slow at nearly the #12 mark. People complained about NEW WARRIORS taking forever to go somewhere, but it had more hectic action by issue #10 than THOR usually does.

While the A-List launch team has surely helped, I doubt THOR would be selling as well if JMS & Coipel were this slow with the pace with a less defined or famous franchise. After all, THE TWELVE has JMS & Weston and that's barely above 27k. The years off the market did wonders for the anticipation for Thor's return, much as Colossus' revival in AXM got hot buzz because he'd been dead for a few years time. But that ran out of steam due to ineffective follow up and it would be a shame to see THOR sag because JMS' pace is as slow and unhurried as the locals he is writing.

I am curious if Fraction's writing of a slew of Thor mini's and one-shots lately is prepping him up to be JMS' inevitable successor, since JMS is technically DC Exclusive now. Granted, that would increase the titles that Fraction is writing or co-writing to a hundred.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The mini-series and one-shots coming up are encouraging to me, actually. I don't think JMS is leaving Thor anytime soon, but the fact that more minis and one-shots are being solicited practically every month makes me think Marvel is finally wising up to the fact that Thor can be a huge franchise but JMS' snail-like story coupled with Coipel's incessant lateness on the main title can't sustain it. Even if the one-shots and minis are just diversions from the main series, they're still at least Thor content that'll be coming out regularly, keeping the character relevant in people's minds while JMS and Coipel do whatever it is that takes them so long to put out an issue.

 

[Dread]

In a mini: Thor will battle a Skrull Armada, leave Asgard, and team up with Beta Ray Bill.

In the ongoing: Thor sits on a throne, talks to Loki and Balder.

Hmmm.

 

[Bubonic]

What I fear the most is that by the time JMS has finished laboriously setting up this amazing foundation for Thor, he'll move on. The characters will have been elevated to a point they've never known, they'll be a bunch of stuff craftily set up for the future... And then Marvel will somehow sign on some hack to the book and none of what we hope for will properly come to fruition!

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Well, even if JMS does stick around, there's ample reason to fear he won't manage a decent payoff to all the dramatic build-up he's creating himself. Look at how his Spider-Man run petered out toward the end. He's great at introducing interesting ideas but his follow-through is not necessarily at the same level.

 

[Dread]

Yeah, that is a real chance. Although frankly I hear DC has more of a recent history of signing on hacks to take over for decent launch teams than Marvel. I mean, I read the first non-Fraction/Brubaker IRON FIST issue and it was fine thus far.

I think JMS is starting to enter Bendis territory where he needs a co-writer to kick things in the keester. Bendis' stories co-written by Reed in ILLUMINATI were often much faster than even some solo NA/MA issues. As well as having great ideas and iffy execution. I mean, right now THOR has done some good setting up of Thor's new local and whatnot, but what is in the future? Thor vs. Loki, round 2 million? I mean what is next? The X-Men vs. Magneto? The FF vs. Dr. Doom? How about Spider-Man vs. Venom, never seen that before, ever.

 

[Brainiac 8]

In a mini: Thor will battle a Skrull Armada, leave Asgard, and team up with Beta Ray Bill.

In the ongoing: Thor sits on a throne, talks to Loki and Balder.

Hmmm.

Thor and Beta Ray Bill

This will be epic compared to the Thor ongoing.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Reintroduced heroes are almost always set against their classic villains right off the bat, so I don't mind Thor vs. Loki. The whole reason Loki is Thor's classic nemesis is because there's so much rich potential for stories there.

 

[Bubonic]

Seems like Marvel as a whole is great at getting people interested in the beginning, get our hopes up, and often not delivering on the finished product.
They do redeem themselves in the long run on some aspects, I wasn't that thrilled with how CW ended, but how the MU has adapted since has been awesome, and I hope that even if SI ends in a lackluster way, the residual effect will be great.

 

[Dread]

Reintroduced heroes are almost always set against their classic villains right off the bat, so I don't mind Thor vs. Loki. The whole reason Loki is Thor's classic nemesis is because there's so much rich potential for stories there.

I just see more potential in Thor's new local. Is Oklahoma crime free? Not one supervillain? Even a made up one? BKV made up a few new villains for his tales of CA in RUNAWAYS and that always worked. JMS made a buttload of made up magical villains for ASM, and that theme would actually work with THOR, so of course there're nowhere to be found. It can be infuriating.

Sometimes I get annoyed with "classic nemesis" showdowns because they are always destined to end the same way. The bad guy can't win, but also can't be permanently removed. Now if, say, Zaniac somehow came back, NOW we have something interesting.

THOR's done a great job of a lot of the set-up, but it is sinking into a rut and pigeon-holing Thor a bit too much. The rest of Marvel is trying to be more cohesive and there is Thor out in the sticks, sitting in a chair. He's BACK! This should be a bold, huge thing with ripple effects, but JMS hasn't played things that way, and so it is left to mini's and guest stints. And Bendis. (shudder; he will have Thor talk like a Yiddish Thug, I just know it, he was having Dr. Doom say things like "yeah" for chrissakes...)

 

[Brainiac 8]

Poor Bendis...the conversation seems to always come back to him.

 

[Bubonic]

Yah but at least Loki has a nicer rack now.

 

[Dread]

Yah but at least Loki has a nicer rack now.

JMS has provided an interesting twist to it, but a ball game is still predictable no matter what happens if you know the end score. We KNOW Loki will eventually show his hand. We KNOW Thor will have to confront him/her/it. And we KNOW that neither Thor or Loki can effectively end each other. And JMS will have to work in a reason why Thor would bother to trust Loki for ANYTHING after some 400 issues of 616 comics and thousands of years of trickery between them.

Loki destabilizing Thor's New Asgard? Any moderate Thor fan with limited franchise knowledge could have come up with that plot idea, much less an A-list writer who commands 5 figures an issue. And while JMS is handling it well, execution can only go so far.

Besides, the Loki plot is on a slow build, and that's a lot of THOR's problem...a slow build. The issues read fine, but taken as a whole, they can seem slow, especially since the rest of the Asgardians were gathered. A series of good moments is not a story, things need to flow. THOR has been good so far and I would hate to see this rut continue when it doesn't have to. Granted, I've always known JMS was overrated. Exactly how many other sci-fi series did BABYLON 5 shamelessly rip off? Yeah.

 

[Harlekin]

X-Men-Odd Men Out: This one-shot, featuring two never-before-seen stories illustrated by the late Dave Cockrum, are nothing much to read. The first is just a recap of everything that's happened to the X-Men up to their early encounter with the Shadow King; the second is a lost story of the New Mutants (the 80's version). Neither are very good. 4/10

I guess this really depends on whether you liked the New Mutants or not. I personally really liked the story. It was vintage NM.

 

[Phaedrus45]

Yeah, that is a real chance. Although frankly I hear DC has more of a recent history of signing on hacks to take over for decent launch teams than Marvel. I mean, I read the first non-Fraction/Brubaker IRON FIST issue and it was fine thus far.

I think JMS is starting to enter Bendis territory where he needs a co-writer to kick things in the keester. Bendis' stories co-written by Reed in ILLUMINATI were often much faster than even some solo NA/MA issues. As well as having great ideas and iffy execution. I mean, right now THOR has done some good setting up of Thor's new local and whatnot, but what is in the future? Thor vs. Loki, round 2 million? I mean what is next? The X-Men vs. Magneto? The FF vs. Dr. Doom? How about Spider-Man vs. Venom, never seen that before, ever.

This isn't so much about what we've seen before than how long it's been since we've seen these classic rematches. How long has it been since we've seen Thor vs. Loki, for God's sake! He is Thor's ultimate nemesis, and it's the villian we most associate with him. It's been forever since we've seen them fight, and I'm dying to see it happen.

How long has it been since we've seen Classic Venom??? I don't want Scorpion wearing the symbiote...and, I don't want to see a weak version of him, either. I want to see a new writer take on a classic villian, and hoefully give us a great story.

Fantastic Four vs. Dr. Doom? There isn't a bigger match, and I'm still waiting for a rematch that will blow me away. I've yet to see that in years. (And, let's not forget, for a few years, Dr. Doom was missing.) I still remember one of the highlights of the 2099 books was the Dr. Doom one.


It's not about the match, but how well it's done. To say we've seen each of these people beaten before by the hero really doesn't stand up, as you can say pretty much every single time you will see the hero come out on top in the end.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Even the fights we have gotten were done pretty quickly. Thor rocked Iron Man super-quick, then he rocked the Destroyer super-quick. Last time Thor's comic was relaunched, he spent the first two or three issues fighting the Destroyer and the Avengers were backing him up. It was bloody epic. Now it seems like the action we've seen is basically a footnote. Like I said, I don't want Thor's comic to lose its intelligence and become, in effect, Jeph Loeb's Hulk series, but an issue or two of fisticuffs would not be amiss.

 

[Bubonic]

JMS has provided an interesting twist to it, but a ball game is still predictable no matter what happens if you know the end score. We KNOW Loki will eventually show his hand. We KNOW Thor will have to confront him/her/it. And we KNOW that neither Thor or Loki can effectively end each other. And JMS will have to work in a reason why Thor would bother to trust Loki for ANYTHING after some 400 issues of 616 comics and thousands of years of trickery between them.

Loki destabilizing Thor's New Asgard? Any moderate Thor fan with limited franchise knowledge could have come up with that plot idea, much less an A-list writer who commands 5 figures an issue. And while JMS is handling it well, execution can only go so far.

Besides, the Loki plot is on a slow build, and that's a lot of THOR's problem...a slow build. The issues read fine, but taken as a whole, they can seem slow, especially since the rest of the Asgardians were gathered. A series of good moments is not a story, things need to flow. THOR has been good so far and I would hate to see this rut continue when it doesn't have to. Granted, I've always known JMS was overrated. Exactly how many other sci-fi series did BABYLON 5 shamelessly rip off? Yeah.

lol my comment didn't justify such a well thought out reply
I was at work, sort of limits the thoughtfulness of my replies.
In any case I see the point of your logic, and get that we might be just getting more of the same.

 

[fifthfiend]

an issue or two of fisticuffs would not be amiss.

Ideally in an issue titled Thor: An Issue of Fisticuffs.

 

[SouLeSS]

The way I've read Thor thusfar is such;

He came back, spent the first arc getting asgard under control and what not and this next arc is the "hero vs arch nemesis" arc to set up Loki as a "longterm" villian and not someone like say Doomsday, but more along the lines of Lex Luthor / Joker. And since it's a fresh start after the characters been dead for years, they're taking their time to completely reintroduce everything. Characters, concepts, events, locations.

Thor has helped humanity out in this series so far in the first 10 issues. Hell, he went down to africa or whever and ended that war, right? He came back in the aftermath (not to say because of) of Civil War where he had been cloned, humiliated, and dishonored in death. Didn't he even say towards the begining that he was going to focus on Asgard and it's problems before he set's out to rejoin the "super community" as it's become such a disgrace since he was last in it.

That right there, is what Thor is so far. It's good. Loki calls Odin a man****e. Is it "slowing down" a bit? I guess. Theres no badass fighting sequences in it, but this whole Thor/Loki thing is looking more like mind****ing instead of rarr arrra battlehammer!

You want an issue or two of fisticuffs? Theres been about 4 of the 10 that had some pretty good fights. That leaves 6, which in this day and age isn't that bad. Oh, and in those 10 he's come back from the dead, recreated asgard, ressurected ' every ' asgardian, told Iron Man to piss off, saved a whole village/stopped a war, faught alongside Odin in the Thorsleep.

What else do you want? You guys are sounding like it's been 50 issues and he's still hanging out in asgard with Loki. The book isn't even at the 12issue mark of one year and you're all already crying.

 

[Dread]

Even the fights we have gotten were done pretty quickly. Thor rocked Iron Man super-quick, then he rocked the Destroyer super-quick. Last time Thor's comic was relaunched, he spent the first two or three issues fighting the Destroyer and the Avengers were backing him up. It was bloody epic. Now it seems like the action we've seen is basically a footnote. Like I said, I don't want Thor's comic to lose its intelligence and become, in effect, Jeph Loeb's Hulk series, but an issue or two of fisticuffs would not be amiss.

To be fair, maybe the "quick fights" are meant to showcase that Thor is more powerful now.

But I do agree, some more sense of urgency is needed.

lol my comment didn't justify such a well thought out reply
I was at work, sort of limits the thoughtfulness of my replies.
In any case I see the point of your logic, and get that we might be just getting more of the same.

Okay.

The way I've read Thor thusfar is such;

He came back, spent the first arc getting asgard under control and what not and this next arc is the "hero vs arch nemesis" arc to set up Loki as a "longterm" villian and not someone like say Doomsday, but more along the lines of Lex Luthor / Joker. And since it's a fresh start after the characters been dead for years, they're taking their time to completely reintroduce everything. Characters, concepts, events, locations.

Thor has helped humanity out in this series so far in the first 10 issues. Hell, he went down to africa or whever and ended that war, right? He came back in the aftermath (not to say because of) of Civil War where he had been cloned, humiliated, and dishonored in death. Didn't he even say towards the begining that he was going to focus on Asgard and it's problems before he set's out to rejoin the "super community" as it's become such a disgrace since he was last in it.

That right there, is what Thor is so far. It's good. Loki calls Odin a man****e. Is it "slowing down" a bit? I guess. Theres no badass fighting sequences in it, but this whole Thor/Loki thing is looking more like mind****ing instead of rarr arrra battlehammer!

You want an issue or two of fisticuffs? Theres been about 4 of the 10 that had some pretty good fights. That leaves 6, which in this day and age isn't that bad. Oh, and in those 10 he's come back from the dead, recreated asgard, ressurected ' every ' asgardian, told Iron Man to piss off, saved a whole village/stopped a war, faught alongside Odin in the Thorsleep.

What else do you want? You guys are sounding like it's been 50 issues and he's still hanging out in asgard with Loki. The book isn't even at the 12issue mark of one year and you're all already crying.

No one here is saying the book is bad, or that JMS hasn't done great work on it. The concern is that it is showing NO urgency. Not a drop. Yes, he is building around New Loki vs. Thor but it isn't being built in a hectic, suspenseful way. It should be, "OMIGOD, LOKI IS BACK!" and not, "Loki, do something already". At the very least, if getting Balder as the prince of Asgard frees Thor up a little, so be it.

The Africa issue was good but most of our complaints have been after the Asgardians were revived. THOR is verging on the point of decompression and #10 really hit that home. When an issue only contains one conversation, that is the shining example of decompression. Writers defend it by pointing to Manga, but frankly, manga is released on a schedule beyond 22 pages a month. I wouldn't mind decompression if I got about 50 pages a month in an anthology. But we don't here.

THOR's hype has been epic, but the stories seem to be slowing down, preparing for the slow route. Take your time, see the sights, no need to rush. Which means when Thor needs to interact with other people, it has to happen outside the ongoing, in the hands of other writers. While Fraction is fine, Bendis simply writes everyone as a low-class commoner, and that won't work with Thor (or Dr. Doom).

We're noting the rut now because JMS has a history of being complacent and getting into ruts easily. He stayed on ASM for years beyond when he clearly ran out of ideas. And considering THOR has had a decent ride thus far, it would be bad to see the rut continue. Just because Thor wishes to isolate himself for now doesn't mean word of his return wouldn't spread and he gets reactions from it. There are ways to put urgency into the pace without ruining it. And that's what we're concerned with. The seeming lack of urgency here.

 

[Dread]

Oh, I also finally got around to finding & buying END LEAGUE #2-3 last weekend. It still is an alright series, although very bleak and a little pretentious (which the writer admits in the letters column). But, for a lark, it still is interesting to read.