In NYC, the "dog days" of summer are definately here, with over 90 degree heat and humidity mixing with the smog and pollution. This was a bigger week than the last, and probably not as good, but nothing too outrageous.
As always, full spoilers. These intro's sometimes get lazier when I am not feeling inspired, BTW.
Dread's BOUGHT/THOUGHT for 8/8/07:
DYNAMO 5 #6: I actually forgot this book was coming out this week so it was a pleasant surprise. It's not my favorite ongoing superhero title (INVINCIBLE has that distinction), but it definately is in my Top 5 (especially with YOUNG AVENGERS being gone for over a year and RUNAWAYS not being what it used to be). This has been delivering solid superhero action with a neat twist on the usual team formula and every month it has usually delivered, despite being somewhat expensive for the average fan; $3.50 for 20 pages of story (the first issue had 26, so one could call it "oversized") might be reasonable to me, but others may not think it is so. The trade for the first 7 issues will be coming out during the Fall/Winter and it'll be $9.99, which is an absolute STEAL and anyone who has been waiting on this should definately grab it. While the subplots for this series are coming to a head as we move along, this is the 2nd part of the presumably 3-part "Chrysalis Affair" plot, the first multi-part story of the franchise. Maddie has fallen for a fake of her husband, Capt. Dynamo, and wounds up in the lair of her husband's enemy-turned-lover, the armored Chrysalis, as well as with her daughter, who has ALL of Dynamo's powers instead of just one like the Dynamo 5 kids. The rest of the team are arrested by the FLAG agents, except Slingshot, who meets up with Augie as the cover suggests, but is she led into a trap by him? Also, Faerber resolves the ending of issue #2 by showing exactly what Maddie did with that "reptile serum" and why; let's say it's the ultimate ace in the hole. One of the mysteries of the story is whether or not FLAG are allies or enemies; they haven't killed the Dynamo 5 and seemingly want information, and they worked with their heroic father. However, Scatterbrain digs up the fact that they've tried to duplicate his powers before and simply want to discover how the Dynamo 5 did it. Apparently, if you have Capt. Dynamo as a parent to provide 50% of your DNA, then a dose of specific radiation brings it out; Chryalis' daughter was exposed at a much younger age, which may explain why she has more powers than her half-sibs. Or it could be that all DNA is different. In the back are some rejected concept sketches and I am glad that the characters were tweaked before being published, because some of their rejected designs were too generic, and not ethnically diverse. I'm not all for "tokenism", but that doesn't mean I don't like diverse teams. As usual, Mahmud's art is a joy to look at and Riley's colors add to the effect. Obviously Faerber likes the concept of superhero families a la' the Fantastic Four, as his NOBLE CAUSES is also about such a family, but it is the twists on that premise that keep things distinct. Some might say that the cost difference from monthly to trade is SO dramatic that it all but begs people to "trade wait", which is death for monthly sales (especially for small books like this one that need every 100 readers), but this is Image and a lot of their properties have gained steam in the trade market, so I can understand making the trades so cheap; good strategy. Marvel essentially does that with their digests, and it worked to revive RUNAWAYS. Plus, as these are original characters, you have all the freedom of an indie as Faerber can do whatever he wants. From the first issue 'til now, this has been a great superhero title for me, and hopefully it'll see the same critical success as Invincible has.
GHOST RIDER #14: After a brief interlude with WWH in order to save the book from possibly plunging into the Top 50 (which worked; the first WWH issue brought it back into the Top 30's), we're back to the general plot; Ghost Rider vs. Satan. Which is fine if one didn't know that some 30 years of comics said that Mephisto created him, not Satan. And also fine if you didn't know Ghost Rider had other enemies, like Blackout (who is fresh from the Raft and available for use). Imagine if in 12 out of 14 issues, Batman fought the Joker. Even with the appeal of Joker, eventually it gets old, and I am starting to get "Satan fatique" here, even omitting Way's "non-retcon re-retcon" of the origin. The premise, for those who forgot for 2 months, is that when Ghost Rider escaped Hell, he brought Lucifer with him, who broke up into 666 pieces and infested the souls of the dead (although these days he seems able to posess anyone, unless those sorta-normal looking people he's been possessing were just FRESHLY dead and didn't rot any). Every time one is killed, Satan's energy is re-distributed amongst the rest, making them all stronger (like Jet Li in THE ONE). This would mean of course that eventually if you kill all but one, you have Satan on Earth who seemingly can't be stopped. Which would mean that just roaming about killing them isn't the best idea, you need another. Perhaps some way to suck that energy out of the bodies, so Satan loses some power. But, no. Blaze meets up with a F-buddy named Trixie and explains that he and Ghost Rider have some sort of plan, but for now it just amounts to the same ol', killing off the Devil-Posessed and making all the rest stronger. I know GR was never a genius, but c'mon. I suppose he could have asked Dr. Strange for help, if he hadn't nearly killed him a few issues back. If there is some sort of plan Blaze has, hopefully it gets revealed. Meanwhile, some Angels in Purgatory (or at least exiled from Heaven) for a past transgression decide on some gambit to get back in that involves posessing a Hiro fangirl (yes, Hiro from HEROES), who fits every fangirl cliche like a checklist. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the issue, or that Texeira's art isn't as great as always. I just am getting a little tired of the storyline as we surpass the first year of the book. The solicts say this is the endgame for it, and I hold to all hell it is true. You can only take so much of Satan I guess. And Way has a dark, twisted sense of humor for Satan that usually gets a smirk out of me. But at this point I wonder if the Satan "non-retcon re-retcon" (basically, switching Satan for Mephisto in the 70's was a retcon, but this switch back isn't even TREATED as a switch, it just assumes you don't know any better and will go along with it, which is bullocks for the GR fans they are trying to entice to buy this) was made because Way had little other storyline to go with, and he doubted Marvel would allow him to use Mephisto or something. I look forward to seeing this story reach it's conclusion. Hopefully it will make this a stronger book; BLUE BEETLE has improved since it dropped using the "Jamie searches for his origin" plot from every issue and hopefully this will follow suit. It just may be another few issues beforehand. Looks pretty and has some decent action and lines, though.
NEW AVENGERS #33: Not a hoax, a dream, or an imaginary tale! An actual SUPERVILLAIN graces the pages of a NA issue! This hasn't happened for, what, a year? More? Not just one villain, several, in fact, as Bendis gums up his "everyone is a Skrull and thus anything can be retconned, especially that Parker Marriage that Joe Q would sacrifice his soul to end" with his ambition to make The Hood, from BKV's MAX mini and McDuffie's BEYOND! mini into the new "Kingpin of Crime", now that the actual Kingpin is in prison, being beaten down by Spider-Man (or in Europe, as in DD, or menacing the Runaways, as in RUNAWAYS; sheesh, that fat-arse has about as much ability to stay in place as Logan). Now, this storyline I actually have been looking forward to. Kingpin has been gone from his high perch for quite a while now and few forces have organized villains decently; hence their lack of any sort of grand attack to capitlize on CW or even WWH. Bendis picked the Hood because he sees Hood as a decent character at risk of falling into Limbo, and naturally ANY character appearing in the #1 selling book in the industry will become hot, because our medium is that shallow. Seriously. Frog-Man appears for two issues, he'd then get a mini that would sell 55k. Anyway, the only quibble in that plan is that some past stories, especially BEYOND!, painted the Hood as, well, a selfish hood looking out for himself and not above stealing or killing, but also someone who wasn't totally evil and may have wanted to go straight, for his own sake or for the sake of his girlfriend and mother. Naturally, Bendis wants him in the crime-boss role, and Bendis sees characterization as a mere inconvience that gets in the way of roles he has for characters. To Bendis' credit, in Newsarama interviews he's stated that his reasoning is that the Hood is empowered by a demonic cloak, which may be mystically influencing him, which I could buy. What I CAN'T buy is how Dr. Strange can teleport the team from Chicago to Grenwich Village but be utterly useless in a plane crash. If you can't, or refuse, to get a character's powers right, then don't use that character at all. Bendis has shown he is best in crime noir and anything else stretches the one-note wonder he calls talent. To this storyline's credit, it introduces crime noir, with Hood gunning down Owl to make a name for himself and trying to organize the villain underworld, which is one of Bendis' strengths. It's part of why he managed to make DAREDEVIL work. It helps if you forget that Wizard is also in the FF fighting with his Frightful Four, especially since Yu actually makes him look less laughable here. Also appearing are Crimson Cowl, Madam Masque, Jonas Harrow, and their enslaved Luther Manning Deathlok andriod, who hailed from an alternate reality. The Hood basically wants to make a mark for himself by attacking the Avengers, but when Wolverine stumbles his way into their hideout, things may get easier for him. I'd question whether or not killing off the Owl was required, but his death hasn't been confirmed and one could argue he hasn't done a lot in a while, anyway, and what little he did was thanks to Bendis using him in DD. The book has another problem, though, and that Luke's Skrull paranoia has now officially reached the point beyond paranoia when it is just ridiculous, almost laughably ridiculous, and also cliche'. Y'know, the angry black man who suspects everyone and trusts no one. Not only does he just about get Spider-Man off the team, he doesn't even trust his wife and infant (the infant, a few issues back, was noted as probably being the Skrull). Someone might say, "hey, it makes sense to be suspicious and paranoid of shape changing Skrulls, if we are taking this seriously". But screaming at everyone, "TELL ME YOU ARE A SKRULL OR I'LL BEAT IT OUT OF YOU!" doesn't help either. No answer is good enough and it just alienates the heroes who AREN'T Skrulls. Bendis also uses the fact that Capt. America trained Hawkeye in how to fight to justify why he can kick arse as Ronin (an identity that is passed around like an STD), but once upon a time there was a difference between, "Cap teaches you self defense" and "Cap trains you to perfectly use a katanna, ninja stars and ninja whatnot like a god damned embodyment of every Frank Miller cliche possible". If the swordplay was attributed to his OTHER mentor, Swordsman, then why isn't this noted in a line of dialogue, too? It always appalls me how Bendis can waste dozens of useless, utterly throwaway dialogue, yet sometimes some of his biggest continuity blunders could have been averted with a mere 1-2 lines of dialogue somewhere. It either shows a lack of research or care. Anyway, I'll give props for Bendis even remembering the Cap-training, and the fact that he is using villains, and the fact that this storyline might actually bring about good things for the Marvel Universe's underworld. But like too many of his NA stories, whatever good he does is bogged down by missed oppurtunities, continuity/power F-ups, repetition of his own tired plot points (obviously, for Hood to be successful, the heroes have to fail to stop him, because writing about heroes failing is something Bendis is known for), and some pacing issues. What is great of course is how it ties in perfectly with MIGHTY AVENGERS, which Bendis also writes, which is a courtesy he very rarely provides to other writers unless it is some tie-in event and he has editorial demand to it; the sort of selfish writing that adds to why people bash him so much; he may not be arrogant in real life, but the sense of him believing things are all about himself comes off in his writing, and Marvel's coddling created it (if Marvel's boss told me how great I was before I even typed something, I'd be arrogant too). This storyline would be better if not for the spectre of the Skrull stuff, and all of the hackneyed retcons that it may inevitably bring the MU, covering it like maggots on a carcass. And maybe I'd be looking forward to the inevitable conflict if Yu wasn't drawing things like a tripped out death metal album cover from the late 90's. The fact that he is rushing less on the covers than on the interiors has never been more apparent. In one panel Rand is almost unrecognizable and all his women look like the same sketches save for hair. And between him and Finch, I wonder if Bendis says in his scripts, "draw everyone looking like they are pouting or passing a stone in every panel possible". But at least thank god he managed to make the Wizard look less silly, and his Hood scenes are good. Much like Bendis himself, he does some things very well, which only makes one wring their hands when other things get botched. Maybe I would care to see this team breaking apart if the NEW AVENGERS ever seemed like an actual team to begin with, or if Luke Cage wasn't paranoid to the point of utter stupidity. There are some hopefull things coming from this Hood storyline, and possibly a chance at redemption. But we've said this at the start of any Bendis storyline, and we've been disappointed how many times? So I am reserved here.
Good god, I am so tired of Bendis. If his books weren't the de-facto primers for the rest of the MU, I wouldn't even bother. But I like knowing what sort of **** I may have to expect within the next year or so.
NOVA #5: Thankfully, as some people like photojones2 and TheCorpulent1 noted last month, Richard Rider isn't dead (and no, I still believe a Kree military medic is under no authority to be able to declare if a cosmic metahuman is alive or dead with 100% certainy) and Worldwind has deputized Ko-Rel as Nova Centurian 0001 in order to protect Richard, who is "Nova Prime". In case TRANSFORMERS was forgotten by people, any name with Prime at the end sounds better. Even Superboy Prime. Ko-Rel, for her part, goes through the usual motions of someone who never asked for power to be thrusted upon them and has motives/ideas that the omnipotent space intelligence doesn't always concur with. Ironically, I suspected Nova would start recruiting people eventually, and I expected it to be a more willing sort of thing, but instead, Abnett & Lanning basically reversed his own origin for Ko-Rel (she recieved the Nova power after encountering a mortally wounded human). Unfortunately, the Phanalax are on their heels and slaughter some of her people that she has been protecting for a year, and even when she leads them away, her tactics aren't lost on Gamora, who finds the regenerating Rider and infects him with the virus, bringing him at full power and under their control. What is interesting about the Phanlax here is they don't just make everyone mindless, obediant slaves when they control them; they all seem to retain some spark of their core character. Gamora retains her attraction for Rider from their ANNIHILATION romance. Naturally, this helps because it allows their victims to employ their character-distinct talents for the Phanalax that may've been lost if they just controlled a mass of robotic slaves, like Gamora's stealth tactics here. Brainwashings are a dime a dozen in comics so seeing one that tries to be unique in a way is refreshing, and a plus for the event as a whole. Ko-Rel is naturally conflicted and she has good reason to be, even if she isn't so appealing to me thus far she should star in the book for long. Anyway, this issue makes it obvious that the same characters who saved the day in ANNIHILATION (Nova, Drax, Ronan, Gamora, Super-Skrull, etc) aren't going to in CONQUEST, and it may fall on the shoulders of others. It remains to be seen if this works out, but I have some faith.
WRAITH #2: Otherwise titled SPACE-EMO. I know everyone called it from the first issue, solicts, and covers, but good lord, the origin reveal at the end is the literal DEFINITION of "emo". I expect it to be emotastic, but sweet christmas, this is like bronzed emo on a F'ing plate. Basically, Wraith hails from a sect of lost Kree explorers whose souls were absorbed by some space parasite in exchange for power, and they literally need bodily pain to remember who or what they used to be, and are immortals begging for death from their soulless existance. Or, basically, half the premise of every death metal song written. But, most of the issue focuses on Ronan and the Phanalax. As I noted in my NOVA #5 review, the Phanalax don't make their victims mindless slaves, but allow them to retain some aspect of themselves for their benefit; this also means that some individuals, either through will or physical specifics, know they are under control and react to that. Super-Skrull, for his part, is a shapeshifter who is used to being manipulated by others and believes he will be free. Ronan, for his part, hates what he is becoming for the Phanalax and refuses to willingly submit, even as he has no choice but to do their bidding against fellow Kree. Naturally, the Phanalax see themselves as order amongst chaos, as every single AI villain in the history of all recorded fiction sees themselves, but this works for the Phanalax and CONQUEST so I let it slide as a genre expectation being handled well, which is all I ask. Wraith resists torture and can't be killed, so Ronan infects him with the Phanalax virus to seemingly suck the one thing that he has, his will. Now, I get the feeling that Grillo-Markuach thinks Wraith is the coolest thing ever, and in a way he has a sort of "man with no name in space" appeal (the "Man with No Name" being Clint Eastwood's character in a trio of Westerns, naturally). His origin is certainly within the realm of Marvel space physics. But despite all that he still seems like a shell of a character, especially since he may be here to replace the far-more-interesting Drax, now that Thanos is dead and he has no purpose. Maybe I am being hard on a new creation when I sometimes ask people not to be, but for right now he is Space Emo, whose entire comic is in a cliche death metal soundtrack (imagine some guy rasping, "Eeeyyyyeeee blllleeeeeeddd tooo feeeellll aaaa-LIIIIIVVVEEE!" to guitar rifts somewhere). Hotz's art is perfectly fine here, and there are bits I like about the character, just not everything is gelling so well into a whole. Wraith just needs a hug. Thank goodness STARLORD is also shipping to pop the balloon of self-importance here. And I do actually like some metal music. If I had to choose between Wraith and Ko-Rel as new CONQUEST characters though, Ko-Rel wins by a mile.
9/10
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