Average sized week with big style spoilers - sort of.
DREAD'S BOUGHT/THOUGHT FOR 9/12/12:
AVENGERS VS. X-MEN #11: Marvel Comics continues their odd strategy of spoiling a major detail to one of their "very important" crossover mini series issues to the media, who leak it before most people buy their comics. This is the issue where Professor X dies. Again. While written by five writers, the bottle spins to Brian M. Bendis to write the script with Oliver Coipel back on pencil work with Mark Morales on inks and Laura Martin on art. The first two pages have a dodgy sequence where much is made of Capt. America talking Hulk into joining the Avengers on the final battle. While powerful, the Avengers have already had Red Hulk with them throughout this arc, and he's tough enough to punch out Galactus and the Watcher yet he was of no use. The series continues on its messy and predictable course as the Avengers begin their final battle against Cyclops, one of two who contains the Phoenix Force and is being corrupted by it. The irony while he is seen as the main enemy, it was some of the other "Phoenix Five" members who were more corrupted, such as Namor, Magik, and in this issue, Emma Frost. Had Cyclops "stood down" as ordered, the heroes would have been left with the self control lacking and morally gray Emma Frost as Dark Phoenix. At any rate, Coipel has a major battle to work with where Bendis utilizes the same shock value tactic of having a new fighter emerge and stun Cyclops at least three times. Gasp, Magneto! Gasp, Scarlet Witch! Gasp, Iceman! The issue ends with Cyclops becoming the next Dark Phoenix, who may or may not be lobotomized in UNCANNY AVENGERS #1 next month. The series continues with dodgy character moments such as Capt. America seeing X-Men coming to their side as spare bodies to throw at a threat before seeing them as people, or Xavier and other X-Men being keen on killing Cyclops. The biggest problem is the premise of the story was the belief that Hope (or someone) would use the Phoenix Force to restart the x-gene in mutants again which has dovetailed into a predictable rehash of the Dark Phoenix story. This is a serviceable action issue, but by this stage this reader is just watching for it to be over and wondering what pieces will be left to pick at in the winter.
By this stage I cannot help but wonder at the horrible hypocrisy the Avengers in general and members like Cap, Iron Man, and Wolverine in particular display. In this very issue we see the Hulk, who was once considered such a major threat worth exiling to space without trial or conviction (technically) by at least 2-4 current or former Avengers which led to an invasion and occupation of NYC, now seen as a best chum once his "threat" can be used as a weapon. The same Avengers who were fighting over who got to punish Wanda worse at the start of the year now merrily use her as a weapon. Even Hope, who was considered a pre-emptive fugitive or subject of study earlier in this story is now another of the merry band so long as she's useful. And this isn't even mentioning Sentry, the unstable demigod maniac who the Avengers kept around and blindly trusted for a long time. The same Young Avengers that Cap and Iron Man would lecture when they wanted to fight crime would be recruited as expendable canon fodder just to deal with him. As corrupted as Cyclops has become, the Avengers escalated this at every turn until they got the nightmare they envisioned. They went to Utopia asking for a fight and they weren't happy when the Phoenix Five were merely doing good deeds or blasting despots. And in the finale I imagine the only token gesture is more X-Men will become Avengers members. Will the whole M-Day thing even get a mention? Because THAT has been what has robbed the X-Men of any narrative substance for seven damned years, not too few members palling around with Thor or Black Widow. What a cluster****. The stuff that makes people turn away from mainstream comics are terrible character writing and aimless editorial sales exercises like this.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #17: Marvel Comics are full of bad fathers, from Norman Osborn to Magneto to Reed Richards on occasion. But the dad on the first page who leads his toddlers into a riot with sports equipment takes the cake. At any rate, Ed Brubaker and Cullen Bunn continue on this final full arc of Brubaker's tenure on the franchise, and things are coming to a head. That was actually a pun since a key plot detail is the severed head of an artificial news propaganda figure who has incited the American public into mass riots. Yes, a literal "talking head"; I am not sure whether that is crude storytelling or on the nose satire. At any rate, the issue gets about to setting up the final battle and splitting up the primary characters. Captain America leads a battalion of SHIELD agents against the Discordians and presumably their creators, Agent Bravo and the new HYDRA queen. Sharon Carter and Dugan go to space to shut down the "riot rays" which are the convenient reason the masses are rioting (and not the persistent, perennial, and predictable pathological hatred Marvel citizens have for superheroes) and find up fighting Baron Zemo. Meanwhile, Falcon has to make due trying to fight off large spider-robots. I have to admit the cynic in me wondered if Sharon was going to get captured one more time for ol' time's sake - Brubaker has only had her get captured every other arc for years - but it looks like this won't be the case. The art by Scot Eaton is good but for the moment this seems to be a by-the-books action set up for a larger than life finale. This isn't Brubaker's prime on the book by far, but it does look to finish better than it began, and will be capped by a solo written issue. While I like Rick Remender enough to try UNCANNY AVENGERS, I am partisan on doing so with Captain America; that is how iconic Brubaker has become for the franchise even when he's not delivering 100%.
FANTASTIC FOUR #610: As part of the general shirt across the Marvel Comic book line via the Marvel NOW! editorial push, writer Jonathan Hickman will be leaving FANTASTIC FOUR and its/his spin-off FF in November. If one counts Hickman's mini series DARK REIGN: FANTASTIC FOUR from 2009 as the start of his run on the franchise, he has been writing Marvel's "first family" for roughly four years. That is the longest run anyone has had on the Four since Mark Waid left years ago. At any rate, a writer leaving a long franchise run means a tying up of loose ends, and this begins a two issue crossover with FF to tie up Hickman's subplot revolving around one of the Four's oldest enemies, the Wizard. At the start of Hickman's run, the Four foiled one of Wizard's schemes and liberated a child aged clone of himself from his lab, intended as a "son" named Bentley 23 (not to be confused with X-23). The Four took him in and he has become one of their extended Future Foundation academy alongside other child characters such as Franklin and Val Richards, Alex Power, Artie and Leech. In this story, Hickman introduces an interesting dynamic in which the science terrorist group A.I.M. legitimately purchase and take over a fictional island nation 1500 miles from the U.S. This causes the President to ask the Four to investigate, which they do (alongside Spider-Man, their sporadically appearing new member). After an obligatory battle with A.I.M. grunts, Reed comes to terms with the group's new leader, who is eager to get rid of Wizard as well. His madness caused by a brain tumor, Wizard is now in a position to manipulate his clone/son for the first time in years. The art by Ryan Stegman (with colors by Paul Mounts) and as always excels in the action sequences. While not the greatest issue ever, this is a perfectly entertaining action adventure with a decent new hook on an old band of punching bags as well as developing one of Hickman's many new supporting characters. With so many long runs on franchise titles by "Marvel architect" writers coming to an end this fall, one hopes many if not all of them end on bangs and not whimpers. One hopes Hickman's run on the Four ends with the former and not the latter; this issue is a good step in that direction.
SCARLET SPIDER #9: Longtime comic book and TV animation writer Chris Yost continues to steer the second major spin-off title of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN into successful waters. It will become the second of three titles as VENOM looks to endure into 2013 and Morbius the Living Vampire is set for his own series in January as well. The selection of January 2013 as the launch month for Morbuis' first ongoing series since the 90's is no accident; SCARLET SPIDER launched this past January and has seen modest but steady sales success. While Rick Remender has handed off the reigns of VENOM to Cullen Bunn, for the moment Yost seems set to continue on this series, which features the reformed Spider-clone Kaine acting as an often accidental vigilante in Houston, Texas. This month's issue ends a three part arc called "The Second Master" featuring Texas' official superhero team, the Rangers, as well as the evil corporation Roxxon.
At the end of the previous issue, Scarlet Spider and the Rangers had stumbled upon a deep dark secret within Roxxon's Texan branch which mirrors the real life British Petroleum disaster. What began as an explosion at a Roxxon oil rig which killed many workers resulted in the release of what appeared to be a mystical demon or other creature which Roxxon sought to exploit for a cheap and profitable source of fuel. The only draw-back was that the creature - dubbed Mammon - required human hosts to thrive, burning them out faster and faster as it went. This no doubt ties into the first issue of the series, where stumbling upon a human trafficking deal sparked Kaine's status as a Houston resident. What saves this adventure from being a typical superhero affair is Kaine's narration and dialogue; the fact that he is so unconventional and such an unwilling superhero makes his perspective vastly entertaining to read. In his mind, all Kaine did was save a girl (Zoe Walsh, eccentric daughter of the CEO of Roxxon), and it has snowballed into a battle against a demon with a team of costumed Texan stereotypes. Naturally, since it is his book, Kaine manages to save the day, albeit begrudgingly.
Khoi Pham has taken over art chores from Ryan Stegman (who still draws the covers at least), and on the whole his work on this title has been among his strongest looking work yet. It is aided no doubt by the coloring and inking team. This month there is a sign of rush as at least three colorists and three inkers are credited with those chores. If there is one demerit to Pham's art, it is the decision to depict Living Lightening as just that, a blue electrical being; it makes the character look rather mundane. This becomes a problem when Mammon himself is depicted as a plain blue demonic being; of the sort which looked generic when Sal Buscema was still drawing such villains in DEFENDERS back in the 70's and 80's. Other than that, Pham's artwork is better than it has seemed in a while and the rest of the Rangers are stereotypes, Yost's story treats them as unique but efficient superheroes in an area where NY based heroes like the Avengers and Fantastic Four rarely travel.
This is the last arc on the book before its first crossover. October brings about MINIMUM CARNAGE, which will be a 3-4 issue story which begins with a one shot and crosses over into Bunn's VENOM. Some may argue that nine issues before an initial crossover appearance isn't enough, although brief crossovers like this tend to be more about stories than "events" such as AVENGERS VS. X-MEN. However, back in the height of such crazes in the 90's, debut issues of ongoing series were chapters in crossovers. Sales on VENOM have fallen below SCARLET SPIDER, albeit after roughly two years of existence; thus, a boost in sales is not expected to be great. Instead it is expected to be a solid story pitting the two against Carnage and hopefully furthering along the Houston universe Yost has built into this title. Yost is wise to realize that the best way to sell a "new city" is to give his hero a memorable supporting cast quickly as well as utilize the differences from NYC as plot details (such as the heat). SCARLET SPIDER continues to be one of Marvel's best new solo superhero launches of the year, and one hopes Yost will continue forward on it in 2013.
WINTER SOLDIER #10: Continuing on the theme of soon to be departing writers on franchise titles, Ed Brubaker's last issue of this seminal CAPTAIN AMERICA spin off will be the 14th. While Brubaker has a lot of fondness for CAPTAIN AMERICA, even he has come close to admitting the last stretch hasn't been at his full vigor in comparison to this title, which stars James "Bucky" Barnes in black ops style adventure. This arc has been one of Brubaker's most gripping yet as Leo Novokov, a former Soviet super-soldier Barnes once trained during his brainwashed assassin days has emerged to destroy Barnes in revenge. To this end he's had Black Widow revert back to her own Soviet terrorist persona via mind control and attack SHIELD. While it seemed she had been rescued last issue, that was merely another step in the plan to undermine SHIELD and to get Barnes royally pissed off. Novokov has succeeded and may wind up learning the hard way that Barnes isn't Capt. America; he does the dark things Rogers won't, and has since WWII. The story also wisely includes characters with personal history with Natasha to get involved in her rescue such as Hawkeye and Wolverine (because too few comic books feature Wolverine). This may be a build-up issue, but it is a key one which gets to the heart of the suspense and rubs Barnes' emotions raw - and thus when the character is at his best. The art by Butch Guice with colors by Bettie Breitweiser complete the look and especially the feel of the story. Things may go from bad to worse for the lead hero, which means they're getting better for readers of excellent suspense comics.
X-MEN LEGACY #273: Christos Gage is a writer I respect a lot, and whose work I often enjoy. I hopped on this title to see him handle a team of X-Men but in practice he's mostly handled Rogue. Given an arc to fill issues in between the end of the AVX crossover and the relaunch of the book as a Legion solo title - because surely the same direct market that can't support books for Ghost Rider and Punisher or Moon Knight will totally dive 100,000 issues into David Haller every month, according to Marvel - Gage has chosen to tell a very straightforward alien adventure story. I call it "PLANET ROGUE" but you could compare it to John Carter stories or no end of similar tales. Rogue wound up banished to another dimension by Magik where she has wound up caught in the middle of two warring races. The last two issues introduced both to readers as well as the obvious dilemma to be solved to unite them, and this issue has Rogue doing the uniting. It is executed well enough; the dilemma is this story is a fairly typical and predictable one - only a western train car robbery would be more predictable. In fact, Gage could have swapped Rogue for the similarly powered Mimic and aside for drastic dialogue changes, the general plot would have endured. Rogue uses her absorbing powers, wits, and will to save the planet and get a free pass back home for an aimless cameo in AVX #11. The art by Rafa Sadoval, Jordi Tarragona and Rachelle Rosenberg is good and entertaining enough, although nowhere near DAREDEVIL level. While this isn't a story which offended or irritated me, it also didn't excite me. It is just there, and is making me wonder whether it is worth getting the final few issues of this run. At this point I am considering it an ambitious failure and wondering if whatever magic Gage has for Avengers stuff doesn't seem to wash as well with the X-Men.
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