Short and sweet week. Mostly an Image week. And not one $4 book either, a feat that is becoming increasingly rare. As always, full spoilers.
Dread's Bought/Thought for 8/19/09:
ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN #18: The "Jailbreak" arc may technically be over, but the next storyline continues onward. That's the best way to write serialized stories, to not bookend everything but to have progression every issue. This title continues to be WEREWOLF BY NIGHT done right, as Gary Hampton's problems continue even after he has escaped from the slammer, convicted of a murder he didn't commit. He's fallen in with the Face, a three-eyed fascist freak who wants to flee the country and stage an attack from Europe. He's allied with enemies Construct and Eruptor, as well as Mecha Maid, the only member of the Actioneers who wasn't turned into a vampire, since she's a robot and all. Gary is going undercover to stop the bad guys, and sees the Maid as his only ally. For her part, she still is convinced Gary is her enemy, and doesn't trust him much. It's an interesting situation.
His daughter Chloe, who worked with Zechariah to try to kill Gary and has basically been a vengeful ***** lately takes some steps to redeeming herself. She has a chat with Cecil's right hand robot man (or "cyborg", which he feels is too technical) and even makes out with him. She also reunites with her butler, who is practically her only caretaker left. It does seem she is switching her vengeance fetish for general, "I can't forgive myself" angst, which is kind of like trading red emo for black emo, but there's justification for it and it can't be helped. Cecil, at the very least, has proven that Zech's bite is what killed Mrs. Hampton, although there still is the matter of vampirized superheroes to contend with.
The Elder Werewolf is still stalking Gary, and a random werewolf shows up to give Gary an earpiece that links him to Cecil, which seemed more obligatory than anything. It's more of an epilogue and build-up issue than all out action, but it moves the story forward. The issue at least explains that Wolf-Man's old suit was unable to store moonlight properly so he couldn't transform properly; I guess Art the Tailor isn't perfect. Kirkman, though, admits to when he forgets about stuff so this could also be tongue-in-cheek cover for that.
The Face is a bit of a generic villain, but to be honest, many of Kirkman's villains are a bit generic. His strength is how he writes the heroes and their cast, as well as the situations they get into and out of. It is in that which WOLF-MAN is usually quite entertaining. How many other books give you tension between a widowed werewolf and a robot single mother? That's too bizarre not to love. Jason Howard's art is, as always, fitting for the book with his style contrasting the horror quite well. This book was sometimes hard to get into when the publishing schedule was a wash, but now that it is monthly, things are much smoother. It's no INVINCIBLE, and often struggles with DYNAMO 5 as my second Image superhero book, but it's a solid read. Even if Cecil can prove Gary's innocence, the whole "wanted man" angle has been more interesting for him than the straight wolf-hero schtick, so I am hoping he sticks with that. I imagine it is hard overturning a verdict with vampire evidence, after all. And even if Gary stops the Face, his rep likely would take a hit for the association. At any rate, it took a little longer than expected to reach an 18th issue, but the book's on a winning run.
INVINCIBLE #65: "The all new, all awesome" core Kirkman superhero title has certainly sparked it's share of controversy lately. From people thinking issue sixty was too compressed, to complaining that the fight against Conquest took three issues, to the tease about Atom Eve's death that virtually fooled everyone reading, INVINCIBLE has certainly kicked off it's 5th year with a bang. After quite a few issues of bloodshed and punching, this one is about the aftermath and epilogue, as the cover says. The funeral on the cover is for Rex Splode, who died in issue sixty. Considering he was a long time character, it was a good idea to focus on his death and how the character had moved since his debut.
Mark is laid up in the hospital ROCKY II style as Eve watches over him, and explains what happened. Alluding to her two part mini last year, it seems Conquest nearly killing her removed the "mental block" she has over using her powers to reshape organic material. The downside is that her abilities seem to not be completely under her control; while she's upped her cup size as a result, she also started melting Mark's costume after removing it for a make out session. Mark demands that Cecil show him Conquest's body, but it seems that it was a ruse while Cecil plans to interrogate what is left of Conquest's head. While Mark and Cecil are hardly friends anymore, they've returned to being allies of convenience. Kirkman all but hammers home the point of the saga in a speech Cecil gives about merely ONE Viltrumite doing this much damage to the world and Invincible, their (seemingly) strongest hero. Even the fifty that Nolan claims exists would be a massive problem.
Mark's mom feels guilt over urging her son to be a superhero only to see him occasionally get the stuffing beaten out of him; it was an awkward scene but felt quite real. Although I must say, Eve is quite horny; Mark can barely stand and she's groping him all over. Not that he's resistant at all, but damn, kids, give it a break. For Mark's part, he is still enthused that Eve is even alive; believing that she was dead, of course, gave him the extra edge against Conquest in the end. The issue ends with Angstrom Levy prepping for more plans, a return of the Martian Sequid menace, and Mark vowing to Oliver that he was right; threats of certain nature need to be taken down. It's a bit of a hard line for Mark, but in some ways the past year or so of stories have been about him "growing up" and seeing the world for what it is, in a less naive way, and being bitten by the ugly parts. Given that the world has been destroyed, his girlfriend nearly killed, and even his ally Rex dead in the melee, it makes sense for Mark to feel that way, at least for a while. Even Spider-Man claimed criminals "will get no mercy from Spider-Man" during MAXIMUM CARNAGE, at least for a few issues (before Spidey was telling everyone that Carnage was some sweet misunderstood cherub because he'd been abused as a kid before he decided to murder people by the dozen, but that's Parker for you). Personally I am not against heroes NOT killing under ANY circumstance, so long as they know where that line is, rather than Wolverine or Punisher, who usually kill any creep who steals a purse or wanders into the wrong bar.
Series co-creator Cory Walker is returning to pencil the next two issues, which will star Nolan and Allen. That should be interesting. It will be weird seeing the title without Ottley's pencils for a short while, but Walker as improved quite a bit as an artist in five years, and it will be good seeing him "come home" again (he stopping drawing INVINCIBLE around issue #7 I believe, beyond covers for the trades and the ATOM EVE mini). Ottley's had a uninterrupted run of 58 issues, which is quite lengthy. Hopefully he returns once Walker is finished; I consider him more of INVINCIBLE's artist than Walker.
I have been in the minority and enjoyed the story so far. I loved that issue sixty took a tale that Marvel and DC would bleed into 7-8 books for sheer greed and told it in one oversized one. I liked the epic, godly battle between Mark and Conquest. It would have been a shameless death for Eve to so flat an adversary, but she's not dead, so I accept it. This issue was a good way to take a breath before the next saga.
Kirkman also takes a lot of Eve "death issue" hate mail like a trooper in the letters area. He gets a bit defensive at some points but it's about twice as long as it usually is. Especially considering Marvel and DC hardly care what fans think and have mostly done away with letters pages for most of their books. I've enjoyed CONQUEST and think INVINCIBLE has quite a few stories coming up that might be good. Sequid Redux may be the weakest link, but Levy is usually always a worthy adversary and it will be good to catch up on the space duo again. After all these years, INVINCIBLE is still one of my favorite books.
MIGHTY AVENGERS #28: Christos Gage started co-writing this title with Dan Slott as of last issue, but this is the first where he is given cover credit. In many ways, this title is the anti-NEW AVENGERS. Not just for the tone, or the characters, but because it isn't decompressed. Bendis can ask for $4 for a 22 page story where a character talks to a wall and nothing happens. Every issue of MIGHTY AVENGERS, or at least most, by comparison are packed to the gills. More now than the first few issues. The start was bumpy but now that the actual team roster has been settled the series has it's groove going on. The addition of Gage as collaborator will only help; he and Slott are perhaps the Giffen & DeMatteis of modern day. Khoi Pham continues on art, and it will probably be another issue or two before he needs a fill-in break; that was usually his pattern during Bendis' SECRET INVASION issues. Some forget that Pham was on this title before Slott.
The Unspoken arc continues, but the Scarlet Witch subplot also starts to come to a head. Considering Loki is not longer in Sif's form, there is some haste to resolve it somehow. Still, it is good that not every issue is trade-focused, and many stories move forward at once in every issue. I also would argue more is happening with the actual Young Avengers than in Cornell's actual mini that has them on the title.
The Unspoken has a flashback in which he was planning to try to return to Attilan and rejoin the Inhumans, with a new, more powerful stock of Terrigen Crystals, only when they left for the moon, that become moot. In theory, then, Unspoken has become bitter and aimless, or has moved his goals to more directly effect humanity, since he is now "stuck" with us. He also is not above vaporizing or terrorizing locals in China to hide his secrets. Walker, Pietro, and Ban-Luck in China watch Unspoken fly off and try to tend to the wounded Chinese heroes, only to wind up in a fight with a few of them. As Ban-Luck suggests, between Pietro's arrogance and Walker's jingoism, she is choking on testosterone and getting the pair to stop fighting can be a hard task. Walker reveals that he's hardly anti-Osborn, seeing him as the genuine hero of Civil War. That fits Walker's character; he was picked as Cap during the Reagan era because he was loyal to the government, not the national ideal, and he remains that way. Heck, he went to Canada because he was ordered to. One wonders why he isn't on some Dark team, though. Maybe Walker's jingoism is not absolute? He may credit Osborn for his role in the Skrull threat, but may not exactly want to serve him instead of these Avengers? Could a staunch conservative viewpoint...gasp...be layered? One could argue that as bad as Osborn is, being enslaved to aliens is quite harsher. The Skrulls did preach about love while blowing up Times Square, kind of like green hippies.
At any rate, "Wanda" prevents Pietro's message from reaching the Avengers, and magically prevents Stature from exposing her true nature. When the team decides to have a well needed breather, Stature decides to clue her allies the Young Avengers in on the matter to get last Loki's spell. Proving far more resourceful in two issues than Thor has in ten, Stature manages to get Wiccen to undo the enchantment and "summon" Wanda to them. Loki has had quite enough of "those meddling kids", and who should appear but Ronin! Not written by Bendis! Now if only he could use arrows again, that'd be keen.
Pham's art with Martinez's inks and Rauch's colors is fine; nothing as glorious as some of the art on INCREDIBLE HERCULES lately, but still fine for the story. It would be good if an artist could stay for more than four issues at a time, but such is life. I'm probably more interested in the Witch story than Unspoken right now, but both are coming to a head around the same time, so it should be fine. This has become an enjoyable run of a book that after all these years really feels like an Avengers title.
But all the stuff with the Young Avengers was good, especially Loki using his magic in creative ways. I'm looking forward to how everything shakes out with him next issue, especially with Clint showing up to presumably deal with his leftover issues from being dead thanks to Wanda. Pham's art is solid but not really flashy, as usual. I'm sure people will find it boring, but I find it perfectly serviceable.
