Dread
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A rare "light" week for comics for me, as the next two weeks promise to be heavier (partly due to CW being late, but not entirely). However, it was also a decent week with a little bit of everything; DC, space, CW and Ultimate.
As usual, the spoilers are served raw for your reading pleasure.
DREAD'S BOUGHT/THOUGHT FOR 9/13/06:
52 WEEK #19: As a Marvel Zombie at heart and a casual DC fan circa "Identity Crisis" and years of Timm cartoons, this is an interesting time for me. Around when HOM was still new, it was as if Marvel did everything wrong and DC was immaculate, all of it's bats scoring home-runs with the fans. And then all of a sudden OYL happened and now DC's church robes have some stains on them, and it's been interesting to watch some posters who once were staunch fans of whatever DC did start to acknowledge that sometimes they do some wacky stuff, too. Both companies do. It's like politics; the folly of falling too hard for one side is that they both play from the same rulebook, and employ the same tactics in almost the same manner whenever it suits them. By all this I mean DC's tactic for "reviving" a B or C list character, which is to "kill off the original and stick in a fresh, younger face". The cover with Booster Gold sort of elicits that reaction at the beginning, as DC has made a habit of this. Ollie with Conner, Jordon with Kyle, and more recently, Atom and Blue Beetle. This is something Marvel very rarely does, sometimes to their own folly as some characters are just hopelessly conveluted beyond repair unless you just omit a huge chunk of material. But also sometimes, just replacing the person under the mask with a "generic young person" can also backfire, at least in the beginning (it took Kyle, what, 10 years to get the Hal fans to stop bombing DC writers' houses). So with Booster Gold, tarnished hero, dying a few issues back and with the ending of the last issue, I was all set to see yet another one of these "out with the old, in with the 20-something" sort of stories, with Skeets tracking down a distant ancestor of the 25th century Booster. But the story takes a dark twist at the end, with Skeets being far more malicious than we were led to believe, using the ancestor only to find out what the "time traveller" from many issues back knew about "time being broken". I was beginning to suspect how "innocent" Skeets was in some of this and this twist made for good reading. Of course, Skeets was always a souce of comic relief, and if you wanted to peg this as yet another "any character who was remotely 'funny' has to either die, get mutilated, or become an evil bastard", as with Sue Dibney, Ralph, Ted Kord, Max Lord, etc, you'd be right. DC's been on this kick for the past 2-3 years and won't rest until anyone who was even remotely considered light-hearted is thrown into the "GRIM OVEN" and redone for the 21st century. Next, Ambush Bug takes over a universe. Cassie also runs into Supernova, who seems to remind her of "Kon-El". Of course, given her wacky cult antics, I bet a broom handle would have the same effect.
The second story this issue is the "Lost in Space" crew being led to a rocky pit stop by Lobo, who has channeled his passion for space-dolphins into becoming a "minister" of a pacifistict fish-god, a sort of wacky plotline only someone as tripped out on hallucinagenic drugs as Morrison could probably come up with at a planning session. Still, considering how flat Lobo is and how he's done the "unbeatable tough guy" thing to death, it is an interesting twist for him; there are no end of nasty people who suddenly "find God" and then can't be held accountable. Lobo reveals who put the bounty on their heads and offers them some safe transport, but not the whole shebang to Earth 'cause he just ain't a merc anymore. Although I wonder how strong his vows are, as while he's seemingly given up on sex and violence, he didn't seem shook up that the New God was killed by one of his old traps, and he instantly exposed Starfire's chest when they met (like a letch). But, Lobo is at least interesting, which is all that matters. Oh, and the origin of Animal Man is told, a character no one cared about until Morrison revamped him for Vertigo years back. Once again, another interesting installment to 52, even if yet another character that was known for being "funny" in DC is now an evil mastermind. People who hate seeing it happen to DAMAGE CONTROL, hey, DC started the trend first. Marvel's just followin' it.
ANNIHILATION #2: Every time I read one of these, I go, "I'm not a space buff, not a space buff, it's not my genre". But every time I seem to read one of these issues, I like 'em more and more. Maybe it really does all come to imagination and writing, not just genre. Who'da thunk? Anyway, the red-headed stepchild of Marvel events, this one isn't getting much hype and naturally it's not breaking any sales records, but it's selling moderately well considering it stars characters who haven't been big at Marvel in ages, and is quite well written. People who grow tired of the betrayals, government conspiracies and all that of CW should really give this a try. Here, faced with a threat of destruction, the forces of good in the universe (or at least forces with axes to grind like Drax) team up against Annihilus' Wave, which counts amung it's allies Thanos, which ain't good. Last issue saw Galactus and Surfer going down and this one sees the Wave's chief warriors take on Nova's forces head-on, while in the meantime, Thanos has kidnapped Moondragon (Drax's daughter by blood) to use as a hostage to hold him at bay, which may not work out well. DiVito's art is, as usual, wonderful; I honestly am starting to see him as a possible George Perez for the 21st century. What's amazing is that while a cataclysmic event on Earth has the superheroes all in-fighting, a universe spanding event has caused some awkward allies to team up, from the new Drax to Nova to Ronan the Accuser and Gamora. The fur is already flying and this is only issue #2; same as CW. All of the past mini's finales come to a head but enough is explained as you haven't needed to have read all of them to make sense of the story; I only read NOVA (and the ANNIHILATION handbook) and I'm completely abreast of the vital data. Plus, it's running on schedule. Even if you're not a fan of space people, I recommend getting at least the ANNIHILATION mini, because it's great on all levels. Good action, solid plot, good characters, great dialogue, and lots of sci-fi stuff without being lost in jargon (like UFF #33). In fact the only negative I can think of is that eventually this series will end, and some of the characters will probably die (plenty were irked that Quasar bit it in NOVA, but at least he went out like a hero, takin' on Annihilus head on). Oh, and you have to wait a month before each part. This series could have been equally as hot as CW, but apparently the bigger event is winning out. But don't overlook this one. This is the LOTR of Marvel's space-lot, or at least their first good story in years.
MS. MARVEL #7: The CW tie-in I bought from sheer curiosity, that I am enjoying quite a bit, albeit not exactly for the title heroine, who almost takes a back seat for this thing. This is also the only book where the SHRA side aren't depicted as fascist sociopaths, likely because that would make Ms. Marvel unsympathetic. The anti-SHRA aren't depected as being evil, either, simply finding themselves on the wrong side of the law based on a shifting political climate and some value-based judgements; exactly what was promised at the beginning, but what many CW books have abandoned in the name of making the SHRA as nasty as possible. But Ms. Marvel's approach makes for a more interesting book. Arana has been found by Marvel and Wonder Man (who's hardly as conflicted as he seemed in FRONTLINE) who talk with her and her "papa" about the SHRA, and get her to register and accept training. Meanwhile, Julia Carpenter is still on the run with her new lover, the Shroud, one of my favorite D-Listers. Unfortunately, they're found out and Shroud is captured, but Julia seemingly escapes, and was desperate to find her daughter before fleeing to Canada to escape the law. Reed's writing is crisp and the art by De La Torre is solid. Not getting as much fanfare as some of the other tie-ins (like ASM, FF, NA, etc), but actually evolving into one of the better ones. Of course, at this point the only CW tie-ins I apparently am not getting are THUNDERBOLTS and CABLE & DEADPOOL (plus no desire to get HEROES FOR HIRE either; still partisan on PUNISHER: WAR JOURNAL). I don't care for Ms. Marvel enough to continue getting the book once the tie-in is over, but I'm along for the ride 'till it ends, and I recommend it. If you want a more reasonable SHRA and some fun B and D-Listers, this book is for you. And yes, Arana's "spider armor mask" is looking very Guyver-ish from Torre now, but I don't mind.
ULTIMATE X-MEN #74: The only book this week you could call a "dud" in comparison to the others. It's not bad, just out of the 4 comics I got this week, this one was easily the worst. It also isn't helped that the annual, which shipped a few weeks ago, was set after this story ended and was way better because it was free of Kirkman's major hobble on this series; Magician. He's trying to make him a complicated, sympathetic character but I just don't feel it. He had the chance to make him an outright villian here, but refuses to do it and instead the arc ends in a bit of a complicated mess. Magician goads Jean into a fight and then who is left as the sole X-Man to save the day by mindlessly hacking at stuff; yes, Wolverine. I've done a lot of bellyaching over Whedon having Kitty do stuff like this over in ASTONISHING, but my god, "Wolverine saves the day" has become an almost bigger cliche for the X-Universe than, "the X-Men vs. Magneto, round 1,457". After seemingly defeating Magician, he explains (or doesn't, actually) to Kitty that it was all some confusing ruse so he could leave the X-Men, who he wanted to join desperately but now doesn't for whatever reason, and the rest is too complicated for me to care. Proteus worked because he was a straight-up bastard despite his hard life, but Magician was just a mess. The fact that so many issues fell into the bucket for him almost feel like a waste. At least we know the Oliver-drawn Brotherhood fight wasn't "real". Kirkman also reminds us of the Logan/Sabretooth plotline from a few issues ago, and sets up Kurt for the Annual, which we already read (and the pacing was awkward despite UXM being on schedule). Raney's art is solid, of course. The art wasn't the problem here. At first I hoped Kirkman would "do no harm" on the book that Vaughan revitalized for almost 2 years. Now I feel he's done a lot of time-wasting with his second "reality warping" character of the year. The fact that time travel and Cable/Bishop are due up next also doesn't wet my appetite, because the Ultimate X-Men worked PRECISELY because a lot of that conveluted hokey crap that has NOTHING to do with the core fundamentals of the team, like space operettas and alternate realities and time travel, doesn't happen. The 616 X-Men have all but DROWNED TO DEATH at various points by space stuff and time stuff, and haven't moved foward one inch in their core concept precisely because of those distractions. I'd hate for Ultimate XM to follow suit. I didn't hate this issue, and it had some nice action, but Kirkman's run on the title right now is probably the worst since Austen's two issues with Gambit, or Bendis' BLOCKBUSTER arc. Not good.
I also got CIVIL WAR FILES but haven't read much of it yet. Iron Man's little "speach" on Page 1 is interesting to read, only it is amusing that he sees himself as "sympathetic to heroes" given some of the underhanded stuff he's done in other books, like NA.
As usual, the spoilers are served raw for your reading pleasure.
DREAD'S BOUGHT/THOUGHT FOR 9/13/06:
52 WEEK #19: As a Marvel Zombie at heart and a casual DC fan circa "Identity Crisis" and years of Timm cartoons, this is an interesting time for me. Around when HOM was still new, it was as if Marvel did everything wrong and DC was immaculate, all of it's bats scoring home-runs with the fans. And then all of a sudden OYL happened and now DC's church robes have some stains on them, and it's been interesting to watch some posters who once were staunch fans of whatever DC did start to acknowledge that sometimes they do some wacky stuff, too. Both companies do. It's like politics; the folly of falling too hard for one side is that they both play from the same rulebook, and employ the same tactics in almost the same manner whenever it suits them. By all this I mean DC's tactic for "reviving" a B or C list character, which is to "kill off the original and stick in a fresh, younger face". The cover with Booster Gold sort of elicits that reaction at the beginning, as DC has made a habit of this. Ollie with Conner, Jordon with Kyle, and more recently, Atom and Blue Beetle. This is something Marvel very rarely does, sometimes to their own folly as some characters are just hopelessly conveluted beyond repair unless you just omit a huge chunk of material. But also sometimes, just replacing the person under the mask with a "generic young person" can also backfire, at least in the beginning (it took Kyle, what, 10 years to get the Hal fans to stop bombing DC writers' houses). So with Booster Gold, tarnished hero, dying a few issues back and with the ending of the last issue, I was all set to see yet another one of these "out with the old, in with the 20-something" sort of stories, with Skeets tracking down a distant ancestor of the 25th century Booster. But the story takes a dark twist at the end, with Skeets being far more malicious than we were led to believe, using the ancestor only to find out what the "time traveller" from many issues back knew about "time being broken". I was beginning to suspect how "innocent" Skeets was in some of this and this twist made for good reading. Of course, Skeets was always a souce of comic relief, and if you wanted to peg this as yet another "any character who was remotely 'funny' has to either die, get mutilated, or become an evil bastard", as with Sue Dibney, Ralph, Ted Kord, Max Lord, etc, you'd be right. DC's been on this kick for the past 2-3 years and won't rest until anyone who was even remotely considered light-hearted is thrown into the "GRIM OVEN" and redone for the 21st century. Next, Ambush Bug takes over a universe. Cassie also runs into Supernova, who seems to remind her of "Kon-El". Of course, given her wacky cult antics, I bet a broom handle would have the same effect.
The second story this issue is the "Lost in Space" crew being led to a rocky pit stop by Lobo, who has channeled his passion for space-dolphins into becoming a "minister" of a pacifistict fish-god, a sort of wacky plotline only someone as tripped out on hallucinagenic drugs as Morrison could probably come up with at a planning session. Still, considering how flat Lobo is and how he's done the "unbeatable tough guy" thing to death, it is an interesting twist for him; there are no end of nasty people who suddenly "find God" and then can't be held accountable. Lobo reveals who put the bounty on their heads and offers them some safe transport, but not the whole shebang to Earth 'cause he just ain't a merc anymore. Although I wonder how strong his vows are, as while he's seemingly given up on sex and violence, he didn't seem shook up that the New God was killed by one of his old traps, and he instantly exposed Starfire's chest when they met (like a letch). But, Lobo is at least interesting, which is all that matters. Oh, and the origin of Animal Man is told, a character no one cared about until Morrison revamped him for Vertigo years back. Once again, another interesting installment to 52, even if yet another character that was known for being "funny" in DC is now an evil mastermind. People who hate seeing it happen to DAMAGE CONTROL, hey, DC started the trend first. Marvel's just followin' it.ANNIHILATION #2: Every time I read one of these, I go, "I'm not a space buff, not a space buff, it's not my genre". But every time I seem to read one of these issues, I like 'em more and more. Maybe it really does all come to imagination and writing, not just genre. Who'da thunk? Anyway, the red-headed stepchild of Marvel events, this one isn't getting much hype and naturally it's not breaking any sales records, but it's selling moderately well considering it stars characters who haven't been big at Marvel in ages, and is quite well written. People who grow tired of the betrayals, government conspiracies and all that of CW should really give this a try. Here, faced with a threat of destruction, the forces of good in the universe (or at least forces with axes to grind like Drax) team up against Annihilus' Wave, which counts amung it's allies Thanos, which ain't good. Last issue saw Galactus and Surfer going down and this one sees the Wave's chief warriors take on Nova's forces head-on, while in the meantime, Thanos has kidnapped Moondragon (Drax's daughter by blood) to use as a hostage to hold him at bay, which may not work out well. DiVito's art is, as usual, wonderful; I honestly am starting to see him as a possible George Perez for the 21st century. What's amazing is that while a cataclysmic event on Earth has the superheroes all in-fighting, a universe spanding event has caused some awkward allies to team up, from the new Drax to Nova to Ronan the Accuser and Gamora. The fur is already flying and this is only issue #2; same as CW. All of the past mini's finales come to a head but enough is explained as you haven't needed to have read all of them to make sense of the story; I only read NOVA (and the ANNIHILATION handbook) and I'm completely abreast of the vital data. Plus, it's running on schedule. Even if you're not a fan of space people, I recommend getting at least the ANNIHILATION mini, because it's great on all levels. Good action, solid plot, good characters, great dialogue, and lots of sci-fi stuff without being lost in jargon (like UFF #33). In fact the only negative I can think of is that eventually this series will end, and some of the characters will probably die (plenty were irked that Quasar bit it in NOVA, but at least he went out like a hero, takin' on Annihilus head on). Oh, and you have to wait a month before each part. This series could have been equally as hot as CW, but apparently the bigger event is winning out. But don't overlook this one. This is the LOTR of Marvel's space-lot, or at least their first good story in years.
MS. MARVEL #7: The CW tie-in I bought from sheer curiosity, that I am enjoying quite a bit, albeit not exactly for the title heroine, who almost takes a back seat for this thing. This is also the only book where the SHRA side aren't depicted as fascist sociopaths, likely because that would make Ms. Marvel unsympathetic. The anti-SHRA aren't depected as being evil, either, simply finding themselves on the wrong side of the law based on a shifting political climate and some value-based judgements; exactly what was promised at the beginning, but what many CW books have abandoned in the name of making the SHRA as nasty as possible. But Ms. Marvel's approach makes for a more interesting book. Arana has been found by Marvel and Wonder Man (who's hardly as conflicted as he seemed in FRONTLINE) who talk with her and her "papa" about the SHRA, and get her to register and accept training. Meanwhile, Julia Carpenter is still on the run with her new lover, the Shroud, one of my favorite D-Listers. Unfortunately, they're found out and Shroud is captured, but Julia seemingly escapes, and was desperate to find her daughter before fleeing to Canada to escape the law. Reed's writing is crisp and the art by De La Torre is solid. Not getting as much fanfare as some of the other tie-ins (like ASM, FF, NA, etc), but actually evolving into one of the better ones. Of course, at this point the only CW tie-ins I apparently am not getting are THUNDERBOLTS and CABLE & DEADPOOL (plus no desire to get HEROES FOR HIRE either; still partisan on PUNISHER: WAR JOURNAL). I don't care for Ms. Marvel enough to continue getting the book once the tie-in is over, but I'm along for the ride 'till it ends, and I recommend it. If you want a more reasonable SHRA and some fun B and D-Listers, this book is for you. And yes, Arana's "spider armor mask" is looking very Guyver-ish from Torre now, but I don't mind.
ULTIMATE X-MEN #74: The only book this week you could call a "dud" in comparison to the others. It's not bad, just out of the 4 comics I got this week, this one was easily the worst. It also isn't helped that the annual, which shipped a few weeks ago, was set after this story ended and was way better because it was free of Kirkman's major hobble on this series; Magician. He's trying to make him a complicated, sympathetic character but I just don't feel it. He had the chance to make him an outright villian here, but refuses to do it and instead the arc ends in a bit of a complicated mess. Magician goads Jean into a fight and then who is left as the sole X-Man to save the day by mindlessly hacking at stuff; yes, Wolverine. I've done a lot of bellyaching over Whedon having Kitty do stuff like this over in ASTONISHING, but my god, "Wolverine saves the day" has become an almost bigger cliche for the X-Universe than, "the X-Men vs. Magneto, round 1,457". After seemingly defeating Magician, he explains (or doesn't, actually) to Kitty that it was all some confusing ruse so he could leave the X-Men, who he wanted to join desperately but now doesn't for whatever reason, and the rest is too complicated for me to care. Proteus worked because he was a straight-up bastard despite his hard life, but Magician was just a mess. The fact that so many issues fell into the bucket for him almost feel like a waste. At least we know the Oliver-drawn Brotherhood fight wasn't "real". Kirkman also reminds us of the Logan/Sabretooth plotline from a few issues ago, and sets up Kurt for the Annual, which we already read (and the pacing was awkward despite UXM being on schedule). Raney's art is solid, of course. The art wasn't the problem here. At first I hoped Kirkman would "do no harm" on the book that Vaughan revitalized for almost 2 years. Now I feel he's done a lot of time-wasting with his second "reality warping" character of the year. The fact that time travel and Cable/Bishop are due up next also doesn't wet my appetite, because the Ultimate X-Men worked PRECISELY because a lot of that conveluted hokey crap that has NOTHING to do with the core fundamentals of the team, like space operettas and alternate realities and time travel, doesn't happen. The 616 X-Men have all but DROWNED TO DEATH at various points by space stuff and time stuff, and haven't moved foward one inch in their core concept precisely because of those distractions. I'd hate for Ultimate XM to follow suit. I didn't hate this issue, and it had some nice action, but Kirkman's run on the title right now is probably the worst since Austen's two issues with Gambit, or Bendis' BLOCKBUSTER arc. Not good.
I also got CIVIL WAR FILES but haven't read much of it yet. Iron Man's little "speach" on Page 1 is interesting to read, only it is amusing that he sees himself as "sympathetic to heroes" given some of the underhanded stuff he's done in other books, like NA.
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