Civil War Files
Just to get it out of the way, yes, this thing completely reads like a damned myspace entry.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006 tonysIrMan616 wrote...
still fighting war. why wont tehy agree with me
? stEve is teh tstupid.
bishop told said he had plans. i Listend. hes smart because he Agrees with me
Reed called me stupid coz i did his wife 345789435978x. DUM RUBBERMAN
! i spikd his punch wiht robatessen.
agent Hill is caling kthxbye
5:35 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment
With that said, I think that sort of "personalness" also really works to this book's advantage. We've all seen dozens upon dozens of bibliographies with varying degrees of accuracy on all of these mofos. What makes this one stand out, therefore, is not any particular insight into these characters per se, but rather insight into these characters from the perspective of
Tony. We learn more about him and his characterizations in this book than we ever actually learn about the people he's talking about.
One of the things that I find interesting -- perhaps not interesting
good, but interesting nonetheless -- is how consistent they're keeping Tony's personality. And by personality, I mean that Tony doesn't trust his enemies and yet he obviously doesn't trust his friends very much either; he thoroughly questions the motives of almost everyone on his team, from Reed ("So what if he's been my staunchest supporter from day one?") to She-Hulk ("She doesn't see the big picture! We need to see the big picture! Big! Picture!") to Hank Pym ("How shall I manipulate his emotions to my advantage? Hmm.") to the Sentry ("After I deal with this, I'll have to deal with
him."). And of course, Spidey.
Oh yeah, and he finds it "surprising" that the Mutant Registration Act was defeated and considers the new Sentinels to be "brilliant"...take that however you will.
We may not like this personality, but it's there and it's consistent at the least. A lot of people compare Tony's increasing paranoia and dickery to the sort of know-it-all paranoia and manipulations that Batman obtained throughout the past ten or fifteen years, and I agree that the comparisons
are there. Batman as a character just got darker and meaner and more unlikeable and emotionally crippled to the point where almost all his writers unanimously agreed that something had to be done about it. A notable difference between Batman's spiral and Iron Man's, however, is in the details. Batman's train of thought seemed to go something like "These are powerful people, and power corrupts, so they can't be trusted. Evidence includes mindwipes and neck-snapping" Tony's train of thought seems to go something like "No one sees this situation as clearly as I do, so no one can be completely trusted. Evidence includes Disassembled, House of M, and Stamford." His continued distrust towards people
who agree with him already says a lot. Batman kept his plans secretive because he knew no one would agree with him, but continues to surround himself with the very people he distrusts. Tony passionately wants everyone to agree with him and is preaching his ideas far and wide, but is even still keeping people at arm's length. It's an interesting reversal. It took the universe fcking itself up the bum to get Batman to unlax already. Hopefully, Tony will come around easier.
(oh, and as a note to Tony: Marvel Girl's been calling herself Rachel
Grey now, not Summers)
(8 out of 10)
52 Week 10
A lot of revelations and clues this week. Storyline is dragging...a bit...but still, the anticipation level is sky-high.
I didn't notice that the arrow of "HIS FAULT!" was pointing at Skeets and not Booster until someone pointed it out to me. I don't really like Skeets being evil. It's not really a "twist" because there's so many conspiracy theories out there about this series and its storylines that it's hard to say anything really surprises us anymore. For example, people were saying from the very getgo that Supernova might turn out to be Conner. I personally don't believe that he is, but the point is that angle's already being covered by the fandom. I worry about this series all of a sudden making a turn for the "OMG what
SHOCKS will we reveal
THIS WEEK!!!?!?!?!!?" road that folks like, oh say,
Bendis might regale in. Man, just tell good stories. That's all it takes. You've all been doing an excellent job so far, let's not spoil it at this point.
But really, "good person turning ambiguously villainy" is overdone at this point. Especially concerning the JLI crew. I'm still excited for this book, but I worry.
(7 out of 10)
Green Lantern Corps #4
Wow, it's only been four issues of this book? It feels like so
much has happened.
This issue contained good old-fashioned slapstick tomfoolery with Guy Gardner on his vacation planet ending with a good old-fashioned unexpected cliffhanger. It's got great scenes and great dialogue and doesn't pretend to be anything else.
There's some bit of serious stuff, too, concerning the Isamot and Vath and their duties to their personal lives vs their duties as a Lantern. It's good stuff, making me care about these "secondary" characters as much as I'd care about the established "leads" like Guy and Kilowog.
(8 out of 10)
Green Arrow #66
Really interesting issue. I'm one of those who really like Ollie's recent turn for badassery, and it's nice to see how it came down. Last year, Ollie got his ass kicked up and down the street, and now he's taking it all back. There's a sense of a story arc here, of past events influencing current ones and character history actually
mattering, which I always really like in a book. I rag on Judd a lot for his more blatant writing issues, but the way he writes their training and the dialogue of the "masters" was all very fluid, very believable, and very involving.
But at this point in the game, we're seeing a lot of continuity problems between this and 52. In 52, Connor and Ollie were not only well and present at the unveiling of the Superman/Superboy statue in week one, but Ollie was just fine and back in his old costume and back in Star City after about a month. At present time in 52, Ollie was already campaigning for mayor. It really shouldn't bother me that much, but as I've said before...when DC is so tight with continuity in most other respects, small instances like this and Shadowpact become all the more glaring.
(8.5 out of 10)
Martian Manhunter #2
Hmm. Second issue. What to say?
There's nothing really
wrong with this book. There's action and intrigue and suspense and good dialogue (mostly) and good art and all that. J'onn's a bit more hardcore and angry, but nothing off-putting. Well,
almost nothing off-putting; I'm not as against superheroes killing as most, even if I prefer that they don't, but what I'm especially against is someone like
J'onn, who had a
very grounded sense of morals and appreciation of life and abhorrence towards violence of any kind, all of a sudden not seeming to care. That's not something that simple anger could explain. That's not a change in character that simply feeling betrayed could fully justify.
That last line is a bit weird, too. "Of all the human emotions I have observed, revenge is the only one not foreign to my people"?? Wtf? Did you even read that out loud before you wrote it down? That means that
only revenge connects the broad emotional spectrum of Martians and humans. So happiness is foreign to Martians? Sadness? Fear? Excitement? This is the guy who said to Kyle just last year, "remember that sentient beings throughout the galaxy have more similarities than differences." This issue gets points taken off just for that line of sloppiness.
(6.9 out of 10)
)
If battle damage report meets the standard this set I'll definately be buying it 9/10
