The rest of my reviews are finally here! I know how everyone has been so very eagerly awaiting them with baited breath.
All-Star Goddamn Wonder Woman and Robin the Sperm Bank #5
Well at least now we know where the Amazons from Amazons Attacks come from; they were mistakenly transplanted from Earth-45, the AS universe! That's my personal canon and I'ma stickin' to it. This issue is to the JLA what "Ultimates" is to the Avengers, except multiplied by like a billion. I should hate this. There's nothing that I should like about this. The writing is
horrible, inexcusably so even for a humor series; "I hate your
guts. I hate your
guts. You make me
sick. You make me
sick." is an actual, unaltered line of dialogue that someone utters. I should look at this and think WTF from now 'till the end of time.
But it's hilarious. It is
uproariously hilarious. The previous issues were
and generally juvenile, but this? There's no way you can be reading this without a monstrous sht-eating grin on your face, even though it might be obscured by that incredulous expression of "WTF?" that you'll
also have. You have Alfred punching a bag in his gym shorts all the while waxing poetic about his dark-eyed angel grown into manhood, and Supes and Wondy's GOD I HATE YOU *
makes out* moments of cracktastitude in the backdrop of thinly-veiled sexual references to Poseidon, and then Batman himself being batsht crazy beyond the measure of words to describe. It's
funny. I still don't think this is meant as a parody, not in the way that everyone is thinking. In fact, I think Miller
is trying to write what he thinks is a coherent story arc, but interspersed with him obviously having the time of his life and doing everything in his power to make people stare and go WTF. He's doing what
both sides of the fence are accusing him of; he's writing an actual story that you're supposed to take seriously, but making darn sure the get his rocks off in the meantime.
I think part of why people keep insisting that it's a parody. aside from its mind-boggling writing. is the art; Jim Lee's obviously-sexiful art here is so contradictory to the tone and the dialogue -- which feels like it should be done by webcomics or something -- that everything feels all the more silly. But if it were, say, Frank Miller himself doing the art for this series, I don't think the "parody" assumptions would be as assumed because the tone would synch a lot better. I think Jim Lee's art ends up hurting the series, then, no matter how you look at it.
Men. We can't do
anything right.
(3.7 out of 10 in real logic 'verse)
(10 out of 10 in Bizarro 'Verse!)
Ultimates 2 #13
I'm impressed, but not impressed.
The action, of course, is incredible; Fitch draws smashass action in a way that a lot of other artists would give up a testicle to be able to accomplish. Millar knows it and milks it for all its worth, just as he's done many times in this series. In this, if nothing else, Ultimates has eked out a fitting place for itself.
Still, I don't think the sudden invasion from the hordes of Mordor sits well with the story. You got politics, politics, politics, war war war politics Iraq army espionage politics...and then giant wolves. It's the sort of random self-aware crack that would work in a random self-aware crack story like, oh, say, All-Star Batman...but not here, in this series which has all-in-all been a pretty straightforward blockbuster. It just reads like Millar needing this giant battle to finish off his story that he's put off for a year and he already killed all the bad guys in the last issue...so, um, bring on the orcs? Yeah, okay, Loki is a Norse god and can probably summon some orcs, but I'm just sayin': it's out of place.
Is it a fitting end for this series? Yeah, I suppose. All the major plot points are tied up neatly whilst leaving a whole lot of possibilies for Loeb to play with. Some nice jokes, nice moments with Tony and Wanda's...ah, unique sex drives. But the thing is, right up to the end this book never deals with the one problem that has been amongst its bigger problems from the very outset: I don't like these people. They're not good people. They're self-absorbed, unheroic, smarmy, smartass buttmunches who all come across far worse than their 616 counterparts (except for Ultimate Tony, who come across about a billion degrees more likeable). Millar has taken great pains to make sure we hate these people -- from narrow-minded Captain Thug to the whiney dysfunctional Pyms -- and not nearly enough to redeem them for all that. I certainly don't like them more just because they beat up some bad guys, which is what they should be doing anyway. Right up to the bitter end I don't like any of them no matter how many scenic nostalgic scenes with Steve and Gail I see. It's pretty much the same problem that Mighty Avengers is facing right now: most of these people suck. I don't like any of them. Why should I care whether they win or lose? In fact, I
root for them to all get their asses killed. What kind of comic book are you writing when people will practically
root for the terrorist organizations to take over America, just so its assholic protectors can be knocked down a peg or two? That's something I've never understood about this series. I suppose I never will, now.
(6.7 out of 10)
Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #12
Reads better than the last issue, which is good.
There is a certain problem of believability here, though. Specifically, we're supposed to believe that Inertia is charismatic enough to draw and hoodwink every single one of these Rogues -- who are all pretty badass in their own right as Geoff Johns has written them -- when, frankly, Inertia is just coming across as an annoying little blond punk without an ounce of persuasiveness to him. So we have to bank on the idea that the Rogues will forgo common sense and just join up with him based on the strength of their enmity with the Flash...
...except that this Flash is not the Flash that they fought before, and they know that. And it should be a pretty significant point, except that it's
never brought up, even a little, throughout the entirety of this story. Bart does not have the kind of history with these people that supports a believable rivalry, they're only fighting him because he's the new Flash and, really, that's stupid. Meanwhile, Grandma FemDomme Iris is still going on about the future and death and all that and generally being vague, and she picks Valerie to go with her for some reason even though the two don't even know each other. So basically, we don't understand
anyone's motivations here except for Inertia and, again, he's an annoying little blond punk. A story like this, which involves big names and big changes and big time travel plots, really should be more coherent.
(6 out of 10)
Mighty Avengers #3
Don't worry guyz, her boobs broke the impact.
So...okay, I could see the OMG cheesecake exploitive misogyny naked women naked asscrack Cho thing becoming a problem if things like this persists; I mean, serious, is this comic about Avengers or is it a comic about wanting to f**k women with big boobs? I completely see where people are having a problem with it. Still...for a single issue or even a single arc, I don't think it's such a big deal. I mean, the Silver Surfer is pretty much the same deal, just a naked guy in silver paint, right? And apparently you can see his 'nads in the trailers though it's not like I've been on Youtube looking or anything. Anyway, it's not like this is a regular thing with Bendis. His prior depictions of woman have largely been sexy within reason so, frankly, his writing has bigger, more presistent problems for us to whine about.
Case in point, I have absolutely zero idea as to what the poopy Bendis is trying to accomplish with the Sentry. I mean, Sentry isn't my favorite character per se but even I had to
at his showing here. Is Bendis just trying to show that while everyone thinks Bob is so powerful, in reality Bob just is just a l4m3r? His power of a million exploding suns does jack to naked robot woman. He needs help to catch a single falling helicarrier which would have been no problem for Superman or Thor or Hercules
. It wouldn't even be such a problem if naked robot woman actually did something or had some sort of power that coincidentally could thwart the Sentry like, I dunno, illusions or phasing or something, but they're literally just punching each other and the best he could do is a stalemate-of-sorts? Is there some sort of eventual point to this, like some big characterization revelation, or should we just go ahead and mark Bob down on the ever-growing list of characters that Bendis should never be allowed to touch, ever? Of course he could be using the technique of having the villain beat on a powerful hero to show how powerful the villain is, but that technique almost never works anyway and what you end up with is an entire season of Superman acting like a pu$$y on Cartoon Network.
Which brings up another thing...they keep telling us how powerful and dangerous this Girltron is and all them Avengers and world leaders are in full deer-in-headlights panic mode, but...how dangerous is she, really? She beat up Sentry, but apparently anyone could do that nowadays. She sent a helicarrier out of control, but HYRDA did that a few months back. She supposedly killed Tony Stark, but all that makes me wanna do is give her a medal. So what we end up with is a supervillain without any personality, riding solely on the name of "Ultron" and some gigantic mammaries. Color me uninterested.
Other than that? I do agree that this issue was a notable improvement over the last; at least we didn't end with yet
another issue of everyone staring confusedly at Ultron in the rain. To Bendis' credit, every character here is its own character with his or her own distinct voice, which is sometimes hard to do in team books and something that his other book, New Avengers, hasn't quite accomplished yet. Black Widow's Big Moment was of course very nice and calls into question why exactly she isn't running both SHIELD
and this team instead of Tony and Carol respectively. 'Course, she
is the one member of this team that I actually like, so I may be biased.
(6.5 out of 10)
Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America: Captain America
"A clone? That sounds stupid." -Tony Stark
Oh, Tony. Irony seems so inadequate a word to describe that statement.
I liked this much more than I thought I would. This is the first of the Fallen Son series which I felt actually had a purpose for existing (the first issue had about half a purpose, and the second had none at all). Clint's reunion with Iron Man, in the wake of Cap's death, was something that needed to be done, and Loeb does it in a natural, believable manner. Clint being the only person alive who can use Cap's shield is a very nice touch. Iron Man shamelessly exploiting Clint's return for his own purposes is, well, so in-character at this point it comes off charming instead of *****ey. Not that he isn't *****ey, here; it just wouldn't be Tony without it. It's so natural now it practically comes off as cliche; Tony'll act like a humongous jackass, every single character including the writer and the readers act completely flabberghasted that he could act like such a jackass, wash rinse and repeat. Seriously...the readers have been saying it, the writers have been saying it, the characters in the stories have been saying it over and over again...and still Marvel tries to play it off, acts like he's some "misunderstood" hero. It's this lack of genuity, stringing the people along with obvious promises that they can't keep that's always bugged me.
Bendis turned Hawkeye into a joke, a
punchline, and with each subsequent depiction has twisted the knife even further...and in this one single issue Loeb turned him back into a character. At least for me.
Also, this is the one book in which the Young Avengers have served any meaningful capacity ever since CW ended and, even written by Loeb, it makes me miss them that much more. Well, I shouldn't say "even written by Loeb," because Loeb actually wrote Kate and Eli really well; he grasps their banter, he grasps their idealism, he even grasps their tendency to talk back to any adult wanting to tell them what to do. Rumor has it that he's the co-pilot who Heinberg will be flying with next season, and after reading this issue I gotta say I don't mind that in the least. Clint finding out about Kate and meeting her is also something that's been a long time coming and hopefully settles the matter of whether Kate is fit to bear his title once and for all (hint: she is).
(8.3 out of 10)
:heart: 
