Bit of a heavy week to start off December, but on the whole a good week all around. I won't even let adverts bother me. I also decided that I didn't give a damn about ULTIMATE VISION #1, and a flip-through of SPIDER-MAN: REIGN #1 sort of cemented my impression that it was merely DARK SPIDER-MAN RETURNS (right down to the "Andrews as Miller" art and talking head newspeople segments), which I'm not really interested in right now. I expect a finale where Peter dons his Spider-Armor to fight Sentry alongside a teenage Black Cat, who he secretly pines for.
As always, this area is ground zero for spoiler and ranting fire.
DREAD'S BOUGHT/THOUGHT for 12/6/06:
52 WEEK #31: DC's weekly serial continues going strong and puts heavy focus on the space threat
du jour, Lady Styx and her galaxy-trotting engine of death, that not even Comet Man can stop. I never knew about Adam Blake before, but he got a pretty good sendoff/introduction here. It seems this force is so bad-ass that not even the GL CORPS can stop it, which naturally leaves our rag-tag Lost in Space Troupe of Animal-Man, Lobo, Starfire, a blind Adam Strange, and that fish-god-thigie to take it on. Back on Earth, Natasha continues to ignore her father's calls but it turns out Everyman is a creep; a shapeshifter being a schemer? How original. And finally, the Supernova subplot is revived to remind us it exists, and some gaps between the Cult of Conner stuff from a few months ago are cleared up; Wonder Girl found out that Dibney was right; the cultleader was a con artist, but she still believes that resurrection is possible, and frankly why not? Superman, Hal Jordon, and countless other heroes have returned after death many times in the DCU (even if it's done partly by denying they were dead, least in Superman's case he was just in a "really bad coma"). Dibney, meanwhile, has figured out who Supernova is, and asks him to unmask to clear up WG's fantasy that he's Superboy-Revived. He refuses, claiming he still has work to do. Dibney mentions certain "devices" in place to explain the powers, which makes me wonder if they are tech-based. He also mentioned that the lack of Superman was a key component. The obvious solution would be Kent himself; he donned the costume in the Golden Age when he lost his powers in one of that age's many throwaway stories, and holograms are easy enough to explain how both could be in two places at once (or robots; Superman did use robots to get rid of that problem before, even if some of them went nuts and killed Donna Troy, someone else who came back from the dead). It could even be Booster Gold, although if it was, Skeets may have offed him by now. Some people may seem Batman, but that'd tie in poorly with his "I just erased my negativity" stint in the desert last issue. So the fact remains that it still is a bonafide mystery. The origin of Robin also looked pretty. A timely one, given how DETECTIVE went. Once again, 52 does its job, pleasing, enjoyable serial.
DETECTIVE COMICS # 826: After a month off, Dini returns with Kramer in tow for a bit of a chilling Robin vs. Joker confrontation. Fortunately, Dini is able to intermingle between urban feeling stories and overworldly comic stuff; the Ivy story was typical comic book stuff but some of his other mysteries ground the Bat-verse in enough reality that it gets back to roots, where you forget that Batman is a member of the JLA with Darkseid-punching armor and all that baloney, and that's good. Robin gets caught between two gangs shooting each other and literally runs into the Joker, who is driving around in the car of a couple he just killed and got lucky. He takes the Boy Wonder hostage and takes him on a joyride of the insane, making rants and randomly mowing down pedestrians (although if more people shot managers at drive-ins, I bet they'd repair the damn things; for F's Sake, if McDonalds wanted to please me, to hell with trans fats or whatnot and fix those drive in mics!). Robin manages to keep his cool, eventually free himself and even use a little Bat-psychology to trick Joker and set him up for a beating. It's an effective issue especially when it comes on the heels of Morrison's BATMAN where he basically had Robin beaten up to make his little Damien look tough. Dini also writes a convincing Joker, as usual, as someone who is completely insane and fluxes between whimsey and brutality. If he's written half as well in the next Batman film, we'd all be in for a ride. The narrative style is also effective. The only issue is that in the flashback, it got annoying trying to tell between Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne, which is Kramer's fault and not Dini's, but a minor quibble doesn't ruin a good issue as a whole. DETECTIVE is a great Bat-book and it's damned shame it's not selling better (like above the Top 40). Give it a whurl, especially if BATMAN & THE MAD MONK isn't working for you (as some people have said).
INVINCIBLE #37: Due to Kirkman's other commitments at Marvel since launching this series, INVINCIBLE's still a good 1-2 issues behind where it should be, at least, but this isn't a problem for me because it was those delays that allowed me to catch up on the trades so quickly last month. Best decision I made in a while. It's also great to see a Kirkman free to do what he wants in a superhero story, free from constraints from Marvel or Ultimate. After having the Reanimen in a subplot for a good 30 issues or so, it gets resolved in a quick 1-2 punch of a 2 part story. I also say at this point that even if Cory Walker co-created Invincible and his universe, Ottley's really made the book his own and his style is a lot better IMO, even though Walker is also a good artist (and returned to Invincible for MTU #14). Naturally, the bad guy goes down, Mark's friends are rescued, he confronts his GF about this "new guy" in her dormroom, and Mr. Sinclair finally gets down to being a "shady government type" by hiring the creator of the Reanimen for the U.S. government; who wants to put a scientist who makes potent cyborg super-soldiers to waste? Naturally, Invincible has to find out eventually and this will probably shatter his status quo again, which he's frankly had longer than the last real shattering, when his dad revealed his true origin a good two years ago. And that's what makes this book a great read, it has everything you'd want in a superhero universe and yet is a creator owned thing, so it could change on a dime. It also has something that
Cyclops has said was missing from a lot of Marvel comics these days, a sense of "escapism", of, to paraphrase Squirrel-Girl, a world you'd almost want to escape to, and not from. Even when it has it's dark moments, they don't overshadow the entire book, and the pacing of the issue allows things to move at a good pace, where every action has a reaction and builds upon the past. And hey, few ads! I just wish it'd sell more than an abysmal 12,000-15,000 copies a month and sell well within the Top 100 where it deserves. It's that escapism that helps it when, yes, it's not the most innovative thing in the universe, it doesn't crack the internet in half, or so on. It's not trying to. It's a love-letter to the superhero genre almost as much as it is an addition to it.
Speaking of Invincible, I also got the first of two
OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE INVINCIBLE UNIVERSE editions, put out by a bunch of writers and a laundry list of cool artists who did art for it, who Kirkman gives props to in the back by noting their past works. The cover even matches the stuff from the 80's Handbooks. It looks to be a lot of fun, especially with so many characters hanging around Invincible. If you support INVINCIBLE, give it a whurl. It also credits Ottley as a co-creator, which after drawing maybe the last 30 issues of Invincible, is long deserved.
"MARVEL'S CUBE OF AWESOME": I am more than aware that I am at times very hard on Marvel, Joe Q, and many of their celebrated writers, artists, and policies. I'm "light" on DC not because I feel they escape a lot of the same mistakes, but I read less of it and thus I care less. But, even still, I do try to highlight books and things that Marvel does that ARE good, and worth appluading. I did something like this a month or so ago, noting
ANNIHILATION #4, CW: YA/RUNAWAYS #4 & DR. STRANGE: OATH #2 as the
"Axis of Awesome". Well, it's 4 titles this time, so it's a cube. Bare with me.
AGENTS OF ATLAS #5: A moderate hit with Parker & Kirk reviving lost 1950's characters and putting a great new spin on it; while I wish it'd sell better, the fact that a book that stars, well, Jimmy Woo, Gorilla Man and Venus is selling above the Top 85 at all is a bit of an accomplishment in today's market. This time, Venus gets an origin retooling, and it turns out she's not actually THE goddess herself, but a mystical being who was made to believe she was. I'm not sure this revamp was required (Marvel "Man" needed it, however, 2 issues back), but it works efficiently enough. Parker's Ken Hale is quickly becoming one of Marvel's most amusing characters; a rare case of me actually going with the "apes are always cool" fanboy logic that enthralls most fans and WIZARD. Unfortunately, when Namora reveals this origin, Venus' cry of agony turns the team on each other as it exposes M-11 as Golden Claw's double-agent (which wasn't too much of a surprise), which ticks Namora off as M-11 "remembered her when no one else did", and soon the team's doing their obligatory "disassembling" for a minute. Hale's theat to Namora was F'ing priceless ("Fine, kill me, but you're inherit my curse! Get ready to be the world's biggest sea-monkey for all eternity!"). However, Woo manages to fix Robot Man up and get the team organized againt, right in time to commit to a showdown with Golden Claw. Kirk's art is as solid as ever and Parker is really running wild with these revived, Golden Age stars. I hope this book becomes an ongoing and the team returns for more tales. Even a sloppy finish won't sink this mini's quality for me, and I honestly doubt the finale will even be bad. New teams can sometimes be a dime a dozen in comics, but this one manages to carve out a solid, pulpy niche all it's own. The first six issues aren't even finished and I want another 6 afterwards; THAT's the mark of a hot property. And another nice, trippy cover. If you're not getting it, shame on you and at least invest in the trade.
BEYOND! #6: Well, that was a bit of a shocking finish; and no, I don't mean Dr. Pym! McDuffie & Kolins finish off their mini series starring Marvel's best and brightest B and C listers for a good ol' fashioned romp, that has been enjoyable from start to finish, leaked covers-ruining-spoilers aside. Fortunately, McDuffie isn't out to pull a Bendis or a Millar, ready to have a character act dramatically OUT of character to further his story along; Pym didn't actually kill the fellow contestants, he simply fooled their host into beliving so. Their cosmic boogeyman also isn't the Beyonder, but was the Stranger all along. Kolin has an interesting way of drawing him, making him look more wider than a typical guy when compared to some other artists, an attempt to make him more "alien" looking. He also makes the Watcher look creepy instead of cheesy, another worthwhile achievement for the much-mocked space entity. I'm not sure how merely shrinking everyone down to microscopic level could fool the Stranger, but it works better than claiming Pym actually killed them, merely to wish them back DBZ style, an answer I thought up after issue #5. It's very rare these days to see a story that makes Pym look like something other than a petty, sanity-challenged former wife beater. Current writers who do that claim "realism", but it's a shameless attempt to piggyback Ultimates that brought that back into pop culture. Anyway, Pym was cooler here than he's been in a while since he abandoned his growing schtick and instead just grew and shrunk items and stuff for himself, like he did in the 90's (not EVERYTHING in the 90's sucked). But the biggest surprise for me was the character they chose to axe off, especially since Marvel does seem interested in him; Gravity. He maxes out himself and his powers keeping the planet together so his allies can escape, and is given a burial in NYC, complete with his girlfriend, the Inhumans, and even Gargan. This finale intertwined well with the first chapter, and it really makes me wonder what sort of plans Marvel may have for this; DRAX didn't sell very well either, but quickly became an unofficial prequal to ANNIHILATION. Granted, BEYOND! didn't sell well for the same reason; Marvel dumped it out into the mix with nary any attempt to promote it any more than any other book, and it sank like a stone. The last issue was almost out of the Top 100 and this one will be lucky to still be there. But considering Gravity's name was dropped as appearing in 2007's New Warriors, and even Watcher claiming, "his story wasn't finished", I am wondering what is in store for this character. Gravity was the only MARVEL NEXT launch character who appeared anywhere else, in their 2005 X-Mas special, in MTU, and now here. Will he return and become Gravity the White? Anyway, unlike a lot of past deaths of characters, Gravity really got a worthy, dramatic, "hero's death" that hurt but wasn't as disappointing as some people felt the loss of some of those New Warriors was. Credit to McDuffie for surprising me on that one and still managing to make it efficient and cool to read. And Kudos to a great mini; he'll do wonders for Fantastic Four once he starts next year. RIP, Greg Willis, but if your destiny was important enough to have The Watcher show up, hopefully Marvel takes that ball and runs with it. They're promoting "the rise of a great hero" in the aftermath of CW; the symbol is of Capt. Marvel, but could Gravity somehow be tied to that? Stay tuned.
DOCTOR STRANGE: THE OATH #3: The second time this book has seen an appearence in a "_____ of Awesome" from me, it's the best thing to happen to Dr. Strange in years. Marvel kept slugging until they found a mini that did him right, and have found it with BKV & Martin. Again, it deserves to sell much better than it is, but one could call it a "moderate" hit I guess. Dr. Strange hasn't had a solo mini in a while and he's selling within the Top 50. The cover is a trip, a collage of Dr. Strange's past enemies merging into a nasty face. He, Wong, and Night Nurse finish their conflict with Brigand, the hired gun who nearly killed the good Doc with an enchanted firearm and sparked everything. The trio work together to disarm him and Strange lowers the boom, venturing into his very brain to find out his employer, leading to a mirage list of his rogues. BKV does a good job of ironing out Dr. Strange's magic, making him out to be powerful but nowhere near as omnipotent or invincible as some writers have, who in the past have used him almost as a dues ex machina (Bendis, I am looking right at you). Magic is something that is hard to pin down and very easily becomes an excuse to explain impossible crap with a cover-all excuse, like "Because he's Batman" and so on. The man behind Brigand is Dr. West, who was Strange's associate during his "arrogant surgeon" days who he seems to have forgotten, but was the man who tried, and failed, to repair his hands after his original accident (the led him to the Ancient One and destiny). He also is the CEO of a major medicine company that makes cancer drugs, whose stockholders have a lot of money to lose if an elixir & Strange can cure every cancer patient in the world. This is a bit of a generic, "Medical businesses who make cash on medicine are always evil", the sort of thing that has become a cliche long before cranks would sell "natural healing" books on infomercials under the same premise (for $30 a pop, of course, because they're not hypocrites
). Still, BKV does the bit well so it doesn't come off as cheesy and ties into that "oath" part, which can meen the Doctor's Oath that Strange has evoked or his pledge to save Wong. BKV also has a nice little tit-for-tat chemistry thing going between Dr. Strange and Night Nurse, which is more enjoyable than Milligan's thing with Dead-Girl in X-STATIX PRESENTS: DEAD GIRL. The finale has them ready to fight a gigantic demon summoned by West, who apparently is also a student in the mystical arts, and naturally this is another mini under a creative team that I wished could become an ongoing. If Vaughan wants to leave his mark on a Marvel character after departing Runaways, he could do a lot worse than Dr. Strange. Let's hope Marvel agrees. You don't even need to be a Dr. Strange fan to enjoy the book as BKV weaves in his past brillantly so you can understand where he's come from. It's great to see someone be able to write both a Sorceror Supreme and a human being with flaws and fiobles again.
IRREDEEMABLE ANT-MAN #3: Unlike the others, this one is an actual ongoing, but there is nothing to be optimistic about in terms of sales. It's first issue debuted at #62, which is rather abysmal. NO Marvel book that debuts below the Top 50 lasts 12 issues. Not one. By issue #6 it may be teetering on the bottom 90 or lower and Marvel will bite the bullet and can it. It's only hope is to look at the sales figures for November to see if the CHOOSING SIDES mini gave it a bump. I doubt it. And it is a shame because it's an interesting, enjoyable book that is running with the concept that the WORST possible guy to inherit the monniker of Ant-Man has, and scoring points with it in an interweaving story that embraces the continuity of ENEMY OF THE STATE, which a lot of Marvel books seemed to ignore (Wolverine attacks half the MU, and the President, and maybe 5 people in other books noticed it. Disgusting). Chris is dead, Eric O'Grady is off exploiting his friend's death to score with his girlfriend Veronica (who he lied to and claimed Chris was cheating on), and Mitch is tapped by SHIELD to track the suit down under the behest of the devil herself, Maria Hill (at least by how most people write her, she's the devil; she spits at Mr. Fantastic for daring to have compassion for a POW and all that). Now,
Muze and I have discussed that this book has a neat concept but needs to avoid having Greg's "jerkback" routine backfire and make him loathable. His points were that many characters on TV and comics have shot to stardom by being irredeemable jerks; House on HOUSE is one example. And Greg does fit that quality, although I don't see him as irredeemable as simply being FAR less selfless and genuinely altruistic as many heroes do. Sure, he does "fight evil" and take down wife-beating husbands or muggers in dark alleys, but he also looks out for himself first, scoping out women in showers and using quite a few lures to try to bed Veronica. But yet I don't feel he is completely evil, and that Chris' death didn't have him feel genuinely bad. Again, if he was really evil he'd be out robbing banks, not punching out muggers to try to date women. But he is a bonafide scuzzball, no doubt about it. Just not a villian. Which is the mix the book needs. Like I said, Kirkman is turning the "legacy hero" angle on it's head, and it's a great concept for a franchise that hasn't had a solo in, what, 40 years? However, if it's debut issue couldn't even crack the Top 60, I doubt the book is lasting long. Enjoy it while it lasts. I know I will. Oh, and Hester's art rocks, as usual. Issues #3 and #4 are solicted but seeing past #6 is going to not be as likely if sales don't pick up or stabilize.
