Heh, my shop sold out of Captain America. Guess I'll have to wait to review that one.
52 Week 44
I'll be honest, my first impression was that I wasn't quite sure just
what I thought of this.
On the one hand, wow was this an awesome issue. The storyline is incredibly gripping, the villains were suitably creepy, and the emotions are raw as frak.
On the other hand, you can't really shake the feeling of cliche and "wait, that's it?" about all of this. A guy's family getting killed which sends him over the edge into questionable actions and outright villainy? That's...I mean, that's pretty routine. Did we really need awesome characters like Isis and Osiris to be introduced just for this? It feels so needlessly self-destructive. I had sort of hoped that Black Adam's personal journey through this entirety of 52 wouldn't just turn him into Magneto 2.0, and yet here we are.
There is also that point of DC being so DARK and GLOOMY and DEPRESSING and TRIGGER-HAPPY lately. I concede that there is a point to be made about the...explicitness...of these stories lately, and yet...okay yeah, 52 has been depressing at times, and angsty in others, and doesn't shy away in the least from using gratuitous violence and character deaths to get its points across. And y'know what, I'll still cheerfully take this over Captain America getting verbally pwned by a ****** and then riddled with holes on his way to court (damn, who in the Marvel universe
hasn't been shot going in or out of court?). All of the character deaths in 52 lately have been characters dying in heroic battle, fighting in protection of their home or loved ones against great evil. It's not necessarily uplifting, and it hardly makes the deaths very positive, and like I said it's certainly not all that original. But it's not
wrong. No one's going to write in DC offices going, "OMG! Isis is such a btch for dying to save her country!"
There's depressing, and then there's depressing. I've never been the type to get very depressed at character death if it is significant or makes sense in the context of the story. It's not something that I would deem a bad decision in itself, so long as it's carried with appropriately. Now, with that said...it's not as if I think DC should make a habit of killing off its characters (more of a habit than it has now, I mean), and there
is such a thing as too much, too cliche. There is such a thing as an inappropriate death. Less is more. I really hope this ends up being worth it. Being as how I'm incredibly excited for what happens next, I
really hope this ends up being worth it.
(8.1 out of 10)
Mighty Avengers #1
Or, Sir *****e and his *****ebags.
Kerrist, was there a lot of text in this issue. Made it so hard to speed-read it in the store
. How was it? Well, I guess we can all unlax a bit since, to my sort-of-surprise, this issue was pretty solid.
We get a one-by-one introduction to the team (in a single issue!) and most members get some nifty moments to shine. The banter between Carol and Tony was, ultimately, pretty good. It was, o ye gods, pretty much the
epitome of Talking Heads, but it made a modicum of sense and both characters were pretty good in character. "I'm pretty sure they [Hank and Janet] were what drove me to drink in the first place." Oh Tony. You're such a *****e.
I like they they don't actually like each other so much. I like that Carol may have been more attached to Cap than she thought and is a bit hesitant about Tony's direction here. And I like that Tony obviously
sees this and is intentionally giving her more props than he might actually think she deserves in order to placate her. It's
interesting. It gives the impression that Bendis actually put some genuine
thought into this, as opposed to...many other things he does.
And y'know, yes Bendis is writing Stark as a *****ey fascist, but he's writing him
consistently as a *****ey fascist. Everything he does, you can see a hint of the control-freak ready to pounce. Every line of dialogue out of Stark's lips, you can't
help but wonder if it's genuine or if it's got Ulterior Motive in bright red neon stamped all over. There's a bit of an primal, undeniable thrill in that. It is, ironically, the same sort of primal thrill one might get from reading about, say, Dr. Doom or Lex Luthor or other manipulative villains of that caliber. Yes, villains. Reading about Tony Stark right now is like reading about a villain. And y'know what? I don't mind that. I don't mind that so long as they're consistent about it and
honest about it. What I mind is for them to dress up his manipulativeness and control-freakiness as some sort of heroism or admirable trait.
That, I object to.
Not sure what I think of the thought-balloons...I might get used to them, given some time, but right now they're kinda jarring. While I wouldn't say this issue was phenomenal or exceeded my expections like crazy or changed my mind completely regarding Bendis' hacktitude or something, it is definitely a solid start.
(8.2 out of 10)
Justice League of America #6
Essentially, a big ol' action issue with a whole lot of prose. And boy do we get a lot of action. And prose. The League in action was awesome. Vixen's use of her powers was awesome. Tornado in action? Incredibly awesome.
Now that we've come to the end, however, I do have to question the structure of this whole arc. I mean, for all that I rag on Bendis' compressed storytelling, how can I really claim this as much different? It took six issues to fully assemble a team. The Big Three spend issues upon issues talking about how they feel and picking the roster for a team and then...eventually doesn't end up using much of that roster. Vixen flies around for a while and ends up here for a big cheap finish. The big threats of Solomon Grundy and Amazo were interesting, but c'mon...they're Solomon Grundy and Amazo. It took such a labyrinthine structure to get us here to this point, for the JLA to fight Solomon Grundy and Amazo? And...I'm still not quite sure how Hawkgirl ended up with us. I practically forgot she was still here until halfway through the issue.
Where Meltzer does shine is in the heart of the characters, of course. Okay, I'm not crazy about his Big Three dynamic, as it repeats too many of the past's "mistakes"...
Superman: "I'm a boy scout!"
Wonder Woman: "I'm a warrior!"
Batman: "I'm a dick!"
Yes, they are all those things, but they are
so much more, and that's really the point. While it'll take me a while to warm up to that, I really do like his take on the Canary/Arrow/Lantern team. Meltzer's dialogue between the trio is almost worth the price of admission alone. And Red Tornado? Reddy's personality is
palpable here. His story, unsurprisingly enough, is the one here with the most structure and most cohesiveness.
In conclusion, I am looking forward to more from Meltzer on this. I am, however, also hoping to see some improvements.
(8 out of 10)
(7.3 out of 10 for the whole arc)
Manhunter #29
It's interesting how people were constantly btching their mouths off about the "Diana Prince" identity, saying how dishonest it is for the spirit of truth to be hung up about a secret identity, and imo how Diana's acting in this series -- or at least this issue -- is far more harmfully dishonest. At least it feels that way to me.
So Wonder Woman's basically willing to lie outright both to her lawyer and in court because she doesn't want people to lose faith in Superman's inspiration. She thinks Superman stands for something great for the people to look up to and it would be far too much of a sacrifice to destroy that. What? So much for not underestimating the power of truth, I guess! So much for the power of truth being able to overcome all!
Doesn't she trust the public to make up its own mind for itself and not be mollycoddled from the big harsh facts? Superheroes get mind-controlled all the time! Didn't the entire JLA big mind-controlled big time in the past and it made big headlines? People seem to handle that just fine. A supervillain controlled Superman, and now the supervillain is defeated. Superman himself didn't do anything wrong.
Okay, on the other hand, I do understand that it's not as if she doesn't have a point -- in fact, she seems to be making
Clark's point instead of her own -- but shouldn't she perhaps have thought about all this "superheroes must be inspirational" stuff
before she snapped a man's neck? And now it's down to crunch time, and she's chickening out of revealing the truth to people because she thinks it'll destroy their false illusions about their idols? But...isn't destroying false illusions a
good thing? Who is
she to decide for
us whether or not we get to hear the truth?? In fact, who is
she to decide for
Superman whether or not they get to hear the truth about
him?
Come on, the woman has the wisdom of Athena. And this doesn't resemble wisdom in the least. What's more annoying is that this looks like it's going to be the thing that sets off Amazons Attack. Because of Wonder Woman's dishonesty. Yay.
Morever, for a superhero series nearly completely dedicated to talking about law and lawyers, I'm beginning to question just how much of the practical process of law Andreyko understands. Superman shows up on the judge's doorstep and gives evidence that completely turns the case upside down, and the judge says "I'm sorry, I wish I could do something but I can't, the jury is already deliberating"? She's the judge!! She could declare a mistrial at any point in the game, much less regarding evidence of this magnitude. "Oh, it turns out that the suspect didn't do it after all...but hey, the jury is deliberating already, let's just let them finish." Am I...missing something here?
Oh, incidentally, Ted Kord is [blackout]still dead. The guy impersonating him was Everyman, from 52[/blackout].
(6.5 out of 10)
The All-New Atom #9
Reasonably solid issue. What struck me as a bit weird is that at the end of the issue, I got the impression that we were supposed to see Jia as very shifty and questionable all this time while Ryan played the part of the naive ex-boyfriend who was too trustworthy for his own good...and yet, I didn't get that impression at all. When Ryan said at the end that in his heart he knew the truth about her, I was just...buh?
But still, giant floating alien heads are still awesome.
(8 out of 10)
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