About an average week in terms of quantity, with not one, but two Marvel titles that happen to ship two issues within a month! The cynic in me questions it, but the fan in me will enjoy it for the moment.
As always, full spoilers.
Dread's Bought/Thought for 5/20/09 (Part 1):
BRAVE AND THE BOLD #23: Not a joke or a hoax! I happened upon a preview of this at CBR and I figured, "wait a second; it is a Booster Gold story by Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund, the same creative team who has been involved in BOOSTER GOLD for ages. I bet it is like an 'extra' issue of BOOSTER GOLD, and is worth getting". I snagged my shop's only remaining copy left on the shelf, and I was proven right. Since I also read and enjoy BOOSTER GOLD, though, it was a nice surprise for once from the Big Two.
BRAVE AND THE BOLD I imagine is akin to DC's version of MARVEL TEAM-UP, only while MTU historically had heroes teaming up with Spider-Man, for DC it was Batman. The newest volume has seemed to fall back into general team-up territory, and much like newer stabs at MTU showed, the market really isn't hungry for decent quality if "pointless" superhero stories or team-up's. Which is a shame unto itself I guess. Word on the street was that when JMS signed his DC exclusive, they were going to stick him onto this book. Many though it daft; why saddle one of the few reliable A-List talent folks left in the biz and who was willing to hop FROM Marvel to DC, and not the other way around, with a title that usually sells outside the Top 95-105? While the theory that JMS could boost the book on name-power alone is a sound one, it wasn't one that usually panned out in reality; as Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch's run on FANTASTIC FOUR can attest; after a few boost months, it quickly has fallen back into about average FF numbers by about 10-12 issues in. This left DC to figure out where else to stick JMS, and left B&TB scrambling. It appears by the back page that JMS will handle a new stable of characters DC now has access to, like Doc Savage, for revisions.
None of this matters at all to this issue, though, which may as well be an issue of BOOSTER GOLD. It starts with a crisis at Rip Hunter's time-lab, in which Booster finds that Rip is gone, but trying to escape a battle in some alternate time zone. Booster and Skeets are barely able to save him, and Rip's taken a pounding; all he can mumble is, "Magog."
Magog is a character from KINGDOM COME that DC has set about inserting into their universe proper. To be fair to DiDio bashers, DC has toyed with this idea since the late 90's or so. Currently, though, there seems to be no demand for DC to start inserting more KC stuff into their continuity beyond for the hardcore and the editorial board, but as DC usually stands as editorial wish fulfillment fantasy theater, that's good enough. Apparently Magog has been plucked from his future/alternate future time to be a member of the JSA. Booster tries to return to the time that Rip was in, and is send to a war torn wasteland. Whether this is supposed to be Kansas after the Parasite battle in KINGDOM COME or just some other nuked city that Magog was a part of between panels is unknown. Rip yanks Booster back and claims he isn't ready for this level of time-mission, or of knowing the "fate" of many of his friends. Eager to see what Magog is up to, Skeets informs them of a hostage situation in the fictional Middle Eastern nation of Kahndaq. Wasn't this the nation that the Black Marvel stuff happened at in 52? It's been a while, DC.
Magog apparently is Cable with ram horms instead of a torso-sized gun. He's a tough talkin' bad ass who likes doing things his way or no way, and enjoys busting heads more than anything else. He's your typical "tough as nails 'military' style hero" who does bad ass things and makes the bad ass tough decisions. Literally pushing his way past the Kahndaq military forces outside the building, Magog enages the terrorists, who have taken children hostage and plan to blow everyone up with a "dead man switch" style bomb attached to their leader. Rather than truck out costumed terrorist types, Jurgens is keeping the villains rather realistic for the sort of terrorists one might encounter in the Middle East, allowing the fictional nation to work despite it being, well, fictional. Booster Gold and Skeets enter this fray, and set about making sure Magog doesn't get anyone killed. While Magog manages to pummel most of the terrorists and even disables the detonator by removing the arm of the head bad guy, Booster is forced to compensate for Magog's haste by taking out some rocket-men on the roof and ultimately saving two children who were left behind in the francas. Probably the best laugh was that one of the kids called Magog "goat man". Booster lectures Magog about responsibility (which is pretty ironic coming from Captain Cash-In himself, but shows how far he has come), while Magog grumbles the usual "bad ass military superhero" manta of being a man's man who does the hard, bloody, manly stuff, and anyone else is just a poof or collateral damage (in so many words). Really, in KINGDOM COME Busiek and Ross intended Magog to represent the late 80's - mid 90's "gritty" hero like Cable as an allegory to debunk why that wasn't what being a superhero should be, and he's still that way. I don't see the point of him, though, in inserting him into the mainstream proper, especially the version NOT at the end of KC who wanted to reform. But what do I know? I'm just a fair weather DC fan who would maybe buy more of their books if their agenda was more focused and competant, or wasn't busy telling anyone under 30 their their heroes don't matter.
Booster wants to take him down, but Rip stops him, claiming that while Magog MAY be a threat in the future, in the meantime he is destined to save some lives. Booster ends the issue vowing to take Magog down when the time comes. Hey, it would probably be more interesting than letting Superman do it again.
One could argue that heroes like Magog certainly have their place in mainstream. 80's action movie heroes are full of types just as stubborn and ruthless as Magog is, and some of this cliche remained for action films in the 90's and even a few nowadays, such as the TRANSPORTER or CRANK films. The question of course in having them clash with other heroes is to see which type is "best", and the answer is usually, "it depends". My philosophy is that a more reasonable hero may not be able to go "hardcore" until it is almost too late if at all, but when they do, they usually know when to stop. Types like Magog are usually too trigger happy to know that line.
Jurgens and Rapmund of course do great artwork together, and this worked not only as an extra issue of BOOSTER GOLD this month, but as a satisfying little story to show how far Booster has come, especially when ideologically clashing against "Horned Cable".
INVINCIBLE #62: The second part of the "CONQUEST" story (which led off issue #60's hellish "Invincible War") in which Invincible and the Viltrumite warrior Conquest punch each other across the city and into space for most of the book.
There's more to it than that, but...not much more. Out of 22 pages, maybe 15 of them are punching with barely a few lines in some panels here or there. It is a quick read. But, as Kirkman himself justifies in the letters pages, that shouldn't mean you feel cheated. He wanted Conquest to seem like an imposing villain, and to have a big action set-piece. 22 pages a month is too short a format for that sort of development sometimes; hence why Japan, which only has a far larger comic base than America does, never sells comics in such short fashion. I am a sucker for a good action sequence, and Round One of Mark vs. Conquest is pretty good, with some draw dropping angles and panels from Ryan Ottley. You could easily see it being animated, they are of such storyboard like quality.
Conquest as a villain so far is coming off a bit typical, but to be fair, he's the only named Viltrumite besides Anissa (and Nolan of course) who has stuck around for long, so it is forgiveable. He's a battle-hardened warrior with the scars and cyber-limb to prove it. While his official mission is to check on Mark's progress in controlling Earth for the empire, in truth he is glad that Mark has resisted, and only wants a good fight out of it. This is probably the first time Mark has really fought another Viltrumite since the Mantis World, and that was years ago (and alongside his father). True, there was Anissa, but she only gave him a few moves and didn't want to fight him at the time. She still hopes to "sway" him. Conquest, though, just enjoys the fighting, so they're both punching each other through buildings and even into space. Mark gives it his all, and while he delivers quite a few decent blows against Conquest, the gap in power is clear.
The situation also helps to show that while Oliver may be growing in power at a faster rate than Mark did at his age, he isn't quite on Mark's scale yet, and is little more than a nuisance to Conquest.
The fight is being televised, and it seems that Cecil isn't putting those dead alternate reality Invincibles to waste, having them converted into Reanimen. Invincible Reanimen? At any rate, a move that is both creepy and cold, but makes sense for Cecil. It may mean, though, that his tolerance for a "rogue" Invincible may only last as long as a few of his new cyborgs need to be up and running. Kirkman has bragged on his letters page that he has some "better" stuff cooked up on this book than stories in the past, leading up to The Viltrumite War around issue #70 or so next year. Sounds very cool, of course, as I still enjoyed this book even during some of the stories that Kirkman now claims were "coasting".
There is a part of me that expects Mark to be bailed out somehow at the end, but the rest of me wants to see him really prove himself and take Conquest down, against all odds, ROCKY style. To conquer the villain, if you will.
Colors are kick-ass, and the fight was pretty good. Not the longest read, but got me more psyched for issue #63, so it did it's job. Besides, I love and understand big battle sequences.
AGENTS OF ATLAS #5: Two issues of AGENTS OF ATLAS within a month! Not a myth or a imaginary tale! I would guess that it was helped by the fact that Henry & Hardman had been doing the art for the last two issues, thus giving Pagulayan another lead-in time to basically draw an entire issue. What is stated on the cover is exactly what you get, a showdown between the Agents of Atlas and the New Avengers. Billy Tan does the cover, which is probably the only thing I didn't like about the issue. It's not bad, but Tan's art sometimes seems a bit...generic or static. Not the worst of either kind, but not as popping.
The lovely Venus recaps the last issue in a song; you can sure tell that Jeff Parker puts his all into his work sometimes.
The Agents continue on their quest to undermine evil organizations from within, this time by posing as a legit criminal empire to forge an arms deal with Norman Osborn, which they are using to gain data against him for a future assault. In the meantime they seek to undermine him when possible. A chance encounter with Captain America (Bucky Barnes) last issue sped up their plan to "leak" info about the weapons deal to the New Avengers (or the "AWOL Avengers" as Grizzly's goon calls them at one point). Now the entire team are coming down to shut down the weapons factory before HAMMER gets them. The roster for the guest stint is Cap, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Ronin, and Ms. Marvel, because perhaps Jeff Parker figures if Bendis doesn't have to cope with the fact that Danvers is MIA and presumed dead, then neither does he. Iron Fist, it seems, has the night off (or is too busy in another dimension at IMMORTAL IRON FIST or something), and so does Spider-Woman. The Agents are handicapped as Bob Grayson is too pooped from all the psychic scans, and a very eager Temujin takes his place in battle.
As stated before, the premise of AoA is great. It's basically the same schtick that the Shroud used to have (posing as a criminal to undermine them from within, like an "undercover"), only Parker has handled it much more competantly, and has a quirkier and more historied cast of characters. The Shroud in some ways likely never recovered from being a thinly veiled rip off of The Shadow (and I actually liked Shroud). This not only allows AGENTS to be a more unique team book than many on the racks now, but gives them a much better reason to fight any superhero who guest stars in an issue than a lot of other books, which take "misunderstanding fights" for granted.
This issue also does something that neither Bendis nor seemingly any other writer has done with Spider-Man in at least three years; show him as part of the team who actually has a brain and experience. Most times Spidey is either the annoying wisecracking guy and/or is yammering about being overwhelmed every New Avenger adventure. Not here. The moment the team lands on the facility, he "senses" something amiss. After webbing up some goons (who Woo set up to be taken in, considering them "no hopers" criminals as some in Atlas would be), Spider-Man figures out that Osborn's guns are fake, and since his "spider-sense" isn't going off, the Agents mean the team no real harm. Imagine! Spider-Man acting like he's been a superhero for, oh, about 47 years! Once again, it seems the suckitude that usually is NEW AVENGERS has nothing to do with the roster, but how Bendis writes and executes with them. Ronin is still lame, though. Least Clint is using arrows again, but still, it's worse than Hank Pym. Pym is at least trying to honor his dead ex-wife by wearing her duds; what's Clint's excuse for donning Echo's?
Unfortunately, as it always seems to, Logan's past comes back to bite everyone in the bum. It also shows that the "back up" flashback stories aren't there for show, but serve as subplots. That 1950's adventure in Cuba with Logan, Woo, Hale, and M-11? Comes back to haunt everyone, as M-11 recognizes Wolverine's voice patterns and realizes that "agent Logan" back in the 50's has returned. Considering that Logan blew up M-11 back then to cover his escape from the then-CIA agents, the Human Robot seems to want a pound of flesh. Just as fast as Bucky can scream, "Avengers Attack!", the situation gets out of hand for them (but action packed fun for us). Namora vs. Ms. Marvel ends as you would expect once Namora gets some fresh sea-water on her, and M-11 ultimately gets his tin can kicked by Cage, albeit with an assist from Wolverine. The entire battle naturally ends when Venus starts singing, though, and while Woo and the gang may have gotten a few bruises, their cover is intact and Osborn didn't get his weapons, while also doesn't quite realize that Atlas aren't allies. Bob does tell Namora at the end, though, that the "cabal" that Osborn is working with includes her cousin, Namor.
Who, INCREDIBLE HERCULES fans know, she really wants to bone, royal incest style.
Remember those red triangles from the 50's stories? Yeah, they get used, too. Nothing in the book is for show, or wasted. Other writers would do well to imitate that.
Paglayan's art is pretty good throughout the issue, drawing some pretty exciting battle sequence panels and splash pages. The color & ink work are great, too. The sales so far? Good, but could improve. AGENTS OF ATLAS #3 sold over 29,700 copies according to the just-released April charts. While that isn't great, that actually is an improvement from issue #2, that sold just over 26k. Maybe that second print of issue #1, which boosted the debut to over 34k copies, helped. Or the variant cover. Either way, while AGENTS OF ATLAS isn't the best seller, it's outselling the 2005 mini by almost double per issue, and seems to be stabilizing fast. Remember, what doesn't kill books isn't just low sales, but sales that fail to bottom out. CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI-13 was selling about 17k and was still dropping before cancellation. Only SPIDER-GIRL was allowed to sell for long below 20k, and that got axed. The digests are what are keeping RUNAWAYS afloat (they're at 19k now, a series low).
Jeff Parker is proving that this has been his best property in terms of writing; the quality seems much better and rounded than his X-MEN FIRST CLASS stuff, which I also enjoyed. It is simply a unique and excellently written Marvel team comic capitalizing on the new status quo, and it's always a treat once, or even twice, a month.
Next: DARK REIGN: FANTASTIC FOUR #3, CAPTAIN AMERICA #50, FANTASTIC FOUR #566, & TERROR, INC.: APOCALYPSE SOON #2 (the other title that shipped twice this month).
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