Ultimate Guide to Cool

One-Line Reviews for Recent Titles

2013-02-28T20:52:00.000-08:00

AQUAMAN #17

Written by: Geoff Johns

Art by: Paul Pelletier and Art Thibert

Variant Cover by: Paul Pelletier, Art Thibert

Steadily, the New 52 DC Universe has carefully hedged its bets with Aquaman, a bad joke given good substance, and the results come through in the story by Geoff Johns and the beautiful care taken by Pelletier and Thibert.

8.5/10

ALL-STAR WESTERN #17

Written by: Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti

Art by: Moritat

Backup Art by: Staz Johnson

Cover by: Bill Sienkiewicz

The DC New 52 has given new life to the Jonah Hex franchise (and the western comic genre) with All-Star Western, but the real treat comes in the expansive unfolding of DC's old west universe, under a variety of talents.

8.5/10

BATMAN INCORPORATED #8

Written by: Grant Morrison

Art by: Chris Burnham

Though this issue moves at a break-neck speed, marking the death of Damian Wayne, Batman's sidekick/son, the scenario seems too contrived and falls flat, a rare bad note in Morrison's symphony, nonetheless beautifully rendered by Chris Burnham.

7/10

THE FLASH #17

Written by:

Francis Manapul

Brian Buccellato

Art by:

Francis Manapul

Since he reshaped the entire DC Universe by running really fast (again), Barry Allen has been having establishing shot adventures in his hometown, most recently concluded here in his battle against overly intelligent primates (again), but the stale material of pre-chewed storyline is competently handled by Manapul and Buccellato, while the art shows new potential in the formalities.

8/10

AVENGERS ARENA #5

Writer: Dennis Hopeless

Cover Artist: Dave Johnson

Artist: Kev Walker

The second-rate villain Arcade has redesigned Murderworld to thin out the Avengers Academy by forcing them into mortal battle with one another, which seems like a tired premise and would be if not for clever character development by Dennis Hopeless and near-perfect visuals by Dave Johnson.

9/10

UNCANNY AVENGERS #4

Writer: Rick Remender

Penciler: John Cassaday

Inker: John Cassaday

Colorists: Laura Martin and Larry Molinar

Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos

Editors: Tom Brevoort and Daniel Ketchum

The extension of the Red Skull's plot to pit humans against mutants presents the first major threat to the newly integrated team of Avengers that include Havok, Rogue, and the Scarlet Witch; the solid script by Remender and award-winning artwork by John Cassady make this book a high-quality treat.

9/10

UNCANNY X-MEN #2

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Penciler: Chris Bachalo

Cover Artist: Chris Bachalo

With the new relaunch of Uncanny X-Men, we see a disgraced and power-fragmented Cyclops attempting to assemble a school for wayward teen mutants in the hope of defending themselves against the various threats of humanity, given weight by Bendis and sculpted by Bachalo.

8.5/10

YOUNG AVENGERS #2

Writer: Kieron Gillen

Artists: Jamie Mckelvie with Mike Norton

Kieron Gillen delivers a no-frils superhero team comprised of a younger generation of interesting characters, and Jamie Mckelvie and Mike Norton are having a good time with narrative design, in terms of asethetics, making this a surprisingly impressive exercise.

8.5/10

DC's Green Lantern comics: Wrath of the First Lantern

2013-02-21T18:07:00.001-08:00

GREEN LANTERN #17

Written by:

Geoff Johns

Art by:

Doug Mahnke

Christian Alamy

Cover by:

Doug Mahnke

Mark Irwin

Variant Cover by:

Doug Mahnke

Many years ago, when Grant Morrison was writing a brief successful title for DC Comics called "JLA: Earth 2" the antimatter Green Lantern's ring said a word echoing from ages past and total obscurity, which has now emerged, center stage and super powerful. Volthoom, the First Lantern. It feels weird knowing that Hal Jordan is so very unsuccessful in his own title. He's practically dying to get back into it, since he and Sinestro found their way into the space between life and death that house the spirits of the Black Lantern Corps, well... here's the thing. Our "First Lantern" Volthoom is a psychotic cosmic sadist. Conceptually possessing the power of a god, the ability to tweak reality via different individual's "lifeline constellation" and feed on the emotional spectrum that it triggers within each character. This will no doubt as the series continues (alternating between each title until it exhausts itself with Volthoom's inevitable undoing via his own hubris/sacrifice of one for the many/etc.) be an opportunity for the characters proper timelines (since the reboot) to be explored. Doug Mahnke needs more awards for his work on this title. Geoff Johns would appear to be heading out (leaving the Green Lantern title soon) with a bang or two.

9/10

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #17

Written by:

Peter J. Tomasi

Art by:

Fernando Pasarin

Scott Hanna

Cover by:

Andy Kubert

Variant Cover by:

Andy Kubert

Guy Gardener has gone through enough phases by now that the human centipede 4D creature featured on the first major splash-page of this issue is more freaky in some ways than any other of the First Lantern's visits. This all calls to mind the spirit of Grant Morrison, who briefly touched the Green Lantern mythos (which has for so long been Geoff's baby) with Final Crisis, years ago, and also in the aforementioned Earth 2, which mentions Volthoom in passing (certainly other instances of this name arising have occurred, but with this run of the Green Lantern books we really get to see what he does). But specifically, the end of Morrison's fantastic series The Invisibles reaches a point at which the main character Dane acheives a heightened awareness of dimensional superstructures. This runs parallel to the power of Volthoom the First Lantern. With this particular issue of GL Corps, he feasts on the emotional spectrum (he prefers pain and despair) of the oddly effervescent Guy Gardner. It's worth noting that this veers into his brief time as a Red Lantern and focuses on the red herring of death and doom (in store for Jon Stewart next issue). Overall, a pretty decent issue. Fernando Pasarin has a quality to his detail-work that serves the wordy but worth-a-reread script by Peter J Tomasi. Story flow works, and this doesn't feel especially "tacked onto a crossover", which is the risk run with such events.

8/10

GREEN LANTERN: NEW GUARDIANS #17

Written by:

Tony Bedard

Art by:

Aaron Kuder

Cover by:

Aaron Kuder

Variant Cover by:

Aaron Kuder

In the constellation of titles that compose the Green Lantern sector of the DC Multiverse, it is Green Lantern: New Guardians that tips the hand of the editors in terms of their long-term plans. Aaron Kuder's art is fantastic and fractured, and Tony Bedard clips the back-and-forth between Kyle and the First Lantern into something more natural than the concurrent GL Corps and also more intriguing. Since the reformat of the DC New 52, Kyle Rayner has been removed from the planet at large (barring a brief crossover with Blue Beetle, R.I.P.) and spends a good deal of his time galavanting about the galaxy willy-nilly or dealing with Artificial Solar Systems or the Rainbow Brigade of Emotion he's been gathering up and helping to develop a back-story/character(pointing to the title without explicitly labeling the group as such). Volthoom seems to have more trouble with Kyle than the other characters he's been poking with a sharp stick. Certainly this will all lead somewhere. Probably a near-miss on cosmic extinction and a heroic sacrifice. And probably new guardians. The old ones rotted through.

8.5/10

On the Nature of the Industry: Free Association.

2013-01-03T20:42:00.001-08:00

Where Mutantkind's Utopia has produced a GMO seed to wipe out world hunger, you can bet Monsanto's watching.

Remember, Comic Books are Big Money now.

It's gotten to the point that it's lazy to even allude to the tag line ("Comics are not for kids anymore") so frequently and freely repeated as an introduction by lazy journalists over the years for their hum-drum research of the new mature themes expressed by the once-chemically-castrated medium. It's an industry joke to just say comics aren't for kids. When were they last for kids? Unless you're talking baby goats, there are no more kids. The Internet is raising this new batch as the Television raised those of us born into the ad-blasted 80's, and none of them are children. Even the simple reference parenthetical presented here is simply to conjure the final nail in its coffin, on a tapestry of blog blubber.

Nobody gets to use that term which shall not be repeated. Anymore. Ever.

Your average mainstream comic book is for two kinds of people. Teenage boys and people with the same interests as teenage boys (read: nerd culture expressed in 10,000 neon Pokemon balls of media, much of it becoming interactive in a new way, most meeting the aesthetics ranges expected from medium to major overweight/out-of-shape/ malformed/ mutated service industry hopefuls). This is exemplified in the minute variance of theme available (many notable exceptions notwithstanding) in mainstream comic book media. These are stories that most often struggle with the idea of the Hero's Journey, attempting to subvert or integrate it through the use of panels and script.

Heroes are heroes, but the Big Two share a copyright on "superhero" so that is, for the most part, what they have made a point of presenting over the century or so since the medium was first developed in a Yiddish fever dream, and these garish supergods spilled from our third eyes and onto our experiments in the second dimension, where the ink still boils... but the concept of superheroes is off-limits, technically. If labeling a superhuman creatively,you generally have free reign to call them metas. Or mutates. Mutants has the X connotations, another trademark alley exchange. Superhuman is itself an adjective, it is the act of being super in your heroics that everything breaks down. Superheroes, Heaven forbid anyone get hold of that outside of the rigid patriarchal monotone conditioning of a company in the tender clutches of a media conglomorate.

You'd think it'd get tiring after a while, but comic books draw from and speak to something primal in our psyche and by extension culture and society that no other medium does with quite the same smirk in your mind's eye. As Grant Morrison noted in an interview with the Onion A.V. Club, the combination of text and image on a page presented in a sequential format creates a hologram in the mind of the reader.

When one reads a comic book, as much as if not more than in the instance of a standard novel, there is a creation of voice and noise where there seems to be only silence, but moreover there is a sense of image and movement that cannot be replicated in any medium, something to do with a thing McCloud called "the gutter". Moore has a great deal to say on the topic as well, in The Mindscape of Alan Moore, but we don't have five hours here to get into the intricacies of that (for now). Let's look at the history first, being mindful that comic books are a wholly unique medium that stand apart and in several cases above all other media, in terms of human collaboration, internal exploration, and general aesthetics.

It's due to the auspices of panicky McCarthyism that the mainstream superheroes we're just now coming to terms with in Megaplex Excursions were born. Developed in this Era of Cold Warriors, the Comics Code Authority was like a vice-grip on the balls of creativity, for the "sake of the children", which immediately infantilized the medium as a whole. A sense of surreality in culture was expressed in the acid-washed sixties of loose hook-ups and rainbows of irony and nostalgic sadness. Nobody even considered what it meant to be Captain America, goodhearted weakling turned Imperialist Liberator, or Superman, the Overman come to life in bold primary colors.

Here we have an industry with its roots tangled tightly around brightly-lit lurid spandex creatures bred by men of subnormal intelligence, who were underpaid for their futile efforts, vilified at dinner parties, ripped off and bound in a rinky-dink contract that hardly provided for enduring legacy... These are the roots of the current standard of mainstream comics, and though considerable strides have been made this has marked the industry in toto. The current standard? You better be able to write for mainstream television if you write for comics. You don't need to even graduate from high school, though. You better be able to get along with other writers. As an artist, it is really spectacular if you are from another country. Overseas. South America if at all possible. It's also an industry to be flexible in. And careful. The Internet will immortalize your failures and your accomplishments side by side, with robots in the comment section arguing about something irrelevant.

We're past all that now, or so we'd like to think. We have stronger female role models within the story. Women do read comics. A great number of adults read comics and enjoy them on a regular enough basis. THEY TAKE TIME OUT OF THEIR DAY TO SIT AND ENJOY THE MAGIC OF WORDS AND IMAGES COMBINING. Mainstream Comics today are infinitely adaptable while remaining rigid within the Status Quo, insofar as they can resurrect their own characters to fit any storyline (or clone them, or rewrite history itself to nullify marriage contracts, in order to avoid the messy and potentially controversial issues that on occasion come up in the editorial bullpens). In this manner comics become an infinite game, and suffer from the drawbacks as such. So long as collaborators exist to produce them, they will be created regardless of their content, so a fair portion can be considered deadline pap, at best. This is all tangential to the real point. Comics are Big Money, now.

Since Disney bought Marvel, you'd better believe that making that business investment palatable is a number one priority, but there is also likely a sense of freedom in some manners that have allowed for an interesting progression for different camps, those writers with enough clout in the Marvel pits to have played musical chairs, to some success and some "we'll see". Bendis can still draw everyone into an Ultron Soup.

And in the meantime, the rise and fall of DC Comics has come and gone. A new Universe with a new set of rules, for the fifth time or more, COIE the only standard for the limitless reboot, conceived by the continuity conscious Alan Moore then retooled as the means to explain how octogenarian superheroes can be translated into the rough trade of the Megamillions post-Star Wars Money Cage.

In the end, we'll see the law of diminishing returns at times, but the pendulum always swings the other way in the end. Comics will mature as a medium while somehow maintaining a bond with the vox populi by virtue of its aforementioned ingratiating nature. Comics cure an itch in the mind of many, and all the results, fair or foul, are reflected back into the medium immediately. Reflexive containment of a conceptual structure. Word bubbles and snapshots of moments in memory. Let's take it as seriously as we are able, and laugh where it is appropriate.

Even money says this goes down in history as the single grossest Joker scene of all time. Thanks.

New Releases from Marvel (+Now!)

2012-11-23T13:30:00.000-08:00

Every True Spidey-Fan in the country knows what's up with this image. Do you?

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #698
Writer: Dan Slott
Penciler: Richard Elson
Colourist: Antonia Fabela
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Stephen Wacker

There's a certain air of gravitas surrounding the only title left standing at the three digit mark at Marvel, and it couldn't be in better hands than the brilliant Dan Slott and the fluid Richard Elson.

A little-known aspect of geekdom that some casual purveyors, high-minded critics, and snobbish dilettantes rarely find pleasure in is the purchase and reading of a new comic book, serialized and standardized for our consumption, and then immediately re-reading it.

This is in fact the unstated goal of any comic book writer and indeed the artist as well, but along different lines. A comic book writer wants you to come back to the story with a fresh pair of eyes after the big reveal several issues into an arc. Old dialogue (and even the character's internal monologue) works differently with the new parcels of information presented, a bit down the line, twisting or turning meaning, while huge chunks of storyline form in increments, serialized as they are, episodic as they can be.

With this issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Dan Slott has achieved this effect in the cleverest way possible. After following the story with a wary eye since the refreshingly easy taste of Slott's cleverness with Spider Island, and the too-even assembly of Doc Ock's global frying master plan thwarted (or so it seemed), this reviewer found himself re-reading this and every issue since that latter arc in a frenzy of double-meanings and undertones and foreshadowing. Nothing is forced. Nothing is actually conveyed as trite, even when going through well-worn territory (read: recent Hobgoblin story). With this issue, and indeed, his entire arachnid-based oeuvre, Dan Slott has proven to be one of the absolute finest Spider-Man writers of all time. Do readers agree? The issue's already in its second printing, if that's any indication.

10/10

That's right. Iron Man is showing up with a jet crate full of champagne, loose women, and nukes.

IRON MAN #2

Artist: Greg Land

Writer: Kieron Gillen

Let's face it. Tony Stark is a prick.

With the fifth reboot/relaunch/volume of the Iron Man comic, we find that primary concerns of Mr. Stark include a: his attempts at altruism and atonement for being a de facto weapon-supplier being cooked up by friendemies into hubris-flavored crow, b: he's very very cool looking when he's drawn by Kieron Gillen, and c: corporate piracy and take-overs are a threat to any good superhero CEO.

Certainly, the inner monologues are snappy, and the tech is high-grade. There's some cockiness to the manner of presentation, and stiffness in certain scenes, but we can chalk that up to first-day jitters. However, there is an underwhelming sense of drive here. Sure, Pepper Potts is pissed that she can't be ... I'm looking for a "p" word here... paid? Rescue? Matt Fraction drew out the last issues of Iron Man into an entirely-too-large spectacle, which while pretty and making all the right buzzes and clicks, didn't feel any more substantial by the end than this iteration of the series does at its outset.

Naturally, with the oncoming blowback towards corporate overlords of America, even now bickering to get the middle class to blame the poor for their own inept malfeasance, we can expect perhaps a message from Tony Stark at some point in the future (infuriating super-rich prick that he is) to all of his fans. Something unbelievable clever and simultaneously hollow that amounts to "Hey, I'm not a bad guy, I'm just a white male power noble fantasy mixed with high-tech knight moral code. I'm the billionaire that sleeps with all the women you'll never get. Don't hate me because I'm better than you. I do good things."

Sales for this title can be expected to pick up once the next movie comes out.

7.5/10

Sometimes you have to wonder why robots would want murals depicting their annihilation of all mankind.

X-TREME X-MEN #6

Cover Artist: Kalman Andrasofszky

Writer: Greg Pak

Penciler: Stephen Segovia

Inker: Stephen Segovia

Remember back when Marvel was the "House of Ideas"?

Remember the classic and not-so-classic run of "What If?" and "What the...?" and then later "Exiles"?

X-Treme X-Men delivers the essence of all that in a "steampunk alternate reality heroes joining forces to stop evil Charles Xaviers throughout the multiverse" package. It's fun. It's functionally one of the most fun comic books being released in stores today, and for some reason simultaneously the most "out of the loop" in the entire company's universe. X-Treme X-Men is like that cool cousin you only see at family reunions that has a crazy mother (your aunt, Astonishing X-men), but they used to be really geeky and stupid (Claremont's original X-Treme X-Men). Now they've got a special oomph to them, though. They'd be a black sheep if your family even cared enough to notice them.

X-Treme X-Men isn't a guilty pleasure, that's insulting. It's an anomaly, a set-up for early cancellation (think Firefly), by virtue of how quirky and good it is. But each issue is packed with snappy and interesting story, the art always somehow perfectly fits the quirky appeal of the story, and it flows well. Overall, a real treat. Greg Pak deserves some Offbeat Title of the Year award, truth be told, and in this issue Stephen Segovia's jagged style moves like an angel with dirty wings.

8/10

Admit it. You've always secretly wanted to set an elephant on fire with Ben Franklin's ghost.

DEADPOOL #2: "WE FOUGHT A ZOO"

Cover Artist: Geof Darrow

Writers: Brian Posehn, Gerry Duggan

Penciler: Tony Moore

Colourist: Val Staples

Letterer: Joe Sabino

Editor: Jordan D. White

There are two reasons you're buying this comic, really. One, you know who Brian Posehn is, or you were at the comic book shop and you noticed Geoff Darrow's talented muckety muck all over the cover.

You're not buying this comic because you love Deadpool, so don't pretend otherwise. Deadpool's readers, myself among them, have been jerked around by this schizophrenic suicidal burn victim merc with a mouth for well over a year in the series before the Marvel NOW! revamp/rerun. It's time for change, to borrow a line from the President of the United whatsit.

Brian Posehn loves comics, but the biggest worry one has about a comedian writing a comic book is (oddly) that sometimes that just doesn't work. We saw Kevin Smith flounder and flub Green Arrow and Daredevil (they called those "a tad talky" back in the day), and we've seen Gilbert Godfrey screw up that time he wrote an issue of The Punisher (lie), but almost immediately in this arc of the series we are introduced to all the elements necessary to expect a good run out of this comic, plus a sassy fat black lady that works for SHIELD (who enlists Deadpool in a "hurry up and get to the hi jinks" heated moment to stop resurrected dead American history figures).

The real test and payoff for this series is still a few issues away, but for now, the quips are fresh, the plot moves along at a steady pace, and Tony Moore's art honestly exudes how much fun he's having with it. When everybody stops laughing for a moment to catch their breath, we'll see if the stitch in our side is from all the laughs or inoperable lung cancer.

8.5/10

There are currently 9,876 dimensions overlapping with Marvel 616. Next stop? Jersey City. It always ends up like this.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #1: "Castaway in Dimension Z"

Artist: John Romita Jr.

Writer: Rick Remender

We start this issue out with a flashback to a young Steven Rogers witnessing his father beating his mother, who not only stands her ground but teaches the future Captain America a lesson he'll carry deep into the future. This gives Rick Remender's skills as a master of efficiency in scene dynamics a chance to shine. It also gives John Romita Jr. a chance to draw a bruised-up puffy face, his wheelhouse.

In all seriousness, this issue of Captain America proves Rick Remender has the stones to run with the big dogs, as if there was ever any real doubt. He goes through the checklist of perfect set-ups to establish character while paying homage to the arcs immediately preceding this one. Sharon Jones and Captain America's relationship, taken out and hung up on the wall for everyone to mull over. Zola and Dimension Z, hearkening to the first shows of promise Remender provided in the old days of Fear Agent.

All the elements are present and everything is accounted for. John Romita Jr. is practically a seal of approval for writers at Marvel, at this point. He's familiar enough with the histrionics of the medium to convey everything more efficiently than he once did, and perhaps Rick Remender pushes that a bit with the script.

In all honesty, this reviewer has not bought a Captain America comic book since 1995, when Mark Waid and Ron Garney involved themselves in much the same tones as can be seen here, in the old star-spangled super soldier. For Remender and Romita, there will be an exception made, for however long it takes.

9.5/10

Would you attend a Power Point presentation put on by Bruce Banner? If the projector breaks we're screwed.

INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK #1

Artist: Leinil Yu

Writer: Mark Waid

Speaking of Mark Waid, bless his soul for taking on this particular project, after the various Hulk fracases of previous years inevitably sizzled back into status quo territory (as they always do, no matter how many different colored Hulks are actually produced, how many edges to Banner's psyche are explored, whatever)...

The difficulty, of course, comes with the fact that besides being a force of nature in purple pants when he goes green, Banner is a scientist, and he is overshadowed by Tony Stark and Reed Richards, and heck, even Peter Parker's got a job at Horizon Labs these days. Waid pulls this to the forefront almost immediately, and then moves in with that SHIELD edge, now involving the inevitable Maria Hill interview.

After years of working on the series Irredeemable (and seeing it all the way to its natural and satisfactory conclusion) it's good to see Waid returning to the mainstream and one-upping any misconceptions about his status as Silver Age Standard. With Leinil Yu as ever giving us cinematic expression with each panel, the major thrust of the new Indestructible Hulk is rather straightforward, but opens up to great realms of potential.

If everyone involved wasn't already vetted, this reviewer would be concerned about the status quo creeping back in, or worse, the botched attempt at revamping the status quo, then the mangled attempt at un-botching the revamp, then throwing the whole thing out the window and trying to multiply to solve the problem, then trying to divide it, subtract it, and add it again. I have just summed up nearly a decade of the various Hulk series up to this point. If anyone is capable of taking down that mess and putting it back to work right, dividing by zero, practically squaring the circle, it's Mark Waid. Godspeed, I say.

8/10

Comic Book Reviews for Recent DC Releases

2012-11-23T13:04:00.001-08:00

"Yeah, can we just try to drive home the point that Aquaman's a total bad-ass every chance we can? Great. Thanks."

JUSTICE LEAGUE #14

Written by:

Geoff Johns

Art by:

Tony S. Daniel

Richard Friend

Backup Art by:

Gary Frank

Cover by:

Tony S. Daniel

Richard Friend

Have fans had enough shenanigans to last a lifetime with this hacked-together driftwood that DC is producing with recent issues of Justice League? You know you're in trouble when your main event story arc is so waif-like it feels like it's being bullied by the backup story with Shazam! (which for some reason makes one think there are sick times in store for the beleaguered Billy Batson). The art, as ever, is pretty in a refined sugar kind of way.

Honestly, there isn't much to say for the story of the Justice League up to this point. Stuff is happening, sure, but there's rarely any extension of tension in the content. The whole thing feels forced like absolutely nothing else Geoff Johns has ever written, and much like the Star Wars prequels, these issues cannot be undone. They're canon now, we can only move on. It feels like Johns is removed even further from his comfort zone with the (temporary) removal of Hal Jordan from the team, and the focus on a (forced forced forced forced) relationship between Wonder Woman and Superman felt like it lacked the passion it might have had with, say, years of actual build-up, as it has been rumbling in the background of the main arc for a minute now. But the final page/panel of this issue is the greatest and most frustrating tease of all, as it seems to imply that something has been going on under the surface of these hollow automaton pose-a-thon caricatures the entire time.

But that's just a tease, maybe. Nothing to see here yet, kids, move along.

6.5/10

What is this goofy mess? Superman looks, like, twelve years old. Heck, Jason Todd has more crow's feet than him.

RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #14

Written by:

Scott Lobdell

Art by:

Pascal Alixe

Cover by:

Kenneth Rocafort

A genuinely guilty pleasure of this reviewer is the smart and slick surprise sleeper, Red Hood and the Outlaws. Whether taking on Obese Asian Mob Mistresses, fighting smoke ninjas, or taking on alien menaces, the jumping bean of the major arcs in this series seems to lead us into a nostalgic singalong. With Starfire (amnesiac nymphomaniac alien princess) and Arsenal (that, um, goofy bro with the trick arrows and a big mouth) backing up Jason Todd (Robin II, aka Red Hood, aka dead man walking) in his misadventures, there's no way to successfully summarize the main thrust or moral to this comic book. And it wouldn't work any other way. That... and Pascal Alixe's art could make anything look cool.

Red Hood and the Outlaws succeeds where many other titles along the same vein or corner of the DC New 52 essentially fail. The failure of Teen Titans, or The Ravagers, or whatever other mess being spawned by Image-hacks of Christmas Past, is that the overarching plot crushes any real chance at characterization, which in turn kills investment in the overarching plot. Instead of fleshed-out dialogue and events, flattened stick-puppets in flashy costumes react verbosely again and again to some (likely misunderstood) villain with nigh-infinite powers and an endless array of schemes within plots within schemes, amounting to bupkiss, since nobody involved is easy to access or relate to.

In Red Hood and the Outlaws, we're put in third person limited omniscient perspective with essentially a cast of three characters, and each character's motivations are explored alongside the demons and angels of their personal backstories that inevitably pop up.

With this issue, Superman shows up and the standard superhero slugfest ensues. Except it doesn't feel forced or stupid. Scott Lobdell has grown increasingly comfortable with this comic, as evidenced by the spunky manner in which he chooses to approach it. It's not stale, it's not automatically painful, and where it lags, Pascal's art kicks in and distracts. Well played, overall, and consistent with what it promises.

8/10

You know you're in trouble when the slobbering alien starts firing yellow dwarfs at you.

GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #14

Written by:

Tony Bedard

Art by:

Aaron Kuder

Cover by:

Aaron Kuder

Variant Cover by:

Aaron Kuder

Good old Kyle Rayner. More approachable than any other Green Lantern in the sector, and possibly the savior of the entire universe, soon enough. For some reason I have a soft spot for Green Lantern: New Guardians. It's quirky and moves at a brisk pace, exploring the potential for cosmic DCU done right. The art is consistent and quiet at times, then dazzles with the technological wonders of computer content playing with the chromatic content generated in the Green Lantern sector of the DCU New 52. It feels less forced than some titles and characters, you aren't forced to jettison decades of hard-won memories in the nostalgia fields just to enjoy the actions taking place. Characters are explored, up-sized, fleshed-out, and turned around each issue, and the cast of characters is such that the protagonist of any story might be explored tangentially to the overarching plot, namely the Guardians of the Universe are evil as hell and have raised a Third Army, rendered Hal Jordan and Sinestro moot, and are even now finding new ways to make readers hate them every issue. It's all building up to something big, and the spine of that mega-event is New Guardians. Expect its spotlight to brighten soon.

8.5/10

The classic "Fat Mobster type strikes a deal with a Demon", you know, the usual. No bigs.

DC COMICS PRESENTS #14: Blue Devil & Black Lightning

Written by:

Marc Andreyko

Art by:

Robson Rocha

Cover by:

Ryan Sook

It's nice that DC has seen fit to use DC Comics Presents as a testing ground for all the characters that don't get their own continuous series. Black Lightning had an interesting investment in the Final Crisis storyline of universes gone past, and Blue Devil found himself in the breakroom of the Justice League Headquarters not a few times over the years. Now the two of them team up to stop a demon and his soul-trafficking mobster with a skin condition and a glandular problem. Overall the art gets kitschy when everything slows down, but in certain pages the kinetics of it give the action an enhancement. Not a bad story, but by the numbers with just enough developments to keep a reader reading. Maybe.

7.5/10

Joker's back. And he's playing mind games with Catwoman to an absolutely ridiculous extent.

CATWOMAN #14

Written by:

Ann Nocenti

Art by:

Rafael Sandoval

Jordi Tarrogona

Cover by:

Trevor McCarthy

This issue of Catwoman is aggravating, due to its ties to the current crossover in Bat-titles "Death in the Family"... yet compelling in its own right. This particular issue goes with the new format of all Batman related titles, namely "Let's all have a heart-to-heart with the Joker", better known as "Death of the Family", wherein the Joker, having had his face surgically removed off-camera, somehow develops superhuman-like powers, not unlike Wolverine, where he can simultaneously be everywhere at once and at the same time develop elaborate death traps, break the neck of every policeman in a station save one, kidnap Alfred, recreate every single action he'd ever made up until this time and monologue until you want to claw his face back off. Here he continues with his amazing new Joker powers by conning Catwoman into paralyzing herself and get a bunch of bat-symbols all over her. Nothing really feels like it's heading anywhere, and by the time we get to our stop on this ride, we may have already fallen asleep. Catwoman started fresh and still has a bit of that in it, but not for quirky cross-overs that feel like "talkies".

7/10

All the overlapping conversations of 100 Bullets are finally revealed in Wonder Woman, for some reason.

WONDER WOMAN #14

Written by:

Brian Azzarello

Art by:

Tony Akins

Dan Green

Cover by:

Cliff Chiang

Variant Cover by:

Cliff Chiang

Brian Azzarello is doing a good job with Wonder Woman and retooling the mythology of her new place in the DC Universe. The overall reverence for the gods and goddesses, fitting, one would suppose, is the circulatory system that makes this book function. Gone are all the mismatched peculiarities and baggage of the previous volumes, now at least her motives are clear and present. The interactions with all the offshoots of deity and godlings and established scions has been ongoing since this series began, and it seems to sit in its own remote location in the DCU New 52, far away from continuities that would muss it up. This is positive, for the time being, allowing Azzarello to enrich Diana in the manner in which she deserves. Where the Justice League's Wonder Woman feels more teeth-gritting and over-archetyped, the Wonder Woman in her own title is more regal in her bearing, fearless but not beligerrant, and overall inhabiting both her godly namesake and another thing entirely, a far cry from when she was a gimmicky drama queen or a murderous misandrist.

9/10

Final Assessment of Avengers vs. X-Men

2012-10-17T21:55:00.004-07:00

Spoilers ahead.

"I love him. And I love you. I love all of you." : The words that killed Charles Xavier.

Over the past twelve months, we cut our teeth on the critical quagmire with Avengers vs. X-Men, the latest in a tried and true Marvel tradition of hyped mega-crossovers. AvX culminated just a short time ago in a number of transforming departures for the Marvel stable of stories, transitioning now into the much-ballyhooed Marvel NOW launch. The players, for their parts, all played them with a certain aplomb. Five Marvel Architects getting together to try to get at something big. The other fifteen to twenty-someodd people working on the project did their best.

At the end of the day, though, all they've really and surely done is kill the only man in the Marvel Universe that truly believed in peaceful solutions as a means of resolving conflict. A character shunned for years, rendered impotent by unimaginative writing, and never given the proper hero treatment he deserved, under any editorial establishment.

They killed him and a skull-faced Nazi ripped out his brain and now the entire Marvel Bullpen will take turns defecating into the exposed cavity in is skull. For YEARS.

This is the Final Assessment of Avengers vs. X-Men.

When you need to insert Yin Yang into your exposition, go big or go home, right?...

So maybe you already know, and possibly you didn't, that years and years ago the Scarlet Witch, insane reality warping redheaded mutant daughter of Magneto, whispered three words that wiped out the bulk of the mutant population on the planet. Far from the measured response one might expect, the resulting mess of years where various teams and heroes vied for relevancy in a universe of unstable molecule costumes of all shades and sizes.

The saga of Xavier had been expressed and tinkered with for years, but with the events of House of M and well beyond, the Marvel credo has been to remove him from the picture. His influence over Cyclops waning, time showed the establishment of Magneto's Asteroid M in the San Francisco Bay as the creation of mutant sanctuary Utopia. This and other dramatic actions leaning towards militancy has often led fans of the series in its 90's heyday (Blue and Gold teams! The first ongoing cartoon!) or well before that to cry foul. It stands to reason that Scott Summers receiving of the Phoenix Force was the culmination of his editorially-driven transformation from Lawful Good Lackey to Lawful Neutral Bastard to Chaotic Evil Douchebag (read: Dark Phoenixclops).

This transformation has been intended to add weight to a myopic twit that many a fan has resented over the decades, and no doubt many a writer has wrestled with making interesting. This transformation was gradual, then in sharp turns sudden. This is the only means by which the militancy bred into a character like Cyclops, having a damaging beam of red blasting unbidden from his eyes did not make him a character of easy benevolence like Charles Xavier. Scott Summers was tortured, mentally, wound so tight he could snap any minute, even without the tacked-on Mister Sinister plot.

This may seem a digression, but it is set here to assess what could have possibly driven the character to his actions in the final stages of Avengers vs. X-Men, distorting and ultimately destroying a character decades in the making, even less capable of redemption that Speedball in Civil War.

Anyone else getting a Cassandra Nova vibe off of Chuck in this scene? Also, note the setting sun. Symbolism, son.

When one of your lead heroes is a soldier with an American Flag incorporated into his costume design, it stands to reason that you'd be a tad militant in your procedures as a comic book company, at least in terms of story if not political allegiance. Superhero slugfests are standard practice, a tried and true trope that makes itself relevant or irrlevant in terms of plot structure, but in the mainstream gains precedent more often than not.

The ultimate paradox of Charles Xavier has always been his Danger Room scenarios, his training of his pupils in the martial arts, which as it turns out was dastardly in more than one way (the Danger Room achieved sentience at one point, a secret Charles kept from everyone until Joss Whedon coaxed it out of him). It set his students always at the edge, prepared for violence in a violent world.

The militancy of the Marvel Universe as a whole is in fact best represented in the "Ultimate Universe", where a caricatured representation of George W. Bush welcomes a recently thawed Steve Rogers to the American Military of 2003. With his help the United States "wins hearts and minds" in Middle Eastern conflicts and occupations, eventually resulting in some blowback: the inevitable superhuman arms race.

In the standard Marvel Universe of today all conspiracies steer clear of actually implicating any corporate or military structure of being inherently questionable, merely villain-ridden. Roxxon? Just a bad CEO. The next one will be okay. A.I.M.? Hire them on as consultants but make them take off those helmets, and boom, they're no longer terrorists. S.H.I.E.L.D. as an entity curtailing human rights? Nah, just superhuman. We do have the occasional revelation, such as the one to Wolverine that Nitro was paid off by the CEO of Damage Control to explode next to a school full of children. War is a constant in the Marvel 616 Universe. Villain against hero, hero against hero, everyone has had a turn with everyone else. Grant Morrison once planted an interesting seed of an idea to account for it. The mass sentient bacterial infection of superheroes and supervillains by the ancient archigenator Sublime, which forces the heroes and villains to such extremes of hyperbolic action(slugfests)... When you see your fifteenth hero vs. hero a la Civil War scenario play out in the 616 Universe, you have to wonder if he wasn't on to something there.

Roughly 85% of the final scenes in Avengers vs. X-Men are people standing around .

So, once the idea of a peaceful mutant-driven Utopia was dashed with the impetuous attack by Namor on the kingdom of Wakanda (Black Panther's fictional and apparently coastal African country), and as the numbers of Phoenix Force recipients are dwindling down to two (since Spider-Man taunted brother Colossus and sister Magik into cancelling each other out), Emma Frost and Scott Summers are basking in fire and doubting one another's intentions.

There can be only one, and all that mess.

With these rumblings, all the loyal lackeys to the Phoenix Five (most New Mutants and associated mutant Utopian inhabitants outside of the students attending the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning) turn to Professor X, who has stood by the side of the Avengers since his impartial ending of a battle with a gesture.

And of course, he guides them to Scott, to confront the Phoenix that has corrupted him utterly.

And Scott, like the petulant child that he is, kills Professor Xavier, the purveyor of peace and benefactor of all mutantdom, stone dead. The Death of Charles Xavier is told in a whole page, silent as the grave.

Place your bets now. How long before it turns out he isn't actually dead? Generally ranges from 4 months to 10 years.

Then he goes Dark Phoenix, and we have the standard cliffhanger for issue #11.

To this any well-established reader will say "Whatever."

You can rest assured, when a person in a Marvel Comic says "NOW AND FOREVER, I AM [Insert Cosmic Marvel Universe Force Here]!" that they will be summarily stripped of that power and all actions they take will be retroactively revoked in the following issue (sometimes two, tops). This was displayed aggressively in Matt Fraction's exercise with generating Thor buzz (Fear Itself) and to some extent with Mark Millar's "Civil War" (which, to be fair, did actually alter the landscape of many titles for some time, towards and unquestioning loyalty to or churlish rebellion against an administration regulating super-heroics but simultaneously set the tone for these expectations-raised hopes-dashed "hero vs. hero" storylines so frequent with yearly Marvel mega-crossovers). To that end, the endless parades and fashions of resurrection are so entrenched in the system of Marvel that we can and should suspect that despite everything we have not seen the end of Charles Xavier, let alone the Phoenix.

The battle rages among exploding volcanoes and fiery Phoenixstuff. Somehow the heroes reach remote corners of the globe for one-panel shots of their attempts to stop the destruction. And bladda-blidda-boo. Superhero slugfest. You know it's a big deal if Hulk's there.

Yes yes, very good wrath.

You might ask yourself why Charles Xavier had to die. Outside of the spontaneous appeal of murdering a fairly well recognized character, it gives us something to do with what appears to be a frustratingly noble character who has had all manners of treatment from various writers to make him "interesting"... he was crippled by the Shadow King early on, then a mimic of him died when the mansion exploded the first time (and it was intended to keep him dead, even that early in the game, when the Marvel Universe experienced one of its first ret-cons)...and later, he faked his death, leaving Magneto as headmaster, getting the use of his legs back via his Space Empress girlfriend. He returned to Earth after years in space, only to be crippled by the Shadow King once again. He got a fancy bright yellow floating wheelchair for a while, then Stryfe, a clone of Cable, shot him with a techno-organic virus. After Apocalypse healed him up, he rollerbladed with Jubilee for a night, then fell back into the wheelchair at the edge of battle stance. Also notable is Professor X's encounter with Magneto on Asteroid M years later, when he mindwiped old Erik after he ripped the adamantium out Wolverine's skeleton, a fraction of Magneto's "evil essence" infected Charles, spawning the psionic identity Onslaught. Onslaught takes control of Sentinels and attacks New York, and for a while Charles is in jail and his mutant students floundered. Grant Morrison introduced the novelty of a mummudrai "sister" for Xavier, Cassandra Nova. Later still, it was revealed he'd ignored the pleas of his sentient Danger Room for decades. He left the X-Men completely to their own devices shortly thereafter, but not before getting shot by time-displaced mutant Bishop, a red herring "death" that nonetheless drove him from main storylines outside of a brief appearance in Wolverine & the X-Men, and brings us to the Avengers vs. X-Men storyline, which outright murdered him.

What if they said something else besides "No more Phoenix"? Like "No more humans?" or "No more Fat Chicks?"

Of course once Hope, the long-predestined vessel for the Phoenix, finally receives its power, it's only after she has seen it corrupt five well-loved heroes. She immediately undoes everything that Cyclophoenix started, what with the planet-wide devastation and all, then joins hands with Scarlet Witch, and in true Post M Day form, says three words that bring out the latent mutant genes of humans across the world, and kills or quells the Phoenix as she does so.

Which leaves us, of course, with the inevitable aftermath. Cyclops, once he's heard that mutants are reborn as a race, falls right back into his stubborn douchebag shell. To gain some idea of what will be happening to him in upcoming titles, just review the history of fun-loving Speedball of the New Warriors, who for the deaths of hundreds of suburbanites, mostly children, took to wearing a scourge-suit during his later runs through various penance-quests.

Of course, instead the Marvel Universe Big Brains like Mister Fantastic might find a way to travel back in time, retrieve Marvel Girl and Cyclops from an earlier point in their timestream, shove their faces into their bleak future like a bad owner shoving his dog's face into a bowl of dog food, and further contort an already twisted and unruly knot of plots, sub-plots, irrelevant occurrences, and even more irrelevant deaths

Worst. Eulogy. Ever.

So now that we have finished with Avengers vs. X-Men the "Marvel Architects" are bringing us into the new era of power and glory, something they call Marvel Now! Truly, this cycle will never end, only sprout new heads like the mythical hydra, and then consume its own tail, or in this case, tale, like a fabled ouroborus. Scott McCloud's market model for the entire industry comes to mind.

Uncanny Avengers, written by Rick Remender and drawn by fan-favorite John Cassady, is provided for us as the most pertinent follow-up to the events of Avengers vs. X-Men. The first issue features Chuck Xavier's funeral, with Wolverine providing a eulogy, a meeting between semi-estranged brothers Havok (a plaything of Peter David's since a few years back, toothless and subservient) and Cyclops (douchebag), the strident insistence of Captain America that he is not a jackbooted fascist, Iron Man and Ms. Marvel's search for Magneto, and a confrontation of the Scarlet Witch by Rogue at Xavier's crypt. When shoddy animal-beasts with Remender Disposable Characters written all over them show up and make short order of the two, then dispatch with Xavier's corpse, you may think nothing of it.

Then we have what may be the single most telling event of recent Marvel history.

What if it was in a big honkin' ice cream scoop?

As previously discussed in this blog, Rick Remender has a special talent in his approach to the Marvel Universe, and it is often a blood-thirsty corpse-strewn event. When one sees the brain of Charles Xavier in the palm of the Red Skull at the end of Uncanny Avengers #1, the fanfare around the death of Captain America after Civil War and the death of Ultimate Spider-Man are not at all drowned out by the death of Professor X. There was no proper announcement for this "end of an era", but rather fizzle of fanfare, a thudding drumbeat to apathy, a cricket chirping, fading into silence... that is what surrounds the death of Xavier, peace advocate who could see into all of our minds and understood that we could be better.

If Avengers vs. X-Men has provided any subtext at all with its bold attempt at retrofitting comic book mainstream dynamics (superhero slugfests), it is this: Evil wins. Good men fail. Good virtuous men will have their brains scooped out by Nazis.

Fighting is the best answer to anything. War is purifying. Death is an illusion. Dreams are never realized. Utopia is impossible.

The past is irrelevant. The future is uncertain. The only thing which exists is an eternal now, and continuity be damned, there will be no voices of peace in that eternal now.

Ignorance is strength. If you attempt to reach new heights, you will be corrupted by your own hubris.

Give up. There's no cosmic force ready to stop what's coming next. What is here Now.

The Marvel Universe Militarization is Now.

Reviews for Recent Comic Book Publications

2012-09-28T01:49:00.002-07:00

Mainstream comic books in their present condition are such that the amount of capital invested to seed the future cineplex blockbusters is reflected through examples of the medium's true potential, as expressed in successes and even in the failures of its most dismal dregs. As well adjusted members of American society slough off the birthing cowl of high school, so too must comic books deal with their history as a medium geared and stunted for decades towards children and grown-up children. Superheroes are as integral to comic books as a medium as the journey of the hero is integral to most ancient and modern mythologies. How well they are dealt with matters a great deal to the industry.

It is the intent here to draw from the entrenched dichotomy of the supposed mainstream, the "House DC" and the "House Marvel" if you will, and analyze the weight and worth of their good and bad and meh recent releases, individually or in the context of story. In fact, scores for each issue are weighted towards story, with exceptional art tipping the scales towards bonus points unless dreadful. Assessments draw from the history of the standard for each title, within and without the medium's standardized history. Attributions for each review are added on a title by title basis.

I, VAMPIRE #0

Written by:

Joshua Hale Fialkov

Art by:

Andrea Sorrentino

Cover by:

Clayton Crain

We all know that a "DC Vampire" book to fill in the gaps near where a proper Vertigo title (American Vampire) germinates was somewhat inevitable, given the nature of the social biosphere that lets pap like Twilight create a buzz among young fools. I, Vampire emerged in the post-Flashpoint foam of the New 52 as a stand-alone anomaly, meeting at odd angles with Justice League Dark in the "fantastic and magic" corner of the DC Comics New 52 color-wheel. It's done a serviceable job to its readers and seems to take the popular Faustian trope for its main character, Andrew Bennett.

The art for this particular issue sells the story in panels seething modernist influences of the medium and accenting them with a tinge, a pinch, a mere touch of Gothic sensibilities. We get the origin story for Bennet, his connection and encounter with Cain, the first vampire. The pacing is spectacular, the multi-page unfoldings by Andrea Sorrentino worth careful examination and appreciation. In the dustbins of comic books, this title shines like a blood-red diamond. A fabulous combination of elements and delivers what it promises, specifically vampires, in a fresh, slick, well-executed package.

9/10

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #694

Writer:

Dan Slott

Penciller:

Humberto Ramos

Throughout Spidey's career, he has been crushed under tremendous weights multiple times, both literal and situation-based. I can recall the hologram foil issue of Amazing Spider-Man #365 where Spider-Man fought the Lizard in one of their many sewer-based conflicts, brick-debris and a train from Penn Station nearly crushed him. In true-to-character fashion, he thinks of all those relying on him, and finds the strength to Hulk out in his own fashion and free himself. 329 issues and several crushings later, he does something he's never done before. He acts as landing gear for a plane with Aunt May and Aunt May's pilot boyfriend on it, as well as many other civilians, J. Jonah Jameson's family members, and a cute puppy in the cargo hold.

Why? Well, a few issues back with his gig at Horizon Labs, Peter Parker accidentally gave an irresponsible iPhone twittering jackass punk kid superpowers. The kid named himself Alpha and, in this issue, smacks around a near-cosmic villain like a tiger pwning a puppy. In the process, though, he nearly kills a goodly sum of civilians, hence the Spider-landing-gear. With each issue since the Spider Island scenario, Amazing Spider-Man has proven that it can pack in fresher scenarios of interest into what should be a rather tired enterprise of recycled plot. There are still surprises and a marked gradation of potential for Spidey and Parker now, less restricted by the limitations of his origins. As super-genius and masked vigilante carrying cards to both the Avengers and the Future Foundation, Spider-Man has settled into "middle age" rather comfortably. The art and writing hit where they fit, and this issue is a relevant example of that.

9/10

BATMAN INCORPORATED #0

Written by:

Grant Morrison

Chris Burnham

Art by:

Chris Burnham

Cover by:

Chris Burnham

Variant Cover by:

Aaron Kuder

Chris Burnham

It has not happened yet, but it will someday. A character is designed for a comic book that will be the synthesis of Batman without the bat, that takes a stance towards corporate accountability in a fashion where the scum of a certain 1% are taken to task for their malevolence. Until then, we have Batman Incorporated. Grant Morrison extends into his personal mythos of the balance between Bruce Wayne's money and Batman's dogged determination. Batman as a global icon to be established with certain individuals throughout the globe is part of the nostalgia that is built into Grant Morrison's style and approach with DC Universe characters. Behind all the merely clever bits he hearkens to the same thing all successful comic book writers do: he finds where he fell in love with comics and writes that.

The age of Morrison when he first touched a comic book was an era where a league of Batman-inspired international heroes came together to fight the injustices close and far from home. It was a time of goody LSD-exploded rainbow Batmen and artificially sweetened boy wonders. An extension of his well-done Black Glove storyline, Morrison's Batman Inc. #0 is a backstory for all the heroes of Africa, Russia, Japan, England, and Australia, but if this were to extend further could we find one in India, or for that matter Pakistan? There is the promise of riches to come for DC if they continue to allow Morrison reign over their dreamscape archetypes, with the art possessing a dynamic shift from still to kinetic with every page, fitting every scene.

9/10

FF #22

Writer:

Jonathan Hickman

Penciller (cover):

Ryan Stegman

Artist:

Nick Dragotta

We have already established that Jonathan Hickman is a Comic Book God by some rights, and his ability to make a second ongoing title for the Fantastic Four, a long-troublesome and sometimes near-dead enterprise, is testament to his strengths. His weaknesses come about in the noticeable contrivance of "wrapping up dangling plot-threads". At times entire issues simply lack the weight of driving action required for the comic book medium, but they serve a sound architecture of plot overall, and at his worst Hickman's dialogue is too choppy or verbose, but it never seems hackneyed or dumb. With FF #22, in the fallout of major cosmic storylines preceding it, the Fantastic Four (with Spidey! Five! Fantastic Five!) confront the self-styled science messiah The Wizard on an AIM island compound. Bentley, a clone of The Wizard, has been raised in the FF family for some time now, the "inherently evil" wise-cracker kid akin to DC's Damian Wayne without ninja assassin training. As always, Hickman delivers and the art is crisp perfect flow. With Hickman's recently announced departure from Fantastic Four, it'll be interesting to see what direction FF, very much his brain-child, will head. Nick Dragotta's artwork is a perfect compliment to this series, with comfortably sparse scenery setting apt tones and characters possessing solid emotion to their expressions.

9/10

THE FURY OF FIRESTORM: THE NUCLEAR MEN #0

Written by:

Joe Harris

Art by:

Yildiray Cinar

Marlo Alquiza

Cover by:

Yildiray Cinar

Marlo Alquiza

Perhaps someday Firestorm will be more than a simple superhero slugfest book. Mind you, that was the limitation imposed on it by virtue of the New 52, where Blackest Night seemingly never happened, nor did Firestorm's entire history. The Fury of Firestorm series has read up to this issue #0 as "the superhuman weapon" motif gone weird, the Firestorm Protocols. Captain Atom deals with the themes of the scope of his matter-manipulation powers, whereas Firestorm just apparently blows stuff up. Firestorms, plural. Sorry.

Major problems for this series include but are not limited to the flat characters, the seemingly pointless story arcs interrupted by seemingly pointless shock value explosions, often set at public landmarks and/or sporting events. It may be that the series is geared towards action junkies that aren't looking for finesse or plot, but rudimentary structures set to give the flat randomly-motivated characters room to explain the things they're seeing as said things are seen, or spout cliche threats against people dressed just like them. The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man is garbled nonsense at its worst moments and regurgitated fight scenes at its best. The profundities and potential of the characters understanding their powers or having something more to them than simple reaction scenarios is never really explored for more than a moment. If the series is to survive, it needs to carry more emotional weight, or at least pretend it can.

5/10

SPACE PUNISHER #3

Writer:

Frank Tieri

Penciller:

Mark Texeira

There's silly and then there's silly that knows how silly it is. On the heels of Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe limited series comes a type akin in its major meta-style kookiness. Space Punisher, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's the Punisher. In space. This is that bit every Marvel fan speculated on at least once, where Frank Castle, armed with only a robot and space age weaponry, goes cosmic kill-ride with a list of most of the cosmic names of the Marvel Universe, along with variations of villains to murder memorably as he goes. If you like over-the-top action thrill rides, senseless violence, and tentacle clone armies of Hitlers, heroes and characters warped between humor of Lobo and the no-nonsense ultraviolence of Judge Dredd, this piece of Marvel weird come to life lies somewhere in between. In this almost-hilarious enterprise of an issue, Frank Castle gets closer and closer to his answers, and the Watchers that killed his family are in his sights. There's no need to think too hard about this one. It's a limited series, and it's fully aware of itself. The art is at times too spare, but overall it's a piece that can be spotted for what it is. Fun and action.

7.5/10

SUPERMAN #0

Written by:

Scott Lobdell

Art by:

Kenneth Rocafort

Cover by:

Kenneth Rocafort

Variant Cover by:

Kenneth Rocafort

In some ways, the dilemma of the DC stock of characters is wholly understandable. They see the need for constant revisionist history of storylines and events to fit the long-term goal of loyal readership. With Superman we have the most difficult task of all, stripping away his acheivements and accolades and toning him from the level of Supergod to perhaps demigod. Gone is his lawful perfect attitude towards all things, staggeringly high intelligence, and ultra-refined understanding of his powers.

The New 52's Superman has been described as near-socialist in his stance as a hero. He fights against not just tsunamis and alien invasions, but government corruption, media bias, terrorist attacks and alien invasions. And tsunamis. He's been taken down a few notches, save interesting portions of Action Comics and blips on the miasma of Superman as a title itself, where the old ideal shines through. With Superman #0 we see his father's story, that is, Jor-El, studying the potential reasons for Krypton's imminent demise, which thanks to ham-fisted plot-tinkering would appear to have been arranged by someone of great power and influence. The art for this particular issue is breath-taking, so much so that the sparsity of Krypton's culture in favor of a chase sequence conspiracy seems tolerable. The final page raises whole new questions, and we are left with a potential storyline involving time-travel to unravel the secret conspiracy of why Krypton died (as apparently it's not just because Despair suggested it to Rao in Sandman: Endless Nights) and how that affects Earth's possible demise.

8.5/10

ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES # 16

Writer:

Samuel Ryan Humphries

Penciller (cover):

Michael Komarck

Artist:

Billy Tan

The past year or so of the Ultimate Universe has seen dramatic changes and bold decisions, mostly in the wake of Ultimate Spider Man's death. Ultimate Reed Richards pretty much decimated Europe, killed almost all the Asgardian gods, went to war with a superhuman Asian army, and annihilated Washington D.C. will an antimatter bomb. Texas immediately secedes. Meanwhile an Evangelical Christian bigot has co-opted an entire army of Nimrod Class Sentinels and declared major portions of the southwest as a sovereign territory, as well as calling for death to all mutants. Who it turns out are human-made. So. Steve Rogers retires out of shame and this is what happens? What would happen if perhaps he was simply sworn in as president of the United States and rebuilt the nation through force of arms? Ultimate Comics Ultimate #16 answers this question and a few others. It's commendable enough that each Ultimate series and its Earth variant have moved further from and closer to the Earth 616 (latter being the surprisingly refreshing and tastefully done Spider-Men). They piqued interest in what might very well have been a dud enterprise based on the lightning in a bottle that was Mark Millar's first pass at these alternate reality Avengers, certainly paving the way for works and multi-billion dollar movies to come. Since the gradual phasing out of Jonathan Hickman for Sam Humphries, the title's dialogue has suffered somewhat in quality, but vestigal plot-devices linger on, leading to what may wind down into nonsense but for now keeps pace with the build-up that brought us to this point.

8/10

AQUAMAN #0

Written by:

Geoff Johns

Art by:

Ivan Reis

Joe Prado

Cover by:

Ivan Reis

Joe Prado

Variant Cover by:

Ivan Reis

Admit it. Everyone thinks Aquaman is a joke. The New 52 provides him a means to drop all the baggage of his history and start fresh. So it is that with Aquaman #0 we see a story from his life where, prior to heroics, he's simply confused and angry about his questionable heritage and seeks out his first answers. Under the sea. In many ways the art of this series has been a major selling point, serving the story to such a great capacity that if it was a lesser artist would have killed the baby in its crib. As things stand, Aquaman has come to a point where you can relearn his history without knowing the phases of "hand/not hand", "hook", "bionic hand", "sea god powers", "king/not king", "moody", "useless", "dead"... and reinforce his ongoing animosity with his half-brother Black Manta. He's depicted too variably in what few other New 52 titles he's appeared in, but with this series, he's less out of his element, pun most certainly intended. So long as they keep reminding people that the art sells the story in Aquaman and less the other way around, everything for this title should remain relatively kosher. Ha. Kosher. Get it? Alright.

8/10

X-TREME X-MEN #4

Writer:

Greg Pak

Penciller (cover):

Kalman Andrasofszky

Artist:

Paco Diaz

You'd be better off forgetting the Chris Claremont brain-child X-Treme X-Men that emerged from the sewers of Marvel around the same time as Grant Morrison's New X-Men. The new title X-Treme X-Men follows a group of characters that first appeared in Astonishing X-Men, playing alt-reality foils to Lawful Neutral Cyclops in a reality where Charles Xavier is a bit of a dick-head. Then they reality hop, apparently along the lines of the little-loved but potentially fabulous Exiles series. With X-Treme X-Men #4 the team, if in fact it can be called that, consists of a Charles Xavier head in a floating jar, James Howlett, Dazzler, and an alternate reality Nightcrawler (common since his death on Earth 616) and they team up to... well, it's hard to say. "Kill about a dozen evil Xaviers" fits, but it's an "episode to episode" scenario in many aspects, the true overarching goals unclear at a glance but hey, who cares?... Feels like the old series Exiles mixed with Sliders mixed with Quantum Leap, to an extent, and just like Exiles it's very mutant-heavy in all respects. The art and the general "just go with it" attitude of the title overall save it from falling into the realm of being too snide or overly hokey. If every two issues or so we get to see this reality-hopping crew have a random encounter or three, it should make for neat cover art at the very least.

8/10

RED LANTERNS #0

Written by:

Peter Milligan

Art by:

Ardian Syaf

Vicente Cifuentes

Cover by:

Miguel A Sepulveda

Let's just say you don't want to be a jaywalker when the Manhunters decide to get feisty. What has come as a pleasant surprise is that the title Red Lanterns has survived as long as it has. It showed a strange sense of potential, twisted as that may at first seem. Atrocitus, the first Red Lantern, provides explicit details of his motivations and origin with Red Lanterns #0. Also, it turns out that he had relations with a demonic space squid, and learned the lessons of the Five Inversions, using their bodies to craft the Red Lantern battery in the first place. These and other details are filled in that should prove of interest to both new and old fans of the Green Lantern stables of stories. Overall, this issue shows the complications of a character you might expect in a Lantern whose primary motivator and power source is rage. Though not inherently evil, but more inherently brutal, the red end of the spectrum seems motivated by injustices rendered by figures of authority, and with the recent and blatant abuses of power rendered by the so-called Guardians of the Universe, along with the removal of Hal Jordan and Sinestro from the board, war is almost certain. They'll be calling it the Rise of the Third Army. This issue plants seeds for that and more, and although rushed in some spots and wordy in others, sports a certain confidence overall, which leads to a stronger fan base in the long run.

7.5/10

WOLVERINE #313

Writer:

Jeph Loeb

Penciller:

Simone Bianchi

This whole mess sucks. I'll get to this review when I am done wolveretching. God. Such a terrible taste in my mouth.

Really, how many times will Wolverine nearly kill Sabertooth? Kids shelled out good money to see him decapitated once and for all, heck, there was a hardcover copy and everything. A clone killed Feral, is that what you're saying? And this Romulus and Remus thing that we're led to believe was behind even what was behind the behind of Weapon X program?

What's so effin' difficult about writing a Wolverine storyline? Sure, send him to hell, okay. Let demons take over his body. Then hem and haw over him dealing with the same tired pattern, maybe throw in a Gorilla detective for comedic relief, or gross everyone out with yet another hint at his mysterious past and shit, fine, you know what? Don't care. Stopped caring. Wolverine should be dead from overexposure by now. He's impossible to kill by virtue of his popularity, okay, we get it, but you can write a story without it being about something fifty to four hundred other people have already done. Mark Millar got it right, and that was ages ago. Since his revelation of memory after M Day, we've had Wolverine run ragged joining the Avengers and becoming a headmaster of a new school and being featured in his usual six to ten guest star spots either subverting his classical image or tritely attempting to make it more shiny.

At the end of the day, this most recent plotline is to make us believe that Logan, James, whatever you want to call him may have volunteered for the Weapon X project, used to work for Romulus and Remus, and bladdah bladdah forget anything you knew before, let's change the ending to something besides a faked alien threat, yeah, let's make it, um, Dr. Manhattan bombing the world, sure, let's dumb down the whole thing like a Zach Snyder feature and end it with him kissing the hot immortal redhead or whatever, Christ, fine, do it. Get Jeph Loeb to do this series forever, let him turn Wolverine into an actual wolverine. Yeah. Team him up with Liefeld and a team of cancer monkeys. It's over. I'm done with it. Wolverine's officially jumped the shark, folks. Nothing to see here.

Art for the past few issues with this effrontery against all previous issues has been fantastic. That's it. That's all that's even remotely good about it. Even then, to be honest, it just makes me nostalgic for old back issues of Heavy Metal. Let's strike these past three issues from the record. Bury them like E.T. the video game.

4/10

DC New 52 Issue Zeroes Reviews

2012-09-14T19:58:00.002-07:00

Does anyone still have fresh memories of the time Hal Jordan broke from character, went ostensibly insane, and attempted to revamp the DC Universe with the maxi-crossover Zero Hour? It was a means to extend the aging franchise of various half-century old properties, revitalize storylines, and pique interests anew in the 1990's... coming out of the era which stated "Change is Necessity" the origins of the various characters did not shift considerably, whereas the troublesome Golden Age heroes either died or underwent an apotheosis. The one-billionth incarnation of the Legion of Super Heroes emerged.

During the Q and A a few months ago, there came the question of whether or not DC would commit to issue zeroes for the DC New 52, and sure enough, that was just what they had in store.

Some of the ones that came out this Wednesday are noted below in a "Top 5 of the Week" format.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #0

Written by:

Peter J. Tomasi

Art by:

Patrick Gleason

Mick Gray

Cover by:

Patrick Gleason

Mick Gray

Since the arrival of Damian, Batman's son by way of Ra's Al Ghul's daughter, we've seen the tumultuous ride unfold in topsy-turvy plot collisions and a terribly disappointing resurrection deflation. The titles all warped once more with the arrival of The New 52, but interestingly, outside of the retconning of Batgirl/woman and the addition of Talons and Owls into the Dark Knight's mythos, the main series remained fundamentally intact. What Batman and Robin #0 provides is a perspective into the oft-referenced training that Damian Wayne received practically from birth. We see the role of his father as symbol of worth, and his troubling relationship with his mother. This issue is executed flawlessly, giving it a perfect score, nearly impossible in this neck of the woods.

10/10

Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #0

Writer: Matt Kindt

Artist: Alberto Ponticelli

Inker: Wayne Faucher

Letterer: Patrick Brosseau

Colorist: Jose Villarrubia

Editor: Joey Cavalieri

Publisher: DC Comics

When Frankenstein was first conceived as a miniseries during the Seven Soldiers of Victory esoterica during DC's "Let Grant Morrison steer a bizarre vessel through the mainstream" days, it was by far the most successful and strictly speaking stand-out title of the bunch. A lumbering behemoth of science, the ill-gotten monster of a Modern Prometheus, taking his creator's name as his own, spouting parables from the Bible and Shakespeare while cleaving monsters in twain, was a brilliant concept. When Flashpoint ran through stores to make way for The New 52, Frankenstein was again given a limited series, this time with his fellow Scary Movie Golden Age Archetypes, textured versions of the Wolfman, Vampire, Black Lagoon Monster, etc. all given reign of the classic World War 2 Squadron motif. This carried over into the new universe, but established within the framework of Father Time's S.H.A.D.E. operation (hearkening to an interesting time when Uncle Sam was pertinent to the DCU Mainstream with his Freedom Fighters). For Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #0, we get a straightforward origin story, crafted to fill in details of the monster's life and describe his motivations within the organization that he has served for so long. It delivers precisely what it claims to, and a little more to boot, with (un)naturalized characters and fittingly descriptive art.

9.5/10

RESURRECTION MAN #0

Written by:

Dan Abnett

Andy Lanning

Art by:

Jesús Saíz

Cover by:

Francesco Francavilla

One of the certainties of the Resurrection Man series was always that it would never get very far. A certain apathy comes to casual readers with a character like Mitch Shelley, though admirably the story laid out in the series was linear and catchy enough to snag some loyalists, myself included. Announcements regarding the cancellation of the series are sad enough. With Issue #0, our hero, who resurrects with new powers every time he dies, discovers the truth of who he is, who he was, and who he will be. The plot-threads playing themselves out up to this point seem less slap-dash now that certain pieces have been put into place, although some knots didn't need as much unraveling as they received. The series as a whole has had a Fugitive feel to it, and it's understandable that without that driving force, the series could have gone stale much more quickly. It's been a long strange trip with only a few bumps and snags, but this issue answers a lot of questions and is a microcosm testament to the strengths and weaknesses of the series as a whole.

8.5/10

STORMWATCH #0

Written by:

Peter Milligan

Art by:

Ignacio Calero

Sean Parsons

Cover by:

Tyler Kirkham

Batt

From Stormwatch came The Authority (and from that the Monarchy and Meritocracy and Establishment and Planetary) and from The Authority came Stormwatch. The New 52 proposes Stormwatch as a centuries-old organization of superhumans of all sorts coming together with the common cause of warding off alien menaces. Integrated into the calling is our teenage Century Baby (The Doctor meets Cultural/Industrial Zeitgeist personafied) Jenny Quantum, being trained by Adam One (former leader of Stormwatch, stuck in a Death Hole or somesuch now) in this issue #0, ostensibly situated within the current order of events of the standard plot. Perhaps owing the most of its existence to the merging of properties out of all New 52 titles, it has shown the most competent superhero team on the planet, and also the most secretive. Peter Milligan has smartly adopted the history of this expansive and ancient organization to reveal only a bit at a time. This issue seems a tad heavy on the exposition, which lags some areas, but is essential to hints of Jenny's "history" with the group throughout the ages.

8.5/10

DEMON KNIGHTS #0

Written by:
Paul Cornell
Art by:
Bernard Chang
Cover by:
Bernard Chang

Another title that seems to owe its existence to the propositions of those that seek to add an actual air of historicity to the New 52 Universe. Demon Knights #0 is another example of a take on the origin story motif, though this one focuses exclusively on the dichotomy of Jason Blood and Etrigan the demon, both upstarts reaching for ambitions well beyond their grasps, leading to their ultimately being bound together, though they never precisely overlap. Therein lies the intrigue, with Merlin and Arthur playing as prominent roles in young hotheaded Jason Blood's life as Lucifer does in Etrigan's, entertaining petty and pointless rebellions to stave off the boredom. Pacing is a mild problem with this issue, and in certain places feels pinched or rushed, but to be fair, it is an origin story, and stands in interesting contrast to the Demon #0 released after Zero Hour, so long ago, hitting buttons of the oddest nostalgia, yet not quite fulfilling expectations. However, intrigue and interest has been triggered, as this is a solid and serviceable read, especially next to releases so dreadful they shall not be reviewed or even named here.

8.5/10

Manhattan Projects proves Jonathan Hickman is an American Comic Book God

2012-08-29T23:42:00.001-07:00

Perhaps there are those that feel that the World War Two genre or subgenre or whatever you want to call it has been played out, that no new territory can be worn in the grooves of the many that came before. Better to launch into neo-futurist tirades of tomorrow, perhaps, cast off the offensive caul of Hitler and be free of the smirking decrepit racists that comprise what some fabled newscaster once dubbed "The Greatest Generation".

Yet with the new Image Comics title The Manhattan Projects, Jonathan Hickman (FF, Fantastic Four, The Nightly News, Secret, upcoming: New Avengers) proposes to visit a world where superscience of the future takes a toehold in the past, giving him free room to range between the Supermax-Scifi epic arcs and individual character subplots, a strong suit he has tailor made to his areas of interest, quite clearly. Superscience World War Two's cast of loose alt/historical figures is presented with one-line bios, shown here, but really no amount of sneak peeks can spoil the actual content of the work, immensely fun and perfectly paced. It's simple. What if the Manhattan Project of our world was expanded and amplified and continued in other projects, limited only by the expansive imaginations of a fantastical military-funded think tank? Would the atomic bomb then be a mere incidental in the shadow of such amazing discoveries made?

Taking real historical figures and adapting them into comic books is of course as old as product endorsement for fruit pies so far as comics are concerned. Einstein has appeared as Uncle and Robot alike in the flatland, as consultant and as hero and as villain. Likewise, Hitler, who so far in The Manhattan Project has had but one cameo, is mutable along various mediums, the message of course most always derisive, or at the very least chiding. But what precident does Oppenheimer have in the comic book universes? A brief appearance in one panel of The Invisibles and perhaps a scattered shot here and there in a flashback sequence elsewhere.

In The Manhattan Projects, Hickman takes Oppenheimer, with his famous quotation "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds", and delves into the core of his tangent twin, revealing a nesting doll with more parts than even Schrodinger could calculate. The theme of The Manhattan Projects is scale applied to pseudohistory.

The fixed idea of this series can be found on the grand tour/briefing in the first issue.

And the root of this, as it always is with comics, is the art. Nick Pitarra was fated to work on this comic book. The man is a master of the form, installing high-grade perspective into each panel, pulling out and zooming into amazing pages that hearken to Geoff Darrow streamlined, Seth Fisher refined, and a certain something else, an economy of line in some places akin to a third-generation Moebius. His sense of composition demands repeated examination, and it stands up to that and more. The demands of expression are delivered in a fashion that even Frank Quitely could only capture on a decent day. A Where's Waldo luxury comes out of such styles, but the real money is between the panels. And it works perfectly.

The Japanese have of course refined the fine art of Robotic Samurai. What's that turtle doing there?

The potential for the series is critically influenced by a number of things Hickman's found along his career path. When working on The Fantastic Four, revitalizing the title to such status that it got a spin-off, he took Reed Richards to the next level of achievement, and juggled subplots for months at a time without dropping any too catastrophically. But with this title, none of the restrictions of the Marvel Line-up are in place and these characters, plucked from history and suspended in alt/real fluid, can play out their experiments and provide a chuckle at the surprising bits.

We find our potential central protagonist (although with such an ensemble cast it's hard to say if that's possible) after initial introductions in young Richard Feynman, supergenius with daily mirror affirmations down pat. It feels as if Hickman's work with S.H.I.E.L.D. gives us a tone for our soldier Leslie Groves that sounds like a Nick Fury tuning fork before he broke up with the Howling Commandos. Albrecht Einstein is a whiskey-shooting troublemaking rebel. Enrico Fermi is an inhuman and Harry Dhaglian is an irradiated skull in a bottle. Zen Death Buddhist Gate invasion marks our introduction to the series and a key to the first arc overall. Hickman's script calls for the ghost of FDR trapped in a supercomputer to play a pivotal part. There is in this title a sense of capturing that giddy thrill of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but tapping history rather than literature to draw forth the fun. We see the Pandora's Box of Hickman's plot constructed like a Operatic leitmotif echoing, for some reason, the scope of The Dune Saga, all intrigue and adventure, perhaps a coming of age thrown in, a splash of humor, hateful heroes, sympathetic villains, perhaps a few parallel reality twists, maybe even a betrayal or two.

An explosive title, totally underhyped because I don't see it being overhyped, the clean design of the cover and introduction, with critical quotes from The Recorded Feynman, show the echoes of reality come to play best in the medium of comic books when there is a proper sense of wonder and discovery captured. Thanks to the path leading to this point, that is Hickman's strongest case for status as god (or demigod, Tony Stark might say) of comic books.

Oh yeah, and they nuke Hiroshima.

Secret Avengers: The Remender Redemption

2012-08-24T23:59:00.002-07:00

It was upon first appraisal of Rick Remender that I recognized his style felt like Morrison in the same sense that Morrison felt like Moore. It has to be recognized that nearly each and every character in a Rick Remender storyline has more depth and emotional complexity than most superhero books can hope to achieve, and it unfolds without too-oft repeated contrivances (or as-yet unexplored facets on those contrivances, or tropes, if you like) and ill-suited demographics-pandering that are built into the structure of Comic Books: the Entity, as a whole, both at this time and (let's admit it) most of its existence.

Could be that Rick Remender's a new breed of comic book writer, the metaspawn emerging around the Age that Morrison made Weird, altering the scope of the world with the destruction of Genosha and wide-screen life-tampering and near-cosmic grounded in adventure proper, writ large with neon signs and snappy dialogue. He's not John Byrne and he's not Chris Claremont, thank Christ. He's the type of fellow who knows the nuance of nerd like the palm of his hand, yet walks through the socially-crippling flames unscathed, with a quip or quirk that you'll need to reread, a hook that you can explain in two sentences, and cliffhangers that aren't simply driven by virtue of being the final page. He kills characters with all the mercy of a slaughterhouse manager. This makes him very dangerous for the entities within Marvel 616, resilient as they are.

Rick Remender could turn the Marvel Universe into a graveyard and make it matter as he did so.

Secret Avengers, your surprise of the week is a newly reformed Masters of Evil. Have some.

Mind you, this is supposed to be a professionally structured review of The Secret Avengers storyline currently occurring (post Status Quo Disrupting Revamp? Pre?) but it will likely degenerate into gushing fandom for the man's work. He made a comic book with a joke title (Uncanny X-Force) into one of the freshest and most surprising titles in the Marvel Universe, and has mined the veins of the mountains that came before with an aplomb as graceful as a swan and as ruthless as a badger.

Remender was no doubt raised on Bruce Campbell dark physical comedy and likely when he saw the dystopian hodge podge future burned away by the Phoenix in Here Comes Tomorrow he liked what he saw. Twisted variants on all the old themes, fresh and remastered as villains or heroes, morally grey issues greeted with enthusiasm rather than trepidation.

Currently two of his titles, the effective Uncanny X-Force and The Secret Avengers, involve his rehashing of two groups that seemed silly by title in the morally ambiguous quagmire attempting grand declarative statements: The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and The Masters of Evil. Elements of The Venture Brother's Guild of Calamitous Intent are called forth: Who would want to join an organization called Evil right in its title? How many demented souls would actually want to carry such a title? Plenty, it turns out, and not all of them from what we would call reality.

Remender alters the Marvel Universe landscape as he murders innocents and guilty alike... the mythos of place is conjured up and handed off to other writers, friends every one, to explore and adventure in. The key to any Remender storyline is simple. It's fun, see. A comic book is supposed to be fun.

The activity of reading a comic book is a leisurely one. A novice, unschooled, must be entertained, but a certain gravitas (to greater or lesser extents) must always be given to the auteur providing the imagery. Remender's eye for artists from his time in Fear Agent on has served his work well, a complimentary matter of fast motion and stillness incorporated to suit the events of the story. Matteo Scalera's one of the latest in a line of artists whose ample abilities seem to suit the activity of Rick Remender's script, with motion and perspective driving the story at a steady pace.

Small moments like this mean so much. Pun intended.

So what is the story, at least with the Secret Avenger's corner of the Universe? Seems that Nick Fury has had this habit, since a very long time ago, to have life model decoy androids of himself all over the globe to keep from getting assassinated and to foster a sense of confusion, since he's the ultimate Cold Warrior. One of his life model decoys went a little bonkers, calls himself Max, and is assembling a new Masters of Evil in a supervillain bar-pit formed by a Molecule Man battle (remember the landscape shifts mentioned before?)... and he's been collecting crowns of power (calling back to the first missions of the Secret Avengers series, led by Steve Rogers, Supercop)... to become Lord of the Abyss. And the Abyss, from what we the reader can easily gather, is a darkness beyond demonic, reminiscent, in fact of the Qlippoth explored in Alan Moore's Promethea (the 11th gate in the Tree of Life, the Beggar, the Fountain).

This makes for entertainment, people. A comic is supposed to be a good time. And so long as this procession of entertainment continues to keep up in quality, we should pile great heaps of our money at the base of its altar, the serial, and its throne, the graphic novel. Long may the King, Comic Books: the Entity reign. Long may it be held to a higher standard, with examples set by quality writers and extremely talented artists.

Max Fury, that's like Max Power or Lance Uppercut right?

Penultimate Impressions to Avengers vs. X-Men (with Spoilers)

2012-08-16T00:05:00.000-07:00

So, imagine for a moment that you're a nanoscout in an editorial bullpen at Marvel Comics. It's somewhere around the mid to late 1970's and you're dealing with a fellow that used to be a gofer but can call himself a writer now, really and truly. This sparkly fellow, who lives and breathes these mutants through and through, is Chris Claremont, the originator of The Phoenix Saga, at his absolute prime. It's the prime of Miss Jean Grey as The Phoenix, as well, coming out of the darkness. Immense forty-foot tall avatars of Len Wein and Bob Harras are breathing down everyone's neck over the death of the Broccoli People, whose tiny fictional solar system was snuffed out by that fiery telekinetic redhead in shockingly descriptive detail not too long ago. Claremont, glowing with all the vim and vinegar allotted to him in his contract (Stan Lee sits in an immense hot tub on the next level up in the building, charging outrageous parties to the petty cash box and using such contracts to light his expensive imported cigars) explains how the rehabilitation of Jean Grey will occur.

The sevenfold veil of Marvel editorial eidolons parts, and a booming voice issues forth, shaking everyone present to the rims of their bellbottoms, as a three-faced robed figure emerges in hard-light hologram.

SHE KILLED BILLIONS, the Living Tribunal states in precise monotone, SHE MUST BE PUT IN JAIL FOREVER OR KILLED. THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY IS EXPLICIT IN THIS REGARD.

Claremont, crushed, rushes into his tiny office cave and hastily works out the final outfit Jean Grey will wear. It'll be the Shiar that pass judgment on her, yes, those pristine imperial scum. She deserves a second chance. He imbued her with powers after a creature that had resurrection built into its function, for crying out loud. As ever, Claremont knows, the important bit is to approach these characters as if they were well established actors providing an excellent play. He had to have the motivations down, or it would fall flat.

Suicide by laser on the Blue Area of the Moon. Cyclops, crushed, to be consoled soon by a clone who he would have a son with. That son would be thrust into a dark future where Apocalypse, genetic supremacist mutant, is destined to rule. That son would return older than his father, much later, after Jean Grey's return ("Hey guys? She was on the bottom of this river! In an energy cocoon! Nyah.") to raise the first mutant born since M Day, when almost all the mutants lost their powers. That mutant's name would be Hope and the Phoenix would come for her.

But not without the process being drawn out among multiple titles for nearly a year.

These guys see Xavier rollin'. They hatin'.

It should be said, the maximized cross-over super-event Avengers vs. X-Men has gone directions that not all that many readers predicted (unless, of course, they proceed in that joyless endeavor of "reading ahead" in the various teasers and previews) but in more recent issues has come to the dilemma of all such major universe-rattling plots, the diffusion of tension.

Captain Britain, eternally upstaged by his betters

After the Phoenix is splintered by Iron Man's Phoenix Buster, five mutants are chosen to live in a Utopia and have their authority questioned by the entrenched power structures. Find out what happens when heroes stop being polite, and start posturing in angry ideologies that shape the world. The Real World: Marvel 616.

If you're just joining us, Emma Frost gently pushed Namor into attacking Wakanda to rescue Hope (and, um, drown thousands of innocent civilians in the process), and the Avengers did their best and take the fellow down. Succeeding, Namor's portion of the Phoenix Force was transferred to the remaining four. When, during a rescue mission, Spider-Man taunts Magik and Colossus into cancelling each other out ("I'll stop you... with the power of laughter!" or something to that effect), Cyclops and a newly rekindled (no pun intended) homicidal megalomaniac Emma Frost are the last... um, Phoenixes standing.

And that's the real shame of the matter. The Phoenix has always embodied a fusion of opposites. The message that comes across in this crossover is that the pathway to hell is always paved with good intentions. With good must come bad, and with life, death. To imagine that the powers would corrupt these noble heroes (who, admittedly, have been shifting more and more into a morally gray area) is to discount the efforts of Charles Xavier, for decades reiterating that peace and reason are the solution to the turmoil and murk that the 616 Universe often finds itself grappling with. And that's just the murk that results from convolutions of plot since Claremont started the Phoenix rollercoaster/death of Jean Grey/clone/future storylines that ground most plots into dust until more recent efforts gave the teams and characters new and more energized focus. Like a laser. Ahem.

The idea of Cyclops being a myopic self-centered god-like being is about as fun as it sounds.

Where does Xavier really stand in all this? He's been shuffled into the background of each and every X-Men title (notable exception being his visit to Wolverine's new school) for quite some time. Prior to the maddeningly and surprisingly dull Skrull Invasion, he had a place at the seat of the Marvel Illuminati, but perhaps, without crippling him again, or outright killing him (remember Bishop? How he shot Professor X once? How he's nowhere to be seen for any of this?), the creative teams have seen fit to stomp his dream of peaceful coexistence, the Utopia that the Phoenix Five would have had, if they'd been able to maintain control (insert What If? issue HERE), into so much dust.

There's a moment, and maybe you'll catch it. Here...

The only other time I've seen Cap cry is that time Red Skull gouged his eyes out on the steps of Capitol Hill.

Remember, Cyclops was Xavier's star pupil from teen years, and Wolverine the dangerous Giant-Size-come-lately rogue (much older than Captain America, even). For all the posturing done, it's been nearly but not completely subtle, the shift that those two characters have undergone in recent years, Cyclops the militant edge in league with Magneto, thrice-time reformed supervillain (himself plagued with legions of hackneyed clones), and Wolverine, the immortal-by-way-of-popularity, the killer with a soft streak, rebuilding the school and adding a Baby Krakoa.

So, after so many years of Danger Rooms and such, when imbued with the Phoenix Force, Cyclops is corrupted. So it goes. Emma Frost is to blame, perhaps. Or perhaps these years since Jean Grey's final death, at the hands of a faux Magneto that ripped New York apart, had changed Scott Summers too much, and his investment in Hope was too great. Or perhaps the Phoenix Force is too much for oldboy. It works. It works on multiple levels. And for that, we have the current authors involved to thank.

What nobody mentions is, Hope's been listening to Wu Tang Clan during her training sessions.

Each issue of Avengers vs. X-Men is plotted by the same five writers that have taken turns scripting, issue by issue. Jason Aaron's turn at scripting provided ample comfort with the mutants, and clean dialogue. Brian Michael Bendis took a more action-based "cinematic" set-piece for the scripts he ran on, which is his strength. Ed Brubaker writes a mixed bag of events, zeroing in on key moments of characterization and domino toppling. Matt Fraction's comfort with the Avenger's end of the spectrum, especially Thor and Tony Stark, gives girth to his portion of the story. Jonathan Hickman, of course gives an intelligent weight to his scripts, packing in information that drives the story with a scale and complexity not unlike a decent Dune novel.

It's a unique opportunity provided by each writer to play to their own strengths, no doubt assessed and analyzed by editors (Jake, Lauren, Nick, Tom and Axel) prior to the plot points being anchored and assigned. Of course, the rotating artists, the second generation powerhouses such as the Adam Kubert and John Romita Jr, even Oliver Copiel in conjunction with Mark Morales, transition less jarringly than one might expect, as the story unfolds, and it seems that in this project a good time was had by all. Laura Martin and Larry Molinar do a fine service to color duties. Overall, everyone did their job well and should expect a dump truck filled with money to be backed up to their brand new empty heart-shaped pools, hollowed out by fanboys that vainly wanted to believe, if only for a moment, that the X-Men, the eternal underdogs and demagogues, stood a chance against the mega-noble hardcases that raked in more billions than some counties (or countries) will ever even see. If only this sort of care and attention was invested in so many titles as AvX houses (only a few dozen, modest by superhero crossover terms), then surely a new golden age, blessed by the ghost of Jack Kirby himself, would ring out over the dusty bins of bagged and sealed promotional materials and movies waiting to happen, in comic book shops throughout the country.

But.

This is all a build-up to the next big thing.

Dammit, why did Nick Fury's son have to look exactly like Ultimate Nick Fury, again? Really, people. C'mon.

There is always a follow-up to major cross-over events, no matter how the drab tangential storylines play out. Nevermind the plotholes and inconsistencies and linear gaps and Xavier mind-wiping everyone at one point, nevermind the characters in jail or out, or who got beaten up by whom or what dialogue did or did not happen when Gambit fought Captain America, briefly, for the rod of relevance. There is more time travel yet to come. And more shifts in writing duties. Comfort zones shifting. Golden ages packing their bags and awaiting the Silver Aeon, overseen by Rocket Raccoon and Groot for some reason, maybe a movie, maybe the recently shark-jumped and all pervasive trend of remaking and remaking and remaking until the whole mess is meta-regurgitation/vomit/feces.

Prepare yourselves for Marvel, now (sorry, I mean Marvel NOW!). It's recommended, if you are a diehard fan, that you insinuate yourself into a comfortable seat, and remember that it's been done before. If you're invested in the stories, good, that means that the writers are doing their job. If you're angry about creative team swaps, or ambivalent, don't flinch, not yet. Be prepared to. This is the answer to New 52. If not, now, never. Avengers vs. X-Men merely paved the way. The appearance of a game-plan being in place is reassuring, even in the unlikely event of a catastrophic cosmic prolapse.

The story has not yet fully resolved itself. The proverbial "suicide shot on the Blue Area of the Moon" has not come. Yet. The Living Tribunal has not yet spoken the last words of the day. The Watcher's patented "disapproving look" has not reached peak sadness. Yet.

It's coming. The next "Impressions of Avengers vs. X-Men" will be the last.

Sponsored by Rocket Raccoon.

Rocket Raccoon being the cornerstone of the Marvel Multiverse, after all.

One-Line Reviews for Recent Marvel Comics Publications (all mutant-based)

2012-08-09T15:02:00.003-07:00

UNCANNY X-FORCE 27
9/10

Rick Remender almost seems to enjoy killing characters in his charge, and this corner of the Marvel Universe folds around the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and the consequences of preemptive vengeance ... it's a shame about Fantomex, but Phil Noto's solid art structure carries the content well.

UNCANNY X-MEN 16

9/10

The Phoenix Five confront Mr. Sinister's clone nation... the mining of older and newer storylines is delivered by writer Kieron Gillen and penciler Daniel Acuna, whose respective methods of approach compliment each other, and have made recent issues of Uncanny X-Men a surprising treat.

ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN 14
8/10

The use of a situation report for the Ultimate United States really helps these days.

Brian Wood and the rest of the Ultimates writers seem to be having a blast reformatting the Ultimate Universe into a true alternative to the standard 616 format, and this issue carries that theme right along, with art provided by Paco Medina, Reilly Brown, Juan Vlasco, and Terry Pallot, depicting the slow start of Kitty Pride's underground mutant revolution.

Mainstream Reviews for Recent DC Releases

2012-07-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

BEFORE WATCHMEN: MINUTEMEN

8/10

Not sure if Meta or simply well-played nose-thumbing.

Here we have a dilemma. There are poignant ways to go about the process of homage, and it's a rare and delicate thing that DC Staffers or Corporate Masters have in mind for the controversial Before Watchmen series. True, characters and plot-points in Watchmen were themselves derivative from previously created characters, and thus beholden to similar strictures of critique, but that is not to say that they are beholden to the exact same strictures as this series, indicative as it is of a more common malaise in this day and age: prequelitis.

It's a polarizing issue. On one hand, it seems like DC is cashing in, and some fearful pundits point to the injustice of Moore's (if not Gibbons) legacy being besmirched by inferior product. Another argument goes something like: "If the creator or creators of the project don't like it, they should look to how bad their predecessors had it. Besides, DC owns the characters, they can do as they like." On yet another hand, there is admittedly rich territory to mine in the mythos that Moore laid out, perfect and self-contained as it is.

This series was inevitable, however dubious it seems.

I recently passed a copy of the graphic novel Watchmen to someone that had never read it before. Our conversations concerning plot and character were in depth and appreciative of the aesthetics inherent in the comic's structure. It's still a classic and deserves a classic's respect. It's interesting to note that Alan Moore's manner of approach was then and in many ways still is a righteous example of the medium's potential unleashed. Pacing, segue, and breathtaking detail combine to create effects no camera could hope to capture, and no future savant could properly match. This new reader asked about the movie, and then I told him about the Before Watchmen project, as magnanimously as possible. He then made the next logical cognitive leap and likened the project to Lucasfilm's dreadful prequel trilogy. To an extent, he has a point, but the qualifier from the project, ambitious as it is, is this. Each of the series are self-aware to a fault, and their style is distinct to each creator.

The talent called out for these projects is solid. The characters are familiar enough to the legions of fanboys turned pro calling the shots that a justifiable love becomes apparent, even if it can't match the stark intensity that Moore's project possessed. There is plenty more to be said, but for the sake of some sense of brevity and in the interests of keeping from straying into either malignant critique or sycophantic praise, I'll give that the best example of the potential for the various series (thus far) is Before Watchmen: Minutemen, written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke. Cooke's style is best suited for this particular trip back in history, with DC: New Frontier preparing him quite well for bygone idealism gone sour.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 11

7/10

Justice League of America, still in-fighting after years of teamwork and struggle. I'm falling asleep now.

Tedious splash pages and uncharacteristic actions lend a hot-headed spin for the whole team in Justice League of America (JLA). The more I read JLA the more distant I feel from the characters I had become accustomed to for so many years, and more frustrated with their less charming simulacra. My first true JLA experience was the first issue of Grant Morrison's supremely refined run, which took in all running plotlines at DC whole cloth and spun a series that lasted through multiple cosmic crises, without missing a beat on who these characters are.

More than archetypes or stereotypes, the heroes of this particular group need to personify the super aspects of their superhumanity, with their years of experience backing up their every action, while embodying the human side in as elegantly as possible. Stories with the universe's big guns need to reach far and they need to matter. Instead, the plots plod along with no sense of potential as a crew of people that still don't seem to know each other at all simply deal with and react to matters that possess no sense of history or weight. There's no drawing out of tension in the story, feeling like an overproduced jog through styles. It often seems an excuse to needlessly splash-page, and smacks of Jim Lee's influence far more than the minutiae macro-scripting usually provided by Geoff Johns. The first part of the series involved an invasion from Apokalips that occurred "Five Years Ago"... but what's actually happened in the time between then and now? Blackest Night? Brightest Day? Final Crisis, certainly not. Final Night? Zero Hour, perhaps, but Crisis on Infinite Worlds? Has Superman died? Did anyone even care? Who knows? I understand the draw to "here and now" the New 52 seems dead-set on, but what's happened in the past five years in the New DC Universe?

It seems the new reader gets less bang but more importantly the years-long loyal fan hasn't got much to go on, either. The entire team bickers and plays out their roles like rusty parodies of themselves. There seems to be no breathing room for personalities in the larger-than-life splashpage world, so each character degenerates into their roles as near-stereotypes fused with near-archetypes. Flash seems overly timid, while Green Lantern seems little more than a jock with a ring, whereas Superman is more like a quiet boy-powerhouse than a force of nature, and Wonder Woman is an unapproachable too-foreign hothead. Batman? Oh, he just slinks around commenting on what useless twats he's working with, not much use or insight. Cyborg practically runs the show in terms of being a linchpin of the team's dynamic, their teleporter, their go-to guy, but even that feels forced. Perhaps Geoff Johns (and even a fan or two) remembers that the real linchpin of the team was and always will be the Martian Manhunter (we get only a brief glimpse of the one time the JLA attempted to recruit him, a two page firefight, but maybe since he's recently ditched Stormwatch he may yet show up again).

Recent arcs are general and truncated awkwardly. There's a "new" villain with a vendetta against the team, but the vendetta is vague and silly, his powers emotionally manipulating but ultimately empty, because the punch they're supposed to pack relies on content that no reader of this series actually has (yet, I know, yet). This is the fundamental flaw and underpinning critique I have for the series (at this time). Perhaps one sticks with this series in part out of a pouty nostalgia and partly in vain hope that the comic might accomplish a difficult task: feeling something for these newly-minted replicas of characters that knew and understood one another in a discarded universe and have had years, decades, almost a century of history together, up in a puff of comic fluff. Perhaps what I want out of this series will take years to get to, or perhaps in the attempt to please everyone punches are pulled by editorial restrictions. Johns is a long-haul writer and a capable scribe, so perhaps forthcoming events will shape/round out the missing back-stories, or maybe, just maybe, issue zero won't seem like filler.

DIAL H 3
9/10

It's all a conspiracy. No, really. Kinda. Mostly.

Complex, quirky, and variable, we have a comic here in many ways like a strange gem with a spirit of Bosch inhabiting it. Dial H is one of the more fascinating new series to emerge from DC's stables. When a fat chain-smoking schlub named Nelson Jent uses an alleyway pay phone to get help for his friend (who fell in with a real bad crowd), he accidentally dials up powers from a vast array of quirky characters. Bitten by a radioactive concept originating from the 60's wash of surreal characters (the original Dial H for H.E.R.O), the series has a bent to it that reminds one of Morrison's old Doom Patrol run, while simultaneously owning the bits of backstory that new readers and even some old readers are likely ignorant of. The story by China Miéville explores a ground-level classic format, that unfolds like Japanese origami to reveal layers quite unexpected. The protagonist, Nelson, plays out a perfect down-on-their-luck fool, and we root for him against all opposition, which itself truncates and expands and gains texture as the story plays itself out, in simple and complex strokes. The art by Mateus Santolouco is a perfect compliment to the progress of the plot, intriguing and complex enough to revisit again and again. Each character presented is so weirdly bent and surreal you have a giddy expectation of the next transformation. A fun read, and self-aware enough to pull off what seems at first blush to be silly and atonal in nature.

Cerebral Superhero Movie Undercut by Tragedy and Political Farce

2012-07-21T15:04:00.001-07:00

When blowhard weight-watcher Rush Limbaugh made the bold declarative statement a few days back that there was a liberal conspiracy tying Bane, the villain in Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, to Bain Industries, the company that presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney retroactively retired from, those people capable of analytic thought and comic book historians all had a hearty chuckle. But to postulate such a ludicrous decades-long-in-the-making conspiracy out loud is par for the course where people such as Rush are concerned, speaking without thinking, again and again. He's since backed off of that assertion and now likens Batman to Romney, while Bane is an Occupy Wall Street villain. This, again, is a crass distraction tactic grossly misrepresenting the intent of the film's creators, but acutely points out the major thrust of the film's message, nonetheless. Batman as benevolent billionaire (an image that Romney would prefer to project, minus the Howard Hughes overtones gossiped about in the film's first act) and Bane, a genius terrorist displaying talking points of "power to the people" while holding a city hostage under threat of destruction via neutron bomb (very much a fever dream version of what the Occupy Movement ostensibly stands for in the mind of paranoid delusional neoconservative shills).

Then, on opening night, at a Century 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado, a gas-masked young man named James Holmes allegedly opened fire on a crowd of movie-goers, killing a dozen and injuring dozens. News reports were murky and details were erratic surrounding this, the death toll and numbers injured rising and falling. Hints at an MKULTRA or Manchurian Candidate-style implementation of psychotic outsourcing. Rumors and politicization occurred immediately, mostly by ultraconservatives, raving about values systems without a hint of irony (or perhaps forgetting the automatic weapons they promote decent God-fearing Americans as having a right to bear, even if mentally unstable). The suspect didn't shoot himself, as so many mass murdering lone gunmen are wont to do. People say he calls himself The Joker, and his house, a booby-trapped mess of firearms and explosives, will likely be a rich resource of speculation for the weeks and months to come. Sadly, out of all the confused news reports, attempts at aggrandizing oneself on the shoulders of senseless murder or pointing fingers in tearful anger, only The Onion actually nailed it on the head.

This tragedy and the embarrassment of the aforementioned Limbaugh Flip-Flop (let's coin that, see if we can get a gif of a whale with Rush's face, beached and flopping, circulating throughout tumblr) unfortunately overshadow a film that stands at this point in time as one of the most cerebral superhero films to grace the silver screen.

We all had a good time with The Avengers, though perhaps our misgivings about Nick Fury's secret shadow masters (remember, the ones that tried to nuke New York?) might have been directly addressed if the universe there operated as it does in Dark Knight Rises. Bane's introduction is immediately engaging. The cast of characters is introduced to us at a sane pace, their stories emerging more organically than many standard billing dramatic films. The spice peppering the film is a simultaneous resentment and endorsement of entrenched power structures.

The Dark Knight Rises is "a thinking man's" blockbuster cinema done right. Bane's "Goatse" mask synths his voice into perfect Vaderesque villainy without immediate cries of shenanigans coming to mind. "I am a necessary evil," he tells the nefarious industrialist before snuffing out his life. Tom Hardy sells the role without the aid of facial expressions, getting a chuckle from the audience in the midst of outright carnage. Christian Bale does justice to Bruce Wayne, as was expected, and Michael Caine portrays his textured concern as Alfred Pennyworth with exceptional depth. In fact, every single actor in this film (with one exception, catch phrase: "hothead") bring their roles to life quite skillfully.

The movie goes through the checklist of superhero set-up but does not in any way seem rushed or slap-dashed together. Nolan's choice of scenes inter-cutting throughout the movie make this a film about the subjectivity of each character's reality and the assumptions they make about the nature and circumstances of their reality, being acted upon. These are expressed continuously throughout the film, from Bane's constant nonchalant murders to Selina Kyle's most quotable potable whispered into Bruce Wayne's ear as she picks the valet ticket out of his dinner jacket: "There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. … When it hits, you're all going to wonder how you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us."

The class warfare promised by Bane's scheme is only blinked across the screen at certain intervals. The idea of icons and symbols are tossed around nimbly, the old themes of fear and the brilliant undermining of realism and fantasy alike play themselves out in grander and more minute scales throughout. It's a controlled game, with nary a chink in its armor. Pacing is the watchword of this film. There's no lag or pause that was not well-timed or carefully planned. What could have been an awkward clustering of special effects and villains (see: Spider-Man 3) instead hits home with a real sense of character and, more importantly for this film, palpable pathos.

There's a bitter irony surrounding the fact that this movie, hardly an open advocate for gun violence despite the near-constant gun-play (remember, Batman hates guns), became the target of a gun-toting madman's murder spree, and there's an even more bitter irony played out in the doublespeak of the villain Bane being mirrored by pundits, politicians, and philistine pigs to serve their own dubious agenda. These facts, and the facts surrounding the haul of critical accolades and worthy praise already resting at its feet (and that of the trilogy as a whole) secure this film not just as a fitting portrait for the cultural zeitgeist of America today, but quite possibly the high-water mark of superhero film-making as a whole.

The San Diego Comic Convention is Virtuous and Good

2012-07-17T09:36:00.001-07:00

Doczeitgeist: Reports from a being whose powers are able to warp reality as a lucid dreamer alters a dream. Doc Zeitgeist, the Parapersona Prime of the new and terrible aeon, tweeting live via astral projection from the San Diego Comic Convention International 2012. RVM interface/Begin feed:

1:
I'm in a small alcove in the San Diego Comic Con's shadiest section, selling bootleg copies of an inferior episode of The Dukes of Hazzard.

2:
LIVE UPDATE: My digital streaming reading of "Cagney & Lacey meet Simon & Simon" fanfiction has been cancelled. Meet me on the veranda.

3:
Met a guy at #CCI who gave me his business card, then wrote his real # on the back. "Motivational minute"? Looks like a used car salesman.

4:
CCI UPDATE: saw @warrenellis put a cigarette out in an ashtray made of Desolation Jones back issues. Four for a dollar. Supplies are limited.

5:
CCI update: Smoking bathsalts before entering the costume contest as Dr. Doom is NOT advisable. Attacked @reedrichards, attempted face-nom.

6:
CCI UPDATE: @mattfraction and @reggiewatts just gave a keynote speech in the sub-basement of Hard Rock Hotel San Diego. Topic: churros&soap

7:
CCI‬ UPDATE: Dana on Mission Bay may be 7 miles away from ‪#CCI‬, BUT they have no qualms about me building a campfire in my room.

8:
CCI‬ UPDATE: belay that last tweet. The fire has spread. Gonna run down the hall screaming "I will show you the life of the mind!" w/shotgun

9:
I knew felony charges would come with this ‪CCI‬ trip. When I saw Bradbury and Harryhausen in 2006 I bonked their heads together

10:
CCI‬ UPDATE: hotels in San Diego charge a Transient Occupancy tax of 10.565%. Bum bathing in a fountain told me this can be avoided

11:
CCI‬ UPDATE: Drank Old Crow with a guy that told me he was@tonymillionaire... I asked for an autograph and he tattooed the name OTTO on me

12:
Marvel panel will include extended sneak peek version of@Avengers 2 where Iron Man's actuary spends a half-hour weeping and drinking rum.

13:
SDCC‬ LIVE UPDATE: Just arrived at @TheLordDarkseidAFTERPARTY, found myself facing a wall. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

14:
AFTERPARTY‬ HAS TWO PARTIES, One Real, one fake!@TV IN A FISH TANK!! Kickstarting a ‪#hernia‬ and liver shutdown!

15:
CCI‬ UPDATE: Woke up in Barstow with new tattoo & quart of absinthe resting on my forehead. How? Caught ride back with migrant workers

16:
CCI‬ UPDATE: Patrolling panels: 10-4 You can't spell patrolling without "troll". You can't spell Saturday without "turd".

17:
CCI‬ UPDATE: Stumbled into room 25ABC thinking it was Scott McCould's CAC panel, discovered Q's about Zot! somehow still apply to Groo

18:
CCI‬ LIVE UPDATE: Preparing for an informative orientation session, complete with slideshow & condescension. THANK YOU RONALD REAGAN!

19:
SDCC‬:most disturbing event I'm scheduled to appear at is Twilight Fan Fiction group, 12-1. Sweetlolapops will oil me down with sparklejuice

20:
CCI‬: Dressed up as Danger Mouse to attend the Eisner Awards. Nobody got it until MetaMouse won one. I yelled BOOYAHWEH, then ran out.

21:
CCI‬ 2-3 @ImageComics Experience: Hope it tops the 2006 "Todd McFarlane talking about the time he hit Jim Lee in the Nuts" Symposium..

22:
SDCC‬ ‪#CCI‬: It's sad to watch the many tweets of people that aren't here scroll by, as I sit atop a pile of fangirls sipping from my chalice

23:
CCI‬: It seems like the @marveluniverse is always hinging on Cyclops' love life. That and resurrections. Lotsofem

24:
Axioms taken from ‪#SDCC‬ ‪#CCI‬ "The Tree of Comics must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of mainstream and independent failures"

25:
SDCC‬ When I get to Tromatize Yourself Panel, I'm gonna re-enact the old Mayor-disemboweling scene with the fattest ‪#Troma‬ fan in the room.

26:
CCI‬ LIVE UPDATE: ‪#Tarintino‬ crashed a ‪#BeforeWatchmen‬Panel, Twitter splodes.. I crash a ‪#HelloKitty‬ Panel (room 8AB) and nary a peep

27:
SDCC‬ I mistook the @Gameofthrones Panel for the @SkyrimPanel and started screaming DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN / NAAL OK ZIN LOS VAHRIIN!!

28:
How is comic formed? They need do way instain editors who kill their comics, because these comics can't frigth back?

29:
Creator's rights? HA! In my day we got paid in bumblebee nickels and had to draw with onions tied to our belts. ‪#Comics‬

30:
Note to self: Clothesline entire room at Kickstarter Event, room 26AB. Hug the competition. Hug them until they beg for mercy.‪#notes‬

31:
SDCC‬ 3-4pm, Indiana Jones Fan Group, wherein grown men will openly weep, confess the trauma that was Indiana Jones & Crystal Skull crapfest

32:
CCI‬: I swear to God I am going to headbutt that Iron Man Extremis statue, just as soon as the crowd taking Instagrams disperses. ‪#Fun‬

33:
New Superman movie. Alienated and ... well, yeah. Alienated.

34:
CCI‬ 2012: Das Bosoms what wake me. Weak sauce:unstable particle symbiote suit. I milk cows on a farm. For justice. ‪#DrWho‬ panel. ‪#wah‬

35:
CCI‬ Axel Alonso did a breakdown for that reboot revamp jumpstart kickback for post ‪#AvX‬ continuity, @MARVEL NOW:http://www.newsarama.com/common/media/v …

36:
CCI‬ Update: Nothing better than sloppy wet pizza sitting on the tracks in front o the convention center. Free WiFi connected to‪#bums‬

37:
SDCC‬ ‪#CCI‬ 2012: To review, Neil Gaiman's writing‪#BEFORESANDMAN‬ but nobody is calling it that. ‪#DjangoUnleashed‬looks good. Godzilla's back

38:
SDCC‬ UPDATE: Ben Kingley has played a foul mouthed mobster, Gandhi, and now, the Mandarin. ‪#IronMan3‬ is gonna be glitterbombing cosmicstyle

39:
CCI2012‬ Gonna crash "Where do Ideas Come From? Banishing the Blank Page" and pass out rolls of butcher paper, pencils, and lead paint

40:
SDCC‬ 2012: Final @Marvel panel involves @DanSlott and it's happening forthwith. I'm going to ask about Rocket Racer. Where he at? Yeesh.

41:
SDCC‬ Somewhere in @Marvel offices someone loves that freakin' raccoon so much he's become a cornerstone of continuity.

42:
@doczeitgeist
Men who are comfortable with powerful women are more powerful men. — Joss Whedon ‪#Firefly‬ ‪#SDCC‬ quotes ‪#QnA‬ @NathanFillion

All-New Uncanny Impressions of Avengers vs. X-Men.

2012-07-07T11:06:00.001-07:00

As discussed in prior installments, the megacrossover world shaker Avengers vs. X-Men is still in full gear, with the arrival of the Phoenix (and its subsequent fracturing) literally remaking the dynamic of the world as a whole. Cyclops, Emma Frost, Colossus, Magik and Namor each share a fraction of the Phoenix's infinite energy (call them the Phoenix Five), and rather than prove the Avengers right (that is, destroy the world), they issue a declaration of Pax Utopia. The entire world receives free energy, ample food, clean water, and the annihilation of weapons of mass destruction. All military conflicts come to a halt. Deserts are irrigated. Sentinels are annihilated. Food is plentiful. The status quo so firmly established as a matter of course in the Marvel Universe 616 is deviated from strongly, and ably, thanks in no small part to the squad of extremely talented writers collaborating on this particular blockbuster.

The various tie-in titles do a fairly good service to not upsetting the dynamic of reality and accenting the storyline (unlike, say, the truncated battle sequence depicted in "brawl title" AvX between Captain America and Gambit). We see Emma Frost come into opposition with Avengers Academy, Rachel Summers (formerly Phoenix in her own right) calling her loyalty to the new world order into question, and Rogue scuffling with Ms. Marvel, who sows the seeds of doubt before being tossed into a Limbo prison. Magneto serves as a John the Baptist. Hope Summers trains in a mystical cityspace with the masters of Iron Fist and takes lessons from Spider-Man to prepare for confronting the Phoenix once more.

This twist has taken the Marvel Universe in a new and interesting direction and polarized fans in a fashion that simple slugfests never could. Do you believe that the Phoenix Five's intentions are as pure as they seem, and that true peace can be established in a world where garishly costumed superhumans shatter concrete with wrist flicks? Do you agree with the Avengers that such drastic changes always come with a cost, a backlash is inevitable, and that the more these mutants embrace their new powers, the more distant they will become from their core codes of morality?

There is also the notable issue of the Scarlet Witch at hand as well. Her role in House of M (remaking the entire world to be one where everyone gets their heart's desire in a Magneto-run "utopia") has apparently been redeemed since, well, since for some reason every single Avenger has forgotten how badly she upset them and how dangerous her powers are, and oh yeah, she dismissed an entire race of beings with a fragment of a sentence. Perhaps it's because she slept with Hawkeye that she gets a free pass. It could also be that she alone seems capable of taking the Phoenix Five to task, and her connection to the Life Force (as established in Young Avengers: the Children's Crusade) is that common bond with the Phoenix that may prove interesting in the upcoming remaking of reality itself, not just the world, in a recently announced universal relaunch called Marvel: Now!

In more recent issues of the main title, we see the stark divide between the forces and note that the grey area (ha! as in, um, Jean) is vast on both sides. In the most recent issue, Emma Frost nearly kills Hawkeye in a fit of anger (but don't worry, he's getting his own series soon, plus he'll completely forgive her once they have sex). Internal strife among the Five will no doubt disassemble them (and Colossus is still the Juggernaut, in case you were curious). Charles Xavier's marginalization continues to expand and contract. Captain America seems to have a born soldier's need for constant battle, his irrelevance in a world of perpetual peace perhaps an unspoken catalyst to his continually antagonizing the Phoenix Five. Iron Fist's established ret-conned history with the Phoenix Force will grant him a +5 to his relevance. Then again, maybe everything that's happened for the past ten-plus years in Marvel is about to be erased. Or perhaps Hickman will simply set the Avengers out to "solve everything".

In terms of scripting duties, it's very interesting to note the emergent variations of style with each issue, and as every section of the story unfolds, the shift in artists seems fitting to the content. Marvel, all foibles and wisecracks aside, is clearly bringing their A game. Regardless of the final outcome, readers that have cared for and enjoyed each of the titular teams involved in this conflict are in capable hands.

What comes next, however, remains to be seen. After years of established wetworks, continuity and character building, a relaunch (restart? reboot? revamp? remake?) of the Marvel Universe titles (Marvel NOW! NOW! NOW!) may cause fans to cry foul, or even worse, call "mimic", since as most comic readers are well aware, about a year ago the DC Universe erased its elaborately decorated chalkboard and started fresh (but in some spots shaky) with The New 52.

Regardless of outcome, the story continues to be intriguing and this reviewer, for one, will continue to buy it, if only to see where the trail leads. If the end result proves ridiculous, then the purifying flame of my caustic wit will burn it away.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2009: A Gentlemen's Review

2012-06-29T10:58:00.001-07:00

Their expressions pretty much sum it up, yeah.

Pull in close. Warm your feet by the fire. Fancy a cuppa? We're going to take some time to explore the latest installment of comic book legend Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Century: 2009. It's penciled by the fantastic Kevin O'Neill (of Marshall Law fame) and co-published by wunderkind publishers Top Shelf Productions and Knockabout Comics.

The first thing to note before we delve into it is that this is in many ways a more sparse presentation than previous installments, owing in part (no doubt) to the fact that present day copyrights impinge on Moore's possibilities with literary cultural collage, one of his major strengths and a backbone of the series as a whole, since the initial premise is, after all, drawing from stables of established figures in various canons and re-imagining them in a world where they all live side by side. Moore, of course, is fully aware of this limitation, and plays with it like a pro, but more of that in a moment.

We arrive in this fictional parallel to our not-too-distant past with none of the orgiastic fanfare of previous explorations. Orlando, the gender-switching immortal with three millennia under his/her belt, is a traumatized soldier in parallel reality Iraq (Q'Mar), set to receive a medal and a ride home after snapping and slaughtering not just insurgents, but also his fellow soldiers, all nearby civilians, and a dog. Upon returning to the abandoned hideout of the League, the wizard Prospero orders her (gender-switch in the shower) to find Mina Harker and stop the Antichrist and his forthcoming "traditional Apocalypse", formulated by Crowley manque Oliver Haddo.

Pause a moment and examine the litany of curse words that the Prime Minister's "Fixer" streams in the background on the telly while Prospero chews Orlando out. Where is that convolution of Moore wit we've grown accustomed to? That overwrought double and sometimes triple entendre hidden behind layers of homage and nostalgia? Hiding under a thin layer of disgust with current trends of banality within the mediasphere, old son. He makes very little effort to disguise it.

A throwback to previous installments ties up certain plotlines dedicated readers might have lost track of. The MI5 propaganda institution gives wry references to the James Bonds of times gone past (can you spot them?) and the Coote Institute (descendant of Volume 1's girl's school, directly referencing randy what-the-butler-saw-and-what-have-you's of Britain's erotic serial The Pearl) dovetailing with the Gallywag-oriented backup story and poor Mina's dementia.

Grant Morrison's King in Yellow Mobius Strip Tease seems tame by comparison.

Clamor on through the small references to popular culture that manifest as vague asides throughout the streets of London as Orlando and Mina attempt to piece together their team (adventurer Alan Quartermain has degenerated into a heroin-addicted bum and coward) and the location/nature of the Antichrist.

Is that the current incarnation of The Doctor strolling through King's Cross with the first one? Surely not. Orlando and Mina consult with Norton, the Prisoner of London, who directs them to a hidden train platform, gore-streaked and corpse-filled, hearkening, of course indirectly, to Harry Potter's magical train station leading to Hogwarts. When Mina and Orlando take the train to the (decimated) "Invisible College" an interesting point is made. In the midst of theories about the relation/reflection of this blasted dreamscape to the real world, Orlando relates the magical school massacre they're traipsing through the aftermath of to the school shootings in America. And suddenly, in a series where only the Prisoner of London got to make cryptic crossword comments relating to the "real world" while everything else related to a literary looking glass, we have a direct reference to our reality. The parallels to fiction's inter-relatedness to fact has often been a point Moore engaged (notably in the wonderful series Promethea) but here we can feel his point bearing down with a certain bitter gravitas. Flashbacks from the point of view of the Antichrist have Oliver Haddo look us (him) in the face and call him (us) a banal disappointment.

The AntiChrist has no sense of Feng Shui.

On first assessment, one could call this latest (last?) installment of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen the least fulfilling of the lot, yet Moore's covered even that base with the framework of the storyline as a whole. Modern society, the banal Antichristing fly-harangued redundancy that it is, has become a dreary mess with little to no sense of purpose. The bustling over-populated chaos bustle of previously explored centuries and their dirty alleyways has been replaced with austere camera-lined bland streets (the spirit of this age embodied early on in the story with a passing glance over an album cover titled "Oh, Who Cares?"). Not even the eternally present black cat of previous League episodes can be found. The fornicating faeries are all dead. The Blazing World has receded, and our only fully male hero of the series is an opiate addicted sot until the final act. Even our villain, the petulant Antichrist (scarred, exploited, nameless) is little more than a grubby wanker with an eyeball problem. Yes, he's pretty much Harry Potter, if you want to be puerile about it. And yes, Harry Potter is pretty much Tim Hunter. And Tim Hunter is the oldest son of artist John Bolton, as much as Orlando is Roland. And so on.

There is texture, even in the sparseness allowed in this work. At the climax we're given a curious confrontation between the Poppinsesque "final goddess" and the Antichrist. We're given a dozen tiny "in-jokes" (as opposed to the hundreds of Volume Two) and we are given a few hints of potential foreshadowing (including a potentially disastrous "Moriarty-sperm-repopulated moonman war" hint hidden at the end). Is this the final step for the series, or just this volume? Whatever the case, it's been a hall of floor-to-ceiling looking glasses, and it has reflected the arc of our own world's disintegration with the aplomb we have come to expect from Alan Moore.

If a forthcoming fourth volume is yet to be had, I'd welcome it. The territory is still ripe, even if the content has to shift considerably. The trip has been an interesting one, to say the least, and if it were to crack open a wider portal and bridge that rift between what is real and "not-real" then we would all be well-served.

Good Reviews for recent Comic Book Publications

2012-06-14T12:19:00.001-07:00

EARTH 2 #2 - 9/10

You've no doubt heard by now that Green Lantern is gay. Interestingly, the DC Universe has run just a tad bit behind in the new trend of catering (pandering...?) to the LGBT community, while Marvel has had minor mutant Northstar outed for quite some time, and soon to be married (to a black human!). The reaction from the Evangelical community to these announcements was almost as predictable as the cascade of reactions from internet trolls. In all seriousness though, the sudden surge of "newsworthiness" of a comic book character's sexual orientation seems to have come about in the tumult of a cultural zeitgeist where many serious civil rights issues, mostly centered around marriage between homosexuals, are playing themselves out in political arenas. This trend has come to a dramatic head with the latest issue of Earth 2, where a character (Alan Scott, no longer a World War II relic) proposes to his lover Sam. James Robinson heads up the script, taking the Alan Scott character he's loved for so long ("old universe" issues of JLA written by Robinson gave ample stage-time to "the original Green Lantern's" convoluted family, including his gay son Obsidian, now clearly null and void), while Nicola and Trevor Scott move the story along at a brisk pace with clean crisp artwork. Overall, the plot in this parallel universe seems to be portioning itself out, the previous issue seeing the death of DC's "Big Three", and this issue featuring the dying god Mercury transferring his superspeed to shiftless loser Jay Garrick. The proposal of marriage comes only at the end of this issue, immediately followed by cliffhanger catastrophe. This revamps the whole idea of "Golden Age" DC heroes as relevant to the standards and practices of a tolerant tomorrow, which is of course today.

RED LANTERNS #10 - 9/10

For whatever reason, the DC New 52 saw fit to give The Red Lanterns and Stormwatch their own series in the universal reboot. This has not been a bad thing, in most aspects. With Peter Milligan and Miguel Sepulveda (both extremely talented individuals with proven track records) teaming up on scripts and art, respectively, this issue of Red Lanterns crosses over with the previous week's installment of Stormwatch #9 quite nicely. One part slugfest (Midnighter punches a cat) and one part progressive character development (Atrocitus is not the one note character he once seemed), this expands the scope of these relatively "unknown" titles and gives more depth and dimension to the potential "cosmic" impacts as yet unexplored (outside of Green Lantern titles, gearing up to a major forthcoming showdown with the Guardians of the Universe) within the New 52. Pacing is solid, and the two part story wraps up neatly, leaving the future wide open for further engagements. As with all titles floating in cosmic flotsam and jetsam, these two are best served when they ground their storylines in concrete character development. And of course... epic fight scenes.

SWAMP THING #10 - 9/10

The fantastic world developed over the past year within Swamp Thing has expanded rather well from the mythos developed during the legendary Alan Moore years. To a great extent, we have series writer Scott Snyder to thank for that. Yanick Paquette's art, a fluid organic complication, lent itself to the progress of the series popularity, but we can see Francesco Francavilla's art has played a crucial part in this issue... adding a texture to a beautifully colored flatness, akin to Darwyn Cooke, with old greenjeans returning from a desert war with the Rot (and Lord of the Rot, Sethe). This issue features the official return of Anton Arcane, the arch-villain of Alec Holland and friends in times gone past. The build up for all of this is a matter of course, and the story's pacing matches the ambitions of the creative team. We almost catch our breaths after the epic arc that brought us to this point, and we can see that the Parliment of Trees, torched and hacked and rotted through at roughly the same time as Alec Holland's brutal chainsaw murder, have been revived as saplings. Needless to say, Abigail Arcane will be facing off in a Rot-infused family reunion next issue, and further down the line we can expect connections to the Animal Man series finally (after much build up) resolve.

MIGHTY THOR ANNUAL #1 - 8/10

This issue, written by J.M. Dematteis, with art from Richard Elson, deals with troublesome and very abstract cosmic forces set to undo all of creation, plunging Infinity into Oblivion. Pulling plots from beyond the scope of most fanboy's memories, Thor teams up with The Silver Surfer to curtail an invasion from Outwhere by The Other, playing the long con game-within-a-game devised, potentially, by The Other's counterpart and polar opposition, The Scrier. Old times with Jim Starlin and the cosmic Marvel pantheon are faintly conjured, and an especially nice spot is where the Scrier calls forth thousands of parallel reality Thors and Surfers to rally against The Other... but the high power levels involved deflate most possibilities for reader relation, and in certain areas the vast scope makes dialogue fall somewhat flat. Self-contained, as Annuals often are, the story still feels constrained, but for anyone more interested in flash over substance it's a rollicking good time.

New Impressions of Avengers vs. X-Men (Spoilers)

2012-06-13T12:16:00.000-07:00

In previous installments of this series concerning the current globe-spanning mega-crossover epic of the Marvel Universe AVENGERS VS. X-MEN, currently in its fifth installment (not including the multiple main title tie-ins), we assessed the context, explored the basic structure of the plot and predicted (accurately) the progression of the storyline. With the fourth issue, we have a twist on top of a twist. Wolverine promised to take the "mutant messiah" Hope to the moon, and that he did (after a brief confrontation with a Shiar death squad in "Wolverine and the X-Men"), but not before contacting Captain America and the Avengers. The issue ends with Thor being thrown into the midst of these heroes, forming a crater (running against the current continuity of New Avengers, which will no doubt catch up shortly)... and the Phoenix, after much build-up, has arrived.

Hope's mutant powers react, of course, and as has been the way with her since her introduction, we are treated to the old "I'm not ready for this!" effect. In the course of events she actually manages to take out all the X-Men and the Avengers. Terrified, she calls on Wolverine to kill her, again. Considering Wolvie has been slashing Captain America and Cyclops alike in the guts over the past few issues, he's more than happy to oblige. At this point the stubbornness of Cyclops is bludgeoned over our head for the umpteenth time.

The main issue that one might call forth as a critical issue with this series is the overabundance of talent. With nearly a half-dozen contributors to the story and script (Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Jonathan Hickman seem to be trading dialogue duty with each issue), each and every panel and event feels polished to the point of being over-refined. John Romita Jr. does a solid job, as expected from such a diehard professional, managing to balance out the art duties of an epic storyline with the repetitiveness of an overextended premise. He's moved beyond the blocky standards of his early work and the inks/color/computer assists do a fine job of complimenting him in this series.

At the end of the day, Hope is what the story hinges on, and despite valiant attempts at texture, she's entirely too shallow a character to pull it off. A powerhouse of potential (a point driven home again and again, in each and every appearance she has ever made), she's hardly had time to be addressed as having human frailties (a few moments in Generation Hope notwithstanding). A heap of ideals and expectations have been passed off onto her, and there's a degree to which she is an inherently unlikable character. There's the overblown manner in which she addresses events in this series, in the past tense, as if telling the story after the fact (making references to the dropping of the atomic bomb on page one, referring to herself as a victim, like so many others, of the Phoenix, on the last page). She takes few actions, and events happen to her. This is her weakness as a character, being presented for some reason as a strength.

But despite that, you might ask yourself, at what point does this much-anticipated series jump the proverbial shark?

When Tony Stark equips himself in a giant Iron Man costume and shoots the Phoenix with a heretofore unheard-of deterrent weapon, a "Phoenix Buster Suit" if you will... he damages it, fractures it, and its power, rather than being transferred into Hope, is split among the X-Men present on the moon (notably removing the trademark Juggernaut helmet present on Colossus up until this point in the series, perhaps purging the demon Cyttorak?).

Really, who saw that one coming?

At best, Avengers vs. X-Men is breaking ground on the "next major plot point" to be bandied about in editor-notes on mutant-related titles for the next two to five years, potentially dovetailing with something catastrophic and "ultra-relevant" in the next two to four months (if the incessant and ever darkening foreshadowing narration by Hope is any indication). At its greatest aspiration, this marks a storyline contending with The Dark Phoenix Saga or Civil War in terms of impact (until ret-conned by editors in an obscure limited series if or when fanboy outcry reaches its most strident peak and someone decides they never liked Emma Frost in the first place).

Or, at worst, this series will play itself out like nearly all "hero vs. hero" slugfests up to and potentially including this point... an exercise in pulling punches. You have to wonder if there is any writer in the Marvel stables considering the What-If issues that each step of the series could spawn, or the parallels of these "hyper-mutants" that a select group of X-Men become in issue five. At its lowest point, it could be viewed as just another money-maker, with no real lasting impact on the characters involved. The final verdict on that, of course, remains to be seen, but despite all the "major events" occurring, it's a possibility.

With the most recent issue of Avengers vs. X-Men, we have a crux, a tipping point, in which the final heft of the series will shortly be determined. With the PhoeniX-Men "preparing" Hope the petulant brat messiah for her upcoming important/irrelevant role in mutantkind's final fate, it's in the hands of Marvel's finest writers to steer the ship of the series out of troubled waters and into more familiar channels, or venture into new unexplored islands of potential. A world-wide mutant "utopia"? A replay of the Civil War trope "heroes putting heroes in jail"? It stands to reason that whatever comes next will prove profitable for the House of Ideas, regardless of its actual effect on the Status Quo. Rock the boat even a little and you'll draw attention.

So, in short, the talent combining for this event is staggering. Is it too big to fail? Are the creator's ideas bigger than the reader's stomachs? Fan reaction has been buzzing throughout message boards, but we'll have our final answer soon enough.

Charles Xavier's stepping out of the shadows, and clearing his throat.

Spoiler Reviews for Comics released May 30, 2012

2012-05-30T21:54:00.002-07:00

Amazing Spiderman Annual #39 - 9/10

Writer Brian Reed has put good use of Spider-Man's current position in the Marvel Universe into play with this Annual. Shunting the webhead out of time during a experiment in Horizon Labs with the all-too-innocent chubby scientist Grady, we catch a glimpse of what the world might look like without Spider-Man. Penciler Lee Garbett does a solid job in all respects, giving a friendly tone to a world that seems in some ways better off (Norman Osborne cures cancer, Mary Jane Watson is a superstar) and in others quite ordinary (Spider-Woman and the Avengers seem much the same). What makes this issue stand out more than anything is the temporary return of Uncle Ben, who Peter Parker couldn't help but visit. If you want to pick up just one Spider-Man comic this year, this would be the one. It's clutter-free despite the chronal catastrophe at the outset, and it fleshes out characters without attempting to go overboard. Nearly perfect in execution, and so far as "the new status quo" goes, well-placed in continuity, and Reed has clearly done his homework regarding key points along the Spider-Man timeline, played up throughout.

Animal Man Annual 1 - 9/10

Ongoing series writer Jeff Lemire has been running with the same "Animal Man's family on the run from the Rot" story for nearly a year, and this Annual, the first for Animal Man's new series, fits into that, hinting at the upcoming team-up with Alec Holland, Swamp Thing and last knight of the Green. The story stands on its own, in a fashion, being in great part a flashback to a team up between warriors of the Green and the Red to stave off The Rot. This Annual features glorious art by Timothy Green, whose alternation between sparsity and complexity of line-work suit the story quite well. The mythology brewing in the "Vertigo import" titles of the New DCU, Swamp Thing and Animal Man, has been venturing into interesting new places, breaking ground for newer and older generations of readers to enjoy. So far as intrigue goes, it has come to a point where the final battle or battles will have to match or exceed the build-up, as lengthy and pleasantly meandering as it has been. This issue, a pause of reflection, in some respects, compounds that feeling. Still gloriously done. Leaves the future for these characters wide open in terms of potential development.

BATMAN Annual #1 - 8/10

Mister Freeze has not warranted a decent reappraisal since Schwarzenegger turned him into a joke so many years ago. This Batman Annual, however, written by Scott Snyder and James T Tynion IV with impressive art by Jason Fabok, pulls us into the character with an ease that some might not expect. Tying into the "Night of the Owls" storyline wrapping up all the Batman related titles at the moment, Mr. Freeze breaks out of Arkham in a somewhat novel fashion, goes on a brutal rampage up to and including the semi-legitimate Penguin's casino (to get his freeze guns) and returns to his object of obsession, his precious Nora. In previous continuity, this was rather straightforwardly (read: dully) played out as his wife. There is now a twist, potentially coupled with details of his family background, that gives the demented tragedy of Mr. Freeze a deeper resonance than was previously thought possible. At the end of the day, of course, this can only wrap up in a limited fashion, but the trip to the inevitable end has some good and even surprising moments along the way.

Star Trek The Next Generation/Doctor Who #1 - 9/10

Here we have a crossover that fans of both series should take a moment with, something quite unexpected but highly enjoyable. With storywork by Scott Tipton, David Tipton, and Tony Lee, the cross-over starts out in the Star Trek Universe (are we to assume both universes are one and the same? If so, would Q and the Doctor have an interesting interaction or what? Perhaps later issues will clarify this.) where the Cybermen have teamed up with the Borg and are laying siege to planets, Starfleet seeming helpless to stop them. We're carried to the Doctor's universe (with Rory and Amy) where they are just wrapping up a lovely set-to with ancient Egyptians and alien scum in disguise. J.K. Woodward's arts and colors have a clean yet almost ethereal quality to them, somehow fitting. We finish this issue in what is quite obviously the anachronistic setting of early twentieth century San Francisco a la Enterprise Holodeck. There were a hundred ways in which this story could go wrong, but it has a strong finish and looks to be well paced. Here's to the future, eh?

Supercrooks #3 - 8/10

These days, Mark Millar writes superhero stories that seem as punchy as a wide-screen cinematic experience. One-liners and dramatic fights play out amongst characters that could easily have celebrity sit-ins. The premise for this story, obvious from the get-go, is "Oceans Eleven starring supervillains" making that last big score to get their old mentor out of trouble with a casino owner. Since his work on Superior, also with Millar, artist Lenil Yu seems determined to make his characters and settings as clean and crisp as is humanly possible, even when covered in muck and gore. This issue is the one in which the titular super criminals case the joint, in this case a villa for a retired super-villain known as The Bastard. From start to finish it's text-book longing for cinematic pick-up. With each page you can practically see Millarworld spin off emails to grubby producers, pitches lined with clips where some textured baddie is growling and chewing the scenery. Let's just never make another movie like WANTED. Please.

Wolverine #307 - 7.5/10

With story by Cullen Bunn and art by Paul Pelletier, this issue marks another chapter in an ongoing arc involving Wolverine tracking down Dr. Rot, a homicidal surgical villain lurking behind the scenes for nearly as long as Wolverine's interminably normal boring girlfriend. She's been looking for Wolverine with the Feds, who think Logan, James, whatever, has been going on a rampage. Well, this issue, we get to meet Dr. Rot's "extended family" (Wolvie mercy-killed the dad and disemboweled a "cousin" last issue)... who are supposed to pack the same punch as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family, perhaps, but end up coming off ghoulishly unrealistic and flat. When these second-tier blood encrusted yahoos manage to one-up Wolverine, lobotomize, brainwash, and give him a tour of their facilities, the reader, if not already numb, can pull out of the muck long enough to predict the final page, wherein Wolverine's girlfriend and the Feds are closing in on the Rot compound, and Rot gives Wolverine orders to kill them. Let's predict next issue. Wolverine doesn't kill his girlfriend. He doesn't even manage to kill any of the Rot family. Somehow these people, grossly brutal villains that he has let off the hook before, will be let off the hook again. Then the next level of status quo will be eminently achieved when Wolverine's dull awful ethnically confusing girlfriend tells him he's not an animal, or something to that effect. Dialogue's decent enough and some instances of old tropes replayed are even novel, but ultimately this gruesome tale can only be re-examined in so many ways.

Spoiler Reviews for Comics from May 23, 2012

2012-05-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

ASTONISHING X-MEN #50. The gimmick of the week is here...

***

Ignoramuses are likely none too pleased with this turn of events, but Marvel Comics is making a bold and timely move with the gay interracial marriage of Northstar in the next issue of Astonishing X-Men. The lead-up to it (oddly out of synch with "regular continuity" but understandably so) involves the corruption and eventual murder(?) of long-standing X-person and mind-dominator Karma, and the fifteenth death of The Marauders. Overall, plot pacing is standard and the art is at times oddly discomfiting, but this series, kicked off by Joss Whedon and John Cassady, then carried by Warren Ellis for a time, is now in the hands of writer Marjorie Liu and artist Mike Perkins, who seem more than capable of handling this hodge-podge stable of mutants. This issue stands out because Jean Paul proposes. Interesting that the choice to make the subplot of Northstar's lovelife brings it to issue 51 rather than the more milestone-ish 50th issue. Whatever happened to the days of silver foil fold out 50th issues? Ah, budget cuts.

PROPHET #25 - Hints indicating an interesting new take on an Image throwback.

****

Remember the early days of Image Comics? It's possible you don't recall the first appearance in Youngblood #2 of a certain John Prophet, headgear-sporting quasi-religious fanatic with strangely disproportionate physical features, who went on to carry his own series for a time. Well, he's back. And with new issues, it would seem that the direction, in terms of storyline as much as art, has gone in the proper direction. Issue 25 is part two of the new reboot, apparently being co-written by Brandon Graham, Giannis Milonogiannis and Simon Roy, with Giannis Milonogiannis taking a hand at the art, bearing hints of Barry Windsor Smith's good old days thrown in with something entirely new and different. I'd long since written off Prophet as a goofy junket from the days when Stephen Platt's art was raging and crashing in useless storylines that involved no substance whatsoever. The story here is still a lot of scenery chewing and Heavy Metal type fantasy tech, but it has a surprising depth, intriguing enough for what it is.

THE MIGHTY THOR #14. Why is it that this happens EVERY time Enchantress makes you breakfast in bed?

****

When you see a writer in mainstream comic books working with characters that he loves, you have to wonder where he will head with the next step, and when he will run out of steam. Matt Fraction, who spanked the whole planet with FEAR ITSELF, seems most invested in Iron Man (his run with Invincible Iron Man stands as one of the best Marvel's had for old shellhead) and Thor. The Mighty Thor has been for some time running as the sidequest of Thor returning from death. With the official return cleared up, we can see that he's exploring Donald Blake's character, apparently a construct by Odin to house the essence of Thor. Bereft of these godly energies, he's gone in league with long-standing villainess Enchantress to regain his deity status. As with every single bloody time that someone falls under the sway of Enchantress, he's going to suffer dire consequences. Meanwhile, Thor is trapped in a dream by nightmare creatures that might take the world tree Yggdrasil by force. Matt Fraction writes these characters with a steadfast love, and that lends the stories a strong sense of presence.

BATMAN INCORPORATED #1 : Sometimes, Grant Morrison's humor bleeds out all over the floor.

****

You would think that eventually Grant Morrison would run out of ideas for the dark knight. But here, years after reintroducing his son Damian as the new Robin, overseeing Batman's death and Nightwing's attempt at the mantle, and ongoing hints of a world-wide "Batman Incorporated"... we have, at last, Batman Incorporated. It's not immediately clear if it runs in pure current continuity on the "New" Batman comics (it doesn't tie into the Court of Owls), but that doesn't matter. Leviathan, a villain fit for a board room full of nervous supervillains, has set his/her/its sights on Gotham, and that means, in classic Morrison style, a lot of detective work, dramatic battle sequences, and dramatic cliff-hangers. Keep this series going for as long as Morrison has the ability to write it.

TEEN TITANS #9: Blah blah blah blah.

I swear to God, I'm not sure why I keep picking Teen Titans up. Nostalgia? False hope? Stupidity? If you developed a drinking game for the comic where every time someone said "Culling", "Harvest", or "Ravagers" you took a drink, you'd be drunk in two pages. I get that there are divergent writing styles and even divergent readers (perhaps the main audience for this title are teenagers who need plot points repeated ad nauseum), but the storyline in this new run of Teen Titans is abysmal (and the art, while flashy, is uninspiring). Somehow a government agency has been co-opted by Harvest, a megalomania-flavored supervillain with zero common sense or character-depth, and superpowered teens are being collected and pitted against one another in "the Culling" to create a team called The Ravagers (coming soon). There are few, if any consequences to actions in the comic, not counting the introduction and pointless death of Artemis. A brief hint at certain elements of Vertigo's Doom Patrol (remember the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E.?) lured me in, but this exposition-addled constant slugfest (drawing in the conversely more interesting Legion Lost into its mess) has lost me for good. I feel nothing for any character or action in the series, and the break-neck pacing and unnatural dialogue hardly gives a reader time to.

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #9: Don't say the s-word.

****

This issue does a fine job of old-school comic book pacing mixed with the hard edge one should expect from Justice League Dark. Steve Trevor enlists the aid of John Constantine and his occult friends in undoing the mystic dowager Jack Faust's schemes. This issue also introduces Black Orchid to the team (last seen being brutally murdered in the pages of Swamp Thing long long ago), and reintroduces the Books of Magic to the DC Universe. Jeff Lemire's script gives each character a distinct voice, and Mikel Janin's artwork lures us into re-evaluating each page over and over. Still a solid comic book, despite a brief bump in the cross-over of previous issues, it seems like this title could outstrip many others in the universe in terms of captivating audiences with unexpected twists. Just don't call it "a superhero book" to its face.

IRREDEEMABLE #37: The final issue and a metaredemption.

*****

Mark Waid is evil. He said so himself. He plastered a comic book convention with the words. The final issue of his interesting twist on heroes and villains, Irredeemable, was unpredictable but not in an upsetting way. The villain of the story, once the world's mightiest hero The Plutonian, saves the day with assistance from his supergenius friend Qubit (now modified with Modeus), and in the end, after brutalizing the planet for issue upon issue, is somehow redeemed. The manner in which this happens is reminiscent of the series penchant for metanarrative and lo-cal social commentary. So far as superhero genre-busters go, this was a fine run for Waid, who when he finally got to the point (destroying city after city along the way), proved why he's an industry heavyweight who can stand apart from the mainstream and still genuinely love and invest in its tropes.

Remember when Grant Morrison had a similar scene in All Star Superman?

Dealing with the Overman: Brief Notes for a greater treatise regarding Superman the Icon

2012-05-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

In this work, we will examine the icon of Superman, the first comic book superhuman that stuck. We will also take a look, in somewhat chronological order, at the correlations, commentaries, and myriad takes on the mythology that arose around this concept.

We'll start with Superman, the infant sent in a rocket from a doomed world, raised by a childless couple in the American heartland of Kansas. He first exhibited his abilities from a young age, leading to his gradual growth into the persona of Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter for The Daily Planet. His creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, had no part in anything but the scantest part of the tremendous capital generated by Superman as a phenomenon, translated to moving pictures and countless streams of merchandise, far outweighing any competitor by sheer force of presence as an icon.

Years pass strangely between comic books and the real world, and after spawning a swamp of imitations and assimilating those that even came close in appearance (Captain Marvel of Shazam! fame will be explored shortly), Superman finally found his nemesis in a Kryptonian-bred superweapon known as Doomsday. After his death and the subsequent universal re-imaginings of DC Comics, he is today another creature altogether, but pausing along the timeline at All Star Superman and the Final Crisis crossover, organized and largely written by Grant Morrison, we find a bleeding-edge meta commentary to the quality of the work, referencing the many worlds and timelines where a flying caped hero with invulnerable skin and a strict moral code to protect the innocent can be found hard at work, saving the universe and the multiverse.

Interestingly, one of the heroes from an alternate reality that Superman meets in his adventure with other "supermen" was Captain Marvel, a hotly contested lawsuit-settlement-won character from the earlier and more litigious days of DC Comics, then known as National Comics. Captain Marvel, created by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker, started out as Captain Thunder (later used for a 1980's African-American iteration) and then Captain Marvelous. His similarity to Superman beyond a superfical level was always nil, but after years of devastating litigation, Fawcett Comics settled the matter with National once the case was bumped back into lower courts. His character was transferred to the DC stables, represented as having magical powers, standing in place for a little boy with a alliterative name whenever he spoke a magic word. The cutting off of Captain Marvel comic books to England gave rise to Mick Anglo's Marvelman, but more on that in a bit.

Superman Beyond 3D represents Grant Morrison's ultimate take on Superman's mythology, putting into story a universal formation around the pearl of Superman, in fact a construct in a multiversal orrery, a doomsday weapon to fight a cosmic vampire. In Superman's group of Monitor-collected alternate reality companions, we find the aforementioned Captain Marvel, Ultraman (a psychopathic reverse-world version of Superman), Captain Adam (a superman with interesting correlations to Doctor Manhattan from Watchmen or Captain Atom from the New 52), and Overman, the requisite Nazi Superman. It is here, as well as a moment in All Star Superman, that Grant Morrison draws directly from Nietzche to reinforce his meta-commentary on the iconography of the Superman.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the Übermensch, or Overman, holds a position in Zarathustra's presentation as the creator of new values after the twilight of piety and nihilism that man stews in. The Übermensch forms a new moral standard, well apart from the squabbling infestation that ordinary man, in his eternal ignorance, helps perpetuate. It is here that the development of the superhuman standard can be seen at work in comics, moving beyond dot matrix printed slugfests and soap-opera dramatic back doors, into a more philosophically varied position of moral development. In essence, mankind is something to be overcome, and in our attempts to understand ourselves we may form a creature that sees us as a laughingstock. This mirrors the attempts in recent years of comic books to validate their own existence and prove themselves more than they once were, beholden to a higher standard than initially expected.

To the end that Superman was and will always be an icon that draws in a goodly sum of cash, ebbing and flowing given standards of society, it would make sense that the creators at Marvel Comics, mainstream competitor to DC Comics, would at some point capitalize on the concept in their own fashion. The result was Hyperion, Marvel's first answer to Superman. Created by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, this provided a leader for the Sinister Squadron, arguably a villainous Marvel-looking glass take on the Justice League of America, designed to fight The Avengers. An alternate reality version of these villains were also created by Thomas and Buscema, the Squadron Supreme of Earth 712.

However, in the years following George W. Bush's horrific first term in office, Hyperion resurfaces, this time an Earth-31916 version. J. Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank craft a superhuman that crashed in a similar fashion to Superman, but the kindly couple that discovers him never gets a chance to raise him. Instead, the U.S. military puts him in a foster home with the expressed intent to develop him as a superhuman weapon of mass destruction. When, inevitably, this Hyperion breaks free of his imposed position, the military meetings describe his capabilities for murder in Megadeaths. This imagined graphic carnage is jumping a little ahead of ourselves, hearkening in some ways back to Miracleman, who we will now address.

For all his personal foibles and fables, Alan Moore works at his best when he is reworking the concepts of other creators, tweaking and paring down the essence of a character he did not himself create. No better example of this than the little-seen Miracleman, first known as Marvelman. As previously mentioned, the gap left to Britain with the passing of Captain Marvel Comics out of circulation was filled by a blonde imitation courtesy of Len Miller and Mick Anglo, just as wholesome as the Fawcett creation yet distinctly more British. The origin story was tweaked (astrophysics replaces magic) and the series went on to great success, even in Italy. Years down the line, a British comic book called Warrior was printing Mick Anglo stories framed by a story Alan Moore developed out of the original content, creating yet another interesting metanarrative, and perhaps the first of its kind within superhero comics. The reality of previous continuity was in fact a virtual reality simulation concocted by an evil scientist who reverse engineered the "Miracleman family" from a fallen spacecraft.

The storyline for Miracleman consists of too many ground-breaking moments in superhero comics to go into in the space we are provided, but suffice it to say, much as Moore's later work in Watchmen, Miracleman proved to be a game changer when it first hit the industry's bigger editorial bullpens. After decades of work inside and out of courts, it was announced not too long ago by Joe Quesada that Marvel now officially owns the rights to the stories, although given Moore's current standing and reputation in the mainstream, his work, along with a nascent showing by Neil Gaiman, may never see the light of day, proper. The crux of the series must be noted, however, as Kid Miracleman, sidekick of Miracleman, speaks his secret superhero word while being sodomized in a school bathroom, then goes on a killing rampage in London, at superspeed.

Here we see a grandiose act of terror resulting in very distinct loss of human life on a grand scale, but moreso, on a superhuman scale, still not topped in terms of graphic wholeness in any comic to this day, at the hands of a deranged superhuman reverting to the basest of human instincts, the direct opposite of the morally refining/annihilating Overman. Miracleman tricks Kid Miracleman into saying his name, then snaps the neck of the inner host child, sobbing in the ruins of London.

What Moore went on to do with Miracleman was take the step towards superhumans tactically rearranging the world's affairs to the next logical level. But with his work in Watchmen, we see only one true superhuman in a world where moral quandries are the norm, and human affairs muddled. Dr. Manhattan is Alan Moore's final commentary on the superhuman. Taking elements of an old episode of the Outer Limits for the overarching plot and this character's personal microcosm, mixing some of the chrono-synclastic infundibulum experienced by Winston Niles Rumfoord in Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan, and throwing in glowing blue for good measure, Dr. Jonathan "Jon" Osterman is a being that stands outside of time. The morality of his actions escape him early on, and he's used as America's nuclear deterrant and the solution to the Viet Nam conflict. His seemingly infinite power is undercut by a lack of emotional perspective, brought back into play only through finding interesting correlatives within human bonds, via his lover the Silk Spectre. In the end, he leaves the world to "create some life of his own" and reverberates in comics, in all his blue nudity and glory, to this day.

Along the lines of interpersonal relations, when Warren Ellis formed the wide-screen superhero team Authority in the late nineties, he brought on two petri-dish experiments known only as Apollo and The Midnighter, homosexual tangents of Superman and Batman. Outside of his role as solar-powered strongman, Apollo's character depth never developed a comfortable and personable niche, although he did end up in a collection of the multiverse's "Superman Squadron" in the final issue of Final Crisis. Not flamboyant but certainly a controversy to some small minds, at the present moment Apollo represents a social commentary regarding the status of the Superman iconography. His costume's triangle could clearly be seen as a direct reference to his homosexual status. Not often has the issue come up, but with the recent revamp of Apollo into the DC mainstream, it will be interesting to see how DC might handle him potentially being "outed" in the future, or how social norms mind lend him some room to build actual personality in the momentum.

Another take on the idea of Superman's iconic status is Omniman, from the comic by Robert Kirkman known as Invincible. Omniman is a soldier of an empire of superhumans, Spartan-like and merciless in their expansionist scheme. He bred with a human and had a child, the comic's titular teen hero, and is outed for murdering the "Justice League" proxies of their Earth. His character represents an extreme of old-school humanity, his people all being combat-oriented dominators, first and formost. He's a wolf in sheep's clothing, or worse still, a wolf in a herd-dog's clothing. It should be noted that Dragonball Z might have some influence on this title, though it cannot be directly confirmed at this time. In that long-running anime series, the central and most moral hero Goku is initially sent to Earth to clear out the population for his race of war-hardened Saiyans. They, much like Omniman's Viltrumite race, become more powerful the more they fight. Omniman develops a conscience in the midst of fighting his son after being found out as a villain. He, more than any other character in the Invincible series (a cast of hundreds), undergoes a radical moral conversion and develops interestingly as a character, the more human-like he becomes.

A Superman-shaped flaw in the Marvel Universe worked itself out as a character named Sentry, created by Paul Jenkins and Rick Veitch, originally pitched as "an over-the-hill guy, struggling with addiction, who had a tight relationship with his dog, and also was a guardian type, with a watchtower." Sentry insinuated himself into the Marvel Knights line of comics, a realm between mainstream and Marvel MAX, and retroactive continuity placed him as a creature with a scope of powers akin to Superman's that struggled with a duality within himself known only as The Void. His very presence became increasingly unstable, as he fell as pawn and puppet to the Green Goblin. He murdered the gods Loki and Ares in an assault on Asgard, and begged to be put down. Thor threw him into the sun. His background, a muddied mix of over-the-top power and under-performing subplots, lent him an unstable mix of characteristics. He tended to blend into the background or overpower any foe he faced, with little actual characterization in-between. With the giant S on his belt buckle and the mental illness he dealt with on a day to day basis, he was difficult for readers and heroes alike to relate to, but his story once again hints at the frailty of the superhuman dynamic in the face of lesser human manipulations.

This plays itself out once more in Supergod, a comic put out by Avatar Press and written by Warren Ellis, with art by Garrie Gastonny. In the way Warren Ellis put it, Supergod was meant to depict what an actual superhuman arms race would look like. It escalates quickly and smacks of the old ultraviolence. It was also a frank commentary on the human trait of identification and deification, side by side with weaponizing technologies that we can barely understand given to creatures so inhuman they crap radio waves. This bleak world shows nations running secretly funded projects to develop not just the next level of nuclear destruction, but a god to worship. Ellis explores the absolute amorality of the subject with the dry wit of a brilliant drunk in an English pub. The issues of transhumanism and posthumanism skirt the edges of the bloodbath and planetary havoc that is wreaked in the course of the story, but again, and this would seem to be a recurring theme among the standards and practices of superhumans in these different permutations, it's the core of man's goodness that is returned to, directly before complete annihilation and assimilation into fungal eternity.

The Boys, written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Darick Robertson, is an insider's send-up of the ridiculous nature of superheroes, while at the same time more black humor commentary on war, politics and corporations. The closest Superman-type we can find is the blond puppet known as Homelander, a government bred experiment, terribly flawed in execution, who in recent issues went berserk and killed every person in the White House. The Homelander is parody of the bleakest sort, a living breathing confrontation of the ineptitude of certain government officials concerning 9/11, a tarnished Aryan bootlick draped in an American flag and given no social conscience. His berserker rage was started when the deterrent designed to stop him if he ran amok (a clone of him, in fact) posed as him doing horrific acts to innocent families, to trigger him and fulfill its purpose. Manipulated from start to finish and given only the slightest redemption after being soaked in presidential blood, the Homelander is so distantly removed from Zarathustra's tulpa what became Superman we could almost laugh bitterly when comparing the two, which is of course the point. Garth Ennis has sent up this sort of parody flag before, with a character known as The Samaritan in his comic The Pro, illustrated by Amanda Conner.

After all exhaustive inquiries into this realm of material, the well has not run dry. Mark Waid's Irredeemable, in his own words from 15 Minutes with Mark Waid: "What if you go from, you know, Captain America to Doctor Doom? What if you go from Superman to Lex Luthor? How do you go from being the greatest hero in the world — someone that everybody knows, and everybody loves, and everyone recognizes — to the greatest villain in the world? What is that path? It's not a light switch, it's not an on-off switch, it's not something that you wake up one day and just become evil." Here we have an idea running counter to the stable "silver age" sensibilities that some would have once accused Waid of (addressed by Grant Morrison in a Foreward in the first Irredeemable trade paperback). The Plutonian is a character whose origin involves cosmic happenstance, infanticide and repeated attempts at infanticide, then an orphanage and numerous failed foster families. He is a frustrated superhuman that finally gives up after taking years of overhearing snide remarks from people he saved and, once he works up the nerve to reveal his secret identity to his girlfriend, watches as she tells the rest of the people at the radio station they work at. He turns utterly evil, murders an entire city, then sinks Singapore, all while hunting down old allies and enemies and systematically exterminating any human that talk about him behind his back (a benefit and curse of super-hearing). The story moves along and he is stopped, thrown into an intergalactic insane asylum, meets his cosmic parents and evolves, but still remains unredeemed. He stands in stark contrast to one of his former villains turned hero, Max Damage, featured in Incorruptible, also by Waid. Here we have the unfolding and destabilization of the Superman mythology and indeed an exploding of the Overman application to comic books altogether. Nihilism compounded with superhuman abilities, tinged with impiety. Super-psychokinetically charged pettiness and rage do not make for a character worth saving, most days of the week. Hence the title.

We might conclude, given the nature of the material presented here today, that the role of a Superman-type in the comic book industry has lost some of its moral fiber and gained some realistic turpitude. The easy answers of times gone past are no longer permissable. Once we begin our descent on the slippery slope that these cascading permutations allow (and here we have not even named all), we can fall into endless speculation on the scope of this or that plotline if inflicted on reality's fabric, and this or that moralistic spin on the caped invulnerable hero. The New 52 released by DC Comics gives us Clark Kent's parents only in flashbacks, as they are dead in present time, and this is a shame, though likely new books featuring these heroes behind the hero could come up. These two, Jonathan and Martha, are the very center of Superman's moral code and immanence as superhuman perfection. Lending somewhat to the nurture vs. nature argument, we can see that all the good of Superman comes from his grounding in what makes him a man. His code of conduct, far from being imposed by another authority, comes from an understanding of human nature instilled by his parents, along with an unflagging optimism, a certainty that good will triumph over evil, that the petty squabbles of mere mankind can be overcome, and that in the end, however trite it may sound, the Overman may in fact dwell within us all.

[A final moment, a brief comment, an afterword, concerning the development of a character in the Marvel Universe using the presupposition that Superman's parents are the core of his higher moral standing. Apocalypse has traditionally been a villain, repeatedly ressurecting to fight in the various books concerning mutants in that universe. His relatively recent death at the hands of Weapon XIII, Fantomex, while still just a child, were offset recently to some degree. A clone is placed in a virtual reality containment unit (mirroring Miracleman's VR existence), where he is raised by a simulated mother and father, "Ma and Pa" on a farm in Kansas (obvious relations to Superman's origin via Baudrillard's Simulacrum and Simulation). He is taken out somewhat early from this simulation and set to fight against Archangel, the heir apparent to the legacy of Apocalypse. Given the codename Genesis, he is currently attending the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning, where he is just beginning to question his origins. We can extrapolate that his turn away from morality might come when he learns that his childhood and family were a fabrication of some faux French anti-hero. What better means might one deal with this potential omega level threat simmering on Marvel's backburner? Could Genesis, if he had followed the simulation to completion, have become redeemed for all the evil done in the name of Apocalypse? There are many things still to be said for the mythology that Superman gives us, and they will be explored so long as man is still committing ink to paper (or pixels to screens) in the name of comics.]

Reviews of Comics from May 16, 2012

2012-05-16T17:50:00.001-07:00

Fantastic Four 605.1 is a testament of perfection in comics.

*****

With one single issue of Fantastic Four, Jonathan Hickman does wonders. We're given a Nazi Reed Richards that ended up with an Infinity Gauntlet, one of the Council of Reed Richards that built Bridges to seek out other universes. Yeah, the guy with a beard that a mad Celestial killed a little while back. This is set up for the forthcoming Doom storyline, which given Hickman's forthcoming departure for the series is likely to be grand. Doom has the Nazi Reed Richard's Infinite Gauntlet now. Great read. Buy it. Buy it forever. Or at least until Hickman has moved on to his next project.

Avengers vs. X-Men delivers exactly what it promises and a bit more.

****

Avengers vs. X-Men 4 was a bit like a hectic hyped-up world tour issue, but the important thing is that it ends in the Blue Area of the Moon. As ever, the fighting that is reserved for AvX is cut down to basics, here. Captain America's off-handed dismissal of Gambit is particularly disappointing comparatively, but perhaps that's understandable. The Avengers have won most of the battles, and the cover for the next issue indicates that the Phoenix, after brutally beating Thor into a crater, has arrived. And there's Hope. We'll see where all this macho posturing and plot twistiness gets us into, on a large scale.

Incredible Hulk 7.1 lets Hulk sow some wild oats.

***

Meanwhile, The Incredible Hulk 7.1 shows great strides in dealing with the serious heaviness of preceding issues. The tortured soul of Banner lives on in Hulk, even though Hulk made a deal with Dr. Doom to separate the two of them in body and mind. Banner went all Island of Dr. Moreau and ended up dying in Hulk's arms at the heart of a Gamma Bomb explosion. But now Hulk is independent of Banner. And he spends weeks just cooking sharks and riding Triceratops in the Savage Land. Good enough to be a point one comic, anyday. But they cooked up something special for us, specifically Betty (Red She-Hulk) Ross beating Hulk down and sexing him in the wreckage they created in their fight, making an eyeball-hunting villain watch while they do. It seems like Hulk writers always have had the dilemma of Banner, but just this once, Hulk, not Banner, got what he'd yelled for for years. He got to be alone. Then he got to bone. Red and green Hulk baby, anyone?

JLA will get better soon, I should hope.

Justice League of America is a convoluted mess, in terms of plot, and the art still feels like the failed universe of Wildstorm got ahold of icons. It seems bereft of years of DC history, and rather than adding to the myths of these characters we have a Steve Trevor subplot indicating the military's extreme role in the JLA's sanctioned actions, the old villain The Key in a confusing role with none of the brilliance exhibited, only the crazy, and a dying writer who apparently wants to get the JLA's attention. It feels like a lot is packed in, but it doesn't pull through, too clogged with splash page battles and pointless confrontations and demotivating motives. The back-up storyline with Shazam! seems somehow bitter and mean, with no hint of the frivolity and gee shucks attitude that Captain Marvel once possessed.

Green Lantern Corps 9 just reinforces that the Guardians are scum.

***

Green Lantern Corps. has recently seen shakeups, and out of all the Green Lantern titles it is the one that, until recently, directly addressed the fact that the Guardians of the Universe are complete scheming monster scumbags that must be stopped at any cost. John Stewart, or if you like, the black Green Lantern, recently killed a fellow Corps. member that was about to divulge secret codes to Oa's power battery to save himself. Snapped his neck, only brief hesitation and fair warning. The Alpha Lanterns bring him in, and the truth of his actions come out. Green Lantern Corps. is an intriguing continuation of the political and the military bounds that are part and parcel for the Green Lantern's mythology and position in the Universe. The Green Lantern titles as a whole show a certain stability of universe somewhat lacking from a few other titles in the New 52, approaching the Second Wave.

Captain Atom 9 is a very well composed work.

****

The storyline in Captain Atom continues to grow and pique interest, thanks to an stable writer J.T. Wells and an evolving artist in Freddie Williams III. Arguably the most powerful superhuman in terms of potential, the character has come into his own since several attempts over the years to revamp him from his Silver Age roots have failed or been rendered moot. Currently, the Captain is meeting his future selves, and the world that they have turned into a virtual paradise. To cultivate such a powerful hero is to often to court editorial disaster. When split open in Kingdom Come he took out the midwest. When transported to the Wildstorm Universe he heralded its imminent destruction. Cosmically, if he can expand beyond brainwashed militarism or perhaps even team up with Firestorm, his powers could prove most interesting, especially given that The Doctor of the Wildstorm Universe has yet to appear in the New 52. The Captain would have an interesting lesson to learn, there.

X-Men Second Coming: or, The Meta that ate Itself

2012-05-16T16:02:00.002-07:00

If you are going to discuss the X-Men war across America known as Second Coming, you will have to get Nightcrawler's death out of the way first.

Let's do it as glossy as possible. Great, thanks.

There, was that so bad?

In all seriousness, the first arc of the storyline focused on the supreme Nimrod-like Bastion and his gang of resurrected racists taking out the X-Men's resident teleporters. Ariel, the Vanisher, and Illyana Rasputin fell before a jet missile, a hail of bullets, and an arcane banishment payload, respectively. All of this due to the arrival of Hope from her junkyard future in the 31st century with Cable, of Liefeld ages gone past.

Bastion, being from the future, has insider information on Hope. He knows what the end of Avengers vs. X-Men will be. He's also a mutant-hating robot with a mission to exterminate the mutant race. He wants her dead because the x-gene will activate more if she is left alive. The Gold Celestial's proximity to San Francisco is no coincidence. Kurt teleports her there after Bastion puts his hand through him.

Not a dry eye in the house there, guys.

As we can see, the cost of messianic fervor is paid by the moral conscience. Nightcrawler represented, in many respects, the team's heart. He held a relgio-spiritual status among a band of blatant outcasts. He internalized the weight and responsibility of a Catholic sense of morality. Directly prior to his death he discovered that Cyclops had sanctioned a mutant hit-squad led by Wolverine, good old X-Force. Nightcrawler of course took issue with the blatant killing of innocent or helpless enemies, no matter how bad. In the course of Second Coming, morals are continually compromised, and murder happens at an alarming rate. A human supremacist begging Wolverine for his life is gutted. X-23 pops a helpless man in the brain with her claws during interrogation. Warlock is convinced by Doug Ramsey to steal the lifeglow of Cameron Hodge and his smiley face followers. Archangel, having become dominant for Warren Worthington III, cuts people to pieces and never even changes expression.

When this was first drawn on a bar napkin, it seemed cool. In 1986.

When I see all this mutant carnage I call to mind the old Chris Claremont era, where in one instance Wolverine gutted and nearly killed a confused Rachel Summers (Phoenix by proxy from parallel timeline) for wanting to murder mutant witch Selene for enslaving her. Claremont wrote in an odd moral code for a man whose power is constant regeneration and unbreakable claws. The X-Men of that era would often say "X-Men don't kill." Once the ingratiating and peaceful influence of Charles Xavier gave way, in recent years, to the crashpad of Magneto, that motto seems to have long gone by the wayside. Since Scarlet Witch's heavy trip, Mutants are a desperate aberrant in the Marvel Universe once more, nowhere near the scope of evolutionary step predicted in Grant Morrison's Planet X.

Foreshadowing, anyone? With red eyes, grr. We're tough, our eyes are all red. Grr, moral dubiety.

Throughout the X-Men's long standing career nigh coming on about forty some odd years now, they have undergone dramatic shifts of cast and presence of mind within the framework of what constitutes a story. When mutants bottomed out after the last reality warping schizophrenic lost their grip (felt like the subtle influence of Sublime behind the scenes), and relocated from the bombed-out Xavier estate and come correct with Magneto on Asteroid M turned mutant sanctuary Utopia.

Seemed like so much recycling of old fears and worries for the same characters that once found themselves faced with a nightmarish Holocaust-level scenario.

For all the brightly colored spandex of the past we can see hints of mixing and matching old Claremont storylines in the midst of all this. New Mutants meets Days of Future Past meets the myriad Sentinel hunts, the Master Mold of a dystopian tomorrow, personified in a brick wall plastered with those inefficient posters of dead mutants, disturbingly current in their appearances. Which brings us to the idea of this whole storyline being meta Claremont.

The precise moment that this trope jumped the shark.

The Claremont era of X-Men has been the most fertile grounds for future storylines for decades now. To revisit that waterhole again and again compounds itself, as stories continue emerging from stories and characters develop and react throughout. Once you've committed yourself to sending up or rooting out Claremont's old pastures, you're muddy with backstory.
Recent issues of the X-titles, leading up to and in fact catching its stride in Avengers vs. X-Men, have worked towards a new set of myths to create templates of arcs off of. Easy examples come from the Morrison, Whedon, or even the fairly recent Fraction era, where new villains and challenges emerged, blended, and were ably handled.

In Second Coming, the other end of Messiah Complex, the refinement of new "big deal" Hope continues, as it will soon be coming to a head in current continuity, and we should take a moment to acknowledge other odd-run revamps being called forth in the war (everyone says the entire series run that it's a war), Professor X's schizophrenic son of an Israeli mother, Legion. Legion did, some time back, spawn the Age of Apocalypse universe by accidentally killing his father when he went back in time to kill Magneto. His imprisonment/rehabilitation in Utopia was played out in another alternate reality he spawned, The Age of X. So when Professor X calls upon him to unleash his multiple personalities to defend San Francisco, it's an interesting throwback to remind Marvel readers that all powerful characters have ultrapowerful offspring (Scarlet Witch, Jamie Braddock, and Franklin Richards come to mind).

Actually, pretty cool set up in your head. But that hair...

2011 was the year that all of 2012 X-continuuty and the Avengers vs. X-Men was laid out, with the return of Hope, sent to the 31st century with Cable, son of Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey, who is dead but died at least three times, rose as a Phoenix and was killed again by a clone of Magneto run amok on mutant power enhancing drugs. But I digress. Hope is blatantly the forthcoming Phoenix by the end of this series, but I am going to appraise its overall structure and hope to make sense of the plot, which expects the reader to have kept reasonable pace with the story and all of Chris Claremont's run including the New Mutants, for the past ten to thirty years. Nimrods and Bastions and recycled plots via recycled characters via constant Resurrection countered by constant death. Officially, Professor X has also died at least three times, too.

The X-Men are the most ridiculously injured by and least affected by death in the Marvel Universe. The avatar of this odd trope is of course the nearly unkillable Wolverine. His ubiquitous nature in the Marvel Universe expresses this as well, as characters live, die, are ressurected by contrivance of plot, and Wolverine can outlive them all and fight the Hulk in the ashes of civilization. In the Ultimate Universe, Logan, or James Howlett, actually, was mutant zero in the human creation of mutants through attempted weaponization of mutants via Weapon Plus, the outcropping of Captain America's super soldier program.

In any event, the plot plays itself out in various psychodramas that emerge from the team dynamic and whatever confrontation the team must face. Second Coming, in all of its metaglory, is worth a reassessment after the final throws and lashes of Avengers vs. X-Men dies down. In the meantime, see it as a (hopeful) last hurrah for direct sips of the Claremont pool, at least until other water sources, or better yet, a running river of fresh concepts can be located, perhaps even in as recent and well refined an example as Rick Remender's bizarrely perfect Dark Angel Saga.

And sometimes the foreshadowing is just like a mallet upside the head.

15 hour Avengers Party.

2012-05-04T15:55:00.000-07:00

The idea was simple. For twenty American dollars plus tax apiece, Mr. So and I would partake of fifteen hours of comic book movies. The offer stood as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and finally, at midnight, the long-anticipated Avengers (in 3D), written and directed by this summer's cinema success story, Joss Whedon.

I got this swag.

When the first film (Iron Man) ends, a sweaty female attendant with a broken voice informs the theater that parking will only be validated for four hours. A mild panic rises in the crowd when a rumor passes around that the show is going to exclude The Avengers itself. A quick check on the cell phone confirms the film is indeed playing. Calm returns.

The crowd consists of much as you might expect: largely male population, with standard skinny bespectacled nerds, geeks that choose to wear their Captain America hoodies or thrift-store condition Avengers t-shirts (thus being the guy at the concert that's wearing the t-shirt of the band that's playing at the concert), a handful of stoner stereotypes, dorks that bred and brought their precocious children, and of course, samples of America's grossly obese, providing the sour milk fat flesh fold smell that over the course of the day sinks into the theater like scared-skunk stink. Swag in the form of buttons and posters are passed out.

We're all sold on it.

What's not to like?

Admittedly, the only movies of the bunch that I go into the event having already seen are the Iron Man films, due in one part due to an odd affection for Jon Favreau, in another part because of an active attempt to avoid the genre of superheroes as much as humanly possible. So often one gets burned. Ask anyone that has ever seen Spider Man 3. In the cocaine-fueled executive rage for commercial success, many comic book adaptations could easily be viewed as escapism done wrong, a less refined, mostly immature attempt at pandering to the lowest common denominator, resulting in critical flip-floppers.

Most of all what I never enjoyed was the preening sense of inevitability concerning militarism that the Marvel franchise seems to endorse in each film it makes, while simultaneously (and only sometimes) pretending it does the opposite.

The Edward Norton version of Hulk doubles down on the concept of military run amok to the point of absurdity, blowing up a college campus with no accountability, while the Thor movie mythologizes it with a sanitized and shiny Asgard run by Anthony Hopkin's master Kenneth Branaugh (and in this you could extrapolate Thor being the brutish America proxy, Loki being the snotty British Gog, and the entire Middle East as a frosted mirror-glass land of the Frost Giants).

This uneasy feeling of being sold a toy of the military industrial complex is reinforced as we are treated to the same opening sequence of commercials six times at the event. An ad for the Navy, an ad for the Navy-sponsored boardgame-turned-film Battleship, an ad for the same film, this time sponsored by Coke Zero, an ad for the Marines, an ad for the Hatfields vs. the McCoys on TNT (Kevin Costner in a bloodfeud), an ad for the new remake of Dallas (the words BLOOD and FEUD and BATTLEGROUND flash on the screen, almost subliminal), then a review of each preview, plus an oddly racist Ultrabook ad. All of that, six times over.

Imagine an army of Purple Hulks.

So the twelve hours and five movies pass, with twenty minute breaks between films, and we devour the food we snuck in, sip on caffeinated beverages loaded with vitamin B and Guarna and Taurine, and I can feel myself becoming accustomed to the changing eye-patches of Nick Fury in each post-credits teaser, and I can see that the people involved are attempting to make something more than a two hour long advertisement for the military industrial complex, but at the end of the day, they're stuck in a system they never named, but were made by, much as in the Captain America movie, where after being dosed as a super-soldier, he spends the first stretch of his career spinning propaganda on the newsies.

When a true subliminal flashes after the word "compassion" at a certain point (Thor, I believe), I recall the recent Star Trek remake, where James T. Kirk's older father-proxy tries to convince him to join Star Fleet after a bar fight. I flash across the crass, commercialized, and crypto-fascist overtones of 300 and the Transformers franchise. Michael Bay conditioning pods. Though certain elements of Captain America call to mind the best elements of Star Wars as well as the quality of film making from the era it depicts. Captain America is the best, most refined of the Marvel movies leading into The Avengers.

About midway through The Avengers, when the S.H.I.E.L.D Hellicarrier raises out of the ocean, I find myself compelled to join the Navy, for some reason.

I also find myself cheering with the crowd around me.

The Avengers, it should be said, calls forth all the elements of a comic book superhero team, and paces them in an order that should be just complex enough to satisfy critics and just simplistic enough to appease brohams. It's a crowd pleaser. It will break box-office barriers. I love comics. I know comics. My conscious attempts at avoiding comic book movies came after a dissatisfaction borne out of constant disappointment.

The Avengers gets it right, in a big way.

[Perhaps that lengthy an exposure to such materials was never intended for public consumption. Perhaps I have overdosed. I need to start a blood feud, right after I join the Navy.]

I'll admit, all of my resistances were worn down to some degree in the twelve hours leading up to The Avengers, but this is a first rate A+ film for being a comedy, an action movie, and a superhero movie that puts all others to shame.

The Tesseract (which sounds better than Cosmic Cube, perhaps) is our movie's objective correlative, first introduced in Captain America, a limitless power source, and a source of interest for the villain Loki and his unnamed benefactor Thanos (who we only see in the first of two post-credits scenes).

The entire film, I wanted Samuel L. Jackson, playing Nick Fury, to start screaming a litany of curse words, out of nowhere. SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson (calling to mind Charles Colson) played by Clark Gregg, is the thread running from Iron Man through the rest of the films and on up into The Avengers, where he plays the part of Captain America's biggest fan and, later on, "the avenged". Scarlett Johansson manages to explain why Black Widow is essential to the team dynamic by being the world's best interrogator. Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye gets only a few spots to shine in the film, but he uses them effectively. Bruce Banner is played for the first time by Mark Ruffalo, who does a bang-up job playing the eccentric gamma-irradiated scientist. Better by far than any previous actor that filled the role, if you want to come down to it. Tom Hiddleston is the core of the movie as Loki, and in the final analysis is one of the best actors in the film. Something about Chris Hemsworth as Thor strikes me as a little too simple. Maybe that's the point. He has a good laugh for Thor, it's just that he walks with just the wrong degree of swagger to pull off "god of thunder", in my humble opinion. Chris Evans, on the other hand, manages to sell Captain America's soldier boy appeal effortlessly, and of course, Robert Downey Jr. embodies Tony Stark to the extent that at certain points it doesn't feel like he's bothered to read the script, he's just channeling a genius billionaire philanthropist from a parallel reality.

Part of what can tell you how good a band is is how well the audience responds to their performance. By that measure, and given that the entire theater withstood fifteen hours of cinema for The Avengers, the movie is a rousing success. Big laughs from the audience. Spontaneous applause. Bigger action.

Joss Whedon has proven something great about himself this summer. He's the current nerd king of Hollywood, and we shall all bask in his light until the cycle of cinema degenerates again, in a new flashier more gimmicky Tour de France.

I want to give him a firm handshake for a job well done, right after I sign up for basic training.