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You the audience, all four of you, demand a theme. I don't know why, but you
do. Since I have the necessary trades handy, I live to serve. I will join
together to fight foes no single hero could withstand- Okay, maybe they could
but all of these heroes were members of the Avengers at some point or another.
Then again, who hasn't been an Avenger? That should be Marvel's new marketing
slogan. Something like: 'I see a bad guy, I don't debate. I don't let him get
away. I place a bullet in his brain-: The Punisher- I am NOT an Avenger'.
Another side note for all you reader out there: The one and a half who
haven't gotten the word yet-- There is still time to enter the 'Did I Get What
I Paid For? Don't Blame Me' contest. Let me explain how it works one more
time. You recommend a trade. I buy it. If you win, you get to see a glowing
review of a comic you love written by yours truly appearing in a column much
like this one in a future issue. If you lose- and judging by some of the
entries I've received so far there are quite a few masochists and malcontents
out there- you get to see the trade you submitted mauled so badly you'd think it
was blown up while trying to build a radio to Hell to talk to its exiled
mother. I've added some more rules simply because people aren't getting the
point. 1) No, I will not read X-Men: The Manga Vol 2. Not without proper
financial compensation plus money for pain, suffering and the months of therapy
afterwards. 2) No Silver Age Superman because not only is that some one else's
gimmick but it's like boxing a double amputee. C'mon- I survived Star Trek:
The Manga and Universe X. Give me a challenge. 3) If I end up ripping to
shreds a book or series you absolutely love there will be no apology. I hate to
be self-referential but comic books are not the people of Belgium.
Anyway - now on with the show . . .
Spider-Man Family: Back in Black: Some people wouldn't count this in an Avengers
solo book column. Spider-Man is definitely a top notch character and Avengers
material. The first story is a 'lost tale' from the alien costume days. Peter
beats up some bad guys while sleep walking. Whereas many of the original
stories paid the sleep walking crime fighter angle for mystery, here it is
played for laughs. Only the laughs are ruined by Sandman showing up. Which
reminds me of a movie I saw once but you know how it is. This time Sandman is
just doing his legitimate job. Anyway, Spider-Man generally fights street
criminals and guys in funny suits, not aliens. If he can beat an alien suit he
is Avengers material. Especially since they are an organization that once let
Hellcat in. Which of course is a segue to the second story where Patsy Walker
fights The Black Cat. I think Felicia Hardy had more sexual spark with Hellcat
in this ten page story than she ever did with Spider-Man. Yet somehow this book
got a All Ages rating? Moving on, the next story features Spider-Man going on
patrol and ending up investigating a string of murders of C.E.Os. all of whom
were killed by Venom. Without giving too much away, Spider-Man is caught
between arresting one murderer and protecting another. Just an average day for
your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Then comes another ten pager about Curt
Connors and his prize student that was both touching, funny but with only a
mildly amusing ending. At only ten pages it seemed a little rushed. Then came
another longer story: a lost story from Spidey's early days. I've always
liked Spider-Man team ups with the Fantastic Four. This one is no exception.
He's always had an odd rapport with them going back to Amazing Spider-Man #1.
Hey- Ben Grimm is currently an Avenger, too. Reed and Sue were briefly members
of the Avengers. That's five Avengers in this book which is more than you can
say for most of the chapters of Avengers: Secret Invasion. In all seriousness,
this story had me chuckling inside. Finally there was the teenage girl Scorpion
vs. the Original Scorpion (who now calls itself Venom) which was both
entertaining and down right inevitable. Considering how long the new Scorpion
had been active I'm surprised it took that long. Scorpion/Venom was an
Avenger. That's six Avengers. Also, I'm aware this review is longer than
usual but as I write this it is already July 10th and I've only finished one
trade. Though I'm also reading a phone book- so gimme some credit. At $4.47, I
got what I paid for here.
The Essential She-Hulk: This phone book sized collection boasts one issue by
Stan Lee, as well it should. It doesn't have a lot else going for it. For the
one issue he was on board, 'Uncle Stan' hit a solid gold grade A origin story.
The real problem is it also contains 23 three other issues of She-Hulk prior to
her days in The Avengers. The only possible explanation for it lasting that
long was that in the 70s and 80s, there was TV series starring Bill Bixby. Hulk
was big. You could slap Hulk on any Marvel title and the sales would go up even
if the art and story were total garbage- much like Hulk's former foe Wolverine
is today. My mom always told me if you can't find anything nice to say,
don't say anything at all. However if you're a regular reader of this column
you know how well that little nugget of advice stuck. David Kraft's trouble is
that he can't really pin down if he wants the title to be a straight out super
hero book, a horror book, a romance comic or a court room drama. So instead of
being really good at one of those things it fails at all of them. The horror
issues read like Steve Gerber without the insight to the human condition, ironic
sense of the absurd or even any real element of terror. Which means as far as
Gerber's work is concerned, it is its father's brother's nephew's cousin's
former roommate. The court room stuff is like a bad episode of Perry Mason.
The book's second main flaw is the string of tie-ins with the other book Kraft
was running into the ground at the time, The Defenders. These unnecessary
crossovers ruin an almost interesting story about She-Hulk and Michael Morbius.
Do you know what it takes to get me interested in stupid goddamn vampires?
Kraft of all people almost had me. Then Scorpio, the Vision wannabe shows up in
the third part and just ruins it. The other Defenders crossover has an even
bigger problem. It doesn't matter what book he sticks his ongoing John
Jameson/Man-Wolf/Mircroworld storyline into, it doesn't fix the problem of it
being complete gobbledegook. Not even entertaining gobbledegook either. The
last time Kraft made something that cheesy I had to put some Prego with meat
sauce on it to make it worthy of consumption. Don't get me started on the
subplot about Jennifer Walters's father's scam artist girlfriend and the house.
This is supposed to be a She-Hulk comic not bleeping Mary Worth. The final
issue was simply horrific. It was double sized and it had more loose ends than
a pair of pants at a Salvation Army Thrift Store. There were plot holes so
large you could fit another volume of Essential She-Hulk through it. Not
only that, but it didn't even try to make sense. There were four instances where
things were just thrown in without any hints or explanation. The worst part is
Kraft had plenty of space to do so, only he wasted about 12 of the thirty eight
pages recapping the entirety of the series. I'm not kidding. Twelve pages
recapping 22 issues. Twelve pages that could have been spent
developing a motive for the bad guys, tying up loose ends or making the overall
story coherent. The only benefit of this train wreck, as I'm sure you can see,
is that after two months of going through the motions on this column I have
returned to my old, wonderful, friendly self. That's right folks, Mr. Nice Guy
is back and I'm making up for lost time. Best birthday present ever. Hoo-ha!
Don't think Kraft is getting off easy for fixing my always agile acerbic wisdom
dispenser- which you kind folks refer to as my brain. No way in Hell was that
book, or even the repair job, worth seven dollars.
Incredible Hulk Visionaries- Peter David Vol. Seven: What? Did you not read my
other article this issue on the top thirty greatest super hero comics runs of
all time? You sick monkeys want me to ramble on about this even more? In risk
of repeating myself almost verbatim from a mere five months ago in this very
column when I reviewed volume 6 I will say this: an Incredible Hulk story by
Peter David. It's all the review you'll ever need. What? Sheryl- what do
you mean that's not enough? It's true isn't it? I've explained this before.
Face it, nobody aside from you and I are interested in me going on for lines and
lines and lines about the comics that I love. Especially when I wax poetic
about how Peter David somehow manages to weave effortlessly from being amazingly
dark to incredibly silly in the course of a 22 page chapter. They don't want
to hear how he uses humor to attack the ideas like homophobia, the never ending
conflict in the Middle East or worst of all, Opera. They don't care how he
single handedly turned a character who had been nothing more than a bad punch
line into one of Marvel's best reads for most of the 90s. They don't care that
Mr. David makes crossovers that could be annoying like Infinity Gauntlet or
Subterranean Wars into pure entertainment. They especially don't want to know
how he isn't afraid to take creative risks that don't always quite play out the
way the reader hopes they will, but does it in such a way to make you realize that
the way you hoped things would turn out probably wouldn't have made a good
story. Those who don't know that will look at the cover of the trade and say
'Hulk Smash Abomination!' then move on. They won't know what they're missing
and can go smeg themselves. Those who already know that have already skimmed
down past this review of Hulk. They've either rushing to Amazon.com to order
their own for only $13.95 or gone to see my thoughts on Annihilation:
Conquest. It really depends on how smart they are and how much cash they
have. Like I said folks, Mr. Nice Guy is back and now I can't even write a
good review without spreading my unique brand of mirth and merriment. I got my
moneys worth but I knew that going in.
Annihilation Conquest- Book One: This book is chock full of action and
Avengers. Part one deals with the cast of thousands from the original
Annihilation cleaning up after the mess of Annihilus when a mysterious enemy
rears its head. Following the pattern of the original set the scattered cast
begins engaging in separate but loosely connected missions. First up is
Starlord ('I knowingly committed genocide, I am not an Avenger) leads a rag tag
team of Avengers (Deathcry and Mantis), Micronaughts (Bug and Captain Universe)
and miscellaneous other cast offs (Rocket Raccoon and Groot) on a suicide
mission. This kind of idea is nothing new in super hero comics. What makes
this section sizzle and pop is the dry, yet very funny dialogue of Keith
Giffen. Giffen has a real knack for gallows humor and this series really lets
that show. The truth is most of these characters have been left forgotten so
long that it is amazing to see anyone bring them back especially Raccoon. Then
again, Keith Giffen is his co-creator it shouldn't be too surprising. The
second act is Quasar, the daughter of Captain Marvel. She and her lover
Moondragon (Avengers) go looking for a mysterious savior. As in most 'grail
hunt' stories the point is not that they find the goal itself but that the hero
finds something new about themselves. In essence it is not the destination, it
is how you get there. In this case it is by sacrificing power and strength for
mortality and danger. Their main obstacle to finding this savior is the Phalanx
enhanced version of the old Avengers foe, The Super-Adaptoid. The ending,
playing off some stories from The Defenders, makes Quasar and Moondragon's
romance even stranger than it already was. When the identity of the savior is
finally revealed it isn't quite the surprise that the back cover made it seem to
be. I won't say who it is but it really was the only cosmic character that had
not been glimpsed in some time. At $10, I got what I paid for.
Mrs. Marvel: Operation: Lightning Storm: Here we are at volume 3 of this
series and writer Brian Reed has finally found his rhythm. It's a good mix of
humor and action. The pace is fast without feeling empty. Reed is not afraid
to make the reader disagree with Carol's actions- a bold step for most heroic
fiction. The super hero genre is full of cases where you are expected to be on
the protagonist's side simply because they are the protagonist. There are at
least two places in this book where the morality of what Carol is doing is in
questionable. He's got a great grasp of where each character is coming from and
why they act the way that they do. Many of the issues I had about Archane and
Arana in the previous volumes come into play here. Then there is the use of
M.O.D.O.K. I've always had a hard time taking a flying Dalek with arms and
legs seriously but somehow it works. In the arcs that focus on A.I.M. you
almost feel sorry for M.O.D.O.K. at least for a page or two. The weird subplots
involving Carol's love life are fairly standard super hero tradition-
particularly for heroines. There is a seemingly normal guy named appears to
the readers and Carol's publicist to have a secret shady background. Then
there is the competitor- Wonder Man. He's dumb as the day is long but he seems
to actually care about her. That subplot alone has some unique twists and along
with the introduction of the new villain at the end will definitely have me
coming back for the next trade if I can find it cheap. I paid $10 for this
hardcover and I got what I paid for.
Young Avengers Presents: Teen heroes come and go. Young Avengers was slightly a
cut above many of them because they sounded and acted like real teenagers rather
adults in young bodies. This trade is made up of a series of done-in-one issue
spotlight stories of the type that generally went out of fashion- perhaps
needlessly- sometime around 1992. Some of these stories: particularly the focus
on The Vision, Stature, Haweye and Patriot show these types of stories at their
best. Whereas the stories about Hulkling and Wiccan reveal why books like
'Solo Avengers' and 'Teen Titans Spotlight' went the way of the dodo. This
miniseries is a non event. The plots have little to no connection to each other
save for an interconnecting theme of owning ones identity. Eli confronted Bucky
and was thus able reconcile his being both angry young black man and The
Patriot. It brings to mind writings on the definition of patriotism by Samuel
Clemens. Hulkling smashes a few robots while whining to Captain Marvel about
family, fate and time travel for about 22 pages. Wiccan and Speed go looking
for Scarlet Witch, find the villain Pandemonium instead and don't really do
anything. The new Vision decides which parts of himself are his memories from
Iron Lad and what parts of him are himself. Then proceeds to woo the girl of
his dreams and kick A.I.M.'s butt. Wow, some actual fights after three issues.
Stature deals with the inevitability of failure of the trained and
registered heroes. The real surprise was the Hawkeye story. Here she gets
tested by The Avenger's own Ronin. She loses her codename and gear in a bet.
The results? That would be telling. Aside from the two drops of stinkage, I
got what I paid for since I only paid $7.
Dark Avengers Assemble!: This book, with its villains acting like heroes invites
comparison not only to Marvel's Thunderbolts but to DC's Suicide Squad. This is
furthered by the fact that some members of the team are cast offs from
Thunderbolts. This is where the similarities stop. Whereas most of the original
Thunderbolts went on to reform and the Suicide Squad either escaped or died, The
Dark Avengers continue to do horrible things but only do so when the media aren't
watching them. It is a not so subtle indictment of the politics of George W.
Bush. This is more evident when in some shots Norman Osborn is drawn to look
like Dubya. While I agree with that sentiment, the story itself is somewhat
lacking. There are points where the story clearly violates some of Marvel's
long established rules for time travel. It focuses far too much time on The
Sentry. They make a huge deal of recruiting Daken to be their Dark Wolverine
and then proceed not to use him at all through the rest of the book. When
Bendis is good, he is great. When he's not, he is downright irritating because
you know what he's actually capable of if he really feels like it. At $10, I
did not get what I paid for.
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