|
The luck of thirteen has hit me. See, it's the Christmas season so I have
far less of a budget to spend on trade paper backs than I ordinarily do.
Technically, I started Christmas shopping, roughly one person a week starting in
September but between Halloween and the second week of December is when I am at
my worst point. Why? Because it's around the 14th of December that the rest of
family starts shopping and I like to sell them my unused ideas for people. Only
like an idiot I take payment in Subway sandwiches, carrots and left over
wrapping paper. There are two words for people like that. One of them is
helpful. The other begins with a b and ends with a d and let's just leave it at
that. Anyway- due to budget cuts I'm going to have to do an old fashioned
holiday grab bag. Unfortunately sometimes it's hard to decide which holiday.
X-Men: The Messiah War: I'm generally not a fan of either X-Force or Cable.
They represent the worst aspects of the mutant books. This storyline, however,
has a very back to basics good guys vs. bad guys story with a clearly set race
against the clock. In other words- it was actually a fairly strong dramatic
set up. The way they brought in Deadpool- and the way he was used- was
hysterical. That's something you don't expect from either title- a sense of
humor. The book is a strong follow up to Messiah Complex. The book also
included two other stories. The first is the two part Cable story the leads
directly into the Messiah War. This comic did a 180 turn from issue one.
This were still some flaws but it was still quite enjoyable. Then there was
the story of the Bishop miniseries which somehow manages to tie up almost all the
continuity glitches surrounding this character. This was a present so I didn't
pay for it, but I would have gotten my money's worth if I had. Much like 'The
Life of Brian' this might have been more enjoyable at Easter.
Mrs. Marvel: Secret Invasion: Each Secret Invasion crossover just seemed like
another Skrull slaying nightmare after another. Mrs. Marvel had a few unique
twists. First off, she's half Kree so there is a lot of racial tension.
Secondly- there are enough subplots and plates spinning already that the added
paranoia is hardly noticed until the second or third chapter. Then it's
explosions, wise cracks, murder and death almost from start to finish. Brian
Reed really puts Mrs. Marvel through a ringer. He finds things Carol Danvers
has and just continually takes them from her. The less she has the more
powerful she becomes. Unfortunately, there are times when her methods make her
almost inseparable from the foes she faces. She draws the line at murdering
human beings but she sees nothing wrong with blowing Skrulls to smithereens.
Luckily enough, it's an interesting enough character study that this flaw does
not quite overwhelm the story. The major weakness is that the ending seemed to
be paced for the size of a trade rather than the trade being fit to the size of
the story. Some series thrive on this. For a book that is juggling an almost
Claremontean number of plots, this is a serious annoyance. Really: Mrs. Marvel's
boyfriend is either a missing corpse or a missing person, he is or might have
been a Kree, Aim and Hydra have both stolen Skrull genetic research, Mrs.
Marvel's Lightning Storm team is in disarray after losing their minicarrier,
she's struggling to lead the Avengers and then there's that weird unexplained
spy thing at the end. I still have the feeling I left out a major plot thread, but you get the point. Still, at $7.5, I got what I paid for. This
trade would have been a better read for Veteran's Day. Which is only five days
from the time that I write this. So there you go.
Batman- Absolution: Batman has always been a character of two worlds, one
of reason and deduction and the other being one of vengeance and violence. It
is no small wonder that these themes would attract talent like J.M. DeMatteis.
This world traveling tale takes Batman from Gotham City, to London and finally
to India. It is a story about vengeance, obsession, hatred, passion, failure
and self-denial. This should be no surprise to those who are fans of
DeMatteis's work. It is present in almost all of his work, even the comedies.
This one is not funny. It's a very dark page turning thrill ride. Unlike most
Batman stories, the villain is not some guy in a funny suit threatening to wipe
out the city. It's just an ordinary woman who once used conventional explosives
to blow up a building. Another interesting twist of this story is that just
because she's an ordinary woman doesn't mean she doesn't wear a mask. The main
theme of the story, behind its own veil of Indian spiritualism, is that we all
wear masks. Or does the mask wear us? I bought this book because I saw the
writer's name on the cover and knew going in that there would be no easy
answers. Now to talk about the other aspect of a comic- the art. Brian
Ashmore's paintings capture the harshness of the text. The way he moves lights
and shadow alone makes the reader wonder if in some sections of the story Batman
is actually the antagonist. It is a trick that works beautifully and keeps the
reader guessing up until the last few pages. At $6.5, I got what I paid
for. I'm not sure there is a Holiday in America that covers it. I bet
there's one in India because they have a holiday for everything.
Runaways: Rock Zombies: Runaways has consistently hit the proper balance between
grim angst ridden action adventure and character driven comedy. That is, at
least, until this detour. The story has an amusing premise- a Howard Stern
stand in uses magic to turn everyone in LA who has had plastic surgery into a
zombie. It suffers from the disease known as 'Most Saturday Night Live Spin
Off Movie Syndrome'. Any of you crazy or stupid enough to see 'The Coneheads'
know what I'm talking about. What would have made a nice premise for a one issue
story loses charm, intelligence and humor when they try to stretch it out to
four issues. Not only that, zombies have become an omnipresent internet meme.
I've become rather sick of them. They are up there with vampires and Nazis as
comic book villains that should just take a five year vacation. What really
annoys me about this volume of Runaways is the art. As I said- Runaways has
always strived for a balanced theme and art. I have no bias against the anime style but here
it is too ootsie cutsie. They're teenage punk super heroes, not My Little
Ponies. Even the zombies look cute and not in the way that enhances their
aspect of terror. They are Chibi-Zombies where you can see the streaks of
peanut butter and oatmeal. The X-Men story is a nice distraction. Especially
since the interaction between The Runaways and The Young X-Men goes in a
completely unexpected direction. The truth or dare game is- at least in terms
of storytelling- Runaways going back to basics. At $10 this was a waste of
money even as a Halloween special. It was indeed painful, but it was no
Killraven.
Young X-Men Volume 2: It's quite amazing how enjoyable Young X-Men can be in issues
that go out of their way to avoid using the Young X-Men. The scenes that focus
on Dani Moonstar and Sunspot were almost perfect. The delectably evil Donald
Pierce was also perfectly in character. The trade itself follows three arcs.
One that resolves the mystery of which member of the team is not a mutant.
Which then leads to the arc about a mutant tattoo artist who gives people
powers. Finally yet another angst filled, time hopping possible future story
where all the X-Men slowly die. What really bothers me about Young X-Men is
just how 'been there done that, bought the t-shirt' the characters are. Santo is
a big strong guy who is made of rocks who makes wise cracks and is generally
angry all the time. It was cool when Ben Grimm did it because frankly Ben has a
softer side and an off switch. Anole is the always right, overly sensitive but
almost child like gay lizard boy. Runways, Young Avengers and TV's Fox and
Friends have one of those as well. Blindfold is the whiny blind girl who
sees the future. Really, why does everyone who sees the future always see
horrible things? Why can't the future ever be something good? Just once.
Plus why are the people who see the future also such pansy ass wimps? The only
interesting character on the whole team is Dust whose angst is at least
understandable. She is a Muslim and a mutant- which are two things that go
together like chocolate and WD-40. She actually bothers to have philosophical
discussions with people. She shows intelligence. She's also dying from
something Magma did to her the previous book. They could have had a much better
way to fix this but the book's real focus is on the following characters: a) Ink
the walking plot device. B) Greymalkin the man we know zippo about and given
even less reason to care what happens to him or where he came from. C) Cipher who
is what her name implies. Her background is one giant retcon not because it
needs to be, but because it just is. She's also redundant given what we know
about Greymalkin. Obviously, Guggenheim is more interested in writing Deus Ex
Machina (and I mean that in the Greek sense not Vertigo comics) than writing
X-Men. Luckily, Marvel cancelled this series at the end of this volume.
Marvel's gain is ABC's 'No Ordinary Family's loss. This one would make the
perfect book to read at a funeral- preferably your own.
New Avengers: The Search for the Sorcerer Supreme: This book reminds me of a
man. What man? A man with the power. What power? The power of Voodoo. That's
right, Brother Voodoo. What can you say? He was created in 1973 so we should
just be glad he didn't end up being called Black Strange. Here you have a
character not even Fred Hembeck could take seriously and Brian Michael Bendis
wants us to believe he's an Avenger? Really? Correct me if I'm wrong but
wasn't 'Until Brother Voodoo becomes an Avenger, make mine Marvel' the punch
line of about a dozen letters published in the 90s? I wonder how many readers
Marvel lost by that one. By King Kurtzburg's crown- Brother 'bleeping' Voodoo
is an Avenger? You have got to be kidding me! Who are they inducting next:
Frog Man? Bendis can be a very skilled writer. His scenes between
Spider-Man, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage prove that. I was laughing my ass off at
that. But over all- this arc was a really big waste of time. Not to mention the
number of completely out of character moments. Sometimes, as with Cage and
Logan it almost works given their environment. People tend to act a little
goofier when hanging out with friends than they do when they're on their own.
However, while I remember Daimon Hellstrom being a bit of a jerk, I don't
remember him sounding like Ben Affleck's character from Mallrats. I'm used to
Bendis being hit or miss when it comes to Avengers stories but striking 81
times- that's kind of a new thing for him. Even The Sentry or all of those damn
ninjas stories didn't bore me this much. I'm actually growing nostalgic for the
days of Echo and when the identity of Ronin was a 'mystery'. At $9 bucks I
was robbed blind, bludgeoned unconscious, stuffed in a cargo container full of
manure and sent to Calcutta. I wouldn't give this book as a present if someone
begged me.
X-Men: Original Sin: A few years ago when somebody told me Wolverine had a
psychotic son and Marvel was finally telling the whole story of Wolverine and
they mean it this time, I was skeptical of its quality and didn't bother.
However this volume was a present, so I couldn't exactly say no. I found it
quite good. The relationship between Xavier and Logan, knowing what we now do,
is even more interesting that it had been before. Daken is almost a side point,
but even then a somewhat interesting one. I love the idea of Xavier, after
reprogramming Logan is be more than a ruthless killing machine, being hesitant
to do so to Daken. It is a bit of an ethical quandary isn't it? If you could
stop a serial killer but the only way to do it was to rip out of his thoughts
and install a new person, would you? I mean that's essentially killing them. To
do so more than once even- doesn't that make you a serial killer? On the other
hand- if you don't do so you are risking the lives of everyone else around you.
Do the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few (or the one)? It was
nice to see Mister- I mean Madame Sinister again even though that aspect of
'Divided He Stands' was a little strange. At $7, I got what I paid for.
Mrs. Marvel: Ascension: It's time to weigh the good and the bad of this volume
of Mrs. Marvel by Brian Reed. It's got some snappy dialogue, intrigue, and nice
rhythm for an action comedy. That's good. It has also got Brand New Day
Spider-Man in it. That's bad. However Spidey is just there to make wiseass
comments and provide a voice for the other issue of the political spectrum.
Peter Parker, token liberal. That's good. Spider-Man grabs the interest away
from Mrs. Marvel in the two issues he's in, making it seem as if Reed wanted to be
writing Spider-Man and making the reader wish they were reading the old
Web-Head. That's bad. That breaks the unwritten law of Super Hero comics.
Never make your guest star more entertaining than your star. It continues
running about ten different plots. That's good. It also wraps up a loose end
Chris Claremont started in the original volume back in the 70s and followed up a
little bit with in the pages of Uncanny X-Men in the early 80s. That's another
plus. Did I mention just how much spark there was to the scenes with
Spider-Man and Mrs. Marvel? Funny stuff. It also features the sequel to the
issue with Twilight Zone's Bill Mumy. Thus it is safe to say this was another
good read and I got my $7.50 worth.
Mighty Avengers- The Unspoken: I'll admit having skipped a volume between here
and Secret Invasion, I felt a little like I was tuning in during the middle of a
movie playing on cable TV. After the issue long aggravation, I got over it. In
a way, it reminds me of 'Burn After Reading'. How so? I've seen ten minutes and
I wanted to see the rest. However things just didn't play out so I could see
the whole thing from the start. The part I saw was interesting enough that
every time I surf channels and see it halfway in, I get kind of pissed off. As
for the story itself, it's kind of quirky. The plot by Dan Slott and script by
Christos Gauge and the aforementioned Mr. Slott is sort of a mish mash of every
good run of Avengers you can think of with its own unique set of quirks to make it
decidedly different from almost every Avengers run. I loved the Alpha Flight
joke. I wish more Marvel writers would have the guts to bash Alpha Flight.
Really, that book kind of deserves it. It was nice to have some of the
mysteries about the Inhumans that have been left hanging since the 1960s finally
explained even if it does add a few new ones. For instances- xerogen gas turned
humans into Alpha Primitives. So are all Alpha Primitives altered human beings
and their decadents? It was worth $7 for the looksee.
Astro Boy Volume 9: I don't know how many times I have to say this before it
becomes clear to people but I'll say it again. Osamu Tezuka was an absolute
genius. Somehow, my eyes know I'm looking at still pictures but my brain sees
the sheer exuberance of each panel and needs convincing. It's like I'm reading
an Astro Boy cartoon. I love Tezuka's introductions to many of these
stories. It was quite interesting to see where he got many of his ideas.
Particularly 'The Invisible Giant' which is in many ways a homage to the horror
science fiction novel and movie 'The Fly'. It seems the older the Astro Boy
story the less innocent they are. The monster in 'The Invisible Giant' kills
people even if it doesn't necessarily mean to. Dr. Barbari in 'The Egyptian
Conspirators' meets poetic and/or mob justice. It in spite of the slightly
higher content of violence the stories in this volume still have the childlike
charm of that one expects from Astro Boy. There are some mildly racist
moments with the African and Arab characters, but it is done in a way that is so
over the top and cartoonish that it is pretty clear that Tezuka himself didn't
intend them to be racist but rather a parody of how early Disney cartoons and
other mangas on the market in the early 1950s and 60s handled people of other
races. In fact, in some of the post occupation stories including Cobalt
(included in this volume) even portray Americans as evil. The country is
unnamed but are clearly intended to be agents of old Uncle Sam. Considering
only 15 years before that story was published our country practically vaporized
one of their largest and most populated cities, a little satire might just seem
a little bit too polite. Considering Astro's interaction with Americans in
other stories, (brief reference in 'The Invisible Giant' for instance) and if
you believe, as many fans do, that Astro was a stand in for Osamu Tezuka
himself, than the overall message is clear. Judge people as individuals, not as
a group. I now have a feeling I should have taken that bet I had with one of my
friends on whether or not I could write a good review that was as long as one of
my bad ones. I could I actually go for some Ho-Hos right about now. It was
quite a find for $5. Due to the books discussion of nuclear war, perhaps a
better time to read it would between August 7th and 9th.
The New Avengers - The Powerloss: If Brian Michael Bendis were a super hero his
name would be Bounceback. Why? That's what he does. After an abysmal excuse
for a trade that was 'The Search for the Burrito Supreme' he then goes on to
write a fun, very dark and character driven action adventure story filled with
humor, pathos and intrigue. Some might argue that Luke Cage doesn't belong on
the Avengers. It have taken about sixty issues to do it because Bendis finally
showed that Cage had earned his place. Aside from the fact that the story
rips-off 'The Fantastic Voyage' (the fifth time that I'm aware of that The
Avengers have done this) it is a story I really enjoyed reading. The twist at
the end was well worth it. The scenes with Jessica Jones and her mother made
me miss 'Jessica Jones, Alias' so very, very much. I don't just mean for
language purposes. Though it would be nice if Bendis didn't have to deal with
the #^9*ing censors deleting all of his #^9*ing $#*!. I'm surprised
Spider-Man's joke during the Fantastic Voyage sequence only got the book a T+
rating. This one was worth it at $7.50. A great 4th of July read- too bad
it's four days after Thanksgiving.
And finally -
Paul Dini's Jingle Belle: Hey reader, do you have a twisted sarcastic sense of
humor? That's kind of a stupid question if you've been reading this column, now
isn't it? Do you have a half sentimental and half ironic hipster love of
Rankin Bass Christmas specials? Are you a fan of pure unadulterated mayhem?
Have you ever watched Star Wars: The Holiday Special on YouTube and wondered
what the #&(* they were thinking? If you answered yes to all of these
questions then this trade is required reading. Dini walks that fine line
between Capra Corn Christmas special and self aware parody without crossing the
line into too sappy or blatantly insulting the holiday spirit. While Jingle
Belle has nothing truly offensive to children, it is clearly written for older
kids and adults. There are tons of pop culture references that will fly over
the head of most kids. They probably won't even be aware of the Star Wars:
Holiday Special. I wasn't until I joined a gaming group in college. Then I
thought it was a joke until a few months later at a convention. It's also
riddled with spoofs on X-Men, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and The Godfather. To
make things slightly more amusing, the first two issues contain crossovers with
several of Paul Dini's other comic books. At $7, this was a real treat and
would make a good stocking stuffer.
|