Comics Reviews Week of 3/25

Hey, if you think my reviews are poorly written, then consider that maybe this is all just a stealth parody of comics review sites and I'm a comedic genius.



Batman - Battle For the Cowl - Oracle - The Cure #1 (of 3)
Written By Kevin Vanhook
Art By Julian Lopez

Now here's the thing, Birds of Prey lasted for over ten years, and it was, for the most part, a pretty solid mid-tier title. At the same time, I can't say I really cared when it was cancelled because, well, its concept of "let's put a bunch of female superheroes together" wasn't exactly ground-breaking.

But as a practical matter, anything that lasts that long is going to be relaunched again and again under the theory, "Well, it worked once, damnit!" And that brings us to this miniseries.

Anyway, this issue wants you to know two things: a) the Calculator has devious plan that involves the anti-life equation (which incidentally means that in addition to this being a follow-up to Birds of Prey, and a crossover with "Battle For the Cowl," it also is connected to Final Crisis as well) and that b) Oracle is a cripple.

On the one hand, that whole "handicapped" angle has basically been the most identifiable feature of Oracle for the last twenty years, but on the other...it's really not that interesting.

Without giving away too much, however, the end of the issue for some reason kind of made me laugh, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to. I think that ultimately, there's really no way to make someone's head exploding dramatic, if only because the very act itself is so hyperbolic that it's kind of hard to take it seriously.

However, I'd like to think that Vanhook was making an allusion to the ancient Hindu Upanisads where Yajnavalkya, the learned Brahmin, told a truth so profound it literally caused a man's head to explode from the sheer scope of the insight into the universe.



Ms. Marvel (v2) #37
Written By Brian Reed
Art By Patrick Olliffe

As I was reading this book a few questions came to mind:

1. Ms. Marvel has lasted 37 issues?

2. Really?

3. How the fuck did that happen?

4. So they're killing Ms. Marvel?

5. Or at least making it look that way?

6. Does anyone care?

I suppose that ultimately, if I cared about Ms. Marvel, and if her death were more than just, "and then her powers abruptly went out of control and she exploded," it might mean something more, but, as it is, I just kind of want to shake my head and move on.



War Machine (v2) #4
Written By Greg Pak
Art By Leonardo Manco

Oh, War Machine, ten minutes with you and it's like it's 1994 all over again.

This issue of War Machine is all about why warriors kill. Oh, the philosophy isn't very good, and odds are that when you're reading it you'll probably be thinking, "Listen War Machine, either blow someone else up, or blow yourself up, but no matter what you do, please stop pretending that anyone reads War Machine for its insights into the human condition."

But why does War Machine need to explain his motives to special guest-star Ares? Well, it turns out there's a virus that gives people super-powers....and the desire to kill everything, and only War Machine can stop it. But, at the same time, he must decide whether or not he wants to remain as the increasingly ridiculous-looking cyborg he has become, or have the surgery to once more be a normal human being.

Of course, since it's issue #4, and it usually takes at least 12 issues for anything to be cancelled, I would imagine it's setting up for an ending where a speech along the lines of, "Oh, to be human once more...but no, for I must fight injustice wherever it is found, and thus I will reman the WAR MACHINE!" Or something along those lines.

Are you happy Greg Pak? You took a book about a cyborg with a fuckton of guns and turned into a whine-fest. I don't know how you did it, seems like this title should basically be "War Machine learns of evil plot, War Machine blows up bad guys, War Machine says pithy line." But no, you've somehow got into to your head that this title is served by giving characters emotional depth, which I suppose would normally be laudable...but not this time.

Skaar - Son of Hulk #9
Written By Greg Pak
Art By Ron Lim

Wait, wait, wait, wait, you're telling me that in addition to writing a comic that is essentially a poor man's Iron Man, Greg Pak also writes a comic that's a really, really poor man's Conan, too? And he manages to fuck up that genre as well?

Okay, Pak, listen carefully, the whole Barbarian concept stops working the second you start thinking about the ethics of it, because, at the end of the day, the whole point of reading a comic about a guy with a sword is watching him use to fight people, not think about whether or not it's right to kill in service of the greater good. Again, this isn't rocket science.

Also, I'm not sure why this comic even exists, I mean, I understand that Planet Hulk was a relatively popular storyline, but this comic features exactly two characters from those issues, and one of them's only a ghost, so why? It's just, you write a comic that with characters that no one cares about, and then load it down with half-baked morality, and the I end up tired and depressed, and it makes me wonder if there's any point to living...

...Okay, I guess I don't care quite that much, but still...


Battlestar Galactica in general
Written By Ronald D. Moore and an undercover team of Luddites...and maybe the Amish.


You know, Battlestar Galactica was a great show...and then the finale happened and tarnished my memories of it forever.

But I'm kidding, I think that Ronald D. Moore make a trenchant point about man grappling with the rapid technological advances of our day.

No, actually, I was kidding about kidding, because the finale was shit. First of all, these people who came from a technologically advanced society are fine with the idea of giving it all up and becoming stone age farmers? Really? I can't help but feel that the members of an industrialized society wouldn't really be down with the relatively short life spans, back-breaking labor and material scarcity that pretty much defined early agarian civilization.

And even if that were believable, what conclusions am I supposed to draw from the series? Is man's greatest flaw his inability to foresee that androids from a long dead race may help create human-looking robots that will infiltrate and destroy humanity? I would imagine that Moore is trying to say that humanity was killed by its dangerous use of technology, but that's not really what happened.

Actually, I think what happened is that Moore decided to add in the Final Five at a later date, and then needed to give them a suitably important backstory, but by doing so shifted the cause of the apocalypse from the folly of man to the folly of androids advancing the technology of robots in such a way that the relatively limited technology of man left them no reliable way to protect themselves.

So, if you work it out enough, I think Moore really is trying to tell us to either return to the forests, or to make sure that we stay one step ahead of the extraterrestrial robots that have lived among for centuries.

Comic Reviews Week of 3/18

I review comics because....

...it's the right thing to do? No, well, let's get on with it then.



Young X-Men #12
Written By Marc "Deus Ex Marchina" Guggenheim
Art By Rafa Sandoval and Daniel Acuna


Now last time I reviewed Young X-Men I assumed that they would bring Dust back to life via the use of an unreal Danger Room scenario, but I was wrong, and I apologize for insinuating that Marc Guggenheim would use a cheap stunt like that to bring a character no one really cared about back to like.

Anyway, it turns out that the future-that-went-horribly-wrong from last issue (which I believe is about the landmark 100th time that plot device has been used in an X-Men book), was caused by the events in this issue...I think. However, obviously that future isn't going to come to pass, because with the cancellation of this title, its characters have been reassigned to C-list cannon fodder duty, and therefore are likely to be killed, one by one, in order to help sell the villainy of new antagonists for years to come. Oh, it's not a pleasant duty, but it's part of the circle of superhero life.

You see, team books make sense because there are more characters, and therefore a better chance of creating someone that readers actually like. Of course, for every success in today's market, there are bunches of failures, and you have to do something with them.



Invincible #60
Written By Robert Kirkman
Art By Ryan Ottley


Speaking of cannon fodder, this issue of Invincible is a bold experiment in comic bookery, trying to reduce an entire summer crossover-sized story into one issue, a bold response to the typical bloated epics that the Big Two put out.

Okay, so this issue isn't very good, but that doesn't mean that the central idea of making more contained stories is wrong, just that too much of anything is a bad idea.

You see, the problem with this issue is that it seems like Kirkman's taking about a half-year's worth of story and just cramming it all into thirty pages. Most likely that's because Kirkman took about a half-year of stories and crammed them into thirty pages, which makes for an interesting gimmick, but not a particularly good story.

I mean, you have characters getting killed left and right, and the world being pretty much torn apart, and I can't help but feel that the gimmick wasn't worth...well, blowing everything up for. But I'm sure I'm in the minority on that one.


Ultimatum #3
Written By Jeph "Destroyer of Heroes, Creator of Hush, Eater of Puppies" Loeb
Art By David Finch

You know, Marvel, no one's forcing you to keep up the Ultimate Line, you could just stop publishing it if it's really that bothersome to you. But giving it to Jeph Loeb....that's a fate worse than death.

Ultimatum is a miniseries about Magneto deciding, "Fuck it, I'm killing everyone and this time I'm serious," except he actually manages to be half-successful. So you have a lot of B-list versions of B-list Marvel superheroes biting the dust. It kind of smells of desperation, actually.

I guess what bugs me about this issue is this bizarre sequence that involves about a whole bunch of things that don't make sense in a row. First, the Blob manages to kill the Wasp in what is a major upset because you'd think someone whose power is shrinking would be able to survive against the least agile villain of all time. Anyway, then Hank Pym bites off the Blob's head because...he's angry...or hungry...or something. Then he decides he's going to bring back the Wasp in a robotic body (I'm assuming) but not before luring all of the suicide bombers that have surrounded him and his friends onto to him and then lumbering out a safe distance to sea. Which is kind of weird because both in this issue and Ultimate X-Men #100, which deals a lot more with the Madrox suicide bombers, it's implied that they actually have the ability to think....

You know, this comic just is bad, and analyzing it hurts my head, so I'm going to stop now.


Supergirl (v5) #39
Written By Sterling Gates
Art By Daniel Igle and Talent Caldwell

Who is Superwoman? Well, despite this being part three of the story, it's not quite clear, actually, and I can't say I really care. John Byrne may have degenerated into somewhat of a cariacture over the years, but he used to be a really good comic writer, and one of the smartest things he ever did was to effectively say that Superman was the only Kryptonian. It made Superman unique, and made his origin that much richer, because he was the only one of his kind throughout the universe.

Of course, it didn't stick, and before long there were pocket-universe Kryptonians, the return of Krypto and so on, but overall DC kept a pretty good handle on it...until something unexpected happened.

In the later 90s and early 00s, the existing version of Supergirl was some sort of half-alien, half-human, earth angel or something....thing that was, at least during the later stages of the comic, only tangentially related to the Superman mythos. Now, a book like that isn't going to last forever, even if you have a good writer like Peter David working on it, and he saw the writing on the wall. So, he did the smartest thing he could think of to drive up sales: He brought back the pre-crisis Kryptonian Supergirl. It didn't save the comic from being cancelled, and PAD had to put the old Supergirl in limbo before he left, but sales did rise. And thus the first real dent in the Kryptonian embargo was made.

A couple of years later, DC basically said, "Fuck it, we have the Supergirl trademark, we're going to make money on the goddamn Supergirl trademark," and assigned Jeph Loeb to bring back Supergirl. Of course that plan was half-savvy and half-imbecilic, because it involved Jeph Loeb creating a marquee character...which didn't work out to well, then they gave it to Greg Rucka, who lasted about three weeks before giving way to Joe Kelly, who burned out the last of the goodwill he earned from his run of Deadpool by turning Supergirl into a near-psychopath who managed to be batshit crazy, insufferably whiny, and boring at the same time.

Oh, they've tried to fix Supergirl since then, but the damage was done.

In this issue, Supergirl must find and capture the mysterious Superwoman for her mother in order to prove that she's not totally useless. Supergirl spends most of her time failing and then whining to her mother about her failure, but gets bailed out at the last minute because Superwoman is assigned to hunt Supergirl herself down.

Star Trek Countdown #3
Written By Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
Art By David Messina

Okay, so let me get this straight....here's what I know about the plot of the new Star Trek movie based solely on the issues of this miniseries and the trailer:

A few years after the last Star Trek Next Generation movie, Romulus gets blown up good, and that makes some dude named Nero a little less than happy. So he, blaming the Federation, and more specifically the crew of the Enterprise for the fiasco, decides to go back in time in order to get revenge on Captain Kirk, Spock and company, because...well, if you're going to back in time get some retroactive vengeance, you might as well make it worthwhile.

But Nero ends up in a time period where Kirk is but a student at Starfleet Academy, and somehow manages to create a situation where Kirk gains command of the Enterprise years before he did in the original timeline, and, for some reason that I'm really hoping is good in the movie, all of his future crewmates are there too...even those who should be children given the timeframe the movie is operating in.

And then...then...boy, this is not going to be a good movie, is it? It's going to be one of those movies that all of the major critics give decent enough reviews, but people who don't like Star Trek are going to forget about it in a matter of hours, and fans are going to be pissed.

Also, it just occurred to me that by having this film be the next Star Trek project after Enterprise, the producers thought that the best way to relaunch the Star Trek brand after a much-maligned prequel series that took painful and unnecessary liberties with continuity was to do a prequel movie that takes painful and unnecessary liberties with continuity.

P.S. Hey, Trekkies or Trekkers, or whatever, guess who's continuity has just been rebooted?

Comics Review Week of 3/11/09

It's time for more reviews, oh, they may not be insightful, or well-written, but hey, I'm not an English major anyway.



Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel #5 (0f 5)
Written By Kevin Grievoux
Art By Mat Broome and Roberto Castro


You know what, heroes created out of retcons are usually pretty bad ideas, if only because the mechanics of working them into an existing continuity are usually more trouble than their worth. Take the Sentry for example, I mean, his original schtick was that he was a hero who due to a potent combination of hyperbolic powers and mental illness, erased himself from everyone's memories...except now everyone remembers him...sort of.

Anyway, the high concept behind this miniseries is that there was the superhero who was active in the sixties, but he was secretly African-American, and, well, you can probably understand where they went with that. But now his archenemy has returned and it's up to him to save the day, because the present day Avengers are hopelessly outmatched against the "Anti-Man." Actually, the Sentry is actually featured quite heavily in this issue, and manages to get defeated once again, which is about the thousandth time the guy with the power of a million exploding suns gets man-handled.

...Which he does, and we all learn an important lesson about heroism...and racism...and some other stuff. And, having done that, he can now return to comic book limbo. Oh, the end of the book says "The End...For Now" but I feel pretty confident that's probably a bit over-optimistic.



Booster Gold (v2) #18
Written By Dan Jurgens
Art By Dan Jurgens

Booster Gold is a comic-book that features time-travel and super-heroes, and I really doubt that it will last more than another year or so. It seems like Checkmate, a book that can only survive if it has an A-List writer attached, and Dan Jurgens is a few years past that at this point, so....

Anyway, this issue isn't really that bad, although I don't know why the writers feel the need to keep bringing up the Blue Beetle. I understand the historical pedigree, but Ted Kord's dead. In fact, he's been dead so long that there's been enough time for a new Blue Beetle to show up, have a thirty-issue comic, and then get cancelled when DC realized that there was no way in hell that a comic starring the Blue Beetle could ever last.

In the B-Plot, Booster Gold's sister must confront the fact that she's only alive due some manipulations of history. I'd talk more about it, but I honestly couldn't care less.


Batman: Battle for the Cowl #1 (of 3)
Written By Tony Daniel
Art By Tony Daniel

See, I can prove this miniseries basically doesn't count, and that's because it's written by Tony Daniel. Who's Tony Daniel, you might ask? Well, he's the guy who drew most of Batman: RIP. So, I guess I don't believe.

Anyway, to make a long story shot, the next Batman is Dick Grayson. Why? Well, looking at the cover.....

Candidate Problem
Tim Drake Too young
Damian Way too young
Jason Todd More interesting as a corpse
Black Canary Fails the "man" portion of the test
Catwoman See above
Huntress See above above
Batwoman A transvestite lesbian Batman...a bold concept, but probably not very likely
Wildcat Well, stranger things have....no, no they have not

So, there you go.




X-Men: Manifest Destiny: Nightcrawler
Written By James Asmus
Art By Jorge Molina and Ardian Syaf

There's something utterly glorious about this comic. It's a comic that makes so little sense that after reading it, all things seem possible. But let's get to it, shall we?

The story opens with Nightcrawler quitting the X-Men because, well, they apparently found a new and better teleporter, making him feel useless. Cyclops askes him where he will go, and Nightcrawler explains that he has been invited to the Nightcrawler Museum in Winzeldorf, Germany. So, you might be thinking, oh, one of his enemies has gone to incredible trouble to set a cunning trap for him, but no, the museum is just a museum.

Of course, the amazing thing is that it's a museum in the middle of a part of Germany that apparently still thinks it's the 19th century, which is kind of weird. Anyway, Nightcrawler shows up, and is almost immediately tasked with finding a big demon-looking thing that the villagers have been chasing with pitchforks and torches, because if I were building a Nightcrawler museum, I'd sure as hell put it in a village seemingly populated by extras from Frankenstein. Oh, you might think, "Well, don't they have, you know, some sort of police force in Germany that could handle this?" But I guess rural Germany's about two hundred years behind the rest of the country, so....

Anyway, Nightcrawler shows up to save the day, and quickly figures out that the demon is just a kid who pissed off the wrong gypsy and was cursed, because if you're going to have a village from the 1800s, you might as well go all the way and bring in the evil gypsies too. Anyway, the villagers show up to kick some demon ass, but it doesn't go well for them, and they are only saved from death when Nightcrawler gives an inspiring speech on making in the world as a demon. Unfortunately it inspires the demon-boy to blow his brains out with a shotgun. And that's when the devil shows up.

Yeah, that's right, the devil, well the Mephisto-version, anyway. Apparently, while he had nothing to do with the kid turning into a demon, he did ensure that Nightcrawler would show up so he could that by not joining him in some demon war he would end up hated and alone. Now, some might question why Mephisto would do this by sending Nightcrawler to a museum dedicated to him that is run by a woman who wants to get in his pants and having his summons sent by a group of thugs who, at the very least, had warmed up to him to the point of asking him to save their asses, but it doesn't matter, because Nightcrawler responds to his failure to commit a kid's suicide the only way he knows how: banging the chick who runs his museum and high-tailing it back to America and the X-Men.

I think the moral here is....uh....don't cheat on a gypsy, because her grandmother can turn you into a demon...probably.

Or something.

I don't know.

Comics Reviews Week of 3/4/09

Remember, these may not be well-thought out reviews but....

I'll get back to you on that second part.




War of Kings #1
Written By Danny Abnett and Andy Lanning or DnA, if you must
Art By Paul Pelletier


Wait, Paul Pelletier, the guy who drew that crappy Outsiders comic I talked about last week? I would have assumed that most people who drew C-list superhero comics from the mid 90s had been washed out of the industry...but, well, there you go. Not that the art in that Outsiders issue or this issue is particularly bad or anything.

Anyway, this book isn't so much bad as confusing. And by confusing, I mean, confusing in the sense of "Why does this book exist?" It's a story about two groups of characters that no one really cares about fighting each for reasons that no one cares about.

On the one hand, it's not bad, but on the other, Vulcan's just a shitty character when you get right down to it. His backstory is, "There was this third Summers brother, and Charles Xavier brought him into to save the team from Krakatoa way back when, but they weren't very good at it, so most of them got killed, and Xavier wiped them from everyone else's memory because it was kind of embarrassing how much they sucked. So anyway, Vulcan wasn't quite dead, so he came back to Earth some number of years later, killed Banshee, got shot into space, took over the Shi'ar Empire and, well, you get the idea."

See, the problem is that he's basically a character too hopelessly tied into the worst bits of X-Men continuity to ever again tie into mainstream books, but he's done too much not to have his story resolved somewhere...

...And that's why he's now fighting the Inhumans who got involved because apparently one of them got married to Ronan the Accuser in some comic that I never read. If that's your sort of thing, great, otherwise...well...

It is probably as close as anyone's going to get to DnA ever coming back to the Legion, so that's got to count for something.



Solomon Grundy #1
Written By Scott Kolins...wait, but I thought....
Art By Scott Kolins...uh oh

Wow...this is not good...by a lot. First of all, isn't the Phantom Stranger supposed to stand around and give cryptic advice, not deliver exposition and order other people around?

Second, is Solomon Grundy really popular enough to warrant his own series?

Basically, Solomon Grundy has one week to find the man who killed him and forgive him, and if he' successful at this, he'll be freed from the shackles of rebirth, basically. So the Golden Age Green Lantern takes him to Slaughter Swamp to find clues, they get ambushed by Etrigan (you know, the demon that talks in rhymes) and they end the issue by teasing that next issue will involve Bizarro.

Except it's ten times worse than it sounds.



Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #1
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Sean Chen


Basically Reed Richards believes that all of the bad things, like Civil War and Secret Invasion were all his fault, so he builds a machine that will allow him to see how he handled the problem in other realities. Meanwhile, Norman Osborn plans to seize the Baxter Building because, well, I guess why not? But Richards' plan goes horribly, horribly wrong.

How wrong? Well, ask me next issue. You see, this comic is twenty-two pages of set up, and, well, it doesn't really need that much time to set up, especially since it's not the main book, and is, in fact, a crossover, although given how the issue ends, I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's probably a crossover in name only.

So, it's a story that doesn't go anywhere, and most likely has little to do with Dark Reign when all is said and done. Buy at your own peril.


Black Panther (v5) #2
Written by Reginald Hudlin
Art by Ken Lashley

Okay, let's talk a little about Wakanda. You see, Wakanda is, according to this blurb on the recap page, "high-tech, resource-rich, ecologically sound paradise that is unmatched anywhere on the world," and it's run by a monarch. As you might guess, the idea of Wakanda was created during the Silver Age, when these sort of magical countries were fine because they were usually the least crazy thing happening.

But it's not the Silver Age anymore, and I kind of feel like looking at this book and saying stuff like, "resource-rich, eh? Too bad that they're ecologically friendly attitude means they can't actually take advantage of a lot of those resources."

Or, "so wait, there's a paradise in the middle of Africa, and people aren't moving there from all over the continent? Really?"

Or, "So, wait, we have a post-industrial economy that due to its technological achievement can't help but shed some of its isolationist ways, and yet they're really cool with not only being led by a hereditary monarch, but a hereditary monarch who dresses up like a panther and fights crime...mainly in America."

Or, "So the U.S. government, who legally passed the Super-hero Registration Act didn't attack the Wakandans the second their head of state actively broke their laws and helped to cause a massive street brawl in New York City." (As seen in Civil War #7) Actually the answer to that one would have been, "the Wakandans would totally have fought the Americans off with their super-advanced weapons."

Anyway, in case anyone's wondering, the new Black Panther looks to be T'Challa's sister, who apparently had exactly the same upbringing and training as the original. I couldn't possibly care less.

Comic Reviews Week of 2/25/09

It's time for more stumblin', bumblin', and most importantly grumblin' reviews.

Okay, that didn't even sound good in my head.



Justice Society of America #24
Written By Geoff "Everybody loves Black Adam" Johns
Art By Jerry Ordway


Mary Marvel's still evil, eh? Really?

And also, I thought Billy Batson had replaced Shazam and therefore received godly powers, so shouldn't he be able to at least...you know do something other than suck and lose?

And if you're going to do a story about the Marvel family, shouldn't you include the current Captain Marvel?

Oh, well, it's not terrible, but it's not that great either, especially since the middle is basically a condensed version of Captain Marvel's (current) origin, which really doesn't have much to do with the story if you think about it.

On the one hand, it looks like this story is doing its level best to bulldoze away both part of DC Countdown and Judd Winick's Trials of Shazam! miniseries, and that's a good thing. On the other hand...no, you know what, I'm totally behind this deck clearing.

All right, that review did not go well, I feel...weak, uninspired, and I know there is but one solution. I will review any book with the name "Avengers" in the title, for I am not a-feared of brand over-expansion. Let's do this:



Avengers: The Initiative #22
Written By Christos Gage
Art By Humberto Ramos

Okay, our first Avengers book is "Avengers: The Initiative" which was a book starring a bunch of C-list heroes who were training to be part of the Initiative, which was a plan to put heroes in each state, ensuring that the people of Wyoming no longer need worry about super-villain attacks on their....whatever it is that Wyoming has.

In fairness, pretty much any idea in super-hero comics sounds stupid if you think about for too long, in this case "too long" happens to be thirty seconds, it happens.

Anyway, since having four ongoing Avengers series is probably pushing it, this title seems to be winding things down so that it can be...retired.

And that term is appropriate because this issue features the evil Clone-Thor who apparently was rebuilt and is hellbent on destroying the universe, because if your hometown was suddenly anchored to Oklahoma, you'd want to bring an end to the universe too. I don't know why Marvel would think bringing back Clone-Thor is a good idea, but it looks like he's going to go fight real Thor which would make it only the seventeenth time Thor has had to fight some sort of evil or misled version of himself.

In the B-Plot, a bunch of characters no one cares about have to track down some other characters no one cares about in order to resolve a crisis that...wait for it...no one cares about. It's kind of like the Suicide Squad except in the Marvel universe, and since no one besides John Ostrander has ever written a good Suicide Squad story....

Okay, on to Round Two!



Mighty Avengers #22
Written By Dan Slott
Art By Khoi Pham

Okay, so the Mighty Avengers are now the team of Avengers who work outside the government, but aren't written by Bendis and are composed of...uh...I guess the few remaining non-X-men characters who weren't already members of one of the fifty or so team books Marvel is putting out at the moment.

Anyway, it's a pretty good book that I have no major problems with, well, as a matter of principle, any comic that utilizes any member of the Young Avengers for any reason has made a mistake somewhere along the way, especially since, you know, the team already has a guy who change size AND a robot, which kind of makes Stature and the new Vision redundant, so if you know, you need to build a villain up by having him kill a couple of Avengers....

All right, feeling a bit winded, but I can make, I can't see how-Oh, God, no!


New Avenger #50
Written By Brian Michael Bendis
Art By....a lot of people, actually


Let me tell you a story. You see, a few years ago there was a guy named Brian Michael Bendis, fresh off of a triumphant run on Daredevil and toast of the Marvel offices. Now young Bendis thought to himself, "Man, why can't the Avengers be exclusively composed of characters that I like, even if everyone else hates them...there must be some way..."

And six years later he finally has made his dream a reality, oh sure, the likes of you or I don't understand his love for characters such as Luke Cage or the first Spider-Woman, but that merely reflects the divide that separates us mere mortals from the inestimable Bendis.

By the way, the image on the cover does not reflect the contents of the issue, and the reason for that is...well, look at the cover, the Dark Avengers would kick the asses of the New Avengers in about three seconds. I mean, creating a team of street-level heroes is all well and good until you, you know, want them to fight a guy with the power of a thousand exploding suns, and then,,,,well, Luke Cage doesn't look so tough.

But I'm sure Bendis will realize that the team as presently constructed can't...what's that, the next arc has them dealing with the new Sorcerer Supreme? Well...huh...





Trinty #39
Written By Kurt Busiek
Art By Mark Bagley

Alternate Triumph, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But seriously, next time DC decides to publish a comic about its three most iconic characters, it probably should make sure that those three characters show up for more than one panel.

But that left a bad taste in my mouth, and that means it's time for, as always a...

Retraux Revieux

Outsiders (v2) #0
Written By Mike Barr
Art By Paul Pelletier
Cover Date November 1994

This comic has taught me a lot about comics.

You see, in 1994 DC had an event called "Zero Hour" which involved time-travel and fixing continuity problems. It didn't work, but it did lead to "Zero Month," where each comic got an issue numbered "0" that was designed to be sort of an introductory piece to lure in new readers.

So basically the same thing DC is doing with those "Origins and Omens" back-up stories, but for entire issues.

Anyway, this issue had the task of setting up the new status quo for the Outsiders. In this issue, the Eradicator teams up with Halo, Vampire-Looker, and a man-bear named Wylde in order to stop an epidemic of addictive hyperguns that had infiltrated the streets of Los Angeles.

But wait, there's more, because each of these heroes must contend with deep-seated personal issues. The Eradicator is bascially the 90s anti-hero version of Superman, meaning that he flies around blowing up hopelessly outmatched criminals while sounding like some sort of terrifying emo Dirty Harry. Thrill as the Eradicator shots beams of deadly energy at teenagers! Gasp as the Eradicator blows up a helicopter for getting in his way! Marvel as the Eradicator questions the meaning of innocence in this cruel and hopeless world!

Meanwhile, Looker has been turned into a vampire, which mainly seems to make her thirst for blood and move up to a higher SPF sunblock...no, that wasn't actually a joke, as the first time the reader sees her she is sunning herself by the pool, because, goddamnit, it was the nineties and if you didn't include an impossibly-figured women in a bikini or less, well, you might as well just pulp the issue.

There's also Halo who was body-swapped somewhere along the way, and Wylde who was turned into a man-bear in order to save his life and spends most his free time bemoaning his fate and hunting for salmon...well I'm guessing on that second part.

Right, well, anyway, the Outsiders reform the team, find out that the people using the hyperguns are really just these tentacle monsters, fight them for a bit, and then accidently cause some sort of magical implosion. That brings the news media and leads to the incredible cliffhanger where it turns out that there is another team of Outsiders dedicated to bringing the first team of Outsiders to justice.

I think the second version of the Outsiders impressed me for trying to up the drama quotient by constantly adding layer upon layer of melodramatic backstory to each character. For example, the Eradicator is a Kryptonian Superweapon....who is bonded to a man....who has an estranged family....but who had an incurable illness...and became addicted to painkillers during that illness. And every character had that sort of development, so each issue would be some sort of emotional trainwreck because each character had about a dozen psychological problems.

Comic Reviews Week of 2/18/09

This week's reviews are dedicated to Rolando's a restaurant that proved that if you have a dream, anything is possible, including, unfortunately, the chance that your new business may fail dramatically. Your falafels will be missed.



Outsiders (v2) #15
Written By Peter J. Tomasi
Art By Lee Garbett

Hey, what's Nite-Owl from Watchmen doing on the cover...wait, that's Owlman?

So, remember how last week I was complaining last week about how "The Outsiders Special" had basically nothing going on in it. Well, I'm happy to report that Peter Tomasi found a way to stretch that amazing inaction into two issues!

As we last left our heroes, Alfred had assembled the new Outsiders....who were, ironically, the old Outsiders plus some asshole reporter and the Creeper. But this issue, dramatic things happen, like the Manstalker becoming the Owlman, and being a douche about it every step of the way. Also, Alfred informs the team that they'll have to give up their lives in order to fulfill Batman's dream of fighting a mysterious enemy who was behind all of the villains the original Outsiders faced. Yep, a terrifying mastermind who unleashed such horrors as "The Duke of Oil" and "The Masters of Disaster" on the world...

Anyway, the Outsiders are forced to decide whether or not they are willing to give up their lives to stop Commander Retcon, which they do, because for the most part their families are all pretty much dead anyway. Oh, there's also another scene with Owlman, who is either going to get killed really quickly to show us the real danger that the Outsiders face, or is just one hell of a misfire of a character.

So, what is the first mission for these new old Outsiders, who are finally prepared to face the villain who was apparently the impetus for the creation of the first team of Outsiders in the first place? Find out next month in "Outsiders #16: Something happens this time, we swear!"




Young X-Men #11
Written By Marc "The Mercy-Killer" Guggenheim
Art By Rafa Sandoval and Daniel Acuna

This very special penultimate issue of Young X-Men begins with everybody's favorite X-Men framing device, a dystopian future where the last few surviving mutants are hunted down by killer robots. Except instead of characters I care about, some of the survivors are fucking Young X-Men...and Wolverine because...well, you know.

Anyway, I'm sure that sequence will link up to the main story next issue, but for now we have a story about Dust dying because of something that happened a few issues back, and the only person who seems to be able to help her in Donald Pierce, a mutant-hating cyborg who's tried and often succeeded at killing her and her friends. And so he makes a deal, his freedom for saving Dust's life. I'm going to go ahead a guess that since he's being held in a holographic prison that there's a rather easy out for solving the dilemma, but who really gives a fuck?

Young X-Men took a bunch of the worst characters from New X-Men, added some other shitty new characters and ended up getting cancelled in twelve issues. I don't why the hell Marvel thought that putting a bunch of unknown characters on a book without a superstar creative team was going to do anything but fail and fail fast.

I mean, I think the problem is that Marvel knows that there's some permutation of the Young/New X-Men/Mutants concept that will be successful, and so they're willing to keep throwing the dice until they hit on it, and their next guess seems to be regrouping the survivng New Mutants who aren't otherwise occupied and giving it another go.



Squadron Supreme (v2) #8
Written By Howard Chaykin
Art By Marco Checcheto

This is a terrible, awful comic, it's just bad, and not in the Chuck Austen "Satan teleports out of hell to impregnate women so that his offspring can build a portal that will allow him to teleport out of hell" style-bad, but just painful bad.

Anyway, the gist of this series is that Ultimate Nick Fury (you know, the one that looks like Samuel L. Jackson) is trapped in the Squadron Supreme's universe because he sort of killed a bunch of people or something, I don't know, I try not to read Jeph Loeb books. Anyway, he's formed a team of heroes who are basically ripoffs of existing Marvel heroes and his main opponents are ripoffs of DC heroes, except everyone's "darker and edgier." So, instead of having Captain America, you have a zombie soldier made up of pieces of Americans who died in past wars.

The scene that most symbolizes the incoherence of the story is one where a bunch of guys are sitting in an old Cold War era underground bunker trying to figure out how to deal with Nick Fury or something when suddenly Hyperion bursts through a wall and....sits down in a chair and sets a new agenda for the meeting, which is accepted by everyone and the meeting proceeds smoothly from there.

I guess if you wondered, "Hey, what if Iron Man were dating Spider-Man, except he was a chick," this comic is probably as close as you'll get...unless the Ultimate Universe takes an odd turn.



Robin (v4) #183
Written By Fabian Nicieza
Art By Freddie Williams II

This title shows that not every deck-clearing exercise has to be shitty, as Nicieza does a good job at wrapping up a title that's been around for almost sixteen years. Sure, he leaves a couple of threads open, but, then again, it's more like a hiatus than a cancellation, as I'm pretty sure that one of the new Bat-books that will come out after they unveil the new Batman will feature the Tim Drake character pretty heavily, or will at least feature Robin in some form.

Anyway, this issue also does a good job of pointing out the reader what makes the Tim Drake character stand out from the other would-be Robins in that he's the one who got the job by dint of his intellect rather than tragic happenstance.

Now, as for the Battle for the Cowl, it's kind of gloriously stupid because there's no way in hell that it can possibly stick, unless somehow Bruce Wayne comes back in time for the crossover because, well, Bruce Wayne is Batman, and that's just how it is. If DC couldn't manage to replace Hal Jordan, I don't think this is going to last. DC might have been better off making Grant Morrison change his ending to Final Crisis rather than derail a sizable portion of their books for a couple of years.

Well, anyone remember that story-arc "Prodigal" from 1995? You know, where Dick Grayson took over as Batman for a little while? You don't, eh? Well, then this year's Batman books will all be new to you.


X-Men Kingbreaker #3 (0f 4)
Written by Chris Yost
Art by Dustin Weaver and Paco Diaz

Holy shit, Vulcan is still around? Christ, didn't we all agree he was a bad character and decided to move on for the good of everyone.

Okay, fine, who's he fighting this time?

The Starjammers and Havok....oh, and Rachel Summers....

I have a better idea...

Retraux Revieux

X-Man #23
Written By Terry "Back off, Tomorrow-Man" Kavanagh
Art By Roger Cruz and Manny Clark
Cover Date January 1997

Some might ask, so who is this X-Man, and the answer would be...well, no one really, because the main character does not call himself, nor is he referred to by that name, and that's the sort of mind-numbing carelessness that hobbled this book throughout its existence.

Anyway, the main character, Nate Grey is the son of Cyclops and Jean Grey from a dystopian future ruled by Apocalypse. Now, you're probably thinking, "Wait...isn't that Cable's origin story?" and you see, that's where you'd be wrong, because Cable was the son of Cyclops and Madelaine Pryor, a clone of Jean Grey created by Mr. Sinister for his...well...sinister purposes.

Incidentally, this book costars Maddy Pryor who is some sort of psionic ghost brought to life by Nate Grey's psychic powers.

So, anyway, the real problem with this comic was always that Nate Grey was theoretically powerful enough to end just about any fight in about three seconds, so it was kind of hard to create a situation where he was ever in real danger, eventually Warren Ellis of all people tried to leverage that liability into a hook for the character, but that's another story.

But I'm getting off-track, this story is about Nate Grey watching TV, hanging out with his pretentiously named girlfriend "Threnody" and then fighting Bishop for no real good reason. Meanwhile the ghost of Madelaine Pryor is fighting some other chick for some reason probably relating to the plot blackhole that is the Hellfire Club.

Now that doesn't sound like the most promising summary of a comic, and, unfortuantely, it's quite a bit worse than it sounds.

Comics Review Week of 2/11/09

Okay, it's time to do that thing where I complain about things that show several hundred times more writing skill than I'm capable of. But then, I'm offering my crappy opinions for free. But then again, reading what I write takes time, and time is money, so really....

Alright, fuck it, let's just do this thing.



Batman #686
Written by Neil Gaiman
Art by Andy Kubert


You know, this is the sort of comic that reads like less than the sum of its parts. I blame a lot of that on the fact that "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" is rather ill-conceived. Obviously this story is supposed to be the Batman version of Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" which everyone liked, but it fails for two reasons, one thematic, one practical.

The thematic reason is that Moore's story wrapped up the existing continuity and gave the Silver/Bronze Age Superman the sort of send-off that can only be done when the continuity is about to be rebooted. On the other hand, this story doesn't really give any sort of closure because the characters are not the same ones everyone's been reading for the last forty years. This isn't the story of the last days of Batman, it's the story of the last days of a Batman, and that's a problem.

Of course, the reason this is basically an Elseworlds story is because, well, you know, Batman isn't dead, and I'd put money on him coming back...well, DC has that Blackest Night crossover coming out this summer, so I want to say Summer 2010, and there's been no mention of a reboot...so Gaiman is stuck writing an "end of an era" story for what is basically just a lengthy interregnum.

So, you have a story that is really well-written and features nice art, but has nothing to do with anything.

I have the feeling that something is going to happen in the second half of this story to make me look like a complete idiot. Oh, well.




Thor #600
Written by J. Michael Straczynski and others
Art by Oliver Copiel, Marko Djurddjevic and some more others

Okay, the gist of the main story is that Loki tricks Thor into doing something that will get him banished from Asgard and he, bowing to the rule of law as royalty, especially those from ancient warrior-based cultures are wont to do, accepts his banishment for the sake of the greater good of Asgard. Incidentally, if you liked this story, you should check out Thor #432, which features almost exactly the same thematic construction, if a slightly different outcome.

But the real problem I have is that it does beg the question: Why the fuck are warrior Vikings so god-damn hung up on "laws" all of a sudden? And why does Balder have the authority to banish Thor, I mean, isn't Thor king? And why would anyone ever trust Loki ever?

Still, you get to Thor and his most Thor-iest, and I know a lot of people like that sort of thing, so I guess it's a success from that point of view.


Batman and the Outsiders Special #1
Written by Peter "This time'll be different" Tomasi
Art by Adam "My brother works with Neil Gaiman and I get this?" Kubert


It would take a team of scientists years to figure out why the Outsiders keep coming back. The first iteration was the strongest, because you have Batman and a bunch of characters that were at least serviceable, but it also had villains like "The Duke of Oil," a robotic oil baron, "The Nuclear Family" a team of super-powered robots created to replace a disgruntled scientists dead family, and "The Force of July" which was a government funded supergroup that apparently used American tax dollars to send an eight-year into battle.

And that was the best version. The early nineties brought a new version of the Outsiders that included a half-man half-bear called Wylde, a guy called Technomancer who did his level-best to come as close to being Iron Man without getting DC sued, and, of course, The Eradicator...that's right, the one from the Death of Superman story.

Then there was Judd Winick's version, which, in addition to being written by Judd Winick, which is pretty bad in and of itself, also included a two-issue arc guest starring John Walsh, the guy from America's Most Wanted.

Most recently, there was the aborted Batman and the Outsiders, which featured a complete overhaul of the cast only two issues in, and went downhill from there.

But, it looks like DC is taking another crack at it, including the amazing debut of Manstalker, a character so manifestly terrible in every possible way that he must be seen to be believed. I mean, he looks like a tool, talks like a tool, has a name that sounds about as unheroic as you can get. But that's not the best part, apparently he is a television personality who films himself doing acts of vigilantism and gets information on crimes by bribing FBI agents...and he's supposed to be a good guy.

Beyond that, Alfred (yes, that Alfred) travels around the world gathering together the original Outsiders so they can...well, they'll get to that next month.



New Warriors #20
Written by Kevin Grievoux
Art by Reilly Brown and Casey Jones

In counterpoint to my last review, this is the final issue of the umpteenth revival of a marginal superhero team.

Now, there are some out there who like the New Warriors, I would guess, seeing as they keep trying to relaunch the brand, but for the same reason as the Outsiders, namely shitty premise and characters, it just doesn't seem like a winning strategy.

Anyway, the gimmick of these New Warriors was that they were basically a group of superheroes who resisted the Superhero Registration Act by illegally doing superheroic things and naming themselves after the incompetent clods who managed to get hundreds of small children killed.

Of course, then Secret Invasion happened, and Civil War became yesterday's news...so I guess I'm not clear how this volume of New Warriors could have survived any longer than it did. Well, maybe if it had good characters, but God knows that this book had no character that anyone ever cared about ever, which makes the fact that it lasted twenty issues all the more amazing. I mean, who would have thought that a team lead by Night Thrasher's illegitimate half-brother could possibly get into the double digits? I wouldn't have bet on it.

So this last arc had the team traveling to future in order to fight the original Night Thrasher who had, in the intervening years, become Iron Man...somehow. Anyway, Iron Thrasher turned out to be an evil tyrant that only the New Warriors could stop from...continuing to be evil in a timeline that will never be referenced again.

And then the team breaks up, because the book's cancelled and Marvel would prefer not mentioning anything involving these stories again, especially if one of these characters is needed in a real story.




Angel - After the Fall #17
Written by Joss Whedon and Brian Lynch
Art by Franco Urru

Now you listen up and you listen good, Goddamnit. It will be a cold, mother-fucking day in mother-fucking hell before I review anything, ANYTHING in the Whedonverse. Verstanden?

Huh...well, I guess I have a bit of space left over, so it's time for a....

Retraux Revieux

Okay, so let's so what we've got in the old....no...not that...it's...it's....


Sovereign Seven #20
Cover Date March 1997
Written by Chris "It's Not As If We Haven't Done This a Score of Times Already!" Claremont
Art by Vince Giarrano and Dave Cockrum(?)

Okay...okay...

-sigh-

Chris Claremont wrote the X-Men for, well, forever, from right after they were relaunched in the mid-70s all the way to the Jim Lee era in the early 90s, it was the Golden Age for the X-Men and Chris Claremont has to get a ton of the credit, not only for the flagship book, but also starting The New Mutants and Excalibur, and effectively creating the character of Wolverine that have made Marvel millions over the last twenty-five years.

Still, I think we'd all have been happier if he'd retired in 1992.

Sovereign Seven was a book about seven heroes from different planets who were all royalty, hence the title. They banded together to fight against some nebulous evil that had taken over their homeworlds, and forcing them to take refuge on Bloodgate, a savage world on the edge of civilization where techno-pirates rule the sky and the dreaded Cardinal Andronicus keeps the peace with his legion of robo-templars.

Okay, that last part isn't true, actually the titular seven sovereigns end up on earth and spend most of their time at a coffee bar called "Crossroads" and angst...a lot. The characters included" Big Speedster-Man, Telepathy Lass, Mysterious Girl, Ethnic Lad, and of course Androgyny (Wo)Man.

Anyway, in this issue, the sovereigns have to fight two separate threats, a forest fire and an all-star team of European mercenaries who will stop at nothing to break their teammate out of...

...a county jail. Also, their commander apparently forbids them from firing their weapons. So, these guys aren't exactly Hans Gruber in terms of scope or lethality, especially since it quickly becomes clear that the mercenaries have literally no way of actually harming the Sovereigns.

Meanwhile Finale, the chick on the cover, manages to kill the forest fire with a sword...somehow, because, as she puts, "It was my enemy, and now it is no more."

And with that the sovereigns head back to their coffee house/headquarters secure in the knowledge that by putting out the forest fire they had inadvertently started the prior issue and letting the mercenaries get away with their friend, the world is only a marginally worse place with them in it.

Well, that was horrible, let's not-

Wait, there's a back-up story. Mother-fucker.

Okay, in this back-up story, Claremont decides to prove to the readers what a bitchin' character "Cascade" is by having her hang out with Clark Kent, and him liking her. Therefore, according to Claremontian logic, to dislike Cascade means that Superman is a liar, and you're not calling Superman a liar, are you? All right, then.

It occurs to me that I haven't railed on Claremont for his...way with words, but suffice to say, you're not apt to find a comic with less natural language.