snap judgments

Welp, I finally saw him. Since March of last year, Bruce Banner has been missing from his own book as much as the Hulk’s been missing from the Marvel Universe. The last time he was on panel at all was during the mission that SHIELD devised to trick him into space. When the creature he was supposed to be fighting towered above his human form, it told him it wasn’t human. Bruce Banner replied, “That makes two of us.” and transformed into the Hulk.

What a weird set of last words. After all, it’s Banner’s humanity that makes the Hulk in the first place. He’s not mindless, he’s an extension of human emotion to a dangerous point, blurring the line between man and monster. It’s that conflict that makes us tune in… or at least why I do.

Anyways, Bruce became the Hulk and he fought, he won, but his boss didn’t like him so he shot him into space. And all throughout Planet Hulk, I’d been waiting for the anger of rejection, the anger of being lied to by people you once trusted, the anger of having to listen to people leave you this terrible message explaining your own doom because ‘it’s for your own good’ . I wanted some serious smashing, and instead, I got Gladiators in Space, Tyrant Revolution and now Ruling a Planet. He tried to be apathetic about it, but has gotten more mired into this new word he’s been exiled to than I expected.

In this latest issue, he shows up as he willingly gives his own strength to the Spikes, some Borg-y like misunderstood villains that he’s choosing to help. The strength drained from him, he hides under a blanket so people don’t know that the ‘Hulku’ (what, they can say ‘Miek’ but not Hulk?) has a secret weaker form. When he marries Mara Jade the former bodyguard of the Emperor, the Hulk reveals his Banner side to prove there are no secrets between them. She embraces this puny form, and the Hulk shifts back.

Their roles are reversed. For the first time, the Hulk when feeling vulnerable will change into Bruce Banner. Instead of the anger I wanted, Greg Pak had Bruce Banner simply give up and let the Hulk take over and run his life.  Mind you, this is something along the ‘Professor Hulk’ persona, far from the childish ‘Savage Hulk’ and the bratty teen ‘Mr. Fixit’, a Hulk who’s angry but funnels that anger to forge a control of the world around him. Hulk’s bitter post college years where the job market wasn’t there, if you will.

Long ago, Peter David quit the Incredible Hulk because of the direction the editors wanted to go towards less a drama-fueled story and more of a Monster on the Loose formula with smashing and theatrics. Peter David quit the book shortly after, citing ‘creative differences’ and we got ‘HULK’ (or was it ‘Rampaging Hulk’?); we have a lot of these in the Quarter Bin. We had gotten so spoiled on Peter David’s tight knit supporting cast, his very drama fueled stories and quick humor, that what came before didn’t measure up.

From the New York Comic Con Panel on World War Hulk:

Where did the idea of Planet Hulk and World War Hulk come from?

Quesada: Alan Fine, of Toy Biz and Quesada had similar ideas, that is, that it was time to get the Hulk back to big, savage action since the character had gone through various eras that moved him away from that type of story.

Familiar and for what it’s worth, second time seems to be doing the charm.  People are excited and happy to see the upcoming World War Hulk, not to mention the hit the Planet Hulk it right now.   Maybe I should say more about this later…

First thing one of my fellow employees says to me this morning is, “So, Marvel going to issue an apology?”

Why he’s asking me, I don’t know. At this point the folks at the House of Ideas are just fine with their Brave New World and at this point, there’s nothing to do but wait and ride this out (Ike’s gearing up for a dozen roses I’m sure of it).

That is, until a kid comes in with his dad looking for an Iron Man comic. One of the other guys takes them under his wing and shows off our spiffy ‘kid friendly’ corner and notes that Iron Man happens to be in the most awesome book ever, Marvel Adventures: Avengers. The kid is not satisfied; he wants a book about Iron Man only. My fellow clerk gives me a look of helplessness and I nearly drop my stocking clipboard as my worst fear has been realized. The dad goes over to the new comics section as we have to explain that, no, his son might not be ready for the newer Iron Man books. The back issue bin is dived into as I look to the Trade Paperback shelves and see nothing but ‘Demon in a Bottle’, ‘House of M: Iron Man’, ‘Heroes Reborn: Iron Man’ and the recent trade wherein a kid is blatantly shot by SHIELD. While I hit the back and come out with an Essential Iron Man vol. 1, I find they’ve already left.

With the first couple issues of the Warren Ellis story.

Unsurprisingly, Dad comes back and asks if he can return them. No problem, says I, and begin guiding them back to the back issues. Color was important to the young man (maybe… 6?), so the Essentials was out. So was the reprint of Tales to Astonish #39 ( a Marvel Milestone edition) because he liked the red and yellow Iron Man. “Red and gold,” the little boy corrects and now it’s my solemn duty to make sure he leaves happy. I show them all the older annuals, thinking a done in one story from yesteryear might do the trick. Sent away as the little boy wanted his dad to show him the books (not some crummy girl, I mean the kid’s like 6), I sigh with relief as I hear the child exclaim, “Oh, that’s the one I want! Can we get it please?”

We sell them an annual (#15 I think) and an issue with Iron Man busting commie rockets in space at our sale discount and everyone goes home happy. This time.

Thank God Marvel Adventures: Iron Man comes out in May. I don’t think my heart could take another one of those.

If there is one thing that high school taught me is that, if you like your friends and want to get along with a majority of people, DO NOT talk about religion or politics. Plain and simple, people on the whole marry themselves to these beliefs above all others. You can convince someone that Ang Lee’s Hulk movie has some redeeming points over the whole, but getting opposing view points to meet in the middle regarding gun control just isn’t going to happen. I mean, we have a whole government running this country debating religion and politics right now, so I have to ask:

Why put it in my funny books?

No, really. Why is Civil War, from what the last issue I think it trying to tell me, centered around the government and how much liberty we should give up in order to be safe? Anyone else getting this message? Tony is like a kid in a candy store at the end of the book, anxiously telling Angry Mom from #1 about all the changes he’s going to enforce upon the entire country to make it better the way he, Reed and Hank feel it should be. He’s excited about getting to dictate American policy! Why am I not excited AT ALL? Why does this all seem so wrong? Because, in religion and politics, there is always another side to the issue; while I can’t fathom how a secret dictatorship on justice and security seems like a good idea, there are those who think this is fantastic and deep and such a fresh take on the Marvel Universe that they can’t wait to see what’s coming next. People as excited as Tony was as he tells Angry Mom about his 100 ideas to change the world and it seems like the House of Ideas is really happy about the way their new world will work.
I just get the feeling that we’re all just shrugging and letting Ike ruin our singing career because we know he’ll just calm down after a bit and then we’ll get that fur coat we want and we’ll be happy again like we used to be.

Well folks, here we are: Civil War #7 eve.  Can you sleep?

In just a few hours (hopefully less if UPS shows up at the store on time), we’ll have the start to the end of the Marvel tent event of the summer.  Just this issue… then Civil War: The Confession, Civil War: Battle Damage Report, all the books that had been delayed from the delay on Civil War #7-  oh!  And Civil War fallout, like the Civil War: the Initiative, the two new Avengers books, all the ripples and shockwaves from The Big Death (you know, the one Marvel is caring about as opposed to wrapping up Bill Foster in a tarp in chains…) bound ot echo for a few issues, guaranteeing us Civil War until World War Hulk starts up its engines.

I am Civil War’d out.

Anyways, on to those OTHER books that are coming out today…

Cable & Deadpool #37

Okay, weird turn of event:  Deadpool is planning to become a super hero (stay with me) by capturing the Rhino and turning him into the SRA.  But first, Deadpool wakes up in maybe a lab but definitely at three inches high.  Apparently he was drugged at a bar and exposed to good ol’ Pym Particles.  Rhino winds up finding him and wackiness ensues.  Believe it or not, Deadpool kicks ass at three inches tall and it turns out to be a big ol’ plot to make Deadpool seem more bad ass than the issue before where he took on the Taskmaster single handedly.  Don’t get me wrong, I adore madcap kooky Deadpool, but this seems strange somehow.  Perhaps because the name ‘CABLE’ is on the cover of a book he didn’t even appear in.  Or the fact that a few issues ago things were pretty heavy and deep what with Cable having his own country and fighting in the Civil War and there was this huge rift personal beliefs and whatnot.  Now, we’re fighting some pretty lame villains in a pretty lame bar and the Rhino is pretty impressed by DP’s ‘Foot of Doom’.  I think this is what happens when you have a central character shipped off to an X-Men book.

Immortal Iron Fist #3

Someone send David Aja a cookie bouquet.  The art work in this issue is gorgeous, fluid and striking.  More ruminations on past Iron Fists, giving us that sense of history while the book goes dreamily through its plot, where HYDRA schemes and the old and our Iron Fists meet face to face.  Good stuff, nothing cataclysmic, but mysterious and cool.  Yeah.

Legion of Monsters: Werewolf by Night #1

Oh boy.  Greg Land art.  Two stories: one a sexy werewolf story full of hot chicks and tarot cards and Lorenzo Lamas in Renegade.  Are we expecting dark horror?  No, just a hip little story about the beast within.  The second story is a Monster of Frankenstein tale with no credit for the artist or writer on the interior.  But it’s fantastic!  Skottie Young (a personal fav) is expertly colored in that way that makes people like Humberto Ramos seem like manuscript and the story itself is short, sweet and deeper than the lead-in.  Not a bad book if you dig Marvel’s more Midnight-y Suns side.

The New Avengers: Illuminati #2

Yeah, THE New Avengers.  Was that even on the cover of the first book?  Because I’m going to state right now that the ‘The’ in the title is ruining everything about what I had hoped was going to be a fun ‘A-Team’ styled book with the big brains of the MU kicking ass and chewing bubble gum as available.  But this pushes that ‘don’t take it all too seriously’ standard I was giving the mini because here, that cover?  ACTUALLY IN THE BOOK (though Namor is not carrying Xavier is in his arms- but wouldn’t it be funny if that was the book’s gimmick?  Ever issue the chair was lost or tipped over and someone always wound up carrying the crippled guy?  I digress.)  We begin after the first ‘season’ of Dan Slott’s She-Hulk, where Shulkie gave Reed Richards the Power Gem Titania tried to take he out with.  With an off the cuff slam regarding the caliber of villainy She-Hulk tangles with from Tony, Mr. Fantastic explains that the Infinity Gems are very very dangerous and that every time someone gets their hands on all of them only trouble follows.  So why doesn’t the Illuminati… GO GET ALL THE GEMS!  The rest of the crew puts on their best ‘Have you gone MAD?’ faces as Reed announces that well, he didn’t wait for the go head and already has two more gems and the Infinity Gauntlet.
Now this is the point at which someone should have punched him.  Or mentally checked to see if it was a doppelganger or … something because this is huge.  This is not forming Voltron or summoning Captain Planet here.  The Infinity Gauntlet has no been held by very sane individuals and yes, you can debate me on that.  But no, Reed takes them on a little ‘weirdness’ thanks to using the gauntlet with just the three, finds out where two other gems are and says that the last one will just show up if you’ve gotten the others.  So, Dr. Strange and Professor Xavier head back to the X-Mansion with Namor, who Reed put on Team B to keep him away from his stuff and by stuff I mean wife.  Doctor Strange and Xavier realize that the Mind Gem is the collective consciousness of the universe and do a little philosophical interpretation on that and Namor fights a big sea monster.  Meanwhile, Tony and Reed put Black Bolt in a tube and have him scream at a fixed point, where the pure power is strong enough to rip a hole in reality itself.  Reed gets Iron Man to reach into that hole and pull out the Reality Gem, which promptly shuts down his armor, disintegrates his arm and turn him to ash.  Reed freaks out, uses the Infinity Gauntlet after a suggestion from Black Bolt and does… something.  Reality is righted.
Everyone gets back together and I want to say that the Infinity Watch shows up and takes off with the gems, but no.  Reed experiences the lure of power and his own pride at actually accomplishing all this and it takes Uatu showing up to SHAME Reed for wanting to pull off such a lousy idea that gets him to take off the freakin’ glove.  Each of the Illuminati get a gem for safe keeping and Xavier’s eyeballing Reed pretty heavily there at the last panel.
Oh man.  This would have been such a cool idea a year and a half ago.

She-Hulk #16

So, She-Hulk goes to capture the Wendigo, which is silly because Wolverine’s already hunting him because.. he just is.  With a rare bright move by SHIELD (really, these guys have been the Keystone Cops in nearly every other book!), they’ve set up a perimeter for the ‘Superhero Conflict in Progress’ and are waiting it all out.  During the fight, Shulkie takes a pretty bad wound to the gut and has a bit of an out of body experience as her ‘Jen Walters’ side shows up to quote Star Wars and tell herself that this whole SHIELD thing isn’t as cool as her first premise for the book.  Odd, but personally appreciated.  Elizabeth Twoyoungmen shows up to try and cure the Wendigo curse, but SHIELD declines the offer preferring capture.  Which they do, thanks to a funny and gruesome Fastball Special from Jen and Wolverine.  Wolverine has his doubts about all of this and even more doubts about She-Hulk hitting on him after their team up, citing ‘Juggernaut’s sloppy seconds’.  Ouch.  Apparently, all of this is working towards some ‘Project: Achilles’ by SHIELD.  It sounds nefarious and deceitful, making me wonder:  when did SHIELD become the bad guys?

Silent War #2

Taking a stretch through the Inhuman’s motivations from the point of view of Luna (who’s now six years old!) watching the monarchy turn around her.  There’s a war on, you know and we’re reminded of that twice in the book as a way to excuse a lot of strong actions.  You’d think there’d be more negotiation going on, Black Bolt and Medusa going to see the Fantastic Four to talk this all out, maybe even Reed realizing that the Inhuman’s advanced crystal technology shouldn’t be given to unprepared humans… it just feels like the premise of the book would normally be handled without th use of a mini-series, maybe an issue or two.  Maybe I’m expecting my heroes to be a bit smarter.  Maybe I’m saying maybe a lot today.  Anyhow, the Inhumans try and get the Terrigen Crystals back, are deflected, and wind up somewhere distant and cold where the Sentry is told to meet them.  Continuing his streak of acting like a nerdy teenager, he talks at Black Bolt, swearing he totally understands his pain and instantly comparing himself to someone cooler in order to look cooler.  (I know, and I’m a big fan of the Sentry too; the guy should obviously be left to Paul Jenkins).  The Inhumans go home before SHIELD can start more active hostilities and Luna’s big secret about her dad having Terrigen crystals is revealed, leading to another trip to see Quicksilver who’s got the crystals embedded like buckshot in his chest.  Good ideas, a little shaky on the execution.

X-Men: First Class #6 (of

Skrulls!  Skrulls show up, impersonate the X-Men to do harm to them and wind up sympathizing with their targets instead, earning them a boot off the assignment and a trip home.  The X-Men ponder over the mysterious impersonations, fight a bug, pass out and miss the whole explanation.  Life goes on.  These have all been short, sweet little stories that are more fight and fun than anything deeper or character driven.  I continue to enjoy the book as much as one would enjoy a bag of Peanut M&Ms on a break, especially with Mini Marvels and Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius backups.  Make sure these guys are getting shelved in whatever kids section your local store has…

The first time a ‘Real Live Professional’ ever wrote me was to correct that fact I’d called him Paul. I was mortified.

The second time was Lea Hernandez, commenting on something I wrote enough for me to go and find the nearest person and rave at them for this wonderful note I was left. Sadly, my fellow employees didn’t get as big a kick out of Clockwork Angels as I did, so my glee was left unexpressed.

So now at my finest hour I come to you, dearest fanfriends, to tell you:

KEITH GIFFEN THANKED ME.

Hoorah!

I thought it was pretty smug for JMS to have Tony Stark and Peter Parker turn and look at you the viewer as they give a half-hearted excuse for an editing error during the Other.

Recently, I wasn’t alone in thinking Bendis got a little smug with a panel crowing his acheievments in putting a slim woman in a muscle suit.

But now… I think this is The One.

Joe Quesada has done a little holiday tune for Christmas for the past few years and I have to admit, I think they’re great. It’s fun idea, just a little extra touch to make Marvel a fun and funny place. Well, this year he was late on getting the song out and I didn’t pay it another thought (though checking Joe Fridays to see if he was even going to do one last year brought my blood pressure up). Turns out he did do a song, a jaunty little tune called ‘This Song is Two Weeks Late’ and I laughed! What a great idea! Known for some pretty crappy scheduling delays, why not have a song about it? Maybe slide in that the song was late because work is hard but he still hasn’t forgotten the fans.

Or how about a song with the Marvel Bullpen rapping about how bad ass they are and how they’ll “…throw lead in yo *** if you call Tony Stark a villain”? Yow.

Because New was just not New enough, we’re going to have the Mighty Avengers which looks like more of your casual Avengers team (though something about the lineup and it’s presentation is still getting under my skin. Can’t put a finger on it, so for now I’m not going to say word one until I get the first issue) and a ‘New’ New Avengers team because the first one self-destructed under its own weight.

So before we look at Bendis’s second try at writing a team book, let’s look at what the all new all different Avenging team of Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Spider-Man, the Sentry and Luke Cage.

And no, Ronin is not on the list because she appeared in one storyline and didn’t seem to be affiliated particularly with the team. No room in Stark Tower? Not an actual team member. Not to mention lithe chick in a man suit really bad idea.

Anyhow, the first New Avengers got together in the wake of Avengers: Disassembled as after a prison break at SHIELD ‘Raft’ instillation, Cap believed the world needed a collection of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.   Fine idea, right?  Through six issues, they get the band together and find out something hinky going on with SHIELD in the Savage Land and the blonde Black Widow.  Something they never learned about as the nest story arc brought the Sentry into the fold for another three issues, where the team took a backseat to let the Golden Guardian of Good shoehorn his way into the book as a team member.  Next came Ronin’s arc where a lot of ninjas are fought in order to detain the Silver Samurai, something they wind up not doing and taking the Hydra’s Viper instead.  She’s let go by Spider-Woman,  and for an issue they do some roster drama, with Cap calling Jessica out on being a agent of everyone, Ms. Marvel turning down the team and (*gasp!*) some skulduggery by J. Jonah Jameson.  The last four issues of the New Avengers gave us the Collective in which they fought mutant zombies and the splash pages flowed like wine.

All of that was WAY TOO MUCH for the book to handle and we never saw the Avengers together again as Civil War took care of that.  But look at that, they barely accomplished anything during their brief time together.  There’s a dangling plot hook with the whole SHIELD in the Savage Land unless I missed an issue elsewhere that answered why Kyle Lycos needed to be busted out of prison, one of their members was a double agent, the Daily Bugle got the best of them and all of this needed to be celebrated with 10 alternate covers.

But now, all that’s changed.  We have a NEW New Avengers team PLUS the Mighty Avengers both written by Bendis, the man who didn’t seem to get the hang of the first Avengers book he wrote in twenty issues.  Surely, this will solve all our problems.

Hey, remember Echo?

Sure, we all do!  She’s that really cool Native American chick who’s deaf and was intro’d by David Mack and given this really interesting story about identity and overcoming your past and had some fantastic art and oh yeah, she’s Ronin.  Ah well, it was a good idea while it lasted and at the end of her story in the New Avengers, ‘Ronin’ was left to keep track of the Japanese Underground.  It was as if Cap realized how bad an idea it was to have this very lithe and limber chick in a thick padded dude suit and said ‘Wait, just… stay here, we’ll come back, really.’

And they did this very issue!  …. eventually.  It take a ‘Dear John’ letter to Daredevil to remind them they put an agent out the Japan, only instead of a break-up, this a special email sent in the case of her enevitable death.  She rambles, just to make sure the readers caught up on what she’s doing.  She explains the reason for the dude suit, which was an ‘homage’ to Daredevil the first hero who touched her life.  She gets a little smug over how well it worked to disguise who she was.  In a display similar to bickering parents, the Avengers are her friends when they invite her into the fold and Matt’s friends when they abandon her out into the Japanese Underground.

Doing her enemies a disservice and making her job a bit of a joke,  Echo explains that the Japanese Underground consists of slick criminals looking to get high or get laid and a bunch of Paris Hilton types, arm candy airhead heiresses.  So, Echo decides to play the ditzy party girl by day, then dress up as a bad ass ninja dude by night.  Let me say that again:  she pretends to be a stupid woman by day to get info, then dresses up as a man to intimidate and kick ass on the info she gets.  Does that sound a little… odd to anyone else?  Anyways, since she knows martial arts and is in Japan, she’s going to run into the Hand.

This brought about an interesting revelation at work:  one ninja is bad ass.  A bunch of ninjas is fodder.  So the old addage about ‘strength in numbers’ doesn’t work for ninja-ry.

Ronin fights a lot of ninjas.  She fights Elektra and, unsurprisingly, loses.  Because Elektra loves irony, she kills Ronin with a sai through the stomach as Bullseye once killed her.  And maybe to follow through on that irony, Elektra takes her back to the Hand for the resurrection ceremony which suceeds just in time for, your friend and mine, BRAINWASHING!  I thought that was the scene for Hydra right now, but I guess the Hand need all the help they can get.  As they toss the brought-back-from-the-dead Echo into a deep dark hole to face some sort of really scary mystical blue thing, her email to Matt Murdock begs him not to suffer this very fate.  She wants to be… avenged.

Enter the splash page!  Yep, before the end of Civil War, here’s the new guys busting out of the pages to fight ninjas.  Again.  Sadly, my fears are realized as Doctor Strange seems mostly there to wiggle his fingers and play designated driver, teleporting them in and out as Matt Murdock must have forwarded the email to the correct people.  There’s banter as they fight the ninjas and Luke Cage kicks Elektra in the tuna fish for Matt (old times’s sake I guess).  Spider-Man grabs Echo, still wonky from the resurrection and whatever brainwashing that took hold, and *poof* they’re gone.  Elektra swears they won’t leave Japan, making me wonder what would keep the SORCERER SUPREME from going back to his Sanctum Sanctorum.

Details, I suppose.  All in all, it feels like we’ve done this dance before and it wasn’t all that thrilling the last time either.   Don’t waste your money, this was merely filler as we all wait for Civil War #7 to show up.