snap judgments

Magneto reminds us that homo superior has no need for fossil fuels.  Or traffic congestion.

… or little traffic signs.

Drive green, folks.

So I catch sight of not only Hank Pym riding a … something technological down to its explodey fate, but an article over at Atomic’s Comics blog by way of Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge who found a bunch of old corny shots of the Wasp mooning over Thor and powdering her nose in the face of danger.  Well, they don’t call her the ‘winsome’ Wasp for nothing.

But he does have a good point: no matter what Hank Pym does, for some odd reason we can’t let go of the fact he smacked his wife in a moment of mental duress.  She’s forgiven him, the Avengers forgave him, what is up with comic readers?

Is it the fact we’re attracted to bad eggs?  Is this the same reason the name Joey Buttafuco is now embedded into the American consciousness and who the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby is more about the money than the child?  Is it societal or … is that really all we know about Dr. Pym?  Was that the moment of excitement in the guys’ career?

Well, of course not but I can agree that he’s just not being used to the fullest extent.  That Bendis (or was it Millar?) thought having the guy stand next to Captain America in Avengers group shots was hinky because he was a wife beater is kind of where the conversation ends when really, there is a lot to the guy that makes him a real ‘Marvel’ hero.

Okay, just to get it out of the way:  yes, Hank Pym, while creating a robot that only he could destroy to attack his friends as a way to impress them and earn their trust, smacked his wife across the face hard enough to cause bruises.  And I’m not condoning the act, but let’s look at the bigger picture.  HE WAS TRYING TO HURT THE AVENGERS WITH A KILLER ROBOT.  He was in a panic because they were going to kick him off the team because he jumped the gun and KILLED A WOMAN.  There are larger factors at work than a beaten wife, the man was ruining his life due to a mental breakdown, let’s give the guy a break.  Janet forgave him, so can we.

The first time I ever heard of Hank Pym he was trying to kill himself.  I got a bunch of West Coast Avengers comics at a yard sale along with some ofther books, but there was only one with a guy in a red jumpsuit holding a gun after a werecat turned him down.  This wasn’t what I expected out of an Avengers comic and it had me at the get-go; you mean to tell me some people just aren’t good at being a superhero?  Back then, it was  hard knock life but you loved your job and here was Hank Pym holding a pistol with the intention to kill himself.

Not only that, but next issue he was counseled by a mexican superheroine (a Catholic no less!) to have faith in himself, causing Hank to pick himslf up and try out being a hero under who he really was, a scientist.  He carried cars and winches and cool science stuff in the pockets of his super-jumper and was pretty cool.  Sure, he’s no Batman and you won’t see his name on a lunchbox, but it just seemed to a little Yours Truly that he wasn’t just out to help his friends or those in need, but himself as well.

That was so cool.

Looking at his very first story in Tales to Astonish, Hank Pym was never meant to be a superhero.  The story, “The Man in the Ant Hill”, is written in an almost cautionary tale of hubris and how not to take the little things for granted.  At the end of the story, after being chasedby ants, threatened with death and barely making it out alive, Hank Pym decides his shrinking and growing formula is far too dangerous for mankind and swears never to use it again.  Next story out, he’s donning a costume.  Not the usual beginning for these kind of things.  From the very start he’s fighting against his base nature to take a risk he wasn’t prepared for in order to be a better person, a hero.  Doomed to failure, but the fight is respectable.

I just wish someone had really hooked into that.  Now that people seem to be reveling in the fact that Quicksilver used to be bi-polarly evil and using it to fuel his recent change in personality from pre- to post- Avengers: Disassembled, why couldn’t we look back to the same period of time and see the struggling superhero, Hank Pym?   Someone who has all the tools, but maybe not the talent?  For someone the lifestyle is a fight in more ways than one, but the results are well worth it, to humanity and to yourself.

Though it looks like Avengers: the Initiative seems to think that some big flashy heroic act is how Hank Pym really wants to be remembered, I’m going to remember him for sitting in that room, hearing good advice, and making that big step to live.

So, thanks to Avengers: Initiative, we have one more capped kid to add to the ranks of children who have died to make sure the reader knows this book means business.

I had two customers come in within days of each other ready to pull Marvel from their pulls.

Walk-in folk have shaken their heads at the second printing of Captain America #25, both in disappointment that they would do something as media blitzing as throw his dead body on a cover like that and in absolute disbelief that people are actually buying the fact he’s ‘really’ dead.

Today, someone told me they can get into a summer mega event, just not one after another after another like this.  Another customer admitted they just can’t enjoy the Marvel Universe like they used to because of the dark political themes that are inescapable.  What happened to the fact Quesada once believed that Spider-Man should remain accessible to all readers, not just the ones who want to see him out for blood?

Am I talking this too personally?  Is this just funny books and should I just sit down because, hey, people are buying them right?  Why is this getting me down?
Mr. Keeper stopped me in my tracks this evening, as he was stopped in his tracks by Mr. Sanders.  I do my best to remain objective as… well, I have to.  It’s my job and who wants to go into a comic shop and hear the clerk tell you about how much everything sucks?  I save that dubious title for things that I cannot bring myself to sell to people (reprints disguised as new material to long-time readers, newer Supergirl issues to moms, ridiculously priced alternate covers to non-collectors, etc.) and the internet (ha ha), but on the whole, I cannot bad mouth product in my store.  If someone asks me how Planet Hulk is, I’ll tell them about what other people think rather than my personal views on the lack of the human element in Bruce Banner.  If someone asks me about Civil War, I’ll take a page from Quesada and say how much it’s changing the very idea of what a ‘superhero’ really is.
And sometimes, that will work.  Just a little more info on a title will make me that sale and someone will walk away with a trade paperback of Spider-Woman: Origin because the Luna Brothers artwork is pretty keen and Bendis is reinventing the character for the new Marvel age.  So what if I didn’t like it; I’m not the market majority and one fan’s trash is another fan’s treasure.   Like Mr. Keeper says in a more eloquent fashion than I, it’s good to remain objective.
Then again… the salesman with enthusiasm and a honest enjoyment for what they’re selling makes the sale, for lack of a better term.  If you can make that connection with the reader/customer/etc, they will come back for more and you’ll actually feel good about it rather than watching them go out the door with that ‘Well, hope that worked’ feeling.  One of my best pitches is the Jenkins/Lee trade, Inhumans, because I love that book with a fiery passion of a thousand burning suns.  If the store were to catch fire, I would save that book first.  Then the registers.  Maybe the computer.  Possibly myself.  (And Bruce Jones’s run on the Incredible Hulk in my hands like the pet store snakes in Pee-Wee’s in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure)  I know that book backwards and forwards and if there’s a chance the customer may dig it, I’ll make sure sing it’s praises in hopes of a sale.
Look up sell in the dictionary and ignore the bits about betrayal, cheating and foolishness (yikes!) and you’ll get to this:

5 a : to develop a belief in the truth, value, or desirability of : gain acceptance for [trying to sell a program to the Congress] b : to persuade or influence to a course of action or to the acceptance of something [sell children on reading]

I love 5a.  5b is great for sales.  So maybe, hope of that sale is okay.  “Fanboy Privilege” can be used for good.

Sure helps me sell that Inhumas trade.

I hit the comic bug HARD in my early teen years. I got into the swing of collecting the X-Men much faster and easier than I thought I should, pressuring peers to tell me their real tales (as opposed to the ones I saw on that gateway drug of a Fox cartoon show) over lunches and listening with rapt attention as eyes were rolled, the Summers family diagrammed and Psylocke through the Siege Perilous was acted out as a one-man show by a dear friend of mine.

One of my dearest treasures during this age and long after, was a poster I’d found hidden at my local comic shop that they let me have at a discounted price. It was full of color, art and dynamic style and it actually hung above my bed like a flash card to Marvel Merry Mutants. There just seemed so many (oh, what a world we live in now) and I would try and mimic the art style for my own homemade comics. I even used that picture of Rogue to make myself a Halloween costume. It was the Art Adams ‘Children of the Atom’ poster, used for the cover of X-Men Classic #1 so I hear, but to me, it was my favorite work of art. It followed me to college, survived three apartments, tacky stuff, scotch tape and *gasp* thumbtacks to place it in proud positions on my wall and now it sits in my basement, wrapped with care and waiting for a frame to protect it from anymore wear and tear. I am so nostalgic for that poster.

Seeing the cover to the upcoming Avengers Classic made me smile.

So, someone on the theauthority community on livejournal posts a review they did of Midnighter #6, which they say reads like yaoi AU.

One of their complaints (which they admit is nitpicking) is that the narrative is peppered with blatant disgust by the surrounding samurai class characters that Japanese Midnighter is in love with a man.  Me, I figured that was going to be par for the course, right?

Turns out I’m wrong and that “one of the fundamental aspects of samurai life was the emotional and sexual bond cultivated between an older warrior and a younger apprentice, a love for which the Japanese have many names, as many perhaps as the Eskimo have for snow.”

While I’m still confused at the idea of an Elseworlds Wildstorm story and don’t think that Midnighter and Apollo are really all that made for yaoi, a genre that to me means a story with a homosexual relationship primarily written for women by women, I’ll pick up the issue and see what the issue says.

I’m just in it for the kicks.  And explosions.

Okay, no preview books this week, my apologies.  BUT!  I have something else.

You see, as a brave and intrepid comic shop employee, I have the rather karmic hnor of not having to buy books.  It’s liberating, let me tell you.  To be able to read Avengers: The Initiative on my lunch break and just hang my head at the idea of sending ‘Girl Who Blew That Guy’s Head Off Home’ home after … well, blowing a guy’s head off on accident (OH BOY UNPREDICTABLE!  The guy was a little ‘too good to be true’, wasn’t he?   But shouldn’t she just go into a different training program to make sure that doesn’t happen again?  You’d actually let a girl who reacted lethally on accident in danger back on on the street?  Isn’t Initiative all a part of the Registration Act?  Shouldn’t training for those who need it be a part of Registration?  Am I the only one confused and disappointed?  Come on, Mr. Slott…).  but instead of feeling cheated out of my money based on hype, I can go put the book back at the end of my break (in fine condition, let me tell you) and spend my fat comic retail jockey check on something more satisfying.

Side note:  Yeah, I think I might have to do an article on the Avengers: Initiative book.  Suffice it to say, that and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man were sore spots.

So, in light of all this my purchasing power went towards the following:

The Amazing Screw On Head

An oldie but goodie.  It came out a long time back and since my copy’s a little worse for the wear and borrowing, I thought I’d spring for a fresh reprint.  I adore this story for it’s wacky seriousness, Mignola artwork and that the little air balloon ship has a skull on the balloon part.  Gold, I tells ya.  Maybe I’ll fire up the scanner and see if it can let me share how fantastic this comic one shot is.  Or maybe you can go rent the animated version on DVD.

Batman: Detective Comics #831

*gasp!*  There’s a DC in the house!  What can I say?  I’m a sucker for the animated series and Dini’s done a great job at writing a book for someone passingly interested like myself.  The Joker and Robin issue in the car was just what I’m looking for, an nice entry level story will drama and adventure.  And with the man who created the character behind Harley Quinn again, how could I refuse?  It’s a good issue, packed full of action and sympathies that makes me wonder sometimes at how anyone could really enjoy story decompression.  Harley is a good but off-kilter egg who seems to have matured a great deal from her time on the telly and in the end, we get a happy ending and a reward in the form of some honest storytelling for our reading time.

Fables #59

I tend to pick these up in trade, but there’s something about this one that was worth picking up to have on its own.   Now, Mr. Sims I think sums up why much better than I could, so scroll down and see.

Midnighter #5

One of the few characters outside the mainstream (wait, Wildstorm is mainstream now, isn’t it?) that I’m just a sucker for.  Garth Ennis to boot, suddenly I’m short $3.22 (tax and all).  But all in all, I’m not too sure on this one.  I promised myself I’d do the obligatory five-issues-trial, but while it did have Nazis, kicking and explosions, and a rather clever little ending twist, I’ll have to see how the character comes out of all this.  Still, now I have #1-5.

Omega Flight #1

I will be honest: I really only bought it because I was curious and didn’t think we’d last out our supply at work to be able to peruse it at my leisure.  And, I have a friend online who’s pop-culturally interested in Walter Langowski (you know, how some people really like Wonder Woman and have a lot of merchandise but couldn’t tell you a single member of her rogues gallery?), so I thought I’d read it and delight her with tales of the Sasquatch.  What I’ve read of Oeming has made me dazzle at his grip of mythology, so let’s see what he does with Canada’s premiere super-team.  And on the whole, it reminds me a lot of Warren Ellis’s Thunderbolts.  Weird, huh?  While Thunderbolts is a ticking time bomb, the obviously WRONG idea with hunted heroes just trying to do the tried and true Marvel idea of heroics, Alpha Flight has the obvious right idea of forming a group of people who want to do good, facing villains who have taken the upper hand.  It’s a slow build to something good, for all the right reasons.  Scott Kollins’s artwork’s going to take some time with me though.

Thunderbolts Presents: Zemo – Born Better #1

This got lost in my pull box as I have the mini right on my pull these days.  You can tell Fabian Nicieza really likes his characters and their archetypes and I respect that.  Not only am I learning a little about what a dynasty can do in the Marvel Universe to shape the character as Nicieza sees him but a little about German history too, as the store’s resident German History major can attest to.  Sure, you’re going to tell me you missed it, but wait until the trade if you must, it’s a solid story.

So, that’s what I paid for.  Preview books are in, including a Nova #1 (woo!), some X-Men stuff and other goodies, so we’ll be back to normal operation here in no time.

Okay, don’t have my notes on this week’s preview books but we’re gonna push on though anyways as I have some stuff to talk about.

In Brubaker’s remarkable first arc on Daredevil, Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk have a sit-down over their personal difference, the nature of justice and what love has lost.  It’s deep, it’s short and poignant and resolves the Daredevil book quite nicely with this genius idea of emigrating the Kingpin out of the country.  SMART MOVE.  Think about it: it’s a genius way to punish an obviously criminal character responsibly and still keep him in the book.  Just because he’s been kicked out of the country doesn’t mean people won’t be receiving spooky phone calls and Fisk won’t be pulling some very long strings.  he’s still an in-play character, just from a different point.

But no.

Amazing Spider-Man has him personally ordering the hit on Peter Parker’s family from jail, suggesting that this takes place during the Brubaker arc before he’s out of jail and out of the US.  Awkward, but I can handle that.  What I can’t is the Kingpin sitting down with the Runaways to give them street cred.  That’s sloppy editing.  I know it’s Whedon and they’d give him Gwen Stacy and her Osborn love-children if he asked, but to try and set this current book within what we’ve already seen in other titles just makes the story seem like a writing trick than anything intelligent.

Yes, having the kids talk to the Big Name in MU Crime makes them seem more credible as a ‘super-force’ or street level cadre of maybe-heroes-maybe-villains-we-don’t-know-’cause-it’s-edgy.  Yes, the Kingpin is more than willing to use a bunch of loser kids with powers for his own personal gain.  But having him sit out in the open in a restaurant and bankroll these kids on sight alone when he’s supposed to be overseas is just corny.

Marvel?  Read your other titles, especially when they are really good.  It’s time to put the Kingpin down.  You’re proud to use the Hood as the next big thing in Crime Lords?  Throw him in, no problem.

Okay, so apparently March comes in like a lion and out like an even bigger lion riding an elephant and facing a gigantic force of ancient werewolves designed to capitalize on the charm of the new 300 movie because Jeph Loeb will not admit he has no idea where he’s going with this story and has just taken to telling the artist to draw something ‘awesome’.

But I digress.

Let’s talk about the Avengers, shall we?  I didn’t do an All You Need to Know for the last issue of New Avengers because, surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad a read.  Sure, it was full of holes in characterization and plot but in comparison to the Mighty Avengers, it seemed to me a well put together romp.

Can I just say how very very disappointed I was in the Mighty Avengers?  It was promised to be a ‘back to basics’ approach to the Earth’s Mightiest and right from the get-go, I had to wonder who’s ‘basics’ these were going to be.  Mine simply involved heroes uniting together for the common good against a defined foe. Easy, right?  And to get technical, yes, Mighty Avengers #1 brought together heroes to go fight Mole Man and then Girl-tron.  I think where my issue lies is with the ‘common good’ aspect of the equasion.  Your milage may vary.

For the sake of my arguement, I’m not going to mention what a fugly Hellicarrier that Tony has from that issue.  Because, really, that’s an easy target and less to do with good actions and more about bad design.  It looks like Ronald McDonald is missing a shoe and there’s no one to blame but whoever told the colorist.  Moving on.

The main story is Tony gets Carol in a room with a bunch of pictures of heroes in the Marvel Universe and together they play Kickball by selecting people for their new team as a flashback, while we watch the team they’re choosing in the present day fighting a big monster in the middle of the street.  Not exactly climatic, but a good way to explain who’s there and who’s not.  Or a device to have the two main characters get really catty about their fellow teammates.  When trying to figure out the Wasp’s current relationship to her ex-husband, Tony declares that “I’m pretty sure they are what drove me to drink in the first place.”  Okay, so I know he’s not serious (at least… I hope not) but still, that’s a really petty crack at someone who doesn’t really deserve it.  Sadly, she and Hank Pym seem to suffer from the fact that Hank Pym can be wound too tight, hip writers find spousal abuse ‘edgy’, and Janet Van Dyne hasn’t been given much personal characterization outside of that for a very very long time.  Saying that their relationship is so bad it must be countered by people who aren’t even involved with alcohol got the point across in a negative way, especially since not a beat in the conversationbefore that Iron Man says he misses her.

They go back and forth on the Black Widow, one part skills rundown, one part  ‘hot or not’.  Wonder Man is called the second best Avenger which I’d want to hear a little more about why about but the conversation is sidetracked by needing a Wolverine and if there’s anything going on between Simon and Carol.  The very idea of adding the Sentry to this mix is called out, based on his lack of anything during Civil War and the fact that he’s “a basket case”.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I like the Sentry… IN HIS OWN SEPARATE TITLE where people pay attention to him and his particular nuances.  Name me one thing the guy did on the last Avengers team he was on.  His character works really well outside the mainstream and the reasons they give for not having him on this version of the Avengers make sense.  Tony disagrees, saying “You have to think of him as a hero in training, a young Avenger. … That’s the mistake everyone is making with him.  Everyone treats him like a world class hero because he has the power.  But he’s not there yet.”

Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but it sounds to me like he’s actually disagreeing with his own arguement in the middle of his explaination.  He’s not a world class hero… but let’s put him on our world class Avengers team!  He’s in training, so let’s put him on the front line with us!  Carol doesn’t think this is a good idea, but Tony wants him so he’s in.

Which is a major theme of this book.  Tony wants it, it’s his.  No matter how he may say Ms. Marvel is in charge, he’s directing the show.  The Avengers are traditionally brought together by fate, Tony doesn’t like that anymore so he gets the jump on things and makes his own personal team of Avengers.  He wants Sentry, he’s in.  He has the gall to tell a living God of War that he has to register with the US government (wait- shouldn’t he be here on a work visa or green card from Greece?  Sorry, thinking too technically there.) and come be an Avenger, Ares follows.  Ms. Marvel sounds like she doesn’t even want to lead the team in the first place, but Tony inisists so she caves.  Tony wants a giant hellicarrier that’s frikkin’ GOLD PLATED, it’s done.  Doesn’t the man have his own book?

And sure, this could all be a plot by Ultron to gather up these heroes for some revenge or another (that… apparently has to be taken when looking like a buxom naked hottie, but heck if I know what Ultron’s planning), so Tony’s general attitude could be forgiven as part of the major plot in the end.  But thanks to the new darker, grittier, ‘real’-er Marvel Universe, I cna’t look at personality shifts like this and think to myself, ‘This has to be a trick!’  I did that all through Avengers: Disassembled and it never was.  I thought House of M’s ending would be better thought through then just a big white page and a rewrite, but I was wrong there, too.  I have been waiting for that one story that’s going to go back to Spider-Man: the Other – Evolve or Die for how long now?  Remember, in the Marvel Universe, anything is possible, even the crappy stuff.  So saying that Ultron was totally manipulating him the entire time is a wash.  With as many times as they have fought Ultron, saying that Tony doesn’t have any defenses for a total takeover like that is ludicrous.  That and the fact that Tony really has been getting his way since Civil War, so all of his actions, however petty and demanding, are actually rather in character for him right now.  That, and if no one else who’s supposedly close friends of Iron Man doesn’t note a change in behavior, who’s to say there is?

All in all, I was looking for a common good here.  The idea that the Avengers are something more than a superhero team; that fate really does bring them together for a common goal of justice, above and beyond the call of duty.  Exceptional people of a like mind that no matter their personality, really want to do good and defend those who can’t.  With the Initiative in place, it seems silly for one more team to be on the scene when everyone should be able to take care of themselves in this totalitarian state.

Believe it or not, folks, New Avengers is sure enough doing some Avenging.