snap judgments

So, in sexy, sunny and very nearly on fire Santa Barbara, CA, we had a special vistor in the store the other day.  And I’m not talking about one of the upcoming writers on the ‘Brand New Day’ version of Amazing Spider-Man either.

While I was at lunch (of course!), one Joe Johnston came into the store on a mission.  He was checking out Captain America comics because today, he’d be heading down to Marvel Studios to talk about possibly directing the Captain America movie.  He purchased the Adventures of Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #1-4, a Marvel Masterworks of golden age Cap stories (Marvel Masterworks vol. 43: Golden Age Captain America Nos. 1-4 to be exact) and yes, Brubaker’s Captain America #15, 24 and 25.  We tend to run out of Brubaker issues as the whole store is a fanboy for that series and we recommend the books hand over fist.

Let’s wish the guy luck.

Well, they were ‘preview’ now they’re just ordinary run of the mill reviews. You see, I had a good portion of the workload set and ready for formatting (my gift, my curse) when I got to one issue I just couldn’t pull together. What was going on? Why should people care? Is this a return to the Dark Ages for a series that’s certainly had it’s ups and downs? Ah, well. Let’s see where I hit that snag…

Amazing Spider-Man #543

Well, Peter Parker finally admits it; he finally faces down the sad, sad fact he isn’t really a hero anymore, just a pale shadow of who he used to be. After roping MJ into forging documents and taking his Uncle Ben’s name in vain,
You know what? Screw this. No matter what Peter Parker does right now, it doesn’t matter in a few months, what with One More Day and Brand New Day. All this emo crap, this spitting in the face of everything Aunt May taught him, it doesn’t matter because in a few months, it’s all new, all different time. So, long story shot, Peter Parker becomes a criminal and drags his wife down through the mud with him in order to keep his whereabouts and family safe. Aunt May? Still conveniently on the edge of death. Keep going, JMS, in a few issues, you’ll be out like The Other.

Annihilation Conquest: Starlord #2

When this book started, there was only one character I wasn’t all that crazy about: the purple Shi’ar chick, Deathcry. She got under my skin when she was on the Avengers, and still didn’t make much sense to me years later. All I have to say now, after reading this issue, is I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
Starlord’s crew breaks in, does a lot of damage and battles all who cross their path and wind up running across some of Ravenous’s crew trying to accomplish a similar task. In the thick of things, start to wonder just how expendable everyone is. This is such an oddball book and only Keith Giffen could really to write it and write it well.

Cable & Deadpool #44

You know, when it was said at Comic Con that they’d be scratching out the ‘Cable’ in the title and scribbling in Wolverine, I thought they were just being funny. Turns out, we may just have a new crew. Wolverine does a fine job starting things off by decapitating Deadpool, leaving poor Bob the Hydra Agent to try and put the pieces back together so to speak for more high flying kicking and shooting action. Funny violence, a lesson learned, Scott making sure to keep up his late son’s pet project and in the end, Logan, Wade and Bob all seem to have been teleported somewhere. My guess? Somewhere funny.
Nicieza has been really bringing a standard to this book, a little lesson wrapped around some hilarity and silliness that only comics can get away with. I dig the book.

Immortal Iron Fist #8

And speaking of books that bring it, we have the start of an awesome action packed martial arts tournament from Fraction and Brubaker! YAY! Anything else? Not really. There’s some flashbacks to show a little more background on Rand’s relationship with K’un-Lun and what an awesome place of kung-fu it is. We have Danny trying to jump back to the ‘real world’ plot and figure out who’s messing with his assets, but he’s is gently steered away to concentrate on what really matters. And that’s a sumo dude totally kicking the ass out of a pile of ‘Shaolin Terror Priests’ to show his prowess. The end of the story comes with a nifty little bracket of how the tournament is arranged, so while away some minutes thinking of all the beautiful combinations.

Iron Man #21

Okay, back to being angry again. When last we saw Tony, he was being held prisoner by Hulk’s Warbound and probably doomed to some gladiatorial nonsense. He was in incredible pain and advising Dum Dum Dugan, acting Director in his place, to BLOW UP MANHATTAN if Hulk gets too much of his way. Pretty tense, huh?
WRONG! This issue, Tony’s back, fit as a fiddle, and dealing with all of his plot pre-World War Hulk. Apparently, the war is over in this book and everyone’s back to normal; at least, no one’s talking about SHIELD blowing up Manhattan. So, there goes the wind in the sails of World War Hulk, folks. Sure, the journey is more interesting than the destination and there was a certain sense of assurity that nothing was really going to happen out of all of this World War nonsense, but… after Civil War, I’m not sure I could have been so secure. There was a chance that there could have been some long reaching plans out of the mini-series, especially with the main members of the Illuminati. Like Tony Stark.
This issue! Graviton does some terrible things, Iron Man starts to have something of a conscience and the Mandarin may be afoot (answer: yes.)

The Order #2

I really didn’t want to like this series. The premise takes a lot of the heart out of the happenstance of becoming a Marvel hero, as far as I’m concerned and falls into that ‘if everyone can be special, than no one really is’ trap of Pixar’s the Incredibles. They got rid of a lot of mutants just for this; to make sure that the super-powered were in the minority and that everyone and their mom wasn’t a mutant. It seems that super-powers can be given or taken at will, so what makes these guys so great to bother with?
Oh, yeah. Good writing. As if anticipating my needs, Matt Fraction is borrowing a device from my favorite comic of all time, X-Factor #87, and that’s the one-on-one character interview. And BAM! Who cares if they have powers? Who cares if this is a bad American Idol style selling out of the American hero? To paraphrase the great Super Chicken, they knew the job was dangerous when they took it; much like Warren Ellis’s Thunderbolts, Fraction seems to understand how hollow this idea all is and comes clean with PR and agents and a Britney Spears-esque heroine who’s just as fucked up as her real life counterpart. But you know what? She’s fighting a bear. And boy howdy, even this messed up little girl can see that’s a hell of a lot of fun. The characters are where this book is settling and the means are simply ends to telling us a really good story.

Sensational Spider-Man #40

Now, by this point, I’m fed up with Spider-Man. He can go jump off a cliff as far as I care. Mary Jane could be a Skrull and Peter can decapitate her as a means of serving divorce papers, whatever. Whatever it takes to get me to Brand New Day, when the real stories can start again. I’m tired.
Then I get one of these. Just a little Dixie cup of Gatorade in the long run to Brand New Day. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa hasn’t been my favorite guy as comic writers go, but after Civil War, the guy really picked up the ball on a couple issues. This one is no exception as with wariness I read that Peter Parker was hella mad about his aunt and needed to go “hurt” something. After Friendly Neighborhood and Amazing, I wasn’t sure if he’d be breaking random Joe Criminal or himself, but instead we get Peter Parker blowing off some steam by hitting a dumpster a good distance from public view. SMART GUY! There! That’s being reasonable, right? Don’t go take your shit out on the Kingpin (who’s basically doing what expected when you blow your cover) or J. Jonah Jameson (who has every right to want to punch the crap out of you, but should be allowed to behave like an adult). . Go kick a can! Go to the gym! Scream at the beach. Be healthy.
Then God shows up. Or at least… it’s implied. No white-bearded father here, God shows up as a derelict and takes Spider-Man on a journey of “Yes, life is goddamned hard, but suck it up, have faith in the right thing and things will work out for the best.” Peter is reminded that yes, hi family and friends do get hurt, but he also saved OCEANS of people in the process. Sure, his life’s kinda sucky, but SOME PEOPLE HAVE IT WORSE. Quit your crying.
Okay, God’s nicer than that, but hey. He’s God. Peter goes back from this, hopefully a little wiser and Mr. Aguirre-Sacasa gives me a warm cup of milk and puts me to bed with a happy ending.
Go read it.

Thunderbolts #116

This book continues to use the context of the events of Civil War and the Initiative in ways no other title seems to do. Mind you, some of them are are in World War Hulk mode, some go off planet or dimension, but trust in Warren Ellis to revel in a dark futuristic world that’s only a shade off from the world we know and love. So much happens in this issue, conversations are just packed with story and detail and info, even the little commercials he slips into the book, so I’m only going to talk about the two big points and let you go read and enjoy the book.
First: Penance can still be riled about what he’s supposedly embraced. You know, the reason he put on the dumb spiky suit and became just another emo kid who’s going to blow up because he can and revel in his pain and listen to Linkin Park? Yeah, apparently he’s still touchy about all that as when some poor fool named “Hellrazor” shouts out from his cell on the ridiculousness of Robbie Baldwin being a “child murderer” and now in the employ of the government, Penance does “Hulk Level Damage” to the entire cell block. My guess is that Hellrazor’s dead for calling Penance on getting to kill people with no serious repercussions. Ha. Eventually, Penance is taken down from his temper tantrum and Osborn wants to end this farce right here, right now with a big ass gun, but Moonstone convinces Norman that he’d have his own little personal Hulk (like a personal Jesus, but better) if he kept him around and had the right triggers put in. Because this book is all about using people (and I mean that in the best of ways), Penance gets to live another day.
The other big point in the book is the reveal of a androgynous person in a motorcycle helmet calling themselves Mindwave (no hyphen). Apparently, he (or she) is an unregistered mutant telekine (telekinetic, but cooler sounding) and she (or he) proves this by blowing up a bunch of stuff at a police precinct and knocking around the cops. The book ends with Mindwave quietly submitting to the authorities (personally suggesting the Thunderbolts) amongst the wreckage they created. So, incredible amount of telekinetic power, a mutant unregistered we might not have seen hanging out at the X-Mansion and most likely a mole for someone to get into Thunderbolts Mountain. Well, whatcha got Ellis?

Wolverine #56

Filler issue, all about Wolverine in a pit being shot with a heavy caliber machine gun at regular intervals. Ripping adventure, this one. But you know, it’s not a bad story, even though the idea is pretty predictable. We focus on one of the men behind the gun and watch as Logan gets inside his messed up head and eventually gets free. Nice little psychological story about a huge loser and less about Wolverine, though there is an epilogue with freshly goth-punk’d Wild Child and Romulus beaming about their polaroids-of-Wolverine-shot-up-a-bunch collection. Ehn.

World War Hulk: Gamma Corps #2

So this is the issue that tells the reader why all these guys want to put the hurt on the Hulk so badly that they were willing to go through body modification and genetic horrors to form a super group. A couple of them have some pretty interesting plot lines (the father of the Jim Wilson, for example) and others more or less try to capitalize on the Hulk’s previous body count by making innocent bystanders out for revenge. Now, the woman who, with her son, got trapped in wreckage and lost two limbs and her kid, that’s actually pretty fair and believable. The member of the Circus of Crime who got jumped out of the gang by thinking he could take on the Hulk, a little shaky. But the family who’s son suffered a massive stroke in the womb and was born autistic or… something unsaid, that’s a little pushing it. Anyways, doesn’t matter, they’re all freaks at the command of General Ryker who’s miffed that he wasn’t targeted in World War Hulk. You see, he thinks the Hulk would be concerned about things that happened issues and issues ago and come find him, but Hulk doesn’t care, so he shoots a missile at him. I’ll keep reading, mostly for the women who lost her limbs and son and Jim Wilson’s dad, but I’m not taking this all that seriously. Come the end of World War Hulk, the Gamma Corps will be the answer to a trivia question.

X-Men #202

For three days, I read this issue, taking it to the back room on my lunch and pouring over it. I tried making a diagram, I tried keeping a tally sheet, I asked co-workers and all I have to say is I have no idea what this is all about. I’m sure Mr. Paul O’Brien is going to be able to sum it up a lot better because he’s got a head for these kinds of things, but man. Even after my years of reading confusing X-Books, I just can’t seem to see what Mike Carrey is getting at. In short, the X-Mansion gets attacked and broken into (again, making the Sentinel Squad outside PERFECTLY USELESS), this time by Exodus and crew who are looking for Destiny’s Diary. They find out that not only is it not a little book with the words ‘Destiny’s Diary’ on it kept in Kitty Pryde’s sock drawer, but it’s been mind shielded from the X-Men, probably by Emma Frost. Emma Frost, who’s currently paralyzed and buried in rubble with Cyclops, Beast and Wolverine (who has a zippo so we can have some light in the scene). While they are trying to get out, Emma is psionically calling Cannonball and Iceman, who are flying around in the X-Jet trying to find out what’s going on. Good luck there. Meanwhile, Sinister, the Mauraders and Mystique are also trying to find the diaries and it looks like Sinister has Cerebro.
Yeah. At least the backup story is picking up for a little, as Beast and Dark Beast go corpse hunting in Genosha. Digging up dead mutants (dead from … wow. YEARS ago! We’re talking Grant Morrison’s run dead!), they are testing genetic samples and while some bits of science-talk are a little sketchy (why would a depowered mutant corpse have to lose their wings?), we get to the final answer that no, the X-Gene is really really gone. Gone gone, not hiding, not asleep, not dormant, just gone. So, Beast wants to see if injecting former mutants with the X-Gene might restart the whole process; yes, this would be forcibly rewriting DNA and with all the grave robbing, experimentation and outbursts of anger, don’t think that this is escaping Dark Beast at all. Next issue, they go talk to Bishop and see if they can’t score some Mutant Growth Hormone for medical purposes.

X-Men: First Class #3

Ahhhhh. Nice way to end the day, let me tell you. So, like the Gallant to X-Men #202′s Goofus, X-Men First Class wraps up it’s first two-parter with the X-Men sent to Monster Island by a grouchy Xavier to what seems their certain doom. Back at the mansion, Xavier comes home to find the kids gone and Mastermind (apparently turned to stone in their foyer?) trying to get his revenge by impersonating the Professor. The kids figure this out first and confront Mastermind on the whole sham and in true villain form, tells of his whole plan long enough for Xavier to get on board and send in his big glowy head for the rescue. That’s right, GIANT HEAD FIGHT. Obviously, Xavier wins the telepathic battle giant head fight and the X-Men are rescued. That’s how you do it.

Happy Wednesday, everybody.