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All You Need to Know: New Avengers #36

Someone asked me about this issue today, wondering if it was any good. Well, I can say one thing: This issue quite possibly breaks time and space in ways I didn't think a comic could do to me.

And that's me, personally, IRL to coin a term. I'm sure once this is all traded out it will make complete and utter sense but as a monthly? Oh my lord. Reality folds in itself to put this context. Let me recap which is surprisingly easy since this issue just so happens to be a recap issue.

For a storyline that hasn't been published yet. That's right: the first five or so pages are dedicated to recapping the symbiote invasion of New York, soon to appear in Mighty Avengers once that book gets back on schedule. In the meantime, you can read New Avengers #36, get the idea of what's going to happen in a few months and then decide if you want to know any more. Mind you, the story is easy enough to figure out if you read solicitations and it's not like anyone is really going to be spoiled on the basic outline of the plot, but still. Bendis kind of just killed his own book.

So, Luke Cage recaps the whole 'everyone turns into Venom or Carnage' boiling it down to salient points: some Avengers (Mighty and New) turn into symbiotes because a chemical bomb was dropped on New York City. Those who weren't affected (some Mighty guys and Luke Cage) try and fix the problem while fending off teammates and scores of innocent bystanders. Tony fixes it all in the end and the two teams who are supposed to be at each other's throats unite to clean up and take care of the damage and people left behind. They go their separate ways so Luke Cage can give his recap to Jessica Jones (who napped through the whole thing if I'm reading it correctly), adding in that Wolverine is going to go talk with Jessica Jones after her most recent bout of turncoatism.

Cut to the Mighty Avengers who are getting ready to attack Latveria. You see, apparently they know that Doctor Doom dropped the chemical bomb that caused all their recent woes and are prepping up to take the fight to him. In a very weird arrangement of panels, Spider-Woman listens on and then appears to strip in the middle of the meeting (actually, her locale changes and turns into background shadows, but at face value, girl likes to get naked). It's shower time and Logan makes his grand entrance. The chat is simple, just looking to see what Spider-Woman told them (nothing more than Elektra's Skrull situation, or so she says) and he tells her that the Hood is on the loose and just knocked over a place in Jersey and wrecked Deathlok. This is when Black Widow shows up in her underwear to borrow deodorant and Logan jumps through a window to be rescued by Spider-Man and swung out of there. Reading that sentence makes me laugh.

Cut back to the New Avengers who've tracked down the Hood and Pals to the last pages of last month's issue and that's when my brain broke. That's right: within one issue we are blasted into the future to a storyline that hasn't even hit the shelves yet and then slingshot into the past with contents from last month's issue! This book exists and doesn't exist at the same time! HOW CAN THIS BE?!? In all fairness, this isn't exactly Bendis's fault since publishing schedules are incredibly skewed with Mighty Avengers as late as it is, but WOW.  It's like I should be able to put my hand in a wormhole in the middle of this book!

Coming back to where I started, when I was asked about the New Avengers I had to tell the poor guy that he might not want to jump onto the book right now but wait awhile until continuity settles in. I also suggested Captain America.

Anyhow, yes. New Avengers, rooftop, looking in magically on the scene where the Hood and Pals are enjoying their big pile of money. For some reason, the New Avengers aren't sure they can take the assembled villains; Hawkeye considers them way out-powered and Iron Fist suggests leaving. Luke Cage notes that it took a bunch of them to take out the Wrecker. And Doctor Strange ... suggests backup. After that rather sad little exchange of doubt in the World's Mightiest Heroes (or at least Most Secret Heroes), we cut back to the Hood and Pals who are watching the last page or so from last issue, the taped broadcast from the symbiote disaster which... had to have happened later that day and this is obviously a report after everything is back to normal. No breaking news here, the Hood still sees a grand opportunity and that's when Luke Cage busts in like the Kool-Aid Man. The Hood sneers, thinking that Cage was stupid enough to come alone and on the last page, we have a weird hodgepodge of impressive heroes from Thor to Angel in his Champions uniform to Black Widow striking dramatic poses behind Luke, who obviously didn't come alone after all.

No, because this is probably just Doctor Strange creating an illusion and enforcing the idea that Bendis really doesn't know what he's doing with the Sorcerer Supreme outside of Deus Ex Machinas ('No one here's a Skrull because MAGIC said so!') and, at least by this issue, using him to see far through a building and create an illusion.  While he's off ingesting ZOM in World Ward Hulk, it honestly feels like he's just babysitting these fools.  Sure, I know the last Illuminati issue says he's been rather weak these days, but I'd still like to see something more than a holographic projector and a pair of binoculars from the guy.  Then again, this could be me.

So, all you need to know for the New Avengers is that they are going to fight The Hood and Pals next issue.  Everything else is like looking into the time vortex.

All You Need to Know – Captain Marvel #1

Yeah, I'm doing a lot of single issue reviews, rather than the big block of a bunch because I know that when I see things like 'Captain Marvel #1', I need some moral support to know if it's going to be worth my hard earned $2.99 ($3.22 with tax in CA, retailers: the price is on the back). On one hand, it's Captain Marvel, a man lost in time and this particular man hearkens back from a time a lot of comic fans got into the Marvel Universe. For the most part, they seem to be playing him as a man out of his element much the way Captain America was from the Greatest Generation and I can dig a look at how times have changed and how we can account for that.

On the other hand... this was the lamest part of Civil War and I'm counting Captain America's sudden surrender in #7 and Frontline's infamous MySpace Debate with that. In what seemed to me, at least, to be a clear grab for extra cash, they threw in a long dead (and "well dead" in my humble opinion as Captain Marvel's succumbing to cancer is still talked about with some reverence around the store) character back from nowhere to serve in a manner that contradicted itself (wasn't the evil guy in Civil War: Young Avengers/Runaways the warden of 42 or whatever?) and was forgotten about amidst the rest of the Civil War battle. Yeah, I'm bitter, I'm still smarting from that Thor issue, do forgive the irritability.

Anyhow, here we are with Captain Marvel #1 which starts off with a reminder that he was totally in the background of those big shots in Civil War, we just never saw him because he  was just off panel looking awesome. And I'll give the book that; the artwork is really well suited to the words and I rather like the lone shot of what I assume is Captain Marvel's grave out on a moon. Even in civilian mode, Mar-Vel carries himself well, like an alien officer would and should amongst the rest of us.

As for his story, well.... turns out he's just as lost as the reader is. Fighting crime when it comes to him, dispatching dastardly crooks as much as he feels like it, and spending his days looking at a painting for some sign of what comes next. Alexander in Babyon by Charles Le Brun to be exact, a painting he thinks has some answer to his recent time-jump and thus, this mini-series. Kind of a neat plot point and an almost romantic look at an editorial decision.

Otherwise, there's a Church of Hala that's popped up because a woman calling herself Mother Starr saw Captain Marvel during Civil War and so people are preaching on street corners of his glorious return. Also, there's a SHIELD agent named Agent Sante who's sent by Iron Man through some psionic conferencing to find Captain Marvel, who obviously went AWOL after Civil War. Since she was just sent to find him, she finds him and considers her job done. Also, there is a French Whirlwind named André Gerrard, but he wants you to call him Cyclone.

It's not a bad first issue, but no socks are being knocked off.  It's certainly worth a gander at #2.  The story is written rather well, putting Mar-Vell next to you and me in the puzzle of what to do next.  The artwork fits the narrative and gives a bit of class to the whole affair, almost an old school look for an old school hero.   All you need to know?  Captain Marvel is just as confused as the rest of us, but there's a clue in classic art, take that as you will.

All You Need to Know – Thor #4

We got a preview copy of next week's Thor #4 and I am so sorry.

I'm almost more sorry about this than I am about World War Hulk: Gamma Corps. As much of a huge waste of space that mini-series was, at least it was a mini. At least it dealt mostly with background characters and a few old names only die hard guys are going to care about. This is Thor. Thor.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: like the cover of a Led Zepplin album. Thor should come with righteous fury, battling the heavens from which he came and downing his success with lusty warrior-women hanging off his biceps and longing for the next change to test his godly mettle. Iron Fist has gone from Guy in Slippers to fan sensation just by upping his game and giving us action and adventure at the end of a thing like unto iron. I sell that book simply by showing people one of the last few pages in the trade where two guys kick each other so hard they cause an entire floor of a high rise to explode.

Thor is a no-brainer. He should be making entire buildings explode before breakfast. This issue... not so much. And the thing is, Thor does do something incredible in this issue, he does silhouette himself with lighting crackling in the background, but...there is just something missing. Something not right that maybe doesn't translate well in single issue, maybe can't wash the heavy handed soapboxing from the rest of the issue, maybe doesn't have the same visceral punch I'm looking for artistically. Whatever it is, it's just falling short of being Thor from on high and I am so sorry that some people are out there thinking that this is what Marvel's God of Thunder is all about.

He should be about might and magic, epic tales of valor and destruction, things that make our lives small in comparison and let us dream of better worlds and high heroes than a mere mortal could attain. Donald Blake is the lighting rod through which the Conan soundtrack comes to life and rides down the blackest hearts that could only come from myth and legend. I want SO MUCH and, sad to say, I'm getting so little.

Spoilers Ahead, but if you already know that Thor will win any conflict he gets into and that he's going to find some dudes who will turn out to be undiscovered Asgardians, then there you go.