snap judgments

Normally, I drag my feet to the next issue of the Avengers.  It’s not going to be what I want and yet will probably contain some dynamic and exciting info that I’ll kick myself later if I don’t know.

Today, I have an exception.

THIS IS IT FOLKS!

Actual Avengers!  Backstory I understand!  Reasonable and understandable plot!  Mind you, I have been reading New Avengers since it’s start so I know the “Breakout” storyline and can see how this fits into that, once again causing me to pause and ponder a “Secret Invasion – Secret Files” supplimental title for the Big Event, not to mention the usual Bendis trope of “characters all sound the same” but hey.  We’re not looking for perfection here.  I’m just happy to like an issue for once.

So, we start out in Secret Invasion #2, with the Skrull characters and Our Heroes fighting.  There’s a dinosaur, a lot of confusion and then HEY!  Ka-Zar, Shanna and Zabu!  The guys that live in the Savage Land show up to find out what the hell is going on in their backyard.  Spider-Man is there to crack wise, play off the danger and accuse the Savage Land crew of being Skrulls, while Ka-Zar and Shanna are there to give a little backstory.

See, they knew about the Skrulls, oh say, since the New Avengers ‘Breakout’ storyline.  They had done some pretty cool investigating, kicked a lot of butt and figured out that SHIELD and the Avengers had been infiltrated by the Skrulls and are starting some war prep.  So they get a crew together, start to take it to the streets and then New Avengers #6 happens.   We cut back to now where Spider-Man admits he has NO IDEA what was going on with all of that, but thinks there’s a piece of the puzzle missing.  Spider-Sense goes off, Zabu goes “RRRRRRRRRR!” and Captain America shows up to challenge Ka-Zar’s honor.

All in all, nothing all that new, but interestingly told, easy to fit into the scheme of things and high on the action content.  People kick, people punch and there are explosions and Avengers.  I am pleased.

So all you need to know is that SHIELD had a base to mine for Vibranium way back when, Shanna and Ka-Zar are on it and the Avengers are still fighting in the Savage Land.

Wasn’t that fun?

Yesterday I wound up having two straight hours of emergency dental work. I cracked a tooth on Monday and so far, the week hasn’t been kind.

As they were strapping me into the chair and the doctor above me was asking if it was safe, a typical concern popped into my head:

Does Bruce Banner go to the dentist?

Really, now. Does he have just stellar teeth, brushing and flossing with great regularity? Or does he suffer through any discomforts? Because I just can’t imagine a dentist appointment going well for him. Then again, he is a scientist so maybe he can look more clinically at the process and might not have the bone-numbing terror that I get at the dentist’s office. Maybe he’s all business.

Then again, the man is rather touchy (well, classically he’s rather touchy as opposed to know where he’s sort of non-existent). Personally, I think he might last through the numbing, but the sound of a drill going towards your mouth and the smell of burnt tooth might make him angry.

Maybe they just knock him out completely.

Give me just a moment to just… remember why I liked the Sentry. Because this issue is trying to convince me otherwise.

We start out with old-school Sentry, back when he was a beloved character of the Marvel Universe, saving the Fantastic Four from what appears to be a Skrull attack. Bunch of Skrulls, very suicide bomber calm, fly a little craft into the Baxter Building which the Sentry averts, flies them up into space to get some answers and BOOM. Nice explosion.

Bob wakes up in the care of Reed and Ben who explain and the Sentry seems certainly off as they chat about what all that was about. Basically, man those crazy Skrulls hate the Fantastic Four, so it was a suicide bombing run. But the Sentry stopped the flying spacecraft from crashing into the tall Baxter Building and saved New York City. The Sentry is acting weird, which is fine because apparently EVERYONE knows the Sentry is crazy at this time, as the Thing makes a crack about the Skrulls being “crazier den you”. The Sentry is… tired and we cut scene.

A few months ago, the Avengers had a shin-dig and we get Jarvis THE SKRULL getting access to the Avengers files in a warm moment between him and Tony that… seems a little forced? Ehn, I’ll put the fault for that squarely on me, the reader who knows too much. Later, in a room with only one overhead light, Jarvis THE SKRULL meets up with other THE SKRULLS to discuss how that there doesn’t really need to be a contingency plan for the Sentry, as he’s so crizazy that he’ll do himself in. Yes, we already know who THE SKRULLS in this scene are supposed to be… or that’s what I guess. It appears to be Contessa, Jessica Drew (as she’s addressed as “Empress”), Jarvis, Elektra… Dum Dum Dugan? Maybe? He’s freakin’ HUGE if that’s him. Maybe it’s Goliath. Some Hydra agents? Some SHIELD agents? It’s sketchy and on purpose.

Cut scene to Secret Invasion #1 where Vision THE SKRULL tricks the Sentry into thinking this is all his fault and the Void is behind it. The Sentry freaks out and runs away to space and to a rather confusing page.

Out in space, he sees Saturn and there’s a little spot in the rings.

The Sentry gets his OH NOES face on.

Yep, there’s a little black spot on the rings of Saturn today….

Yes, the Sentry is still freakin’ out. Maybe he’s warding it away? Maybe he’s getting pulled towards it?

Yeah, that could be going towards it. I do have to guess though as his face has remained the same stages of freak out for the whole page and the art’s not really giving me clues. Maybe this is one of those situations where, if we had the script, it’d make more sense. Oh, little yellow narration boxes, where are you when we need you?

Last bit has the Sentry surprised in darkness. I’m going to go ahead and infer that the little black spot is the Void (who we last saw dramatically thrown into the sun) and now… Oh heck. I don’t know. The next page is a full page shot of him going fetal in darkness, so… yeah.

Meanwhile, New York City is once again suffering under an onslaught of destruction.  Again.  No wonder the X-Men are moving to San Fransisco. A new super dooper Skrull comes to threaten Lindy, who shivvers and shakes and threatens him with her husband who does indeed show up to flatten him. Only….

IT’S VOID-SENTRY! Oh noes.

So yeah, all you need to know is Superman got into the Kryptonite that makes him evil and Lex Luthor is gonna pay! I mean, I was right, the Void is back and is going to make Dark Phoenix look like a stomach cramp.

So, I haven’t gotten a chance to talk about Secret Invasion #2 yet (because, let’s face it…. after #1 it was kind of a let down) because with summer coming up, we’ve hit promotion season at ye olde store.  So this means heading out to events like the Santa Barbara Social Game Night to talk about the kind of games we sell at our store and demo something a little more different than your average board game, putting up a booth at the nearby university to promote the store with leftover free comics and a fine selection of the kind of floppies the college kids can dig, just generally getting the word out which is one of the best things about this little medium of ours.

I like comics and I like telling people I like comics.  I like getting people to like comics with me.  it’s all part of the show, you know.  So why I may not be on the snap or judgments of late, know that I’m doing my part.  And reading comments.

This is what I recommend to folks who’ve come out of the Iron man movie and just so happen to make it to the comic shop.  Believe it or not, we actually sold four Iron Man: Extremis TPs the weekend Iron man came out which I will consider a huge success.   Since it’s newer, the tech updated as only Warren Ellis can provide and the art something special, it’s probably the better TP to siggest because it serves as a gateway to the current Iron Man and can keep people hip.  The of course, two all new series: one is an ongoing and the other a mini for those people who ‘don’t want to get into comics per se’.

My job, ladies and gents.

Ares is on the Mighty Avengers, right? So we get one Avenger for a few panels! YAY.

I’ll just come out and say it: this should have been a mini called ‘Nick Fury: Secret Files’ or something. I think it does a disservice to the Avengers to have him take over BOTH titles with brand-new characters, not to mention Nick Fury should have a little bit of fanfare in his recent return. He doesn’ have to hide from the reader, so why is he sneaking around the Avengers books?

Long story short, this issue is a gathering of ne’er-do-wells and nobodys no one’s heard of who all have some sort of ‘power’ because their mysterious parents are super-heroes. They stress that they aren’t mutants for the most part, but they all seem to have some pretty similar origins. We got six of them and a few named parents and this is Nick Fury’s all new, all secreter Avengers team.

So, who are they?  Well, apparently Ares is TOTALLY COOL with someone taking his son while he’s away (because that didn’t happen before and you think he’d have learned from the first time) since his son is one of our new heroes. Stated at 10 years of age, he’s Phobos the God of Fear now and no one (not even the GODS!) knew except for Nick Fury (who might I add appears in this issue in ‘disguise’ as a black man). The rest of them are a grab bag of ‘lost son of the Phantom Rider’, ‘lost son of Doctor Druid’, ‘not-so lost daughter of the Griffin’ and a really big guy bailed out of jail. These, plus Phobos plus the chick who can make earthquakes from that one issue of New Avengers I hated (oh, apparently she was in Secret War too, making it a very important prelude to this whole thing) are Nick Fury’s secret team to go ferret out some Skrulls.
I’d be a lot easier on this book if it wasn’t the Avengers. I think that title deserves some distinction and some Avengers from time to time. It makes sense wher Bendis is going with this since this looks like a fourth ‘Avengers’ team (counting Mighty, New and the Initiative guys) and they might actually be doing some Avenging, which is cool. Alex Maleev could draw paint dry and I’d still buy it (though Daisy Johnson looks a heck of a lot like Mila from Daredevil), so I can’t say it’s all that a waste. It’s just not doing it for me. It’s just not advertised well. And, in a bout of nitpicky-ness, it feels like we’re playing catch up again as the Avengers book are way behind the current overarching plotline.

But all you need to know is that Nick Fury has a secret team of young rookies to stop the Skrull invasion and it’s all part of his master plan.

If no one’s said it before, let me be the first: OH MY GOD WAS THIS WEEKEND OVER THE TOP.

We had Iron Man released to the masses, Free Comic Book Day celebrated (which tend to come with a sale, a signing or at least a balloon) and then, just to top things off, Metro hosted the Magic the Gathering Shadowmoor release tournament. It was a madhouse I tells ya, A MADHOUSE!

But we survived. My sign remarkably worked wonders, people’s enthusiasm was high and I can say with a head held high that Iron Man is the best superhero movie I have ever seen. Free Comic Book Day once again surprised us all at how incredibly popular it was, Nathan Kane is a complete and utter sweetheart and Bob Gale proudly showed me a few panels of a Thor at a malt shop (oh, Essential volumes, is there anything you can’t do?). The tournament rounded us out at a whopping 36 players, and on Monday, I slept.

Bringing us to Tuesday.

Today we go in and see if all this promotion, good feeling and spectacular success has any long term payoff. I’m not even close to thinking that everyone who picked up a healthy stack of free comics is going to come back and set up a pull subscription, but it’d be nice to see some people wander in and ask about All Star Superman. Maybe someone who’s seen the Iron Man movie ask us what’s the next best thing to it in print?

I come to you live from the madness that is Free Comic Book Day (which I do have to say that if you’re not at, you should at least be watching Iron Man right now!), beleaguered and sore.  Of the 35 or so titles we had this morning, we’re down to 15 and slowly dropping.  By the end of the day, we’ll have the Big Ones (Hellboy, Marvel Adventures, All Star Superman, Jughead, The Disney One, and maybe Tiny Titans), but our free comic table will be skinny.

We had a line outside the door before we opened of at least twenty people as I rushed to make sure our hatches were battened down and the men were ship-shape.  It has been fast and furious.  People have come from miles away and hopefully all of them are leaving happy.  Being a smart little store, we’ve got a sale going on at the same time which is encouraging people to stay.  Our ‘Mature Readers’ books were preciously guarded and thankfully gone now nad our Free Autograph Signing with Nathan Kane from Bongo Comics and Bob Gale from EVERYTHING COOL is due up in a little under 30 minutes.

It’s a busy day, but productive.  We have no fear.  ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH, COMIC SHOP CLERKS!

Ever just wanted to pick up a book with the people on the cover on the inside of the book?  I mean, you pick up a book called ‘New Avengers’ and sort expect to see… well, AVENGERS.

Not so this issue.

I will say this, Jim CHeung’s artwork is really great.  Every Skrull he draws has a unique personality and appearance that stays within the bounds of how we’ve seen our little green men in the past and some of the bigger space epic shots have a great layout and sense of scope.  Like the Mighty Avengers issue that came before it, the artwork can not be denied.

The story isn’t that bad either: the reason why the Skrull are still able to muster up this big invasion after the events of Annihilation are due in part to New Avengers: Illuminati #1, as the Skrulls obtained some genetic samples from the most powerful men in the Marvel Universe and reverse engineer their powers and genetics.  Okay, this gets them a big boost in the Super Skrull program that allows them to xerox any combo of powers that the Skrulls can find a genetic sample of, not to mention bypass all the previous forms of Skrull detection by essentially becoming human in mind and body.

The other part of the equation is some sort of prophecy war, which a very pretty young royal woman takes her followers before the Skrull King and pleads for him to listen to the ancient foretelling of a great wave that will totally kick their ass in an six-issue mini-series.  The King says ‘Bah!’, exiles her prettiness to some place far away so that she avoids Annihilation and comes back and better than ever now to finish the prophecy by conquering Earth.

Ehn.  Now, there’s a reason I have a problem with this.  It seems kind of silly that there’s a character who knew about the Annihilation wave that was conveniently dismissed and exiled and still lives and now totally kicks ass and has the biggest advantage right now and who wants to personally infiltrate the Marvel Universe and lead her people in this really… well, Mary-Sue like fashion.  I don’t see her flaws, I don’t see her viscious conquest, it’s all done out of this sense of destiny and … yeah.  It irks me.

And yes, she decides that the best form to infiltrate Earth in is MY PERSONAL HERO, Spider-Woman.

So maybe it’s my vicious reverse-Bendis Spider-Woman distaste.

All you need to know?  The Skrulls can’t lose.  But you know they will.

And Spider-Woman needs to be a secret counter-agent for the Kree and she may just Yahtzee.

Da-na, da-na-na, da-nanananana, da-na-na.

This afternoon, when I came into work, I created this sign out of a used back board:

I created this sign because I could pretty much call how my day was going to go:

Customer: Have you seen Iron Man yet?
Me: Yes!
Customer: Is… is it any good?

I’ve had to go through this with every single comic movie that’s hit the screen, throwing in Star Wars prequels to boot. That hesitant fear of a bad movie of four-color caliber causes customers to cower at the counter and now I’m just alliterating for the heck of it. But no, this is serious, as serious as I have had to answer the question before people even saw the sign.

This fear is not unfounded. We remember the Schumaker Batman flicks with guilt and remorse. The Hulk movie had me in denial for years until an intervention was staged to show me the truth, that the movie is darned well near unwatchable. So looking to others to see if it’s safe is a perfectly rational reaction, especially for Metro considering the store manager is a film studies major.

I also think we look to sources of authority to ensure that the film is true, people who know comics who can call a spade a spade, if you will. If the comic fans don’t like it, well then. Tear up your tickets! This morning on the radio the three disc jockies, self-admittedly out of the loop when it comes to the funnybooks, had to ask their regular movie reviewer if the ‘nerds’ would approve of how close Iron Man stuck to the source material. Even non-comic fans know our word is law on these kinds of things.

So I understand your reticence. I understand the fears and anxieties. But for the love of new super-computer Jarvis:

Please stop asking me.

Conquer your fears. See the movie for yourself and ride the rollercoaster of comic movie acceptance.

For the record? The Iron Man movie just so happens to be THE best comic movie I have had the pleasure of seeing. Mind you, I’m saying this still riding the incredible high of seeing it for the first time, so my snap judgment is just that: WHEE! Tonight, I see it again (this time getting the full effect as I had to cut out before the end (AND YES I KNOW ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END OF THE CREDITS!) to go hand out flyers for Free Comic Book Day at Metro, so we’ll see what viewing #2 does to the ol’ brain pan.

Maybe I’ll be more objective. Maybe I’ll still want to declare it a modern masterpiece that thrills me to no end that Marvel has their own studios now. We shall see.

And so should you.