snap judgments

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.

I liked it.

I know, I’m just as surprised as you are.  Spoilers do follow.

There it was, recon city staring the two teams of Avengers I just couldn’t get to like no matter how many likable characters they contained.  Here was Brian Bendis, someone I thought hd jumped the shark when it came to being automatically witty and well-paced.  And Lenil Yu!  His run on New Avengers had the rest of the store in tears and myself wondering what had happened to that dashing young man on deviant art who looked cool on my computer screen.  All of this was a collision course to wackiness as this year’s Must Read event.

I just might have to read it!

First off, if you’re intertnet savvy, you already know most of what happens in this issue.  Preview pages, spoiler alerts and speculation have been flyi for quite some time on what was supposed to happen here and none of it was really wrong.  The good news is that it was all well executed and quickly paced so all the things you did know weren’t displayed as OMG SURPRISE MOMENTS!   Sure, you knew that some people would be Skrulls, others would indeed NOT be Skrulls but it was played off as part of the story, no big to-do.

Again, your mileage may vary.

What really starts to get me itchy, however, is Bendis talking about how this was all part of the master plan.  Not that I doubt that, but it’s almost sounding like an excuse.  If he just came out, said ‘Hey, this story is going to knock your ever-lovin’ socks off!’ and went home, okay.  But referencing pages of stories that I didn’t like to begin with as some sort of treasure trove of genius makes me wonder… well, it makes me wonder if he reads this blog (short answer: no.).  I’ve been meh on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes under his helm nearly from the get-go as the New Avengers fought ninja after ninja and solved nothing after nothing as they ran up to event after event.  And here we are again, only this time I have some hope as to the event they’re running into, with or without them.  Civil War needed the Avengers, World War Hulk SHOULD HAVE HAD the Avengers and here, we’ll just have to see where it leads to.

Are all of the ’70s era heroes really back from some crazy Skrull prison while they’ve been replaced all this time (and if so, WHERE IS THE GODDAMNED BLACK BOLT??)?  Is it just a late ship with Skrulls still using the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Deluxe Edition?   And just how many goddamned sides is Spider-Woman gonna be on, anyways?

I am actually looking forward to these answers and more.  #1 has left me with a big heapin’ helpin’ of plot hooks that have sunk their tiny teeth into my flesh.

But all you need to know?  Something has landed in the Savage Land that contained, and I quote, the White Queen, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Thor, Beast, Wonder Man, the Invisible Woman, Pheonix (of the Jean Grey variety), Hawkeye, Iron Man, Vision, the Scarlet Witch, Jewel, Mockingbird, Captain FREAKIN’ America, Ms. Marvel, and Wolverine.  Both Mighty and New Avengers are there to WTF.  The following people have set about some sort of Skrull sabotage that’s taking it to Tony Stark like he was a red-headed stepchild via a Alien Computer Virus infecting… well, what looks like all StarkTech: Dum Dum Dugan and Jarvis.  Tony’s having seizures because he’s Extremis now and probably having some sort of backlash to all of that.  Hank Pym is a Skrull and has shot Mr. Fantastic with something crazy and alien.

The doo-doo has officially hit the fan.

It’s kind of cool.

So I’ve kind of been waiting for the actual issue to show up because, for any of you who actually got New Avengers #38, you were treated to a fantastic book that nearly lacked the Avengers entirely. But since Funnybook Babylon went at it for me on most points, I can kind of drag myself to the keyboard to find something new to say about this one-act Pinter play.

Let’s get business out of the way here: in this issue, Luke Cage confronts his wife for totally selling out by trying to save a baby from a hooded crazy person and his up-jumped villainous pals.  Jessica Jones tells it like it is (Hey, baby here guy.) while Luke Cage feels betrayed and vulnerable that his moral center was just tossed aside. Jarvis, watching this like some rerun of Young and the Restless on the kitchen TV while dong the dishes, provides the exposition necessary for the Mighty Avengers to amble on outside, throw some weight around and get totally confused by Cage’s Skrull name dropping as he skedaddles.

Oh, the New Avengers are there to give a far longer exposition needed about how they have a new clubhouse now.

THE END.

I’m a little confused about why this isn’t an annual. Or a backup story in an annual. Or a special with a reprint of the first issue of Alias or … something. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important that Jessica jumped ship and it’s important that Luke Cage sort himself out as to how this impact his steely resolve to fight The Man, but… after a few pages, the argument got really repetitive. You could have replaced a lot of word bubbles with “BABY, Moron!” and “MORALS, bitch!” and gotten the same point across. Maybe it’s because I’m a huge comics nerd and a girl with a need for romantic drama, but it’s pretty obvious where these two are coming from. This isn’t some multi-faceted debate, this is human dynamics at its essential. Jessica Jones wants to give her kid something better than Spider-Man stealing her when danger strikes and Luke Cage wants to stand proud in the face of a broken system with his family at his side. Okay. Both have their reasons and without declaring one the winner over the other, we’re just going to get the same standards back and forth with no give or take.

Yes, this is a lot like actual people, it’s REALLY REAL and how arguments go between married couples but… if I wanted to read that, I’d go pick up some black and white indy navel gazer and enjoy a book that has relationship dynamics at its core and fully fleshed out. It’s a little like having your drama cake and eating it too; I don’t think this issue did anything that a couple pages that further the main story couldn’t have gotten across. I’m not saying it was a waste of time or MOAR EXPLOSIONS AND KICKING PLS but especially with Secret Invasion on the horizon, this issue might have been spinning its wheels as Mighty Avengers catches up.

So all you need to know? Jessica’s taking refuge in Stark Tower, Luke Cage hates this, the New Avengers have a new base of operations and the Mighty Avengers look like morons when you let slip mention of Skrulls.

Hey! Look at this! I’m on a roll.

I do apologize for not having the incredible arc of ‘Oh There’s Symbiotes and Now There’s Not Let’s Go Fight Doom!’ in Mighty Avengers wrapped up, but sadly the store was shorted out allotment and I would never ever go into a customer’s pull to fulfill my blogging needs. Those are your books, proud customer! Treasure them as I wait for my copy, hopefully in with the next batch of reorders.

In lieu of this, let’s take a look at a book I’ve kind of already talked about, New Avengers Annual #2. Mind you, I only got to a bit of Tigra slapping, but trust me! There’s more to that here! In fact, the esteemed Mr. Pedro Tejeda of the equally esteemed Funnybook Babylon came by to note the closure this issue brought, finally peace in our lifetime.

Let’s start at the beginning: first off, we’re treated to another imcompetant moment with our favorite bumbling action force: SHIELD. God, I miss Fury. Anyhow, Maria Hill is getting a briefing on how the Hood busted his buddies out and killed a bunch of guys on the way out; she bemoans magic as if SHIELD simply can’t repel forces of the Hood’s magnitude, when I’m pretty darn sure there’s not only an Agent on tap for this kind of thing, but a division as well. This magic stuff is going to be the end of her, for sure.

Anyhow, the Hood goes to Tigra’s house, strongarms her for info and they all head off to Strange’s hideout. HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT? The Hood can see through Dr. Strange’s magical defenses. Man, he keeps getting better and better… Now, mind you, this might be less of a Mary-Sueing of the Hood and more to show how incredibly weak Dr. Strange has gotten. When the team teleports back (Sorcerer Supreme or Swiss Army Knife of powers? You be the judge!) , even Jessica Jones seems surprised by the fact this rag-tag bunch of losers seemed to ‘win one’ for once. Remember kids: don’t think too hard about whether this came before Mighty Avengers #8 or even the last issue, just enjoy the story.

Everyone gets a little moment while the Sorcerer Supreme seems to be having a little freak out. Well, I would too knowing that THE HOOD IS COMING! Spider-Man looks ot be taking his leave to go mess his life up when he spots the Hood, bursts back into the hideout and makes a grab for the baby! Seriously! In what seems like in an out of nowhere move, Spider-Man yoinks baby Danielle out of her mother’s arms and makes a break for it, all the while telling them that they’ve been found out and to prep for splash page fights. Jessica Jones-Cage follows him out to the rooftop, where Spidey explains there was no time to explain, the baby’s safety comes first.

Now, I know what they’re trying to do here and I just can’t stand for it. So, right now, I declare I’m taking Spider-Man at his word here. He busted in and grabbed a child out of his mother’s arms to make sure the baby got to safety first because it was the right thing to do at the time. Does it make sense? No. But will this save me hours of debate on whether or not this was a ‘Skrully’ act and if Spider-Man and/or Jessica Jones-Cage and/or Baby Danielle is a Skrull? Yes. And I’d just like to enjoy the story right now and not have to stop in the middle of the action to nit-pick over a possibility. I am no fun.

Meanwhile, the Hood and the Gang bust in and start blowing up the joint, totally blowing the master of the Mystic Art’s cover and disrupting his defenses while he continues to have some sort of medical problem on a nearby bed, Night Nurse and Wong attending. They don’t stop the Hood from running up to the door and blasting bullets into Strange’s chest, but Wong does fight him off until the Hood disappears and Night Nurse declares Strange isn’t breathing. So no help for you guys there.

Just as the Hood is about to put a bullet into Iron Fist’s skull, TIGRA SHOWS UP! Yes, that’s right! Two major issues of brutality and humiliation have come down to this, folks! Here she is, bustin’ through the window in the nick of time to … get a good swipe or two at the Hood before getting blasted by who I’m assuming to be the Living Lazer or some such. Later on, she’s taking on some big red guy with blonde hair and getting choked out by someone who looks a lot like Juggernaut. It’s hard to tell, being in the background while cooler people fight. There it is, folks. Retribution. I will say it does being getting the crap kicked out of you in your own home.

Anyway, fight fight fight; SHIELD, who’s been monitoring Strange’s old place (and/or tailing the Hood and the Gang) can’t help but notice this type of epic brawl and decides to call in for backup. Meanwhile, things look bleak and then bleaker when Doctor Strange, bulked up like his World War Hulk days, gets filled with a bright pink light that summarily fills everyone else in the house and ends the fight. Why? Who knows. How? Why bother? Wong goes around and heals our heroes and says that it has to do with the Zom Strange drank back in World War Hulk. Strange, humbled and humiliated, tells everyone he’s no use to them now and packs off for parts unknown.

Now, I know this is just fandignance but man. Can we just get to the mini-series where Strange regains his mantle back and goes back to being a bad ass?

As everyone stands around, SHIELD shows up and takes away the offending criminals. OH HEY THE HOOD’S NOT THERE. They also try and take away the New Avengers too, but Ms. Marvel gets sweet-talked into not turning them in. Clint Barton notes that this is the Carol Danvers he used to crush on, which is probably the nicest way he could have put that at that moment. The Hood talks to the demon that possessed him and Jessica Jones-Cage does the smart thing and heads right for Stark Tower to get her out of this crazy mess. I mean, COME ON! There’s a baby involved now, she’s no longer fighting the good fight on the frontlines, why not get to safety before Spider-Man comes back and steals your kid for good this time?

Was it a good issue? Well, a lot of things certainly did happen. No stone was left unturned and you have to admit that there’s a lot here to talk about. Aside from my own fandignance, I can’t say there was anything wrong with the issue; even Doctor Strange’s sudden and abrupt departure is more disappointing than angering. Who wants to bet that the Hood’s demon powers originate from someone with a grudge against the Sorcerer Supreme? So it all ties in to a greater story we’ll all enjoy a lot more when it’s part of the trade.

Right now, all you need to know is that Doctor Strange is out, Tigra’s in and Jessica took the baby and went home to mother Tony Stark. Also, Secret Invasion.

At least one of you has been wondering where the next Mighty Avengers review as we got a couple issues in lovingly drawn by the Mighty Magic Machine, Mark Bagley. I’ve been wondering when I was going to get around to the start of the next arc of Bendis’ more ‘traditional’ Avengers rock’em-sock’em comic.

Funny how the books that say the least I have the most to talk about…

So, where is it? Well… it’s over here, in New Avengers #36. Remember that time-bending issue where the events of Mighty Avengers were quickly described in the pages of New Avengers by Luke Cage in bed, causing some to wonder if there was an issue in between they missed. Well, here’s the start of the issues you missed! So yeah. Symbiote invasion on New York City, innocents need saving, heroes pull together, yadda yadda. I think I’d be a lot more interested in this storyline because I will admit that the start of it has a great horror movie start with a baby’s infection and screaming and panic… it certainly feels like something New York City is threatened by (again). And it’s not that we didn’t know the heroes were going to win, I mean come on! But… its a bad taste in my mouth that I’ve been waiting to see this go down, that the end result has been explained, that another comic is now what… three issues ahead of time itself?

I think it’s a little like those awesome Countdown posters DC gave to the fans that showed them a bunch of clues to what’s ahead for certain characters and it took the actual comics AGES to get to the points everyone figured out in the clues. Okay, Mary Marvel goes ‘evil’ thanks to Eclipso, we got it, why did it feel like they took forever to hook up? Are we as fans impatient? Is there a way to tell us the end of the story and still keep us interested?

Probably. There are no bad stories, just bad writers, so anything is possible. How many people figured the all new, all different Bucky Barnes was going to be handed the Captain America mantle and how incredbly natural and exciting does it feel to see him take on the legend? We knew it was going to happen and yet what comes next sounds just as good as what I was anticipating. So it is good writing, time taken, build up generated that’s just as good as they hype itself.

I give the man credit where credit is due: Bendis has some of the most snappy dialogue out there. His characters talk with a sense of time and natural ease that makes two people sitting in a room just as exciting as slugfests. But then…

Yeah. Just…. take that in. Breathe it like a fine wine and wonder… did you pick up the wrong book? Is that really what all that business in the first part of Mighty Avengers was about?

Of course not! This is more of that snappy Bendis dialogue! He writes the way people speak! It’s a natural flow to people’s words that brings you into the comics and empathize with our heroes and villains. Or so I hear. But I can tell you, the moment I hit that word balloon, I doubted myself. I doubted I could possibly go on with the rest of this book. I doubted God in his infinite wisdom. I cried out to the heavens, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?” and I was answered:

No.

Now, I’m not saying the Avengers can’t have a wacky adventure or two. I’m not saying you can’t make fun of Tony Stark for having his gender rewritten on a genetic level by a malevolent robot bent on the destruction of mankind but… where do we go from here, folks?

I thought a lot about this and then I remembered that I don’t have to think a lot about this. There’s being fair and being honest and this? This is a bad book. I’m sorry to those of you who had to read through it. I’m sorry Bendis felt that this was the way to go to making an Avengers book high octane and fun again.

All you need to know?  Spider-Woman was allowed on to the Mighty Avengers.  Make of this what you will

Alright Christmas shoppers, stay at home.  You’ve done your bit for king and country and if you show up at the store now, I won’t be deterred from making sure you leave with the Frank Miller Library’s Sin City Set Two.

Right.  So I was planning on going back and finding all the previous 5 issues of Mighty Avengers so I can actually see what the story looked like as God and scheduling intended but it’s just been so LONG.  That’s a lot of long box diving and I’m thankfully a site of Snap Judgments.  This issue #6 gives us the finale to Why Is Ultron a Girl Again Anyways? or as Bendis calls it… uhm, there doesn’t seem to be a title page outside of the recap page and that doesn’t call the story anything but the Mighty Avengers.  Wow.

Looking through it a second time, the story is easy to recap: Ultron has apparently merged with Iron Man’s Extremis virus and rewritten his DNA.  Ares gets small, puts a virus in Ultron that should shut her down, dislodge her from and save Tony. hopefully both, everything explodes and everything’s bak to normal.  Hey, I said it was easy, not that it made any sense.  Along the way we have an enraged Sentry finally taking it to Ultron with the power of a thousand exploding sun that can rip a techno-organic robot’s head off, which sounds really cool until you realize that Ares is in that techo-organic robot and Sentry’s not listening to the fact that this could really harsh the Save the Day plan, already in progress.  Thank God Ms. Marvel is there to punch the Sentry off of Ultron, making me wonder why she’s been off nibbling her nails about what to do and absorbing a nuclear blast instead of delegating and taking it to Ultron herself.  After all, she supposed to be the Best of the Best(tm) and we all know Sentry shouldn’t be your Go-To Guy thanks to being poorly written as a part of his character profile.

Hank Pym’s here, in his old school Ant Man outfit which brings a smile to my face,  and is the one that came up with the plan in the first place (a plan that involved shrinking!).  Black Widow coordinates the attack, directs the hellicarrier the Mighty Avengers took over, and even the Wasp manages to save Ares from the villain’s inevitable ka-BOOM, but in the end, it’s Ms. Marvel who gets told she’s a great leader and that just because she’s swapping spit with Wonder Man doesn’t mean you can’t give the movie star some screen time.  Me, I’m gla they reminded me Wonder Man was in the book.

There’s an odd moment with Hank and Jan as they have to have a little talk at the end of the book because these characters are back to square one again.  It’s hard for me to remember, but I’m pretty darn sure that at the end of Avengers: Disassembled, Hank and Jan were together again at least as friends, waiting to see what would happen between them with a change of scenery.  At least, that’s what the Avengers: Disassembled Finale said.  Then House of M went down and they seemed to lead separate lives (Hank Pym was nuts in the HoM: Iron Man mini, Janet was a quick panel or a footnote in the newspaper if I recall correctly).  Then it’s Civil War, they’re on the same side, Janet even concerned for Hank and saying that making Clor put him undera  lot of guilt and stress.  This sounds like someone who’s still invested in their previous spouse; maybe not as in love as when she was young and stupid, but at least one of the few who understands a complicated man.

Okay, there was Beyond!, but I didn’t understand how that fit into continuity and why Janet was a rather spiteful woman and Hank Pym was allowed his rebound crush #2 of Firebird.

Mighty Avengers makes the Beyond! characterizations looks lovey-dovey.  Cold, bitch, spiteful, Jan calls either Tigra or her ex-husband a tramp, it’s hard to tell with Bendis’s thought bubbles.  Hank can’t defend his new fling with Tigra (rebound crush #1!) and instead demands that either Jan love him or not, they walk away and we get a flash of an Ultron head on a nearby computer screen.  Something tells me this scene is important, but it just seems like a lot of bitching.

The Sentry’s wife is back from the dead, by the way.  I know you were heartbroken, but it turns out Sentry might be able to bring people back from death by touching them.  Just in case you didn’t hate him enough.

Tony’s fine, no real damage done from the invasion of his naughty bits and the systematic rewrite of his genetic code, so maybe some chicken soup, 7-Up and bed rest should get him back on his feet, but first he has to deal with Spider-Woman breaking into his hospital room with a dead Skrullectra.

So there you have it, folks: the Mighty Avengers in a tale so deadly, so dire, so disasterous they could only call it ”   “.

Was it a good story?  I think I might have liked it more if it came out as scheduled; Frank Cho’s artwork is disgustingly good despite the ass shot on nearly every page and there are some truly beautiful comic gags and character expressions that makes me think that it all should have turned out better.  The story is simple enough (Ultron shows up, wants to take over the world, gets stopped, we all have pie) and was probably rushed somewhat in its telling to get the reader used to the characters enough so Bendis could move along with Secret Invasion.  Were this a monthly book that came out monthly, we would have rolled our eyes but gotten on with things in a timely fashion.

Thanks to too much time to think, too much time between issues, too much booty, and too little explanation for the very very obvious (WHY WAS ULTRON A GIRL!?!), people might pick up the trade but this first tale of four-color action-adventure Avengers is going to be forgotten outside of the absurd (no, really, why was she a girl?  Why did that make sense?).

So here I am, back from a little self-imposed exile from home and computer (stupid non-disclosure agreement!) and to what do my wondrous eyes do appear by Avengers books from far and near!  I didn’t get a chance to hit up a comic shop while I was LA last week so when I came back to Home Sweet Shop back up in my hometown of Santa Barbara, there was a brand new New Avengers, as if it had waited until I was gone to sneak back up on the shelves.

No such luck, you little brat.

The thing is, I could go page by page on this issue and still come up short because … not much happened.  We catch our heroes facing down the Hood and Pals with their magical back up and it’s just as predicted, they’re using Doctor Strange for a holo-emitter.  Mind you, it could have been a really awesome illusion of Marvel’s heroes but in the end, poor Doctor Strange has become more of a utility belt than a cooperative member of the team.  Then again, you tell me if you can point to the guy in charge of the New Avengers? Anyhoo, we’re getting another reflective narrative from the Wrecker as Maria Hill interogates him for SHIELD (SPOILER: the bad guys lose!).  He tells her the fight goes down, the Hood and Doctor Strange square off and hoorah!  Doc calls the Hood on being in possession of a demon and how incredibly STUPID it is to throw powers about that you don’t understand or control, especially of the demon sort.  It’s like the guy’s Sorcerer Supreme or something!

Through a bit of awkward paneling, I finally figured out that Doctor Strange confronts the Hood, the Hood goes into demon form, fires a … magic bolt of energy which… Doctor Strange deflects and then the Hood disappears.  It’s awkwardly staged and I’m sure if we saw the script we could see where the panels were supposed to go but… yikes.  It even looks like the rest of the heroes and villains are stopping mid-fight to figure out the same sequence, but once it’s over, we’re treated to a bunch of quick cuts highlighting a particular hit, sound effect or exclamation.  One after the other after the other, it’s downright Adam Westian.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a good ‘SPAKK!’ or ‘FAKOOM!’; I rather like ingenius use of sound effects in my action sequences.  It just doesn’t fit what I’m assuming is the tone for a book like the New Avengers, Bendis’s less four-color of the two Avengers titles he writes.  I thought that New was more for intrigue and behind-the-lines action, heroes hunted and hunting criminals that the government can’t see, sending out Wolverine for ‘little talks’ with informants, that kind of shadowy feeling that Bendis can really put over in a book.  Cutting a gun barrel in half with a nicked katana with the SFX shot ‘SLICE!’ just doesn’t fit with the vibe set by previous issues.  Also, HOW THE HECK DOES HAWKEYE DO THAT?!

Anyhow, the crew is taken down sans Hood and Spider-Man leaves a friendly little note on the human flunky in the crowd for SHIELD and here we are.  Maria Hill can’t get any info out of the Wrecker (who keeps reminding us he took on Thor – WE GOT IT ALREADY!), so she shuffles him off to containment where the Hood busts him out and swears DARK VENGEANCE.

I can’t hate the issue because really, there’s no ‘there’ there, so to speak.   Plot moves forward in a timely fashion and Leinil Yu gets a little action in, but since SHIELD is no match for the mighty Hood, the whole mission of the New Avengers (put away Hood and/or Pals) is rendered moot.  Hey, who knows, maybe we’ll get to see the Hood beat the crap out of Echo and threaten to kill her family – OH WAIT.

All you need to know?  The Hood can’t possibly understand what he’s gotten himself into and the New Avengers have a guy that can cut through a gun barrel with a nicked katana.

Later today:  the Mighty Avengers ends!  No, really!  Honest!

Long time no see as, not only do I have a BIG THING I’m doing going on right now (that I sadly can’t talk about right now due to a non-disclosure agreement), but for awhile, I just read comics I liked.  Read this blog long enough, you probably already know the pull list and I thought to myself, ‘Do people really wanna hear me gush about Marvel Adventures: Avengers’?  Nothing important, no big segments from events, nothing to write home about.  Then I got called out.

You see, I stopped reading One More Day when the little girl showed up on the last page of the second issue.  Thanks to the internet and the general disposition of the EiC, I honestly just want this whole affair to be over and for Brand New Day to start so Spider-Man can get back to fun and adventure.  I don’t want to see the marriage break or even stand at this point, just get me to the main event.  But… as a co-worker pointed out to me, this is important.  This is Marvel event history here.  This is something that is going to change the face of a major character and there’s a certain amount of responsibility to keep abreast of the situation in order for me to exert any amount of power in regards to being a self-proclaimed Marvel aficionado… I got to know these things.

Whether I like it or not.

So, let’s read this thing, shall we?

For the record, I got the ‘Variant Edition’ cover, that has a rather depressed Peter Parker expertly painted by Marko Djurdjevic.  That’s it, just Peter with a mopey face.  If you can judge a book by its cover, I’d say this one will look awfully pretty, but read rather boring.

Right.  Inside, we start out with a suspicious little girl.  Setting aside the act that I hate that plot device, she seems to know SEEEECRETS about Spider-Man who seems awfully tired by this point.  Don’t worry, Spidey!  Just a issue to go, right?  The little girl seems to alude that she might be Peter and MJ’s kid (comments about taking after her dad’s smarts and mother’s beauty) while Spidey’s either totally falling for the oldest trick in the book (evil disguised as a little girl) or so out of it by this point with rage and hate and angst and years of bad books, he’s just sleepwalking by this point.  The little girl turns around, calls him selfish and an idiot for focusing so much on his own problems and stomps off towards a dark alley.  Spidey follows after her because it’s not safe for a little girl (oh yeah, sleepwalking through this one) and runs into a HUGE NERD HA HA reading Atlas Shrugged.  MOre sleepwalking through the obvious when the nerd explains that the people that get into his job of working in video game design are escapists.  People looking for the chance to be a hero in a fictional world because they didn’t get the chance in real life.  If the nerd had the chance to be a real super-hero, he’d be grateful.  Spider-Man sleepwalks from this revelation to the next and gets a ride from a guy in a limo.

There’s a weird line about Spider-Man not being a drinker (“It’s not that I don’t drink.  It’s that as a rule I choose not to.”  Doesn’t that mean he doesn’t drink?) and the guy in the limo gets in his guilt trip on Spider-Man by saying that being rich and inventing a bunch of things didn’t make him happy because he never got the girl who really loved him.  The next creepy conversation is with a shadowy woman in red (Ghost of Spider-Yet-To-Come?).  And here’s where we go back to something JMS seems really fond of: the moment where Peter’s bitten by the Spider.  This ever-so crucial moment has made two major points that I can recall in his run on the book (his first major theme on the book and, your favorite and mine, the Other), so here we are again, wondering what would have become of Peter Parker should he have not been bitten.

The previous guys?  Totally Peter from alternate realities sans spider bite.  OH SNAP.  The Woman in Red reveals that without the spider bite, Peter always ends up alone.  OH SNAP AGAIN.   The Woman in Red?  Totally Mephisto.  OH SNAPITY SNAP!  Marvel’s semi-Satan doesn’t traffic in souls anymore, so Peter can just put that away.  No, now Mephisto is into misery, souls in pain and boy howdy!  Jackpot right here.  Looks like he’s asked both MJ (stashed at the motel that’s been right next to them) to give up their marriage to save Aunt May.

Peter wakes up and is on his way to telling Mephisto, the most helpful and honest of Joes to shove it when Mary Jane Watson-Parker stops him so that they can hear Mephisto out.  Thanking her for the chance to continue his dramatic monologue, the terms are basic (marriage or Aunt May), they get 24 hours to make the decision.  Anticipation is low because again, I read up on things on the internet and have been anticipating this announcement like Quicksilver watching an all stuttering Spelling Bee.

After this new content is a reprint of the Mephisto entry from the latest Official Handbook (six pages?  Wow.) and Silver Surfer #3, the first appearance of Mephisto where we see that he has a thing for ordaining, hurting women you love and striking some awesome dramatic poses.  I mean, it’s neat to read and some great art, but I could have kept the $1 extra the book cost and just settled for the main story.

Was Sensational Spider-Man #41 good?  No, not really.  I don’t want to punch it on the stands (something I witnessed a disgruntled fan do and will now remain my standard of comic reading despair), but the opinion I had of the book hasn’t changed after reading it.  Now, I’ll admit I went into it biased to blue blazes and it would have taken a Hail Mary pass to change my opinion, but JMS’s admission that this is all following orders is no surprise.  The concepts of meeting less-successful and rather bitter alternate selves isn’t what I read Spidey for.  This should have been over and done with a lot sooner than this and considering how vocal Quesada’s been on how much he doesn’t like a married Peter Parker, it seems all rather over and done before it started.

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.

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.