Quite a hall of comics this week. Marvel probably had something to do with it, what with there 34 some odd comics on top of DC's 14 or so all released today. While I didn't pick all of them up, I did get a lot and even a few that I didn't expect to, such as Robinson's first issue on Superman.However, most of them will have to wait until tomorrow, as I only managed to get out a half a dozen or so reveiws for tonight. Hit the jump for all the first wave of reviews!
CAPTAIN AMERICA #39Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Steve Epting
It's about time Captain America kicked back into high gear. After months of simply showing off Bucky as the new Captain America and barely inching the plot ahead, we finally get some major developments this issue. However, if you've been following Cap, you could probably guess what happens in 99% of this issue.
For starters, the Red Skull has the Grand Director, dressed up as Captain America, break up a staged attack on the Skull's puppet Third Wing Party candidate at a rally. The Director goes on to fully endorse the senator in front of the crowd and there is a huge surge in the polls in favour of him.
It was written exceptionally well, but we all saw it coming a mile away and that's the only complaint I have about this issue. It's like we're going through the motions most of the time.
Meanwhile, Sharon Carter manages to escape from her shackles and takes Sin hostage, who was sharing a hospital bed with her after her run in with Bucky earlier in the series, in an attempt to make her escape...again. They really need to invest in some guards or handcuff her to the bed next time.
Finally, Bucky, after seeing the fake Cap, who looks and sounds just like Steve Rogers, starts shadowing the Third Wing candidate in hopes of seeing the new Cap show up. When he doesn't, Bucky sneaks into the senators supposed hotel room and ends up face to face with the waiting Grand Director.
Verdict - Must Read. While most of the story advancement in this issue was predictable, this was still a much better read than the previous couple months worth of Captain America. It finally feels like we're over the filler hump and the plot can get moving again.
FANTASTIC FOUR #558Written by Mark Millar
Art by Bryan Hitch
Wow, I was not expecting this issue to be this much fun. I'd wager this was the best issue of the Millar / Hitch run. It just felt like there was story on every page compared to the previous four issues, which were quick reads and felt like a lot of decompression was being used.
As you can see by the cover, someone put a beating on Dr Doom and he's come seeking Reed Richards help. Unfortunately, only Thing is on hand to help him and, before he can do anything, Doom's pursuers are on them.
They consist of three super powered individuals, one looking like Colossus, another looking similar to Human Torch and a female that can project nightmares into a persons mind. It is later revealed they are the new Defenders team, along with several other characters, including Johnny's new / ex-girlfriend.
While the female was busy incapacitating Doom, Thing tries to stop them and ends up being beat down by the Colossus lookalike and then blasted out of the building, and through several others, by the Torch knock off. He didn't use fire based powers, despite looking like the Torch, so I'm not sure what his deal is.
During the aftermath, Reed visits the Raft and is told how Dr Doom was "freed" after being captured in a recent Mighty Avengers story. Seems the three Defenders broke in, captured Doom and left in about 36 seconds flat. Doom eventually escaped from them and that's how he came to the Baxter Building.
On the Fantastic Four nanny side of things, their new nanny has a chat with Valeria and we find out Valeria is nearly a Reed Richards level intellect and has been hiding her expanding mind over the past three months as her calculations show it would cause a huge rift between Reed and Franklin with all the attention on her. The nanny reveals she knows all about Valeria's abilities and the scene cut away before it revealed who the nanny really was, butValeria knows who it is. Maybe Agatha Harkness?
The issue ends with the focus on the Defenders at their base, the captive Dr Doom strung up and completely motionless. This is where the biggest shock came as the Defenders all defer to, I assume, their leader, Dr Bruce Banner, who looks like the super smart Hulk from when Banner was in control of the Hulk persona. Is it the Hulk from this week's 1985 issue? 1985 is supposed to tie-in to this somehow. There was no mention of the mysterious Wyncham character in this issue, so I'm at a loss to explain this, but it was a great ending to this issue.
Verdict - Must Read. If skipped the first arc of Millar's FF run, you might want to take a look at this one. As much fun as those first four issues were, they pale in comparison to this one. Pretty much has all things you'd want in an FF comic - family focus, high concept adventures, interesting villains and Dr Doom to boot.
FINAL CRISIS #2Written by Grant Morrison
Art by J.G. Jones
I came away from Final Crisis #1 with a very positive outlook on this series, despite its numerous continuity problems and other quirks. Morrison had set up numerous plots that all showed great potential and had me genuinely interested in seeing how they all developed in the next issue.
Well, the next issue is here and, like an X-Men comic from the 90's, instead of answering any of them, Morrison just piled another dozen plots and subplots and sub-subplots onto the heap. Add in a lot of downright confusing scene changes, many of which left me scratching my head thinking a page had been left out, and this issue has really shaken my faith in this event.
The opening pages, featuring Morrison's pet project, the Japanese super-heroes, did nothing for me and was a poor choice to start this issue, too. It was only saved by the Sonny Sumo character's shock value killing of a random yakuza villain, which saw Sonny punch through the villain's chest and deposit his heart in a nearby shot glass. If not for that, I'd probably have fallen asleep out of boredom during this scene. They closed out with Shilo, aka Mister Miracle, showing his Motherboxxx to Sonny and trying to vaguely explain the New Gods to him.
One thing that I was surprised by was the funeral for Martian Manhunter. I had expected it to be dealt with in the Requiem special, but it seems they addressed it right away her with a funeral held on Mars, which I thought was a nice touch. However, Superman, after a standard funeral eulogy, had to tack on the "and pray for a resurrection" bit. It just sounded like he had no respect for J'onn and, while I know not intentional, was making light of his death instead of honouring his friend.
In one of the more confusing bits of the issue, Detective Turpin, who was just about to be attacked by Anti-Life Equation children after visiting Dark Side last issue, is seen beating the hell out of the Mad Hatter, asking him where the children are and what happened to Dark Side. He eventually beat the location of Bludhaven out of him and, once he arrives there, the Reverend character that was preaching on television last issue takes him in and informs him of his son, Kalibak, which I guess means Dark Side has taken over Turpin's body somehow?
On the death of Orion side of things, Superman leaves Batman with the Alpha Lantern Kraken to go over the facts. For those unaware, Kraken used to be from Apokalips and that should have been something explained in the issue instead of just having the Alpha Lantern randomly go nuts. Actually, the Alpha Lanterns, in general, should have been explained at some point for the non-Green Lantern readers, but I digress.
Seems Karken is possessed by Granny Goodness or Dark Side - it's never really explained - and framed Hal Jordan for an attack on John Stewert. While Superman was away, Kraken proceeds to attack and capture Batman, bringing him back through a Boom Tube to Bludhaven, where he is imprisoned.
In the last few pages, Morrison tries to make up for the general disarray of the numerous storylines and abrupt scene changes with two very dramatic "money shots". The first consists of Libra's attack on the Daily Planet, where Clayface, in the guise of Jimmy Olsen, plants a bomb in the office. It detonates and takes out the entire upper portion of the building, leaving Lois, Perry and everyone else looking very dead while Clark, his normal clothes blown away and his costume plainly visible to any possible survivors, stands over them screaming Lois' name.
The other moment consists of the unnecessary return of Barry Allen, which was revealed at the end of DCU #0 a months ago. The two current Flash's, Wally and Jay, are at that strip club where the villains all met and the bolt of lightning was seen in the already mentioned DCU #0 and they witness a series of vibrations that they instantly recognize as Barry's and the final pages leaves us with Barry telling the two of them to, "RUN!", as the Black Racer chases him. There's also a weird capsule-like thing with a monster, I guess, inside it. Not sure what that is.
Verdict - Check It. It's by no means a bad issue and I'm sure it will all connect together in a few issues or on subsequent read throughs when everything's said and done, but it would be nice to be able to follow the comic I'm buying on a monthly basis. I shouldn't have to wait for the whole thing to be over with to enjoy something I bought now. Also, I found Jones' art to be lackluster in comparison to the first issue, but it may have been teh colourist or inker's fault, hard to tell.
GREEN LANTERN #32Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis and Oclair Albert
Dr Hammond gets powers from the gas in Abin Sur's ship, gains mental powers, kills some people and attacks Hal and Carol at the end of the issue.
Meanwhile, Sinestro shows up, has some snappy dialogue with Hal and Hal rushes off to the previously mentioned Hammond fight.
There's also a page or two of the Red Lantern alien reciting a corny oath that reveals Black Hand is the one with the power to bring about the Blackest Night.
That's it. I actually like Sinestro more than Hal after this retread of the origin. Would be nice to see him "team up" with Hal come Blackest Night somehow.
Verdict - Check It. Best of the Secret Origin issues so far, but only because of Sinestro. Still nothing new offered outside the two pages of Red Lantern stuff, which wasn't much. They still haven't provided enough new material to cover a single issue, which annoys me to no end. Should have just released this as a Year One special and fleshed out or progressed the actual story in the main book.
NEW AVENGERS #42Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Jim Cheung
There's not much to really say about New Avengers #42. It's a rather pedestrian read as we are systematically shown various scenes of the Skrull Queen replacing Spider-Woman, climaxing with the "fade to white" moment from House of M.
For those interested, she replaced Spider-Woman back when Hydra was operating on her to restore her powers. Whether they actually gave her her powers back or not remains to be seen, but I'd wager she's being held captive somewhere.
There's a cute scene with the Hank Pym Skrull that has the Queen and "Hank" joking about how he wasn't even invited to join the New Avengers and is basically another instance of Bendis bashing Pym. Doesn't bother me, as it was funny, but poor guy hits his wife once and now no one hesitates to throw him under a bus.
However, there was, if you ask me, a major continuity mistake on Bendis' part in this issue and, considering this issue's only purpose is to fit these events into continuity, it should never have happened when you realize he wrote every story that is contradicted by this issue.
After Spider-Woman joins the New Avengers, she asks about Scarlet Witch and Tony and the rest of the team tell her about Disassembled, where she went nuts. This is fine, but Spider-Woman was actually there for Disassembled and can be counted among the large gathering of heroes assembled. On top of that, Spider-Man acts like he had no clue what happened during Disassembled, despite also being present for it and making jokes when they explain what happened in that event.
So, considering Bendis was writing those and is writing this and it's all supposed to be part of this big story he's been writing for so long and this issue's only reason for being was to finally fill fans in on these behind the scenes Skrull dealings, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a little bit of consistency in the story.
Verdict - Check It. Nothing really happens. All you needed to know was Spider-Woman was replaced when Hydra was set to give her her powers back. Rest is just filler if you ask me.
SUPERMAN #677Written by James Robinson
Art by Renato Guedes
I picked this up after several people asked me about it and all I can say after having read this...thing...is that I wish I had my money back.
Let's go over the numerous problems I have with debut on Robinson's Superman, just for posterities sake.
One, the opening section has Superman and Hal Jordan having a friendly game of space frisbee with Krypto.
Great premise, but did anyone proof read this issue? It's littered with broken English. Superman actually says, "What all have you seen?", "Man, how many alien girls alone--all exotic looks and skins and such...", and, the crowning achievement, "I sound stupid. Smug. Talking all roses and hearts and flowers and roses --but--".
Before you ask, yes, those are exact quotes and, no, I did not make any mistakes while typing them out. And that's only snippets of the horrible dialogue in this scene.
Next up was Superman wearing one of Hal Jordan's bubble constructs on his head. I assume this was to be able to communicate in space with Hal since Superman can breathe in space indefinitely, but Krypto doesn't have one on and the dog can hear Superman telling him to fetch or his drooling, retard, "bestest, greatest, most wonderful dog in the whole cosmos", speech at the end. Also, Superman, later, hears Atlas shouting all the way from Metropolis (remember, Supes is in space right now) through the vacuum of space.
Finally, back on Earth, we spend most of the issue with a long, boring and cliche ridden inner monologue from some random Science Police officer as he tells us how tough and rugged his team is as they fight a Fin Fang Foom knock off. Atlas had to come in at the very end and kill the beast for them before they decide to attack him for no good reason. Atlas promptly beats all the SP's down before Superman shows up, ending the issue.
Verdict - Avoid It. The art was good. So, I guess this wasn't all bad. But the actual story was terrible, error ridden and nearly puts Countdown to shame in some instances. Atlas comes off as a complete Kingdom Come Gog knock off with his new brand of killing justice and challenging of Superman, but I don't intend to stick around to find out if that ends up being true or not.
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15 comments:
Definitely my favourite issue of the Millar/Hitch run so far. The first arc was pretty good, but it suffered from an extremely tacked-on antagonist in the form of CAP, who was clearly just there to give the heroes someone to fight. Here things work a lot better.
I found the Valeria plot most interesting (she's already doing projections to predict the future, just like her pa!); a lot of FF writers struggle to do anything with the kids, Val in particular, although that's partly because she's been really young for most of her existence (here she seems a bit older than she should be, but whatever; comics aging).
Green Lantern I think is getting a lot better, but this arc just has a kind of familiarity that deadens my interest in it a bit.
I have a feeling that the new nanny is actually Valeria from the future.
I don't exactly remember from where, I think it was a back-up in one of the various Sinestro Corps. summer stories, but the scene where Sinestro stops Hal Jordan's jet has already been printed verbatim. The exact same scene! They extended it a bit to show Sinestro rebuilding the jet, but to reprint the exact same scene as only a summer ago was quite lame, in my opinion. All of that build up for Sinestro and they just retell it.
The new nanny is Sue Richards from the future. I'm guessing from a time after the rest of the FF are gone. She will die sometime through the arc and will be the 'death of the Invisble Woman.
As someone who's decided to stop worrying, sit back and relax, I'm loving all of Final Crisis - it certainly has more creative depth than Secret Invasion, so far.
I' under the impression that as Darkseid mentioned last issue, the body he was possessing - Boss Dark Side - was gradually wearing out (he'd fallen into it after the Boss' death), and so he's gradually consuming the body of Turpin, who looks similar to him - note the forehead wrinkles as he steps into the evil factory.
I'd also agree with the verdict of a certain person on scans_daily - thank the saints that they actually made Black Racer look like a credible threat. 'Death On Skis' looks far more scary with those blades and scythes, don't you think?
Additionally, the Reverend character checks out as "Godfrey Goode" from the sketchbook - Glorious Godfrey reimagined as an evangelist/Al Sharpton type - and I think the conical object is an example of the bullet which killed Orion, moving through time, with a virus inside - possibly (shudder) Morticoccus?
Also: that hooded figure is so obviously Raker Qarrigat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raker_Qarrigat) that I can't find it amusing.
It's a New Gods conspiracy within the Green Lanterns. Which Green Lanterns are from Apokolips? No, wait - which ones wear huge hoods and white gloves?
I'm guessing the Guardians won't even make an inquiry; it'll be "Hal Jordan did it despite Parallax being locked up in four different Lanterns!" while the Gods take over Earth.
NEW AVENGERS #42 is much worse than one would think from your rating.
The biggest problem is that the Skrull impersonators were, judging by the material, openly thinking as themselves, not as the humans they were impersonating. Their actions directly contradict the Skrulls’ statements in NA #40 about having to maintain their forms in their entirety and having to become those humans mentally and physically. NA #40 seems to have been written for the purpose of justifying the Captain Mar-Vell sleeper agent, and strongly implied that the other agents would be like him, but that obviously wasn’t the case. The material in MIGHTY AVENGERS #14 and #15 and NA #42 suggests that the Skrulls were thinking like Skrulls more often than not, perhaps all the time.
Those actions make Bendis’s fundamental claim about impersonations being “undetectable” pure goat sh*t. Telepaths could easily detect impersonators; there’s no plausible way of saying they couldn’t without relying on such gobbledygook as “neural codes” and human “brain patterns.”
Then there’s the method by which the impersonators assume their human identities. The sequences in NA #42 and MA #15 are ritualistic, with hardly a trace of technology, With only the material in NA #40 to use to interpret the sequences, one has to infer that the impersonators gain the humans’ memories from DNA samples, which is, of course, impossible. Absolutely impossible.
I might as well note that the material in MA #15 about Stark tech being used in everything that matters to the Skrulls and so on reads like fiction written by a ten-year-old who thinks the world runs on Microsoft Windows. There’s no trace of an adult, computer-literate perspective on technology.
If all the Skrull agents had been actual sleepers like Mar-Vell and had only been activated when the invasion began, there wouldn’t have been “stories” to tell, such as the one in NA #42. But eliminating the sleepers, and contradicting a fundamental premise of the storyline (while keeping in mind that magic (the Eye of Agamotto) never failed to detect impersonators, etc.) shows that Bendis really doesn’t know what he’s doing, even when it comes to basics.
SRS
@stu k / harry / islandliberal - Oh, that bit about it being a future Sue actually makes a little bit of sense (or as much as time travelling, alternate future characters can). The future Valeria is another possibility.
@salieri - Ya, the new Black Racer is excellent. I didn't mention him because he showed up in the first issue (sans death scythes though).
I thought the capsule monster thing might be Morticoccus, but couldn't spell it and didn't want to open an issue of Countdown to find out how.
I thought only Kraken was from Apokalips, but there could be more.
One way to make the Hal thing go badly is to have Scar (the female scarred Guardian) be the one persecuting / purswaying the other Guardians to jail him. Or maybe Dark Side will be able to control them as well. Who knows?
@steven - It's hard to label NA as an Avoid It,d espite my agreeing with everything you said, as on the surface, the comic looks fine and most people won't even bother looking any harder at it than whatever Bendis tells them
Add in that I'm pretty much completely indifferent to Secret Invasion at this point and cant even work up the energy to bitch about it anymore.
It's similar to Green Lantern's Secret Origin. I could harp and harp about how boring it is and how it's just one big repeat, but I've done it once or twice and am starting to sound like a broken record.
People are genuinely curious about when and how the Skrulls replaced people and this issue gives some info on that, so it's worth checking out for the 100,000+ people reading that storyline and I could sit through it and read and enjoyed it on a superficial level.
However, the continuity errors and general contradictions from Bendis can't be ignored, even if most people don't care about them, and that's why the review is generally negative, but the verdict is still a check it.
Wasn't that "The Child Is Brought Up By Itself From The Future" paradox already done with Worf's son in Star Trek TNG?
In defense of SI: Just because there is a religious ceremony, doesn't mean there is no science involved. It would follow that a highly religious culture (Skrulls) would add a ceremonial aspect to their "science".
I think, and I still enjoy SI.
Not positive, but I think the "capsule" that Barry's running from (or reaching for???) is the same type of bullet that killed Orion...of course, with all this time travel it may actually be THE bullet that killed Orion...
It’s one thing to say, “I liked (fill in the blank),” and quite another to say that I liked (fill in the blank) for specific reasons that can be defended against criticism. The storytelling I’m seeing in Marvel titles has degenerated to the point that the writers hardly seem to be trying at all.
In MIGHTY AVENGERS #15, Bendis sticks Jan and Hank into two generic situations (bored wife goes out and gets drunk; academic falls for a coed) that have been used in hundreds to thousands of stories but were wrong for both characters and predictable to the point of being nonsensical (the coed being a Skrull). The story could have been written by a computer, but the computer would have known, unlike Bendis, that Jan and Hank were divorced, not separated. There’s hardly any story at all.
There was hardly any story in Ms. MARVEL #28. The bulk of the issue had Ms. M. blasting thru Skrulls as if they were papier-mâché, but the mighty Marvel personnel did manage to commit a fatal error. One Skrull had the powers of the Sentry, impossibly, (according to dialogue in MA #14) but Ms. M. proceeds to beat him up and take him into outer space, where he dies. How could Reed, et al. miss the presence of the Sentry’s insignia and/or not know that duplicating his powers was off limits *and* mishandle the powers?
In UNCANNY X-MEN #499, Brubaker has Colossus stupidly power up Omega Red, so that there’ll be a fight, and then has Nightcrawler “defeat” the villain by repeatedly teleporting himself and the foe upwards, and then letting him fall--which, if you think about it for several seconds, is ridiculous. Brubaker wrote himself into a corner, then imagined that there was a hole in a wall to crawl through.
In AVENGERS INITIATIVE #14, the Crusader (a disguised Skrull) thinks, “However this Terran detects Skrulls, I have to stop it! Counteract it! Reverse it! Now!” And that ridiculous tactic actually works, even though it’s worse than someone telling a genie, “I want to be rich,” without saying how. That was very bad writing at a climactic moment by Slott and Gage.
In the Marvel Heroes titles I read, the writing is resembling that of porn writers who are only concerned with page counts, not with what actually goes on the pages. There’s no inventiveness, no ingenuity, no deep knowledge on display, no attention to details, no artistry--nothing worth paying money for.
SRS
A couple of thoughts about GL. One, I am going to make the assumption that all of the characters from the arc will play a role in Blackest Night. Johns doesn't seem like writer who wastes space. Some GL readers might be unfamiliar with them so just dumping them into Blackest Night wouldn't help things. Otherwise the arc is kind of a waste. And two, I think the oath that Atrocitus recited is going to be the Red Lantern oath.
Looking at preview's for Robinson's Superman issue, I hazarding a guess that there speech is wonky because we are hearing it from Krypto's perspective.
For comments on the Skrull undercover agents, here' my take. Yeah, at first, my understand was that they would be completely immersed in the personality of whomever they are taking over, but then I realized that it wouldn't work because how would they do the very things they need to do while they are undervocer? How would Stark's butler get the codes and watch over Stark and the Avengers for more intel if he didn't know who he was? Or for Spider-Woman to do her thing, etc, etc? My take is that there are two dominant personalities involved, and that when they are around the others, they can allow their new identity to maintain the dominant personality, so that while they are still are aware they are a Skrull and what there mission is, they still see things through the perspective of whomever they are impersonating, sort of seeing things through that person's glasses, so to speak, enough so to remain undetected. And when they are alone, or with other Skrulls, they can allow their Skrull personality to come to the fore, while their other persona is just their slightly in the background. But at all times, the Skrull persona is still at least somewhat active. However, with Mar-vel, something went wrong, and his Skrull personality got buried too deeply, or, perhaps his mission was different (I haven't actually read much Marvel before this in many years, so forgive me if this should be obvious), and therefore, the Mar-Vel personality needed to be the ONLY personality, at least until the beacon went off for the invasion, but for some reason, he didn't go back to his Skrull personality. I know it's not perfect, but it sort of works for me.
As for GL, I don't mind the retelling as I didn't read all of the former GL origin story from like 15 years, especially the Sinestro/Hal bonding part which is almost impossible to get as a trade unless you want to spend a lot of money. And I really enjoy everything ele in the book connected to the future Blackest Night. I agree with whomever said that Hal and Sinestro will team up.
The Superman issue was good, but yeah, the dialogue was really clunky. I know Robinson's going for a more natural form here, but it's too much, too forced, IMO. Superman should never talk or think like that. And he's a writer for pete's sake (who's Pete, btw?), his thought and verbal process should be more organized and orderly.
--heatvision38 (can't remember my password)
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