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IMMORTAL IRON FIST #12Written by Matt Fraction & Ed Brubaker
Art by David Aja
Bring me my wenches of reviewing, this is another glorious issue of Immortal Iron Fist. Everything came together perfectly in this issue. I can't believe I was worried this issue might not live up to my lofty expectations with the solicits about Prince of Orphans involvement in this issue. It was incredible, to say the least, and I hope Marvel lets Fraction and Brubaker write this book for as long as they want.
Starting in the past sounds like a good place to the start. We've been getting flashbacks to Wendell Rand's past training to become the next Iron Fist and the fleshed out history he had with Davos. That story seems to have come to its final conclusion with this chapter of the story detailing how Wendell ran away from his battle with the dragon and showed his final conversation with Davos before having Wendell flee K'un-Lun for Earth. These flashbacks are every bit as required reading as the present day story and I would love to see a "Tales of the Iron Fist" type book that recalled stories of previous Iron Fists.
As for the present day, I suppose the most important thing to talk about is Fat Cobra's request for more wenches and his attempts to put the moves on the injured Tiger's Beautiful Daughter, but, to be fair to everyone who is not Fat Cobra, I'll skip that and talk about Prince of Orphans' battle. While he was supposed to fight Fat Cobra, he made a special request to fight Davos.
We finally got to see Prince's face in this issue and he's an older, bald man with what looks like cracks along his face (could be wrinkles or scars though, hard to tell with the art) as he literally beats the living shit out of Davos with some kind of etheral or ghost-like form that reduces Davos to a wimpering husk that can barely form words properly when he is later visited by the Thunderer. Both Fat Cobra and Iron Fist are crapping their pants in the stands as both wonder to each other what the heck just happened. Turns out the Prince requested Davos because he wanted to teach him a lesson about how to treat his opponents in response to his treatment of Tiger's Beautiful Daughter last issue.
The final thing of note from this issue is the confirmation that the Thunderer has been preparing an army to overthrow the Yu-Ti. While Danny is meditating that night, the Prince of Orphans shows up and reveals the Thunderer's mark on his chest, showing his allegiance to the rebellion. The Prince's name is John Aman and he was listed in Orson Randall's life story that Danny recently acquired.
However, it wasn't all good this issue. The art was...different. It lists Aja as the artist, but every page in the book was allocated to either the flashback story artist or a fill-in artist for the main story. While some scenes look perfectly fine, like the Prince vs. Davos fight, others, like the reveal of the Thunderer's army, among many others, look like skeleton images with no actual detail. As if they were either rushed out with no effort put into them to meet a deadline or the fill in artist was simply trying to imitate Aja's art to various degrees of success. It's hard to describe, as it looks like Aja's work but not at the same time. It is only a minor distraction on mostly the transition pages, but worth noting.
Verdict - Must Read. Asie from minor art issues, this was simply perfect. This arc seemed to be dragging a little the last couple issues, but it is firmly back on track and looks to be a powder keg ready to explode at this point.
Starting in the past sounds like a good place to the start. We've been getting flashbacks to Wendell Rand's past training to become the next Iron Fist and the fleshed out history he had with Davos. That story seems to have come to its final conclusion with this chapter of the story detailing how Wendell ran away from his battle with the dragon and showed his final conversation with Davos before having Wendell flee K'un-Lun for Earth. These flashbacks are every bit as required reading as the present day story and I would love to see a "Tales of the Iron Fist" type book that recalled stories of previous Iron Fists.
As for the present day, I suppose the most important thing to talk about is Fat Cobra's request for more wenches and his attempts to put the moves on the injured Tiger's Beautiful Daughter, but, to be fair to everyone who is not Fat Cobra, I'll skip that and talk about Prince of Orphans' battle. While he was supposed to fight Fat Cobra, he made a special request to fight Davos.
We finally got to see Prince's face in this issue and he's an older, bald man with what looks like cracks along his face (could be wrinkles or scars though, hard to tell with the art) as he literally beats the living shit out of Davos with some kind of etheral or ghost-like form that reduces Davos to a wimpering husk that can barely form words properly when he is later visited by the Thunderer. Both Fat Cobra and Iron Fist are crapping their pants in the stands as both wonder to each other what the heck just happened. Turns out the Prince requested Davos because he wanted to teach him a lesson about how to treat his opponents in response to his treatment of Tiger's Beautiful Daughter last issue.
The final thing of note from this issue is the confirmation that the Thunderer has been preparing an army to overthrow the Yu-Ti. While Danny is meditating that night, the Prince of Orphans shows up and reveals the Thunderer's mark on his chest, showing his allegiance to the rebellion. The Prince's name is John Aman and he was listed in Orson Randall's life story that Danny recently acquired.
However, it wasn't all good this issue. The art was...different. It lists Aja as the artist, but every page in the book was allocated to either the flashback story artist or a fill-in artist for the main story. While some scenes look perfectly fine, like the Prince vs. Davos fight, others, like the reveal of the Thunderer's army, among many others, look like skeleton images with no actual detail. As if they were either rushed out with no effort put into them to meet a deadline or the fill in artist was simply trying to imitate Aja's art to various degrees of success. It's hard to describe, as it looks like Aja's work but not at the same time. It is only a minor distraction on mostly the transition pages, but worth noting.
Verdict - Must Read. Asie from minor art issues, this was simply perfect. This arc seemed to be dragging a little the last couple issues, but it is firmly back on track and looks to be a powder keg ready to explode at this point.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #547Written by Dan Slott
Art by Steve McNiven
Well, that was resoundingly pedestrian. I'm not sure if I'm punched or bored at this point. There is nothing here, except for the Harry Osborn stuff, that couldn't have been done with the previous status quo. All they had to do was let Aunt May get better and they could have did this entire issue, as well as the previous, with a simple time skip and I see no reason for the marriage to be gone.
I suppose I should judge the issue on its own merits and not the reasons for its genesis, but when they can't impress me with this new era with a superstar team like Slott and McNiven, I'm not sure what to think.
We picked up where we left off last time with Jonah's heart attack. In an image I wish I had never seen, Peter is shown giving JJ the ol' mouth to mouth as paramedics come rushing in. Peter blames himself for this, as JJ's lifetime of smoking, occasional drinking, overworking, bad temperment and lack of exercise had nothing to do with his heart attack. To help him out, he sets off to take pics of Spider-Man for the Bugle, despite his wanting to run the paper into the ground and avoid getting caught as an unregistered hero.
To that end, Peter sets off to find the mugger that stole his web shooter last issue. The mugger is seen trying to fence the stolen goods before realizing it shoots webs after tapping the button. Who cares if the shooters require something like 65 pounds of pressure to shoot due to Peter no wanting to fire them off every time he makes a fist, the 150 pound criminal can simply tap that button and fire webs at will. We don't have to explain it, it's magic!
On top of learning how to shoot webs, the mugger tags a mobster with a spider tracer that confuses Spidey as to which one was the mugger. He ends up tailing the mobster and he conveniently gets kidnapped. Spidey sets out after him and trails him back to Mr Negative and his complex plot to syphon off all the mobster's blood, which is apparently super toxic for some reason. In a rather old fashioned display of monologuing, Mr Negative explains his evil plan as he wonders how Spidey could have possibly found him and why he has been interferring in all his crimes (ed. note - see Free Comic Book Day Comics that came out back in May for stories that should be explained in the main title of this Brand New era of Spider-Man because we won't tell you about it) and how he's getting tired of it. It's a rather long winded scene, as is the whole issue now that I think about it, and ends with Spidey fighting generic thugs in masks while complaining about only having one web shooter. Mr Negative obviously got away.
But wait, we aren't done there. It turns out Mr Negative's plan is to kill all the mob bosses by using the poison blood as a gas in the vents to kill all the meeting bosses. Spidey gets the idea he might be going here because the mobster with the poison blood is the gang's resident screw up and was the only one not invited to the meeting. So, off to the meeting Spidey goes just in time to get shot at a few times before everyone starts dying to the toxic blood gas, ending our issue with Spidey collapsing. Good times.
Verdict - Check It. Despite the negative tone, it wasn't a terrible issue. I'm a bit bitter over the direction of Spidey and these issues aren't convincing me of the need for this change. This could all be done with a married Spider-Man and there's still not much of a supporting cast, or at least one that Peter interacts with. One more issue I suppose.
COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #15Story by Paul Dini
Story consultant Keith Giffen
Scripts by Tony Bedard
Art by Pete Woods and Tom Derenick
Surprisingly, Countdown has been one of the best title's over the last month, especially the last couple issues. Can it keep it up? Read on.
Upon opening this issue, I was afraid as I was greeted by a couple pages of the dreaded Amazon arc which has been mutated and combined with the Mary Marvel arc, the two worst stories in Countdown. However, this momentary shock quickly faded as this was a rather painless interlude and not a shift away from the war on Earth-51.
Speaking of the war, we're quickly thrown right into it as Kyle Rayner is busy trying to save Ray Palmer from Power Ring (evil GL), Dark Booster (duh, evil Booster) and 'Girl in blue skirt, red domino mask, cape and no name' (also evil). After making short work of them, with a little help from Ray, the scene shifts to the Monitor's Nexus.
There, we run into Superman Prime smacking Solomon around. Solomon refuses to die, prompting Prime to wonder if he actually wants to die. All the kid wants to know is which Earth is his. Why didn't he just tell him? I imagine he'll be sent to Earth-51 at some point to up the body count.
Before that though, Forerunner comes out of nowhere and is looking for revenge on the Monitors, whom she genetically can't even touch. Not sure what she was planning to do or how she got there, but she seems scared of Prime, who she can only assume is a Superman from a random Earth. Seeing as she's taken down entire JLA's, which include Supermen, I'm not sure why she appears to be afraid of this particular Superman. Regardless, it's good to see her back in action as I have a soft spot for her character and rather enjoy her appearances.
The Batman and Jason Todd interactions are noteworthy. They aren't perfect by any means, but I think you can feel the emotion from each of them in these scenes. It's kind of funny how Todd came onto the scene blaming Batman for not having shot the Joker after his death and is now chastizing this world's Batman for doing exactly that. Kid has issues, to say the least.
The best scene of the issue is probably with the Donna Troys. In a rematch from last issue, the evil Donna Troy, who works for Queen Belthera, berates our Donna Troy as they fight and brags about having killed Wonder Woman with her own lasso and talks about how Belthera gave her a real identity before asking Donna who she thinks she is. Donna's response was a one hit knock out as she says, "I'm Donna Troy, Bitch. Donna. Troy." Look for it in the Moments of the Week.
Verdict - Must Read. A great outing from Countdown. I'm not sure how anyone who hasn't been following along will view this, but as someone who's stuck with it, this is actually starting to deliver and I can't believe I'm saying it, but I can't wait for next week's issue.
NEW X-MEN #46Written by Christopher Yost & Craig Kyle
Art by Humberto Ramos
After 11 or so chapters of doing absolutely nothing, Predator X finally gets in on the baby action. Seems Pred has put on a little weight as he's enormous now. Even after reading this issue, I'm not sure what purpose Pred X has in this crossover. Is it just for the mindless killings? There's no real ryhme or reason for his inclusion in this as not even the Purifiers that unleashed him on the New X-Men have mentioned it or wondered about is progress. It looks like it's just in the story to have the prerequisite deaths.
Despite my misgivings with Predator X, the rest of this issue was rock solid outside the, again, pointless deaths. This baby is probably going to resurrect everybody because Marvel is killing off everybody, specifically the villains, in this crossover.
Seeing as this is a New X-Men book, I guess I'll start with them. Santo has a couple great lines. Not up to his normal comical gold, but good nonetheless. Surge seems to be trying her best to make up for nearly getting everyone killed earlier in this storyline and Pixie is Pixie and her solution to not having Laura around to kill the Predator, as she was the one that killed the previous versions, is both convenient and fits with what the character would probably do.
Over on Muir Island, it seems like every mutant that matters is on this island now. Don't agree with the senseless Mr Sinister death and I don't think it will stick, making it even more pointless. Not sure where these allegiances start and end with Gambit, Mystique, Sinister, etc. I thought Sinister coerced her into joining, but it seems like Destiny told Mystique long ago that she would have to do all this and the messiah baby would heal Rogue. Why Mystique deigned to shoot her in the chest in the first place is a mystery to me if she wanted to heal her. Seemed counter intuitive to healing, but I'm not a doctor.
I liked the Wolverine and Laura scene where Logan gets shot in the head while barking out orders and Laura jumps in to save him from Random Marauder #14. Not to be a broken record, but I dislike how nearly all the Marauders are killed here, specifically Lady Mastermind (technically last chapter), who was excellent in Carey's X-Men run. I'd love to know why Sunfire is so weak here and where Exodus and his army of Acolytes ran off to. He's mentioned in the book in passing, but I don't recall seeing him. Shame the rather covert X-Force squad, which is all claws and melee fighters, can take down the entire Marauder team of telepaths, energy drainers, illusionists, telekinetics, etc, all of which should be the perfect counter to this 5 man team. When the rest of the X-Men showed up, it was pretty much over and pointless.
Bishop as the 'big bad' of this crossover seems wrong and came out of nowhere. He's incredibly weak against just about everyone present. Xavier can shut him down instantly, but isn't doing that for some reason. Emma could as well. The entire X-Force squad can kill him no problem, as he can't absorb the damage they do. Same with Gambit or Mystique. I'd wager Cable could take him down with the giant bullet shooting gun he has since Bishop can't absorb bullets, only energy. Hell, Xavier is right next to Cable and if he doesn't immediately shut Bishop's mind down next issue, then there's something wrong here.
Finally, who is the Cyclops in this issue and what has Marvel done with the real one? Telling Wolverine to get in there and kill anyone in his way? Seriously? Did the Skrulls start with the mutants first or what?
Verdict - Must Read. I hated all the random deaths, but I'll have to accept them. Despite that, this is still an excellent read and really sets the stage for the final chapter, bringing all the random subplots (except Jamie for some reason) together for one final, epic battle. Can't wait for the next one.
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8 comments:
No BG love, kirk?
I didn't get a chance to do it yesterday, but I'll have it up in todays set of reviews.
Like you, I stuck with countdown from the beggining, and I'm enjoying it a lot right now. Thought I recognize I'm almost an exclusive DC fan (Superman, GL, JLA, JSA and Buffy), I had a lot of doubts during the run of countdown (Mary Marvel, Holly Robinson), at some points my "Collector" personality won over and I told myself that all of this has to go somewhere (Jimmy Olsen, the New Gods, the Monitors), but somethings I've really enjoyed trough the run (the Rogues, the Challengers, the Multiverse). The series is definitly pickin up, and it's notorious when DC between ranks said "this isn' working, let's reorganize the series", I'm glad they did, because right now I'm thinking that this series won't be a bust, and maybe it can be a really good starting point for the Final Crisis, the optimist personality in me hopes it does.
Like you, I stuck with countdown from the beggining, and I'm enjoying it a lot right now. Thought I recognize I'm almost an exclusive DC fan (Superman, GL, JLA, JSA and Buffy), I had a lot of doubts during the run of countdown (Mary Marvel, Holly Robinson), at some points my "Collector" personality won over and I told myself that all of this has to go somewhere (Jimmy Olsen, the New Gods, the Monitors), but somethings I've really enjoyed trough the run (the Rogues, the Challengers, the Multiverse). The series is definitly pickin up, and it's notorious when DC between ranks said "this isn' working, let's reorganize the series", I'm glad they did, because right now I'm thinking that this series won't be a bust, and maybe it can be a really good starting point for the Final Crisis, the optimist personality in me hopes it does.
You're a mindreader! I had the exact same reaction to Iron Fist's art that I kept checking the art credits. Since when does Cyclops tell Wolverine to kill people? So not buying this. This may end up like the Rhas Al Ghul storyline where its better to read the epilogue/fallout issues rather than the actual storyline...
@brother129 - I wouldn't lump Messiah Complex in with Resurrection of Ra's. That crossover was a train wreck of a story.
There's a lot I hate about MC, such as senseless deaths, Cyclops portrayal and the disruption of titles that are superior in every way to this crossover, like X-Factor or New X-Men, but I'm also enjoying it at the same time. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I'm liking it despite the faults.
I think it will be easier to judge MC after the conclusion and the epilogues. They might pick up on the threads of things such as how Cyke is behaving or do something about the numerous deaths.
Your offhanded comment about Cyclops being a Skrull got me thinking its always a possibility. Doesn't the solicit fo the Joss Whedon's final in Astonishing say not everyone is coming home? Just a thought to encourage more paranoia...
Bit of trivia: when Prince of Orphans gives his name as "John Aman" at the end of that Iron Fist issue, it announces the return of a nearly-forgotten Golden Age character. Look up "Amazing Man" on Wikipedia or somesuch place to see what I mean.
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