Did anyone else get a chance to see the Secret Invasion 10 page prologue that came out this week? I didn't do a formal review of it, but I did read it and I have some quick thoughts on it.
1) Yu is not an event book artist and, as much as I enjoy his dark, sketchy and kinetic style, I think Marvel dropped the ball when they picked him for this one and he's a terrible fit for this style of book.
2) They killed Dum-Dum Dugan and replaced him with a Skrull. What the hell, Bendis? Kill Maria Hill or some other no name if you want to try and make your event feel important. He's been awesome over in Iron Man, where it's clearly not the same one seen in this prologue, and for some shock value they kill him off. I'm not even some huge Dugan or old SHIELD comics fan and I still think it's stupid.
The closer we get to Secret Invasion, the less I seem to like it. Anyways, enough ranting on that. I'll drop it for now and let you guys check out this week's Quick Shot Reviews.
1) Yu is not an event book artist and, as much as I enjoy his dark, sketchy and kinetic style, I think Marvel dropped the ball when they picked him for this one and he's a terrible fit for this style of book.
2) They killed Dum-Dum Dugan and replaced him with a Skrull. What the hell, Bendis? Kill Maria Hill or some other no name if you want to try and make your event feel important. He's been awesome over in Iron Man, where it's clearly not the same one seen in this prologue, and for some shock value they kill him off. I'm not even some huge Dugan or old SHIELD comics fan and I still think it's stupid.
The closer we get to Secret Invasion, the less I seem to like it. Anyways, enough ranting on that. I'll drop it for now and let you guys check out this week's Quick Shot Reviews.
BLUE BEETLE #25
Written by John Rogers
Art and Cover by Rafael Albuquerque
Goddamn, Blue Beetle. I pity the writers that have to take over for Rogers after this. It's going to be impossible to follow up on this storyarc, let alone his 25 issue run.
With last issue's "Khaji Da" shouting cliffhanger, I was expecting a little more from what came of that. It basically just reactivated the scarab, which was faking its inert state, and summoned it to Jaime. It was still a great sequence and it was cool seeing the scarab actually having some inner monologue text boxes during this sequence where it explains that it is the first scarab to have taken a name and it is Khaji Da, but I was hoping for some Dan Garrett-esque transformation of some kind. But, hey, if I find 20 bucks on the ground, I won't complain that it wasn't $25. Turns out the scarab was hacking all the Reach files while they were busy examining it and the Reach's plans are pretty much screwed at this point and all Earth knows about it.
Back on Earth, the calvary has arrived as the, as Jaime's sister calls him, Crazy One makes his return to the book. Who's the Crazy One? Guy Gardner, Honour Guard Green Lantern of course. This just signals the first of almost the entire old JLI team showing up to help save the day, as they take it to the Earth-based Reach attacking Jaime's family and friends.
On top of that, there are a whole mess of random strings from earlier issues all being tied together in this final issue to make this issue perfect. It doesn't require you to have read them to understand the story, but they are great little touches for long time readers and just add to an otherwise perfect issue. Things like Dan Garrett's granddaughter enlisting Oracle and Batman's help or the use of the satellite the Teen Titans and Jaime stopped Lobo from destroying six or seven issues back or the afforementioned Guy showing up again (he's been in a few issues of the title already). Even Batman's off panel involvement that has been seen throughout the series is in play here as it's hinted he influenced the random showing up of nearly all the JLI members and his satellite being used by Jaime to transmit from the ship and finally with the Wayne Enterprise insurance claim rebuilding of their home.
When it comes time to rank the events for 2008, Secret Invasion and Final Crisis and anything else are going to have a tough time beating this three issue Blue Beetle / Reach arc. My only complaint is Rogers is leaving the book indefinitely with this issue.
Verdict - Must Read
COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #5
Story by Paul Dini
Story consulting by Keith Giffen
Script by Adam Beechen
Art by Scott Kolins
Let's see, we have the same horrible Buddy Blank narrative with no actual dialogue again this week, there's a dog with a carving knife that looks like Scrappy-Doo, Scooby-Doo's retarded little cousin or nephew, Una gets eaten by rats and Buddy takes Kamandi back to the bunker and activates this world's Brother Eye. On top of that, the preview for next week's cover shows Mary Marvel's costume switching back to black, meaning we get more of evil Mary, one of the worst storylines from the past year of this drek brought back to piss everyone off. Saying this issue was bad would be an understatement.
Verdict - Avoid It
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #40
Written by Jim Shooter
Art and Cover by Francis Manapul and John Livesay
Change is as good as a rest, they say, and I am definitely feeling that with the recent dropping of other titles and picking up of Legion of Super-Heroes. I've never read or been a fan of them before and these are all, with few exceptions, pretty much new characters to me and the slower pace Shooter is using for these early issues on his current run are a great deal of fun to read and are easing me into the franchise quite nicely.
This issue, in particular, is very Whedon-esque in terms of storytelling and the dialogue and character interactions. While very character oriented this month, Shooter manages to progress the main plot along quite a bit at the same time, so this doesn't end up feeling like filler or "decompression" either.
My favourite scene was probably when Saturn Girl returns with her team and everyone gets in a big debate over the use of her powers to control Timber Wolf's mind. It was interesting seeing everyone's stance on it and Lightning Lad really stepped up as leader this scene, whereas he's been pretty ineffectual in every way to date. Another funny scene was when Karate Kid says something to the effect of that he can control every aspect of his body perfectly, prompting a little sexual innuendo from Triplicate Girl.
I'm not sure if this is a Must Read or just me being a kid with a new toy, but I really liked this issue. I'll leave it as a Check It for now, as older fans might hate this new take or this might just be the whole newness of jumping on this title for me.
Verdict - Check It
MIGHTY AVENGERS #11
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mark Bagley
Apparently, Dr Doom somehow used magic to influence his time travel to arrive back in our time about a half hour before Iron Man and Sentry do and the bulk of this issue takes place, technically, before the events of the previous issue.
Doom, pissed off over the whole time travel debacle, unleashes a legion of undead minions with a spell that Morgan taught him and takes down the Avengers in a matter of minutes. This leads to a pretty funny scene with the Avengers all bound and hanging in another Doom base where Spider-Woman comments on how she's glad she woke up with clothes on this time, harkening all the way back to the first New Avengers arc where they ended up naked in the Savage Land. Upon relating this to the team, Wasp can't help but shout out with a big smirk on her face, "You saw Luke Cage naked?".
During this, Doom is busy preparing something or other on his computers, which later turned out to be that giant blast that Iron Man got caught in at the end of last issue. Speaking of which, that blast didn't do anything to him and he survived without so much as a scatch as far as I could tell. Ms. Marvel interrupts him at one point and Doom gives her a verbal beat down that has her thought bubbling about how that actual hurt her feelings. Wonder Man tried to cheer her up by letting her know she's not that fat. One of the funnier moments this week.
The issue ends with Spider-Woman freeing the entire team through voodoo spider power of unexplained nature of which I'm guessing Bendis is trying to make us all think she's a Skrull and even has Black Widow call her on at the end of the book. This leads to the return of Sentry and Iron Man, where upon Sentry promptly rips Doom's face off. Okay, his armour, but it was still one of the more badass moments and Sentry almost seemed like he was useful for a change. The look in Doom's eyes was priceless. Doom is then taken into custody.
All in all, this is an enjoyable read, but the thought bubbles mar just about every page. Doom has one page where literally half the page is one big continuous thought bubble. And while there were some funny and cool moments, the actual plot was pretty sub par and the arc, taken as a whole, was all over the place and there was never any clear threat or focus to the story.
Verdict - Check It
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #120
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Stuart Immonen
I honestly thought this was going to turn into a generic super hero brawl after Magneto showed up and the X-Men were featured on this cover. Thankfully, this is Ultimate Spider-Man and it's actually a good comic, unlike some other Spider-Man book that will remain unnamed.
That doesn't mean there wasn't any action in this issue. There was the requisite Spider-Man and Iceman getting owned by Magneto before he chatted up Liz Allen, but, other than that, there wasn't really any brawl, even after the X-Men showed up.
Magneto holds the identity of Liz's father over her head in an attempt to get her to return with him to the Savage Land and the X-Men do the whole school recruiting deal while trying to convince her Mag's is a villain.
In the end, she takes off, not wanting to go with either of them and eventually makes her way to Mary Jane's place. This is where everything comes to ahead and the issue really shines as Spider-Man shows up shortly after and, along with Mary Jane, reveals to Liz that he's Peter Parker in a great scene. The ol' secret identity thing can pretty much be retired at this point, as I think there's only like two guys in Siberia that don't know who he is at this point. Like most great USM issues, the dialogue really held this one together and the ending was another great moment in the series.
Oh, and one last thing, the epilogue for this issue shows a flashback to Liz's dad talking to Magneto about getting a human girl pregnant and how he'd like to have her taken care of and basically everything that prompted Magneto to do what he did this issue. Who was the mystery mutant? The freaking Blob. If I'm Liz, I'm thankful I wasn't told this information. If I'm Liz's mother - what the hell did you have to drink that night you hooked up with the Blob?
Verdict - Must Read
Written by John Rogers
Art and Cover by Rafael Albuquerque
Goddamn, Blue Beetle. I pity the writers that have to take over for Rogers after this. It's going to be impossible to follow up on this storyarc, let alone his 25 issue run.
With last issue's "Khaji Da" shouting cliffhanger, I was expecting a little more from what came of that. It basically just reactivated the scarab, which was faking its inert state, and summoned it to Jaime. It was still a great sequence and it was cool seeing the scarab actually having some inner monologue text boxes during this sequence where it explains that it is the first scarab to have taken a name and it is Khaji Da, but I was hoping for some Dan Garrett-esque transformation of some kind. But, hey, if I find 20 bucks on the ground, I won't complain that it wasn't $25. Turns out the scarab was hacking all the Reach files while they were busy examining it and the Reach's plans are pretty much screwed at this point and all Earth knows about it.
Back on Earth, the calvary has arrived as the, as Jaime's sister calls him, Crazy One makes his return to the book. Who's the Crazy One? Guy Gardner, Honour Guard Green Lantern of course. This just signals the first of almost the entire old JLI team showing up to help save the day, as they take it to the Earth-based Reach attacking Jaime's family and friends.
On top of that, there are a whole mess of random strings from earlier issues all being tied together in this final issue to make this issue perfect. It doesn't require you to have read them to understand the story, but they are great little touches for long time readers and just add to an otherwise perfect issue. Things like Dan Garrett's granddaughter enlisting Oracle and Batman's help or the use of the satellite the Teen Titans and Jaime stopped Lobo from destroying six or seven issues back or the afforementioned Guy showing up again (he's been in a few issues of the title already). Even Batman's off panel involvement that has been seen throughout the series is in play here as it's hinted he influenced the random showing up of nearly all the JLI members and his satellite being used by Jaime to transmit from the ship and finally with the Wayne Enterprise insurance claim rebuilding of their home.
When it comes time to rank the events for 2008, Secret Invasion and Final Crisis and anything else are going to have a tough time beating this three issue Blue Beetle / Reach arc. My only complaint is Rogers is leaving the book indefinitely with this issue.
Verdict - Must Read
COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #5
Story by Paul Dini
Story consulting by Keith Giffen
Script by Adam Beechen
Art by Scott Kolins
Let's see, we have the same horrible Buddy Blank narrative with no actual dialogue again this week, there's a dog with a carving knife that looks like Scrappy-Doo, Scooby-Doo's retarded little cousin or nephew, Una gets eaten by rats and Buddy takes Kamandi back to the bunker and activates this world's Brother Eye. On top of that, the preview for next week's cover shows Mary Marvel's costume switching back to black, meaning we get more of evil Mary, one of the worst storylines from the past year of this drek brought back to piss everyone off. Saying this issue was bad would be an understatement.
Verdict - Avoid It
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #40
Written by Jim Shooter
Art and Cover by Francis Manapul and John Livesay
Change is as good as a rest, they say, and I am definitely feeling that with the recent dropping of other titles and picking up of Legion of Super-Heroes. I've never read or been a fan of them before and these are all, with few exceptions, pretty much new characters to me and the slower pace Shooter is using for these early issues on his current run are a great deal of fun to read and are easing me into the franchise quite nicely.
This issue, in particular, is very Whedon-esque in terms of storytelling and the dialogue and character interactions. While very character oriented this month, Shooter manages to progress the main plot along quite a bit at the same time, so this doesn't end up feeling like filler or "decompression" either.
My favourite scene was probably when Saturn Girl returns with her team and everyone gets in a big debate over the use of her powers to control Timber Wolf's mind. It was interesting seeing everyone's stance on it and Lightning Lad really stepped up as leader this scene, whereas he's been pretty ineffectual in every way to date. Another funny scene was when Karate Kid says something to the effect of that he can control every aspect of his body perfectly, prompting a little sexual innuendo from Triplicate Girl.
I'm not sure if this is a Must Read or just me being a kid with a new toy, but I really liked this issue. I'll leave it as a Check It for now, as older fans might hate this new take or this might just be the whole newness of jumping on this title for me.
Verdict - Check It
MIGHTY AVENGERS #11
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mark Bagley
Apparently, Dr Doom somehow used magic to influence his time travel to arrive back in our time about a half hour before Iron Man and Sentry do and the bulk of this issue takes place, technically, before the events of the previous issue.
Doom, pissed off over the whole time travel debacle, unleashes a legion of undead minions with a spell that Morgan taught him and takes down the Avengers in a matter of minutes. This leads to a pretty funny scene with the Avengers all bound and hanging in another Doom base where Spider-Woman comments on how she's glad she woke up with clothes on this time, harkening all the way back to the first New Avengers arc where they ended up naked in the Savage Land. Upon relating this to the team, Wasp can't help but shout out with a big smirk on her face, "You saw Luke Cage naked?".
During this, Doom is busy preparing something or other on his computers, which later turned out to be that giant blast that Iron Man got caught in at the end of last issue. Speaking of which, that blast didn't do anything to him and he survived without so much as a scatch as far as I could tell. Ms. Marvel interrupts him at one point and Doom gives her a verbal beat down that has her thought bubbling about how that actual hurt her feelings. Wonder Man tried to cheer her up by letting her know she's not that fat. One of the funnier moments this week.
The issue ends with Spider-Woman freeing the entire team through voodoo spider power of unexplained nature of which I'm guessing Bendis is trying to make us all think she's a Skrull and even has Black Widow call her on at the end of the book. This leads to the return of Sentry and Iron Man, where upon Sentry promptly rips Doom's face off. Okay, his armour, but it was still one of the more badass moments and Sentry almost seemed like he was useful for a change. The look in Doom's eyes was priceless. Doom is then taken into custody.
All in all, this is an enjoyable read, but the thought bubbles mar just about every page. Doom has one page where literally half the page is one big continuous thought bubble. And while there were some funny and cool moments, the actual plot was pretty sub par and the arc, taken as a whole, was all over the place and there was never any clear threat or focus to the story.
Verdict - Check It
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #120
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Stuart Immonen
I honestly thought this was going to turn into a generic super hero brawl after Magneto showed up and the X-Men were featured on this cover. Thankfully, this is Ultimate Spider-Man and it's actually a good comic, unlike some other Spider-Man book that will remain unnamed.
That doesn't mean there wasn't any action in this issue. There was the requisite Spider-Man and Iceman getting owned by Magneto before he chatted up Liz Allen, but, other than that, there wasn't really any brawl, even after the X-Men showed up.
Magneto holds the identity of Liz's father over her head in an attempt to get her to return with him to the Savage Land and the X-Men do the whole school recruiting deal while trying to convince her Mag's is a villain.
In the end, she takes off, not wanting to go with either of them and eventually makes her way to Mary Jane's place. This is where everything comes to ahead and the issue really shines as Spider-Man shows up shortly after and, along with Mary Jane, reveals to Liz that he's Peter Parker in a great scene. The ol' secret identity thing can pretty much be retired at this point, as I think there's only like two guys in Siberia that don't know who he is at this point. Like most great USM issues, the dialogue really held this one together and the ending was another great moment in the series.
Oh, and one last thing, the epilogue for this issue shows a flashback to Liz's dad talking to Magneto about getting a human girl pregnant and how he'd like to have her taken care of and basically everything that prompted Magneto to do what he did this issue. Who was the mystery mutant? The freaking Blob. If I'm Liz, I'm thankful I wasn't told this information. If I'm Liz's mother - what the hell did you have to drink that night you hooked up with the Blob?
Verdict - Must Read
Follow each of us on Twitter:
7 comments:
i will say this for mighty this week, someone somewhere made a good call in deciding that tony's 'armor talk' would now have maroon letters instead of green letters against a yellow background. i was fliping through the past three issues earlier tonight, and those green letters were nearly unreadable.
and that page long doom thoughtolouge while he was talking to the team was atrocious.
and as for countdown... i haven't hated it nearly as much as everyone else in the country seems to... but i haven't loved it either. it has been bad enough to make me decide that i won't be picking up trinity... which is slightly unfair, but it's just how i feel.
the only thing about countdown that i still find interesting is the second set of teaser clips that DC put out (the one with all the villains standing around a defeated luther). everything else in that picture has come to pass, except for luther and the 'kirby device at his feet. i wonder if missed something in salvation run, or if that's something that they'll adress in the next four weeks or in final crisis?
ok, enough rambling... really like the site, and another solid week of reviews!
I completely and 100% agree with you about Yu NOT being an event artist. I've been saying that since day 1! I mean, granted, his art here looks the best it's been since, like, EVER...but that's sitll not saying much. I mean McNiven, Jimenz, Perez, JRjr, Finch, heck even the artist of HoM whose name escapes me at the moment...They ALL felt event worthy. Yu...nuh uh.
I read the preview and the first ten pages of the first issue of secret invasion and with Yu's art I was quite unimpressed, for a big event I expect a name artist which I suppose he is but at the same time I would like a name artist that I enjoy looking at his art.
As for the the Dum Dum Dugan thing for whatever reason I really like him as a character and I can't help but think that he will be shown on tv in the Marvel U to be a skrull as a cheap way to get Nick Fury mad.
Final Crisis > Secret Invasion
You realize of course that your quick shot reviews are nearly as long as your reviews. =)
Not that I'm complaining.
Pete.
i think Rogers said he'd be back to write Blue Beetle in the future. if the title will still be there... (why arent ppl picking this title up?!)
@blaker - I've been kind of a supporter of Countdown for most of this second half. It wasn't stellar but it was a marked improvement over the first half and to watch it go to shit again on the homestrecth has been disenheartening, to be honest.
I'm not even sure if Salvation Run will conclude int he pages of Countdown. It'll probably be something for Grant to play with in Final Crisis, despite being advertised with Countdown.
@staredcraft - Yu is like Bachelo and Ramos to me. I love each of their styles when they are on books that suit them. Bachelo's X-Men with Carey was great, in my opinion. However, I wouldn't want Bachelo doing a huge X-event in spite of liking him. Yu is the same way. I like his style in the more street level New Avengers, but with something concerning a bunch of Skrull imposters when we can barely tell who's who with his art when there aren't any duplicates.
Personally, I would have loved to see them give Mark Bagley this job as an incentive to stay with Marvel before he jumped over to DC. He's not a McNiven or what have you, but his art is excellnet, he excells with facial expressions and the 'quiet scenes' but can pump out the action as well, as evidence by his years of Spider-Man work. There's the whole 'does his work on time' asepct as well, meaning no delays on the event.
@phil - I'm not sure what revealing Dugan as a Skrull would do to further their cause though. It's a 'secret' invasion and I'm also not very sure how familiar the general public is with random SHIELD personal, even high ranking ones like Dugan. The president or some high ranking politician would be more useful of an outing for mass hysteria effect from the public if youa sk me.
Hopefully they use the 'he didnt die on panel' excuse and have the Skrulls keep Dugan alive in stasis or something.
@anonymous 1 - That's yet to be seen. I think FC will be better in that insane, high concept Grant Morrison type of story, but will end up too hard to follow up on by other writers and end up having any changes he makes retconned within a year, like how his New X-Men run had to be cleaned up so Marvel could have regular writers tell safe, normal X-Men stories again. SI will proably be an average story that has some lasting consequences in the Marvel Universe, much like Civil War did, but won't be all that memorable in the grand scheme of things.
@anonymous 2 - ahaha, ya, I'm having trouble keeping these ones to ~300ish words, especially when I end up leaving books like Blue Beetle for it. In general, I'm basically not putting any requirement for length on these, so I can be as verbose as little or much as I want. Seems I'm a motor mouth even when I'm tyring to brief, which can be seen by the length of this reply.
@sam - Ya, I thought he said it was an indefinite abscence though and he has no set timeframe for his return which on a book that sells as low as Blue Beetle could quickly lead to the axe coming down. He'll probably end up in the Titans if that happens, so at least he won't be forgotten.
Pfieffer (or however its spelt) is a good writer, but most associate him with Amazons Attack now. He has equal blame with editorial for most of that mess, but he's done wonders on Catwoman and I'm willing to give him a chance on Blue Beetle.
Post a Comment
Thanks for checking out the Weekly Crisis - Comic Book Review Blog. Comments are always appreciated. You can sign in and comment with any Google, Wordpress, Live Journal, AIM, OpenID or TypePad account.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.