Insane Speculation about Marvel Legacy

So, did you hear about this new Marvel thing: Marvel Legacy?  

You can read about it here, but it's basically a return to form for Marvel. Classic characters back in their status quo (yay?), a return to legacy numbering (thank fucking God), corner boxes on covers, fan reach out stuff (like FOOM and hopefully bullpen bits); basically it's Marvel's version of DC Rebirth.  Which, hey, I'm all about.

Don't get me wrong, I hate to see the House of Ideas become a recycling center, but I love the basic intent: energize the base, tell good stories, and expand from there.  No joke, DC Rebirth was one of the best comics I read in 2016 and had one of my favorite moments ever in all of comics (I'm a sucker for big, heartfelt returns).  And that's coming from a life-long Marvel zombie!  To think that Marvel might actually pull something off half as good fills me with all kinds of optimism I haven't felt since…  Well, at least a decade.

And just to head you off at the pass, while I'm excited for things like legacy numbering and fan reach out stuff, I'm less excited for the return of the classic status quo.  While I don't read a lot of books right now, I like the idea of JaneThor, Miles, and SamNova and most definitely don't want to see those rolled back.  However, if we could see Sam and Miles develop a strong rogues gallery all their own so they could become their own heroes not living in the shadows of their predecessors, well that'd be just peachy.

Anyway, I'm not here to give you unsolicited opinions about Marvel Legacy.  I'm here to mindlessly speculate about Marvel Legacy.  And everything begins with these quotes:

"Let's just say there's a last-page reveal that's probably gonna break the Internet." - Axel 

Alonzo

"[It's] the return of a central piece of Marvel mythos that readers have been mourning in recent months" - Tom Brevoort

So yeah, at the end of the big relaunch book will be a huge reveal of a Marvel Mythos that will break the internet.  People are already speculating that it's the return of the Fantastic Four (which is the easy money right now) or the first 616 appearance of Miracleman (or Marvelman, if you're a traditionalist), but they're both wrong.

The reveal is totally going to be about Mephisto and the Spider-marriage.

I know, I know, it's totally insane, but hear me out and you'll realize just how sane it sounds.

1- "Readers mourning" = Readers loving Renew your vows

Undoing the Spider-Marriage by way of demonic intervention was always a bitter pill to swallow and it made me (a staunch supporter of the marriage) vow to never buy another Spider-book until it was undone.  And then they launched Renew Your Vows which was the exact book I (and presumably many others) was looking for.  Reading it has reminded me just how great that Peter MJ relationship is and why it was such a shitty idea to get rid of it in the first place.  Which is probably why…

2- Mary Jane is returning to the Spider-books

After being sidelined for years and most recently getting shipped off to Iron Man, MJ makes her triumphant return to the world of webs in Chip Zdarsky's new 'back to basics' Spectacular Spider-Man book.  However, it also said that he's modeling Peter and MJ's relationship after his with his ex-wife, so they could just end up being weirdo pals.  However… 

3- Mephisto has been a plot point in Spider-Man/Deadpool

This, well, let me show you two excerpts from Spider-Man/Deadpool #5 from Joe Kelly and Ed Mcguiness:

Click to embiggen so you can read it!

Sounds like a man (er…  demon) with a plan.  Maybe someone who has the power, ability, and motive to bend reality around a person (or people because it's both him and Mary Jane) to make them experience a vast emptiness and therefore unhappiness with their life.  Which almost sounds like what DC is doing with Dr. Manhattan in Rebirth.  I mean, after all, if you're going to copy something, why not go all out:

4- Mephisto will be the Dr. Manhattan of Marvel Legacy

In Rebirth, the big reveal was that some God-like creature stole time from the universe, rejected happiness, and generally put the heroes onto the path of despair.  In a meta sense, it was a great way to explain away some terrible story decisions and gently reset the world as if they never happened.  Who's to say Mephisto couldn't be the same kind of force for Marvel?  Maybe his deal with Peter and MJ was less "I'll take your marriage for your Aunt's life" and more "I'll take everyone's happiness for your Aunt's life".  Which would explain why fs all of the big company wide crossovers have been increasingly about heroes fighting other heroes as opposed to, you know, bad guys.

I guess we'll find out this Fall what the reveal is.  Oh, which reminds me, there is one big anniversary coming up this November:

5- November is the 10th Anniversary of One More Day

Huh.  Can you believe that.  Ten years since they shoved the Spider-Marriage 'genie' back into the bottle.  It was such a big deal that then-EiC Joe Quesada took time out of his busy schedule to pencil the whole thing and give us that one iconic cover:

Crazy.  And who's doing the big, four-page foldout cover for Marvel Legacy?

Right.  I'm sure that doesn't mean anything.

So…  do you still think I'm totally insane?

Deathlok In Name Only

If you keep up on your comic news and/or are a viewer of Marvel's Agents of Shield, then you might be aware that they just recently added a bonafide superhero to their ranks, namely Deathlok.  Or at least, that's what all the hype (both sanctioned and fan-generated) would have you believe going into their last new episode.  Sadly, who they introduced has about as much to do with Deathlok as they do with Captain America.

For those of you not in the know, AoS's Deathlok is Mike Peterson, the super-ish human from the pilot episode.  He ran around the pilot episode as a man corrupted by the power he was given, trying desperately to show his son he was a hero while coming off more like a monster; Standard tragic hero stuff.  For a one off, it wasn't terrible even though I personally hoped that he was someone from the Marvel catalogue and not someone made up whole cloth for the show.  

Ten episodes later, Mike showed back up as a Shield agent in training until he was assigned to a mission with the team that brought him in originally.  And of course, in the name of dramatic twists, he betrayed the team and met his apparent demise running between two exploding trucks (like you do).  Alas, he wasn't dead, just missing a leg and kinda singed with a spy camera implanted in his brain ready to blackmail him into doing more misdeeds.

In the latest episode, T.R.A.C.K.S, he received a fancy bionic leg and got all stone cold killer on us.  After his rampage, at the end of the episode as he's asking the people on the other side of his blackmailing camera eye if he can see his son again, the camera zooms WAY into his leg to show us that it is indeed the fabled 'PROJECT: Deathlok'.

It's just…  ugh.  Like most of Marvel's Agents of Shield, it misses the point.

You know, if this was a licensed show (like how X-Men and the Fantastic Four are licensed properties to Fox), I would be less disappointed, but it's because of Marvel Studios fantastic track record of adaptations that makes this sting.  I expect this kind of hodgepodge mentality when it comes to other executives who think they know better, but not something under the fantastic stewardship of Kevin Fiege.

Deathlok, at his core, his a character about humanity: It's a man fighting against technology to reclaim his identity.  Honestly, he's Robocop, just instead of a Detroit police officer he's a solider.  Meanwhile, Mike Peterson is a man fighting for redemption, like The Hulk.  He's made some mistakes, but always for noble reasons, and now has to prove that he's better than the monster he's made out to be.  It's a fantastic arc, but it's not a Deathlok arc.  You can't just slap a robot leg on him and call it Deathlok; that's disingenuous to the character.  Both of them.

I had really high hopes for Marvel's Agents of Shield coming into the season, but all it has done since is let me down.  The characters are bland, the stories are shoddy, and now they're not respecting the source material.  Worse, the show runners come off as smug assholes when responding to valid criticisms about the show.  

For the record, I don't really want Agents of Shield to feature a new superhero every week or am holding out hope that Tony Stark is going to show up.  I just want the show to be compelling, with interesting characters and engaging plots, but if they opt to debut a hero from the books in the show, I want them to be faithful to their core.  

So far, they're off to a terrible start.

  

About That Man of Steel Ending...

I'm sure most of you, being that this is a comics blog, watched that new Superman movie that hit theaters last week.  And if you did, I'm sure you came away with some opinions.  To say that it's a movie that invites debate is putting it mildly.  

My short, non-spoilery take on the movie is thusly:  At least it was better than Superman Returns.  Then again, it's not hard to be better than a movie that turned the godfather of all superheroes into a creepy date rapist; the bar wasn't that high to begin with.  

As to why I didn't enjoy this new take on Supes, you'll have to cross the desert of knowledge into Spoiler territory.  I got a jet plane, I'll meet you there.

Oh, and no, this isn't about the amount of destruction during those fights.  That's just kinda whatever.

Okay, so, at the big epic (and kinda boring) battle between Zod and Superman ends with Supes straight up killing Zod.  Snapping his neck, in fact, while Zod threatens to incinerate some screaming family.  And that's when the movie lost me.

You see, the whole movie had pretty explicitly set up the idea that Superman was some kind of Space Jesus here to give us an example to look up to and save us from ourselves.  I think the line from Jor-El (the defacto Space-God, I suppose) is something like: "You will give the people an ideal to strive towards."

So by killing Zod in front of everyone, the 'ideal to strive towards' Superman has given the people writ large is that it's cool to kill.  Nice message there, Space Jesus.

And you know, it didn't have to be that way.  In fact, they still could have had Zod die at Superman's hands, but not make it as mundane and altogether awful as a neck snap.  In fact, I really thought they were going to do it there for a second too.

Let's take a step back to talk about Zod for a second.  He's established in the movie as putting the prosperity of his people above his own well being, which is a pretty cool motivation.  The reason he tries to overthrow Krypton in the first place is because he feels like the powers that be are driving the society into a new dark age.  We've all been there, I get it.  Then, after he escapes from prison (to put it simply), he's in search of two things to ensure his people survive: a new home world and the genetic macguffin that ensures proper Kryptonian births that was stolen and jettisoned by Jor El.  Later, when Zod finds Superman he learns that the macguffin was encoded into Supes' DNA, making him the be-all-end-all of Krypton.  And, you know, the fight ensues.

Fast forward to the end of the movie, Superman (along with some military friends) have defeated the marauding Kryptonians, leaving Zod alone with a pile of ash.  As he runs his hands through that pile of destroyed dreams, he screams something like "This was all we were.  This was all that was left of Krypton, the thing I was sworn to protect, and now it's gone.  I have nothing to live for!"  Or something like that.

Now, here's the thing.  In the movie as it plays, Zod rushes Superman and they proceed to punch the shit out of each other for twenty (long) minutes.  However, it struck me that it would make more sense for Superman to point out that, in fact, Superman represents the entirety of the Kryptonian people and therefore Zod should not freak out.

Don't get me wrong, in this fantasy scenario, I still see a big fight occurring, but instead of it just being a verbal tennis match of "I'll stop you", it could have been Superman trying to be the bigger man and trying to stop Zod from hurting himself.

Like, you know, show Superman using his brains and compassion to end the situation instead of just his fists.  Or, to put it another way, to give us an example of how to fight someone that doesn't involve physical superiority.  Or you know, like Jor El said: "Give [us] an ideal to strive towards"

To me, that's the biggest sin of Man of Steel: they spend so much time telling me he's supposed to inspire us, but they never show him doing anything worthy of inspiration.  Sure, he saved some people, but that's just common decency.  What makes someone worthy of idolization is not how they do the simple things, but how they handle the tough problems.  And what Man of Steel told me is that when put in a tough situation, Superman will solve it the easiest way possible:  By killing.

And that is not what Superman is about.

The Bill October 27, 2011

Jeez, has a week gone by already? Time flies when you're swamped I guess. I apologize for the lack of updates, as things have been rocking and rolling over here (Check out my other blog for an insight) I've found myself without a whole lot of time to chat about comics. That said, nothing's gonna keep me from prattling on about at least one new book this week. Which one? Why don't you follow me after the credits and find out?





The Book I Want to Like:

Avengers Solo # 1
Writer: Jen Van Metter, Jim McCann
Artist: Roger Robinson, Clay Henry


Confession time: I have a complete run of the first volume of Solo Avengers (or Avengers Spotlight). The start of that series (the first year or so) are some of the best Hawkeye stories around, written by, surprisingly enough, Tom Defalco. The stories from that period have endeared me to Hawkeye and made me want to give all of his series chances. There are a few good ones, but most of the time they're pretty shitty.

Unfortunately, Avengers Solo is one of the shitty ones.

'Shitty' is a hard word and not the right one. Disappointing, confusing, needless complex, not fun... any of those are a bit more accurate. For me, a good Hawkeye story involves some snarky one-liners, some espionage, and some high flying action. This issue opted to give me none of that, and I think that's my problem with it.

The issue begins with Hawkeye stopping a routine mugging between a normal dude and a hi-tech armored assailant. Said assailant escapes, leaving The Hawk to figure out why the dude was being attacked in the first place. From there, it becomes a detective story as Hawkeye goes from mysterious benefactor to mysterious benefactor, getting tips and getting closer to a solution. Or something like that.

Honestly, it was around here that the story started to lose me. It's not that I can't handle a detective story, but there's only so many times you can use the same cliches before I get tired of it. It felt like it desperately wanted to be an awesome mystery, but only had two tricks to play before the writer ran out of ideas.

Suffice to say, I was not impressed.

Rounding out the issue, was a short little backup featuring my faves: The Avengers Academy. Here, Hank Pym takes a couple of the more troublesome kids out on a fieldtrip, only to have tragedy strike. It was fun, if a bit short. There's a part of me that wants to continue the series just for those backups, but at 3.99 I don't know if it's that worth it.

Yeah, I don't know about this one. I really want to keep reading and support the idea of a Hawkeye series (again), but not if it'll be written like this. Alas, I fear this'll have to be one of those that I grab out of a dollar bin in a few years.

Oh well. Better luck next time, Hawkeye!

The Bill September 22, 2011

Typically, my favorite books are the ones that operate on the fringes of their respective universes. While there's some merit to the talent on the bigger books, I find that those fringe books are the ones that chances are really taken and real change can take place. This week, I had roughly four of those types of books come out (along with some bigger books), but only one really took those said chances. Which one am I talking about? Come check me after the title and find out.




Not Your Ordinary Teen Book:

Vengeance # 3
Writer: Joe Casey
Artist: Nick Dragotta


Hands down, this is one of the most baffling, challenging books I've read in a long time. Ostensibly, it's a book about an underground, neo Teen Brigade, but in practice it's much more... complicated.

I'll be totally honest with you, I had no idea what was going on the first time I read this issue. It's so dense and obtuse, it borders on incoherence. On a second read, in sequence with the previously released issues, the book begins to make more sense, but not much more. I don't mean that in a bad sense, more that there's an ongoing mystery that, three issues in, they haven't revealed the major aspects of, but things are building to... something.

The weirdness of Joe Casey aside, what brings me back to this book is the stellar art from Nick Dragotta. A weird mix of Marcos Martin and Frank Quitely, with a dash of Steve Ditko, he imbues the characters with a classic look focused through a modern day lens. His line work is creative, clean, and perfectly suited for the material.

I honestly don't know what to think about this one. On the one hand, it's reliance on big trippy visuals and its heady plot mean it's definitely not for everyone. On the other, there's something about it that just intrigues me. For how whacked out all the ideas are, the book is very firmly planted in the Marvel Universe and adds a juicy new layer to everything.

I can't in good conscious give this book a full on approval, but I can't give it a bad review either. In the end, it'll come down to execution. So far, I'm down for the ride, I'll let you know how it works out.

Hopefully I survive the experience. See you next week.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of the DC Reboot

Now that some of the dust has settled on this DC non-reboot reboot, I figured it was a good time to reexamine DC's crazy ass stunt. Not for nothing, the DC brass has certainly captured the attention of the comic reading public. They've grabbed the limelight away from the House of Ideas, and it'll be theirs to lose if this thing doesn't pan out the way they're hoping. Let's break it down.

THE GOOD

Between the attempts at overly tight publishing schedules (see Countdown), the rapid reversals (See the death and return of Bart Allen), and the unclear, piecemeal nature of their in-continuity history (I'm looking at you, Power Girl), DC was in desperate need of a continuity overhaul. Things were getting a bit overly convoluted. For me, no other character exemplifies this convoluted continuity more than Jason Todd.



I dig the idea of Jason's return as much as the next guy, but I always cringe when I have to explain how he came back: Superboy-Prime, the recently powered Clark Kent from "our" Earth, got bored in his pocket dimension - that he shared with a different Superman, different Lois, and the good Lex Luthor - and started beating on the walls of reality, sending shockwaves through the fabric of time and space which resulted in the sudden un-death of Jason Todd.

You can imagine the looks I get.



It's shit like that that keeps people from diving into comics. When you have to know something from 25 years ago just to start to understand the insane reasons why another character is suddenly around, people get understandably squeamish about jumping into the monthly grind. DC recognizes this, I'm hoping, and are attempting to make things a bit easier to understand.

Plus, as I read in an interview with Scott Lobell (incoming writer on Teen Titans and Superboy) over at Bleeding Cool, most of the old continuity that worked will still be around. It won't be a wholesale reboot, so you don't have to worry about trying to figure out complete new histories on your favorite DC characters.

THE BAD

If you're not going to do a wholesale reboot, then what's the point?

As happy as I am that I'll still be able to talk about those characters I haven't read about for ten years, DC shouldn't be concerned with what I think. When it comes down to it, this not-reboot reboot ought to be more similar to Crisis on Infinite Earths - where everything basically starts over - instead of the significantly less effective method that was Zero Hour.



Do you remember Zero Hour? When they tried to clean up the lingering continuity issues left over from the then-ten year old Crisis by explicitly resetting the timeline and instituting small fixes along the way to make everything more cohesive? Do you remember Triumph (one of the founding members of the JLA) and Alpha Centurian (The first hero of Metropolis)? Of course you don't. No one does, because everything went back to the way it was within two years of Zero Hour. And if things continue like this for DC, this new non-reboot reboot will end up the same way.

The root of all of this, though, is rebooting in general. If you're trying to make your published books less convoluted, adding on yet another qualifier is not the way to do it. For instance, right now, if I want to talk about when Triumph was a member of the JLA, I need to specify that I mean the post-Zero Hour, Pre-infinite Crisis JLA, as opposed to Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis Pre-Zero Hour, or soon the Post-Non-reboot-reboot JLA. It's problematic.



THE UGLY

The politics of reboots/restarts aside, the most fun part of this whole thing should be the new costume designs. What a great opportunity to tweak their icons to make them look their best for a new discriminating reader.

Or so I believed until I saw this:



As much as I want to sit here and rip on these costumes individually, other, better writers than myself already have. You should check out their reactions because they're all totally spot on. Instead, I'd like to focus on the global issue here: These aren't DC Costumes.

What I've always admired about DC is that every great hero in their roster is backed up by one glorious, instantly recognizable (for comic fans) symbol. Hell, they just did a big line of variant covers showing off that fact. They've been able to access world wide recognition with the simple awesomeness of these symbols, that I'm sure every other publisher wishes they had.



You can see the progression of those strong iconic symbols through the major publishers. DC, because they came first, have the strongest, simplest, most well-known symbols. Thrown in almost any context, you know what those symbols mean. Marvel came next, and while they have a few icons (The X, The Skull, and the 4), they're individual characters don't have the same appeal. For example, the spider needs the red and blue behind it so you know it's not just bad clip at, The star needs the blue and the stripes underneath it, and so on and so forth. Instead of iconic symbols, Marvel instead had iconic costumes (purple pants, red and gold, four circles) to make their characters pop. And then there was Image...

When Image came around, things like symbols and iconic costumes were somewhat passe' and you can see that in the majority of their original character designs. Everyone looked generic, with splashes of color underneath their overly complicated accouterments and grimaces. In veering so far away from the simple, they made their characters too much work to care about, which is why, I contend, that no one's clamoring for Spartan, Badrock, or Brick to return to anything... ever.

The point is, these are Image costumes, not DC costumes.



DC's on the verge of screwing up the best thing they have going. If I were them, I'd seriously consider getting someone other than Jim Lee (Who's normally fucking awesome when it comes to costume designs) to simplify these needlessly complicated and ultimately forgettable costumes.

Conclusion

In the end, I'm really intrigued to see how this all plays out for DC and the rest of the industry. Given the track record though, I'm going to be preparing for the worst though.

Good thing I only read Marvel books, right? I just hope they don't get any 'bright' ideas.

A Tale of Two Trons

So I saw Tron Legacy the other day and I'm not sure what to think. The short version is I liked it enough, but it had plenty of faults. The long version, well, that's why you're reading, right?



To be honest, I'd never watched the original Tron. I remember being in one of my friends' houses growing up, seeing it on TV, and being immediately turned off by it; It looked weird, it was kinda boring, and the effects were funky. Needless to say, I had a very low opinion of this 'classic'.

Even with this Anti-Tron bias, I was really struck by the trailers for the new movie. The combination of the designs, the soundtrack, and the awe-inspiring visuals really did a number to my head. I was (strangely) totally stoked to see this new extravaganza, and more I was ready to watch the original too.

A quick aside: Did you know that the Tron DVD is no longer in print? You'd think a company as well versed in making a profit like Disney would make sure that there was at least a bare bones version of the original floating around somewhere so eager new fans could pick it up. Apparently, that's why I'm not in marketing. Luckily we were able to secure a copy via friends of friends. Anyway...



As it turns out, my five year old self was right, the first Tron is horrible. Don't get me wrong, I went into it with a crazy open mind, ready to be blown away. It's just... boring, weird looking, and confusing. Not confusing in a plot sense, but more in a 'world' sense.

The original Tron straight up baffled me. The main villain was kidnapping programs and making them play games, so they would.... what? Lose? Forget all his machinations? Get reprogrammed? Give him something to watch on lonely Sundays? And what would happen if a user wanted to use a program that was already hijacked? Would it be available? Would it have to be reinstalled?

The only thing I felt good about when the credits rolled on Tron was that the new one would only be a step up from it. But with the 'classic' in my mental rolodex, I was ready for the new one.



I'm really torn on Tron Legacy. It's certainly head and shoulders above it's predecessor, but it was still lacking something that would have made it the true classic it wants to be.

First, the good: Visually, the movie is stunning. Everything from the design to the action scenes are iconic, identifiable, and memorable. It's amazing to just look at and let it wash over you. The best part is they don't ruin it with a bunch of shitty hand-held camera nonsense; it's a very, serene, zen-like visual style.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the absolutely stellar soundtrack from Daft Punk. It's engrossing, driving, and emotional, probably one of the best soundtracks I've heard since... well, for a very LONG time. In fact, I've been jamming out to it all day, it's so good. I fully endorse this soundtrack and strongly suggest you all go out and make it your own. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Lastly, the characters were pretty great. Sure, they didn't do a whole lot, but they were likable and otherwise unintrusive on the greater plot. For the record, I think Garret Hedlund is everything Sam Worthington wishes he could be: Actiony, emotional, and charismatic. I wouldn't mind Hedlund getting a few more choice action roles from Mr. No-Personality, and I don't think I'm alone in that.



And now for the bad: the legacy of Tron. Or rather, the legacy of shaky storytelling.

While I wasn't as baffled by Tron Legacy, I still wasn't able to draw a strong emotional bead on the material. The major plot about saving some new lifeforms was kinda lost on me because it was so buried in technical jargon that I just accepted it and moved on before really processing. Which lead to a conceptual block on my part when it came to the emotional plot of fathers leaving their sons.

The weird part is, all the pieces are there. I could break down some of those scenes, rearrange them, and really make them resonate (I think). In the end it's so close to really hitting the mark, but it just sails right past it.



What I wanted was the same reaction I had when I walked out of KickAss. I wanted to be exhausted and exhilarated, I wanted to be pumped up and drained at the same time. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

As we walked out, discussing the movie, we were all disappointed that we didn't have that reaction. But even in that disappointment, we were hesitant to call it a bad movie. I can talk until I'm blue in the face about what's wrong about that movie, but there's something about it that's wonderful that won't allow me to go so far as to say it's bad.

The FutureWife (You gotta check that twitter feed, I'm telling you things happen over there) thinks it's because of the motorcycles, sweet action, and Olivia Wilde in black leather. I won't go as far to say that's not true, but there's something else in there that makes me want to like it.

So, kudos to Tron Legacy, the finest, and hopefully the last, movie in the Tron series.


Sweet Tron posters from Eric Tan, check out his blog for more awesome stuff!

The Bill December 15, 2010

A surprisingly big week for me this week, and thankfully one full of good stuff. So what do you think: Should I gush about the great ongoings I'm reading (Avengers Academy and Thunderbolts) or just focus on the miniseries I'm getting (Pet Avengers, Strange Tales II, Chaos War)? Well, there's only one way to find out. Meet me after the graphic.



Sad To See It Go of the Week:

Strange Tales II # 3
Writers: Too Various to Count
Artist: Also too many for my lazy self to credit.



What can I say, I'm a sucker for anthologies. Throw in a bevy of great indie artists and forget about it, I'm in it to win it.

I mean, sure not every story in this issue hit as hard as I wanted it to, and some just plain didn't make any sense, but the ones that did totally made up for it. The sheer genius of Kate Beaton's Rogue story, the visage of James Stokoe's Galactus, and the whimsy of Tony Moore's Thor tale was enough to keep me coming back for years.

Assuming, of course, that Marvel continues publishing this gem. Please, Marvel, keep publishing this book...

I get that this isn't a book that will appeal to everyone, sometimes the art is overly wonky, the stories are a bit too irreverent, and the ideas a little overly heady. However, when the stories work, they're pure gold.

Strange Tales on a whole reminds me of that glorious turn of the century (that's around the year 2000, for the centenarians among us) Marvel where the weird and indie were on the verge of becoming the mainstream. Perhaps it's my fondness for that era that makes me such a big fan, but I can't get enough of it.

If you dig the same stuff, then you should totally check it out in back issues or the inevitable TPB when it comes out next year. And if you don't dig that stuff, maybe you should just give it a chance anyway just to send the message that you enjoy unbridled creativity in your Marvel Comics.

Fantastic stuff!





Positively Disappointing of the Week:

Avengers vs. The Pet Avengers
Writer: Chris Eliopoulos
Artist: Ig Guara



Unfortunately, the same gushing praise cannot be said about Avengers vs The Pet Avengers. It's not that the book is horrible, it's just incredibly underwhelming.

I've made no secret of my love for this series of books. And I really want to like this book too, as I have a great affection for the characters and their interactions (with the exception of Ms. Lion, who really needs to die in a fire). This new series is just incredibly lacking.

You'd think that something as awesome as "The Pet Avengers versus Dragons" would be impossible to screw up, but somehow Chris Eliopoulos finds a way. I feel bad saying it, but the issues come off shallow, superficial, and overly decompressed; in other words, just not good. And it doesn't help matters that it took me all of five minutes to read the full issue. I felt like I was done even before I started reading.

It's not like the first series was Shakespeare, but at least it had some umph to it. Issue to issue, I felt like something happened and that there was a huge story unfolding with big secrets revealed at every turn. With this series, it's like I'm reading what ought to be a two issue arc stretched into four. There are some twists and turns, but I don't feel like anything's happening.

I'll buy the next issue just to finish off the series, but at this rate it'll be the last that I pick up. Here's hoping Eliopolous figures out how to bring the Pet Avengers back to greatness before the next series starts...




And that's all I got for tonight. If you're curious what else I bought, and by extension what I thought of it, make sure you check out my twitter feed @platypusrobot. Or, you know, just leave me a comment and I can tell you right here. I'm easy like that.

See you next time!

The End of Spider-Girl

I give Tom DeFalco a lot of shit on this site. I rag on everything from his pacing, to his characters, to general story lines; There isn't a ton of his stuff that I let pass without some snark.

That said, he did a pretty good job on Spider-Girl: The End. Not a great one, but still a better job than I expected.



The story is what you expect, the last adventure of Spider-Girl. As told by an old woman (kind of. The POV is a bit wonky), we see ol' May Parker's final showdown with her villainous clone, April, in which May sacrifices herself to save the other's life. And I have to admit, I was pretty surprised that DeFalco did this, as he tends to eschew those deathly moments most of the time.

Of course, it turns out that the old woman telling the story is April, and because of her actions the world has become a terrible place. Humans live in the sewers, hunted by Carnage-esque "Bio-Preds", while the remaining superheroes work on a plan to end this insanity. The plan, of course, involves time travel.



As expected, April heads into the past to stop herself from killing (albeit accidentally) May. As a result, April learns of the horrible future and ends up sacrificing herself to save May, giving May the first large personal trauma in her superhero life (I don't count the death of Crazy Eight, that was just silly). Good for DeFalco for going for it. It's about time May had to deal with some real emotions.



While this issue had some great moments, it also really highlighted the problems with the title. For being a book that prides itself on being full of retro-classic, done-in-one adventures, there was a lot of excess story baggage. It's the unfortunate result of only having one writer for 12 years.

I know how this sounds, but hold on and lemme explain.

Have you ever tried to read a Claremont story from the late eighties? As was Jim Shooter's orders ("every issue could be someone's first"), there's all this exposition in it to help a new reader catch on, but it's still really dense and confusing. Even if you try to read a new jumping on point (like X-Men #1 or Uncanny #281), there's still all this crazy stuff you need to know because Claremont still had his master story to tell, regardless of issue numbers. It's the same problem Spider-Girl has.



When Spider-Girl would get a fresh start, it ended up just being a continuation of what came before it. That's not to say DeFalco didn't try. Lord knows he did a much better job than Claremont ever could making the book accessible, yet he still fell into the trap of continuing his 'master' story.

In the end, I'm really glad that DeFalco got a chance to tie up his loose ends and put the book to rest, even if it's not how he probably imagined it. And now that he's placed the reins on the ground, I can't wait until someone else picks them up and runs with them and takes the one true Spider-Girl to new heights.

The Bill September 1, 2010

It was another pretty solid week this week. Solid. Not outstanding, not terrible, just solid. Which is almost kind of disappointing (I'm hard to please, I know). So instead of just going on and on about how great Hawk and Mock was, how much fun Prince of Power was, or how surprising good Spider-Girl was (I'll write a separate review later, I owe it to her), I'm going to prattle on about the books that didn't quite sit right with me.

Sound good? Good. Let's get to it.




Least-Most Disappointing of the Week
FrankenCastle #20
Writer: Rick Remender
Artist: Tony Moore, Paco Diaz, and John Lucas.


Methinks there was some last minute changes on this one. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the super rushed Paco Diaz and John Lucas art is a bit of a tip off. Maybe it's the realization that FrankenCastle is ending (NOOOOOO!!!!),but something seemed off about this issue.

Don't get me wrong, it's totally what you would expect the final issue of a four issue fight scene to be: Lots of crazy action, some wobbly plot elements, and a resetting of the status quo. And I have got to admit that the twist to defeat Daken was really clever. It just wasn't what I wanted it to be, I guess.

Again, it wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. It's just kind of there and that's not what I expect from a book like FrankenCastle that brings it every time out of the gate.

Just color me underwhelmed, I guess. And depressed. Only one more issue until it's all over...




The Most Disappointing of the Week
Avengers: Children's Crusade
Writer: Allen Heinberg
Artist: Jim Cheung


I think I've said this before, but let me say it again for posterity: I really like the Young Avengers. Of all the young teams introduced over the past few years, the Young Avengers are the best realized and the best utilized. But not here.

This book fails on a few levels for me.

First off, I can't figure out when it takes place. I try not to be one of those fans, but this book really bothers me. Steve's in the Cap outfit and Tony's in his Extremis Armor, but then Magneto is living with the X-Men. Meanwhile Stature and Vision are back on the team with no mention of their time on the Mighty Avengers. Or how she ditched the group to be in the Initiative.

Speaking of weird character things, Wolverine is just baffling in this. I get that he wanted to kill Wanda as soon as she went crazy, and probably harbors some kind of grudge against her, but he just comes off as down-right villainous in this. What kind of hero wants gut not only a defenseless woman, but the lost child trying to find her. It just felt really out of character.

Let me say this right now: I will totally rescind these remarks if somehow this story is being influenced by the non-existant Chaos magics. If these Avengers turn out to be some kind of creation of Wiccan's to subconsciously keep him from his goal, I would accept everything in the story thus far. I might even call it a genius move.

Finally, the twist at the end feels like it came outta left field. Without giving it away, it feels like a copout and just a way to get a guest star next issue. Said guest star has no real reason to do what he did, it just all feels so arbitrary...

Whatever. I just hope that after this is all done, we can finally get the Young Avengers ongoing that we've been denied for far too long.




That's all she wrote. Come back next week where I complain about all my books being too damned good all the time. In the meantime, I think I might head back to the store and try to find something different. Suggestions welcome.

How I would save Spider-Girl

A while back I wrote an article about how I really want to like Spider-Girl, but just couldn't connect to it. Well, after months of consideration, I came up with an idea to reinvigorate the series, something that I'm sure all the true fans will absolutely hate.



Let's get started from the bottom up, shall we?

The Creative Team

For a book that's trying to rope in that mythical young girl demographic, it does nothing to really appeal to those younger sensibilities. Right now Spider-Girl is the best example of an old school, done-in-one Marvel comic which is what the diehards like about it, unfortunately it mainly only appeals to those older fans.

What the book needs is a creative team that respects the Silver Age trappings of the book, but that can do so with more modern sensibilities. A Sean Mckeever, Phil Tobin, Dan Slott, Jeff Parker, or even a Kathryn Immonen (a woman on a female lead book, go figure) would have a blast on a book like this without violating the tone of it.

For the record, it's not that Tom Defalco's a terrible writer, it's just time for him to let the book go. It's amazing that he was able to create a character and shepard her adventures for 15 years, but eventually you just need an influx of new ideas lest the book become stagnant and unappealing to new readers.

On the art side, frankly, Sal Buscema needs to go. His rigid inking style pulls the wrong aspects out of Frenz's pencils, making the characters look much older then they're supposed to, making the book less appealing. Youth is all about smooth lines and fluid movement, something that Frenz can do fine, but needs a different inker to really accentuate it (See Spider-Girl 52).

The Status Quo



For the duration of it's run, Spider-Girl has been doing it's best impression of Spider-Man circa 1964 and it's time for a change. I understand the mentality of keeping May in high school in that on paper it seems like it's the way to appeal to kids, but it's never rung true for me. I feel like kids want to look up to someone and don't necessarily care if they're fictional heroes are the same age or not. In fact, I would argue that Spider-Man was the coolest, and really took off in popularity once he went to college. Think about it, the majority of his defining storylines happen when he's in college (The machinery lifting in ASM 42, Spider-Man No More ASM 50, The Death of Gwen Stacey ASM 121, etc.) But I digress, here are my three steps to save Spider-Girl.

Step one: Get her out of High School.
May Parker doesn't act, talk, or look like a high schooler so why pretend anymore? In a perfect world, not only would I have her graduate, I would flash forward a few years and pick up the story while she's mid-way through her college education, studying to be a social worker.

Tom Defalco once said the difference between Peter and May is that Peter acts because when he doesn't people die, while May acts because when she does, people live. It's a slight difference on the same theme, but reveals how deep May's sense of responsibility is.

Social work, in that the idea of helping people get through the rough times and supplying them with the resources that they need, seems like the perfect profession for May. It accentuates her penchant for giving super villains second chances (See Normie, Raptor, Electra, etc.) and her sense of responsibility.

Step two: Tragedy.
This is a tricky step, but probably the most necessary, as all great Marvel characters have a bit of tragedy in their back story.

It would be really easy to slaughter someone from the supporting cast and give May some grit and determination to be a hero, but it wouldn't be right for the character. Going back to the "her actions means people live" thing, she would need to experience someone dying in a way that she couldn't control, like from a disease. More specifically that person should be one of her parents.

Now I'm on the fence as to which, because both have merits. On the one hand, having Peter pass would give her the motivation to continue the legacy and help her get out from the shadow of her father. On the other, Mary Jane passing could force Peter to really grow up, and stop taking stupid risks by coming out of superhero retirement. Either way, it would make May do what she does to honor that passed parent, and add a depth to her sense of responsibility.

Step Three: A New Rogues Gallery.
I mentioned this too in my previous article, but seriously she needs to stop going up against cheap knockoffs of Spider-Man's villains and it needs to stop.



When you think of any classic superhero's rogue's gallery, you'll see a collection of mirror images of that hero. Batman's the best example, where each one of his villains are some distorted vision of the virtues that he holds dear. Spider-Man's the same way, his big lasting villains are people corrupted by science. Now look at Spider-Girl's rogues and what do you see? They're all her enemies because they were her father's enemies (for example, currently her book is filled with villains from the mid-80s Silvermane, Man Mountain Marko, Black Tarantula, etc.).

If Spider-Girl is ever going to become her own hero she needs to start developing some true rogues that reflect who she is as a person, not who her father was. How about a girl who didn't grow up with supportive parents and became a supervillain? what about a villain of pure id, that doesn't feel responsible for their own actions? Feminist upset at the name Spider-Girl? Something. Anything would be better than the rehashes that May currently suffers through.

The Final Word


If it sounds like I'm being overly harsh, it's only because I care. As a character, Spider-Girl has so much promise that I just feel isn't being reached and it hurts. The last thing I would want to see is after Defalco closes the book on May that it'd be the last time we'd see her.

If you really want to save Spider-Girl, it's going to take more than just letter-writing campaigns; the save the book, it needs change.