"No longer like a toad in these foul cellars will I secret the venom of hatred -- for you shall bring me love!" - Erik
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June 05, 2002
Alias 10
Alias #10
I had to force myself to go back and look at the art. Not because the art was bad (it was nothing great), but because i barely look at the art under normal circumstances, and since this was a giant-splash-panel, all-conversation issue, the art hardly mattered at all. Plus the format the text was laid out made it especially easy to skip the art. Note that last issue, the art technique for the converstation was tons and tons of similar small panels that could be used to highlight subtle changes in facial expression during a conversation, whereas here there are giant still-shots that add nothing. Nonetheless, i would have been happy if there was no art at all in this issue. Bendis can write a mean conversation, and he does a good J. Jonah Jameson, which leads me to believe that his problem isn't so much that all his conversations have the same tone as it is that he doesn't take the time to really develop speech patterns and mannerisms for the characters he creates. That's not a detraction at all on this story, but it's been a problem reading Bendis' work in the past.
Avengers #54
I don't know what to tell you. I continually like the parts with Kang and his son. I think those are excellent. You know why? Cause it's Kurt, doing real character development. The sort of thing you want from Kurt. Good stuff, and i like Kang now more than ever. The rest of the book is a wind-down issue, and it's much better than the last 8 issues of all slam-out action slugfest silver age fight stuff (did i get all the right words in?). Parts of it are still irking, like the scene where Thor vastly underestimates Kang, and then all the Avengers fly off (to rescue the wounded), leaving Cap to duke it out with Kang, and the conveniently return as soon as the fight their over. The celebration scenes also seem a bit excessive. These people have been conquered. We've seen cities blown up. We've seen concentration camps. Should these people look so clean, and so happy? And then there's the long term reprecussions. Considering this hasn't even been mentioned in any other books, and (as promised) no cosmic reset button has been pushed, i feel like the Avengers are taking place in a pocket universe outside the rest of the marvel universe. I just can't buy that after all this the world is just going to bounce back to normal. This event definitely needed a Casket of Ancient Winters level crossover, at minimum, to make it work within the larger universe. At least i've only got one more issue to grit my teeth through, and then Kurt can go off and play with his cheesey silver age characters at DC and leave my characters alone. The art's good. The Avengers look tired. Haggard. You know, like they've been fighting a war for the past 6 months.
Fantastic Four #56
No really. Forget Waid and his retro-nostaligism. Sure, he'll be better than Loeb, Pacheo, Claremont, ummm, Lobdell, Jim Lee, and Defalco's crappy runs. But this Kesel guy, he knows how to write. It's a good character issue about the Thing. The art is great too (except for some computer generated gas and water, which looks out of place). Keep these guys on the book, let 'em try a real story instead of just fill-ins. Aside: I never heard of Powderkeg, but i see that there's a character called Powderkeg that appeared in Captain Marvel 1, volume 2, which i think was the "passing of the name" from Monica to Genis issue. If this is the same character, that's pretty cheesy, considering that his power is that "Each time i hit or get hit, I explode". Cause see, the original Captain Marvel had a villain named Nitro who essentially has the same power. But anyway, i've always preferred when writers used an exisiting character instead of creating a new one when the character isn't all that important, which is the case here. Still, it wouldn't have hurt to let Powderkeg just kinda fade away.
Thing: Freakshow #1
Oh come on, really. In a flashback, it is revealed that Ben Grimm made fun of a freak at a circus, and a gypsy put a curse on him, and now he's a monster. The Thing can currently shift back into Ben Grimm form but this story needs him in Always-Thing mode, so a battle with The Wrecker* has left him injured and unable to switch. A mix up with trains brings the Thing back to the exact same circus from his childhood? Come on. This better end up all being some silly plot by Psycho-Man or Mysterio or something. Not that i'll ever know, cause i'm not spending another $3 on this. Oh, and this has confirmed my post-Morlocks #2 assessment that i won't be reading the Avengers when Johns starts his run. *I know that nowadays we don't really care so much about Marvel's past history when it interferes with a writer's glorious vision, and i know that the Wrecking Crew in particular has been used to symbolize "generic super-goons" on a number of recent occassions, but these guys are supposed to be Thor-level, Asgardian enchanted bad-asses, not a bunch of cheap wipe-'em-up-in-three-page losers. The idea of bringing in villians who've been formerly established as heavy weights and knocking them down in a few panels has always bothered me. She-Hulk and Power-Man taking out Absorbing Man and Titania in about a panel and a half cause me to drop Heroes For Hire a while back. Oh well. I guess i'm too much of a geek for comics anymore.
X-Men #127
Sort of, like, X-Men Unlimited stock plot #4. You know, the one where the misunderstood mutant is killed by the ignorant humans that hate and fear it before it can realize its true potential. This time it is starring my favorite character Xorn (though it really could have been just about anyone). W-why am i buying this title? Maybe i'll give it one more issue to see if Morrison's going to pick up on any of the interesting ideas he started his run with, or if he's going to have them fight another hyperreal existential manifestation of a Big Idea. |