A Less New World

 I think the reason I'm getting sick writing about these is because I'm getting sick of reading them. Marvel definitely put the quality books out in the first couple months of their relaunch.

Secret Avengers is another book that wasn't particularly bad or good. It should be titled SHIELD, but I can't really complain about that because the last SHIELD book (which was excellent; fans of Manhattan Projects should read it; if you're not reading MP, you all should be) did so poorly that the last two issues were solicited but were never released.

This is Marvel's covert ops team that reflects the popular characters in the movies. As you can see on the cover, the Hulk is teased, but doesn't appear in this issue.

The opening scene was a pretty cool intro. The art is also pretty solid. I like Marvel's transition bringing in the Samuel L Jackson Nick Fury into their main universe.

I think my biggest problem is having a gritty book where the two main characters are pussies about killing people. If you look at the cover again, you will notice that their main "super powers" are a gun and a bow and arrow. What do they do with them? Shoot terrorists in the kneecaps? Hawkeye is essentially a Heather.

Avengers Arena continues to be fun and interesting. I don't care that it's Battle Royale and that it exists because The Hungry Games is popular with the kids. This is in my opinion Marvel's second best title (behind Cap).

A Whole Nother New World

On the rare occasion that I don't have a lot to say, I'm going to keep this week's Marvel reviews short. I found both new titles decent enough that I enjoyed, but nowhere near interesting enough to buy anther issue. Uncanny X-Force is a pretty standard X-Men book. It picks up right where the last series left (It seems to anyway. I didn't finish it out.). It's definitely the stronger of the two X-Force titles.













Young Avengers had pretty decent character development and some good art. I might have liked this a lot more if I were a little younger. It's a pretty good teen drama. Not enough really gets going enough to really spark my interest.

Deadpool is getting cartoonier. Very violent and funny. It culminates with a boxing match with zombie Lincoln and sets up a space battle with zombie Reagan next issue. My only issue is with Marvel's scheduling. They can learn a lot from DC about keeping a strict monthly schedule. The first three issues were released every other week, and this one took a month and a half to come out. That's awful. Unfortunately Tony Moore is not drawing the next arc, but hopefully that will give them time to catch up.

A Whole Nother New World

Between the new job, Wii U, and general holiday stuff, I've gotten a little behind with things. Luckily there hasn't been too much to get behind on. I'll catch up with three Marvel reviews right here:

I've never read a comic by Dennis Hopeless before, and one week about a month ago I got two. The first one I read was Cable and X-Force. This was a total suckfest. Thin story. Bad dialog. Just awful. Which brings me to the next comic...

...which I absolutely loved. I had pretty low expectations after Cable. This is obviously something that came about because The Hunger Games is so popular. As the cover suggests, it's a pretty close ripoff Battle Royale. There's nothing new about this comic, but it's really well done and compelling. Good characters and dialog. Honestly there are only two characters out of the sixteen that I even recognize, and I got a little teary-eyed at the end. This is the reason why I try to pick up as many number ones as I can. Because sometimes there's a book I have no interest in that becomes one of my favorites.

They seem pretty committed to the Battle Royale format. These are fairly obscure lower tier characters, so I can see that actually happening. I'm interested to see how far this can be taken as an ongoing series.

Denis Hopeless and Battle Pug's Mike Norton are releasing their new comic The Answer! through dark horse later this month. I'll have to check that out.

I just mentioned a comic brought about by the popularity of Hunger Games. Here's one that was put out because of the popularity of Twilight. From the cover, you might think this is a badass monster comic. But it's actually mopey teenager stuff. Skip it.

A Whole Nother New World

I'm going to reiterate that Marvel really does have the top artists working for them. Avengers one is absolutely beautiful. I've followed Opena through Ghost Rider and X-Force and he really keeps improving. Another cool thing is that it has a layout similar to Hickman's Image books which is kind of interesting that a writer has his own recognizable visual aesthetic. The script is solid, but pales in comparison to Hickman's creator-owned work. If I'm going to recommend you buy a book that he's writing, it would be Manhattan Projects. 

The last few pages seem somewhat rushed to move along the plot. Although in today's decompressed era it's a little nice to actually move the plot ,so it's not all bad. My biggest concern with this book is that with it's frequent schedule (every other week for this one and Hickman's  New Avengers will also run every other week so that Avengers will essentially be weekly) they are going to need to change artist for every story arc. Marvel will have other top artists working, but I wonder if it will hurt the consistency of the overall tone.


I wasn't much looking forward to this until I flipped through it. Steve Dillon is another top notch artist great with facial expressions, especially when said faces have bullets running through them. And although I find the Punisher to be one of the most boring popular characters Marvel has, there have been three runs in the past decade or so that I really loved. two of them were drawn by Steve Dillon (with scripts by Ennis and Aaron. In case you were wondering, the third run was Remender's).

Unfortunately the script was lacking. There was very little substance and I felt the humor fell flat (although that's more subjective). They wasted the entire first issue with a team recruiting story. The story focuses around Ross and the Punisher. The other vignettes where the other characters are recruited seems unnecessary and forced in just to remind readers that these characters are on the team (which the cover conveys perfectly).




This series has slowed down a lot since the first issue. The second issue was spent entirely with Wolverine's team and the original X-Men while this issue focuses on Cyclops's team. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I can enjoy a nice slow build (especially when we've already had three issues in the past four weeks it's not that long of a wait at all). The two plots converge at the end of this issue. Let's hope the payoff is big when we get to the next one.













Maybe not as funny as two, but still has a lot of laughs. This is the first Marvel Now book that's officially made my list.

A Whole Nother New World

Much like I did with DC last year, I'm going to give a weekly review of the Marvel Now relaunch.

I first want to mention that I have no problem with the renumbering. People complain about all the tradition being lost, but the only reason that comics used to have such high issue numbers was because in the old days, new comics didn't sell well.  To keep sales, publishers would just change titles instead of starting a new series.

For example: Incredible Hulk did not originally sell well. Instead of cancelling after six issues, Marvel started Tales to Astonish at issue seven. When the Hulk became more popular, instead of starting a new series, Marvel changed Tales to Astonish back to Incredible Hulk at issue 102. It had nothing to do with tradition or artistic integrity. It was because at the time readers felt more secure with a book that had lasted. Issue 102 would sell more than a number one.

I haven't bought a Marvel comic since April, so I'm not distraught about any cancellations. A lot of these new ideas seem interesting. And unlike DC which hit a magic reset button that kept some continuity but not others but didn't really state which was which (muddled continuity and some other minor complaints aside, I think DC made the right choice), these books continue where the previous volumes left off.

The first of these new books Uncanny Avengers. This is meant to be the new Marvel's flagship title and amalgamates their two biggest franchises. To say I was disappointed may be putting it lightly. Coming from two creators I have enjoyed very much in the past, writer Rick Remender and artist John Cassaday, this story came across as bland and although the art is solid, not up to par with Planetary or Astonishing X-Men.

The rest of the review will contain spoilers:

The prologue is pretty cool and teases the antagonists for what will be at least the first arc. After that, most of the book is more of an epilogue for Avengers Vs X-Men dealing with Professor X's funeral and Cyclop's incarceration. I realize that the book is not a restart and will deal with these topics. But Marvel says the object of  Marvel Now is a new start to gain new readers, and this seems completely bogged down with previous continuity. There's even a House of M (an event that happened eight years ago)discussion. With the continuous massive events that occurred throughout the past decade, there has been no room for character growth and their only character background seems to stem from these ridiculous events where everyone is constantly acting out of character in order to reinvent Marvel's status quo for the year (until the next event).

The last page reveal would have been exciting if Marvel hadn't already released the cover. to issue two, and the seeds planted were kind of cool but overall in serialized storytelling I feel the first installment needs to stand as a microcosm to the series. While decompressed storytelling may work in a trade, as a first issue there wasn't enough to get me excited about the next which is important when deciding what to spend money on from month to month.

Book of the Week

2-17-10

I'm really happy that they're finally doing something cool with the Sentry in the Avengers books. For years, he's kind of been this Deus Ex Machina-type character:

"[Powerful villain] is attacking!"
"Get Bob!"
"He's crying in a corner somewhere!"

Flash to end of battle.

"Bob, pull yourself together. We need you."
"OK."

Sentry ends fight.

Since Norman Osborne's formed his Avengers in this title, he's been manipulating the mentally unbalanced Bob Reynolds (Sentry) to further his purpose. Now his chickens are coming home to roost as Reynolds learns that Osborne's intentions may not be as noble as he's made them out to be. Now, Osborne has to deal with a hostile (and still loony) Sentry.

Although I feel that The Siege has been a little drawn out (it seems like the story could have been told in an over-sized one-shot), the character-developing tie-in issues have been very good. I'm looking forward to seeing Osborne's team dismantled.