Against My Better Judgement

I gave this book the benefit of the doubt mainly because I was excited for the movie which somehow got amazing reviews which I don't really understand. I guess because all comicbook movies always get amazing reviews. I don't know. I can't really call it a bad movie. I liked it more than most comicbook movies, but I generally don't like comicbook movies. I do love the original Iron Man. Perhaps I should really do an Against My Better Judgement column on Iron Man 3 alone, but I couldn't call it a waste of time or money. It was a movie. and I'll leave it at that.

I was also intrigued by this Stark Seven story arc that Marvel's been promoting. I felt maybe because the movie was coming out last week that Marvel might try to release some A material to coincide.

Buying this went against my better judgement for several reasons. Most obviously, there's a baby on the cover. While this is obviously a metaphor and not in the comic. I should have also viewed the diaper as a metaphor on what this issue was filled with. I'm being unfair to make a poo joke. Much like the movie, I really can't call this comic good or bad. 

Another reason I shouldn't have picked this up is because I decided I didn't like this book eight issues ago. I've since cut my Marvel list down to three, so I figured I'd give it another chance. Where this issue seems to start The Secret Origin of Tony Stark, the entire issue is really more of a segue than a prologue. Stark walks around space cities and talks to Death's Head and robots which is kind of cool, but ultimately feels like decompressed filler.

The last few pages start a film reel of Howard Stark explaining some sordid secret history, but there's not a not a lot to get me hooked and pick up the next issue. They really needed to tease a little more for me to at least get interested. For example, instead of ending the issue with Stark saying into the camera, "It's time for you to know the truth. Son, you may need to have a drink." Maybe end the issue with something that leaves the audience a little more confused or horrified. Something like, "Let me tell you about the time I raped Galactus." I don't know. There's a reason a don't write for Marvel.

What you should get instead is Ten Grand by J Michael Straczynski and Ben Templesmith, published by Image. I haven't really ever been too impressed by Straczynski, but I also haven't read a lot of his work. I picked this up because of Templesmith's art, and it turned out to be a really cool book. Without giving too much of the story, it's part horror and part noir. I loved it. You should really check it out.

A Night at the Space Opera

I think this is going to be the last of my Marvel Now review column. There are a few more new titles coming out, but I'm getting tired of reading them. They did motivate me to keep reviews coming, so I'll try to keep up with that. I'll try to mention less corporate type books in the upcoming months. That's mostly the stuff I really enjoy anyway.

On to these two books. I'll preface by stating I'm a huge fan of space operas and loved these two books when they were relaunched eight years ago. Keith Giffen brought back some pretty obscure 70s characters and Abnett and Lanning later perfected them. I bought most of all those cosmic titles until they were cancelled a couple years ago. Now that the movies were announced, Marvel has brought them back to the forefront. I was interested when these books were first announced but was skeptical about the creative teams.

After reading, these books aren't that bad but still are thoroughly disappointing. And they're kind of the same book. I will right now simultaneously describe the plot of both books: Some douchey teenager with father issues (in Nova he's a drunk loser, in Guardians he's absent) discovers that their his father really was the space adventurer that he (or in Starlord's case, his mother) claimed to be. The kid gets injured in a fight and ends up in a hospital. Rocket Raccoon also obligatorily shows up in a couple panels.

Since both of these books take place 95% on earth, it really isn't much of a space opera. With the upcoming films, Marvel really seems to be trying to push these as Avengers books. They're even putting Iron Man on the Guardians. Which is cool. They're a business. It's not art. They need to attract young kids. I'm not going to argue the fact that Marvel and DC books are for kids anymore than I'll argue that Star Wars is for kids. And if they weren't for kids, then why did we love them so much when we were kids? I wasn't watching Midnight Cowboy every day when I was six.

Showing Nova and Starlord as kids reminds me of Patton Oswalt's Star Wars routine (which I was coincidentally listening to a couple days ago). I don't care what the characters I love were like as kids. I just want to see them flying around with the helmets and shooting things.

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 Less New World

Marvel's relaunch has been going on for a few months, and I think I'm starting to get a little fatigued. Yet I'm sticking with these reviews since there are really only a few more left. I'm so close. But I don't know. I might stop. Here's another one that I don't have much to say about. It's not great. It's not bad. It's a comicbook. That's all I got.

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

This was kind of cool, but ultimately disappointing. The art was good. It was pulpy. There were babes and dinosaurs. It was actually a lot more violent than you would expect from a Wolverine title from the past few decades. It's nice to see Wolverine take off his training bra and be a killer again.

The plot was a little thin, but that could build. I think its biggest detraction is that Wolverine is in his silly costume. It really just didn't fit the tone of the story and pulled me out a lot. I guess we're just long past a time where we can have a superhero running around being badass in a leather jacket. Or even naked with wires sticking out of him. Remember the Barry Windsor Smith Weapon X?

This is the best Marvel Now book. Crazy sci-fi action. Since John Romita Jr can keep a monthly schedule, I can't imagine the quality dropping.


















Although I've been enjoying Hulk quite a bit, I found this a little disappointing. It's pretty cool that Waid has been doing self-contained issues, all the while slowly building subplots, but this issue retreaded a lot that the first two issues already established. That being said, it was still a lot of fun and I am looking forward to see where these subplots are leading to.

I'm also very excited that Walt Simonson is coming aboard in April (and will be drawing Thor again).

Also noteworthy, I mentioned a couple months back that even though the Hulk is my all-time favorite character from my childhood, it's been now over nine years since I've liked the series enough to bu more than three consecutive issues. I will surpass that next month. I think I had a seven year run at that point, so that will be much tougher to break.

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

Before starting each individual review this week, I'd first like to mention how spectacular the art is in these particular issues. The scripts were great. Don't get me wrong. But the artist have incalculably elevated these comicbooks. This is the industry's top talent.

And before I start this Hulk review, I'm going to tell an unrelated anecdote that I will forever associate with artist Lenil Yu:

Somewhere around a decade ago, I was hanging around in a comic store that I frequented. A stranger walked in, and we got to discussing comicbooks. We started discussing artists. I mentioned some artist that I liked and he replied, "I like Yu." After a few uncomfortable seconds of  silence he followed up with, "He draws Wolverine." When everyone realized what he meant, we all had a good laugh.

So now to the debut issue of Indestructible Hulk. The Hulk is easily my all-time favorite comicbook character. That being said, it's been nine years since I've bought more than three consecutive issues to any Hulk series. I like that they've tried a lot of different things throughout the years. I just haven't liked anything they've done. I always feel he's best when written to embody Frankenstein and the Wolfman. This comic unfortunately is not that. Fortunately though, it's really good.

The tone of this book seems to take its ques from the Avengers movie. (Which makes me realize that I've never mentioned on this site. I'll have to do something about that.) Mark Waid presents Banner as a genius who treats the Hulk as a condition or handicap to be dealt with. It's a lot lighter than recent years, and looks like it could be a lot of fun action without sacrificing characters and plot. A lot happens in these 20 pages.

And while I have been complaining about decompression and the 20-page format, a lot happens in this book. It goes from the '30s to present day to Dimension Z. John Romita Jr is one of my absolute favorite artists who often works with writes who I really dislike. Rick Remender has worked on some really stellar books and this one's no exception. It's got a very Fear Agent meets Kirby feel to it. If I were to recommend just one Marvel Now book, it's this one.

Deadpool continues to be very funny.

A Whole Nother New World

I actually liked all four comics this week. As much as I love Brian Posehn, the creative team that I was most excited for in all the relaunched books is Aaron and Ribic.How can this not be badass?

I haven't read a lot of Thor recently but this series seems to be a pretty big departure. It doesn't take place on Midgard at all and there is absolutely no tights and cape stuff here. It solely revolves around the mythical aspects of the gods (I guess kind of sci-fi since there are different worlds).

There are three concurrent stories united by the same antagonist. One story taking place hundreds of years ago, one in the present, and one millennia in the future, in what appears to be Thor's final battle.

My only problem was that three stories is a lot to fit in what is now only 20 pages of comic. It doesn't leave a lot of room. Other than that, this was a really cool start.






This was my least favorite book this week. Not that it's bad. But going back to my 20 page point from earlier this seems like all appetizer and no meat. It vaguely establishes what the book is about, but spends most of the time individually introducing and establishing each character. It's something many writers do on their first issue and it always seems redundant. I know this is a number one, but it's not like there was even a month since the last issue. And there have been 600+ issues, two movies, and a few cartoon shows about the Fantastic Four. Nearly (if not) everyone reading this has at least a vague understanding of these characters. It also seems to be a direct continuation from Jonathan Hickman's run.

All in all, this was a decent (albeit slow-paced) issue with really good Mark Bagley art. Since this is tying pretty closely with FF hopefully that premiere will pick up the pace a bit. Otherwise we won't have a story until three issues into the run.

This was the biggest surprise for me. I was a long-time reader of Bendis's Avengers run since the beginning eight years ago. I loved it for a long time, but he's been spinning his wheels for a while now. I dropped it last year and figured that I was just Bendised out. That coupled with the seemingly dumb premise of bringing the original X-Men to modern times, I thought this was going to be awful.

I guess Bendis just needed a change-up because this is a really fun read. It's been my favorite new Marvel book so far. The time-travel aspect was only touched upon towards the end, but it seems like it can be used in some really fun ways. I know time travel never makes sense but it's a cool concept and some of my favorite stories of all time involve it.

This also seems to really move the X-Men along dealing Cyclops's role post-AVX. There are also new characters being introduced now that the "no more mutants" quo is over. Hopefully we get some cool young characters that stick around and are not just a plot device for this one story.

 I've actually haven't read this series since the name changed to Legacy, but I'm pretty sure this is also a pretty big departure since the previous series. Mostly because this isn't about the X-Men. It's about Prof X's son Legion. However I don't blame Marvel's decision for keeping the title. A book titled Legion would probably only sell about a dozen copies.

This is a good starter issue based mainly around character development. Unlike Fantastic Four this is a way way way more obscure character that many people have probably never even heard of. It sets up Legion pretty well and gives glimpses of some weird mutant prison camp.

A Whole Nother New World

So now we're really in the thick of the Marvel Now relaunch, and this is the comic that really made me give these new Marvel books a second thought. I'm a pretty big fan of Brian Posehn's standup, and was actually a huge fan of Joe Kelley's run on the original Deadpool series. That being said, the only Deadpool issue I have read in the 13 years since he's left the series was the first issue of Daniel Way's run.

This is a pretty good start. Not hysterical, but I did laugh a few times. Like I mentioned, I haven't read any Deadpool in a while, but the premise and humor seems a little different: SHIELD is using Deadpool as an agent for the messy jobs that would garner bad publicity (which does exist) for the Avengers.

Although the script is good, what really sells it for me is Tony Moore's art. His facial expressions really bring it home. The most memorable part is a detailed two-page splash consisting of partying zombie presidents. My biggest concern with this title is that Moore cannot keep a monthly schedule let alone the twice monthly schedule that Marvel's pushing. I hope the book can sustain quality for the issues he's not drawing. On the optimistic side, Walking Dead has continued to be great throughout the 97 since he left.

Next is Iron Man which I enjoyed. The plot was solid. The characterization was spot on. The art looked great. The only thing this book was lacking is a uniqueness. It's a perfect book in the post Iron Man film Marvel universe, but really didn't seem all that different from what I've read of Fraction's or Ellis's runs. The only thing that really seems all that new is the armor's color. There is room for plenty of interesting directions to play out in the arc, but after a single issue, it seems to be a bit generic.

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.