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

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

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.