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The Avengers: Initiative #27
Writer: Christos N. Gage
Artist: Rafa Sandoval
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Rating: 4 Stars
I know I've been kinda harsh on the Avengers books recently and I think I have a valid reason to be. The Avengers: Initiative has been an interesting book. The premise of the series spun out of the result of Civil War. It takes place on a base that is designed to train those who registered under the Superhero Registration Act.
The first 12 issues of this series were fantastic and, arguably, the finest of all the Avengers books at the time. Since then, the stories have been kind of hit and miss, but still well worth reading nonetheless. This particular issue, or I should say the first half of this particular issue, definitely threw me for a loop.
From the beginning you are introduced to a pair of loser thugs - Johnny Guitar and Dr. Sax. These two goons used musical instruments to commit their crimes. It is entirely told from the point of view of Johnny Guitar. He's telling his story to his daughter in a letter. He talks about how exciting it was to fight Dazzler (you know, when she looked good) and how he tried so hard to get to the big time in order to make a life for his daughter possible.
After a stint in prison, Johnny Guitar and Dr. Sax try to join a bunch of loser teams, but find they don't fit in anywhere. Just when they think their hopes will be dashed yet again, they are approached to join the Initiative. They take the opportunity to sign up and get trained. Upon graduation, they get the phenomenal news that they will be assigned to an elite black ops team.
Johnny's excitement is soon turned into dread as he overhears his commanding officers refer to him and his group as cannon fodder to soften up the enemy until the a-listers can get there to mop up the mess. He now is faced with the fear that he and Dr. Sax will likely die. In his guilt over his friend's potential death, Johnny injures Dr. Sax to prevent him from going on the mission his last words to his lifelong friend is to make sure his daughter gets his letter that details his life of crime.
This is Marvel at its best. Giving a weighty story about people who may not matter in the bigger picture of the universe, but still has a very significant role in someone's life nonetheless. This little story reminds me of an issue of Captain Marvel a few years back where he meets his time-displaced father. The younger Marvel knew that his father would die in horrible agony from cancer, but he couldn't bring himself to tell the truth about the future. The story ends with the original Captain Marvel in his final moments realizing he did not die alone.
I said that issue was the best single issue of any comic of that year. I don't know if Johnny Guitar's unfortunate tale of finally getting his shot at the bigtime is really quite as good as that ish of Captain Marvel but it certainly drew me in and made me really feel something. It's not common that a superhero comic book can punch you in the gut quite like that.
The second part of this issue covers the bigger picture of what's going on and really it's just a slugfest. Mind you, I don't mind slugfests, but it was a bit of a let down from the first part of the story.
I read on another site that the reviewer was disappointed in this issue because it followed a bunch of nobodies, has beens and never will bes. That might just be true, but I find it frustrating how people don't get that the story is bigger (and should always be bigger) than the characters within the story. If you want to read about people who matter to the Marvel Universe, read Captain America or Spider-Man, but don't mistake a well-written story about a forgotten character for belief that the series no longer has anybody or anything to go on about. The strength of this particular series has always been in the types of stories the writers can tell, not about who's starring in the book or what their importance to the Marvel U., as a whole, is.
That being said, I hope more superhero comics can tell stories like this. I think this is what Marvel has been missing and what Geoff Johns over at DC can do so well - giving us stories that go beyond one character punching another until the bad guys are stopped. I like that too, but a little variety never hurt anyone.
You're probably wondering where my post is about the big time comics news of the week - Disney's acquisition of Marvel Entertainment. I've sat on this news and gave it a real good thinkin' over the past few days. I've come to the conclusion that I don't think this will change anything Marvel does. I really, sincerely doubt Disney is going to mess around too much and cause their purchase to become a move that isn't as good as anticipated. If anything comes out of this it's that perhaps Disney will help Marvel get some more animated movies out there for us to enjoy. Plus, they do have 3-D technology. How awesome would it be to see some Marvel movies in Digital 3-D?
I certainly understand that people are worried. Let's face it, Disney hasn't exactly had a great track record in peoples' minds over the past 20 years or so. My only question to the people who are crying foul the loudest over this move is this...
"What are you going to do, stop buying comics?"
Yeah, I didn't think so.
The New Avengers #55
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Stuart Immonen
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Rating: 2 Stars
This is killing me. As big of an Avengers fan as I am, this is literally killing me.
Where do I begin?
A few years ago, Brian Michael Bendis came on board to write The Avengers and launched a huge story that brought about the end of that series. A few months later, he brought together a new team and they were thrust into the middle of a conspiracy of pretty cool proportions. Things seemed to be pretty secure in the world of "Earth's Mightiest Heroes".
Then came the Civil War. Still, as the team chose sides, things were in good shape. Even with the issues that dealt with the backstory to Secret Invasion, where the team was for the most part absent, we got some good stuff. But since the end of the Skrull attack in Secret Invasion, this book has gone from "eh" to "borrrring".
Now, I do understand the way Bendis writes. He likes some "street-level realism". He spends page after page after page devoted to dialog and witting banter between characters - the big page waster this month was Peter Parker moaning and groaning over revealing his identity to his teammates. Here's some more of that "wit":
Ronin and Spider-Woman: "Blah blah blah, we're buddies!"
Captain America: "I want to talk about this thing we did at the start of this comic where we actually did something action-oriented..."
Ronin and Spider-Woman: "Blah blah blah, aren't we so witty?!?"
Captain America: "Seriously, douches... We actually did something action-oriented on page 1 through about 4. Can we talk about this shit?"
Luke Cage: "I got a call from some budies of ours that if you didn't read the last arc, you'd have no effin' clue what the hell I'm talkin' about, yo. These buds are grateful, blah blah, blah. I'm an angry black man, but showing some real heart about these other dudes."
Ms. Marvel: "Yay! We kinda won that one! I'm a ditzy blonde with big tits." (That is almost the real dialog, so WTF kind of writing is that line?!?!?!? How can you defend your female character writing, Bendis? Really, I want to hear how you're going to defend it.)
Captain America: "I give up."
Me too, Bucky. Me too.
Remember when the Avengers, the freaking AVENGERS, used to fight dudes like Kang the Conqueror, Ultron, and The Masters of Evil? Yeah me too. I miss those days. Now, we got this asshat named "The Hood". He's some skinny "badass" who's possessed by a demon. I think he can literally eat people. But what does he carry around? Two guns all street-gang style. He's got this entire gang of all sorts of villains. Some of them are the Wrecking Crew. Yeah, those guys that by themselves can hang with the real Avengers.
So, the Hood (an unclever character with an unclever name) runs all the crime in some way in some place. He seems to have these dudes under his thumb, but I bet... I effin' BET... If everyone gangs up on him, it wouldn't be much of a fight. Hell, any two members of the Wrecking Crew could really stick it to him pretty good with their ASGARDIAN ENHANCED WEAPONS. When did these guys get so weak? Why does anyone give two shits about the Hood?
Please Brian... PLEASE hand this book over to Ed Brubaker or Mark Millar. Either do that or figure out how to stop making the Avengers as boring as the X-Men. The whole reason why I never got into the X-Men was because there were like 42 X-Men related titles on the shelves in any given month. Let's count how many Avengers titles there are:
The New Avengers
The Mighty Avengers
The Avengers: Initiative
The Young Avengers: Dark Reign
The Dark Avengers
The Avengers Go to the Supermarket
The Avengers Comedy Hour
The All Singing, All Dancing Avengers
The Avengers Sit Around and Speak Bad Dialog
Okay, okay. Almost half of those aren't real, but for real, yo... Marvel, you're totally watering down your flagship title. Let's get some real bad guys for the Avengers to fight. Let's get some actual intelligent dialog for the women. Let's stop making Luke Cage a stereotypical angry black man.
BRING BACK THE AVENGERS!
Oh yeah, the last few pages did have the team fighting some guy that they don't even know his name (a real z-lister) and they screw up and all end up knocked out on the street. Awesome.
The Amazing Spider-Man #600
Writer: Various
Artist: Various
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Rating: 3 1/2 Stars
Peter Parker has joined the 600 Club. You have to give it to Marvel, they know how to celebrate! With over 100 pages of original stories, this issue certainly has a justified $5 price tag. More on that a little later.
The main story centers on an ailing Doctor Octopus. After years of having his ass handed to him, his body has decided to quit healing itself. So, he's essentially left to be a brilliant brain inside a dead body. So, he does what anyone with four shiny, new appendages stuck to his body, he decides to make his last year on Earth worth something and starts to make some big plans.
But some things, like comic characters, die hard. Even though he wants to do something great for the citizens of New York City, he can't seem to ignore Spider-Man (who, of course, is trying to spoil the plans). Even upon learning that his former love, dear old Aunt May, is going to be married to Jonah Jameson, Sr. (J.J.J.'s father) in a matter of days, he decides to mess that all up. Why? Because he's nuts.
As I mentioned, this couldn't come at a worse time for ol' Petey. He's got important marriage stuff to do and he can't let May down. So, he gets some help from his pal, Johnny Storm. They save the day, showing no emotion toward Doc Ock's condition (which I find kinda weird), and Peter gets to his Aunt's wedding. He even brings some arm candy - his new roommate, Michele. When the bouquet is tossed, it's caught by comics' top tier last page leading lady - Mary Jane Watson.
From there, we get some nice little 4 or 5 page quickie stories that delve into more about who Spider-Man is and what his legacy is. In particular, the little story about Peter growing up and his relationship with Uncle Ben was really nice. The final story sets up the next year, or so, of Spider-Man.
I definitely appreciate there being some actual original stuff in a bulky Marvel comic, but I'm not sure I really need much of it. I guess what I'm saying is that I kinda would rather pay $4 for a comic than $5 any day. How often have we seen a big ol' thick book from Marvel only for it to be two-thirds reprint or completely useless stuff I can find on Wikipedia?
These days, I don't know what to think of the Spider-Man book. It reached it's high over the past decade while J. Michael Straczynski was writing the book. We got some new characters that were interesting and not just punching bag for Spidey and some great stories involving those characters. I'm not in the boat with the majority of comics people who thought his final arc, "One More Day", was crappy or anger-inducing. Spidey needed some new stuff going on in his life - especially after unmasking himself in the Civil War event.
Moving forward from that, "Brand New Day" was kinda weird. It felt like the series was thrown back to the 1970s and the stories were hit and miss. I like the writer, Dan Slott, but I'm not sure I liked the editorial decision to suddenly plop this storyline in the middle of the current state of the Marvel U. Normally, I can say for certain that I do or don't like something, but with Marvel, I'm riding a lot more fence than I'd like to. Maybe with MJ coming back to Pete's life, the book can get over the hump of what happened at the end of "One More Day".
Thanks for reading. I'll be back in a few days with Leah Moore and John Reppion's Sherlock Holmes #3.
The Avengers: Initiative #27
