New title for comic book discussion. U LIEK IT?!?
Anyway, I've spent the past few days reading various comic books, so let's get to talkin' about them, shall we? As always, beware of the dreaded spoilers...
Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1-2
Now this is a series I've really been enjoying. I'm not sure if this is a reboot of Ultimate Spider-Man or what, but the big controversy is that in this series, Peter Parker is apparently dead, and the new Spider-Man is a half-black, half-hispanic middle school kid. OH THE HORROR! Anyway, Miles Morales is a kid living with loving parents in Harlem, and the family struggles to make ends meet. Despite being poor, they're very happy and Miles' parents want him to make the best of his opportunities so that he can move up in the social order. Miles wins a raffle which allows him and a few other poor kids to attend a rich, fancy, prissy, private middle school, which is one of the opportunities his parents want him to have to move on up. Miles is unsure, and runs to see his uncle (who is some sort of secret agent that looks like a cross between X-Force Deadpool and Sam Fisher from the Splinter Cell video games) who had robbed a laboratory the night before, where a genetically altered spider climbed into his bag. As Miles is thumbing through his bag, the spider bites him, and all of a sudden Miles' body starts changing in very weird ways. It's a whole new take on puberty!
Issue 2 deals with Miles freaking out over his new powers, confiding in his chubby best friend about everything that's been happening, after he gets into a fight with street punks and freaks them out with his new powers. They flee, thinking him to be a mutant involved with the X-Men or something. He also has a heart to heart with his father in which it's revealed that his father and uncle used to be "criminals." That's all that is revealed, for now, but Miles basically gets the whole "With great power comes great responsibility" talk Uncle Ben gave Pete. Anyway, the issue ends with Miles getting a text from his friend telling him that he has the same characteristics as Spider-Man, such as the ability to stick to walls. He also has an interesting new power, being able to disappear, a camouflage technique some spiders have. As I said at the top, I've really been digging this series and it's a lot of fun.
X-Men (Vol. 3) #16-19
This is a series I picked up originally because I thought it was a spin-off of the original X-Men series. Turns out it's not, and I've been missing out on Uncanny X-Men, which is being canceled this month. WELP. I'll read these anyway. This story arch deals with the X-Men joining forces with the Future Foundation (new name for the Fantastic Four, from what I've gathered) to investigate weird stuff going on near the Bermuda Triangle. A buoy randomly shows up near the group's vessel with a note from one of Cyclops' ex-girlfriends, Lee Forrester. The group then heads through a portal to another dimension to make a rescue, but their submarine is damaged, and they find that this new world is full of dinosaurs, Mayan temples and weird tribal people. The group splits into three, and it's revealed that there is an alien race (the Scorpious) that has built an advanced city in this world, and with the help of Dr. Doom, the alien race is going to conquer our world. And they'll do it with ease too, since they easily captured and took down ever member of both the X-Men and the FF. In the end, Magneto saves the day and uses the power of the Scorpious' power belts to send the FF and the X-Men back to our dimension. Sorry I've forgotten most of the details of these four issues (been over a week since I read them) but it was a fun read and a fun storyline. Lots of twists and turns and it really had me on the edge of my seat. Because how often do the X-Men and the Fantastic Four get completely annihilated by an enemy?
Detective Comics #2
This is part of DC's "New 52." Continuing where we left off from Issue 1, Batman is investigating the disappearance of a girl he rescued from The Joker in Issue 1. But this comes AFTER a meeting as Bruce Wayne is interrupted by a kinky sex session with one of Gotham's news reporters. Anyway, Commissioner Gordon has a lead, and Batman investigates. However, both get to the location to find that, to quote Admiral Ackbar, IT'S A TRAP! Batman finds the criminal lead's body, killed mere minutes before his arrival, when suddenly he's attacked by thugs wearing masks made of human skin. The Dollmaker makes an appearance, revealing that he was the one behind cutting of The Joker's face at the end of Issue 1. Turns out Dollmaker has also captured Gordon, and rearranged his face surgically. This was good stuff.
Action Comics #2
I enjoyed this one a LOT more than I did Issue 1. This is basically Lex Luthor torturing the crap out of Superman like Supes is an Iraqi and Luthor is part of the Bush Administration. Hi-yooooooooooooooooooo! Anyway, fun stuff with a bunch of Army guys trying to force Luthor to stop the torture and Luthor basically telling them to fuck off. But it's all for nothing because Superman escapes! All of the electrocuting and waterboarding and poison gas doesn't even DAZE the guy and he escapes with ease, and some help from Lois Lane who is trying to sneak into the base to speak with her dad. Meanwhile, one of the generals reveals a suit of armor he plans on using to take down Supes, in order to impress his old flame Lois. Then the last two pages turn to complete shit as Luthor has a phone conversation with a mystery person which turns out to be an alien space station orbiting above Earth. Like Issue 1, the ending completely sucked, but at least this issue was only two pages of suck rather than the last half of the comic.
That about does it for this week. I'll try and do another entry later this week after New Comic Day on Wednesday. And coming eventually, my review of TEN issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, plus Spider-Island!
cool stuff!
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading your perspective on what this industry is doing because you're one of those elusive new fans they say are out there and are trying to get at. WELP, they built it, you came, so I'm eager to see what clicks for you and what doesn't. I have a feeling our tastes will run totally contrary, but that's not really the point. Let's have a look-see!
ReplyDeleteI'm relieved by your casual dismissal of the Ultimate Spider-Man race controversy. It's such a non-issue that I am comfortable generalizing everyone who has a problem with it as an old, mouth-breathing, potential racist, mole person. As I've said on some other blog, race is one of many perfectly legitimate ways of differentiating a character from his predecessor when you're doing the legacy hero concept. It's how they explore this facet, via the content of the story itself, that matters. To that end, I've been hearing a lot of good things that make me wanna give this series a shot.
The X-Men book you review is essentially "X-Men Team-Up." It's fairly divorced from the goings-on in the larger world of the franchise. It is frequently overlooked, so cool to you to give it a fair shake here. When you don't know how important a title is "supposed" to be in relation to those around it, the merits of the book alone are all you have to go on, right? So again I stress, objectivity! Perspective! Yay. Anyway, Astonishing X-Men is of a similar slant, so you might wanna give that a try if this approach is to your liking.
Uncanny X-Men is cancelled, then immediately restarted from #1. (Welp.) Cyclops and Wolverine just had a huge falling out (i.e. they beat the shit out of each other), and the new Uncanny follows Cyke and his crew. Counter-programming comes in the form of Wolverine and the X-Men, which takes Wolverine and the characters sympathetic to his philosophy back to the X-Mansion. Might be a good jumping-on point if any of that interests you at all.
I haven't sampled ANY of the New 52. :( Positive buzz definitely makes me wanna check out Detective though. Grant Morrison monopolized the Batman books for so long that I resisted going anywhere near him. Outside of New X-Men, I've never cared for his mainstream superhero work. Now that his footprint is a little smaller, I might dip my toes in.
It's a shame that there doesn't seem to be a good, solid Superman book. You don't have to reinvent the wheel with that character, but you don't have to serve up boring-ass milquetoast stories either. Or do self-indulgent Silver Age wankfest tributes. Seriously, just hire people to produce awesome Superman comics under the iconic set-up (well, whichever iconic set-up we're going with today). Everyone already gets who the character is and what he stands for.
Just continuing to respond to your thoughts...
ReplyDeleteI was half expecting to hate Ultimate Spidey due to the Internet hate but the characters have been written so damn well, and so far they're being developed well too. Miles is also a likable character that it's easy to sympathize with. He's shy and just wants to be "normal." I DO find it interesting that each cover portrays him in the Spidey suit when he has yet to even shoot a web, much less wear a costume, in the series.
I did some brief research on this new X-Men, and it seems Vol. 3 is basically like you said, X-Men Team Up, as you have the FF, Spider-Man, etc. and all of the stories kind of intertwine with the other series.
Out of the New 52, Batman is by far the best from what I've read. The rest are all hit or miss. Action Comics is great as well, although the endings are always disappointing after the rest of the books are great. I might pick up a few issues of Catwoman for more trainwreck value to go along with Wonder Woman, I thumbed through issue one and it's basically Catwoman's lacy bra and her having sex with people. Like seriously, there is SO MUCH DETAIL drawn into her bra. Pretty ridiculous, really. But yeah, definitely pick up Batman if you NEED to get one, the rest are probably best left to personal tastes.
Also, coming next month: My review of Amazing Spider-Man, which I've really been digging as well. The last few issues before the current Spider Island storyline are GREAT but I'm mainly going to review the Spider Island issues.
Seems like the early issues of Ultimate Spidey are paced similar to vol. 1. It was a few issues before Peter put on the costume. Unlike JLA, I don't have a qualm with that here. JLA is the action movie. Ult. Spider-Man is the character-driven soap opera. My biggest concern is whether or not I'll be interested in the exploits of a teen hero. There's a relatability hurdle, but we shall see.
ReplyDeleteRegular Spider-Man is materially where we part company. I'm not inherently opposed to a swingin' single Spider-Man. Granted, it's not "my Spidey," but I'm flexible. No question, the way they went about getting to that point was horrible. I'll draw a line under it as a means to an end, fine. But... post-married Spidey has largely left me cold. There's a sense of been there, done that, as this was the character's status quo in the '80s and I've read those back-issues. Again, not my Spider-Man, so I don't have much nostalgia or affection for that era. This doesn't feel like reliving the glory years for me like it does for the creative team.
I have other problems too, namely - the tone of Amazing has been all over the place. It's serialized character drama, it's loud, bombastic event comics, it's a shitty outlandish sitcom. Obviously, you can point to different artistic voices, and the basic narrative under Steve Wacker's editorial hand has hung together remarkably well. And I welcome the pacing allowed by thrice- or twice-monthly publication. Honestly, I think I could get past the tonal problems if it wasn't for all the other baggage and bias I bring to the table as an old school reader. The bottom line is, this status quo IS new to a lot of people, and of course some stories are going to be better than others. If it hits more than it misses, I'm sure a lot of fans will look back on this era in ten years and consider it their personal golden age for the character.
Jim Shooter didn't like Catwoman either. Heh. I guess it exists... for some audience. Whether that's an audience it makes good business sense for them to be appealing to, I don't know. I think I will give the Bat books a shot, even though I would gleefully cheer Joker taking a crowbar to Damian Wayne's face. I still don't think I can endure more Grant Morrison Superman comics, and the other Superman book is... just, pass.