Fear Itself

ok, so this was an event I was going to miss.  Serious event fatigue has been going on in my comic buying for some time.  How I long for a wee contained event restricted to a certain family of titles, preferable the X-men while say the Avengers are allowed to carry on regardless.  Seriously, another world-changing event just over a year after the New Heroic age started?  Can't these titles be given a chance at more than a couple of arcs before "Everything Changes?" So it's rather annoying that Fear Itself has turned out quite so well.
Just to clarify, I've not been picking up the Fear Itself book, but many of the books I do collect are now Fear Itself tie Ins, see unless you're willing to just drop a title for a couple of months there's no escaping the huge event.

The plot, from what I can ascertain, Sin, Daughter of the red Skull has found an old Asgaurdian fear god who was so bad he was banished and removed from all of history.  This god has given her a hammer like Thor's and sent 7 others to earth where they have been picked up by several Heroes and Villains, turning them into evil gods.  Sin has also led an attack on Washington using Giant Nazi robots.  Odin is in fact so scared he has withdrawn Asgard from earth taking all his norse gods with him.  Confused, well for someone not reading the main book it can be.  This is wat I would classify as a "Bad" crossover.  Namely you do feel you've missed something if you just stick to your main titles.  So much so that it took several books for me to realise I hadn't missed an issue in between.

This criticism aside, the event itself is great.  Obviously, some heavy hitters get their own big bad to fight, such as Iron Man fighting the Grey Gargoyle or the Avengers fighting a hammer possessed Thing.  Others are involved in general fighting, such as the Secret Avengers being on the vanguard defending Washington DC from Sin's forces, The Thunderbolts trying to secure the raft after a hammer landed and was picked up by Juggernaut or the Avengers Academy pupils involved protecting civilians.  Either way, there is a real apocalyptic feel to this event.  Society is breaking down and the problems are as much rioting, looting and people being scared as they are nazi battlemechs or godlike super-villains.

Fear itself has even got me picking up some extra Limited series.  First, Youth in Revolt.

Youth in Revolt Features Prodigy, plus many of the heroes that appeared in the Initiative, who are re-activated as a volunteer force to try to help.  Sadly a situation in Atlanta develops when Thor Girl accidentally deflects some shots from a policeman with disastrous results.  I liked this on two fronts.  First, its more about stopping looters than fighting big bads, although there is a good moment with Crossbones nearly wiping out Gravity's team.  It's also great if you were, like me, keen on teh whole Initiative idea.  As well as featuring Prodigy, Thor Girl, Cloud 9 and Firestar, it is jam packed with guest appearances from Butterball, to some of The Order, and ist a good read.

Second is a bit odd but worth a look, Fearsome Four.  because of the high levels of fear, man thing has been drawn to New York.  Howard the Duck recruits She-Hulk, Nighthawk and Frankensteins monster to try to prevent his friend from killing too many people.  Its quirky, Nighthawk appears to have gone a bit ga-ga since I last saw him, think more along the lines of the "God Damned Batman" but its worth it if nothing else for some serious Quack-Fu from Howard.

So, I'm still not picking up the main book, but the story is worth the disruption its caused to my regular reads.  In fact, at this rate I'll probably pick up the trade.

The New Heroic Age - So Far - Part 1

Quite a few of these titles have now completed their initial arc, and others are over 4 issues in, so time for a look at how we’re getting on.

First I’ll look at the four Avengers Titles, so much for saving myself money.

Avengers
Well, good news is we have a title that is just Avengers, not new, mighty secret, dark or minty.  However, so far at any rate, this is my least favourite of the Avengers titles.  To be fair, it has a few handicaps.  First is the art.  People seem to get excited when John Romita Jnr is drawing a book, and I feel like some sort of nutter because I really fail to see why.  I have joked in the past that Romita Jnr and myself have something in common; neither of us can draw Iron Man.  This is unfair of course; at least if we were both to draw shellhead you’d be able to work out who Romita Jnr was drawing.  In general though I wouldn’t count him as one of my favourite artists.  Add to that Bendis writing, which I don’t mind, but its never worked in an all out superhero book and for my money is better used in titles like Alias, or indeed New Avengers.  The plot has some interest to it, the Avengers must travel into the future at the behest of Kang the Conqueror because, something has to be done about their kids.  It also has its faults, yes it’s nice to see Noh-Varr used again after he was re-vamped in Dark Avengers, but overall so far this really isn’t doing it for me.  Hope the plot picks p pace soon.  Also hope we’ll see why Wonder Man is acting up, he’s really out of character at the moment and I think that jars too.  As for the line-up, well at the end of Dark Reign, Steve Rogers basically said anyone who wanted to be and avenger was, but there was going to be a core team, and it’s a slightly odd hybrid between classic and Bendis, so we have Iron Man, Thor, Captain America (Bucky Barnes) and Hawkeye, with Spider-Man, Spider-Woman and Wolverine coming from the Bendis era.  It actually works quite well although I still don’t think Spider-Man and Wolverine work in Avengers.  A nice addition is Maria Hill, former Director of SHIELD as their liaison; in fact the three teams all have a liaison which is a nice touch.

New Avengers
 The plot here is a little different.  Luke cage was a little put off that cap was returning things to business as usual, so cap gave him his own Avengers team.  Aside from the main squad he has his pick of members and he gets Avengers mansion to live in.  Funny thing about New Avengers, most of the members have another super-team.  Cage leads the Thunderbolts, Hawkeye, Spider-Man and Wolverine are all Avengers (actually lets not go into how many teams Wolverine is on, he does at least joke about it being his mutant power) and Thing is still on the Fantastic Four.  In fact only Iron Fist, Ms Marvel, Mockingbird and Jewel have no other affiliation.  They also have a Liaison in the form of Victoria Hand, Osborne’s second in command when HAMMER were running things, and probably one of the most interesting characters invented for Dark Reign.  Despite my mockery, it is actually pretty enjoyable; the plot is leading on from Dr Strange loosing his role as Sorcerer supreme and has mystic foes possessing various team members and in the last issue all appears to be linked to the Ancient One.  While Bendis’ writing seems out of place on Avengers it fits well with the team dynamic in New Avengers, hell half his team are usually in as wisecracking jokers in some form.  Immomen’s art is bright  Overall this is really promising which is a great turnaround as New Avengers titles have previously been the most forgettable for me.

Secret Avengers
This one had me a little excited, but then it had the advantage over every other comic bar Iron Man, War Machine was in it.  While the world is more Heroic, Steve Rogers leads a more covert squad to deal with serious problems hopefully before they become serious.  The Team isn’t exactly A-list, featuring Steve Rogers, War Machine, Black Widow, Valerie, Beast, Moon Knight, Nova and Ant Man (Eric O’Grady), plus Steve’s Girlfriend Sharon Carter as Liaison.  Not A-List but then they are meant to be a more covert squad.  So far it’s had a nice mix of espionage, mystery, in the secret society stalking the team apparently lead by nick Fury, and action, then I shouldn’t have doubted this from Ed Brubraker, who is definitely one of Marvel’s top writers.  Mike Deodato does a star turn on art as well giving us both luxury penthouses and Martian dig sites with ease.  I have a possible theory for this team, with Steve’s “Everyone Is an avenger now” idea I wonder if the roster for Secret Avengers might fluctuate a bit, with Steve doing Mission: Impossible style selections for each specific case.  I’d quite like that although the end of the first arc doesn’t really support this.  It did remove my misgivings regarding Nova being on the team as at the end he flies off and cap notes that he won’t be a reliable team member with his cosmic responsibilities.  Still, I know the story needed Nova but does Cap carry so much weight that Nova would say “Sorry trainee corps, but your most powerful member has to go off and do something for cap, good luck with the evil universe breaking into ours and all.”  Still, interesting stuff, and if it is Nick Fury in this secret society, does that link to the “Zodiac” society we’ve had glimpses of in Secret Warriors?  Or is Nick Fury the Wolverine of secret societies.  The story itself was a good setup involving the Serpent crown, secret societies and a huge throwdown on Mars.  A very solid title indeed.

Avengers Academy
I got over my initial disappointment that this wasn’t a knockabout comedy where mismatched wise-cracking recruits try to defeat the evil machinations of an overbearing guy called Harris.  Instead this replaces The Initiative and so for me has some big shoes to fill.  Fortunately it doesn’t disappoint.  We see a new batch of recruits, all near screw ups, most suffered some sort of abuse under HAMMER rule, all have one thing in common, as they find out they were the kids thought most likely to turn to villainy so the Avengers Academy faculty, as well as teaching them mastery of their powers also have to prevent them from turning.  Christos Gauge has a very nice setup, with the character Veil being the voice for #1 and Finesse for #2, and so far seems to continue through the following isses.  Once the twist is revealed near the end of #1, you can see quite clearly how close our young students are to villains.  Nice to see familiar faces in the faculty as well, although it seems to have its share of screw ups.  Wasp (Hank Pym) leads with Justice, Tigra, Quicksilver and Speedball as trainers.  I’m sure many fans are glad to see the back of Speedball’s Penance phase, me included but it is nice to see Speedball isn’t entirely recovered and back to normal yet, so it doesn't have the stink of a retcon, just progress.  Mike McKone had not been on my radar before, but I do like his work in this.  More importantly, I liked The Initiative because it seemed like Marvel were trying to introduce some new characters and be a little creative, after all in Marvel and DC New Heroes are pretty rare.  What I like about this is that I could believe we may loose a few recruits to villainy, and that would make things very interesting.  This title is half way through its crossover with Thunderbolts called “Scared Straight” while it involves some of the T-Bolts it can be read in isolation (In fact the prison shutdown is handled in less than an issue over in Thunderbolts) but it is interesting to see the members who were directly harmed by osbourne teaming up to go after him.

Iron Man 2

Well, I posted a bit showing my excitement for this film, and I have actually seen it, should I perhaps post a review. I will warn at the moment, I won’t shy away from spoilers.

First, a plot summary, picking up where Iron man left off, Tony Stark has gone public about being Iron Man, and has been using the armour for some time, both in a “Fighting Evil” role and for publicity stunts like we see in the opening. Only problem is that the Arc Reactor in his chest is slowly killing him and as he sees death coming Stark begins to act more and more recklessly. A situation not helped by senate hearings demanding Stark hand over Iron man to the military and a new threat in the form of Disgruntled Russian Vanko.

This film has taken a fair amount of criticism, mainly for being more of the same. For my money I think more of Iron Man is no bad thing, there were some nice echoes to Tony’s remarkably flaky character, and particularly the Demon in a bottle Story as Stark goes off the rails in quite a bad way. While Vanko is more grunts and gestures as a villain perhaps the real for is Justin Hammer, a rival arms manufacturer who works really well as a potential rival to carry through future films. It also sets up a bigger supporting cast, we saw Nick Fury at the end of Iron man and we’re also introduced to The Black Widow as well as more screen time for Faverau himself as Happy Hogan and Don Cheadle taking the role of Jim Rhodes/War Machine and making it his own.

On the Cheadle/Howard front. I had no objections to Cheadle, and actually think he captured the comic’s version of Jim Rhodes and particularly War Machine that may not have suited Howard’s depiction in the first film.

Criticisms, well, introducing such a big cast means some people get less screen time, Vanko isn’t particularly fleshed out as the main Villain, and we don’t see that much of Black Widow. If you’re wanting a non-stop action fest then you’ll probably be disappointed too as there is still more Tony than Iron Man.

Thing is, to me Iron Man has always been more about Tony than Iron Man. He’s often compared to Batman (Both rich orphans who dress up and fight crime) however, while with Batman there is a real ambiguity over whether Bruce Wayne dresses up as batman, or batman dresses up as Bruce Wayne, there was never such ambiguity with Iron Man. People criticise Tony’s wisecracking and the films humour, but this is part of his character. Indeed while I’m never sure about Tony/pepper pairings the chemistry between the characters and the witty rapport would be sorely missed if it was excised from the film, more so if it was excised for brooding.

I suppose you’ll like or dislike this film based on how much you like the central premise of Iron Man. I’ve heard people complain that it lacked Darkness or grit, yes it does, and to add that to Iron man would make it more generic and less unique. If you accept that this is a film about a guy who, to an extent masks his insecurities with a bombastic public persona, and a big metal suit you’ll definitely have more fun.

For Fans, the film has some really good references. Obviously we all love the Avengers stuff and the Thor cameo post credits, but there were other gems. During the race scene one car is sponsored by Roxxon, a fictional Marvel company, Cap’s Shield makes an appearance again and my personal favourite is the War Machine suit being called the Variable Threat Response suit, a nod to the comic’s designation. In fact, a nice touch is the lack of people calling themselves names. Rhodes never calls himself War Machine (Although Tony calls him this once) and similarly Vanko doesn’t turn up saying “Cower Iron Man, now you face the might of Whiplash” its good, fans and toy manufacturers know who these people are, but to add their names to dialogue would seem clunky. Not that it may not happen in the future, particularly if Titanium Man or Crimson Dynamo makes an appearance. (You could argue that Crimson Dynamo already has although he wasn’t crimson)

So, I really enjoyed this, and it has 100% more War Machine tan any other film released in 2010, in fact than any film released to date, so that must count in its favour.

Ms. Marvel

Well, the last issue shipped a few weeks ago, so I thought I’d go in for a bit of an overview of the noble project that was Ms Marvel.

While Ms Marvel has been a fairly long established character, even through her identities as Binary and Warbird, this has been her first solo series in quite some time. It span out of the “House of M” event where, in the universe created by the insane Scarlet witch, Carol Danvers had been Captain Marvel and considered one of the best Super Heroes. Remembering this other life she strives to be the best, this was pretty much a metaphor for the whole series, where the writers wanted to try and set Ms Marvel up as Marvel’s Wonder Woman. Just as getting up from the B&C lists was difficult for Ms marvel so did selling a female fronted book prove difficult to Marvel.

Its actually been said that any female fronted book is a hard sell, I kind of hoped we’d be past that now but apparently not. Even Stalwart titles from DC such as Wonder Woman and Birds of Prey struggle at times despite what is often critical acclaim and Ms Marvel too was loved by critics but seemingly not loved by the comic buying public.

Still, over the years we got some very good stuff, yes the hero with low self esteem is now an old concept but the real power in Ms Marvel was that actually, as a hero Ms Marvel was really good at her job, but still pretty unsure of herself regardless. There were many nice touches, her Mentor relationship with Arana, for example really worked for me, and indeed her Civil War issues were some of the few that presented the pro-reg side in a positive light (Which writers on the main mostly failed to do).

One of the standout stories for me was the Secret Invasion tie-in, which largely involved Ms Marvel fighting Skrulls, a lot. It was mainly about her grit and determination to survive (Again, analogous with the comic) but also full of action and some pathos.

Finally we have Dark Reign where for a few issues we have Moonstone in as Ms Marvel, closely followed by war of the marvels, both top reads.

End of the day sadly the will to continue failed and so Ms Marvel joins She-Hulk on the pile of good comics, no support. However for people who like Female fronted comics Marvel appear to be doing more anthologies, one shots and Limited series. I’ll be interested to see how that develops

Iron Man: World's Most Wanted/Tony Stark Disassembled

Wow, long title. I'd love to say that I decided to review these stories as one since one blends into the other making them one epic story. That is rubbish, it's because I fell too far behind and decided that Stark disassembled would be finished before I got a chance to blog on worlds most wanted and so I may as well bundle the two together.

Anyway, this has been an epic Iron Man story, and almost certainly the rehabilitation of Tony Stark from what people thought was irreparable damage during the Civil War Event. While they tail one into the other and are written and drawn by the same people (Matt Fraction on words and Salvador Larroca on pictures) the stories are really quite different.

A warning in advance, I'm not holding back on spoilers, so if you don't want to know the scores, look away now.

Worlds Most Wanted

The Secret Invasion is over, Norman Osbourne is in charge, SHIELD is no more and Tony Stark has been booted out. With his Extremis offline he can barely control his armour anyway. As a parting shot to Osbourne and more importantly to preserve the trust of those who registered, Stark deletes the entire Superhuman Registration database, leaving only one copy, the one written in his head. This leads to a relentless pursuit of Stark across the globe by Osbourne and his agents while Stark slowly erases his own mind to destroy the last copy of the database. Meanwhile Pepper Potts gets a suit of armour and a new identity as Rescue and Maria Hill goes on a harrowing mission to recover a mysterious hard drive for Stark.

This story was actually quite episodic, at least for Tony Stark, each issue usually focused on an encounter with friends or foes from his past as Tony battles across the world, having to use ever more obsolete suits as his ability to run them degrades. This includes Friends, like War Machine and Crimson Dynamo, and Enemies such as Namor and Madame Masque. When I say episodic you would probably be bloody confused if you jumped right in, particularly with the ongoing subplots featuring Maria Hill and Pepper Potts, but most of the encounters are self-contained. Fraction crafts a brilliant tale, capturing Stark's slow disintegration, Pepper's joy of being a super hero and Hill's near breakdown after an ordeal at the hands of the Controller. The final showdown with Stark in his Mk1 suit and Osbourne in the Iron Patriot has a brilliant twist, and indeed was the first time we saw someone hurt Osbourne through the media. At the end we have Stark left in a vegetative state, but A recorded message, and a gathering of old friends means this may not be the end.

Tony Stark Disassembled

The conclusion to this epic is a mere 5 parts, perhaps a little slow, it details how stark backed up his mind on the Hard drive Hill retrieved in Most wanted and, with Pepper's Repulsor generator, and a bolt of lightning courtesy of Thor, Stark may be restored.

This was slower, and perhaps a little long, it could have probably been done in 4 parts, but a very good ending for Worlds Most wanted. Nice to see everyone try to save Stark, and very good use of Ghost (Also an example of good crossovers again with how it linked in with Thunderbolts) and the surreal trip through Tony's subconscious was predictable but a nice touch. It was similar to the "Soul on Ice" backup story during Jim Rhodes' second Tenure as Iron Man (Run up to his first War Machine ongoing) which had a cryogenically frozen stark living his past and his influences. Only that was more recap, this was a wierd nightmare. Of course we get the twist at the end, turns out Stark isn't particularly good at keeping regular backups of his mind, and this copy is Pre Civil War, which has come of something as a shock to him (Although probably not as much as him sleeping with Pepper Potts and Maria Hill in teh same week will later)

Fraction must go down as one of the best Iron man writers for a good while, crafting two very different stories with ease. Larroca was faced with a fairly daunting challenge himself, to draw what amounted to an "Iron man through the ages" or basically a whole load of different armors. If I'm looking forward to one thing Post Siege, and I'm looking forward to a lot. But one over all others is Iron Man, which is testimony to this teams success.

Black Widow: Deadly Origin/And the Marvel Girls

Marvel recently hit us with not one but two Black widow minis, initially I thought this foolhardy, surely they should save this stuff for the release of Iron man 2which will feature Black Widow, however I now think I know the reasoning. There will probably be more black widow minis in the pipeline (or in fact a ongoing i believe) so it will be handy to have a couple of 4 part stories in Trade form for IM2's release.

Anyway, the two stories were pretty different, and arguably varied in quality. I'll start with the better one first.

Black Widow: Deadly Origin

Paul Cornell writes this adventure where Natalia investigates the death of her old mentor and combats the mysterious Icepick protocols which seem to be killing off all the men in her life.

This met with mixed reviews but i really liked it. For the most part its primary job was to clean up Black Widow's sometimes contradictory continuity. They do this with a rather nice retcon, first Natalia has taken a similar serum to the Infinity formulae that has allowed SHIELD agents Nick Fury and Dum-Dum Duggan to live on long past their WWII origins without looking like men in their 80s. This has also set her past right back into WWII and expands upon her initial meetings with the Winter Soldier. Due to her long life, plus many deep cover missions and brainwashing she is now as confused about her pasta s the average reader of her entry in the official handbook of the marvel universe. The comic itself tells of Black Widow's past using flashbacks and the neat technique of using different artists for the flashbacks to differentiate them form the main story. Overall I thought it was pretty good, entertaining and useful for setting up her character for a more involved future in the MU. Cornell writes her as a super-agent, using stealth and skill to best opponents in a far superior power class. A nice touch was also building on her reputation, when facing an Imperial Dynamo (Probably a match for Iron Man) the dynamo already knows he is beaten before the fight starts and tells widow how honoured he is to be beaten by the legendary black widow. Similarly Cornell writes her with a sense of humour, always good as other authors occasionally play up the "Hard Bitten agent" grimness too much.

Yes it was a cleaning up excercise, but a very readable one.

Second we have Black Widow and the Marvel girls, this was a series of standalone stories where Black Widow teams up with another woman of the Marvel Universe. I could seethe idea, accessible adventures which allow you to see widow's place within the MU. My problem was that the accessibility made it pretty insubstantial stuff, not always a bad thing but it just lead to forgettable stories in my opinion. Its lack of continuity focus was also a niggling point to me, but presumably not so much an issue to the new readers it seems to be aimed at. That may be its point, basically a sales pitch to new readers, Hey you liked black widow in Iron Man 2? How about these other females, any of them interest you? Inthe end that didn't do to much for me.

Overall I think Deadly Origin is the better of the two, and what I'd recommend to anyone who had been interested from teh movie, as it gives background on her comic counterpart, effectively its a pilot for the ongoing, and in teh end getting someone on an ongoing is a worthy goal.

The New Heroic Age

What, no Dark Reign sum up? No Siege speculation. Have you seen how out of date my blogging has got these days, my only chance is to blog about things before they happen.

In all seriousness I might comment on Siege post event, but I’m interested at the moment on how the universe is going to unfold post-Siege. Marvel have been releasing various things regarding the new shape of the MU and it looks brighter, sunnier and happier. Some have said this could be a response to the Disney takeover but I reckon that with a probable Avengers movie coming out marvel want the universe back on a more approachable tack.

So, what do we know about this new age, lets look at the team books that have been revealed so far.

Avengers

Marvel has released the line-up of this new team in the wake of Siege. Line-up Includes Iron Man, Captain America (Bucky Barnes Version), Spider Woman, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Thor and Hawkeye (Clint Barton). Its kind of a half and half, half Bendis’s new avengers, half traditional Avengers. I’m in two minds about this, on one hand it will be nice to see a more traditional Avengers Team, I’m very happy that we’re not loosing Bucky cap just yet and that Barton is back to being Hawkeye. On the other hand I’ve never been thrilled with Bendis writing Avengers, his work on Mighty wasn’t bad but I think there are better avengers writers out there. It does leave at least one question; Barton is taking back his “Hawkeye” identity, what will happen to the Young Avengers Hawkeye?

Secret Avengers

This has been secretive, unsurprisingly. We know its written by Ed Brubraker which is exciting enough, we know what the team members look like as silhouettes, we don’t know what the team is about, what their purpose is or indeed the identity of any members, although speculation includes Steve Rogers, War Machine, Moon Knight and Black panther. Either way this will be one to watch.

Atlas

Another go at agents of atlas, I really enjoyed the previous Agents of Atlas series and like the commitment to keep trying to get them ingrained into the Marvel Universe, and I’m also keen to see the New 3D man meet the team. Again another good sign.

Thunderbolts.

Another interesting looking title, going back to the concept of criminal rehabilitation that existed throughout Thunderbolts but in particular in “The Initiative” period. Luke Cage leads a team based on the Raft, Currently looks like the team will include Moonstone, Crossbones, Ghost, Juggernaut and Man Thing with the theme of criminals doing heroic acts as part of their rehabilitation.

There is also an interesting looking title called Heroic Age, not sure if it’s just a one shot or a series but it’s more of an anthology book and will see the return of Captain Britain and MI13 in a short story. Solo title wise Iron Man has new armour and solicits show that it will feature Jim Rhodes, possibly as War Machine. And Captain America, at least for the next story will continue to show the adventures of Bucky Barnes which is good as I can still see mileage in that concept.

What are we loosing; to my mind so far it looks like we’ll loose two significant titles. The first is confirmed axed, that is Ms Marvel. It’s a real shame because this title has been holding on and with a bit more promotion she could have been Marvel’s Wonder Woman. Marvel are doing a comic featuring female heroes, but I preferred a female solo book (and with She-Hulk gone as well I struggle to think of any Marvel female solo book).

Second is Avengers: The Initiative, and while I wasn’t enamoured by the “Disassembled” story it’s been consistently good. I like the concept (Hero boot camp) and I liked the often personal approach to stories they took. It was an interesting book, so far no announcements of what will become of the initiative but I hope it will survive in some shape or form as it’s really been too good an idea to drop.

War machine, Final Arc

This was initially going to be a post about the second arc of War Machine, but this arc has also been the final. Its been fun, and lasted just a little less than half the number of issues of the first ongoing, still, 12 issues is better than none, and at least calling it an ongoing showed confidence from Marvel.

First, the story itself, this concerned War Machine and his crew travelling to the US following the trail of the Ultimo Virus seen in the previous arc. This pits Jim directly against the US army, HAMMER and even Tony Stark's brother Morgan. During this he sets up Bethany Cabe and Jake Oh as armoured support and encounters his old buddies from the West Coast Avengers. The final two issues have Jim on trial for war crimes, mainly set up by Norman Osbourne as a distraction after Jim revealed inpropriatories by various Politicians.

Not to spoil for anyone trade waiting, but basically by the end Rhodey has beaten Osbourne (in a subtle way) is cleared of all charges and placed in his cloned body. In short he has been set to a basic point where he won't seem completely unfamiliar to movie audiences should he appear in Iron man after the release of Iron Man 2. But to the comic.

I've loved Greg Pak's writing, for starters it is very obvious that he has read a lot of War Machine, perhaps more than me. Yes he may have got hold of that "tales of the Marvel universe" where Rhodey looses the Eidolon warwear. It's not referenced but I believe he has read it. The art was a little inconsistent but again used various flashes which referred back through War Machine's history. The story itself really brought out Jim's humanity, despite his cyborg nature in this series, whether it was his past love and old friend in Glenda and Parnell respective, or his relationship with his mother as seen in the first issue of this arc.

Overall it was a worthy run, and I look forward to seeing much more of War Machine after his upcoming big screen appearance.

Finally, this is covered very well on my good mate Reilly 2040s Blog Here.

Dark Reign: Young Avengers

This finished up a while ago and I thought a review was in order.

I’ve followed just about all of the Young Avengers stuff, but this one had me nervous. In true Dark Reign style, we were going to see an all new team of kids, who may not be as nice and wholesome as our first team. Indeed 4 of the 6 were named after villains (Melter, Enchantress, Egghead and executioner) while the other two Coat of Arms is a bit questionable and Big Zero is a neo Nazi.

It was quite a shift but be assured, the original Young Avengers turn up and a big fight, mentoring and rebellion ensue. It was a nice touch of Cornell to have the Young Avengers try and assess and recruit some of the new batch, and indeed the new set’s turn to Osborne was equally predictable when only one of them made the cut.

Cornell’s writing is good and I thing he made the most of having a big set of original characters to play with, although he wasn’t too shabby with the existing avengers or the dark avengers for that matter.

For me the stand out character was the new bacth’s leader, Melter. Cornell builds a great take on the old Marvel trope of powers being more of a curse, and Melter, we discover has killed many people, often by accident, in fact often by comedy accident, with his powers. This makes him not just reluctant but utterly terrified.

My main criticism would be the hint that Big Zero and Egghead are an alternate universe version of Stature and Vision which wasn’t followed up, but with rumours referring to this new team as the Young Masters, we may well see them appear in some shape or form in the future, and I’m interested enough t hope so.

Marvel Knights, Where are they now – Daredevil

Daredevil was the jewel in the Crown of the Marvel Knights launch line-up, arguably the title they’d put the most behind. The had a celebrity writer, Kevin Smith, before his name was tainted with the three crimes, The last few issues of Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil Men Do, the never to be finished Daredevil: Bullseye, which kept Bullseye out of use for anyone else for years and finally Jersey Girl. But no, this was the late 90s and we all still liked Kevin Smith. Art was by Joe Quesada who was head of the Marvel Knights line. This was to re-launch the man without fear, this was guardian Devil. To an extent it worked, but not straight away. Issue 1 treaded an uncomfortable line with decompressed storytelling and action, not really committing to either. However the story developed with Daredevil acting erratically and his life falling to pieces, we had guest appearances from Black Widow and Dr Strange, in short it was a pretty big story. Ultimately Mysterio would prove to be the villain (Although there was a definite supernatural feel for a while) in a story that had a terminal end for both Mysterio and Karen Page.

Overall it was a good first arc, followed up by some pretty strong storylines such as the introduction of Echo. Later Matt was “outed” and this story ran through Matt’s breakdown and eventual arrest. The breakdown story, where he briefly tried becoming the Kingpin to keep crime out of Hells kitchen, was part of a storming run by Brian Michael Bendis, closely followed by the equally good work of Ed Burbaker. I had to drop the title for financial reasons at the end of Devil in Cell block 9 story but overall, while it may have had dips in quality Daredevil has been strong ever since its Marvel Knights re-launch, perhaps one of the only titles to manage this. It has weathered the big events like Secret Invasion, Civil War and Dark Reign by keeping as much as possible to its own stories. This is perhaps its strength.

It is worth noting for Marvel Knights fans, that the two greatest sources for imagery in the Daredevil movie were Frank Miller’s legendary run and Guardian Devil. Daredevil’s continuing success is undoubtedly due to the time it was knighted.

Good Crossovers

I recently posted about war of kings, and I’d like to take a specific point form this. That point is how to run an event, specifically crossovers.

Marvel has been picking up some bad habits of late, namely the multi-title crossover, where the crossover runs through alternate issues of different titles. It can be done well, such as, in my opinion, The Hands of the mandarin crossover between Iron Man, War Machine and Force Works in the 90s. The titles were pretty closely linked and we had guest appearances quite often (And indeed at one point War Machine finished his story and put in a call to Force Works to take over), second Iron man was part of Force Works anyway and the issues were written so the Iron Man issues were Iron man Centred, War machine focused more on War Machine and so on, they all told the story and all featured the others, but it meant you weren’t picking up an issue of Force Works and wondering why War Machine was so prominent. Similarly, while I wasn’t keen the Peter David penned X-Factor/She Hulk crossover was annoying but at least the She-Hunk issues were mostly she-hulk.

Anyway, I digress. I generally hate this sort of crossover, it adds another title that I don’t want to buy, (Utopia X) or it pulls characters from their interesting ongoing plot to a pointless crossover (Magnum opus).

Marvel has managed to occasionally pull some really good crossovers. This is because to me, good crossovers are more like tie-ins. Take War of Kings (Although both Annihilation events showed the same restraint) so, on the face of it, you have what should be a tie in nightmare, 5 issue Limited series, with the Darkhawk/Ascension tie ins, the Kingbreaker prelude and tie ins from Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova. However, restraint was shown. Nova focused more on the Nova Corps battling the criminal imperial guard we saw assembled in Kingbreaker, however you didn’t need kingbreaker to let you know the status quo, Nova handled that. Similarly the Guardians of the Galaxy are involved with trying to stop the war, helping Liandra reach Shi-Ar space and stopping the spread of the tear, but this is contained perfectly in their own title. The best example is Ascension, where several things that tie in elsewhere happen, but none require the reading of ascension to understand. Why did Darkhawk assassinate Liandra? Read ascension for the why, but it has no real bearing on the War of Kings plot. Why is Blastaar suddenly in possession of the cosmic rod, again in Ascension, but it’s not a vital plot point.

This has not been contained to just the cosmic stuff though. The Initiative recently invaded the 42 prison facility which was taken over by Blastaar in GotG. All you needed to be told was the prison had fallen and needed to be taken back.

Finally we see this seep through to what is fast becoming one of the more bloated events this year Dark Reign. In thunderbolts we see Nick Fury gunned down, only at the end for fixer to reveal he was an LMD. There is an aside saying “For more see Secret Warriors” and sure enough we do, in secret warriors we find out that the escape was partially orchestrated by the secret warriors, and indeed that the LMD was piloted by Phobos, son of Ares. This leads to some resolution between Ares and Nick Fury which may have bearing on Ares actions in Dark Reign – The List: Secret Warriors, where he secures fury’s escape from avengers tower. This I like, you can follow extra plot threads if you like, but your reading experience isn’t ruined if you don’t follow up. Of course, marketing don’t like that because it doesn’t directly force someone to buy another comic, but I wonder, does this method generate more readers in the long run, will curiosity draw in readers where forcing turns them of?

War of Kings

Marvel’s other cosmic event has finally wrapped up (Ok I finally got out to buy comics) anyway it’s been quite a surprise, namely because its two run up titles (X-Men kingbreaker and Darkhawk) were a little lacklustre.

The story is of course about a second Kree/Shi-Ar war, only this time the Kree are lead by the Inhumans and their king Black Bolt, while the Shi-Ar are lead by Cyclops’s other other other brother, Vulcan. Also involved are the newly formed Nova Corps, the Guardians of the Galaxy and Darkhawk (or should I say Razor)

This was actually quite different to the Annihilation events, in that the tie ins told other aspects of the story leaving the main effectively a self contained story regarding the progress of the war as seen by Crystal from the Kree side and Gladiator from the Shi-Ar. The tie ins were of the good sort where they added to the story if you read Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy and Ascension, but didn’t detract from it if you didn’t, so Nova was really more about Rich’s battle with the out of control Worldmind/Ego and Guardians was half about their efforts to end the war diplomatically (With fun and disastrous results) and half about trying to avert the ultimate end to the war.

The end was spectacular, Black Bolt and Vulcan fight on a giant bomb, which eventually explodes tearing a huge hole in space, exactly as Adam warlock predicted. Warlock manages to stop its expansion but the cost is that he becomes his evil future self, The Magus, and at the cost of Phlya and Gamera, although I doubt they will stay dead.

We now have an interesting state of affairs to the cosmic marvel universe, namely there is an empire in chaos and a dirty great rip in space, Darkhawk is on the run as while under control of the Razor personality in his armour and the Nova Corps are back to severely reduced numbers (A nice touch is that all the new Novas are in trainee uniforms similar to rich’s old “Kid Nova” suit)

Overall it was good, well written with good art and really had the impression of a large scale galactic conflict. Tie ins were, as said before good but unintrusive and overall this was a good event, if lacking the “Galaxy is doomed” feel of the previous two, also a good example of how to run event tie-ins. Mainstream Marvel take note.

I had my fears about what spinoff we would get from this event; I feared it would be a Starjammers in the universal rule of no area of marvel must be without X-Men of some description, although Ch’od is brilliant. I’d have been happy with an Imperial Guard title or Inhumans, or a Darkhawk one. Instead we’re getting Realm of Kings.

Yes, from war of Kings comes Realm of kings, stuff is coming through the big space hole, and it looks like evil avengers. Fortunately we’re getting a couple of decent looking LS from it, Inhumans and Imperial guard. Not really happy about blundering into another event, but at least I don’t have another ongoing to pick up.

Timestorm 2009-2099

Well, this has ended, a 4 Part mini series (With 2 one shots) where Bryan Reed takes a shot at resurrecting the 2099 universe.

Initially I had high hopes for this, it looked more true to the original 2099 universe than Robert Kirkman’s Marvel Knights 2099, which had nothing to do with any previous 2099 save the date, however this series was badly disappointing.

I should at this point say, I was a huge Punisher 2099 fan, and really liked Spider-man 2099 under Peter David, and this looked kind of faithful. The plot centres on Alchemax sending the Punisher (Jake gallows, as nutball 2099 Punisher) back in time to supposedly kill off heroes. In fact he’s sending them to 2099.

This wasn’t quite the 2099 we used to know, it has the same people, and its corporate run, but in this world heroes are corporate mascots, the police are punisher themed for example. This is explained near the end, and we do get a brief glimpse of the real Doom and Punisher 2099. However the rest of this series was a pretty big disappointment. It is basically Spider and Wolverine in the future, but with a rather confusing time travel plot. What actually kills this series is its closeness to the original 2099. It feels tantalisingly close, so how have they got it so wrong, who decided to remake Spidey 2099 as a kid, and as a near carbon copy of the present day spidey? And who came up with an intriguing notion of a slight change to the 2099 universe, only to more or less use it only for backgrounds.

This is the real problem, it feels like setup, when what I wanted was my old 2099 universe back, and the setup of a new spidey 2099 who is markedly less unique and interesting than the original 2099 spidey, and a group of near enough X-men led by wolverine of the future just doesn’t wet my appetite at all.

In short, Reed obviously wanted to put his own stamp on this, but sadly it is too unique to be what I wanted, and too like the old universe to be something new (Which at least Kirkman’s one shots had in their favour)

Marvel, next time you want to do 2099, let peter David do it, in fact, bring back the first 2099 team.

Savage She-Hulk

Savage She-Hulk was always going to be a tough sell on me. See, I got into the character reading Dan Slott and then Peter David’s runs on the character, and was one of those who thought that David’s run was cut short. Then again I was also holding out for a Lady Liberators title. So when the announcement came of a new She-Hulk I was more than a little sceptical.

Savage She-Hulk concerns Lyra, daughter of the Hulk and Thundra, who has come from a possible alternate future to find Earth 616’s most powerful man.

So, first the good things, the art is good and it was nice to see the real She-Hulk turn up. Story wise, it was ok. We see some good Dark Reign style manoeuvring, Osborne wants to take in Lyra to show that he should be running ARMOUR (the group in charge of alternate universe incursions) the twist on Hulks powers is a neat touch, Lyra gets weaker the more angry she gets, and her tamagochi companion talking watch thing is quite funny in the first few panels but isn’t a laboured joke.

Downsides, well, she isn’t Jen. And that is more than a fanboy whine criticism, Jen was fun, Lyra is pretty serious, art wise they weren’t afraid to make Jen pretty muscular and near Amazonian, while Lyra is definitely aimed more towards the cheesecake market, a shame as Peter David really was aiming to make She-Hulk Marvel’s wonder woman (In fact what they were also trying to do with Ms Marvel). Mainly, I’m just not as interested in Lyra, even in the final panel setup where she is She-Hulk, agent of ARMOUR.

In isolation, the story is patchy, basically act 1, Lyra Vs generic agents, act 2, Lyra vs. She-Hulk, Acts 3&4 Lyra vs. Dark Avengers (Who get about a lot) and so it really is pretty much fights interspersed with flashbacks. There is some interest in the alternate, female led future however, where Osborne has become head of everything and started marketing super powered enhancements, earth females are all that’s left of civilisation while males are factioned into representatives of the male dark avengers.

In fact I think I’d have preferred a story with Lyra set in her alternate future, that way it would form more of a She-Hulk legacy as opposed to looking like trying to replace the existing character.

It doesn’t help that for the moment She-Hulk appears to be MIA, with rumours of a red She-hulk appearing means the future is uncertain for Jen, for once, let’s hope the reset button comes in and Lyra is consigned to a historical curiosity. Sorry Savage She-Hulk team, but you didn’t manage to turn me around.

Avengers: The Initiative #27

The Initiative was almost on my drop list, Until the Disassembled storyline finished and suddenly its proper Dark Reign story kicked in. However that's not what I want to talk about.

Issue #27 mainly features the new Shadow Initiative, now not the black ops squad but more of a suicide squad made up of expendables. The issue is split into two parts, part two concerns the Shadow Initiatives mission to take back the negative zone prison recently conquered by Blastaarr in Guardians of the Galaxy and their slow realisation that they are now cannon fodder. However the first part is a story that is up there with one of the Initiatives finest stories. Yes, Christos Gage has written his very own washout.

The story is written from diary entries by Johnny Guitar, chronicling his and his friend Doctor Sax's progress through the villainous underground to eventually join the Shadow Initiative. Who, well in their own words, they fought Dazzler once.

Yes, Johnny Guitar and Dr Sax are every bit as Z-List as their names suggest. Gague however makes us feel for them, two small town losers, wanting to play music for a living but who fall into a life of crime and eventual super-villainy to support their families. It actually gives you a look about how so many of these small time criminals might decide to make up a themed costume and get a kicking from Daredevil once a month. In fact, the "Big Time" villain who tells them both to try super villainy and indeed later join Osbourne's initiative is none other that Pete Petruski, aka the trpaster, or as most know him, Paste Pot Pete, arguably the biggest looser on Spider-Man's list of foes.

Overall its a touching character based story, and you know what, I think this type of thing, a story focused on one character and their time in the initiative, could be this titles real power. I'm not against its arc plots etc, but more stories like "Washout" and "Even the Losers" would be great.

Captain britain and MI13

I mentioned this in my “Great titles you’re not reading Damnit” post a while back. Well it’s now gone. Final issue was out a while ago and I’m now blogging about this series as a whole.

Paul Cornell did a cracking job and produced 3 great stories but sadly the comic wasn’t creating enough momentum and lacked the wolverine factor that marvel requires these days (Bitter joke, sorry, try not to let it happen again)

Anyway, it was interesting to see Cornell’s take on captain Britain, really making him up to be our premier hero, and indeed how he expanded other characters, making pete wisdom a tactical genius, working wonders with Blade and spitfire and introducing a brand new character who really worked her way into my affections. All this in a comic based more around fighting magical foes than standard superheroics.

Ok, last issue was rushed, like he was desperately trying to tie up loose ends, indeed like the rug had been pulled out, but Cornell really did a fine job wrapping up plot threads and getting everyone to a satisfactory place. He also got in a good bunch of marvel UK cameos (Surprise Appearance, Yes)

I’ll Miss Captain Britain, for all it was an American comic for an American market, it felt British, it felt like one of ours, and in the current comics market, that’s a rare thing.

War Machine in Iron man 2 Teaser

The CDCC footage of Iron Man 2 has been leaked, War Machine is confirmed. I have my reservations, but can't help being excited that I get to see War Machine on the big screen. It shows teh faith I have in Favereau to do the character justice.

I hope my faith is not misplaced, roll on Iron Man 2

Thunderbolts 137 Solicit

Well, this image has me very excited. Very excited indeed. It is the solicit for Thunderbolts 137 and it looks like 3 of the original Thunderbolts are back.

I hope this is some sort of plot where Songbird recruits some old friends to help her in her current battle with the existing T-Bolts, and most improtantly, that it isn't some dark avengers malarky where Thunderbolts have dressed up as Mach IV and Fixer as part of a plot.

Still, count me very interested

Deadpool/Thunderbolts - Magnum Opus

Thought I'd post a few opinions regarding the recent Deadpool Thunderolts crossover. Now, I dislike this sort of crossover, as I pointed out in the post regarding the upcoming Dark Avengers/X-men crossover, I don't like having to pick up titles that I don't normally pick up to get a whole story. Put it in one title or the other. That said at least I currently pick up Deadpool and Thunderbolts.

The story is based around Deadpool trying to blackmail Norman Osbourne over the information Deadpool provided that was instrumental in allowing Osbourne to get the kill shot during Secret Invasion and hence how he cemented his position of power. Osbourne sends in his new Thunderbolts team to silence the Merc with a mouth.

This was actually a very good fun story, definitely helping me to warm to the new deadpool creative team who have been a little lukewarm of late. It has good art, everyone is recognisable and at no point do layouts become confused.

My main gripe, and its quite a big one, is that this is a Deadpool story, as in, Deadpool front and centre for 90% of the time. This isn't a bad thing, but Thunderbolts has literally finished its first arc, in fact one of the team is still to be introduced and we still know very little about Headsman beyond he has a big axe. What gets to me as a Thunderbolts reader is that for two issues I learn nothing more than Black Widow II has a fairly odd taste in men (Although the romance between her and wade was brilliant) but really, if I didn't read Deadpool I'd really be wondering why the team I'm paying good money to follow are sidelined so soon into their run for two issues. This is the main problem, it shows Magnum Opus for what it really is, a marketing ploy. It is being used to promote both titles when really what we should have had was 4 issues of deadpool guest starring the Thunderbolts, you could even put a little boxout in Thunderbolts to alert readers that the new team would feature in Deadpool. Instead T-Bolts is stalled before it gets started by an unnecessary crossover which I think is unfair to a title that when not involved in pointless marketing gimmicks is looking to be very interesting indeed.

So, to round up, if you buy this story in a trade, I reckon there is a lot to like and not much to dislike. Similarly if you're a deadpool fan then you're only real qualm will be forking over for 2 more issues than normal, however for Thunderbolts fans you will be left wondering hwy you had to read a Deadpool story rather than get on with the unfolding events in the title you'd paid for.

New Avengers: The Reunion

This was a title I really swithered on Picking up. See, I'm a big hawkeye fan, but not so much a fan of Clint Barton: Ronin. That and I'm really trying to cut down my buying. Still I eventually cracked and decided to take a look at this mini focusing on Ronin and his previously thought dead wife Bobbi Morse, aka Mockingbird.

The plot focuses mainly on Mockingbird, suffering Post traumatic stress from her long capture by the skrulls and now running a covert group of ex-SHIELD agents hunting down AIM. Clint Barton decides to tag along.

Overall it was a good series, well written and with some nice action/character pieces. Centre was Mockingbirds uneasiness of restarting a relationship with Barton, mainly because just before she was snatched she was going to divorce hawkeye, but her Skrull replacement continued the marriage.

Overall there is some sharp dialogue and the art is nice, if nothing else the artist has a ball drawing Bobbi Morse in a variety of different Mockingbird costumes, from a full bodysuit update to an evening dress version. Similarly Barton tends to use a bow and arrow and wear blue and purple more than use nunchucks and wear black and yellow.

Overall a good wee read, and sets up how Clint and Bobbi are now in New avengers.