Tpull's Weekly Marvel Comics Review – Part Two

Avengers/Invaders 11

by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, and Steve Sadowski

Awesome cover by Alex Ross showing the Marvel villains of WW II. Inside, it’s too late for Union Jack and Spitfire, so the heroes really need to set time straight to put everything back the way it should be. There are too many characters to give everybody sufficient screen time, but they manage to squeeze in a ton of character bits, especially the relevant ones, such as wondering about tampering with time, Bucky’s question on what to do, and Toro’s slip about dying.

The Red Skull is imposing with his cosmic cube, and he permits the golden age Vision to hang around and observe events. Somehow, the Red Skull works better here than he does over in Wolverine. One problem with having so many titles, there is a little bit of villain overlap going on, more than there used to be. We just have to ignore it and plow ahead. Only one issue left for this. Somehow I feel there could have been more here, but they chose to go with a classic cosmic cube/Red Skull plot and time travel, so that left little room for too many other things that might have been more interesting. I still enjoy it, though.

Guardians of the Galaxy 14

by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Brad Walker

Adam Warlock faces off against Vulcan, who is just about as unhinged as he can possibly get by now. Bet you the entire Imperial Guard is nervous whenever he walks into the room. The story jumps off the deep end a little bit, as Phyla decides to go all aggressive against the Inhumans. She has never displayed this lack of composure before, and it really looks like bad writing. Crystal tries to be the voice of reason and protect the Guardians, but Phyla… takes Crystal hostage?!? Doesn’t cosmic awareness come with an kind of common sense?

The confluence of events brings the two Guardians teams back to Knowhere, followed by both the Imperial Guard and the Inhumans. Hey, the gang’s all here! The art is superb, but Phyla’s antics are really out of place, and it makes me dislike the character. I hope they come up with some reason for this, such as alien possession, because otherwise it’s an artificial device to move the plot forward, and sloppy. It’s the first time I haven’t liked what DnA have done.

The Immortal Iron Fist 26

by Duane Swierczynski and Travel Foreman

The story finally plods to a conclusion, and at this point, I’m losing interest. There is so much potential to showcase other versions, earlier versions of Iron Fist, but the first Iron Fist has tricked them into opening the gate and getting out. Turns out innocents were being thrown into the mystical prison, and K’un-Lun has some embarrassing history. The problem is three-fold: art, story, and repetition. While much can be said for Foreman’s art, his rendition of the Immortal Weapons is insufficient; they deserve to be easily identified and imposing, but the thin figures, small frames, and lack of detail make even Fat Cobra appear small.

The story itself is decompressed, with this entire issue feeling like a paint-by-numbers thing. Iron Fist finds himself on opposite sides, fighting Davos yet again. In order for us to keep interest in this second-tier hero, there needs to be something fresh. Instead, we’re stuck with Davos? The whole thing feels like it’s abut to end in tone, and #27 will in fact be the final issue. Swierczynski’s pace is about as slow over in the Cable title, too. He needs to pick up the pace!

Incredible Hercules 129

by Greg Pak, Fred van Lente, and Ryan Stegman

The recap page is fun, and Hercules takes a trip to the underworld via a casino, where tons of dead people hang out waiting to try their chance at getting a second shot. The casino is a cover for the edges of the underworld, and with Pluto hanging out on Earth, Hades has a lot of people slipping the noose. We get to see all sorts of currently-dead characters like Cypher, Puck, Wasp, Banshee, etc. Stegman’s art is good, but not overwhelmingly so.

Pak is comfortable when using mythology as a base for his stories, we know, but Herc’s exchange with Charon was hilarious. The setup leaves us with a situation again, but one that fits in well with the Pak/van Lente light-hearted style approach to the overall atmosphere of the comic. At the end, we find that the object of their rescue, Zeus, is held tightly by Pluto, and a trial of sorts for either Hercules or Zeus will be held next issue. I’ll be there, I’m hooked.

Nova 25

by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Kevin Sharpe

War of Kings is selling very well, so I’m a little surprised that Nova is nowhere near that mini-series on the sales charts. Kevin Sharpe steps in for some cool art, and the inkers are great. Richard spends all of his time working on trying to fix the whole Ego/Worldmind problem, and manages to get the personality of Ko-rel to appear. Ko-rel is the female alien that became Nova for a couple issues before she got killed. Richard is forced to lobotomize Ego to free Worldmind, but the personality program has been corrupted. When it is reestablished, the personality base is that of Ko-rel! It’s a nice surprise, and makes another small movement forward of change, combined with surprise that delights.

Not only does Richard get hispowers back, but Robbie has questioned the overall tactics and gone to rescue the captive Nova Corps members from the Shi’ar, with an amusing Qubit by his side. At the end, we have an appearance by Garthan Saal! Wasn’t he dead?

Wolverine 72

by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven

Okay, let’s rush past the scheduling snafu and just ignore the nonsense. The issue itself is here, and McNven’s art is good. We all know this. Worth waiting for? Debatable, but I understand they wanted this project to have his familiar style for the complete journey. The Red Skull is in charge, and in a scene reminiscent of Hulk’s Future Imperfect, he is lording it over trophies of dispatched heroes, including wearing the Captain America uniform. Creepy.

Logan is healing, but not as quickly as he used to do. He has a battle royale with the Skull, and it’s a fun, grisly fight. I have no idea where the pieces of the Iron Man suit get their power, but I just try to ignore that part, because Millar tends to be short on those details anyway. His attempt to pay off the Hulk family is still tragically insufficient, as his deadline to get the funds to them has been shortened by boredom. Maybe if the issue had come out a month ago, on schedule? Sorry, I said we would skip past that, didn’t I? It’s just a little too ironic.

Next issue is part 2 of the already-out continuation from issue #73, and this Old Man Logan storyline will finish in a giant-sized (probably over-priced) special. Sigh. Just like Marvel to jerk us around and then charge us extra for it. I’m not sure it’s worth it. Hopefully the people patient enough to wait for these in trade format won’t have to put up with the nonsense.

Wolverine: First Class 15

by Peter David and Scott Koblish

When Peter David first took over the writing chores, I was less than impressed. He turns it around quick, though, and I thoroughly enjoyed this issue. Scott Koblish’s art emphasizes the eyeballs for expressions, and his style fits the atmosphere very well. Kitty is trying to impress the girls at her school (even though I thought she was entirely tutored at Xavier’s estate during that time), and her big mouth has made a bet to have Thor drop by. Small problem, she doesn’t know Thor.

Logan decides ultimately to help her out, and Ulik shows up to stomp on Thor at one of Thor’s announced appearances. For a change, Ulik has actually tried to think about things ahead of time, and has a magnetic shield that attracts Thor’s hammer. Ulik has a brain? Who’d have thunk it? Kitty finds herself in the perfect place to help Don Blake recover his wooden stick to get backing the game while wolverine distracts Ulik. Of course, Thor shows up at the school at the end, giving us our “aww shucks” moment. It’s cheesy, but the good kind of expected cheesy, and a lot of fun.

X-Force 15

by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, and Clayton Crain

Every page is too dark, and we have to sit through the Warpath/Stryfe/Bishop fighting over Hope. Vanisher gives us a disturbing picture of throwing up that I didn’t need to see, and the rest of X-Force is pretty useless. Meanwhile, Warren is stuck transforming back and forth into Archangel, which feels like a blatant stalling attempt, because the writers couldn’t figure out how to get everyone to their assigned places on time without resorting to this. It’s like Kyle and Yost have spent so much time writing animated movies, they’ve forgotten how to make a genuine comic story.

The CGI art has a ton of the page eaten up by the color black, so much so that I don’t enjoy much of what I can see. I can’t wait for the Stryfe rerun to dry up so the team can move on to something else. Oh my goodness, but I was bored by this. I’ve seen much better by everyone involved on every other title, why is this so bad? Someone will have to tell me how this is selling well. Is the nostalgia for the X-force name really that strong?

X-Men: Legacy 224

by Mike Carey and Scot Eaton

Now this is more like it. Only three mutants on the page, Xavier, Gambit and Rogue, but the story feels very full indeed. Danger helps to convince the Shi’ar pirates to abandon their plan and take off, and then Danger comes to an armistice of sorts with Xavier. Then, they combine efforts to heal Rogue. Finally! Eaton’s artwork seems subdued compared to a lot of his previous work, but it’s still pretty good. I’m greedy, I always want his absolute best work.

The true test of control comes when Rogue kisses Gambit, and doesn’t automatically steal his memories and powers. Finally!!!! I imagine there are a ton of happy Rogue fans at the moment, now that she has gotten a decent turn in the spotlight, and finally gotten a chance to get some control over her abilities. This has been the best treatment of her in years, and I can only hope some good writer can capitalize on the momentum Carey has given her character. Another solid story.

Tpull is Travis Pullen. He started reading comics at 5 years old, and he can't seem to stop.

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