Tpull's Weekly Marvel Comics Review – Part Two
Dark Reign: Fantastic Four 5
by Jonathan Hickman and Sean Chen
This final episode feels rushed. I mean, pages two and three are a two-page spread of Osborn pointing a gun, and there’s almost nothing on the third page. Forget all of the neat things in the Baxter Building, we just get square floors and blank walls. Artistically, this has been one big disappointment. I remember how great Sean Chen’s work used to be, and the simplicity of his stock faces and the severe lack of attention to detail is painful. What happened to someone who was on track to become one of Marvel’s superstars? I mean, how many panels can we look at with nothing but square floor panels, or blank, drab ceilings?
The story is a little better, with Franklin ‘shooting’ Osborn, but a real bullet wound comes from a play gun, hinting at a little power activation going on. Osborn backs down surprisingly easy, considering all of the force he brought to bear with him, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. We also have a new issue which might divide the camps of fandom: Reed lies to Sue. The first lie is when he hides the fact that he has broken through to a convention of wise people who went through the same process he did. The second lie is when he dismantles the device, but reassembles it.
In the end we’re sort of side-stepping the Millar/Hitch run and going back to the end of the McDuffy run, revisiting the idea #101, “solve everything.” Hickman will take over the regular series with Dale Eaglesham on pencils, and we will perhaps see more of Reed’s involvement with/reaction to the events that he was partially responsible for ushering in the Dark Reign. The concept here was a good one, but it was like one issue too long, a little too much filler, and a big letdown from an artist I know can do so much better.
House of M: Masters of Evil 1
by Christos N. Gage and Manuel Garcia
Okay, I wasn’t going to buy this one at first. However, I couldn’t resist taking a peek. The House of M has been a fun universe to visit, Garica is a solid artist, and I like Gage’s writing more often than not. By the time I was done looking at it, I decided I should just purchase the whole thing.
The variation is subtle: the Hood is still bringing together a bunch of thieves and super-villains for profit, but organized against the mutant overlords this time. You get a bigger, better sense from Parker Robbins that he is stepping out on a huge limb, and unsure if he can make it work. He’s a small guy with big ambitions, and even when he has everything go right, the mother of his child still shows him… he can’t do anything the right way for her, for them to be a family.
The combination makes for an excellent one, as we can sympathize with his family troubles, and even get behind him a little bit more than in the regular Marvel universe, as here the mutant oppressors give them a little more righteousness in their rebellion, even if it is just more of an excuse so they can be crooks. The planning and clever interaction of the villains using their powers for teamwork is also a step up from most books on the stands, and shows that Gage and company have thought things through a little farther; that kind of cleverness is appreciated, and marks this as one of Gage’s better projects. Every member of the art team does great, and hammers home the qualities I appreciate in a good inker, since I’m getting tired of seeing half these artists ink their own work, and most of it not coming out so well.
Reborn 2
by Ed Brubaker, Bryan Hitch and Butch Guice
The Hitch/Guice combination works wonders, even if it’s not perfect on every page. It’s still a great combination, with a lot of ‘venue’ changes as the story moves throughout time and locations. Brubaker is the conductor, ordering each part to play together to form a masterpiece. I don’t want to make the series more than it is, because as I mentioned, it’s not like every single panel is gold as far as the art goes, I can see room for improvement. It’s not as if the story is the best one I have read in months or anything like that.
Still, there area lot of moving parts to this plot, and Brubaker is a master at showing us Steve’s plight, shifting to Bucky-Cap’s efforts that reflect the latest developments of the Dark Reign meta-story, and weaving the Fantastic Four, Osborn, AND Crossbones and Sin into the fabric. In the meantime, we have a dramatic repeat of Steve Roger’s origin that reminds us of the title yet refreshes us for his beginnings. At the same time, we feel his trapped frustration, caught in a time-trap and forced to move like a puppet, doomed to always be too slow to save the life of the man who was responsible for enabling him to be the hero he has become.
Osborn again demonstrates that he has WAY too much knowledge, and he seems to have a new super-power: the ability to translate his knowledge into leverage over pretty much any character in the universe at any given moment. A solid result, making for a great read.
Ultimatum: Fantastic Four Requiem 1
by Joe Pokaski and Robert Atkins
The softness of the cover and the fact that Ultimatum is pretty much over could have hinted that this last hurrah for the Ultimate FF would not amount to much. Still, I wanted to see how things would close out on this team, since I enjoyed much of their series. Joe Pokaski has done reasonably well with them in the past, and the final judgment is that this was a nice sendoff to this team.
We go back in time long enough to see the Storms’ father die, and to get the full story of how Johnny came to be enslaved by Dormammu. The tempting of Mole Man by Sue to rejoin the rest of humanity and work for positive goals was nicely done, and full of hope.
Atkins does rather well in the art chores, helped by Mark Morales on pencils. Dormammu was fun to watch, and the gap in the final issue of Ultimatum is filled in next, with a long conversation that explains how responsible Reed feels, and laying the foundation for Doctor Doom’s involvement and Ben’s subsequent decision that tells us why he had to be the one to kill Doom. We get to see each one of this foursome make a decision and move to a certain point. Whatever happens next, wherever we might see one or more of these characters again in the Ultimate universe, this was a good place to end this chapter of their lives, and Pokaski and company did an excellent job telling us this much-needed part of the story.
Tpull is Travis Pullen. He started reading comics at 5 years old, and he can't seem to stop.
I disagree with you this time, Travis, as the Ultimatum FF was hugely dissappointing. Who cares about the death of the Storm's father? That was all that happened for $3.99?
They left us hanging, promised much more, and wasted our time & money.
-- Posted by: TonyJazz at August 10, 2009 12:03 PM