Tpull's Weekly Marvel Comics Review – Part 1

February 27, 2010 10:46 PM | Comments:

The Amazing Spider-Man 622

by Fred Van Lente and Joe Quinones

Simone Bianchi gives us a great-looking cover, but the inside art is a bit of a let-down, by comparison. We open up with Peter in bed with the Black Cat, keeping only his mask on. When the editorial powers-that-be were talking about the old classic stories that made Spidey great, it was calling to mind the fact that he had problems we could relate to, and that he was always having lady problems. The ditching of his marriage now evidently means that all the old rules are out the window, and Peter Parker is firmly a modern dude, hooking up with chicks left and right. That’s fine, except don’t keep trying to tell us this is classic Spider-Man, Quesada. The old Peter Parker never had this many hook-ups with so many different women. I’m sure Mephisto is cackling with glee at how messed up Spidey’s life is right now, having relations with his roommate, the Black Cat, and still flirting with the lady cop and his fellow reporter. Ooh, Mephisto is so evil!!!!

The Black Cat has already betrayed him by selling his blood, and instead of breaking up with her, he treats it as a moment of “Lucy, you got some ‘splaining to do!” He goes to an underground club and immediately runs into the villain of this issue, so that was pretty easy. She effortlessly hypnotizes him into opening up about what he’s looking for, and he is kept supernaturally calm about all of it. This entrancement doesn’t interfere with any of his abilities, but it does keep effect as he breaks into Morbius’ lab later.

The lady is the vampire Martine, who has been stalking Morbius, but evidently she needs to be “invited” in to a place to cross the threshold, and mentally commanding Spidey to invite her in is a convenient enough loophole that it makes you wonder why she was lounging around in an underground club, when she could probably get any number of people to do a B&E and then invite her in. The art is a mess, with the interior of the clinic being massive, filled with no patients, but a Morbius sleeping upside down in what looks like a long corridor with multiple doors. Elsewhere, they look like steel-shuttered windows. The backgrounds fade to nothing often, with Spidey often looking ridiculous. Moribus defeats/kills Martine, then smashes Spidey’s blood, admitting he didn’t have any right to it. Then Spidey rolls up his sleeve for the good cause and allows Morbius to take his blood anyway. I didn’t like much of this story.

The backup story is much better, focusing on Flash Thompson and how he is coping with his lack of legs. Greg Wesiman writes and Luke Ross does the art, and I wish Luke Ross could have done the entire issue. We do not see a mention of the comment that Chameleon made to Flash when disguised as Peter Parker a while back, so perhaps an apology or something took place off-screen. They do mix up “your” and “you’re” once, but Flash has arrived at the obvious conclusion we all would when living in a world with supers: maybe he can get cybernetic implants or powers and walk again. With the help of some friends, he gets over it in short order and goes back to the harder work of finding his balance and strength with more regular prosthetics. It’s much more meaningful than the regular story.

And what part of this is supposed to be an aspect of the Gauntlet? Are the bad guys going to recruit Morbius? What the heck are they doing?

Fantastic Four 576

by Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham

Hickman manages to capture a lot of the core of this group: the exploratory nature of the group, heading to a previously hidden frontier, the good-natured back-and-froth between Ben and Johnny, and even the flashy cockiness of Johnny, showing up in Antarctica walking around in flaming shorts, shirt open to the wind.

The group encounters three new races, fighting off a group of grunts from A.I.M. before being ushered in to greet the three races. The battle sequence with A.I.M. takes place underwater, in a thermal vent that makes hearing hard, so we get about a dozen pages without dialogue, just some sound effects. It works well, and Susan steps up to act as the primary liaison between mankind and these races who identify themselves as part of Atlantis, but the larger part of Atlantis (basically the entire sea). A text page epilogue identifies the races and mentions Sue has sent a message to Namor to get all of them together.

Hickman cleverly lays the explanation for Sue being the main point of contact earlier in the story, as Reed explains to the lead scientist at the Antarctic station that Sue is the one who handles the day-to-day operations. Reed is always cooped up in the lab, running his experiments and crunching numbers to handle more mundane logistics. Unspoken is that Sue’s semi-awkward relationship with Namor might provide more of an opening for discussion than would otherwise happen.

The issue flows fast, such that it feels like not much happens. On the contrary, they managed to fight off the bad guys, uncover three new races living side by side, and open diplomatic relations with them. It may actually feel a bit rushed, with too much time spent on the silent fight, and not enough covering things like communication and differences in culture. Still, this is obviously the opening gambit in a new storyline for the FF, and it is all gorgeously rendered by Eaglesham.

The Marvels Project 6

by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting

More snippets are shown to us, with Hammond finding Toro and seeing him light up for the first time, and John Steele catching up with the Red Skull to see the conspiracy between him and the Atlantean Merrano. Namor’s invasion shows a lot of the fledgling mystery men coming together to help out with damage relief, and Captain America steps forward to stand with the Human torch over Namor’s unconscious form. Epting’s art is grandiose when it needs to be, and detailed into the weeds on other pages, demonstrating a great range of ability.

The theme of the book seems to have been lost in this rendered history, with less emphasis, less detail, on bringing together the disparate elements of the different projects to create super-soldiers. That little thread has been overshadowed by the momentous import of these three characters coming to assemble. I’m not sure if it has turned out better or worse, or if they will bring it back with the last two issues, but either way it’s a fun read.

Realm of Kings: Inhumans 4

by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Pablo Raimondi

The Inhumans assemble to counter the mad Maximus, and Crystal points out that they do it to themselves, constantly trusting him to reform, only to be betrayed time and time again. Raimondi does well with the art, giving us some good viewpoints and exciting fights. They still manage to squeeze in some romance, with crystal kissing Ronan to help snap him out of a mental fugue, from an attack by Maximus.

The ending is a bit of a surprise, and hopefully this review is posted late enough in the week not to spoil things, but read no further if you still want to be surprised.

Just when Maximus is cornered, Lockjaw teleports Karnak in with Medusa, and Medusa declares that Maximus has been performing all of these actions under her orders. I did NOT see that coming. It’s nice to see DnA still managing to give us some interesting cliffhangers after all this time, and doing it much better, in ways that have less of a cliché feel than most other writers. The craftsmanship of their storytelling is a notch above most sagas, and I like the execution of the cosmic section of the Marvel universe.

X-Factor 202

by Peter David and Bing Cansino

Long story short, a Doctor Doom from a parallel dimension took possession of that world’s Reed Richards, then somehow hopped over to “our” dimension. This world’s Doom agreed to a team-up of sorts, kidnapping Sue to keep her away from the fake Reed, though. Monet springs Sue from a mental trap, the real Reed leads Madrox’s group back to the castle to join the attack, and Thing rushes in on Doom… painting a picture of Layla, who stopped by to fill him in on some stuff about the future.

Doom nonchalantly lets Sue and Layla go back with the others, and nobody seems to care that he was in on the alternate-Doom’s plan from the start. Nobody tries to bring him to justice or chastise him for his part in the charade. The Doom/Reed gets his head chopped off when Monet kisses Shatterstar, distracting him and closing the portal, which closes down right on Doom/Reed's neck. This leaves Layla and Shatterstar back in Latveria with the real Doom.

The art goes really funky, with Doom saying goodbye to Layla, but although she has the ‘M’ on her face, her hair and jacket suddenly look like Monet. So while it looks like it’s Monet kissing Shatterstar on the panel later, it is most likely supposed to be Layla. It takes a few moments to figure out, and chalk it up to poor communication to the artist, maybe? I haven’t seen that kind of sloppiness in quite a while. But why is Shatterstar just sitting on the steps, hanging out in Doom’s castle at the end? Can he not open another portal? Is he a captive, or just a guest for a little while longer? The story feels forced to a conclusion, and an awkward one at that.

X-Force 24

by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, and Clayton Crain

Yawn. Normal lack of background, static figures done CGI-style, nothing to see here. Selene finally kills Eliphas, and the X-Force team is the only group sent in to settle all of this. Why not the entire group of mutants? I mean, their entire island was invaded, they know Selene is a serious threat. I know I would be taking everyone I could along with me, but the book is called X-Force, so miraculously, the only people sent in to fix everything are X-Force members, including Rahne, who just gave birth! That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

The art is just as dark as last time, leaving me squinting, trying to make sense out of several panels. X-Force slices their way through untold zombies effortlessly, just forget about how troublesome they were for the past few issues when invading Utopia. Here on their home ground, they are easily chopped up and disposed of. Warpath shows up after Selene has absorbed all of these souls, tipped off by his dead brother on how to beat her.

Necrosha is already over everywhere else in the Marvel universe, and I am bored to tears. There is none of the emotional impact that Blackest Night has, and the art is deplorable. Crain spends way too much time on his computer playing tricks with the colors without giving us enough meat to understand the action on the page. I feel no concern for any of these characters, and the only one to die is the throwaway Eliphas, the one that we all knew would die. They will beat Selene next issue, but will we get even one token death out of all of this?

X-Men: Legacy 233

by Mike Carey and Clay Mann

Yet again, Mike Carey makes better use out of the lousy Necrosha than the regular crew does. Rogue sees that Trance is free as a result of Psylocke’s psi-blade, so Rogue goes to free Psylocke next. By the time she is done, Proteus is down to possessing Blindfold only. Magneto manages to analyze and control the energy that forms the substance of Proteus, and finally extracts it from Blindfold and disperse it. They stumble back to their plane with Magneto announcing that Proteus will manage to come back some day.

Carey gives us a good scene between Destiny and Rogue, providing more characterization in two pages than two entire issues of X-Force. He also reminds us of the old relationship that Magneto had once with Rogue, and a little in-flight humor about exploding X-Men planes. Clay Mann focuses on the people and the action, but as appealing as it is, the background really gets short thrift the entire comic. He does put some effort into the waves during the calm scenes. The overall strength of this comic, though, is that Carey manages to keep the focus on Rogue, but still showcases many other mutants in a good way, all while using great moments of continuity to improve the story.

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

Sorry so late in the week, between viruses on my computer and me catching a virus, I’ve been operating at reduced capacity! Meanwhile, the new publishing schedule this ear has a ton of comics coming out one week, while less than half of that coming out the next.\n\n The Amazing Spider-Man 622 \n\n by Fred Van Lente and Joe Quinones \n\nSimone Bianchi gives us a great-looking cover, but the inside art is a bit of a let-down, by comparison. We open up with Peter in bed with the Black Cat, keeping only his mask on. When the editorial powers-that-be were talking about the old classic stories that made Spidey great, it was calling to mind the fact that he had problems we could relate to, and that he was always having lady problems. The ditching of his marriage now evidently means that all the old rules are out the window, and Peter Parker is firmly a modern dude, hooking up with chicks left and right. That’s fine, except don’t keep trying to tell us this is classic Spider-Man, Quesada. The old Peter Parker never had this many hook-ups with so many different women. I’m sure Mephisto is cackling with glee at how messed up Spidey’s life is right now, having relations with his roommate, the Black Cat, and still flirting with the lady cop and his fellow reporter. Ooh, Mephisto is so evil!!!!\n\nThe Black Cat has already betrayed him by selling his blood, and instead of breaking up with her, he treats it as a moment of “Lucy, you got some ‘splaining to do!” He goes to an underground club and immediately runs into the villain of this issue, so that was pretty easy. She effortlessly hypnotizes him into opening up about what he’s looking for, and he is kept supernaturally calm about all of it. This entrancement doesn’t interfere with any of his abilities, but it does keep effect as he breaks into Morbius’ lab later.\n\nThe lady is the vampire Martine, who has been stalking Morbius, but evidently she needs to be “invited” in to a place to cross the threshold, and mentally commanding Spidey to invite her in is a convenient enough loophole that it makes you wonder why she was lounging around in an underground club, when she could probably get any number of people to do a B&E and then invite her in. The art is a mess, with the interior of the clinic being massive, filled with no patients, but a Morbius sleeping upside down in what looks like a long corridor with multiple doors. Elsewhere, they look like steel-shuttered windows. The backgrounds fade to nothing often, with Spidey often looking ridiculous. Moribus defeats/kills Martine, then smashes Spidey’s blood, admitting he didn’t have any right to it. Then Spidey rolls up his sleeve for the good cause and allows Morbius to take his blood anyway. I didn’t like much of this story.\n\nThe backup story is much better, focusing on Flash Thompson and how he is coping with his lack of legs. Greg Wesiman writes and Luke Ross does the art, and I wish Luke Ross could have done the entire issue. We do not see a mention of the comment that Chameleon made to Flash when disguised as Peter Parker a while back, so perhaps an apology or something took place off-screen. They do mix up “your” and “you’re” once, but Flash has arrived at the obvious conclusion we all would when living in a world with supers: maybe he can get cybernetic implants or powers and walk again. With the help of some friends, he gets over it in short order and goes back to the harder work of finding his balance and strength with more regular prosthetics. It’s much more meaningful than the regular story.\n\nAnd what part of this is supposed to be an aspect of the Gauntlet? Are the bad guys going to recruit Morbius? What the heck are they doing?\n\n\n Fantastic Four 576 \n\n by Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham \n\nHickman manages to capture a lot of the core of this group: the exploratory nature of the group, heading to a previously hidden frontier, the good-natured back-and-froth between Ben and Johnny, and even the flashy cockiness of Johnny, showing up in Antarctica walking around in flaming shorts, shirt open to the wind.\n\nThe group encounters three new races, fighting off a group of grunts from A.I.M. before being ushered in to greet the three races. The battle sequence with A.I.M. takes place underwater, in a thermal vent that makes hearing hard, so we get about a dozen pages without dialogue, just some sound effects. It works well, and Susan steps up to act as the primary liaison between mankind and these races who identify themselves as part of Atlantis, but the larger part of Atlantis (basically the entire sea). A text page epilogue identifies the races and mentions Sue has sent a message to Namor to get all of them together.\n\nHickman cleverly lays the explanation for Sue being the main point of contact earlier in the story, as Reed explains to the lead scientist at the Antarctic station that Sue is the one who handles the day-to-day operations. Reed is always cooped up in the lab, running his experiments and crunching numbers to handle more mundane logistics. Unspoken is that Sue’s semi-awkward relationship with Namor might provide more of an opening for discussion than would otherwise happen.\n\nThe issue flows fast, such that it feels like not much happens. On the contrary, they managed to fight off the bad guys, uncover three new races living side by side, and open diplomatic relations with them. It may actually feel a bit rushed, with too much time spent on the silent fight, and not enough covering things like communication and differences in culture. Still, this is obviously the opening gambit in a new storyline for the FF, and it is all gorgeously rendered by Eaglesham.\n\n\n The Marvels Project 6 \n\n by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting \n\nMore snippets are shown to us, with Hammond finding Toro and seeing him light up for the first time, and John Steele catching up with the Red Skull to see the conspiracy between him and the Atlantean Merrano. Namor’s invasion shows a lot of the fledgling mystery men coming together to help out with damage relief, and Captain America steps forward to stand with the Human torch over Namor’s unconscious form. Epting’s art is grandiose when it needs to be, and detailed into the weeds on other pages, demonstrating a great range of ability.\n\nThe theme of the book seems to have been lost in this rendered history, with less emphasis, less detail, on bringing together the disparate elements of the different projects to create super-soldiers. That little thread has been overshadowed by the momentous import of these three characters coming to assemble. I’m not sure if it has turned out better or worse, or if they will bring it back with the last two issues, but either way it’s a fun read.\n\n\n Realm of Kings: Inhumans 4 \n\n by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Pablo Raimondi \n\nThe Inhumans assemble to counter the mad Maximus, and Crystal points out that they do it to themselves, constantly trusting him to reform, only to be betrayed time and time again. Raimondi does well with the art, giving us some good viewpoints and exciting fights. They still manage to squeeze in some romance, with crystal kissing Ronan to help snap him out of a mental fugue, from an attack by Maximus.\n\nThe ending is a bit of a surprise, and hopefully this review is posted late enough in the week not to spoil things, but read no further if you still want to be surprised.\n\nJust when Maximus is cornered, Lockjaw teleports Karnak in with Medusa, and Medusa declares that Maximus has been performing all of these actions under her orders. I did NOT see that coming. It’s nice to see DnA still managing to give us some interesting cliffhangers after all this time, and doing it much better, in ways that have less of a cliché feel than most other writers. The craftsmanship of their storytelling is a notch above most sagas, and I like the execution of the cosmic section of the Marvel universe.\n\n\n X-Factor 202 \n\n by Peter David and Bing Cansino \n\nLong story short, a Doctor Doom from a parallel dimension took possession of that world’s Reed Richards, then somehow hopped over to “our” dimension. This world’s Doom agreed to a team-up of sorts, kidnapping Sue to keep her away from the fake Reed, though. Monet springs Sue from a mental trap, the real Reed leads Madrox’s group back to the castle to join the attack, and Thing rushes in on Doom… painting a picture of Layla, who stopped by to fill him in on some stuff about the future.\n\nDoom nonchalantly lets Sue and Layla go back with the others, and nobody seems to care that he was in on the alternate-Doom’s plan from the start. Nobody tries to bring him to justice or chastise him for his part in the charade. The Doom/Reed gets his head chopped off when Monet kisses Shatterstar, distracting him and closing the portal, which closes down right on Doom/Reed's neck. This leaves Layla and Shatterstar back in Latveria with the real Doom.\n\nThe art goes really funky, with Doom saying goodbye to Layla, but although she has the ‘M’ on her face, her hair and jacket suddenly look like Monet. So while it looks like it’s Monet kissing Shatterstar on the panel later, it is most likely supposed to be Layla. It takes a few moments to figure out, and chalk it up to poor communication to the artist, maybe? I haven’t seen that kind of sloppiness in quite a while. But why is Shatterstar just sitting on the steps, hanging out in Doom’s castle at the end? Can he not open another portal? Is he a captive, or just a guest for a little while longer? The story feels forced to a conclusion, and an awkward one at that.\n\n\n X-Force 24 \n\n by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, and Clayton Crain \n\nYawn. Normal lack of background, static figures done CGI-style, nothing to see here. Selene finally kills Eliphas, and the X-Force team is the only group sent in to settle all of this. Why not the entire group of mutants? I mean, their entire island was invaded, they know Selene is a serious threat. I know I would be taking everyone I could along with me, but the book is called X-Force, so miraculously, the only people sent in to fix everything are X-Force members, including Rahne, who just gave birth! That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?\n\nThe art is just as dark as last time, leaving me squinting, trying to make sense out of several panels. X-Force slices their way through untold zombies effortlessly, just forget about how troublesome they were for the past few issues when invading Utopia. Here on their home ground, they are easily chopped up and disposed of. Warpath shows up after Selene has absorbed all of these souls, tipped off by his dead brother on how to beat her.\n\nNecrosha is already over everywhere else in the Marvel universe, and I am bored to tears. There is none of the emotional impact that Blackest Night has, and the art is deplorable. Crain spends way too much time on his computer playing tricks with the colors without giving us enough meat to understand the action on the page. I feel no concern for any of these characters, and the only one to die is the throwaway Eliphas, the one that we all knew would die. They will beat Selene next issue, but will we get even one token death out of all of this?\n\n\n X-Men: Legacy 233 \n\n by Mike Carey and Clay Mann \n\nYet again, Mike Carey makes better use out of the lousy Necrosha than the regular crew does. Rogue sees that Trance is free as a result of Psylocke’s psi-blade, so Rogue goes to free Psylocke next. By the time she is done, Proteus is down to possessing Blindfold only. Magneto manages to analyze and control the energy that forms the substance of Proteus, and finally extracts it from Blindfold and disperse it. They stumble back to their plane with Magneto announcing that Proteus will manage to come back some day.\n\nCarey gives us a good scene between Destiny and Rogue, providing more characterization in two pages than two entire issues of X-Force. He also reminds us of the old relationship that Magneto had once with Rogue, and a little in-flight humor about exploding X-Men planes. Clay Mann focuses on the people and the action, but as appealing as it is, the background really gets short thrift the entire comic. He does put some effort into the waves during the calm scenes. The overall strength of this comic, though, is that Carey manages to keep the focus on Rogue, but still showcases many other mutants in a good way, all while using great moments of continuity to improve the story.\n\nTpull is Travis Pullen. He started reading comics at 5 years old, and he can't seem to stop.

Tpull's Weekly Marvel Comics Review – Part 1

Elsewhere on Filmfodder

TV Fodder Headlines