Tpull's Weekly Marvel Comics Review – Part 2

February 27, 2010 11:14 PM | Comments:

It’s basically an all-Siege report for this review, let’s dig in!

Avengers: The Initiative 33

by Christos N. Gage and Jorge Molina

Donyell spends this issue trying to figure out if he will take the Hood up on his offer to bring the original Night Thrasher back. I wish the original was back, it didn’t seem right that he would ever agree to be part of that reality-show mishap that gave us the Civil War. Still, anyone who knows the character understands that he wouldn’t want to come back under these conditions, so Donyell’s decision doesn’t carry much suspense with us. It’s left as a cliffhanger at the end, but a cliché one, where we pretty much know how it will play out.

Taskmaster’s adrenaline surge to take his place as one of the big dogs ends abruptly, as Osborn dresses him down for joining the assault on Thor. You might think Osborn would be happy to have just one person on the Cabal that was loyal, but he has much too big of an ego still. There is some repetition here to what we see in the Siege mini-series, something that has become too common with all of the Siege tie-ins: if you show us all the stuff, why bother to have a separate Siege series?

The art is not bad, but it is too “loose” to really convey the grim impact, so it flows more like a poorly-acted drama than the hard-hitting action-adventure it’s supposed to be. We get more re-runs as they waste a lot of space showing us Ares fighting the Sentry. Again, already saw this is in another book.

Back at Camp HAMMER, the Avengers Resistance is attacking, and the Hood thinks he can take care of them with what he has on hand. Penance is kept under armed guard away from the action, untrusted. Tigra gets to confront the Hood, who gave her a beat-down with his cronies when he established his leadership, and we end with the hood ordering Donyell to kill Tigra.

It’s hard to tell how much life this title has left in it. In another form, it might have more stories to tell, but the art always has some manga influence or poor inking, or some awesome cover with poorer art inside. Some of the stories would have read better with a different artist. I haven’t looked at the upcoming months previews yet, but I’m guessing this will be one of the titles that goes away with the Heroic Age meta-story.

Dark Wolverine 83

by Daniel Way, Marjorie Liu and Giuseppe Camuncoli

You know those TV shows that are a gyp, because they have a character wake up at the end, and the last year or two was all just a dream? Yeah, that’s what this was like. The most dramatic moment in this comic in the last two years was the shot last issue of Daken stabbing Osborn in the back, literally. We find out that the Fates have just implanted this image into Daken’s head to screw with him. Oops, I mean recruit him as their earthly agent to bring about Ragnarok, so the cycle of godly death and rebirth can continue. The art looks more like a cartoon than ever before, which reduces some of the impact.

When we’re not being shown hallucination from the Fates, we see repeats of scenes from Siege. Again. Daken makes a big point to say that nobody uses him, even though Romulus has manipulated him in the past, and Osborn has manipulated him half the time lately. We end with the Fates saying they will show him his greatest fear next, so settle in for another cartoony issue of hallucinations, sidelining this series and making it a lame, unimportant side-show to the Siege event.

I would much rather have had him actually take out Osborn, that would have been interesting and held my attention! Talk about a game-changer. This feels like they are playing it safe, an avoiding any chance at real drama. We still have no sense of what motivates Daken, of what his own endgame is, etc.

Ms. Marvel 50

by Brian Reed, Sana Takeda, and Ben Oliver

Ding dong, the witch is dead! We have reached the excruciating 50th issue milestone, and the series is finally dead. However, the cover is misleading. Ms. Marvel herself is not dead in any way, shape, or form. The cover is a rip-off of a classic picture of Captain Marvel being held by the personification of Death, and surrounded by heroes. It’s cheap and misleading, but why should this title stop disappointing us now?

Mystique reveals she found a bunch of old Skrull clones of Captain Marvel, so this latest guy is not the “successful” one that we have seen before, but the next-closest experiment. Because having a female clone of Wolverine running around is not enough, after the Spidey-clone nonsense and the Ultimate clone repeat, and the mini-series that revisits the clone nonsense, and the zombie/clone crap over in X-Force. What Marvel really needs these days is more clone stories. Sigh.

An entire page is devoted to Carol flying to Seattle, and the next page still has going there, and only then trying to figure out what she will do next. Gee, what were you doing the last two hours, being a ditzy blonde? Conveniently, just as happens in all B-grade movies, an explosion occurs at the EXACT moment she arrives in town! Wow, that is just so freaking (censored) convenient! What masterful storytelling!

The crazy clone comes out attacking everyone, and Mystique can’t come up with a better reason than she is ancient and bored, and this was her idea of fun. It makes no sense, especially considering most of her original actions when we were first introduced to the character, but she has been mishandled so much the past few years, writers make her do whatever they feel like now. She’s with the X-Men one issue, trying to kill them the next, and nobody really bats an eye anymore. She switches sides more than Magneto.

Wait, it gets worse. Somehow, the clone starts to build up energy toward an explosion, much lie Carol herself did once before. No reason why, it just happens. Why now, as opposed to any other time? We’ll never know. Instead of dying from this explosion, which is sorta what happened last time, Carol actually absorbs the entire blast… and doesn’t die! Thanks again for that cover, by the way…

We end with Carol talking to Spider-Man, reminding us yet again that Spidey is having sex with the Black Cat, but still deciding to go hit on Ms. Marvel during the same time frame. Because we needed Mephisto to give us back the classic Spidey stories where he had no money, a lousy job, and never got the girl… but I digress.

Carol got led around by the nose the entire time, Mystique got away, the clone died, tons of people in Seattle got injured… and Carol chalks it up as a win! She actually feels pretty good. Probably because she went thorough all that and still didn’t take a drink. After this totally random, nonsensical diversion by Mystique, which ended with nothing achieved, we end the series with Carol feeling good about herself. Where’s the nearest exit so I can get off this train wreck? Ugh.

It’s not over?!? There’s a backup story with Noh-Varr! His partner Annie shows up trying to “test” him, but when he discovers it’s her, we learn that he never went back to tell present-Annie that a future version of her wants to attack him. Brian Reed gives us a meaningless story at the end of a failed series. Michael Ryan has some good pencils that would have been better served for the main story. Noh says he would explain what happened, “if I understood it.” Yeah, so would we. For some reason they decided to shoe-horn this in here and introduce him with his new title, Protector. Maybe they will do something else with him somewhere else in the Marvel universe, but right now he looks like a casually discarded casualty of Bendis’ Dark Avengers. Poorly utilized and cast aside.

New Avengers 62

by Brian Bendis, Stuart Immonen, and Daniel Acuña

This issue is fairly simple, with the heroes defeating the souped-up villains. Acuña and Immonen take turns on the art like last issue. Nick Fury brings his Secret Warriors to the show a little late, but just in time for Steve Rogers to assemble everyone. It’s a quick read, but it fits in well for what it’s worth. The parts centering on the return of Steve Rogers are so out of date and behind the times, it’s even later than the final issue of Reborn!

There is no special character growth or plot development, this is merely one piece of the big meta-story, and as little as these villains have been used in the whole thing, one of the least interesting parts. If you take it as a snapshot of one section of the big picture, it goes over okay.

Secret Warriors 13

by Jonathan Hickman and Stefano Caselli

We’re still mostly talking, as the various pieces move around the globe. Fury makes his assignments, and the undercover traitor in Hydra delivers a box to the head of the Leviathan. The story is interrupted by a flashback that shows Kraken linking up with Strucker to set everything in motion at the beginning, but it’s missing some element to really strike home its importance.

Caselli’s art has more definition to it this time, and while I still want him to have another person as inker, I think he is improving. However, it looks like he is relying on a computer program to get all the lighting angles correct, and it comes across as artificial and lazy. Fury offers all of his little soldiers one last chance to back out, and then gives them different marching orders. It flows like a slowed-down end-cap to a cop drama TV show, with each person getting ready for their part. Except for Sebastian, who gets a letter telling him to go home, as he is a liability. The earlier discussion between Daisy and Fury about him is not leading enough to tell us which person really wanted to cut him from the mission, and perhaps the dialogue could have been worded differently to give us a better clue without ruining it, but I’m going to guess Fury wanted to cut him, and Daisy wanted to keep him.

Overall, the story was slow; after last issue moving pieces around, we get another issue of moving pieces around. This series needs to get to the point. You can’t just announce an entire super-secret organization that threatens both Fury and Hydra, and then bury us under two issues of sitting around and talking. There is definite need for improvement in the pacing here.

Thor 607

by Kieron Gillen, Billy Tan, and Rich Elson

Gillen proves to be a good team player in this meta-event, using his pages wisely. Balder is brought up to speed on the frame-job on Volstagg, and Knut comes forth with a vision that will prove true for a change, only to be killed silently by Loki, so no advantage can be gleaned from Knut when his vision proves true. Loki also moves Heimdall out of play, but in such an overt manner, it is a little strange. He must be confident that things will work out, for him to be so obvious with Heimdall at this stage.

Gillen also squeezes in Kelda going to deliver news to the folks of Bill, to close out that story by letting his relatives know of his death, all of it majestically illustrated by Billy Tan. Glorious where we need grandeur, and bloody when we need bloody, Tan was an excellent choice to be artist on this title. How much of this is Rich Elson can be deciphered from looking up the credits for the number of the pages attributed to each one, but the overall effect is good. We also see Tyr play a small role, misunderstanding part of Knut’s prophecy, as we all know already that Ares is the god of war that will die this day, not the Asgardian version of Tyr.

We end with the local police letting Volstagg free to join in the battle, but Clor, the clone Thor shows up to attack him first. I suppose we are supposed to be calling him Ragnarok these days. The scenes are imposing, and Gillen deftly weaves the threads together to close out Straczynski’s story threads, fully involve the Siege story, and get ready for the next creative team.

Thunderbolts 141

by Jeff Parker and Miguel Sepulveda

Scourge has been able to purge the mental suggestion to assassinate Norman Osborn, and another digital message does not send him into a killing rage. Osborn wants to send this particular group to steal Odin’s spear. He cites each team member, and gives a reason for him being on the team. This is not actually a big plan of Osborn’s from long ago: remember, it was only at Loki’s prodding that he even had the idea to invade Asgard. Rather, he is taking the members he has and inflating their egos by making them feel important. The drawback is that the members fall for it, thinking they were handpicked for this as the endgame, and now some of them are nervous because Headsman is dead and won’t be able to contribute to the mission.

The Ghost shows up, jettisoned from his assassination attempt on Tony Stark. He doesn’t want to help the bad guys, though, and gets a message to the Mighty Avengers. The Thunderbolts infiltrate Asgard and get to the spear, but the Mighty Avengers confront them at the end. Sepulveda’s art is fun, with an effect halfway between drawing and painting. It gives this team a solid objective to distinguish them from the rest of the event, and at least offers up a way for them to be a game-changing element instead of just another group of grunts.

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

It’s basically an all-Siege report for this review, let’s dig in!\n \n\n Avengers: The Initiative 33 \n\n by Christos N. Gage and Jorge Molina \n\nDonyell spends this issue trying to figure out if he will take the Hood up on his offer to bring the original Night Thrasher back. I wish the original was back, it didn’t seem right that he would ever agree to be part of that reality-show mishap that gave us the Civil War. Still, anyone who knows the character understands that he wouldn’t want to come back under these conditions, so Donyell’s decision doesn’t carry much suspense with us. It’s left as a cliffhanger at the end, but a cliché one, where we pretty much know how it will play out.\n\nTaskmaster’s adrenaline surge to take his place as one of the big dogs ends abruptly, as Osborn dresses him down for joining the assault on Thor. You might think Osborn would be happy to have just one person on the Cabal that was loyal, but he has much too big of an ego still. There is some repetition here to what we see in the Siege mini-series, something that has become too common with all of the Siege tie-ins: if you show us all the stuff, why bother to have a separate Siege series?\n\nThe art is not bad, but it is too “loose” to really convey the grim impact, so it flows more like a poorly-acted drama than the hard-hitting action-adventure it’s supposed to be. We get more re-runs as they waste a lot of space showing us Ares fighting the Sentry. Again, already saw this is in another book.\n\nBack at Camp HAMMER, the Avengers Resistance is attacking, and the Hood thinks he can take care of them with what he has on hand. Penance is kept under armed guard away from the action, untrusted. Tigra gets to confront the Hood, who gave her a beat-down with his cronies when he established his leadership, and we end with the hood ordering Donyell to kill Tigra.\n\nIt’s hard to tell how much life this title has left in it. In another form, it might have more stories to tell, but the art always has some manga influence or poor inking, or some awesome cover with poorer art inside. Some of the stories would have read better with a different artist. I haven’t looked at the upcoming months previews yet, but I’m guessing this will be one of the titles that goes away with the Heroic Age meta-story.\n\n\n Dark Wolverine 83 \n\n by Daniel Way, Marjorie Liu and Giuseppe Camuncoli \n\nYou know those TV shows that are a gyp, because they have a character wake up at the end, and the last year or two was all just a dream? Yeah, that’s what this was like. The most dramatic moment in this comic in the last two years was the shot last issue of Daken stabbing Osborn in the back, literally. We find out that the Fates have just implanted this image into Daken’s head to screw with him. Oops, I mean recruit him as their earthly agent to bring about Ragnarok, so the cycle of godly death and rebirth can continue. The art looks more like a cartoon than ever before, which reduces some of the impact.\n\nWhen we’re not being shown hallucination from the Fates, we see repeats of scenes from Siege. Again. Daken makes a big point to say that nobody uses him, even though Romulus has manipulated him in the past, and Osborn has manipulated him half the time lately. We end with the Fates saying they will show him his greatest fear next, so settle in for another cartoony issue of hallucinations, sidelining this series and making it a lame, unimportant side-show to the Siege event.\n\nI would much rather have had him actually take out Osborn, that would have been interesting and held my attention! Talk about a game-changer. This feels like they are playing it safe, an avoiding any chance at real drama. We still have no sense of what motivates Daken, of what his own endgame is, etc.\n\n\n Ms. Marvel 50 \n\n by Brian Reed, Sana Takeda, and Ben Oliver \n\nDing dong, the witch is dead! We have reached the excruciating 50th issue milestone, and the series is finally dead. However, the cover is misleading. Ms. Marvel herself is not dead in any way, shape, or form. The cover is a rip-off of a classic picture of Captain Marvel being held by the personification of Death, and surrounded by heroes. It’s cheap and misleading, but why should this title stop disappointing us now?\n\nMystique reveals she found a bunch of old Skrull clones of Captain Marvel, so this latest guy is not the “successful” one that we have seen before, but the next-closest experiment. Because having a female clone of Wolverine running around is not enough, after the Spidey-clone nonsense and the Ultimate clone repeat, and the mini-series that revisits the clone nonsense, and the zombie/clone crap over in X-Force. What Marvel really needs these days is more clone stories. Sigh.\n\nAn entire page is devoted to Carol flying to Seattle, and the next page still has going there, and only then trying to figure out what she will do next. Gee, what were you doing the last two hours, being a ditzy blonde? Conveniently, just as happens in all B-grade movies, an explosion occurs at the EXACT moment she arrives in town! Wow, that is just so freaking (censored) convenient! What masterful storytelling!\n\nThe crazy clone comes out attacking everyone, and Mystique can’t come up with a better reason than she is ancient and bored, and this was her idea of fun. It makes no sense, especially considering most of her original actions when we were first introduced to the character, but she has been mishandled so much the past few years, writers make her do whatever they feel like now. She’s with the X-Men one issue, trying to kill them the next, and nobody really bats an eye anymore. She switches sides more than Magneto.\n\nWait, it gets worse. Somehow, the clone starts to build up energy toward an explosion, much lie Carol herself did once before. No reason why, it just happens. Why now, as opposed to any other time? We’ll never know. Instead of dying from this explosion, which is sorta what happened last time, Carol actually absorbs the entire blast… and doesn’t die! Thanks again for that cover, by the way…\n\nWe end with Carol talking to Spider-Man, reminding us yet again that Spidey is having sex with the Black Cat, but still deciding to go hit on Ms. Marvel during the same time frame. Because we needed Mephisto to give us back the classic Spidey stories where he had no money, a lousy job, and never got the girl… but I digress.\n\nCarol got led around by the nose the entire time, Mystique got away, the clone died, tons of people in Seattle got injured… and Carol chalks it up as a win! She actually feels pretty good. Probably because she went thorough all that and still didn’t take a drink. After this totally random, nonsensical diversion by Mystique, which ended with nothing achieved, we end the series with Carol feeling good about herself. Where’s the nearest exit so I can get off this train wreck? Ugh.\n\nIt’s not over?!? There’s a backup story with Noh-Varr! His partner Annie shows up trying to “test” him, but when he discovers it’s her, we learn that he never went back to tell present-Annie that a future version of her wants to attack him. Brian Reed gives us a meaningless story at the end of a failed series. Michael Ryan has some good pencils that would have been better served for the main story. Noh says he would explain what happened, “if I understood it.” Yeah, so would we. For some reason they decided to shoe-horn this in here and introduce him with his new title, Protector. Maybe they will do something else with him somewhere else in the Marvel universe, but right now he looks like a casually discarded casualty of Bendis’ Dark Avengers. Poorly utilized and cast aside.\n\n\n New Avengers 62 \n\n by Brian Bendis, Stuart Immonen, and Daniel Acuña \n\nThis issue is fairly simple, with the heroes defeating the souped-up villains. Acuña and Immonen take turns on the art like last issue. Nick Fury brings his Secret Warriors to the show a little late, but just in time for Steve Rogers to assemble everyone. It’s a quick read, but it fits in well for what it’s worth. The parts centering on the return of Steve Rogers are so out of date and behind the times, it’s even later than the final issue of Reborn!\n\nThere is no special character growth or plot development, this is merely one piece of the big meta-story, and as little as these villains have been used in the whole thing, one of the least interesting parts. If you take it as a snapshot of one section of the big picture, it goes over okay.\n\n\n Secret Warriors 13 \n\n by Jonathan Hickman and Stefano Caselli \n\nWe’re still mostly talking, as the various pieces move around the globe. Fury makes his assignments, and the undercover traitor in Hydra delivers a box to the head of the Leviathan. The story is interrupted by a flashback that shows Kraken linking up with Strucker to set everything in motion at the beginning, but it’s missing some element to really strike home its importance.\n\nCaselli’s art has more definition to it this time, and while I still want him to have another person as inker, I think he is improving. However, it looks like he is relying on a computer program to get all the lighting angles correct, and it comes across as artificial and lazy. Fury offers all of his little soldiers one last chance to back out, and then gives them different marching orders. It flows like a slowed-down end-cap to a cop drama TV show, with each person getting ready for their part. Except for Sebastian, who gets a letter telling him to go home, as he is a liability. The earlier discussion between Daisy and Fury about him is not leading enough to tell us which person really wanted to cut him from the mission, and perhaps the dialogue could have been worded differently to give us a better clue without ruining it, but I’m going to guess Fury wanted to cut him, and Daisy wanted to keep him.\n\nOverall, the story was slow; after last issue moving pieces around, we get another issue of moving pieces around. This series needs to get to the point. You can’t just announce an entire super-secret organization that threatens both Fury and Hydra, and then bury us under two issues of sitting around and talking. There is definite need for improvement in the pacing here.\n\n\n Thor 607 \n\n by Kieron Gillen, Billy Tan, and Rich Elson \n\nGillen proves to be a good team player in this meta-event, using his pages wisely. Balder is brought up to speed on the frame-job on Volstagg, and Knut comes forth with a vision that will prove true for a change, only to be killed silently by Loki, so no advantage can be gleaned from Knut when his vision proves true. Loki also moves Heimdall out of play, but in such an overt manner, it is a little strange. He must be confident that things will work out, for him to be so obvious with Heimdall at this stage.\n\n Gillen also squeezes in Kelda going to deliver news to the folks of Bill, to close out that story by letting his relatives know of his death, all of it majestically illustrated by Billy Tan. Glorious where we need grandeur, and bloody when we need bloody, Tan was an excellent choice to be artist on this title. How much of this is Rich Elson can be deciphered from looking up the credits for the number of the pages attributed to each one, but the overall effect is good. We also see Tyr play a small role, misunderstanding part of Knut’s prophecy, as we all know already that Ares is the god of war that will die this day, not the Asgardian version of Tyr.\n\nWe end with the local police letting Volstagg free to join in the battle, but Clor, the clone Thor shows up to attack him first. I suppose we are supposed to be calling him Ragnarok these days. The scenes are imposing, and Gillen deftly weaves the threads together to close out Straczynski’s story threads, fully involve the Siege story, and get ready for the next creative team.\n\n\n Thunderbolts 141 \n\n by Jeff Parker and Miguel Sepulveda \n\nScourge has been able to purge the mental suggestion to assassinate Norman Osborn, and another digital message does not send him into a killing rage. Osborn wants to send this particular group to steal Odin’s spear. He cites each team member, and gives a reason for him being on the team. This is not actually a big plan of Osborn’s from long ago: remember, it was only at Loki’s prodding that he even had the idea to invade Asgard. Rather, he is taking the members he has and inflating their egos by making them feel important. The drawback is that the members fall for it, thinking they were handpicked for this as the endgame, and now some of them are nervous because Headsman is dead and won’t be able to contribute to the mission.\n\nThe Ghost shows up, jettisoned from his assassination attempt on Tony Stark. He doesn’t want to help the bad guys, though, and gets a message to the Mighty Avengers. The Thunderbolts infiltrate Asgard and get to the spear, but the Mighty Avengers confront them at the end. Sepulveda’s art is fun, with an effect halfway between drawing and painting. It gives this team a solid objective to distinguish them from the rest of the event, and at least offers up a way for them to be a game-changing element instead of just another group of grunts.\n\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 2

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