COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode XXXXVIII (Secret Avengers #2)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

SECRET AVENGERS #2

I thought it might have been a fluke last issue. Writer has a really strong, fleshed out idea for a first issue, has been thinking about it for months and months and it finally hits the page and is glorious and revelatory. Then it comes time for the second issue and it all goes to hell. It's happened before. All too often. The quarter bins at your local comic shop are filled with short run series that started out strong and couldn't sustain themselves. I am, however, pleased as punch to report that this volume of Secret Avengers does not fall into that category.

All the humor and sharp characterization of the first issue is still on hand for the second outing. The stakes are still high and bad things still happen even though there are superheroes on the case. Nobody is naked this issue but that is a minor drawback in the grand scheme of things.

Fury Jr and Coulson are still drifting aimlessly in space after a battle with a villainous robot. They contemplate their fate as well as their relationship as they float ever nearer to oblivion. It's like 2014 Best Picture Academy Award Nominee 'Gravity' but with a lot more bromance. I was around for the debut of both of these guys in the Marvel Comics Universe, and enjoyed the relationship that was established from the outset. But what we get here, so simple yet so poignant and revealing, gives so much more depth to these best friends then you would see if you eavesdropped on them at the local watering hole.

Meanwhile, back on the SHIELD helicarrrier, Maria Hill is still in the crosshairs of an assassin's gun and has even just taken a bullet through her hand as a warning shot. This, also, is one of my new favorite interpretations of Director Hill. She is calm and collected and actually, genuinely empathetic with her assailant, going so far as to apologize to the man who shot her. While at the same time calculating her options for getting herself out of the mess. Fortunately she doesn't have to because MODOK, her new pet mad scientist (and the newest, best odd couple in comics today) decides to sack up and be a hero and save her by sending a mouse with a hypodermic needle full of nerve toxin to save her and incapacitate her assailant. She wastes no time chastising the former villain for taking his time and for leaving Fury and Coulson to fend for themselves.

The third and funniest storyline follows Black Widow, Spider Woman and an uninvited Hawkeye as they race into space to stop the falling satellites ( the original mission). Along they way the ladies get in a pointed shot at the impressiveness of Clint's manhood and he fires back with an 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' reference. They get to the space station, save the day (in an ironically poignant fashion) and all's well that ends well.

Then Hill wraps up the issue with a line that I think will set the tone for this book moving forward: "Rules? This is the Secret Avengers. There are no rules". And there aren't. We've got irreverent yet heartfelt moments in this book that feel truly fresh. A team without any real big names that get the job done. And a title that's moving quickly to the top of my read list every month.

COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode XXXXVII (Batman Eternal #1)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

BATMAN ETERNAL #1

I REALLY think I'm going to like this book.

Gee, a Batman book written (in part) by Tim Seeley. How very much out of character for you.

Ok, so yes, it has two of my favorite things. But it also kicks off with Professor Pyg as the villain. Now, I am not shy in expressing my disregard for all things Grant Morrison. This guy is right up near the top. I suppose he's a fine villain, very old school but with a modern sensibility. Which is Morrison's stock in trade. But I just never was able to connect with the guy. And now he's got robotic pigs with guns and metal spider legs so there may never be a reconciliation with us. So that's one strike against the book.

Then the MAJOR set piece of the story just happens to be a huge subway train crash in the tunnels under Gotham. That's fine. There's some mystery around it. Jim Gordon seems to think he started it (even though his reasoning it out let's him off the hook). And it results in his arrest. But, see, I'm in Chicago. And we had our own train accident here not too long ago. It was major news. A subway train derailed and went up an escalator before it stopped. 

No. Nobody died.

No. It was only one subway car.

No. It wasn’t caused by a bullet, shot by the police commissioner through a gun that wasn’t there, held by a perp that was actually unarmed, into an electrical panel that doesn’t control switches and tracks anyway, but yet caused the whole horrific crash. It was caused by the driver falling asleep at the wheel.

But surely you see the correlation.

What the hell am I talking about?

This is, I believe, a weekly series. Or bi-monthly? Something. I don’t know. So while there’s a tasty framing sequence with Bruce Wayne bloodied and beaten, unmasked and chained to the destroyed batsignal, being taunted by the unseen villain responsible as ‘his allies lay slaughtered and his city burns around him’, it’s still too early to tell where this book is going. And that’s the both exciting and frustrating part. It’s got some nice pedigree in its creators and I truly hope it can sustain its more frequent than monthly schedule without falling behind. And ultimately I hope it delivers a strong narrative that keeps me interested, keeps the Grant Morrison throwbacks to a minimum, and puts our heroes through the wringer at every possible opportunity. So far so good. I’m intrigued. Give me more, DC and don’t screw it up.

COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode XXXXVI (Captain America #19)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #19

All right, I admit it, I am a johnny-come-lately to the world of Captain America. I got on board with the ‘Death of’ storyline, but I’ve stuck with him ever since. Even through that hideous and overlong ‘Dimension Z’ crapfest of recent. But I gotta admit, I don’t really have a feeling one way or the other for Steve Rogers. As a person, sure, I get it. He’s the world’s greatest tactician and soldier, a man out of time, blah blah blah. That’s all fine, but the Steve Rogers parts aren’t why I keep buying the book. It’s the world he lives in, and all the other characters that inhabit it, that’s why I’m still here, reviewing Issue #19 and still geeking out over the movie I saw two days ago.

I love spies and spy organizations. I love secret government conspiracies and when those conspiracies blow up in the faces of those responsible. I’ve always loved S.H.I.E.L.D. and what they represent and the order they are trying to keep in a world full of Gods & Monsters. And I’m not the most patriotic Son of the Good Ol’ US of A but I’m nowhere near the least. Since I got on board with this book/ character the stories I’ve loved the best have been ones that shake Cap’s faith in his Government and his mission. Coming back from his death, taking over as the head of SHIELD, dealing with the anarchists and those who just want to watch the world burn (quote liberally and intentionally stolen), these have always been my favorite stories. The Dimension Z tale is the most forefront of the stories I have tuned out on. I get what they were doing, trying to infuse some of that original ‘man out of time’ or ‘in an unfamiliar time’ pathos back on the character by stranding him in another dimension for 14 years, raising a family, etc. But I just didn’t care. At all. See the above list of stuff I like and you’ll see that none of that stuff was on hand in Dimension Z.  The Winter Soldier story, though, that was the exception.

Bucky Barnes, for the longest time, was, along with Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben, an IRREVERSIBLE death in comics. A character whose death was SO IMPORTANT to the makeup of another character that to bring him back would be detrimental to that other character. Losing Bucky was a defining moment in Cap’s life and the general consensus was that there was NO good way to bring him back that would make Cap’s story better, not worse. Along comes Ed Brubaker with the idea that Bucky was rescued by the Russians and brainwashed to become the ultimate assassin and who is still operating today. Cap and TWS meet head on and when Cap realizes its his old friend, well, the stories that subsequently came out of it were some of the best of Cap’s decades long run and revitalized the character like nothing else had. Hell, the SECOND movie with the character featured The Winter Soldier in the TITLE!

So where does that leave us with this issue? It seems like every time Marvel needs a new villain or set of villains it retcons a ‘Weapon’ program. Wolverine debuted as Weapon X and we thought it was a cool name. Then we learned the X was a Roman numeral ten, and that he was the tenth generation of the ‘Weapon Plus’ program that created the likes of Sabertooth and Deadpool, genetic anomalies. NOW, we have the ‘Weapon Minus’ program that apparently was tasked with creating opponents for the Super Soldiers in the world (like Cap) should they go off the rails. Through the manipulation of a villain calling himself ‘The iron Nail’ (who may or not be a former SHIELD agent named Shen who was just introduced in the new Winter Soldier series- SYNERGY) a Weapon Minus member has escaped. Calling himself ‘Dr. Mindbubble’ (I know) he can generate bubbles…from…his…mind? That when they envelop your head, you are under his control. It’s all very trippy. By this issue he’s taken control of most of SHIELD and one mega-helicarrier and has just crashed two smaller ones full of innocent SHIELD agents in an attempt to destroy SHIELD’s ‘Big brother-like’ stranglehold on the world. Cap is PISSED. But he races right into the fight and gets a bubble on his head for his trouble.

Of course he’ll break the control. Of course he’ll save the day. But those agents are still dead and that’s the kind of stakes I like to see in my comic books. Even though ‘Dr. Mindbubble’ makes me cringe, I’ll be back next month. And if you haven’t seen the movie, what are you waiting for!?!?!?

COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode XXXXV (Avengers Assemble #25)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #25

Is this book ending too?? Come ON, Marvel! You lure my fanboy ass in with a promise of important continuity with the other Avengers titles I collect, even though on the surface it appears to just be a book for new fans who jumped on board after the movie came out. The first arc DID pretty much only include characters on the team that also appeared in the movie, and sometimes shoehorned them in to do so. But as the book progressed, it became its own title and the characters came and went as the story required them, not to keep them around to fill some artificially mandated roster.

This latest story arc has been pretty entertaining. Kind of like on-the-job hero training for Anya 'Spider Girl' as she's paired with Avengers famous and not-so-famous over the course of recent issues. This storyline sprang from the recent Inhuman-centric crossover that affected the whole of the Marvel Universe. In a nutshell, Black Bolt, the Inhuman king, detonated a terrigen bomb which triggered the latent mutant transformation in regular humans around the world descended from the pure Inhumans. This caused the humans to be enveloped in a cocoon while their new abilities manifested. One of these cocooned humans was Anya's beloved teacher. His cocooned body was summarily stolen/ kidnapped and Anya swore to save him. So she came to the Avengers.

Along the way she worked with Wolverine, Black Widow and Spider Woman, and others. All leading up to this issue where ALL the Avengers join in the hunt. Along the way Anya has grown on me as a 'teen age superhero' character. Regular readers of this blog will be well versed on my feelings toward the younger set. It can be summed up as 'get offa my lawn and outta my comics'. But this was different. She was still all ‘Ohmygodthisissocool’ about it, but she did her own research, stood up for herself and ‘made her bones’ with the Avengers as they say. I liked her so much I bought the action figure that just came out. And that, my friends, is a commitment.

So, like I said, in this issue all the Avengers convene to rain down upon AIM headquarters (the guys that stole the cocoon). It turns out that there’s another player in this game: The Toxic Doxie. Now, I been curious about this character since she showed up out of the blue as Norman Osborn’s Scarlet Witch in his 2^nd Dark Avengers group. Like when Strong guy showed up in Thunderbolts recently after becoming Lord of Hell in X-Factor, I love it when characters show back up in books I wasn’t expecting to find them in. It’s been fun to watch how crazy and funny she is during this adventure. Her goal was to copy the new Inhumans’ powers for herself, hence the cocoon stealing. She got the power of one of them, but is going for the second when all hell breaks loose. There’s some laugh out loud (literally, my roommate was concerned at what was going on in the bathroom) moments of banter between the heroes in this issue and the day is nicely saved. There’s a nice (if inaccurate) 1/3 page panel of all the heroes (including Anya) assembling. Then the book blows it for me. The last two pages have Anya at home, geeking out over getting a text from Steve Rogers. He then sends her a new ringtone which happens to be the theme song to the ‘Avengers Assemble tv show that’s on the Disney Channel. 

Really.

Then I’m kinda blindsided as the writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick, takes the whole last page to rewrite ‘Goodnight Moon’ as a farewell to the book. What? I don’t get it. What mandate did it fulfill? Warren Freaking Ellis was the artist for crap’s sake! What more do you need?

Marvel, you make it really hard to love you sometimes.

COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode XXXXIV (Revival #19)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

REVIVAL #19

In the spirit of full disclosure, and of educating the reader before they spend a minute to a minute and a half of their hard earned time reading the crap that spews out of my head, I feel I need to give you fair warning that the lion’s share of this review will concern itself with whether or not Tim Seeley can be categorized as legally insane. Now, note, I said LEGALLY insane, not CRIMINALLY insane. There’s a difference. There’s what Tim does and then there’s painting your Transformer s toys to look like the members of KISS.

Let’s take a look at Exhibit A, the only real exhibit at hand, that’s this issue of Revival, the popular ‘rural noir’ that Tim and Mike Norton crank out on a monthly basis. Now, there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on in this book. Crazy is kind of its stock in trade.  We got a whole rural Wisconsin town that is on federally mandated quarantine because one day a bunch of its dead residents came back to life. The people that return seem to heal from injuries at a superhuman rate. There was a ring of criminals (The Check Brothers) selling pieces of revived townsfolk on the black market. And, in the woods, there are some sort of glowing, alien looking light beings hanging out and menacing anyone that crosses their path. So yeah, crazy is, apparently, the number one export of Wausau, Wisconsin. Seeley should know, he grew up there. But he doesn’t live there anymore. So IF crazy is the number one export, and Tim Seeley has been exported from there, then, quid pro quo, ergo sum, Tim Seeley MUST be crazy.

Let’s say my iron clad logic and reasoning from the above paragraph doesn’t convince you. I have more examples. See the photo below:

Nobody that grows up looking like that ends up sane. It just doesn’t happen. Often they end up billionaires, and Tim is not one of those, but they are still crazy billionaires. Example #2: how Tim Seeley came into my life personally. It was near on ten years ago and I had just opened the stage show that would ultimately alter the course of my life. It was called ‘Boomstick! A Musical Parody of Darkness’, basically an Army of Darkness Musical. Basically I copied the screenplay and threw in 9 or 10 songs that had been created by writing lyrics to unused radio background music (beds) provided by my friend Brian. I thought it was awesome, but I also liked the ‘Daredevil’ movie so my taste is questionable. Tim shows up to see the show one night and follows me to the local watering hole afterwards. I didn’t know Tim from the next guy, never heard of him. Hack/Slash (his previous claim to fame) had barely hit the stands and because he loved my Army of Darkness musical, he wanted me to put Hack/Slash on stage. Think about that for a minute. You just saw some ragtag show in a storefront theater under the Loyola L tracks, and you want to entrust your exciting new publishing project to the yahoo who directed it? That’s CRAZY. He went on to date and ultimately marry one of the actresses from the Hack/Slash show that eventually happened and that is a whole alternate universe of crazy that I do not have the time to go into here. You’re going to have to trust me on this one. CRAZY. Or as the young punks today say: cray-cray.

“So, what’s the point?” you’re probably asking yourself right about now. Clearly this is the first review of mine you’ve read if you’re looking for one of those.

The point IS, in this issue of Revival, Tim is approaching the stratosphere of crazy reserved only for the kinds of folks who take those above mentioned painted Transformers and make stop motion videos with them. Dana Cypress, the main character of the book, her son, who Tim gave an incredibly heart wrenching perspective to last issue, well, this issue he has a video game in which you can kick an opponent’s dick off and if you kick it hard enough, it launches into space.

Just take a minute and read that again.

Then when you see Tim Seeley walking down the street or at a convention, maybe don’t make eye contact.

There’s also something called a ‘dubstep gun’ in the same video game but that’s clearly Seeley pandering to all the dubstep fans that read his comics.

Also in this issue the light beings can enter people’s bodies and control them, a militia type wipes his ass with a ticket, Jesus rides a skateboard, and an FBI agent that looks remarkably like Dana Scully show up.

The end.

COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode XXXXIII (New Avengers #16)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

NEW AVENGERS #16

Come ON, Marvel! What are you doing to me here?? Another alternate universe, thinly veiled Justice League amalgam? Mr. Fantastic builds a machine that can look into any number of potential universes and outcomes, and you immediately go down the Squadron Supreme road? And not even well! This is a cheap shot wrapped around a need to spotlight a magic user with a helmet. You can do better, Marvel and Jonathan Hickman, specifically. I know you can. I mean, you didn't even change the name of Doctor Spectrum. Lazy!

We do start out with some fun banter between T'Challa and Namor in a framing sequence that sets up this world with a weak sauce impersonation of a Justice League. Reed Richards' machine is up and running and Black Panther is on monitor duty. Namor drops by and their lingering distaste for each other is palpable. The Panther has discovered a world that has survived two incursions by this universe destroying phenomenon in new and different ways. T'Challa shows a world where the Marvel heroes we know we're killed off during their version of the Secret Invasion and this faux Justice League rose in it's place. Since then they’ve become a real team of heroes, regarded highly by the world and loved by them as well. They seem like good people. They have worries and concerns, they regret their destructive actions, they strive to be the heroes the Earth deserves. Then come the incursions. They have battled back several of them, but each time they are concerned with what they will have to do, what they will have to become, in order to repel the next one. The Superman representation says that he respects that all things must die, but he refuses to accept the unnatural acceleration of it.

Wait a tick.

Didn’t Reed Richards say pretty much that exact same thing? I KNOW he did because it’s on the recap page every issue! And it is a known fact that I LOVE the recap page. So things change, things stay the same. Their Doctor Fate (called The Norn, ANOTHER shout out- to the stones of our Marvel U) has to split himself into three duplicates, then he puts on the helmet of one of these Black Priest guys who seem somehow to be at the center of all this mess. He then has enough power, and can say the magic words he need to destroy the incurring world. How that reconciles with their above concerns I don’t have a clue.

So they do it. World blows up. Their world is saved. Life goes on. Namor, characteristically flip, ends the book with ‘Well. That is something different.’ I can only assume this means they will bring in Doctor Strange to try to recreate what’s going on with this Justice League and apply it to our world. But really, that’s all for this book. Not much really happens. We’re on our world for maybe 5 pages, then the rest is us being force fed the ‘look how clever we are!’ Batman is dressed like a knight! The Superman (Sun God because, you know, Kryptonians get their power from the sun) calls him ‘Wayne’! Every time I hit an issue like this I have to stop and hope it means something more to the overall story. I am, more and more, leaning towards just getting the trade paperbacks of my titles. Then, I wouldn’t be sitting on the can shouting ‘That’s it? That’s all there is? Come on, you can do better than that’ and making my roommates wonder about my self-motivation techniques.

OH, ALSO! It’s got a big #1 on the cover! No, I didn’t miss the bowl, I mean a REAL #1, and a #16. For no apparent reason!! This is the middle of a storyline, there;s no associated ‘sub story title’ that usually accompanies this phenomenon. Nothing. No reason for it. So maybe Marvel is just slapping a big #1 on all their books now, regardless. Wouldn’t surprise me. Buyer beware!!!

COMICS IN THE CAN- Episode XXXXII (Teen Titans #29)

COMICS IN THE CAN
I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.

TEEN TITANS #29

Am I a masochist? I've gone in record for a couple issues now with my dislike of and general annoyance with Teen Titans. Yet here I am reviewing it again. What's next in my downward spiral? Burning myself with cigarettes? Cutting? At the rate I'm going it could go either way. It's possible I need an intervention. Or an 800 number or something. My continued attention to this book is clearly a cry for help.

It is being cancelled though. This is, I think, the next to last issue? Plus an Annual? I don't know. I just know that Teen Titans won't have me to push around for much longer. And I can't say I'm terribly disappointed.

This issue picks up a few hours after the events of last issue where Solstice, crazy in love with Bart, killed someone in public so she would be condemned to the same prison planet as him. We get some pretty good flashbacks into her origins and time in the 'colony'. We get to see how abused and betrayed she was and that provides some insight into her recent actions. She's in a cell next to Bart and Red Robin comes to say his goodbyes and to thank them for being on the team. It's a very mature and heartfelt scene  and they react as such. And I didn't hate it.

The cells are jettisoned and Raven tries to console RR with some if the touchy-touchy but his mind is elsewhere. He catches up with Wonder Girl and has the long awaited 'will they of won't they' moment and they kiss passionately. The three of them have some final words before being shunted back to their own time (asking to be sent back before the Crime Syndicate attacks-this storyline is technically still a spinoff I guess-can't be done) and arrive back in San Francisco in time to help their other teammates that were left behind fight some new villains.

So there was quite a bit if growing up to be had in this issue. I'm kinda surprised and impressed. I'm still happy the title is ending though. It didn't warm the cockles of my cold, cold heart that much. But maybe I'll be a little bits sadder to see it go.