(no subject)

[dewinged]

It's Thursday, and it's still early enough before I have to sit at my desk and listen to people

bitch that I feel I can get this party started now. :) It'll be a Bash. ;)

.

The 2nd Week is always a good week, though I think it's more for the sheer amount of comics I pick

up, mostly stuff I really do like. I don't talk about which are my favorite titles, mostly because

the moment I do, fandom will have another collective brainfart and the book with either be cancelled

or changed horribly. It's a curse, in some ways.

Anyways, on to the comics.

G.I. Joe #36. You know, I'll be blatantly honest and say thatr I forgot this was on my pull list,

still. Of course, my pull list probably still has Crossgen stuff on it, to say precisely how long

it's been since I did an actual update. (Note to self: get that done). I mean, it's not badly

done, but even though I read the previous issue weeks ago, I got a little lost between the last

storyline and this one. Namely, characters (mostly the males, the women are pretty distinct) are

starting to look far too alike, confusing people. There's an underlying plotline which seems ready

to boil, especially as we find Cobra being competent now that Destro's running the show.

You know, they refer to the Baronness being pregnant. I was waiting for someont to say 'delicate

condition.' Honey, there is Nothing delicate about the Baronness.

Not bad, but I'm letting go of it. It's time.

And speaking of letting go.


Avengers Finale: That it is, kids, that it is. While the letter column in issue #504 insulted

anyone who read the book before the Great and Powerful OMG So Kewl This Month Bendis came around,

this is merely the last bookend before the new series. It's not so much of a jumping-off point as a

'walking off' point, which is what a lot of the real Avengers seem to be doing in this issue.

Almost everyone is given a sudden excuse to walk away, and apparently the husk of the Mansion and a

crashed quinjet are meant to stand there as a 'Memorial.' Of course, I read that line, 'Memorial'

as Bendis saying "Nyah nyah I win."

Even the last double page spread, of thousands of people holding a candlelight vigil and holding

signs praising the Avengers...I was looking to the trees, to see if I could spot Bendis spitting on

the crowd. :)

Otherwise, I'm done, there.


JSA #67: I remember a time when comics used to have tie-ins to major crossovers/events in comics,

and this is what this isue, the tie-in to Identity Crisis turns out to be, to okay effect. It's not

the best issue of JSA ever, and the reason it doesn't completely suck is that it does give a good

rundown of what's going over in I-C, so that people who are not reading the latter book can get a

basic idea of what is going on, just enouhg to frame what is going on. What we do get is the

individual JSAers reactions to Sue's death, and what it means for them and their families. And

those, at least, ring true. Joan's reaction to Jay Garrick's orders to stay indoors made me smile

especially, because that old woman is tough as nails.

One thing I was touched by was Power Girl at Sue's grave, with Superman visiting from 600 miles away

after he hears her crying. In the old JLI/JLE/whatever series, I do believe PG and Sue were good

friends, and Johns treats that with respect.

And sometimes, the big heroes aren't all the ones with the flashy powers who can run faster than a

speeding locomotive. All the stuff in IC, all the searching and investigating and villain battles,

and the one who finds the biggest clue-bomb is Dr. Mid-Nite, who has been doing the autopsy on Sue

Dibny the Entire Time, with help from Mr. Terrific. It's not all about the powers.

My only beef is with art and editorial. As per the issue, what happens in JSA 67, specifically the

end, refers right to Identity Crisis #6, where it continues. The thing is, the corpse of Sue is in

vastly different conditions between the two issues. it's easy to blame the artists involved on

this, but since JSA and Identity Crisis had figgerent editors, it shows that they are not

communicating at all to make this all synch the way it should.


X-Men The End; Dreamers and Demons #5 of 6: From the way it was explained to me, this is part 5 of 6

of Book 1. There will be a Book 2 and Book 3, each another six issues long. WHich is okay, because

there is no way everything can be explained with one issue left, and the impending battle for issue

6 (which involves tons of Warskrulls led by Stryfe, Genesis, and the Goblyn Queen (Good Lord,

Claremont's pulling everything out, isn't he?)) might take a wee bit longer than that. We have a

Gambit who possibly betrayed Rogue /again/ and stealing their children for Sinister, Dani still a

captive of Neverland, the return of freaking AHAB (and he goes after Rachel and Kitty. Yay,

continuity!), and a whole other mess of things what I think might work better as a TPB that

individual issues. It's okay, as an imaginary story. You get to see a lot of character pop in and

out, and have some things pop in and out of their chests when the villains of the story get their

Evil on.


Identity crisis #6: Tuesday night, I finally turned to moose_man online and said 'I give

up! I had gone over and over the first five issues of this series trying to find any clue at all to

the identity of the killer. I knew it wasn't Digger Harkness/Captain Boomerang, and there are still

questions. Who sent Jack Drake the gun? Who sent Lois the note and why? And so on and so forth.

moose_man gave me a theory he had read. I don't have the link, since I'm on my work

computer. I will try and post it if I remember when I get home.

And lo, that theory makes SENSE, and Moose and I spent over an hour going through our respective

comics, pointing out things to each other as we were reading through them again.

At the end of #6, a cause of death is established. The cause of death and the evidence found point

the finger squarely at one person.

But they're wrong. They're So Close, but So Wrong at the same time.

I'm guessing Batman saying to find that person near the end of the issue means he believes it's

them, too. But this is Batman, who probably Knows Everything and Can Do No Wrong. Just once, just

ONCE, I want to see him be wrong. I want this time to be the one time he is close, but not quite on

the mark...

Now, the pacing itself is nice, with calm, expressive art as Meltzer and Morales explain that with

Boomerang Dead and the majority of the hero community believing it was him all the time (cue the

disbelief. Even Ollie says 'We got pantsed by freaking Captain Boomerang.'), they mourn, showing a

lot who have died in their careers, while Mid-Nite and Terrific do the Sutopsy, and the Almighty

Batman still looks for clues. It's like they're trying to wind the story down, until they realize

it's not over yet.

Let's see what happens next month.


Green Arrow #44. Okay, the cover itself is basic. It says the one thing that we know, save for

those who don't read comics, don't watch the news, and have been basically living under a rock for

the last month: Mia Dearden is HIV positive. Now, this is the 'reaction' issue. We see Ollie, Mia,

and COnnor cope with the news, and there is a lot of talking heads this time around. There's even

some HIV education slipped in by Winnick, explaining just what is going on, and Mia doesn't

soft-sell the ways in which she could have contracted HIV. Denial all the way around. Now, this

could be done respectfully. Mia could be shown coping with HIV, and moving ahead with her life and

having a positive message about living with the disease. Or, the readers can be beat over the head

with the issue every free moment the writer's get. I want to give that a few more issues before I

decide where Winnick is going with this. Not a bad story, but I'm trying to look at long-term here.



New Thunderbolts #1: Okay...

There is an old saying, 'You Can't Go Home again.'

I wonder if it is true, and how comic fans in general react to it. Take almost any comic, and you

will find fans who use a lot of their time reminiscing about what has gone before, and why it

touched them more than the things that are out now. (I'm nto faulting or pointing fingers, here; I

find myself doing the same thing a lot as of late.) Creative teams are hyped based on past works,

or even put back on the same books with a new era coming in. I could question why folks want to go

backward, but I can guess and relate to the reasons.

We have the Thunderbolts. The original premise was that of a new hero team rising from the Ashes of

the Onslaught/Heroes Reborn crisis, that turned out to be the Masters of Evil led by Zemo, leading

the public on so they could conquer the world and somesuch. What ends up happening is that some of

the Thunderbolts realize 'hey, I actually like being a good guy. We do things and don't get jailed,

and being liked pretty much rocks.' So, Zemo's plan was defeated, and the original book ran for 75

issues before cancellation.

Well, technically, it did. With issue 76, it was a Bold New Creative team with a Bold New Direction

(tm). In comic-speak, this translates to "We're going to ignore everything that happened before now

and fuck over loyal fans in favor of the Kewl Flavor of the Month". This new direction, which had

nothing to do at all with what happened before, it just had the same comic name, lasted six issues

before it was mercifully put down. Hopefully, so were any comic readers who thought that was better

than the 75 issues that preceeded it.

A while back, we got a 6-issue T-bolts/Avengers miniseries. I took this as Marvel on their slimy

little bellies apologizing to Thunderbolts fans for their sins, and allowing six more issues,

co-written by Busiek and Nicieza (who wrote the original series. Remember these guys, when

characters mattered in comics?) to give us fans closure and resolve any lingering plots.

Not so, said my fandom. We're buying this a lot.

So, a new series, Busiek/Nicieza/Grummett, is born, with this issue.

In the previous weeks, I have been waiting with some measure of excitement. And a LOT of fear. The

only time I have ever been this frightened of what could happen was the Titans/Legion SPecial last

month. Because, in some ways, I doubt.

See, the main punch and draw of the original Thuderbolts series was the surprise at the end, where

in private they revealed themselves as the Masters of Evil. (Well, surprise for most. Marvel

Interns the summer previous who were hearing the pitch going around and got to read a lot of this,

well, not so much surprise. *innocent whistle*) And you can't do that again with a name like

Thunderbolts. Surprise is called Surprise because ideally, it should only work on a person /once./

Now, Busiek and Nicieza don't try and pull the same coup Busiek did years ago. They explain the

setup, right off the end of Avengers/T-bolts: Abe/ex-beetle/Mach-4-this-time is out of Prison on

good behavior, and wants to set up a team for the Thunderbolts, including new people, who might be

former villains looking for a new lease on life. Blizzard takes him up on the offer, for one, and

we will see more coming as the issues go by. So there's not much of a charade going on, the

Marvel-U public and the readers basically already knowing the deal. Which works.

But curve balls are always appreciated. Erik Josten, ex-Atlas, finds the Pym Particles he gave up

at the enf of Avg/T-bolts might not be so gone after all. Abe might see some competition for

Melissa/Songbird from a new arrival, Genis. Blizzard is trying his damnest against a horde of

little-known Atlantean villains (little known characters are a common theme in Thunderbolts. Limbo

is Open Season to these writers).

And Abe/Mach-4 had to get money for the team from somewhere. Baron Strucker.

Okay, you got me. Liked it. Not so afraid of it falling flat, and I rather like the intrigue.

Good art, good dialogue, this works for me, simply put.


Annnnd, I think that's it for next week. :)

Comments

[elsewhere7.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Good question.