A Great Legacy

 

     Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s run on Astonishing X-Men was one of my two favorite runs in comic book history.  When I heard Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi were going to take over for them, starting with #25, I was skeptical.  I did enjoy Ellis’s run on Thunderbolts immensely, but I didn’t think that anyone could do these characters justice quite like Whedon did.  Cassaday is another contender for my favorite artist ever, and Bianchi’s art is often pretty terrible.  But, with optimistic caution, I picked up the series.

     And I was right.  Ellis could not match Whedon.  Now, this is not to say that I expect Ellis to perfectly duplicate Whedon’s style.  That would be ridiculous.  But instead, Emma becomes a hedonistic caricature of herself.  I never want to hear her say something about simply having to die or doing anything quite simply again, since that line was used two or three times in one issue.  Storm is snoozy.  Armor has become another young X-Man with none of the individuality that she displayed in Whedon’s run, and she talks about her codename way too much.  And Wolverine can’t handle his alcohol?  What?  Cyclops and Beast were pretty good, aside from the fact that they both seemed a bit sex-crazed.  Especially Beast.  And Simone Bianchi’s art was often painful to look at.  His faces, aside from Wolverine on the cover above, are often atrocious.

     Issue #27, however, improved drastically.  Now, to be honest, Bianchi’s faces still need work.  The costumes are nowhere near as cool as Whedon’s costumes.  And some of the characterization still needs work.  But the plot was finally explored, and the idea of the Ghost Box is really cool.  Plus, the Chinese X-Men were awesome, and Bianchi’s rendition of their headquarters was one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen in comics.  So my verdict is that these guys will figure things out, and things will get much better.  But they need some time to get accustomed to the characters and stretch their legs out alittle.  Bianchi still really needs to work on his faces though.  Wolverine’s normally fine, but Scott and Emma often look freakish.  So I’m hoping that things keep improving the way they did with the last issue.

Plot: 8.5      Art: 7.2      Dialogue: 8.0      Overall: 7.9

Avengers Assemble?

     Since they are so closely tied together, I figured I’d just take a look at New Avengers and Mighty Avengers together.  Now, I have never been a fan of Brian Michael Bendis’s work.  Not since Avengers Disassembled, which destroyed one of my favorite characters, the Scarlet Witch.  New Avengers is a book that has been in transition its entire existence.  Its first couple of arcs were bringing the team together.  The Collective was dealing with the fallout from House of M.  Then came Civil War.  Then Secret Invasion.  Basically, there has been no time to breathe.  Mighty Avengers, on the other hand, established itself with two opening arcs with a basically established team and Secret Invasion as something looming over the horizon.

     So, the Secret Invasion tie-ins in both series were both interesting for a while.  The establishment of the Secret Warriors was quite interesting, and if Jimmy Cheung was pencilling New Avengers, it was guaranteed to be interesting.  Well, that isn’t the case anymore.  Both series now involve either the exposition of plot points that should have been explained a long time ago (the Hood syndicate + the Skrulls in House of M) or the elongating of scenes that added almost nothing to the story (Captain Marvel).  To be honest, these stories are now pretty pointless.  They do nothing to add to the story, and they don’t stand much on their own either.  They’re not bad as a part of Secret Invasion, but without it, they’re not so good.

     Mighty Avengers looks to be interesting post-Secret Invasion, since the team is actually a team of Avengers, as opposed to the best hits of Marvel characters or people who should never have been Avengers in the first place.  That does NOT include Luke Cage, who is the best addition to the Avengers since Firestar and Justice.  In addition, it’s being written by Dan Slott, who single-handledly created Avengers: The Initiative, the best Avengers comic for the last couple of years.  As for New Avengers, we know basically nothing about what is going to happen.  That should change tomorrow.  However, I am just glad that Secret Invasion is over and that these titles can move on.  At least the covers are pretty.

New Avengers

Plot: 7.7      Art: 8.6      Dialogue: 8.2      Overall: 8.2

Mighty Avengers

Plot: 7.5      Art: 8.2      Dialogue: 8.2      Overall: 8.0

Not So Amazing

 

     So, for those of you who haven’t been living in a hole the past year, Amazing Spider-Man is continuing the plot lines begun in the Brand New Day storyline, which began in January after possibly the most controversial storyline in the history of comics, One More Day.  Every time I hear that name, I think of Les Miserables.  Anyway, It’s been 33 issues now, and we’re approaching Character Assassination, the arc that will end a ton of those plotlines.  So was all this change worth it?  Was breaking Peter Parker and M.J. up worth it?

     I will answer that right now: NO.  It was not worth it.  Even if you think that Peter is better when he is unmarried, which is basically supporting a character who never grows up, the whole “let’s make deals with a devil-like figure to make a massive retcon within the actual context of the story!” thing is just poor writing.  Really poor writing.  Then, aside from a few scattered good arcs, my favorite of which was actually the first one, by Dan Slott and Steve McNiven, the arcs have been little better than fluff.  Well drawn fluff, with some of the best artists in the biz, like McNiven, Phil Jimenez, Mike McKone, and Marcos Martin, but fluff.  Peter is once again immature and unable to support himself, as though he forgot how to live by himself.  His supporting cast is boring and uninspired.  Especially Jackpot.  Misleading much?  And Aunt May is the least like Aunt May I have ever seen her.  I miss the tough-as-nails, supportive, knowledgable Aunt May of the Straczynski run, which I actually enjoyed.

     Admittedly, New Ways to Die was a lot better than what proceeded.  Instead of only utilizing villains based on other villains (the new Kraven, Menace, Freak) or villains based simply on modern topics (Freak the druggie, Paper Doll the celebrity stalker, Screwball the internet savvy), they brought in the Thunderbolts.  Sure, Anti-Venom was only interesting for the first second or so, since the whole idea was kind of silly, but the Thunderbolts were awesome!  Then Menace came in.  And things slowed down.  The arc then kind of puttered out, leaving me wanting more of the beginning.  And John Romita, Jr., possibly my favorite artist, lost some of the quality of his art due to poor coloring that created the ever-receding hairline of Norman Osborn.  You know what I’m talking about.

     Since then, things have been a bit better.  The Joe Kelly arc was kind of interesting, though the beginning was something that belonged in a Deadpool comic.  Which is interesting, since the writer used to write Deadpool.  Chris Bachalo’s faces, though, looked terrible.  The Punisher story was just boring.  What purpose did it serve?  To show that Peter Parker/Spider-Man is selfless?  We knew that, thanks.  The current arc, Unscheduled Stop, written by Mark Waid, actually has promise.  The whole idea of J. Jonah Jameson, Sr., is fascinating, to be sure.  And the whole trial thing seems intriguing.  But on the whole, this is a comic that has seen better days.  Better villains, better character development, better plotlines, and a certain red-head who was far more interesting and fun that most people give her credit for.  Seriously, I miss M.J.  She gave vitality to Amazing Spider-Man that people seem to have forgotten.  Oh well.  Issue #600 is supposed to be big, so maybe they’ll bring them back together.  I wish.

Plot: 7.3      Art: 9.0     Dialogue: 7.9      Overall: 7.9

The First Critique

     So, since I’m impatient, let’s start things right off.  First, I’ll begin with the first comic I ever read, and the only comic that I have continually read since then.

    

     I have always had a very special place in my heart for the Fantastic Four, and I greatly enjoyed the now legendary Waid/Wieringo run a few years back.  The Straczynski and McDuffie runs were fun but mediocre.  When I first heard that Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch were going to write the title, I was quite skeptical.  I was not a fan of Hitch, and I thought that Millar’s radical changes to the title, beginning with the new costumes, would destroy what made the F4 so great.

     Fortunately, I was wrong.  The first arc, World’s Greatest, was only minimally better than the McDuffie run, so it didn’t change much of anything.  I found the giant Galactus robot to be a bit unbelievable, though I did enjoy the revival of Alyssa Moy, a character who deserved a lot more exposure.  In addition, I found Millar’s treatment of Johnny Storm, a character who had partially become more than his previous, immature self in the Waid/Wieringo run, to be regressing.  There was plenty that worried me.

     Then came Death of the Invisible Woman.  This arc immediately scared me, since I love Sue Storm, and I didn’t want anything to happen to her.  But with this arc, Millar and Hitch hit their stride.  The characters of the New Defenders, especially Psionics, were intriguing, and their agenda was actually something I wanted to see more of.  Sure, finding out that they were from the future was a bit scary, since time travel is overused, but Millar managed to salvage that by tying that into the world dying plotline, which is something that I find quite important.  Hitch’s pencils have also improved compared to even the last arc, to the point that I can see why he’s considered one of the top artists of the day.  Add to that the subplot about Valerie’s intelligence, the Wolverine appearance, and the pitch-perfect Thing characterization, and this arc soared above the previous one.  New and old elements combined together helped save a comic that hasn’t seen great writing in a while.  So now, despite news that Dr. Doom might be replaced, which does bother me, I’m optimistic.

Plot: 8.6      Art: 9.0      Dialogue: 8.9      Overall: 8.8