Comics are awesome.

[138 Scourge]

Nick Fury and James Duggan assembled a team of superhumans in the 1950s to fight the Red Skull.

Who was in that group? I've seen Marvel do 50's Avengers teams before, the main one that comes to mind is pretty much the same guys that wound up being Jeff Parker's "Agents of Atlas", which is really a pretty cool team.

[Dominic]

The team consisted of:
-Fury
-Dum Dum

-Sabertooth
-Kraven the Hunter (cuz that makes sense or something)
-Namora (who is apparently messing around with Kraven)
-Sabertooth (who is not as awesome as he was in "Death Hunt")
-Bloodstone (yeah, really)
-Dominic Fortune (because we need more MAX characters)


Dom
-nothging special enough to go nuts trying to find.

[138 Scourge]

The team consisted of:
-Fury
-Dum Dum

-Sabertooth
-Kraven the Hunter (cuz that makes sense or something)
-Namora (who is apparently messing around with Kraven)
-Sabertooth (who is not as awesome as he was in "Death Hunt")
-Bloodstone (yeah, really)
-Dominic Fortune (because we need more MAX characters)


Dom
-nothging special enough to go nuts trying to find.

Namora, Bloodstone, and Dominic Fortune (who showed up in the proper Marvel U. waaay before the MAX thing) make sense, Sabretooth's a stretch, but I guess if he's making some bank off of it, no reason not to. Besides, these guys are all either extremely long-lived or, in Fortune's case, tied to that era enough that Bendis could tie 'em to the fifties without dating 'em too much. Kraven, though...I'm guessing that's more of his jungle herb magic making him more long-lived?

[Dominic]

And....two more comics from last week.

All things considered, I do not feel bad about reviewing these particular comics late, given who the creators are.


Batman Inc #3:
And, it is close to a month late. Given Morrison's track record, this is only going to get worse in absolute terms, with upcoming issues being even more late. If I do not have issue 6 in hand by the end of June, I am likely to going to drop the book. (And, that is allowing Morrison to be up to a month late.) Content wise, it was not worth the wait. A bunch of stuff happens...and it ends on a cliff-hanger that might be resolved by the time I take finals.
Grade: C


Spawn #200:
Well, bugger me. When "Spawn" first launched back in '91, I was, to put it bluntly, a skeptic. There was, I would have told you, simply no way that an independent capes and tights book would hit the 200 mark. Oh, "Spawn" has had delays. But, at this point, delays and the seeming inability to meet a deadline are more or less assumed, and there is little if any punishment for being late. (Morrison still gets plenty of work.) And, for every criticism that can be made against McFarlane, he crafted a linear story. Nearly 20 years after being launched, "Spawn" is a much different book than it started as. (McFarlane plays around with the time line of the book, counting from when "Spawn" was first published at Image, rather than its actual beginnings at Malibu.)

I do find it ironic how little push this book is getting. Immediately after Image started, the big two, (especially Marvel), went out of their way to play up how long their mainstay titles had been around, often going to absurd lengths to justify ridiculous cover gimmickery. This 200th issue of "Spawn" is printed on the regular stock comics are printed on, with a regular ol' cover.

I am not going to subscribe to this book. But, I will five McFarlane and company their due. Happy birthday Spawn. Now, lets see you break 500.

Grade: A


Dom
-just gave an Image book an A. Yeah, weird huh?

[Dominic]

Big week this week. (By the time I get done cutting down my pull list, my haul for the month will be comparable to what I pulled this week.)

But, I have only read one thing so far....


GI Joe #164:
I had to buy this one. I just had to. While flipping through it, I noticed a pretty serious continuity flub. What made it all the more notable was that this book is written by Larry "ohgodletushavehisbabies" Hama, who wrote much of the original run. A character who died in the original run shows up alive and well in the series that is intended to continue that series. I just checked the IDW boards. There are a few "Larry can do no wrong" types there. And, that includes some "oh, IDW blew it again" comments. But, there are a suprising number of posts from people who are calling out Hama on this one. The thread quotes Hama as saying that continuity is not important. Besides being more than a bit shocking, the comment makes me wonder if Hama is not playing the "see how far I can push them" game.

Grade: D But, the fall-out could be very interesting.

Dom
-kind of enjoys this sort of trainwreck.

[Onslaught Six]

Hama's kind of a hack on the same level as Furman, if you ask me. Both have similarly not written much of anything useful except Joe or TF since their initial runs (I will never stop giving Budiansky props for doing Ghost Rider, starting his own series, and then taking Spider-Man editor during the *Clone Saga* of all things) and both have had their share of shit runs.

I've also seen Hama quoted as not knowing how an issue was going to end until he wrote it. While I've seen other writers say similar things (Neil Gaiman's said all sort of whimsical things about "Well, now I know where this story is going to end, because the characters told me so themselves" but I chalk that up to Gaiman being the kind of whimsical old guffaw he is) Hama very much implies that he never had any long-term plans for GI Joe's run, and that really pisses me off--how do you not have long term character arcs at least vaguely plotted out ahead of time? It sounds like how I wrote when I was a gradeschooler. "Okay, well I wrote this part, what's supposed to happen next? I know, aliens come and then the good guy fights them. And then one of the good guys gets put under mind control!"

[Dominic]

Hama also said that he was saving up the big reveal about Firefly "for years". And, reading back-issues of the comic gives cause ot believe that claim.

I get the feeling that Hama had the important parts planned out, but the little details were largely improvised.

As far as the larger question goes, I would have argued that Hama was a better writer than Furman back in the day. His dialogue and concept based writing was always stronger, (and likely more him than an editor). But, I would argue that he got lazier, bordering on arrogance. Furman might be lazy and likely assumed he had a solid readership base. But, I do not think he believed his own hype. Hama might.


Dom
-has read some of this week's haul....and it is a bad week. Oi.

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #64
War of the Green Lanterns, part 1.

It took a long time to get here, but the "New Guardians" storyline that's been running in this book since Blackest NIght ended looks like it's going to pay off nicely. Krona attacks the remaining Guardians of the universe, sends the entities to possess them, and puts Parallax back in the main power battery. In the meantime, The Guardians had sent a contingent of Lanterns under Salaak's leadership to arrest Hal Jordan for associating with the head of all the other Lantern Corps. In a surprising and gratifying scene, the other Green Lanterns do not immediately attack Hal, but listen to his plea to talk even though things look bad. One even states his regard for the esprit de corps that the Green Lanterns should have. Having expected the typical super-hero brawl as answer to everything, the reasonableness of all parties involved was a nice surprise.

Of course, it's all for nothing as the re-insertion of Parallax into the battery results in all GL rings noting that "impurity restored". Hal is able to resist the control that Krona exerts over the other GLs, probably due to his possession by Parallax on several occasions. As the book ends, it appears that he's been isolated.

I've got the second part of the story in GL Corps 58, but haven't read the issue yet. But the premise of the story is sound, in that the GLs don't start fighting each other for no good reason, but because of Krona's influence via the entities. And all of this is built on what came before. It's the culmination of months of storylines. I'm very interested in where the story goes from here, and I'm also happy to see the main Green Lantern book getting back to outer space after being stuck on Earth for months.

[Dominic]

Wow. So all of the big important changes of the last few years might be getting undone. Wow.


Dom
-saw this one coming.

[andersonh1]

Wow. So all of the big important changes of the last few years might be getting undone. Wow.


Dom
-saw this one coming.

I don't see Parallax's insertion into the power battery as anything other than a one-time threat for this storyline, not a re-establishment of the old status quo. Not sure where you're getting this, Dom. Similarly, I don't expect the Guardians of the Universe to remain possessed by the emotional entities past this particular storyline.

Green Lantern Corps #58
Part two of War of the Green Lanterns shows the effect of Krona's attack on Oa from the point of view of Kyle Rayner, Ganthet and John Stewart. I still can't figure out why Ganthet even needs a power ring since he's got the power internalized like all Guardians, unless it's just to produce the injury he sustains in this issue. We get a restatement of just who Kyle and John are, and how the characters are different. But apart from seeing all the Corps members possessed and confirming that possession or influence by Parallax gives a Green Lantern some resistance to his influence now, the plot doesn't move very much. Not as good as part one of the story.