Comics are Awesome III

[Sparky Prime]

Yeah, I'm out of the loop on some of this. I skipped the Thorne run and both the Green Lanterns and Sinestro series, so anything that happened in those I don't know about.

I did some research... Turns out Sinestro did establish a New Korugar on the planet formally known as Necropolis.

[andersonh1]

Jay Garrick The Flash #4 - I've really got mixed feelings about this, because on one level I enjoyed the issue and thought it was well written, and I enjoyed seeing some of the actual dialogue from Flash Comics #1 in places where some of the scenes were recreated. On the other hand, I prefer blind chance and Jay's moral character making him into the Flash rather than some plot by an evil scientist, and I really dislike retcons that mess with long-established origin stories like this, as Professor Hughes from Flash Comics #1 turns out to be a mad scientist looking for ways to increase human potential, and he uses Jay as a human guinea pig. I don't mind stuff going on around the fringes of an origin, which is what we got with Flash Comics #104 and the Rival, but this issue makes the villain responsible for the existence of original Flash. Maybe something in issues 5 and 6 will convince me that this was a good route to take with the story. I do like Jay's slowed aging getting recognized, since he's around 104 at this point and still pretty spry for a cool old guy.

World's Finest #23 - Part four of Return to Kingdom Come, and while it's been a good story, it hasn't really scratched the potential of putting "our" Batman and Superman into that world. It turns into a case of Gog wanting to take all of that Earth's heroes and assault Apokolips and Darkseid in a fight he knows that he can't win, because he wants a sufficiently difficult warrior's death in battle. It's not a bad story, I just expected more.

Green Lantern War Journal #5 - The story continues to juggle John's personal life with the threat of the Revenant Queen, who is busy infecting the Earth with her plague. Some more loser Green Lanterns show up, and John creates a construct of his dead little sister to comfort his mother, who has dementia, and imbues the construct with his own will and knowledge. There are some interesting things going on in this book, which has kept me reading beyond my initial decision to try the book mainly to see how it addressed the current status quo of the GLC.

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #8 - We may finally be getting some answers next issue about Hal's ring and what's going on with the United Planets Lantern Corps. This issue dives in with three of their Lanterns arresting Razer after he and Hal visit Madame Xanadu to try and figure out why Hal can't leave the atmosphere. The backup with Kyle is thin, since it's only a few pages, but it's a nice little character piece for Kyle as he talks to a construct of Alex about trying to find his role in the Corps. He still misses her after all these years. Not a bad issue, and we're rid of that pointless "Sinister Sons" backup.

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #9 - Well, it took long enough to get here, but the payoff is interesting. Hal examines the cavern where he felt the power, and he finds a cave deep beneath the earth filled with light and lush vegetation, and there's Tom Kalmaku, recalling his old days as one of the New Guardians after the Millenium event. He's keeping watch over a giant power battery, hidden away by the Guardians, with the idea that the Earth lanterns are uniquely suited to be torchbearers and keep the Corps going if something ever again went drastically wrong. It's as good an explanation for multiple human Green Lanterns as I've seen. Hal loses the "shadow" ring he's had up until now, but gets a new one and is finally able to head out into space to investigate the power-shifting Lanterns. He's ultimately captured and then rescued by Jo. The backup story features Jessica Cruz infiltrating the inner circle of the UP rep running the Corps now, and it turns out more than one Green Lantern objects to the way the Corps is being run. I think it took us a bit too long to get here, but I like where this is going.

[andersonh1]

Today's comics: Green Lantern #10, Jay Garrick The Flash #6 (last issue), Fantastic Four #19, Transformers #7 and World's Finest #26. Haven't had time to read them all, but GL remains interesting.

Green Lantern #10 - A lot of explanations are given in this issue, if not everything. A number of the actual Green Lanterns have gone underground to fight the UP Lanterns, including Jo, Salaak, Kyle, Two-Six and Simon Baz. It's good to finally see so many of these characters again, and Guy Gardner gets the backup story this month as he goes after Lobo. We still don't know exactly what Tharos's plan is, or why so many UP Lanterns can use multiple colors from the emotional spectrum, but this material out in space dealing with the Corps is far more to my liking than Hal being trapped on Earth, as good as those issues were.

[andersonh1]

Today's comics: Facsimile editions of Showcase #22, Hal Jordan's first appearance; World's Finest #27, Shazam #12, Green Lantern #12 and Fantastic Four #21/714.

Green Lantern #12 - Found out last time that the United Planets council members have all been replaced by Durlans, and they're taking out all the resistance Lanterns, Hal included. Fortunately he's rescued by Carol, now wearing the Star Sapphire ring. Kyle takes out another group, seemingly able to take all of their various colored ring energies from them. Hal and Carol are back on Earth by the end of the issue, attacked by the Suicide Squad, since Tharos has an arrangement with Amanda Waller. After six issues with a fairly leisurely pace, a lot has happened since issue 7 and the story keeps on moving right along. I like Adams' emphasis on just how long Hal and Carol have known each other, that's something fairly unique among all the superhero couples.

[Sparky Prime]

Secret Wars (2015)

Since I revisited Secret Wars (1984) and read Secret Wars II for the first time, I wanted to visit the 2015 series as well. Being so (relatively) recent though, I figure it belongs more in this thread rather than the retro thread.

The multiverse has collapsed, but Dr. Doom has killed the Beyonder... er, Beyonders, for their power, and has managed to save various fragments of various Earths. Similarly to the first Secret Wars, this patchwork planet has been named Battleworld. Turns out Dr. Strange is the only other person that remembers events prior to the creation of Battleworld, since he was with Doom when he killed the Beyonders. While Strange had the chance to take their power, he ended up freaking out about it, thus becoming God Doom's right hand man in governing Battleworld. Reed Richards of both the 616 universe, as well as the Ultimate universe, managed to survive with a hand full of others thanks to life raft ships they each built to survive the destruction of the mutliverse. After 8 years, both of these life rafts have been uncovered, and opened. When Doom confronts them, Strange scatters the surviving heroes across Battleworld (and thus Doom kills Strange for the betrayal). After several months, they've come up with a plan to fight Doom. Discovering Doom is using Molecule Man as a battery for his power, the Reeds go after him, resulting in a showdown between 616 Reed and Doom. After Doom acknowledges Reed could have used the powers to more effectively save the multiverse, Molecule Man gives Reed the powers instead. In the end, Franklin Richards dreams up new universes for his father to use in restoring the multiverse.

--

Like Secret Wars II, I feel that this series suffers from having too many tie-ins. I think this reads better on its own compared to Secret Wars II, but there are parts of this story that feels lacking. It starts off with the final incursion resulting in the destruction of the 616 and Ultimate universes, which is a bit jarring without covering the build-up to how they got there. They do recap the Illuminati's efforts to save the 616 universe later on, but I wish they'd done it earlier. When Strange scatters everyone from the life rafts across Battleworld, I was hoping to see a bit of them regrouping. Instead, the story just skips ahead in time. I feel like they could have covered Battleworld better in general. I know this is something the tie-ins cover much more in depth, but the main book doesn't really visit very many locations on Battleworld. I think they could have better utilized it as a concept rather than relegating so much to tie-ins. Not even clear on why they named the planet Battleworld, other than as a call back to the original Secret Wars.

Not a fan of the idea Molecule Man is a failsafe created by the Beyonders as a means to destroy the multiverse. He's a human. Whose powers came from an accident. You'd think they'd have a failsafe that's a little more... perpetual in the grand scheme of a universe. I do like the idea of Doom using him as a battery for the Beyonder's powers though. Since it was shown to be too much for Doom to handle in the original Secret Wars, it makes sense he'd take precautions this time around. And the scale of Molecule Man's powers makes him a logical choice to be able to contain such power.

The Beyonder has been retconned a few times over the years, his Secret Wars II origin story basically ignored. At some point, Marvel established the Beyonders were created by the Celestials, and the Beyonder in the first Secret Wars was a child. Not really a fan of there being more than one Beyonder personally, let alone that Doom could take out several adults when he lost, with the power cosmic, against what apparently was a child. Strangely, Dr. Doom isn't able to heal his own face with the God powers this time around, despite he did in the original Secret Wars. I guess Reed (or Molecule Man? it's not clear who did it) was feeling generous, because we see his face is healed when the 616 universe is restored.

I get the feeling Jonathan Hickman is a fan of Game of Thrones. Things like Doom's royal court and the Wall keeping out Zombies felt like they were directly inspired by GoT.

For having the entire Marvel multiverse collapse and destroyed, the ending is anti-climatic. I mean, this was never going to be like CoIE with a full reboot. But for ending the entire Marvel multiverse, after 3 years of building up to this story... this should have had a more significant ending than this. Really, the only big thing this story does was officially ending the original Ultimate universe, and incorporating some elements of it into the 616 universe. But... I know the real answer here is because editorial, but why didn't Franklin and Reed restore the Ultimate universe while rebuilding the multiverse? There's no reason given for why they decided to fold a few surviving elements into the 616 universe instead.

Like I said, I think this series reads better than Secret Wars II. But I still think the original Secret Wars is the best of the books with the Secret Wars title.

[andersonh1]

Today's comics: facsimile edition of Transformers #1 (Marvel), World's Finest #31, Zero Hour 30th anniversary special and Green Lantern #15. Looks like next month is going to start putting legacy numbering in small print beneath the current number. GL #16 is legacy #583.

[andersonh1]

Today's comics: Fantastic Four #26, Green Lantern Civil Corps special #1, and another facsimile of Detective Comics #27, this time at actual size and printed old school on newsprint. It's maybe an inch wider and a quarter inch taller than modern comics, and it's as close as I'll ever come to holding an actual copy.

[Sparky Prime]

Young Avengers - Sidekicks (2005)

Nate Richards, the teenaged Kang the Conqueror, has come back in time looking for the Avengers to help defend him from his older self. However, Nate has arrived just after the events of Avengers Disassembled. He finds the remains of Vision's android body, and downloads his databank into his suit, finding a contingency plan Vision developed in the event the Avengers were defeated. This contingency plan details several potential replacement Avengers and thus he recruits Eli Bradley, Teddy Altman and Billy Kaplan, forming the Young Avengers. They quickly gain some fame performing minor heroics. Kate Bishop and Cassie Lang seeks out the team, looking to join as well. Iron Man and Captain America confront them, disapproving of these teenagers fighting crime. Kang then shows up, and during the ensuing battle, is killed by Nate. As the timeline begins to change around them, they realize Nate has to go back to his own time to restore things back to normal. Before he returns to the future though, he leaves his suit to become the new body for Vision. In the end, Iron Man and Captain America still disapprove of the Young Avengers, but with new costumes provided by Kate Bishop's family fortune, they continue to operate on their own.

How is this story almost 20 years old already? Unfortunately, Marvel has a habit of neglecting the Young Avengers. I gather editorial was not keen on the idea to begin with, but the characters have proved to be popular with the fans. Because Allan Heinberg, the first writer for the title, is also a writer/producer in television, it caused a lot of delays which obviously didn't do the book any favors. Ever since, Marvel has been spotty with publications of the Young Avengers. They had a number of event storyline tie-in miniseries over the span of several years. Heinberg came back to write The Children's Crusade, a 9 issue maxi-series, which had the same problems with delays. Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie would get an ongoing Young Avengers title in 2012, but that run only lasted 15 issues when the creative team decided to move onto other projects. Since then, some of the characters have appeared in other titles.

I really like this initial story arc. It's interesting to see a teenaged Kang rebel against his older self, refusing to believe he has to grow up to become the super villain. The end of his story is a bit of a downer with him returning to his own time, still not wanting to grow up to be Kang. It's a bit simple, but they do expand on it, when he returns in a later story, showing why he turns to evil.

Vision's contingency plan works as an effective way to introduce new characters. But they don't do much with it, and I think there are a few oversights here... They establish that Vision knew Billy and Teddy had direct connections to the Avengers, but neither of them are aware of what that is at this point. So how does Vision have that information? I'm not really sure how Vision knew about Billy at all, since the YA Special issue implies his powers didn't manifest until the day of Avengers Disassembled. They don't exactly explain how he knew about Teddy either, but the YA Special issue reveals he'd been using his powers to impress a boy he liked in school, so I'd have to guess Vision noticed him through security cameras or something like that. Not really sure why Iron Lad doesn't just track down some living members of the Avengers to begin with. It didn't take much for Iron Man and Captain America to seek him out.

I like how, because they don't know the origins of their abilities, Billy initially takes the name Asguardian, and Teddy takes the name Hulking. Billy changes his codename to Wiccan at the end of this story, in part because his powers are magic, not Asguard, but as the girls point out, once the public finds out he's in a relationship with Teddy... it'd quickly become the butt of jokes. I wish they'd come up with a new name for Hulkling, since he's not related to the Hulk, and his powers are shapeshifting. But for whatever reason, he stuck with it.

At any rate, really good start to the Young Avengers. I'm looking forward to rereading the rest.