Comic Reviews

This week Brian Michael Bendis gets a third chance to make a first impression; Judge Dredd penetrates Patrick Swayze; and, Jean Grey does some family visiting.

Spoilers below...

Man of Steel #1

Okay, cards on the table: I have a huge writer crush on Brian Michael Bendis. When I was getting back into comics after an absence of years it was his Daredevil that drew me in. Between that and Ultimate Spider-Man it was clear that this was a writer with a real love and appreciation for the characters he was handling, one who knew where to modernise and where to leave well alone for the benefit of continuity.

So now he's writing Superman. Now, there's no one more skeptical of nostalgia than me. I know its a drug, I know its a con half the time but damn me if this isn't Superman exactly as I remember the character. Bendis plays it smart, intercutting his bold new take on the “true reason” Krypton was destroyed with a very conscious greatest hits reel to assure people that this is their (and their father's and their grandfather's Superman). We see him swoop In to the rescue a couple of times, once with supervillains and once with an apartment building fire and all with that very earnest honesty about him even when he's being sarcastic.

I am also very, very glad to see that Jon continues to exist. Not that I thought he was going away, exactly, but more than I suspected Bendis might ignore the boy's existence between the very iconic and classic feel of things (down to the red shorts) and the plotline from the DC Nation one-shot about Lois not being at the Planet anymore.

If there's one thing Bendis seems absolutely determined on its that Superman is a reported above all else. Even when he's rescuing people from the burning building he's thinking about how this rash of electrical fires came about. Arson? Bad city planning? Ordinances that aren't up to scratch?

Its been a long time since a version of Superman grabbed me this quickly. I'm not saying its been all doom and gloom before now (Patrick Gleason's run on Superman stands out in my mind as a great recent series) but this just perfectly captures what I love about the character.

Judge Dredd: Under Siege #1

So, for a while people have been telling me that the American Judge Dredd comics from IDW aren't the disaster one would assume them to be. Not to insult anyone of a Yankish persuasion reading this but American fans (and most comic authors are fans these days) tend to not get that Dredd is meant to be funny. In fairness, a worrying number of British fans don't get this either nowadays but that's a rant for another day.

Reading this I'm trying to remind myself that this is by no means the first series IDW has put out and the conspicuous similarities to Dredd (2012) are probably a one off. Like the film (which I adore) we have a situation where two Judges are trapped in a giant apartment building with enemies on the top floors and a control room to be taking control of on the other side of the baddies.

In this case Dredd has been sent in to Patrick Swayze Block to locate Judge Beeny (presumably this story is set some time before she became a member of the Council Of Five) who went missing when the block went off the comms grid when she was meant to be doing a routine school visit.

Beeny is actually a character I have a lot of time for: a young, idealistic Judge who was the daughter of anti-Judge activists and one of the few reformers Dredd has ever been seen to so much as give the time of day. If nothing else I look forward to her and Dredd interacting across this series even if, sadly, the plot looks like one I've been through before just with slightly different villains. Who knows, though? Time will tell.

X-Men Red Annual #1

Even four issues into the main series, I'm still cautious about X-Men Red. Its not that its bad, its certainly entertaining, but the sticking point for me is that its essentially a Jean Grey series. I don't like Jean Grey much. Over the last few years the teenage version that's been running around has softened my view of her and I think its just the Ms. Perfect version that everyone idolises that gets my back up and Taylor seems smart enough not to push that angle too much. Jean in this series is definitely the same woman with the same formidable reputation but more conscious of her flaws.

Anyway, the annual is basically the story of what Jean did just after her resurrection, in spite of the whole of the rest of the team being on the cover, and is a pretty personal story only connected to the Red team by featuring Jean's first meeting with Laura and Gabby.

The long and the short of it: not much happens here but fluff and then of Jean's emotional journey is basically just to put her where we say her in #1. That said having been said: ain't nothing wrong with fluff, especially fluff that has Jean and Rachel interact like family for practically the first time ever. Plus, any issue with Gabby in it is definitely worth at least a look.

Random catch-up musings (featuring Wrestlemania and Takeover spoilers)

Okay, its been a while so what we got?

Well, Wrestlemania happened and so did Takeover: New Orleans. One of these shows was better than the other. I was very down on Wrestlemania this year. The disappointment started early with Asuka losing her match and her undefeated streak. I genuinely thought they were going to have her win and do the Brock Lesnar thing and hold the title Wrestlemania to Wrestlemania and have her drop it to... oh, probably Bailey.

Instead they had Asuka lose to Charlotte and (to quote a favourite sentiment of Jim Cornette) I don't see where the money is in this? They have spent so much time investing Asuka's undefeated streak with the proper weight and mystique, they allowed it to run so long it long ago beat Bill Goldberg's all time record.

And then she loses on her first big-time match on main roster.

Where's the money? Where's the money in breaking her record for Charlotte who is already over, already respected and a multiple time title holder? It doesn't make sense to me.

And the hits kept on coming. Brock Lesnar's interminable part-time Universal Championship run lumbers on for reasons we discovered the next evening when Lashley made his triumphant return to Raw. I can only hope the rumours are wrong and Lesnar is going to drop at the Greatest Royal Rumble instead of making us wait for SummerSlam. Nakamura/Styles was somehow a lot less interesting than the famous match they had at Wrestle Kingdom a couple years back just before they jumped ship to WWE. I really thought that was going to be an all-time classic.

And I just cannot get over the whole bizarre scenario of hiring the most famous female combat athlete in the world and having her debut in a match against a semi-trained 41 year old mother of two featuring two semi-retired old men. Really, Triple H and Angle should have been their own nostalgia match and at least let Rousey's first match be all-women.

To be honest, the highlights of the night for me were Xavier Woods playing the Dragonzord theme and the Bludgeon Brothers winning the tag belts less because I love the Bludgeon Brothers (though I do) but because it finally ends the wretched and over-extended Usos/New Day feud.

Takeover, meanwhile, could not have been better. Worth the money I didn't pay for it (we use my housemate's Network account) for Gargano vs. Ciampa which ran just over half an hour and was amazingly intense. The Six-Man Ladder Match for the North American Championship was amazing and I swear I have never expected be so hyped for the introduction of a mid-card title.

*****

On a happier note: Paige is the new General Manager of Smackdown Live! A female authority figure for Steph to bump up against. I know they want Rousey to be the female Stone Cold but I really think someone in a management position needs to exist who can stand up to her.

I also really hope this isn't just a stunt appointment for market Paige's biopic. I mean, obviously they're going to use it like that but I hope it outlasts the movie's release.

*****

DC finally made announcements about the post-Metal Justice League comics beyond the No Justice stuff they already announced. There's a new Justice League Dark with Wonder Woman and Zatanna which is interesting but the real news for me is Justice League Odyssey which not only has Cyborg leading a team featuring Jessica Cruz and Starfire but its going to be drawn by Stjepan Sejic, the amazing artist of Sunstone and a recent really good run on Aquaman.

*****

Roseanne came back and every time they interview John Goodman he looks like one of those hostages assuring their family they're fine and being fed and everyone is bein provided proper medical assistance. I grew up with that show and didn't know any of the stuff about Roseanne herself going a bit made and tyrannical towards the end of the original and now she's a bloody Pizzagate truther!

Oh, well, not like I'm starved for television I want to watch and keep not finding time for between the Arrowverse shows, the Marvel-Netflix stuff, Voltron: Legendary Defender, and that Lost In Space reboot.

*****

So, the solo Flash movie that became a Flashpoint movie is now a solo Flash movie again because DC figured if they were going to make another shit movie they might as well make the version of it that doesn't basically require expensive guest stars.

*****

I have developed a visceral hatred of Sam Ovens, a man who hawks business webinars in YouTube ads. Somehow I manage to get one of his ads on every video I watch and I watch a lot of stuff on YouTube. My only respite from his voice is the strange banjo accompanied adverts for toilet nowl nightlights.

*****

Marvel's upcoming Death of the Inhumans event is coming in July. I don't care. I genuinely do not give a shit. I have tried to care about the Inhumans since Inhumans vs. X-Men. I read Royals, which was okay, and Black Bolt, which was great but as a larger concept I can't say they grab me at all. “The X-Men but even more uncomfortably eugenic” isn't that good a pitch and I can't say I'm surprised we've reached this point.

However...

If this latest bullshit event has any negative consequences for Kamala Khan words will be had.

*****

Donald Trump has decided to pick a fight with the US Post Office because he doesn't understand that Amazon's free delivery isn't free to Amazon. He genuinely seems to believe that Amazon just declares they aren't paying postage and gets away with it. Don't get me wrong, Amazon is pretty evil and I don't doubt this is something they'd try if they thought they had he chance but the simple reality that should be apparent to anyone with a functional reasoning brain (or a White House full of functional reasoning brains they can consult at any hour of the day or night) that Amazon pays the postage fees out of their profit on the sale.

And that's the only Donald Trump news I want to do in this one because its Trump and there's a scandal a day with that guy.

Hopefully he'll be impeached or do something to terminally disappoint his personality cult of heavily armed, emotionally unstable racial supremacists some of whom, I'm told, are very fine people.

I'm trying to care about Marvel's Fresh Start

There's another line-wide Marvel refresh on its way and... ugh. Enough, Marvel. Legacy only just happened. Actually, that's not a bad place to start with this one. There are events teased in the Marvel Legacy one-shot that aren't even going to start happening until Fresh Start. That Wakandan Space Empire won't come up in Black Panther until the series gets its Fresh Start relaunch with exactly the same creative team, far as I can tell. The return of the Fantastic Four is no closer to being a thing now than it was when we saw Franklin and Val space surfing into the distance at the end of the one-shot.

We've reached a point where relaunches are so close together they're outpacing each other.

And its just boring now.

Marvel. Tell good stories. Advertise and distribute them so people know you're telling them. Take advantage of the fact you're owned by a massive multi-media conglomerate that can crush Diamond and get your product into practically every retail space in existence. Stop it with the bloody line-wide relaunches. Accept the fact that you're working in a very slow medium (in terms of release schedule) and that thing need time to build up momentum.

Its not that most of what been announced is bad (though giving Amazing Spider-Man to the “Captain America is a Nazi guy” is a pretty classic example of white guys failing upwards) but given how short the Legacy era has been I see no reason to care.

Some it sounds good. Dan Slott on Iron Man is a good pitch given how long, varied and full of ideas his Spider-Man run has been. It would be better if there was any sense that Riri Williams had any sort of future waiting for her after Bendis floats off to DC but on its own Dan Slott on Iron Man is a damn good pitch.

Not that it even matters. And I don't mean “for me”. It doesn't matter. There'll be the big sales spike on the first issues, a month or so down the line a bunch of promising but not instantly high-selling titles will get the chop and then in probably less than a year we'll be here yet a-bloody-gain just as Legacy led us here because this is a company perfectly happy to maintain a mediocre sales platform solely dedicated to reaching a shrinking niche audience of men who look just like me.

I've seen dying industries before but the comicbook industry might be the first one I've ever seen that's actively suicidal.

Surprisingly, I'm enjoying Amazing Spider-Man's Legacy storyline

[SPOILERS for the current “Fall of Parker” storyline in Amazing Spider-Man, in particular the cliffhanger to the most recent issue and also various plot points from adjectiveless Spider-Man]

I was not expecting to. Okay, I do wish we'd had more chance to enjoy the Parker Industries status quo (especially as I only started to like that status quo with the launch of the current series) so much so I was very skeptical about taking Peter back to the Daily Bugle.

The thing is, though, that the specific angle offers something new and interesting. I was afraid of it being a pure nostalgia exercise given that Marvel has all but announced their intention to set the engines to maximum pander.

But Peter Parker as a science writer sounds like it could be fun. Given that this is the Marvel Universe this means he could end up in all sorts of situations that build on the scientist side of the character I so enjoyed seeing explored at Parker Industries. It means that we keep the mature aspect of the character (even if he is still a prat) that I think Marvel should retain so long as Miles Morales is swinging around as the teenage Spider-Man.

That having been said, I wonder where they're going with Miles in Spider-Man and this idea that maybe he might adopt a new superhero identity. Maybe this is down to Bendis leaving and wanting to throw one last curveball to the readership.

Personally? I'd rather he remain Spider-Man because it allows Marvel to have their teenage hero cake and eat it too so we don't end up having to have Peter reverting to a younger man again as in Brand New Day. On the other hand it would be nice to see Miles get his own identity even if only to show that a newer character can survive outside of being a legacy.

If they can, of course. 

Ta-Nehisi Coates' Storm: a wishlist

I am so stoked for this series. Storm is one of my favourite characters, she has such a deep and rich history to draw on and so, with all respects to Ta-Nehisi Coates

#1: a twelfth issue

Ah, yes, Ta-Nehisi Coates spinning off a title from his Black Panther run, we all know how well that usually goes, don't we? I admit, I didn't bother with World of Wakanda but I did my part for Black Panther & The Crew. I just hope that this issue can somehow find the audience it needs to keep going because just based on Storm's appearances in Coates' other work he has so many ideas for her that it would be a crime for this series to get the “one arc and then chopped” treatment.

Also on this subject...

#2: bitch ass manbabies to shut the hell up

Attention, cretins! This is Storm we're talking about here: she's not a new character and she's not taking a precious bloody name away from any fictional white men you might be emotionally invested in. Could you please, just this one, shut the bloody hell up about “forced diversity” with this one. Go back to crying into your cornflakes about how the Hulk is now an Asian kid and/or a woman.

We cool? Moving on.

#3: Cairo

One of the really interesting parts of Black Panther & The Crew was exploring Storm's relationship with Harlem, her parents' home that she only experienced as an adult. The previous Storm ongoing had a lot to say about her relationship to Kenya (if I'm wrong about it being Kenya, I apologise, I remember it being Kenya that she lived in between Cairo and meeting the X-Men). One part of her life that hasn't been touched on in some time is her childhood on the streets of Cairo where she was a pickpocket.

#4: The Further Adventures Of The Crew

A man can dream. But if not the whole tea, then maybe just...

#5: Misty Knight

I was wrong, it turns out. When I was reviewing Black Panther & The Crew I completely forgot that Misty and Storm know each other really, really well. Back in the olden days of Chris Claremont's original run, Misty was Jean Grey's roommate in New York city and so she and Storm interacted quite a lot. This throws that relationship I enjoyed so much in The Crew in a whole new light.

#6: Special Agent Ororo Munroe, FBI

I am sure this was brought up recently in some X-title or other but once upon a time, in a much later Claremont run, Storm and several other X-Men were deputised to the FBI as the XSE (yes, it was really called that, Xavier's Security Enforcement). She is, or was, a legitimate agent of the government. Food for thought.

#7: Doom

So there was this very odd arc in the Claremont days where Doom captured the X-Men and subjected them to all sorts of trials and tortures but in the end he lets them go in exchange for a dinner date with Storm. It sounds like I'm making this up but I swear its true. There was a similar situation with Dracula.

#8: Bruno from Ms. Marvel

He's in Wakanda, Storm spends a lot of time in Wakanda and what's more Storm is a teacher so she could easily be brought in to lecture at his polytechnic on mutant rights or agriculture or something. This is the most fannish idea on the list and that's why its last, a little whimsy to go out on, but just think about how cool it would be. 

For serious, Marvel...

I don't usually believe in karma but Marvel's NYCC this year is starting to make me wonder. Now, I'm writing this Saturday evening so if I don't mention something obvious here like a Marvel panel causing the venue to spontaneously burn to the ground that's why.

The news started off bad when I read that another of those retailer meet-ups (like the one where a Marvel executive dropped the line about nostalgia selling better than diversity) seemingly devolved into a near-lynching because some old white comicshop owners were angry about (what else...) diversity. That was bad. I thought that was as bad as a major industry/fan expo could possibly go.

And then it got worse.

They announced that they were publishing an all-ages Avengers comic in association with defense contractor and gun manufacturer Northrop Grumman. You read that sentence exactly right, a comic pitched to children sponsored by and advertising a government defense contractor. Apparently this was meant to interest children in STEM careers but, well, you can imagine that the thing people concentrated on was “children's comic sponsored by and advertising an arms dealer a week after a gun massacre”.

How did that get past anyone in management? How was it that in a company owned by one of the most obsessively PR-oriented entertainment corporations in existence a partnership like this was floated for more than a second?

I cannot imagine a single PR professional in this world looking at this idea and not raising concerns.

At this point the only logical conclusion is that the publishing wing of Marvel Entertainment is literally trying to commit suicide. No professional organisation could want this much bad publicity. It has actually reached the point where I was actually surprised when they canned the project given how bloodyminded they've been about sticking to bad decisions the past year or so.

An arms dealer, guys, seriously?

That's the literal baddie in Iron Man 1. 

Events, nostalgic numerology and accessibility

Ugh, this...

Marvel, for the love of God, just tell good stories and sell them in accessible places. Its not that a difficult idea. Enough with the events, already. And what is all this renumbering about? I just can't see how this is a selling point at all. I'm not fond of the way series get a new #1 every time they change creative team or direction but I understand the argument that it provides easily recognisable jumping on points (if they were sold in places people could see them to recognise the opportunity...).

And just... we're only halfway through the Secret Empire Nazipalooza (because you keep adding issues to it), that terrifying dead weight on your audience's wallets, what do you want to be hyping another event for?

I would really like this medium I love to continue. Considering its the source material for the biggest thing in mass market entertainment right now, that shouldn't be too tall an order. However, if your best attempt at attracting readers is an event based on pandering to old-time fans, slapping bigger numbers on the covers, that requires a chart then, to be frank, I'm not laying down serious money on the bet.

The crux of the issue is Ultimates, a really good comic that keeps being interrupted. The first twelve issue run dribbled off into a Civil War II tie-in and now the ongoing narrative of the second is being sandbagged by Secret Empire filler.

The title gets twelve installments a year. Its main story is clearly driving to a point but it keeps having to pause to make room for whatever wank Marvel has decided is so good for us it can interrupt the series we want to read for months on end.

Ugh...