THE NEW AVENGERS #3 – Bendis cannot be stopped! Abetted to thunderous effect by the A-list art team of Immonen, Von Grawbadger, and Martin, we have nothing less than another slam-bang issue of Avengers action, with Spidey dropping a mid-combat lecture to Benjamin J. Grimm on the importance of maintaining catchphrases and Iron Fist’s spirit getting bushwacked by, I guess, the Ancient One? The thing about this is, it’s not like it’s setting the world on fire, but it’s just a gorgeous book. The art team could not have done a better job. And Bendis continues to kill it on the oral history, folding Kang into the mix. Still loving this relaunch. Which brings us to . . .
SECRET AVENGERS #4 – Said it before, but it bears repeating. This black-ops crazy sci-fi Avengers team is everything that I was hoping for but didn’t get out of Brubaker’s UNCANNY run. I don’t know if it’s just because he knows Rogers cold or these characters are a better fit or what, but it’s terrific fun. Steve takes on the Nova Force and of course it doesn’t drive him insane, he just opens up a can of whupass on a Serpent Crown-possessed Rich Ryder. Next issue should be interesting.
UNCANNY X-MEN #527 – The cover is brilliant. Makes perfect sense that Namor would roll in and stir things up like this, it’s exactly what he’s been doing since the 60s. Unfortunately, the Dodsons on the front make Portacio’s interiors seem that much scratchier. I was delighted to see him return to his last pre-Image title a few months back, but the work here looks rushed and sub-par. I want to like it but, frankly, if I didn’t already have so much affection for this guy, I think I’d be quite a bit more hacked off that the interiors for a $4 22-page comic with no extras look like this. Is this the deal now? I hates it, because it’s not like I’m dropping Fraction’s UNCANNY, but it would be nice if they’d at least throw us a back-up or something, not like there aren’t enough stories to tell or corners of the island to explore. Miz Frost sure gets around, dines and flirts with two of the Marvel Universe’s most eligible bachelors while making a Pryde/Rasputin love connection in between. The scene between Scott and Logan felt right.
ATLAS #4 – I am going to miss this one! We finally get to see what Bob really looks like and get a whole lot of backstory on the 3D-Man's insignia, but it's all fairly captivating. But, best of all, Mr. Lao opens up a hot can of molten dragon-breath on the invaders. Much more than a premiere strategist, our Mr. Lao. The best part, though, is that the backup isn't a backup at all, really just the next part of the main story, which, of course you can complain that we lose Hardman & Breitweiser on art, but given that we're in an alternate/parallel universe, you can kind of let it slide, especially since it's one in which Jimmy Woo founded the Avengers. Just a hell of a cliffhanger, it's really going to be a bittersweet purchase next month. It was about Jimmy Woo!
DV8 #5 – Man, those THE EVENT ads are driving me insane. Just because they really do their job and draw you in, but that means they wreck a solid 16% of the story. That’s going to have to be one charming motherfucking pilot to keep me on board, tell you what. But Wood & Isaacs! Another good-looking issue. Though, like last month, I didn’t care as much, just because I guess I don’t find the characters as relatable. Wait, that’s not it, I’m trying to say that at first Wood was really doing a solid job getting me dialed into these folks, and I just haven’t been feeling it last month with Matthew and now here. I expect this to change as we pick up toward the home stretch, though. Still better than most superhero comics on the stands, yes. I’m maybe holding Boss Wood up to a ridiculously high standard, but I think his work merits it. What a madman. (I mean, NORTHLANDERS and DMZ every month, this, and he and Cloonan just wrapped the already-badly-missed second volume of DEMO, that is some serious prolificacy)
FABLES #97 – These guys are getting it done. A serious ramp-up to #100, which I imagine is going to really be one for the ages. Rose was so bad! Very cool to see her finally get up out of bed, Willingham let that go just long enough, it felt very natural and unforced. This series is really going to go on forever, I think, it’s already been, what, eight years, and we’re only just now picking up steam after what would have been an excellent series finale in #75. The tales, they demand to be told, I guess.
****
BEST OF WEEK: EX MACHINA #50 – Again, no matter when this one finally landed, nothing else on any week could have even a hope of coming close. But it really all just makes me sad. Which I’m positive is what the crew was going for.
Tuesday night, with maybe an hour a half left in the day, I realized that this was maybe probably at long last coming out this week and scrambled, got going on what I’d meant to for weeks, page 1, THE PILOT, doing just like I did for The End of Yorick Brown and hit every single page starring Mitchell Hundred and all of his friends and enemies, or opponents, I guess he’d say after getting sworn in. So, the upshot was, 25 hours and 49 issues and four specials later, my eyes were bleeding God and it was at long last time to transfuse the last pages on in, find out what went so horribly wrong after the somewhat anticlimactic way that Mitch beat Anti-Suzanne & All the Forces of Hell and the Nether Dimensions last issue (and, I have to say, with all the publishing gaps, this thing read so much better in one insane gasp, but that resolution in #49 still seemed like a total gyp, even if you hadn’t been waiting for extra weeks and weeks).
So now it’s time to start actually talking about the comic book? Great bit on the second page about nomenclature, guess my subconsciousness has been trying to codify that one for a while. They certainly don’t call them tragic books, no. But, yeah, at long last, after all this time, back to Page One Mitch, doomed doomed doomed. The end of this first scene is yet another example of something bothering me over the course of the entire back end of this series that I’d never realized until now: Mitch using The Voice but not really talking to a machine, not giving a command. Kind of like bold text, just used as punctuation, but every single time, it makes me think of Weeping Gorilla from PROMETHEA, and, brother, that is not something you want to conjure unless you are trying to be funny, I promise.
Very cool bit with Mitchell redesigning the fallen tower. Phallic enough for you? Makes perfect sense, though you could just hear the mosque joke anger seething up from the gallery. Or, I could.
So, he turned 40 last year, placing our narrator in the year 2009. Kind of weird, all this mournful narration he’s giving us, all but looking at the camera. Because there’s never anything in his actions or really past tense at all besides immediate momentary shock to suggest regret. Meaning, the entire thing about this series, the initial sale, was, O how fucked up and awful it got once they elected ME, and this entire time, we’ve been waiting for things to really and truly fall apart, and they do kind of and mostly, but it’s a solid bait and switch Vaughan pulls, we’re all definitely looking for the invaders to pour on through and decimate life as we know it, but it’s only the quiet deaths, the relationships shattering, that provide the tragic.
It’s funny and unfortunate and of course synchronistic, I’ve been nurturing this parallel universe invaders concept for a couple of years, and then of course that’s what this and FRINGE turned into. Hey, better men than I. Especially since I guess BKV is really a Beatles fan. I mean, sincerely.
Oh, and that last Bradbury scene read so totally awkward and impossible the first time, but really true and inevitable the next time through. And I guess his parting line kills the ambiguity for me. Mitch is gay. That’s certainly the way things have been leaning for the better part of the series, but surely Bradbury wouldn’t have put himself out there if he wasn’t just about totally certain of reciprocity.
Aw man, and Kremlin. Really nothing to say, except how much Harris apocalypses this scene. You know how it’s going to go, especially when he points the gun at his own head, but the page turn is still such a shock. Really, those two pages together, so affecting. And sad.
God, and then the phone call. Putting the splash page revelation on an odd-numbered page is bad strategy, but it didn’t ruin it for me one little bit, had my eyes trained right where they were supposed to be the entire time. So that’s what happened. Is happening? Somewhere? They’re in charge? Presumably getting ready for the multi-brane invaders? And the charismatic young senator from Illinois getting ready to give them just a hell of a run for it in 2012?
Aw, God, man, it really just makes me so sad. I mean, these things always do, the clearing at the end of the path, Roland or Luke or Dale or Frodo or Tony or Harry or Jack*, or Ben Hawkins or Al Swearingen if they’d only ever had the chance, closing their eyes and finally figuring out what a big circle it’s all really been all along, but this one really cut my heart out a little, that look on his face while looking down at his friends who helped him do what he always wanted to do, be a hero, and then he left them, and still abides, just keeps on going and going, so so heartbreaking.
Fine work, all around. Fade to black, indeed.
*and you want to throw Jon in here, or really Adrian or Dan or Laurie or even Rorschach, but saying Jon would miss the point entirely, because there’s no clearing or end for him, and mentioning any of those other folks without him would just be wrong.
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