4/23/14

BEST OF WEEK: UNCANNY AVENGERS #019 — Okay, so that’s the deal with the Scarlet Witch and the whole mutant rapture thing. I actually did get that and needed it spelled out to me in strokes as bold as this. But what a damn set-up by Remender. Of course when he blew up the entire planet, we all knew that there was going to have to be some kind of reset button, but he pulls the impressive trick of crafting one that’s not only not hackneyed and terrible but actually very damn compelling. I love how Remender has pursued the initial premise of these two franchises being thrown together resulting in actually the Worst Team Ever to its maximum end result of straight up blowing up Earth and now the only way to save the day is to get help from Kang and the most horrible villains across time so that the gang can learn how to work together just this one time and not screw up so badly that a Celestial destroys the world. That is actually hilarious. It is frankly stunning how wonderful Remender has cranked this book up to be. I wonder if he’s got something planned for a follow-up arc or if this is just like one enormous maxi-series and done. Because I really can’t see #025 being Wanda and Rogue talking shit at one another in the kitchen again, you know?

ORIGINAL SIN #0 — I’m always tempted to skip things like this due to an abiding case of event fatigue, but then Marvel goes and gets supremely talented creators like Mark Waid and Jim Cheung to crank this sort of thing out and there’s no way to say no. I had not read a page of the Kid Nova adventures and could have given less than a damn about the character but was then riveted by what was going down. “Whacked in the face by truth,” indeed! This is some solid teenage superheroic action that’s very evocative of classic Silver Age Marvel Universe while managing to feel not only contemporary but brand new. Having Sam stump the Avengers trinity by simply asking why Uatu does what he does is gold. I didn’t have a problem with them wholesale heisting the armory from PLANETARY #14, which I guess was a bit of a lift from THE MATRIX anyway. And you’ve got to love Uatu’s old crew’s naivety. They nuked their world. “How could this be?” Because you handed them nuclear fusion, you guys. Don’t expect a gang of savages to suddenly become intelligent benevolent rulers just because you see the potential in them. It works as an origin motivation, though. That two-page spread of the entire multiverse is some impressive business from Mr. Cheung. It freaked me out a little bit, staring at it, suddenly my perfect pitch for an FF book hit me, the whole deal, which would be have the team be an alternate-universe team of Reed, Sue, Victor, and Johnny, and play up the whole romantic triangle between the first three while playing it straight for months and months before the big reveal is that of course they’re not supposed to be the team and they have to decide whether or not to fix the past in order to correct the timeline, and of course you’d have to make Ben be Dr. Doom in this scenario, which was validated pretty hard a couple of pages later when Sam tosses out one detail among many of The Thing being Dr. Doom. Finger on the pulse of the multiverse, thank yew very much! And Waid choregraphs that last scene to perfection, really manages to pack an emotional punch into an exchange between Uatu and Kid Nova, which is pretty much sequential alchemy, as far as I can tell. A high level of craft, here.

DAREDEVIL #002 — Waid is clever for tapping The Shroud as kind of an anti-Matt. And he’s really doling it out here, can’t believe we’re waiting this long and still unsure about what’s happened to Foggy over the break. Samnee & Rodriguez continue to absolutely crush the art.

FANTASTIC FOUR #003 — All right, they really start firing on all cylinders this time. This one really feels like the FF in a way that the past couple didn’t for me. I wish The Thing and Deathlok teaming up against Mandroid armor had been like a six-page backup feature. Classic Marvel Team-Up type material. Because why not? I love Franklin’s detail of the way that Namor has always looked at Sue, a gem of a character beat, there. Even better, though, is the masterstroke of shuffling Valeria off to be mentored in Latveria. Because OF COURSE. That was my favorite relationship of Hickman’s entire beautiful run. And a terrific splash on our way out. Very glad to see this book punching at its weight class.

BATMAN/SUPERMAN #9 — This is all right, but the final product seems to be less than the sum of its individual parts ought to be. Maybe it’s too crowded? I love Greg Pak over on ACTION, but he’s not knocking the lights out on character beats here like he is over there. Jae Lee’s art is impressive but still doesn’t quite feel like it’s a good fit for this book. Not offended by this but not loving it the way that I feel like I ought to be.

BATMAN ETERNAL #4 — I thought The Mighty Layman took off without turning in a script? Apparently not, here’s the first issue not scripted by Snyder/Tynion and with the dynamite team of Nguyen/Fridolfs subbing in for Fabok. And the quality doesn’t drop a notch. Batgirl is raising hell and old Bruce has to get a bit hypocritical with her in terms of inflicting excessive and sweet cathartic justice all over Gotham hoods. And you just knew that calling her mom was the last move that poor Stephanie Brown should have made. Maybe she won’t get murdered in this kinder, gentler New 52? At least not right away. Maybe.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS #20 — Nick Pitarra once again hits new levels of nuance and detail in his hyper-rendering. Every page looks like it took about three fourteen-hour days to hit that heightened degree of linework. I feel like Moebius and Darrow would have good things to say about these pages. Or at least nod very appreciatively. Really fine work, my favorite is the three-page run of two vertical panels per page montaging over Einstein the Barbarian’s action adventures throughout the various parallel dimensions. As for the plot, I’m learning that it’s almost better to not think too hard about it, worrying which version of whom is saying what, just Geronimo! into the madness and let it carry you away.

ZERO #7 — There’s a lot of empty space in this one, which made it seem like less of a read on the first pass. This was entirely a result of how well the narrative was working, causing me to read faster because I wanted to find out what happened next and consequently ripping through the entire thing in under five minutes. Which certainly made the twist at the end even more sudden than it was. But that’s not how you’re supposed to read this, you’re doing a disservice to the issue if you don’t stop and really appreciate the expansive vistas that Matt Taylor and Jordie Bellaire have crafted here under the pen of Ales Kot. Less dialogue does not mean you should turn the page faster but instead slow down and soak up what these pages have got going on. The recurring motif of doors cracking or closing suggests that we are witnessing Zero standing at the threshold of the gateway between his old life and whatever happens next to eventually bring him and us back to the framing sequence from the beginning of #1. I’m once again grateful that I picked this up in singles so that I could meditate in all of that empty space instead of just roaring right on into #s 8-10. More quality work from Image in the year 2014, who’d a thunk it?