I’ve been meaning to read this title for years, but it took the utterly amazing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse movie to finally mWhat's up, danger?
I’ve been meaning to read this title for years, but it took the utterly amazing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse movie to finally motivate me to get to it. And I’ve really been missing out.
The idea of a new Spider-Man could have been yet another cheap gimmick. Yet the old Marvel Ultimate universe allowed them to take some chances like killing off Peter Parker for realsies, and then introducing Miles Morales as the new kid under the mask. It turns out that actual consequences make for good drama in stories. Who knew?
Bendis did a great job of crafting a new character as well as coming up with a plot that mirrors the the classic Spider-Man origin story yet still has a fresh and original feel to it. Miles has many of the same qualities that Peter has, but he’s not just a clone of him. (Which is good because Spidey doesn’t have a great history with clones.)
I was also surprised to discover that the new Marvel movie version of Peter Parker pretty much lifted the idea of Miles’ best friend who knows his secret. Only steal from the best, even when stealing from yourself.
It’s a great take on Spider-Man, and I can’t wait to read more about Miles and his adventures.
I’ve been meaning to read this title for years, but it took the utterly amazing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse movie to finally motivate me to get to it. And I’ve really been missing out.
The idea of a new Spider-Man could have been yet another cheap gimmick. Yet the old Marvel Ultimate universe allowed them to take some chances like killing off Peter Parker for realsies, and then introducing Miles Morales as the new kid under the mask. It turns out that actual consequences make for good drama in stories. Who knew?
Bendis did a great job of crafting a new character as well as coming up with a plot that mirrors the the classic Spider-Man origin story yet still has a fresh and original feel to it. Miles has many of the same qualities that Peter has, but he’s not just a clone of him. (Which is good because Spidey doesn’t have a great history with clones.)
I was also surprised to discover that the new Marvel movie version of Peter Parker pretty much lifted the idea of Miles’ best friend who knows his secret. Only steal from the best, even when stealing from yourself.
It’s a great take on Spider-Man, and I can’t wait to read more about Miles and his adventures....more
I won a free advance copy of this from the publisher.
It’s hard to believe these days when multiple blockbuster movies and popular TV shows are based oI won a free advance copy of this from the publisher.
It’s hard to believe these days when multiple blockbuster movies and popular TV shows are based on superheroes, but there have been several points over the years when it looked like the comic book industry was swirling the drain.
1975 was such a time, but that hasn’t stopped Carmen Valdez from pursuing her dream of being a comic book writer in New York. Unfortunately, the closest she’s come so far is working as a secretary for the publisher of struggling Triumph Comics, and her boss has made it clear that he’d rather buy work from washed up male writers then give a young woman a chance. When a friendly colleague named Harvey asks her to help him come up with a new hero to meet a deadline, Carmen works with him to quickly develop a female superhero they call the Lethal Lynx. Harvey promises that if the publisher likes the new character he’ll give Carmen her share of the credit.
However, Carmen is shocked to learn that Harvey misled her and submitted several scripts she primarily wrote under his own name. Before Carmen can confront Harvey about this, the young man is murdered, and Carmen can only watch helplessly as the character she’s created becomes popular and is handed off to hacks. There’s a suspicious police detective who thinks Carmen knows more than she’s saying, and Carmen has another problem when a former friend she has a complicated history with shows up in New York. Eventually, Carmen thinks the key to figuring out who murdered Harvey and proving that she co-created the Lynx lies in Harvey’s shady history in the industry.
I started reading comic books as a kid in the ‘70s, and I’m a fan of the mystery/crime genre so no surprise that this book hooked me immediately. This feels like an authentic look at the comic scene of the ‘70s, and there's a distinct vibe that this is a grungy subset of publishing that isn’t respected, even by most of the people working in it. Alex Segura has worked a lot in the industry so the details feel right, and the references all come across as part of the detailed background rather than cheap wink-and-nudge references to make fanboys giggle.
There’s also a cool feature with actual comic book pages featuring Carmen’s Lynx stories scattered throughout the book, and artist Sandy Jarrell does a great job of making these panels have a cool ‘70s style. If they actually wrote and published a Lethal Lynx comic book, I’d be very interested in reading it.
The thing that really makes the whole book work is Carmen as a character. She’s the daughter of Cuban immigrants, a woman trying to break into an all male industry, and she’s got another secret that makes her feel like an outsider. All of these factors drew Carmen to comic book superheroes in the first place, but she’s also just a fan as well as a writer with a natural instinct for what makes a compelling character. This is as much a story about a young woman struggling to make her dreams come true as it is a murder mystery, and I very much cared about what happened with Carmen. Since there is no shortage of stories of how various comic book creators were cheated out of credit and money over the years, I was sometimes more worried that Carmen might never get her rightful recognition then I was that she wouldn’t find the killer.
It’s a quality mystery novel as well as a love letter to comic books, but even if you don’t care about superheroes, I think a lot of readers would find the story of a young woman trying to become who she’s meant to be in ‘70s New York enjoyable as well....more
More fun stuff with Jane Foster as Thor being caught up in the War of the Realms, confronting a couple of jerkface Shi'ar gods, and dealing with the PMore fun stuff with Jane Foster as Thor being caught up in the War of the Realms, confronting a couple of jerkface Shi'ar gods, and dealing with the Phoenix force. But not Jean Grey as the Phoenix, which was a relief. ...more
This is a story about what happens when a mutant marries a robot, and they try to retire from being superheroes to live ordinary lives in the suburbs.This is a story about what happens when a mutant marries a robot, and they try to retire from being superheroes to live ordinary lives in the suburbs. Guess how well that goes?
Pretty fun stuff that comes in the era when the goofy and the grounded were mixed together in Marvel comics. Like the idea that Wanda and the Vision would take a break from the Avengers and try to build a life together is something seems normal and down to earth, but then they always still wear their superhero outfits around the house and get attacked by demons before they can even unpack. ...more
I'm having a lot of fun going through these collections. The '80s tone where a lot of characters and costumes still had old school goofiness to them eI'm having a lot of fun going through these collections. The '80s tone where a lot of characters and costumes still had old school goofiness to them even as the plots started orienting around real world political and social issues is an interesting era that makes for some wild stories....more
I'm having a lot of fun with this Ostrander run. It's a great example of that late '80s stuff where they were sometimes mixing more serious political I'm having a lot of fun with this Ostrander run. It's a great example of that late '80s stuff where they were sometimes mixing more serious political topics with full on superhero silliness so Ronald Reagan is a supporting character as the Suicide Squad gets missions like trying to kill the leader of a South American drug cartel, but then there's another story that involves going to another dimension and battling weird demonic creatures.
Captain Boomerang continues to be both the most ridiculous and annoying character. I'm pretty sure that Amanda Waller just keeps sending him out on every mission hoping that he'll be killed someday. Fingers crossed.
There's also a couple of appearances by Batman, and the way he's portrayed here reminded me that DC was in the middle of that phase where he had to be an absolute asshole to everybody. Because it's gritty and mature!...more
The surprising thing about this for me is that ‘Suicide Squad’ is just the team’s nickname. Officially, it’s supposed to be known as Task Force X. So The surprising thing about this for me is that ‘Suicide Squad’ is just the team’s nickname. Officially, it’s supposed to be known as Task Force X. So this has obviously had to be put out by DC in the days before Marvel apparently got a copyright on the letter X.
I didn’t read this back in my ‘80s teenage comic book nerd days, but I’ve heard good things about this run by Ostrander for a while. James Gunn saying he was using this version as his template for the new movie was enough to finally put some on hold at the library, and I’m glad I did.
There’s a lot of fun to be had with the idea of the government using a bunch second tier super villains as disposable operatives in the DC universe. Sending this motley crew to wipe out a super terror cell or rescue a political prisoner in the Soviet Union has that realistic in a comic book sort of way mentality that I enjoyed in the better stuff of this era.
And that outfit that Captain Boomerang is wearing is something else!...more
As an oversized hardcover comic collection with over 1000 pages, this is the kitten squisher to end all kitten squishers. Seriously, if you need some As an oversized hardcover comic collection with over 1000 pages, this is the kitten squisher to end all kitten squishers. Seriously, if you need some kittens squished, this would be the book you’d want to use for the job.
It’s taken me months to get through this thing, not just because of how long it is, but because it’s so big that I had to be in the right mood to sit at the kitchen table because it's not like you could read it while laying on the couch or in bed.
Another funny thing about this one, it’s a DC crossover event that was originally published in 1994. I’m much more of a Marvel fan than DC (Except for my boy Batman.), I think crossover events are generally stunts to boost sales that have seriously hurt storytelling, and this came out at a time when mainstream comics had gotten so bad that fans quit reading which nearly caused the entire industry to implode. And yet I asked for this as a gift last Christmas.
Why? I’m not really sure myself. I’ve been watching a lot of the DC television shows and cartoons they do these days so that has my interest up. Plus, Zero Hour was right about the time I bailed on reading comics back in the ‘90s so it’s kind of a time capsule to go back to. It just sounded like an interesting artifact to re-examine.
So how was it? Weeelllll….. As I said before, this was kind of a bad time for superhero comics, and there is an incredible amount of material about characters that never caught on who I”m pretty sure have been left to the discount bin in comic books stores. So there isn’t nearly enough of the major characters like Batman and Superman to suit me. Plus, this was yet another huge part of DC’s obsession with repeatedly trying to revamp their continuity and create a timeline that ‘made sense’ which is something they insist on doing once a decade that looks more and more like a fool’s errand every time they try. The plot revolves around a big timey-wimey crisis that is ending all of the DC realities as we knew them, and it’s pretty much complete nonsense, even by comic book standards.
The most interesting aspect is that because it’s about worlds colliding, we get a lot of different versions of characters over the years at times, like Superman running into a whole bunch of different Batmen or Catwoman getting a glimpse of her various incarnations. One of the best side stories involves the Tim Drake version of Robin meeting and working with the much younger Dick Grayson as Robin to catch a thief.
My favorite was an absolute gem of a Green Arrow issue in which the entire story is done without captions or dialogue and shows via clever structure of the panels two parallel stories in which GA pursues a criminal, but ends two different ways. I could have used a lot more like that one in this.
Overall, it’s a big mishmash of ‘90s DC characters doing a lot of different stuff so it’s not without it’s charms, but anybody who didn’t know anything about the characters’ histories would most likely be lost. It’s also going to be a fairly big investment so not recommended for casual fans unless you find it cheap or get it from a library.
Still, I had some fun with it, and it did take me back to the days when Superman had come back from the dead and Batman had recovered from a broken spine. Not a bad trip down memory lane overall....more
This is amazing in the way that it weaves together the weird history of Vision along with this new story of family and existence to come up with sometThis is amazing in the way that it weaves together the weird history of Vision along with this new story of family and existence to come up with something completely original and heartbreaking....more
They say that good fences make good neighbors, but what if your neighbor was an android with the ability to manipulate the density of his body so thatThey say that good fences make good neighbors, but what if your neighbor was an android with the ability to manipulate the density of his body so that he could simply phase through the fence?
Vision decides he wants a family so he creates some more synthezoids to function as his wife and two children and moves to the suburbs of DC to lead a more ‘normal’ life. However, some of the neighbors are worried about what a family of robots will do the property values, and it turns out that his family have personalities and problems that don’t fit into Vision’s narrow idea of the American nuclear family.
I’d heard about this title for a while, and I wish I’d gotten to it sooner. There’s a dark, almost Megan Abbott-esque kind of surban noir going on here, and it’s kinda crazy that we’re getting this kind of story centered on Vision.
It reminds me a bit of Matt Fraction’s run on Hawkeye because that was another comic about an Avenger trying to have a normal life, but Clint Barton is just a regular guy who couldn’t ever keep his superhero stuff from leaking into his attempts at an everyday routine. Here, we see that it’s Vision’s family that may be the main problem even as he tries to make the people around them conform to his idea of normalcy. It’s intriguing stuff. ...more
As Thor, Dr. Jane Foster is the Goddess of Thunder. However, when she puts the hammer down and returns to her mortal form she’s dying of cancer, and bAs Thor, Dr. Jane Foster is the Goddess of Thunder. However, when she puts the hammer down and returns to her mortal form she’s dying of cancer, and becoming Thor prevents her chemo from working. Being a hero is literally killing her, and yet Jane refuses to stop because the 10 realms need a Thor, especially now that the Dark Elves have teamed up with the evil Roxxon Corporation to wage ware on the light elves, Loki has returned, and Odin is being a real dick.
Great stuff here with Jason Aaron rolling out an epic story with an all-too human character at the heart of it all. Jane as Thor is now one of my all time favorite Marvel heroes, and the plot is cooking with gas on several levels. The art fits the story perfectly with great action, and the perfectly drawn settings take us from fantastic realms like Asgard to the hospital where Jane gets her chemo treatments to moons of Saturn. It all works. ...more
Jason Aaron had a pretty cool idea here for one piece of the whole Secret Wars storyline. Following the whole MarvelYou can never have too many Thors.
Jason Aaron had a pretty cool idea here for one piece of the whole Secret Wars storyline. Following the whole Marvel multiverse going KERBLOOEY, Doctor Doom has cobbled together a planet made up of various fragments from all these realities, and of course he reshaped it so that that he rules it all. To keep order of this mess he’s got a bunch of Thors who act like a police department and enforce the law.
Having a bunch of Thors behaving like police officers is fun, and Aaron added a dash of David Simon so that you can see elements of Homicide and The Wire to give it that cop vibe. Ultimate Thor and Beta Ray Bill are detectives trying to solve a bizarre string of serial murders, and the case is the kind of high profile furball that can cost a cop his hammer. Along with them we also see various other Thors including other Marvel characters who are now worthy like Storm and Groot.
It’s a really interesting way to do one of these multiverse things with variations of the same character interacting with each other. Unfortunately, it was just done in service of the larger Secret Wars story so it’s too short at 4 issues and doesn’t feel like the full potential was explored. Still, it was one of the more creative angles I’ve read to one of these things so it was well worth a read....more
The identity of the new Thor is finally revealed, and it’s….*gasp* WHO?!?
Just kidding. This came out almost 5 years ago so that info has already falleThe identity of the new Thor is finally revealed, and it’s….*gasp* WHO?!?
Just kidding. This came out almost 5 years ago so that info has already fallen so far into the realm of common nerd knowledge even the reveal of the cast of the next Thor movie gave it away.
Since this a modern comic we can’t go more than 15 minutes without changing the title slightly and releasing a new #1, and with Secret Wars looming this version of Thor had a limited shelf life. Still, I very much enjoyed this particular run with a mysterious woman wielding the hammer as original Thor struggles to deal with his new unworthy status. It’s short but we get a pretty great battle between new Thor and the Destroyer that was sent by Odin just because he’s being an incredible asshat about a woman having the name and power of Thor. (Imagine that.) The annual included here has 3 lightweight but fun stories too.
Now I guess I’m onto the next title which is called Thors. We’ll see how long that lasts....more
Yeah, that’s what the hellhound says in this one, but I gotta admit that it’s a catchy slogan that I’d like on a t-shirt “Freedom and murder for all!”
Yeah, that’s what the hellhound says in this one, but I gotta admit that it’s a catchy slogan that I’d like on a t-shirt.
The god formerly known as Thor has had a rough time of it. First, he heard a revelation that instantly made him unworthy so that he lost his hammer, and then he got an arm chopped off although he got a pretty nifty replacement. (Hopefully, he won’t run into Rocket who would try to steal it.) He’s so bummed that another superhero now has Mjolnir as well as the power of Thor he even gives up his name and starts calling himself Odinson. Well, at least he’s got a big goat to ride around on…
I found this mini-series entertaining despite a pretty mopey ex-Thor. That’s mainly because it’s got some great guest stars like Beta Ray Bill, who is such a stand-up guy that he even offers Odinson his own hammer, and Thori, the murder loving hellhound. The Collector shows up in a good villain appearance along with some of Thanos’ minions, and everyone is trying to get yet another hammer, the one that the Thor from the Ultimate universe used to wield that somehow dropped into this version of Marvel reality.
It’s also interesting to read this and see how certain elements of it were used in the Thor: Ragnarok movie. Like Thor getting a hair cut!
It all makes for a fun comic read although I found the final revelation about what Odinson was told that made him instantly unworthy of Mjolnir pretty weak and kinda confusing. It’s not about anything that ex-Thor did. Instead, it’s more of a broad general statement that’s always been true. It didn’t change anything other than maybe the way that Odinson thought about himself. So that makes it almost sound like being worthy isn’t a judgement that Mjolnir makes about the character of the person trying to wield it, but more of a matter of self-confidence. Which doesn’t really fit the way I’ve always understand the mythos around the whole thing. On the hand, it’s a comic book so why not?...more
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