April 25, 2013

Time is a crazy thing. It feels like only yesterday that I last updated the blog with pearls of comic criticism, and now here we are again, ready for more!

We describe time with words like “beginning” and “ending”, but very rarely do stories have a clear start or stop point. There’s always something that came right before the first page, and very often events that follow after the last. This week’s books give us unique looks at this quirk of stories.

East of West 2 (Hickman/ Dragotta): Our first book this week is right on time, which is a bit ironic considering that it’s about how certain parties of doomsday are off schedule.

East to West is set in a pre-apocalyptic society. There are towers that climb higher than mountains where the seats of power are kept, fertile lands that support all kinds of life, and their founders were so wise they could predict the future. Generations later, their successors are more or less ready to throw the switches and get the Rapture rolling... only one of the Horsemen is missing.

In this issue, a few more pieces of the puzzle are revealed, as well as how replaceable certain figures are. Democracy gets delivered by a hearse, readers get a geography and history lesson, and some mythological figures live off the land. That’s most of the social sciences covered in a single issue, something that over years of public education I grew to loathe. Here, though, it’s intriguing.

Jonathan Hickman has found his writing style, and he’s sticking with it here. He starts off with some amazing set pieces and a tiny bit of context, so early on there’s no way to be completely sure what’s going on. Slowly, these bits add up and come together to form a picture, but it takes many issues before the reader gets a sense of what that picture looks like. It’s the kind of writing style that doesn’t just rely on the execution, it’s on life support waiting for the execution to provide some needed organs. The artwork counts for more than the dialog in cases like these, and Dragotta steps up. Characters are elegant, towers are majestic, and desolate wastelands surround them all.

As fascinating as this is, I can’t bring myself to recommend any of Hickman’s work in anything other than trades, only because it’s so hard to wait for the next issue to get that desperate fix of story. That trade is gonna be fantastic.

X-Termination Conclusion (Lapham/ Lopez, Mogorron, Valdes, & Lolli): Everyone that reads Marvel is focused on the Age of Ultron crossover event right now, which has distracted most from another crossover event: X-Termination. This focuses on the Age of Apocalypse-verse and the “refugees” that’ve found the 616-verse, specifically Nightcrawler.

AoA Nightcrawler was pulled out of his universe soon after his wife died. He wanted to go back, and he couldn’t be bothered by details like safety or collateral damage. This threatened to collapse the barriers between universes and bring every kind of creation to ruin. Including the one you and your stuff are in. In this issue, contrary to melodrama, it’s decided that there’s no way to save everyone. A bit of multiverse triage (CC Note: stop making up terms like this, we can’t afford the headache medicine) gives them some hope for the rest of the multiverse. It ‘s not a clean end, but it’s definitely an end.

The status quo is that mythical place all big publishers are afraid to leave. It’s what the market already knows and understands and is willing to spend their money on. This crossover “event” comes off as little more than a pledge to audiences everywhere that the precious status quo is going to be okay (or the parts that matter to this event, anyway). If characters were alive to begin with, they stay alive. If you thought they were dead, don’t worry about those complicated forms to legalize resurrection. Didn’t know someone before X-Termination started? You still don’t.

Marvel took zero risk with this little project. The reward matches.

Jupiter’s Legacy 1 (Millar/ Quietly): Building a legacy is a huge effort. Living up to that legacy is at least as huge. Game of Thrones on HBO loves playing with that concept. Jupiter’s Legacy looks at the question through superheroes, with some modern conveniences thrown in to keep things lively.

Sheldon Sampson had a vision. The stock market of 1929 had just crashed, he’d gone from highrises to street trash, and instead of wallowing in his own misery, he wanted to find a way to help everyone. He gathered a group of people that shared this vision and a Gilligan’s Island episode later, they got superpowers. Eighty years later, they are still fighting for glorious causes and the people behind them, but their kids are more interested in questions like “who has a lighter I can use?” and “did she think I was going to bring protection?” And when one does express interest in something that would benefit the planet, their ways don’t mesh with their parents’ ways. It’s a bit like Dynasty, only JR could never have been shot, dream or no.

There’s a lot of superficial controversy in this series already. There’s cheap sex, questionable endorsement deals, superpowered brutality, and a LOT of drugs. Mountains of drugs. Beneath all that is some interesting exploration of the superhero genre, like what their main role and/ or value to society as a whole is, whether hypocrisy for a good cause is still hypocrisy, and a few other ideas besides. It’s things like this that remind me that, in spite of the rewritten deaths and template crossovers, the superhero genre is definitely NOT played out. And never while Frank Quietly is banging out work like this.

This is everything a first issue is supposed to be. The characters and setting are laid out well, the tone is clear, and the potential of places to go from here is great.

Amala’s Blade 1 (Horton/ Dialynas): Work can be hard to find these days, and it makes people takes jobs they wouldn’t normally take. And if, by chance, a job can be found that plays to one’s strengths, they sometimes have bosses just aching for a chance to unload them to bring in a hungrier, more desperate worker (CC Note: Oh good, you’re paying attention...). The young woman in this title knows that pain all too well, and the friends she has to gripe to aren’t big on providing comfort.

The Purifiers wield magic with a surgeon’s skill and a berserker’s ferocity. The Modifiers think of the Singularity as ancient history. The Purifiers and Modifiers hate each other. The Vizier is happy to amuse himself watching the two beat each other into the dust, so long as the odds are interesting. To keep them interesting, he doesn’t have an army, he has assassins. Amala, the deadliest around, is getting too good to escape notice, and being noticed is something the Vizier has no interest in.

The template of the spunky tomboy endures as much as that of the assassin too young to be stable. When those two templates try to collide, the results don’t often work. The reader has a difficult time believing a well-adjusted, social, and rather upbeat person of either gender would choose to make a living killing people and causing property damage. It’s the social thing that really conflicts, and they’re asking us to pretend it doesn’t conflict here. So not only does Amala kill without hesitation, see ghosts and develop plans and skills with their aid, she also has no problem interacting with the living and creating healthy relationships? Oh hi, Disbelief! Is your suspension over already?

This isn’t a bad series, but it hasn’t quite figured out what it wants to be yet. If it can decide on that and run with it, Amala’s Blade could prove to be a fun book.

Okay, readers, that’s all for this week. Rest up and build your strength, because next week is going to be fierce. Iron Man 3 drops in theaters and next Saturday is Free Comic Book Day!

April 17, 2013

Life is about risk. We see risk in comics all the time, it’s an essential part of any story, really. If you want something, you have to commit to it without guarantee it’ll work out. You can plan and cast safety nets all you want, but inevitably, one must leave the future to fate. Sometimes you just have to do something you know is stupid just to see what will happen.

This week, I’m letting Assistant Manager and gaming expert Tim pick this week’s comics for review. Who knows? Maybe he has insight into the publishing industry that I don’t and we’ll have a roster that opens things up. Or, he could be a vindictive jerk and give me nothing but crap. Either way, readers, just brace yourselves.

(CC Note: Oh yes. Oh. Yes.)

Star Wars: Vader’s Little Princess (Jeffrey Brown). Starting off the week with a bit of light reading is an optimist’s view of what would have happened if Anakin Skywalker hadn’t been separated from his kids. Among other things, they would not make out.

The book is a collection of scenes between Vader and Princess Leia as she grows from a stubborn child to a fiercely rebellious woman. The imposing and intimidating Vader falls apart quickly when little Leia comes from behind a tractor emitter and starts asking her daddy questions. As she gets older, Vader finds her lack of respectable fashion sense disturbing. Sometimes they’re united against the universe, other times they fight so loudly you’d think a planet exploded.

About the only thing every page has in common is an endearing quality that somehow, in the face of countless continuity slaps, manages to capture the characters and what makes them lovable. Jeffrey Brown’s artwork dominates each page with a simple, deceptively childish, and unmistakable style meant to speak to young and old alike. The linework is uniform, and the coloring is done in crayon (or the digital equivalent, but the look is obvious), yet it works better than some mainstream efforts. When there is dialog, there’s rarely more than ten words per page, yet that’s all it takes to push the message home, whatever that page’s message might be.

It’s a little book meant to amuse, unite parent and child if only for a few minutes, and remember a time when fear kept the local systems in line and no one had heard of Gungans. The worst thing about this is that there’s only one copy this week.

Five Ghosts 2 (Barbiere/ Mooneyham). Next up is a new series that looks like 1930’s era pulp fiction drawn by Joe Kubert.

...PULP COMICS AS IF BY JOE KUBERT?!? TRAMBAMPOLINE! Wait, calm down, calm down. Let’s actually read it before we go crazy.

Fabian Gray is a treasure hunter in the same way that Robin Hood is a welfare officer: he believes in better living through aggressive fundraising. He picked up a trinket a while back in the same way that Doctor Who stole the TARDIS, and now he’s got new abilities and problems. Fabian is trying to find a way to undo whatever happened to his sister, which happens to be the exact same thing that happened to him, only he got a benevolent case of multiple personality disorder, and she got comatose. Allies are few, and while growing in number, their motives are pretty damn peculiar. Enemies are everywhere, even perhaps on the Kryptonian Supreme Court.

This story takes the classic archetypal heroes from the age of pulp storytelling and literally mashes them together with a standard anti-hero type that’s popular today. Fabian’s own motivations are crystal clear, even if the path to make them reality is hazy and convoluted. So far, the creators have done an excellent job of taking all the best elements of pulp stories and leaving the worst parts - like offensive stereotypes and gender roles - out. The first issue simply ignored them entirely, but with a new ally coming into play, maybe things will get more varied.

Mooneyham’s artwork is such a perfect homage both to the style of the story and Joe Kubert’s own work that it alone merits the cover price. Barbiere’s plot is still warming up, but the elements are coming together for something that could be great.

So far this isn’t too bad. Maybe I was worried for nothing?

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe 1 (Giffen/ Mhan). Wait, didn’t this come out a few months ago? It did, but that was a miniseries where the familiar story and characters were brought back into their roles. This is the first of the regular series.

Skeletor and the Sorceress are dead. The land of Eternia is beginning to rebuild itself, eager for a chance to rest after a long, hard war. This is perfect timing for interdimensional hellbeasts to cross over and start invading, or so the animated totem pole of death thinks. He sends his daughter and a few murder squads over to start subjugating the masses, expecting little resistance. Family drama and a man-mountain with a sword prove more than they expected.

Why is this a number 1? One character is introduced, everyone else is in the middle of the cheeriest funeral ever, and the elite of society only just now realize that girls can have red hair. I don’t understand! Oh wait, number 1’s sell better. It’s shameful, but I cannot see any other reason for this.

The writing is a bit disjointed in places - ribbing on the stage of a funeral? - but the lines are clever enough. I caught a smirk forming once or twice on my face. Mhan’s artwork has clearly matured from his days on Spy Boy, and he did good then.

Numerology aside, this isn’t a bad issue. There are a number of very simple ways it could have been better, like give new readers a way to understand what’s going on, but it’s a reasonable addition to the He-Man Canon.

He-Man Cannon is hereby copyrighted by me and will be available in stores this Christmas!

As a side note, seeing as how DC is publishing the He-Man books, I am going to predict, here exclusively on this blog, that He-Man will be the unannounced final selectable character for Injustice: Gods Among Us, out this week. The local Gamestop had a release party Monday night that we gave out free comics at, and everyone had a blast.

Captain America 6 (Remender/ Romita). It’s been a while since we looked in on the relaunch of Captain America, so I suppose we’re due to check back in. When we left, Cap had been kidnapped by Arnim Zola, and while escaping, Cap grabbed a small boy he thought had also been kidnapped and brought him along. Since then, about twelve years comic time have passed, and they have not been kind.

Armin Zola, on learning his old enemy was alive, sent an army to burn down Cap’s new digs, the surrounding village, and everything in between. On learning that his son was also alive, he took the kid back and left Cap for dead, because this time that’ll work. Cap proves resilient. Zola also has a daughter/ warlord that just got her first crush, and she hopes she can figure out how to deal with these new emotions (and considering her upbringing, ALL emotions are new) before they follow her into the shower with a loaded gun and shoot her in the face.

So far, this volume has gone out of its way to depict everything at its worst. It is so far removed from everything we know about Captain America that, aside from some scraps of uniform, it’s hardly recognizable. This reminds me of Punisher: The End, where the world got so screwed up that the only way to end the story was for everybody in it to die. It wasn’t just ugly, it was so damaged and rotten that the only positive takeaway was that nothing remotely human could rise back up and try it ever again. It’s not even the absolute desolation I’m complaining about, it’s the proposal that Steve Rogers’s principles don’t survive under stress when they’ve already proven to survive decades of duress. Considering his role in the mega event that is going on at exactly the same time, it’s a very safe bet that he’ll get out of this situation without major temporal damage and not bring anyone along. No suspense there. There’re other parts of the story that strike me as so tasteless that I’m not going to bring them up, fearing that highlighting them will make them more popular. I didn’t know I had a limit for tastelessness either, but here we are.

There are many books out there that take heroic templates and use them in ways that normally would never be accepted. If Remender and Romita had tried that instead of abducting Captain America, this might be interesting. As a Cap book, this is disgusting.

And that was a Variant Coverage first. I relinquished control of the schedule to management. I’m glad we gave it a shot, it’s always good to try new things. Now I can say with all the assurance in the world that it will never happen again. See you next week!

April 10th, 2013

It’s that time again, comic readers! Time for me to take a look at some of the highlight titles coming out this week and figure out what makes them sing. We’re experiencing some unseasonable warmth here in Indy, and I think it’s going to my head. I’m feeling frisky!

Buffy Season 9 Number 20 (Chambliss/ Moline): The role of the Slayer changed significantly throughout the acclaimed TV series. When it went off the air and transitioned to comics, it changed even more, and changed most of the world with it. Where the Buffyverse is now is worlds away from where the show left it, but the quirky interaction’s as constant as ever.

Magic thrived for a while, granting the world hundreds of slayers and monsters and wonders, and then it got shut down hard. Anyone that drew their life from magic started dying, like Buffy’s magical mystery sister, Dawn. Xander’s been living with her for a while, trying to discover the normal life everyone they know has been fighting to protect for so long. Those with power left to them want to save the ones that’re being drained, but they’re not having much luck. Xander isn’t willing to wait for luck.

I like what is going on here, but I’d like it better if it was being approached differently. Two things are happening in this issue: Xander’s so riled up that he has to do something, and he’s being offered a spot on a new team. He’s been frustrated with being the normal human coasting on a sea of supers. So frustrated that he left the group once while they were all in high school. And he saved the city - no one knew about it, but he did it, and his only reward was knowing that he could do something important if he had too. Here he is again, no allies and a whole lot of stuff that needs doing, and it looks as though he’s throwing in with a new group. Xander needs to show that he can succeed in the field, that vanilla mortals are capable of defending themselves and solving their own problems, but this instance feels like a step backward.

It’s possible he’s going for a triple cross, but this blog is about the here and now in comics, and right here, right now, things are looking a bit bleak.

Secret Service 6 (Millar/ Gibbons): We got past Secret Service being set in the UK instead of the USA. We got past the language barrier of the gangland cockney accent. And now, we can get past the delays. Secret Service closes up with this last installment, and instead of confronting the real issues like budget cuts and political backstabbing, they decided to go with an epic siege on a mountain fortress. Bold choice.

Gary grew up in the slums of England on welfare and knowing he’d never get out. His uncle Jack London slapped him over the head and gave him a chance to be something more: a secret agent. Last issue, Gary watched his uncle get shot through the face for doing his job. With the classic stiff-upper-lip mentality, Gary arranges a proportional response in the same way that the 501st is proportional to a backyard game of toy soldiers.

This series ends very well. There’s victory, though it’s not the one anyone really wanted, but most can easily live with. Gary completes his character arc neatly. I find Millar writes more for plot than character, the former having pristine form and the latter coming off rough and forced, and while that’s essentially true here, it succeeds in places that some of his other stories haven’t. Dave Gibbons, known for making simplicity and directness a higher art form, gets to play around with this issue, and it shows that he’s having fun with his work.

This is good spy-thriller melodrama. Anyone following the series owes it to themselves to pick it up after all the waiting.

Sex 2 (Casey/ Kowalski):I find it incredibly refreshing that comics are making progress in getting away from certain negative stereotypes, and this series takes some needed steps in a couple of directions. For one, comic reader CAN have Sex. They can now add to their Sex issues in a positive way. More to the point, while certain body parts jiggling is a component, sex is about more than that to most people, and it probably should be.

Simon Cooke has been through a lot in the past few months. It’s made him look back on what he’s missed, and he realizes he hasn’t taken good care of himself mentally. Those close to him, be they enemy or friend, are throwing him into situations hoping that a quick lay will make everything better, and it’s not working. It’s very frustrating for everyone around him to watch him not get better, and while most are comfortable just saying so, at least one party threatens to get violent about it.

Comics have been known to treat sex as a tool for shock value and humor. Transmetropolitan had (among other things) Nazi sex midgets, Pro had a celestially empowering peeping tom, and the list goes on. They’re throwaway gags like so many used tissues. They relieve tension, then move on. The whole thing is disarming. The jokes stop here, but Sex recognizes that it got here by means of those same jokes.

The skeleton of the characters and setting is derived from Batman. The sheer amount of innuendo and dark humor around Bruce Wayne/ Batman is one thing, in fact it’s so many things that I can’t even safely put references up, but this series puts up a hand, calls for silence, and has the reader give serious thought to what those jokes are doing. For instance, take all the psychological baggage of a super-rich child who saw his parents murdered, but swap the gender of his primary caregiver, and throw the innuendo out the window. The reader is left absorbing the story of a man who repressed every mature desire he had to fight for a cause and impress the closest thing he has to a mother, only to have her pull a 180 and tell him to have the fun he’s been denying for decades. It’s heavy stuff, perhaps too much.

There’s copious amounts of copulation in these pages, sure, but it doesn’t read like most other action-almost-porn titles on the shelves. This is a book that’s recommended for mature audiences only, not just older ones.

Mylo Xyloto 3 (Haggerty/ Fuentes): I know what you’re thinking: why make a comic about an instrument most people haven’t thought about since grade school? (CC Note: No, Ryan, that’s a xylophone.) And why are LSD pixies dancing on one on the cover of the latest issue? (CC Note: That’s a staircase!) And why are they trying to bring back Michael Jackson’s trademark fashion sense? Let’s actually read the book and find out, shall we?

In this tale taken from the album by Coldplay, Mycroft Xerxes (CC Note: Mylo Xyloto!) is a cop for a police state using fear of an extraterrestrial threat and mass media to keep the population in line. The main threat to that state is an underground network of graffiti artists whose main arsenal consist of a bright color palette. During one investigation, Marko (CC Note: That’s the guy from Saga, Issue 12 on sale this week!) finds he can use the same light show they do, and it makes him rethink his position in the suppressive regime. Mxyzptlk (CC Note: That’s... oh, forget it!) might be able to give the revolution what they need to restore self-rule, but his old friends have some pretty aggressive counter-arguments.

This reads like a standard conformity versus individuality storyline, made less standard for the basicness of every component. Those in power wear drab shells and follow an immortal despot who likes to wring his hands constantly. The revolution is literally an underground movement. Stark black and white versus multichromacticness. (It’s a word.) (CC Note: It absolutely is not.) It’s not deep, but it’s pretty.

This is the halfway point for the series. If it’s going to do something unique, it should start soon, because it hasn’t yet.

Wolverine #2 (Cornell/ Davis): In this series, Logan was getting coffee when someone whipped out a blaster out of Buck Rogers, shot hostages, and so he stabbed him in front of his son. Then things got weird. In this issue, the post office gets involved somehow and whatever’s actually using the blaster is working toward wider prospects. Now, here’s my question:

WHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!?????

Seriously. Why? Every other book Marvel puts on the shelves features Wolverine prominently. This makes the fifth active book where he’s the title character. Jamie Madrox’s power lets him be in several places at once, yet he doesn’t get around as much as this guy. Yet here’s a series that is two issues in and I cannot tell what this title does that none of the other dozen Wolverine-centric books do. Wolverine & the X-Men has “I kill people but not young people” covered. Avengers vs X-Men should have filled the “I have complicated issues with psychics” quota for longer than this. Every single book in Marvel and a few from DC note that he’s incredibly difficult to kill, and that he likes beer. Is there anything else? From what’s in this book, nothing important.

I’ve been taking a fresh look at Alan Davis’s work recently. For a long time, I wasn’t a fan. His facial compositions didn’t work for me, and he lacked the pizzaz I got from other artists. Lately I’ve had to reassess these opinions. He’s got a great sense of composing bodies in motion, he uses backgrounds well, and while I’m not sold on his faces yet, when one works, it works.

I don’t remember Wolverine calling anyone “Bub” in this issue. I... I don’t know.

Well, now that I’m completely confounded by the world at large, I think I should lie down. Yes, that sounds healthy.

April 3rd, 2013

Did you miss me, readers? Were you lost without my guiding voice to lead you through the shoals of new issues? Were you confused as to what books deserve your attention, and others your scorn? Worry no longer, for I have returned!

Not that my adventures or lack thereof are why you read this blog. No, this blog exists because comics are awesome. When they’re great, they’re awesome, and when they’re terrible, I have an awesome time ripping them apart. It makes for wonderful reading, does it not? And this week has some exemplary books to pick at. Let’s get to it!

Fables 127 (Willingham/ Buckingham): Between Once Upon a Time, Grimm, and more derivative titles, television has decidely learned that audiences enjoy fairy tales. These shows aren’t bad, but they simply don’t stand up to Fables.

Mawwiage. Marriage is the theme of the day, be it in Supreme Court debates or Vertigo titles. In this particular case, Beast is trying to add “Matchmaker” to his resume while Old King Cole and the rest of old-school Fabletown collectively rewrites their own laws on marriage to underline the word “consent”. Snow White is having a dispute with an old flame, and while everyone is on her side of the conflict, no one can actually help.

Traditions are stone. They are strong and weather ages, but they are also brittle, bothersome when in the way, and hurt when hurled at one’s head. Finding a way around them takes time, patience, and planning, but is the gentlest way to ensure that those who come later have an easier time on their path. For those less patient and incredibly powerful, there’s the option of smashing through and making a lot of noise in the process.

This isn’t a great spot to pick up on the story for new readers. There’s not much in the way of introductions or recap. There is, however, a great deal of intrigue, character drama, and action splash pages. If you want to get someone hooked on this series, this is the issue you should put in their hands.

Helheim 1 (Bunn/ Jones): For some people, love doesn’t get to be about raising kids or busting down walls. Sometimes love kills. Sometimes it kills the ones you love and you die inside. At the risk of instigating a convention for the emo crowd, we’re reviewing Helheim.

Helheim is the story of a small village of ancient Norse(wo)men. They’re hiding behind their walls against an army of barbarians to whom death means strategic weight loss. The barbarians are led by a mysterious witch that’s targeting the villagers for the equally mysterious redhead that’s captured the heart of Rickard, the greatest hero they’ve known for generations. Heroes have it rough - they hardly ever get to sleep.

Though not the focus of the story, this provides an argument of marriage that doesn’t involve tradition, since the setting predates most traditions: is it enough for a union to make the couple happy, or should the welfare of the people around them be an issue? The actual purpose behind this story is related in the back of the issue - what does a viking-witchcraft-monster story read like? Between Bunn’s clean dialog and direct plot and Jones’s evocatively simple artwork, such a cocktail reads pretty good.

The common results of these kinds of mash-up books is that a bunch of flashy stuff gets thrown on a page and the reader is expected to look at it, think it’s cool, and throw money at someone. The common mash-up is terrible, because the creators behind it often forget to include any form of substance, and the thing ends up a rotting pile of tissue by the end. In Helheim’s case, there’s an effort made to show actual human emotion and drama alongside horn-helmeted skeletons cutting enough heads off to inspire the creation of a dozen death metal bands. This is so crazy it might just work.

Age of Ultron 4 (Bendis/ Hitch): A Marvel mega-event in the beginning of spring? Normally, publishers wait for summer to print their blockbuster crossovers, but like retailers with Christmas, the philosophy now seems to be “first is best”. Well, I’m not done eating my Hershey’s Candy-Coated Chocolate Eggs, so back off!

[Author’s Note: Seriously, those eggs are themselves justification enough for a major holiday. If I had a bank account, I’d drain it every year on those things.] (CC Note: Why did we not delete your site access while you were gone?)

About two years ago in publishing time, meaning so far back no one actually remembers, a bunch of bad guys opened something from space to see what was inside. It was Ultron. He left. A bunch of other stuff happened, and just when everyone had stopped thinking about him, he destroyed most of the planet. The general populace isn’t taking the end of civilization well. What heroes survived aren’t taking it much better, but they have more experience at using anger constructively. In this issue, life throws them a bone. They find a place to catch their breath, compare notes, and assemble something that resembles a plan.

This series started deep. It started AFTER most of the explosions had already died. Everyone was hurt and vocal about it. What started as a survival horror story set in the Marvel Universe soon turned into a story of epic, bitter betrayal, and then quickly became a story across multiple time frames. Bryan Hitch, an artist known for his meticulously realistic art, has pushed himself admirably to render the scenes in a way that captures the hopelessness and pain such a story demands. I’m happy with him.

I am not happy with Brian Bendis. This became a time travel story, and I don’t like time travel stories. That’s nothing new. That is NOT why I’m not happy.

Bendis’s first Avengers story was one of apparent betrayal. Vision threw up Ultrons. Now, years later? Vision is throwing up Ultrons. Things are so bad that Spider-Man, the king of ID-paranoia, gave up his secret identity to the other survivors? Bendis did that before. Avengers have to go to the Savage Land to get the critical lead and find a path to victory? Not the first time. Not even the second. Taking one plot thread and attaching it to a different plot thread does not make a new and exciting plot. That doesn’t happen no matter how many old plot threads you put together. It just makes a braid of boring.

Some things get better with age. Others need to be enjoyed fresh. So far, Age of Ultron needs to be sent back.

Uber 0 (Gillen/ White): When I suggested this for the blog, my associates told me that I wouldn’t be able to handle it, that the internet would break under its weight. But we’ll show them, won’t we?

The justification the Nazis gave for instigating World War II was that they were protecting their home and gene pool from contamination, and establishing borders within which they could establish their version of a superior human, an ubermench. Their obsession with traits such as blonde hair and blue eyes, now understood to be genetically recessive, makes their cause sound more insane now than it did then, and plenty thought it was nuts then. Uber does not address aspects of the war like religion or economics or the potential risk of giving failed painters harsh criticism. It focuses on the idea of a superior human, and asks the reader a very direct question: what if the Germans had actual superhumans? What if they understood what made people stronger and could produce such people reliably?

This is a prequel book. There’s a lot of set-up and exposition, a few splash pages, but things haven’t really even started yet. This is a very direct book. There are no sides taken, no clear heroes or villains. Given the subject matter, it couldn’t afford to be anything but - one does not show Nazis winning and then try to make a statement. This is a book for adults only. As is the Avatar publishing tradition, there’s copious blood and violence, and while there’s sexual content, there’s nothing in the way of nudity.

The first issue isn’t even out, and already this book has thrown down an impressive gauntlet. It’s challenging, but if you can handle it, it’ll make you proud.

It feels good to be back! Leave a comment to let us know if you like having the blog back, or if it causes you pain, describe that pain to us. Either way, we’d love to hear about it. (CC Note: When’s your next vacation?)