Very Very Frightening, Me

Bearing in mind that (1) the Sentry has always been a terrible concept, and (b) the whole "there are no Avengers" premise doesn't really convince given that we've seen at least one working version of the Avengers since Endgame, Thunderbolts* is really quite good!

It's interesting and (very) weird and funny and sad and it's about something, depression mainly. David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Wyatt Russell are pretty good, but the standout is Florence Pugh, who is excellent and very nearly steals the film and turns it into Black Widow II Plus Some Supporting Guys I Guess.

It's a shame it didn't do better in cinemas, but I can sort of see why it didn't. It's almost like an anti-Marvel movie, a sometimes low-key, almost "small", film about a bunch of really quite rubbish "heroes" who accidentally become a team; in that way it's perhaps more accurate to call them the Defenders.

(Ha ha. Comics joke.)

Yes, the comic Thunderbolts have a better, more clever, origin, but I can see why we didn't, perhaps couldn't*, get that in the MCU.

I liked it! A lot!

(Except for Sentry, he's still terrible.)

Carrier-er

I've just read the collection of Blood Hunt, Marvel's recent vampire crossover event thing. It's not bad, although it seems to lose interest in itself about two thirds of the way through in favour of setting up the next crossover. It starts well though, and in pace and scale feels a lot like the first couple of years of The Authority, before that comic went a bit bad.

Not least because the Avengers have -- since 2023 -- been zipping about in this:

That's the Impossible City, a huge, um, city-sized space ship from another dimension. Possibly sapient, but with its memory and history erased, and with a distinctive teleportation ability, with which it opens "doors" to locations the Avengers need to access to do Avengering.

That's the Carrier, a huge city-sized space ship from another dimension. Possibly sapient, but with its memory and history erased, and with a distinctive teleportation ability, with which it opens "doors" to locations the Authority needs to access to do cynical posturing and widescreen property damage.

Hm.

Nice(r) Belt Buckle

Prompted by the recap at House to Astonish -- in particular the glowing praise of George Perez's last hurrah as penciller on the Avengers main title -- I dug out my copies of "The Nefaria Protocols" and noticed something a bit odd.

Remember Captain America's rather insulting response to Hawkeye's new costume?

Well, in the reprint in Marvel UK/Panini's Avengers United #27, the exchange is different.

That's a bit odd, no? Unless some editor at Panini also found the lettering a little suspect and decided to remove the "offending" bubble(s).

The Girl Who Loved Coincidences

The Hybrid Technologies building from the Transformers episode "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide" (1985):

The Stark/Avengers Tower from Marvel Avengers Assemble (2012), and later films:

(Yes, that's what it's called here, probably because of the other Avengers.)

One of these buildings is the headquarters of a high-tech corporation under attack by aliens in a Marvel production, and the other is, um...

Marvel 1991: Avengers West Coast #69, Captain America #384, and New Warriors #10

I'm going to run through a bunch of comics this time, in part because I'm behind again, and in part because I managed to pick three comics that are taken up by lengthy fight scenes and little else.

Biff! Pow! Etc!

Hawkeye and US Agent have a fight on the beach. For the entire issue. The cover does not lie.

This shouldn't work, because nothing really happens. It should feel like padding, like "oh crap we've got an issue to put out and we're really late and let's just have a meaningless punch-up", because that does happen sometimes -- spoiler alert -- but Dann and Roy Thomas pull it off.

I think it works for two reasons. First, there are flashbacks throughout that break up the fight and provide context for why it is happening; I wouldn't go as far as saying it's clever, but it is at least more interesting than a strict linear narrative would have been. There's also some nice bits with the rest of the Avengers also having their own low-level disagreements that reflect the main fight, although the motif is perhaps laid on a bit thick and makes the team look somewhat dysfunctional.

The second reason it works, and probably the main one, is that the Thomases put in the effort to characterise Hawkeye and US Agent so their dispute not only makes sense, but has a sense of weight to it. It's not your standard superhero misunderstanding, but a conflict that develops out of the two of them being dickheads. Moreover, they are both dickheads in their own distinct ways, which come across well in the writing.

Less effective is Scarlet Witch at the end saying that "it would take every ounce of power we could muster" to stop US Agent if he "ever turned bad", which seems like a bit of an exaggeration given the Avengers have beaten Korvac and Thanos, but okay Wanda, whatever.

The success of the comic rather depends on how much you care about Hawkeye and US Agent. I admire the Thomases' restraint in not positioning either of the pair as being right, but making them both utter douche canoes makes it a bit difficult to engage, even if the argument is well-written. It's an interesting issue that shouldn't work but somehow does. Three Cables.

-----------------------------

Cap decides to force the Avengers to undergo medical testing, but at least acknowledges that he should lead by example and do so first. Wow, Steve. I'm now so used to Chris Evans' charming everyone's-best-friend portrayal of the character that I'd forgotten how bossy the comics incarnation can be at times.

During the testing it is discovered that Cap may have a weakness to extreme cold, which is something I don't remember seeing anywhere else and doesn't appear on any character profile I can find so I suspect it was dropped at some point. Probably the moment this issue was printed.

As Captain America is a tactical genius, he decides the best way to test this new theory is to go to "the north magnetic pole" to find his missing pal, D-Man. There he fights -- and is defeated by -- a giant snow snake (!), bumps into his old friend Jack Frost -- basically Iceman with hair -- who is dragged underwater by the giant snow snake, and then Thor turns up to deal with the situation but is unable to find the giant snow snake or Jack Frost, so the two Avengers shrug and leave. Is Jack Frost okay? They don't care. Should we have a look around for D-Man, since that's why we're here? Nah, we've fought a giant snow snake, that's enough for one day. Again Steve, wow.

I'm trying to be somewhat charitable with these reviews, because 1991 was a different time, and comics were different, and the pressures of a monthly schedule mean that not every issue can be a perfect work of art, but this is tosh. It feels like filler; most of the issue is a fight with a mindless monster, and you could tell the story with any character. The only specific ties to Cap are Jack Frost and D-Man, one of whom contributes nothing and the other is forgotten. On the plus side, the art is solid with some good storytelling, but the Arctic setting means that there's a lot of empty, white space, which again suggests a rush.

Two Cables, and that's being generous.

-----------------------------

So apparently the theme for April 1991 was "pointless fight issues" because here's another one. Emma Frost's Hellions have a question to ask the New Warriors and decide the best way to get the answer is to smash into the Warriors' headquarters and beat them up. Gah.

(Spoiler: the Warriors don't even know the answer!)

I understand this is a superhero topos dating back to the early days of the genre, but it's also a stupid one and I would have hoped that by 1991 it had gone out of fashion. Unlike Avengers West Coast, there's little attempt to add context or texture to the fight; the characters punch each other until everyone's on the ground then Emma does her passive-aggressive and haughty thing, and that's your lot. Maybe it reads better if you've been following the series, but as a standalone issue it feels either inconsequential and uninspired, or a weird throwback to an earlier era.

I've never been a huge fan of Mark Bagley's art style, which I know puts me in a minority. There's something about the way he draws faces that puts me off, a sort of weird horizontal stretch that gives everyone a sort of batrachian look, but I can't deny that he's a good storyteller and he makes the big, pointless fight at least visually interesting.

I'm not going to say this is a bad comic, but it is dull and devoid of ambition and like the Captain America issue doesn't even resolve it's own setup. Perhaps I'm expecting too much of 1991. Two Cables.

Throw Your Hands Up at Me (Again)

Six (!) years ago I drew a hypothetical female Avengers team. It was okay.

Earlier this month, this appeared on Twitter:

So I drew this:

It's not an Avengers team as such, although I'm so out of touch with Marvel continuity these days that it's possible Black Cat and Motormouth have made it on to the team at some point.

Twice Avenged

The opening action sequence has some ropey, SyFy level, cgi. There are some clunky bits of plotting; Andy Serkis’ character sort of disappears, and a promising story thread about the Avengers being unpopular with the general population is brought up and then ignored. Most egregious of all is that there are a couple of big, central character developments that make sense but, if I’m being picky, haven’t been earned.

None of that matters because Avengers 2: Avenge Harder is a great film; better than the first one even, and I loved the first one.

Avengers: Age of Ultron opened about a week early in Britain for some reason so I've seen it twice before its US release and my secret masters at Psycho Drive In have sneaked my thoughts on the film out as an advance, spoiler-light, review. Read the rest of my nonsensical blathering here.

Avenged Twofold

This got leaked today.



I think I'm more excited about this one than I was the first.

Over past few months people have expressed worries about the main actors coming to the ends of their contracts, or deciding that they didn't want to play superheroes any more, and other such doom-laden prophecies. The general sense seems to be that it would be a disaster of  Onslaught-like proportions if Robert Downey Jr refused to play Tony Stark again.

The thing is, it doesn't matter in the slightest.

This issue came out in 1965, just two years after the first issue of The Avengers, and in it the founder members decide to leave the team and new heroes are introduced to the world. There was a great gnashing of teeth and much moaning about the inevitable death of the comic -- the letters pages for months afterwards read much like the message boards and forums of today -- but what in fact happened was that the title carried on and is still going today, and the team reshuffle has happened again and again over the years, so much so that it became one of the classic Things Avengers Do, in the same way that the X-Men are always playing baseball.

Films are different aren't they? Audiences won't go and see a blockbuster full of new characters will they? Well, Marvel released Guardians of the Galaxy, a film full of new characters -- none of which had any solo films to introduce them to the general non-comics-reading audience, as the Avengers did -- and it turned out to be one of the most successful films of all time. They have proved that it doesn't matter if normal people have never heard of Rocket Raccoon or Drax the Destroyer, and by the same token as long as Avengers 4 is good it won't matter if the main characters are Doctor Druid, Firestar, and Triathlon.

Okay, maybe not Triathlon.

Besides, the new Avengers team introduced in that issue includes Hawkeye -- who we know already -- and Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch -- who both happen to be featured in Avengers 2 -- so if Marvel does want to do something similar with the film franchise, I think they have it well in hand.

Anyway, enough of that. I didn't realise until today that I hadn't posted anything all month. Oops.

Next: ettercaps.

Throw Your Hands Up at Me

Benito Cereno, writer of excellent comics, proposed the following exercise on twitter earlier this month:

My knowledge and experience of the Justice League is based on some vague memories of Grant Morrison's run on JLA in the mid-to-late-90's and a small number of Justice League Unlimited episodes, so I was never going to be any good at picking an all-star team.

So I cheated.

It's a good team, although I suspect it's also a leadership crisis waiting to happen.

Nice Belt Buckle

In response to the Acrobatic Flea's post here:

Cap demonstrates the dangers of improper font choice.

Real Heroes Stand Around Doing Nothing

For the first time in I think over a year, I've reviewed an Avengers comic:

Up to now, my general opinion of Brian Michael Bendis's superhero comics work has been that he has no idea how to write superhero comics--which one might consider a significant flaw unless, of course, one happened to be a Marvel editor. He can't write action scenes, and he can't put together a plot--both of which are fairly important to the genre. Less important is the ability to write limp pastiches of Aaron Sorkin and David Mamet screenplays, and yet that's what we've had over the past few years.

More, along with a somewhat more positive counterpoint, here.

Top Ten Comic Costumes

I meant to do this ages ago, when Nige did it, but I forgot, and Rol has since reminded me. So here goes, again in no particular order:

10. Advanced Idea Mechanics

Hydra's goons get proper supervillain costumes. The Hand's ninjas all get pyjamas in which to go and get beaten up by Daredevil. AIM though, they get to wear, well, what they wear to work. I love that it's just their work uniform, no fuss, no frills, like they walked out of the factory and straight into a brawl with Captain America.

9. The Avengers' leather jackets

The 90's were a dark time in comics, when many very silly things happened. Superman grew a mullet, Spider-Man got a suit of armour, and the Avengers got leather jackets. Rumour has it that someone at Marvel saw that the X-Men comics were selling shedloads, and decided that it was because of the matching leather jackets they all wore, and so forced the Avengers writers to include similar outfits. Sales did not increase.

Still, ill-advised as they were, there's something charming about the Avengers team jackets. It's a neat way of creating a united team visual while still keeping the individual costumes. See also the nextwave trenchcoats and Jubilee's hipster X-Men parka, the latter of which is now in the possession of one Mr Scott Pilgrim.

8. Darwyn Cooke's Catwoman costume

Not his actual one, obviously. Not that he has one. Well, he might, I don't know what he gets up to in his spare time. Anyway... the reason I like this one is because it's a very clean design with one foot in the pulp forebears of superhero comics, and the other in a more modern style, but which retains some subtle nods to the whole feline schtick. I'm not really one for making superhero costumes more "sensible", but this is one which works.

7. Daredevil's black costume

No, not that one.

The one he wore before the hideous yellow outfit, as told in Frank Miller's Man Without Fear miniseries. It's basically a black tracksuit, complete with white trainers, but there's something devil-may-care about that, and after all, DD's blind, so what does he care what he looks like?

6. Doctor Strange

Because it's so, er, strange. There's no unifying design, the colours are all over the place, you've got that weird liver spot pattern on the gloves, the nonsensical shirt logo (is it a bird? An angel?), and the plain leggings, as if they ran out of ideas by the time they got to his waist; it's a visual mess, but because it's Steve Ditko, it's a glorious mess which somehow still works. Strange wore a trenchcoat for a while in the 90's too, but it didn't suit him.

5. Hela

Just look at the design. It's all design. It's got design dripping off it, there's so much design going on. And yet, it's actually quite a simple two-tone thing. Kirby busted out these simple geometric costumes now and then, and they're his best designs by far.

4. Iron Man

It doesn't really matter which one, as they're all great in their own way (except the dodgy Rob Liefeld Heroes Reborn one). My favourites are probably the one from the Byrne era on Avengers, and the "silver centurion" one from just after that.

3. The New Green Goblin

The Ditko design is a classic, make no mistake, but I really like Humberto Ramos' early-2000s revamp, which is actually not really much of a revamp at all, it's just drawn differently. The shirt is gone, but the green chainmail is still there, and the mask is the same, it's all just a bit better in some way I can't properly describe.

2. Robin

I suppose technically this is the Tim Drake costume, although the image is from Teen Titans Go! and it's probably Dick Grayson wearing it there. Anyway, it's a good set of colours, a clean design, and an effective contrast with his mentor's costume, something the more recent angsty versions have forgotten.

1. Spider-Man's black costume

The red and blue is a classic, and rightly so, and as Rol points out, it makes perfect sense in the context of the character's masked wrestler origins. All that said, the black costume looks great. It fits the spider theme perfectly, and for a few years in the 1980's, it made for a striking image unlike any other hero in comics. I know it's all part of the grim-and-gritty movement in the superhero genre of the time, and the costume begat a decade of rubbish symbiote stories (and Spider-Man 3), but it's a great visual.

Honourable Mentions:

I would have picked MODOK, but the iconic image there is not really a costume, more a general character design. Ditto Thor, Hellboy, Death's Head and Rocket Raccoon. I almost picked the Frank Quitely X-Men costume, but it's probably aged worse than the Avengers' jackets. Finally, the Hobgoblin would have been picked if Ramos hadn't beefed up his predecessor's look.

Top Ten Comic Characters 2009 Edition

I'm not sure I've seen ten new films this year, I've barely read more than a couple of new books, and I don't know enough about music to write about it without embarrassing myself, so I'm just going to pinch an idea from Rol and just do my ten favourite comic characters. So, in no particular order (except alphabetical):

1. The Avengers: Immediately I cheat by chucking in a team. Oh well. I suspect that my first superhero comic was an Avengers title, as I've been hooked since I was a youngster. It's not even a particular lineup or era I like, but the team itself. Even though they live in a mansion and have a butler, there's something a bit more down to earth and approachable about the Avengers than their godlike DC counterparts (who don't have a butler, but look down on us all from their space station). Perhaps it's their open door policy, which allows Spider-Man villain the Sandman to fight alongside Captain America and Thor (I have a great idea for a Sandman Avengers story which will never see the light of day, alas). Or the fluctuating power levels, so you can have Thor and Iron Man in the team one month, then Firestar and Triathlon the other. One of my great regrets was dropping the title, after the franchise bloated, got mired in crossover hell, and came under the creative control of a writer who doesn't have the first idea on how to write the team.

2. Death's Head: It's difficult to explain the appeal of this character to anyone who didn't read Marvel UK's Transformers. I think it's because you've got a property which, like many of those cartoon/toy tie-ins of the 80's, split the characters into sharp delineations of good and evil. Then you've got this character coming in who cares not a jot for any of that, and just wants to get paid. Certainly this was unique in a kids' comic, and I can't think of many characters in "grown up" comics with a similar outlook. It helped that he was written well, with a humourous edge not often seen in the parent title, and he had a great character design. I was shocked and surprised to see him return recently, in the pages of S.W.O.R.D. of all places.

3. Doctor Doom: I like the theatrical chaos of the Joker, but for me, Doom is the greatest comic villain. Partly it's due to the great design (I once heard a rumour that the reason George Lucas gave Marvel the Star Wars comics rights was because they pointed out to him the visual similarities between Darth Vader and Doom), and it's partly to do with the pompous dialogue. The main thing I like about Doom is that he doesn't really see himself as a villain. He's a victim of circumstance, the most brilliant genius of his time, but the Accursed Richards always gets in the way. The best thing is that Doom may actually be right; Reed is no saint, and if their positions were reversed, things wouldn't be so different, I suspect.

4. Edward Hyde: As seen in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, this is the best version of the Hulk ever written.

5. Invincible: What if Superman's alter-ego was Peter Parker? That's essentially what we've got with this character. So we're not dealing with a hugely original concept, but it's all about the writing, which captures that clash of real life and superheroing which made the after-high-school-but-before-Clones era of Spider-Man so compelling.

6. Nextwave:. Another cheat, but it's Christmas, so tough. This team's title got cancelled because no one was buying it, since apparently most comics fans lack both a sense of humour, and the understanding that Lee and Kirby did stuff like this all the time, and if it's good enough for them, it's damned well good enough for modern Marvel. You've got an ex-Avenger with an superiority complex, an ultra-violent English monster hunter, a drunken Machine Man, a jailbait X-Man and a superhero with a name so profane Captain America beat him up because of it. All of them are on the run after stealing what is essentially a TARDIS from a suicidal Nick Fury. Great stuff, crushed by the disapproval of abhuman cretins who couldn't deal with it being in the same "continuity" as a multi-part crossover about Iron Man and Captain America punching each other. Idiots.

7. Rocket Raccoon: The star of a bizarre minor Marvel miniseries of the early 1980's, a strange blend of horror and Saturday morning cartoon loosely based on a Beatles song and drawn by a pre-Hellboy Mike Mignola. I normally don't have much time for the anthropomorphic animal thing (I can't get into Usagi Yojimbo, for example, even though I know it's good), but there's something compelling about a 50's Buck Rogers style space hero with rocket boots and ray guns who just happens to be a raccoon. He's recently returned as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and I'm dreading his demise in some inane cosmic crossover.

8. Scott Pilgrim: He's a brilliant hand-to-hand fighter, and the ladies love him, but he's also a bit of a loser, living in a bedsit with only borrowed possessions, and he seems to have an odd kind of social autism where he fails to comprehend basic concepts. So another example of the Peter Parker archetype then. It would have been so easy to make Scott unfailingly cool and brilliant, and I love that he's just a bit rubbish sometimes.

9. Spider-Man: I don't have quite the attachment Rol does to Spidey, but it's close. I grew up reading his adventures, mainly from Marvel UK reprints, and Marvel got it dead right with this character. The balance of real-life and superheroics is spot on, and Spidey actually grew up and developed in a way superhero characters rarely do, which makes it all the more annoying that Marvel scuppered all that and turned the clock back for no reason at all. I still love Spidey, but Marvel make it so bloody hard.

10. Thor: I love the one-upmanship of the concept, of topping DC's strongest man alive by wheeling out a god. I like the silly Olde English dialogue, that he's a hero who can pull off a beard, and that he gets drunk at the end of a successful adventure purely for fun and celebration, and not because of socially relevant storytelling. He also works really well as an Avenger (see above), in particular during the Kurt Busiek era, when the writer would save Thor for the big climax, invariably giving him the hero shot. All this is set against the grand backdrop of Norse myth, complete with doom-laden prophecy and familial back-stabbing.

10a. Beta Ray Bill: As 10, but a yellow alien horse.

Is it a Bird?

I have a new article up at Comics Bulletin this week, this time focusing on Marvel's half-arsed Superman clone, the Sentry. I really can't figure out what this character is for, so writing a snarky article about how useless he is came very easily indeed.

My Life in Comics

Borrowed from Rol...

Favourite regular series right now?

I'm not reading many regular series right now, because I'm tired of all the crap. Sorry. But I'm still really enjoying Invincible; it's a simple, solid superhero title that reminds me a lot of the old Stern/Frenz Amazing Spider-Man, only with more gratuitous violence. I could do without that bit, although I understand its inclusion.

Comic book character you only recently discovered/started reading?

Er... the only title I'm reading from the Big Two (and what a joke that concept has become) is Captain Britain and MI:13, but he's been knocking around for decades, so I wouldn't say I've "discovered" him.

If you could draw/write one character who would it be?

The Avengers. I know it's a cheat, but I don't care.
Alternatively, Death's Head.

Are you a fan of the big multi-issue crossover extravaganzas?

In theory, but they're never any good, are they? They're done far too often nowadays; both Marvel and DC have been in a constant state of crossover for about three years now. They always seem to confuse "epic" with "long", and they always promise much but deliver little. I think the last crossover I actually enjoyed was Operation: Galactic Storm, and that was 1992.

Last comic book series that you dropped and why?

Ha. Pretty much all of them. I finally gave up on the Avengers titles because I couldn't justify paying money to see Bendis (puttup!) run them into the ground; I even stopped accepting the free review copies I got through Comics Bulletin because I got worn out by the interminable awfulness of it all.
And then there's Spider-Man. The recent reboot was as wrong-headed, inane, and smug as Boris Johnson at the Olympics, and I couldn't go on reading.
I never thought I'd drop Spidey and the Avengers, but Marvel proved me wrong. However, Bendis (puttup!) is leaving Mighty Avengers, the series he created but proved unable to actually write properly; taking over is Dan Slott, who was one of the Spidey reboot writers, but that mess was editorially-mandated, so I'm cautiously optimistic about his Avengers. It will probably be rendered unreadable by being forced to participate in the braindead crossover of the moment, but I can hope.

Favourite character?

Spider-Man, Death's Head, Rocket Raccoon, Thor. In that order. I think.

Are you a DC or a Marvel fan?

I really don't get DC's heroes. They all seem so stiff and conservative, your grandad's superheroes, if you will. Also, DC reprints weren't nearly as plentiful as Marvel's when I was a nipper, so I grew up on the latter.

Do you remember your first comic/series?


I remember it from a reprint in a Grandreams Spider-Man annual in the early 80's. While I'm sure I read comics before, that story stuck with me all my life, and is largely responsible for me swapping the Black Cat in for the simpering Gwen Stacy in the classic Spidey love triangle.

Is Watchmen the movie going to be as good as the comic book?
Nowhere nearly. The thing is, Watchmen isn't a great story; there's a decent twist, and it's a nicely layered mystery, but it's not a brilliant plot. What's great about Watchmen is the density of the storytelling, the repeated motifs, the playing with the structure and format of the comic book, the focus on aging superheroes past their prime, and the examination of the superhero psyche. All that structural stuff will, by definition, be chucked out in an adaptation (to me, the film looks less realistic than the comic), and I'm not expecting in-depth character psychoanalysis from the director of the Dawn of the Dead remake...

Favourite comic book movie?

Spider-Man 2 without a doubt.

Worst comic book movie?

It's either Batman and Robin or LXG. I'm tempted to put Batman Begins in there too, but it's partially redeemed by Gary Oldman and Michael Caine.

Character you’d like to see in a movie?

Thor. I hear it's in the works, but it'll probably be awful. They should do it either as a gloriously over the top fantasy, pulling liberally from Kirby and Simonson, or drench it rain, blood and mud and play up the viking aspect.

Series that you’d like to see on TV?

I'm not a fan of Daredevil, but it baffles me that there hasn't been a TV show already. You can do the superhero stuff, and since he's low powered, it'll be cheap on the special effects; you're not going to need to spend millions on a cgi Galactus, for example. You can do plenty of the soap opera love life stuff, since Matt Murdock's got more than a couple of notches on his bedpost. And then there's the courtroom stuff. There's enough material for three shows in there.

The Rehabilitation of Henry J Pym

Right, so as part of the Silver Bullets transformation into Comics Bulletin, they've set aside Tuesdays exclusively for Marvel content. And they've asked me to do a regular column, in which I bitch and moan about a Marvel character, because bitching and moaning brings in the punters, apparently. The first one is up, and concerns one Hank Pym, better known as Ant-Man. Or Yellowjacket. Or Giant-Man. Or Goliath. Or Dr. Pym...

Anyway, it's here. And "Green Day" wasn't my idea.

51st?

In the Marvel Universe of today, as a result of a lengthy and boring story that claimed to be a civil rights metaphor but was actually about Iron Man and Captain America punching each other, super-powered people in the US have to register with the government or face prosecution. Those who register get the chance to join The Initiative, an organisation that lets Marvel sell yet another Avengers titile stations a government super-team in each of the fifty US states. So Minnesota gets a team, Hawaii gets a team, and so on.

Here are the members of The Initiative:



But wait. Who's that towards the back?



Why, it's Captain Britain, a British superhero, from Britain.

Which of the fifty US states is he representing then?

Stupid Marvel.

Might Be Avengers

Well, I've read the first issue of Bendis' Mighty Avengers, and... it's not bad. Some of Bendis' regular annoying flaws pop up, as expected, and he even develops a new one in his manic overuse of thought balloons, but on the whole it's solid exuberant fun, and it's how he should have been writing the Avengers from the start. He even does something halfway interesting with the Sentry!

Full review at Silver Bullets this coming Sunday.

Whatever Happened to Evil Thor?

At the beginning of Ultimates 2 #11, we see an ersatz (presumably Russian) Thor take down Air Force One and scare the pants off George Bush. He then disappears for the rest of the issue, and makes no appearance at all in Ultimates 2 #12. Where did he go? #13 will apparently revolve around a fight between the real Thor and his brother Loki, and while I wouldn't be surprised to see Evil Thor pop up to aid Loki, it wouldn't explain where he was during #12...

Re-Assembled At Last?

Warning: Geeky comics post!

Marvel have released a preview of their new Mighty Avengers series, a comic designed to win back the old Avengers fans who, like me, have abandoned Brian Michael Bendis' New Avengers. In some ways, this is a nice friendly move from Marvel, as Bendis' series sells shedloads, and the company could just sit back and watch the money come in, regardless of the feelings of the established fanbase (who, for all their moaning about how much better the old days were, could only manage to muster up about half of today's sales figures).

But I won't be buying this new series, as it seems to be woefully misjudged. The warning signs were there when Marvel announced that they'd be producing a series for the old fans, written by the very same writer who'd alienated them in the first place. And from the preview, it seems that what Bendis evidently thinks is missing from his New Avengers is lots of fighting. While that is indeed missing from his slow-moving, indulgently scripted anti-superhero comic, it might also be nice to include some effective characterisation and a semblance of plot, like the original Avengers title did. To be fair, the preview is only a handful of pages in length, but it reeks of superficiality and fundamental creative misjudgement.

Oh well. I still have my back issues.