Or - “Ballistic: Stark Vs. Rhodes.

One of the mysteries of Avengers: The Initiative so far is how a hero like War Machine, with a history of fighting AGAINST human rights violations and disliking Tony Stark’s manipulative side, ever got involved with a para-military superhuman strike force in the first place.  An answer or two is forthcoming in this issue, which also features a graduation, a resignation, and Iron Man not being the world’s biggest tool.  But the bigger question is:  WHO IS THE NEW 3-D MAN???

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Or - “It’s Too Bad That The New Warriors Don’t Have Their Own Book… Wait, What?”

With all things Skrullapalooza breaking loose in the Marvel Universe, it’s sometimes hard to remember that OTHER storylines are in media res.  The threads of disaster that were set up in the very first issue of this book have finally woven together into an indian couch blanket of lies, deceit, death, and payback, and like most couch blankets, it’s rough, unattractive, and something stinks.  Get your scorecards ready and prepare to check off characters who get squished, stabbed, and lit on fire, folks, because this battle is gonna get bowling-shoe ugly.

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Or - “Here’s The Story… Of A Man Named Hardball!”

With Ann B. Davis as Cloud 9!  Of the eleven characters on this cover nonyptic (I don’t think that’s really a word, but I couldn’t think of another way to describe a tryptic with 9 squares) one is about to buy the farm, to shuffle off this mortal coil, to ring down the curtain and join the bleedin’ choir invisibule…  I’m not necessarily taking bets or anything, but three of these guys have a healing factor, two have whiskers on their masks, and one is an angry clown.  Place your bets, spins the wheel and takes ya chances!

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Or - “Let The Merciless Beatings Commence…”

It’s no secret that I haven’t been the biggest fan of Gauntlet thus far. He’s been, frankly, a cartoon, a parody of every ‘tough D.I.’ we’ve seen in every form of media thus far, borrowing liberally from Lou Gossett in ‘An Officer And A Gentleman’ and R. Lee Ermey’s prototypical Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in ‘Full Metal Jacket.’ He’s utilized the deaths of innocents (and I count Namorita, Microbe, and Thrash in that number) to manipulate his charges, and has played lip service to caring about his recruits while allowing half a dozen of them to get beaten nearly to death by the frickin’ Hulk. It’s obvious that the beating was pre-ordained to get us to see his side of the story, to get past the facade of soldier cliches and show the man inside the big metal hand. Let’s see how it works out…

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Or - “So, We’ve Had This Program For All Of Ten Minutes And It’s Already Being Abused.”

It’s fascinating to me that no one in Tony Stark’s SHIELD has apparently the slightest inkling of what’s going on in Stamford with this supposedly military outfit. With all the time and energy that Iron Man has expended in trying to control every single aspect of superhuman life, I can’t believe that he wouldn’t AT LEAST debrief his ‘best friend’ Jim Rhodes on the things that happen in this camp. Of course, the presence of a freakin’ Nazi doesn’t do me much in the way of giving them the benefit of the doubt, and of course, there’s also the Nazi’s pet scientist Baron Von Blitzschlag. (See what I did there?) Henry Peter Gyrich has a long history of not trusting the capes as well as general asshattery, and both traditions are in full-force this issue… (more…)

Or - “Would It Be Unprofessional To Announce That This Issue Is My Last?”

I often worry about the fine line between criticism and opinion, between “I don’t like it” and “I don’t get it.” Certainly, there’s no 100% reliable way to remove the subjectivity from my recaps, and I’ll always have my preferences and peccadilloes, but when a book comes out that obviously SOMEBODY thinks was a great idea, I wonder if it’s just me. The first issue of The Order left me cold, focusing on a character who is supposed to be a hero, but frankly comes across as a guy who got lucky because Tony Stark owed him a favor. Same goes for field leader Pepper Potts, and the whole “seven strangers who find out what happens when people stop being polite and start juggling tanks” conceit was more compelling several years ago when Image did it in “Wildguard.” The second issue is here, and for the first time in a while, my response to a comic was so virulent that I’m about THIS CLOSE to ignoring my usual “six months to get good” rule of thumb…

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Or - “I’m Not Sure How I Feel About The Overall Effect Of This Series…”

Alpha Flight, as an entity, has had a difficult run. The original series wasn’t really effective when they were doing standard-issue superheroics, but didn’t quite gel when they went another direction. The second run was marred (in my opinion) by trying to turn it into an X-Men riff, and the third series’ tongue-in-cheek tone didn’t seem to go over with the readers, leading to the team being fed to a villain to up the ante for the New Avengers. Given the fact that most of their members were eviscerated in that story, I expected a return to drama this time around. What I DIDN’T expect, given the solicitations, was the experimental nature of the plot and characters…

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Or - “For The Love Of Pie, SOMEBODY Do SOMETHING!!”

It’s been a little more than two months since we saw the last issue of Mighty Avengers, and, I admit it, I whined about the last issue. Indeed, I’ve whined about the last three issues, with their glacial plot development, tons of cheesecake shots and still almost no hints as to what in the Aitch-Ee-Double-Hockey-Sticks is going on. Finally, we have some developments on the explanatory front, but is it enough to overcome seventy-odd pages of standing around saying one thing while thinking another?

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Or - “Namor’s Credo: If Excessive Force Fails, You Didn’t Use Enough.”

That’s one of the sonar images you never want to see, along with a close-up of a torpedo, or a sexually excited blue whale. In each case, even if you survive, you’ll never quite be the same again. Issue #1 of the Sub-Mariner mini got a pass when I thumbed through the Previews catalog, but I picked it up on a slow Sunday, just to kill time, and found myself engrossed by a political allegory with a uncompromising, principled, though unbending main character. Namor the first, scion of Atlantis, is a hard character to get “right” (Brian Bendis’ version especially rings false to me) but the first issue hit all the right notes AND got him out of his scaley green speedo. Will part two continue the streak?

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Or - “Last Minute Reprieves? How Cliche Is That?“

I admit it. I’ve been irritated with the three issues of the Initiative thus far. Though there have been several very nice moments, the overall tone has been a bit dark and broody, as well as reminding me very much of “The Draft,” a twenty-year-old story from the New Universe. Add in what I suspect is a writer-designed hatred of Gauntlet’s tired New-Warriors-dead-baby jokes, and I’ve been on the verge of dropping the title altogether. This issue changes my mind, in a vast and sweeping way, and I’m happy to have been proven wrong. Though my comic budget may suffer, my overall feelings about the direction of the Marvel Universe have been on the upswing again, though an enjoyable World War Hulk #1 and a revitalized New Avengers don’t hurt, either. What made me change my mind?

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Or - “Teenage Superguys… Don’t Do It!”

The original lineup of the New Warriors reportedly came about when two editors flipped through the Official Handbook of The Marvel Universe, picked a few characters who hadn’t been seen in a while and slapped together a team out of them. So far in the new series, we’ve seen a mysterious masked man and two mutants depowered by the Decimation. There may be as much untapped potential in the former Beak and Winddancer as there was in Namorita, Firestar, Marvel Boy, and Speedball. Add in the man called Nova, fighting well beneath his weight-class, and Night Thrasher, actually far better than his “Punisher with a skateboard” thumbnail sketch would have you think, and Marvel accidentally found a recipe for greatness. With most of the current Warriors shrouded in secrecy, what we’ve seen thus far feels remarkably like “The Ex-X-Men.”

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Ok, maybe you didn’t read World War Hulk #1, but the return of the green goliath is going to rip through the Marvel U this summer and will have huge impact on everything to come. Already Hulk took the beat down to Black Bolt and Iron Man, now the war spills over into Ghost Rider and Avengers: The Initiative #4.

Marvel Comics has sent Major Spoilers a sneak peek at both issues that arrive July 18.

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Or - “Why Sometimes Impulse Buys Are A Good Thing…”

There are a lot of things you can say about Namor the Sub-Mariner, but one of the most obvious is that he is the original anti-hero. Whereas Wolverine, The Punisher, and others started a mini-revolution in the past 25 years, Namor was known to be “the best there is at what he does” nearly 70 years ago! With a whole new political climate, an angry foreign potentate is likely to ruffle some feathers, and when the king in question can heft a battleship in his bare hands, I suspect it means this series won’t be without conflict… I wasn’t going to read this book until the first issue appeared in our preview package two weeks ago, and what I found inside what NOT what I expected.

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Or - “The Big Bombshell Revealed…”

Recent conversations with Tom Grice (who is still WRONG, Sir, WRONG!) have made me think that perhaps I’ve been unfair to Marvel lately. The entire Initiative program rubs me the wrong way, and the interlocking nature of the entire dang Marvel Universe right now does color my perceptions of titles like Omega Flight and New Warriors (though I stand by my blatant excoriation of Illuminati #3 and Loners #3.) Thus, I am going to try and give you a more balanced literary criticism of this issue, purportedly the hook upon which Marvel’s new giant super-crossover hangs. I’ll say this for the issue: I didn’t see any of the reveal coming…

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Or - “That Sign Over There? That’s My Breaking Point, And It’s Comin’ Up Fast…”

Generally speaking, I don’t drop comic titles very often. What with the general upswing in my disposable income, and a couple of bad experiences desperately searching to fill runs of books that I previously decided were a lost cause, most of my titles end up being cancelled out from under me before I drop them. But my recent problems with the underlying premise(s) of the three Avengers titles are leading me towards a crossroads and, to be frank, this title is near the top of the expendable list. It earns this dubious honor with egregious Mary Sue-ing, mean-spiritedness and just generally being unpleasant. I tend to have a six-issue window wherein I make decisions about potentially removing a book from my hold list. Welcome then, to “Initiative Cancellation Watch ‘07.” Let’s see if Dan Slott can push me in a positive direction…

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