The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1342: The Dying & the Dead #3, September 2015

I'd hoped to get a bit more information on this strange woman and her multitudinous identical clones in this issue.

Instead we get Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito sitting down for dinner. And then Hirohito beheads Hitler.

I noted in my post about the first issue of this series that Jonathan Hickman has a few tropes that he likes to employ in his stories, ideas that are obviously speaking to him, and through him, to us. The underground city is one such trope. The secret history is another. This was the over-arching trope of The Manhattan Projects, which I really should get back to, and it's fundamental to his S.H.I.E.L.D. series as well. For me, the draw of the alternate history story, especially one that is ostensibly set in "the real world," is the idea that these events could have taken place, with just slight changes in the "real" story. These are the sorts of stories that really emblematize the use of narrative to parse out possibilities and what ifs. If, as Frye has it, we use literature to chart possible worlds, alternate history stories give us the histories of those possible worlds.

Not sure that made sense. As usual these days, I'm very tired.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1341: The Dying & the Dead #2, April 2015

Curiouser and curiouser...

I'm intrigued by this group of soldiers the colonel is assembling. The cover image appears to be something from their past, which gives the tale a nice flavour, actually. Something like Red. This is the final adventure, the one they go on at the end of their lives. It seems that all action heroes have this adventure, the one last ride with their old compatriots.

Though these guys appear to have done some very bad things together. I kind of hope we never find out what those bad things were. It's so much better to leave to to our imaginations. What's important about the characters is the tale that is happening to them imminently, not the story that has brought them to this particular place.

More to come...

The 40 Years of Comics Project - The Weekly Graphic Novel: Week 8 - Ultimate Comics Thor, 2011

As much as I would consider myself a rabid fan of Jonathan Hickman's writing, there's a substantial chunk of it that I haven't read as yet. His work in Marvel's "Ultimate Universe" makes up a significant portion of that chunk, and this is mainly due to having heard that, in contrast to his Earth-616 Marvel work, it's not that good.

But let me back up a moment.

The other thing keeping me from exploring this series, and others in the Ultimate U that Hickman has written, is my lack of knowledge about, and my dislike for, this particular version of the Marvel Universe. I've railed on about the grittiness of the current crop of DC films, and Marvel's Ultimate U, though it's genesis in Ultimate Spider-Man was less so, emblematizes this proclivity for gritty superheroes. And, honestly, I thought we'd had enough of that in the 90s. I've never really understood why realism seems to have to equal darkness. And that's how I've long perceived the Ultimate U. I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm hitting the target dead center here.

That said, Ultimate Thor is actually pretty good. It's still dark, it's still bloody, but it also tells an interesting tale spanning millennia, establishing the place of Asgard and the Norse mythos in the Ultimate U, and, in a nice twist, linking Ragnarok with the Second World War. I especially enjoyed the notion of gods being reborn as mortals, and having to deal with losing the power they once understood as intrinsic. Carlos Pacheco's art in this book is lovely, and in the sections near the end where we're seeing a different perspective on the events of the first run of The Ultimates, his style nicely apes/meshes with the Hitch/Neary widescreen action of that series. But there's where I have to become a bit critical. I'm not sure how much the end of this series would have made sense had I not read The Ultimates all those years ago when it came out. The supposed impetus for the Ultimate Universe was to allow readers who had not followed 35-40 years of continuity to enjoy the stories of the Marvel characters they were beginning to see in the movies. I distinctly recall the rhetoric surrounding the project, claiming that someone with no knowledge of any of the Marvel characters could pick up an Ultimate comic and not feel lost.

I can't imagine that this would be the case with the Thor series. But that's a small thing, really, especially considering that this series came out about a decade after the inception of the Ultimate universe. And a fictional universe with a decade-long history is going to have to have some expectations of continuity.

In the end, though, it's true: this series is not nearly as good as Hickman's work in the regular Marvel universe. It seems to lack the grandeur that, I have to say, is present in pretty much all of his other work that I've read. And seeing as how this is a story about gods, it should be pretty grand.

Countdown on the Road to "Secret Wars"

 

I've dropped the ball on this one a bit, I admit, but the responsible part of me actually understood that getting my candidacy exams written had to take precedence over commentary on the road to the Marvel U event this summer.

We'll ignore that responsible part for a bit now.

The final part of my summary will be brief. What we have in the countdown section is a pretty well-laid out reading order, with one or two exceptions. Hickman and Marvel have been pretty good at making explicit the order one reads Avengers/New Avengers in, most obviously from publishing schedule, but there's always a glitch or two.

I'll give the brief list of the reading order I've followed, and then some of my thoughts about this part of the road.

Avengers v.5 #35

New Avengers v.3 #24

Avengers v.5 #36

Avengers v.5 #37

New Avengers v.3 #25

Avengers v.5 #38

New Avengers v.3 #26

New Avengers v.3 #27

Avengers v.5 #39

New Avengers v.3 #28

Avengers v.5 #40 (ostensibly the first inkling we have of what the countdown is heading toward - the banner at the top now reads "In 4 months...Time Runs Out! Secret Wars."

New Avengers v.3 #29

Avengers v.5 #41

New Avengers v.3 #30

Avengers v.5 #42

New Avengers v.3 #31

New Avengers v.3 #32

Avengers v.5 #43

New Avengers v.3 #33

Avengers v.5 #44

( I just had one of those moments where I typed the word "Avengers" so much that it started to look completely wrong."

And that's it. I have to imagine that Hickman will not be continuing on with the Avengers after Secret Wars, and I'd honestly be surprised if he continued on at Marvel, at least for a little while after the event. He's literally torn the whole damned thing down and it telling what I'm pretty sure is one of the most searching and interesting stories about these characters that we've ever seen.

I know, 2.5 issues in, it's really hard to say that. But now coming to an understanding of what's constituting the "Secret Wars," the levels of the factions involved, the fact that it's Doom, because of course it's Doom (Secret Wars might make an interesting contrast to Waid and Kitson's Empire at this point. Fodder for a later date.)

But what about the countdown to the event itself? Much like the build to his climactic Fantastic Four story, things start off a bit slowly in this run of issues. It's 8 months later, so we have to play catch up a bit. But once the lay of the land has been established, once the players have been outlined, things kick into a particularly high gear. I'm sure one day I'll go back and re-read all these again, when I've a bit more time, but the overwhelming sense I took away from the countdown was of futility, of a group of characters who have never faced something that they couldn't stop facing something that they cannot stop. There's a particularly beautiful moment just at the end of the last run (the "Detours) in New Avengers where the Illuminati basically just walk away and decide that they can't stop the end of the world, so they should accept it. Then the Cabal happens, of course, and things get bad.

I will admit that the thing that saddens me is the rift between Captain American and Iron Man. I have loved their relationship in the Avengers comics for a long time. They represent, for me, the two poles around which the team vacillates, and when that vacillation is harmonious, we see the pantheonic inflection on the Avengers that reflects that same sort of mythic state as the JLA. But when acrimonious, things fall apart quickly. I'll be interested to see how these characters are taken up in Secret Wars.

So that's done. I highly recommend, if you haven't read them, reading all of Hickman's run on the Avengers titles. Actually, all of his Marvel output has been stellar thus far. Secret Wars is two and a half issues in (you did get the Free Comic Book Day prologue, right?), and it's really, really good so far.

I guess I'll see you further on up the road. I'm sure the Secret Wars will give us all a lot to talk about.

Crosspost from Facebook

A little more coherent wrap-up of the comics I live-blogged earlier.

"To celebrate handing in my exam, I went out and bought some comics. Here's some things I think are pretty good:

ODY-C - retelling of Homer's epic set in space with an all-female cast. One of the most beautifully coloured comics I've ever seen, and written in Homeric verse. Supposedly. I don't know what Homeric verse is.

Intersect - I just wrote on my blog that when I read this comic, I feel like I'm taking part in some weird performance art. I thought I had a sort of general idea of what was going on, and then things got very weird, very fast.

Kaijumax - I actually don't know if I'm going to keep reading this one. I found it uncomfortable. It's set in a super-max prison for all those monsters from Japanese B-movies, and the art style is fairly cartoony, but it is played FUCKING HARDCORE LIKE OZ. And that's a bit disturbing.

Secret Wars - So, yeah, forget that Infinty Whatever movie stuff that's coming up in 2018/19 - Jonathan Hickman is telling the ultimate story of Marvel superheroes right now. I know that's a pretty hyperbolic thing to say, but it's really, really, really good.

The Surface - I'm convinced that writer Ales Kot is either having a very intense conversation with Grant Morrison, or he is Grant Morrison. This comic's use of the format is blowing my mind. As is Intersect, actually. Some very cool formal experimentation going on.

That's it. As you were."

Live Post - Saturday Afternoon Comics - Secret Wars #2

I hate it when reviews ready really hyperbolically, but I'm going to go ahead and say the Jonathan Hickman is telling the ultimate Marvel U story, something Crisis-esque.

Yeah, okay, maybe too much. But y'know what? It's really, really, really good.

The 40 Years of Comics Project: Weird Metadata Post #2

A breakdown of the top 10 artists and writers in my collection, by number of entries.


Name - # entries - approximate % of collection
Artists:
John Byrne - 179 - 0.019%
Jack Kirby - 157 - 0.013%
John Romita, Jr. - 131 - 0.011%
Mark Bagley - 118 - 0.010%
John Buscema - 103 - 0.009%
George Perez - 102 - 0.009%
Brent Anderson - 101 - 0.009%
Dave Gibbons - 100 - 0.008%
Tom Grummett - 94 - 0.008%
Sal Buscema - 92 - 0.008%

Writers:
Grant Morrison - 581 - 0.049%
Chris Claremont - 307 - 0.026%
Mark Waid - 305 - 0.026%
Brian Bendis - 287 - 0.024%
Alan Moore - 255 - 0.022%
Warren Ellis - 249 - 0.021%
Jonathan Hickman - 241 - 0.020%
Kurt Busiek - 231 - 0.020%
Steve Gerber - 205 - 0.017%
Geoff Johns - 201 - 0.017%

A couple of things jump out at me. First the number of comics by individual writers far outstrips the comics by individual artists. This is most likely a function of my following writers, rather than artists, but it also might say something about the relative ease of scripting a comic versus drawing a comic.

The list of writers is unsurprising to me, except for Claremont, whose writing I don't particularly care for, but who is apparently a fairly large presence in the collection. The artist list is full of surprises. I really don't care much for Byrne either, but he's my top artist? Attests to his productivity, if nothing else, I guess. The Kirby and Bagley stuff is less surprising, as is the Grummet stuff. Both Bagley and Grummet worked on Thunderbolts, which I collected voraciously.

In contrast, there's a rather remarkable amount of writers and artists in the collection who are represented by a single work.

Detours on the Road to "Secret Wars"

It's been a while, but the Secret Wars are almost upon us. So let's move along the road the Jonathan Hickman's been navigating.

I call this section detours because, for me, it's the least coherent section of the Avengers titles run. It's sandwiched between the intensity of "Infinity" and the countdown issues that jump us 8 months into the future, and while the stories it tells do have resonances to the larger arc, they somehow don't catch one's attention quite so much. Perhaps it's just me.

Avengers v.5 #24 (24.Now, to be specific, though it also sports a giant "#1" at the top of the cover)(??) - A perfect jumping on point for new readers! I hate when they say things like that, especially with a comic like Avengers. Also, no it's not, so the #1 on the cover is super-disingenuous. The story within is not bad at all, though. A rogue planet heads for Earth, an Iron Man from the future comes back to warn everyone at a barbeque, and Tony Stark gets told that he won't be able to keep his secret much longer. Good foreshadowing, and the planet does get put to good use....eventually.

New Avengers v.3 #13 - 15 - three very, very grim issues of the series. We've heard for a year now that other Earths are being destroyed one by one across the Multiverse. These issues give us a look at the alternative versions of the Illuminati and how they failed, and against whom. There's also some interesting back story on the Black Swans, and though I feel I may have missed it, I'm still not entirely sure of their role in this whole saga. Perhaps that'll come to light some time in the next month or so. Or it's come to light, and I've just been reading too many comics to keep track. Also, Doctor Strange finally goes totally darkside, and it's pretty great to consider the ramifications. Oh, and shades of the Cabal at the end of issue 15.

Avengers v.5 #25 - 28 - An interesting counterpoint to the dying Earths in the New Avengers, here we see A.I.M. pulling an alternate team of Avengers from their world just as it is destroyed. They're almost spitting images of the very early Avengers, both in appearance and line-up, but, as often happens with these parallel dimension alternates, they're evil. It's almost like a Crime Syndicate version of the Avengers, which is ironic considering the New Avengers storyline that follows this one. I will admit that when it came down to the two versions of Banner here, I got confused both times I read it. And again, as with the rogue planet, there are ramifications that ramifications here that have only recently been picked back up as the titles come to their climaxes. I noted above that I feel like these stories are less coherent than those that have preceded and those that follow, and I think it's because some of them feel like they could have taken half as much time as they have. But, if we consider that "Secret Wars" is dropping at the same time as Avengers: Age of Ultron, perhaps the editorial powers that be dictated that these issues needed to be here. I could be being cynical there, but I prefer to think of it as being realistic.

New Avengers v.5 #16 (.Now, with the #1 at the top, just as disingenuous as the other one) - okay, I'll admit, the run of New Avengers that follows this one is really amazing. We're introduced here to the Great Society, a.k.a. The Justice League. I love stories like this that take barely-concealed versions of the characters from "the distinguished competition" and tease out the ramifications of conflict between Earth-Marvel and Earth-DC. Squadron Supreme leaps immediately to mind, but there have definitely been others. So this is our intro to the Society, and I think, of these detours, this is my absolute favourite story. But, fair warning, it's not a happy story.

Avengers v.5 #29 - part of the "Original Sin" crossover, though I really don't see how this and the stories that follow have anything to do with that event series (which, I'll admit, I read 3 issues of and then lost interest). But sin is the order of the day here. Captain America finally remembers the events of the very beginning of this saga, from New Avengers 1-3, and he and a remarkably impressive array of Avengers go to have a "chat" with Tony Stark. Who, it must be admitted, manages to hold his own against them for a bit, which really lets you know what a force to be reckoned with Stark really is. And then the lost Time Gem returns, and throws everyone into the future....but first, the Illuminati have some business to attend to.

New Avengers v.3 #17 - 21 - this is just such a great story. I'm not going to say much about it, because honestly of all the stories in these runs, this is the one I'd hate to spoil. Yes, the Illuminati fights the JLA, but they also talk to them. Hickman here deploys what are ostensibly the greatest and smartest heroes on Marvel and DC Earth, and pits them against the death of the Multiverse. Beautiful and tragic, just as you can imagine a story like this would be. More shades of the Cabal when a decision is made, finally. Again, though I call these stories detours (and, much as I like it, I think this story could have taken up a couple less issues), this story is not simply filler (and nor are any of them), but a meditation on how great heroes can often have come from remarkably different points of view.

Avengers v.5 #30 - 34 - the "Original Sin" issues of Avengers, in which Captain America's team that confronted Tony Stark is catapulted into various distant futures. There are a couple of things I want to say about this run of Avengers. The first is that Lenil Yu's art is terrible. Sorry, I know that's a really big thing to say, to completely disparage an artist's output, but I've never liked anything he's done, and for some reason he's still put on relatively large titles. What is it about him that makes him a superstar artist? Okay, I'll relent. His art is perhaps not terrible. But I don't like it. The other thing I'd like to say about this run is that grown-up Franklin Richards comes back! One of the greatest parts of Hickman's Fantastic Four run was the interaction between little Frank and older Frank. So to see him return, even for just a little while, is a treat. The time-travel story is cool, and gives us some notion of the future of the Avengers. We understand that with the destruction of the Multiverse, the Avengers are fighting to stop things from their present, but these issues also drive home the notion that it's the future they're trying to save as well.

New Avengers v.3 #22 - 23 - the shattering of the Illuminati. What rises in their place, over the course of the 8 hours that these two issue encompass, is probably the baddest of badass villain teams to have ever been presented in a Marvel comic. Any team that counts Thanos as a member is pretty heavy. But that's not the best part. The best part is the Illuminati surrendering to the workings of fate, the ways in which they all face what they've come to see as inevitable. And then their defiance in the face of that inevitability. Over the course of New Avengers, it's easy to forget that these characters are actually superheroes. Issue #23 reminds us of this, just before time starts to really run out.

The countdown begins next.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 49: 1602 #3, December 2003

There's a couple of parts of this comic in which we get an inkling that the 1602 world isn't just an experiment in displacing the characters of the Marvel Universe, but actually a part of that very same universe. "...I merely watch," the text of the final caption box on the first page, is the blatant clue as to the narrator's voice, and the back of his head shows up in a later panel. That Uatu makes his presence known makes 1602, at the very least, a possible What If world, which, by this point, have been acknowledged as part of the Marvel multiverse.

These questions of multiversality (or, to quote Morrison, multiversity) offer some interesting ways of coming at superhero comics. Leaving aside for a moment that a newly-published theory is actually positing interaction between parallel universes, in many ways, especially for the last decade or so, we've seen rampant tacit interaction between parallel comics universes. There is a long history of multiverses and alternate realities in superhero comics, stemming from the "imaginary stories" of the fifties and sixties all the way to Morrison's current meditation on the concept in Multiversity. Interesting shorthands have been created that allow writers to deal with multiverses, the notion of "the Bleed" being perhaps the most useful, and most used. These veins of the multiverse not only separate the various dimensions, but also parse the universe in terms of the biological, a metaphor with which we are fundamentally in tune. And while this notion, and its genesis in the differing vibrational rates of alternate Earths (see Flash v.1 #123) primarily finds its origins in DC Comics and their eventual offshoot Wildstorm, Marvel writers, Jonathan Hickman notable amongst them, have taken up the concept in the Marvel Universe(s). The Bleed, or the veins of the multiverse, become a concept in numerous multiverses from different publishers, and thus become a metaphoric link between economically disparate fictions. Thus we see a version of the Sentry show up in Final Crisis, gathered together with other versions of Superman (along with a version of Supreme), or we see the Avengers take on a barely concealed version of the Justice League in a recent issue of that series. These veins allow us to think superhero comics not as disparate fictions attempting to grapple with the mythic resonances of these kinds of characters, but as parts of an organic whole, combinations and permutations moving toward some kind of solution. Whether or not the solution even exists is beside the point. It is the movement that matters.

Not that this says anything about the comic in question, really. This issue, at least, combats the problem I was thinking about yesterday, that of the novelty of revelation carrying the story more than the narrative itself. Things happen in this issue. Major events propel the plot forward and characters are developed in such a way that they are made distinct from the archetypes from which they are drawn. Not too distinct, mind you, but enough that we can see the way in which the different time period manages to change the surfaces of the characters at the very least. But I still can't get away from the idea that this story would not be nearly as well-regarded if it didn't feature the Marvel superheroes. Only three issues in and I'm already getting ready to set it aside and read something else before finishing the series. But I did say there'd be music by next weekend, which means the series needs to be finished, in which case, I'll see you again tomorrow, direct from the 17th century.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 38: The Dying & the Dead #1, January 2015

One of the aborted series I began on this blog a few years back was one about building a collection. It's been about 5 years since I wrote that introduction, and just now am I starting to think of things I could talk about. One of the early pieces I drafted around the same time as the introduction was one on the wonders of dollar bins (we useta call 'em "quarter bins," back in the day). I'm a firm believer in pouring through these boxes of under-appreciated comics. Sometimes one finds utter crap, kitsch that is worth having just for the sake of having it. Other times, one discovers a hidden gem, perhaps a little beaten up, but no worse for the wear.

Yesterday, at one of my local shops, I found Jonathan Hickman and Ryan Bodenheim's The Dying & the Dead #1. In a dollar bin. This comic is literally a couple of months old, so what on Earth was it doing there? The answer comes in a couple of light scuff marks on the cover, and a small tear in the back cover. And it is thus that I came to procure the first issue of a new Hickman comic, which I would have bought anyway because, well, Hickman, for the low, low price of one dollar. Never knock the dollar bin.

As for the comic, it's really quite great. Bodenheim supplies a couple of double-page spreads that are really breathtaking, especially the one of The City. I spent more than a few minutes staring at it, trying to pull out and discover secrets hidden in the artwork. I'm not overly familiar with Bodenheim's work. He drew Secret with Hickman, which I've yet to get through, and the only other appearances he makes in my database is in a Fear Itself crossover title called Fearsome Four (which features both Howard the Duck and Man-Thing, so was always going to be a part of my collection!). Something like this double-page piece puts me in mind of the sprawling cityscapes of Geof Darrow or Darick Robertson, but there's a slightly more ethereal quality to Bodenheim's work, at least here. I'm excited to see how this carries over into the rest of the series.

What is it about Hickman and underground cities, by the way? Not that I don't think there's a wealth of stories to be mined from that particular trope, but something about them seems to be important in whatever he's trying to work out in his fictions (not meant as a psychological assessment, but as a metaphorical preference that we can sometimes identify in particular writers). Esoteric knowledge seems always to be buried in Hickman's works, be it the City of the Dead in New Avengers, the eternal city of the S.H.I.E.L.D. (a series that could really have been ridiculously amazing had it continued), or The City of The Dying & the Dead. How this will play out, considering the mythic links we've seen thus far in the comic (Styx, Yggdrasil, that spear that the Colonel holds on the cover) will be fascinating I'm sure.

Huh, not much review there, really. With more recent comics I'm loathe to spoil anything, because they're still out there on the rack, a lot more widely available than, say, the Shade comics I was talking about the other week. I've praised Hickman almost as much as Morrison on this blog, and this comic is no exception. He's really a truly gifted comics writer, and has allied himself with some fantastic artists who are able to realize and build upon the visions he's got. I'm interested as to whether his facility with the medium stems from his being both artist and writer occasionally. And, actually, why he seems to have chosen writing as his preferred way of expression in the medium. I'll add him to the list of people I'd love to sit down a chat with some day.

See you tomorrow. Gonna dive back into the Storage collection, I think, and see what else I can discover.

The Infinte Road to "Secret Wars"

I feel like this is a bit of a cop-out post, since there are sooooo many reading order lists for the "Infinity" event. Also, because there's actually an official reading order at the back of all of the comics, at least for the two Avengers series and the main Infinity series. So instead of doing a similar post as the last two "Secret Wars" posts, I'm just going to list the reading order, and do a general musing on the event.

Infinity #1, Avengers #18, New Avengers #9, Infinity #2, Avengers #19, New Avengers #10, Infinity #3, Avengers #20, Infinity #4, Avengers #21, New Avengers #11, Infinity #5, Avengers #22-23, Infinity #6, New Avengers #12.

Overall, I enjoyed the crap out of Infinity. It puts a nice cap on the Builders story that Hickman has introduced throughout his run, it shows us how the Illuminati deal with a major crisis even as they're dealing with a MAJOR major crisis, and it puts the Avengers into the kind of cosmic struggle that previously only a team like the JLA might have handled. I've said it before, and I'll repeat it now: the Avengers are the Marvel equivalent of the JLA, and should absolutely be treated as such. I think Bendis did a nice job of balancing the cosmic Avengers stories in the main title with more down-to-Earth stories in New Avengers, but Hickman has thrown that out, and put the Avengers, new, old, or illuminated, on the cosmic playing field. Where, IMHO, they belong.

This is a war story. We see Captain America really (really!) shine here, which nicely reminds us that he was, in the Marvel U, a lynch pin in World War II. As we are told in the film, the super soldier serum doesn't just enhance physical attributes, but mental ones as well. Cap is the ultimate strategist. Which, I suppose, could forgive my one little quibble with this story: its humano-centrism. I know this is a symptom of us reading stories about beings ostensibly the same as ourselves. It would be difficult to enjoy the story quite as much if the Avengers were simply cannon fodder, and the Shi'ar or Skrull were the focal characters. But this privileging of humanity as somehow much more capable and magnificent than any other species in the galaxy is stretching things a bit. If you have to ask the question "Where would everyone in the galaxy be without the inhabitants of Earth?", you're giving us, and our superheroic counterparts, way too much credit.

But that's a minor quibble, because, like all of you, I like to feel special too!

The Earth-bound part of this story I enjoyed slightly less. I'm not sure of why Thanos is doing what he's doing, and the inclusion of the Earth invasion really just seems to be a set-up for the "Inhumanity" event and to place Thanos and his lieutenants on Earth in order that they eventually join the Cabal. But I feel like that could have been incorporated somehow into the main Builder storyline more fluidly. That whole writer versus editor thing comes to mind here.

So, that's Infinity. From here on out, things get crazy. Crazier?

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 23: The 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time #2, December 2001

Still sick, but feeling a bit better. Today's 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time, as the cover might reveal, is this:

Shall I dare to disparage? This is not my favourite era of Jack Kirby art. I'm much more a fan of his blockier work in things like Devil Dinosaur and Captain Victory. I don't know if it's the inking (which, interestingly enough, the write-up inside this issue claims was inked by an unknown inker), but it seems sloppy. Not the clean lines I've come to expect from Kirby's art.

Regardless of that, this is the first Fantastic Four comic! Yes, it's dated. Yes, Stan Lee's dialogue (especially that of The Thing) is, well, Stan Lee's dialogue, but think about what came out of this comic. Everything Marvel. I've raved about Jonathan Hickman's run on Fantastic Four a few years back, and it would not have been possible without this awkward, but genuinely inspired, piece of superhero storytelling. And, of course, there's that original cover, that's been, in the musical vernacular, covered so many times, and that will pass into the iconic images of comics history, if it hasn't already.

Okay, still exhausted, but at least that was a little more coherent than my last few posts. Can you guess what the greatest Marvel of all time will be? I'm sure you can.

Further On Up The Road to "Secret Wars"

Let me just say up front that, much as I am reading Mr. Hickman's run on the Avengers titles in order that I'm completely up to date and ready for the Secret Wars in May, re-reading his work is always, always, a pleasure. His facility with dialogue, with pacing of story beats is of the highest calibre. He's been paired with some stellar visual storytellers as well, so this run of comics has been just wonderful. There were a couple of moments in "Infinity" that gave me absolute goosebumps all over my body. Thor's "surrender" to the Builder on Hala springs immediately to mind. So, moving on....

Avengers v.5 #10 - 11 - a couple of standalone stories that deal with the fallout of Ex Nihilo's origin bombs. It's nice to see a fair and un-caricatured depiction in #10 of Canada and our superhero program. Don't get me wrong: it's horrendous what happens to all the poor Canadians at the end of the issue, but it's lovely to see them playing a major role in Hickman's every expanding world-ending tale. I do worry that there's some strangely imperialist subtext going on with the Canadian government having to call Captain America in for a rescue mission, but there's also this idea that I've had for a long time about Cap that he's more a spirit of the idea of America than of the geophysical location. Though if I'm learning one thing while studying for my exam, it's that the geophysical and the spiritual are fundamentally linked in American cultural thought. Maybe that's fodder for another paper. #11 is a fun little piece of espionage writing, sort of demonstrating that the main Avengers team can also function on a more subtle level, closer to the covert machinations of their Illuminati counterparts. It's a good story, but not a great one, and I have to say that the best part of the whole comic for me is the cover, where we get a thoroughly Manga'd Avengers. Sailor Spider-Woman is my favourite.

New Avengers v.3 #7 - a brief interlude with the Illuminati. One of the great subtextual stories in this series is the conflict between Namor and T'Challa that spins out of the Avengers vs. X-Men series. Again, Hickman's writing meshes the feelings of hatred, respect, and necessity that these two characters feel for one another quite beautifully. The head to which this story has built of the past few recent issues is just great. Also in this issue is a lovely little interlude where Dr. Strange, Mr. Fantastic, and Dr. Doom have dinner together, and Reed's almost casual dismissal of Victor at the end of it shows us just how far the experience of the Incursions has pushed Reed Richards. Doom used to be a threat. Now he is simply something in the way of Reed solving this problem, and, as the dismissal suggests, Doom has nothing of any value to contribute to the solution. I'm not sure I'd agree, and it's strange that Doom wasn't a member of the Cabal.

Avengers v.5 #12 - 17 - a good long stretch of the main team here. Before the chaos of the "Infinity" storylines, we have an interlude in the Savage Land focusing on the "Zebra children" left behind by one of the origin bombs. I wouldn't quite call it a filler story, but it's more a character building piece than a story building piece. One of the great joys of Hickman's main Avengers title is the relationship that develops between Hyperion and Thor. They are both, fundamentally, gods, and their quiet dialogues musing on the way they perceive experience and life, in contrast to the way their teammates do, are just lovely. The High Evolutionary part of this story I can take or leave, but the interactions of these two entities is some sublime writing. Issue #14 - 17 are the "Prelude to Infinity" issues, which I find to be a bit of a misnomer. The prelude sections, which really could have probably filled 6 or so pages at the beginning of Infinity proper, are background to another tale of A.I.M., who've become a far more interesting organization over the last few  years. The ramifications of the A.I.M. story play out in the Hickman/Spencer-scripted Avengers World, which I've not included on my reading order. While the stories are good (and my understanding is that Nick Spencer's solo stuff is pretty good too), they don't really lead us toward the Secret Wars. At least, not that I can tell. I guess my problem with calling these issues(and the next New Avengers issue) "preludes" is that it seems to cast the stories are somehow secondary to the tale that's coming up. And I think the story of the signal and the A.I.M. superweapon is a really good one that shouldn't be asychronously overshadowed.

New Avengers v.3 #8 - another prelude story, all about Black Bolt and Maximus. This one really isn't a prelude at all, but a fundamental part of the Infinity storyline. We need to see the Maximus/Black Bolt plots to even remotely be prepared for the final events of Infinity, and we even get a view of the invasion at the very end of the comic. This is more an expository piece of Infinity than a prelude, but I guess it gets us where we need to be in order for the great event.

Which I'll talk about next time.

On the Road to "Secret Wars"

In anticipation of the Marvel summer event this year, I've decided to dive back into Jonathan Hickman's run on the Avengers titles.
I could try to give an exhaustive background on the things that take place over the course of this (so far) two and a half year run, but I honestly don't have the time for that right now. Here's some links that will give some background on the stories Hickman is drawing upon to craft his Avengers opus:

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars
The Beyonder
Marvel "New Universe"
The Beyonders
(Also, I just noticed that Dr. Zero is in that Secret Wars picture up there, which is amazingly amazing. So here's this: The Shadowline Saga)

There. That should give some background. Just don't read too far into the articles, as they do deal with events that take place in Hickman's Avengers. Oh, and there will be spoilers in this post. If you just want my read order, don't read the stuff that I write next to it.

I don't have too much to say right now, having just started the re-read. While the stories are extremely well-crafted, and the two titles play into the action and espionage genres while also retaining the "Holy Crap! It's the end of world!" types of stories that the superhero genre is so adept at, this run is still no Fantastic Four. The scope is the same, perhaps even more grand, but FF had so much heart, evoked so many feelings. The Avengers titles are plumbing the depths of morality, of law, of what it means to be heroic, but it's missing that family feeling that Fantastic Four, when well-written, has in droves. But that's okay, because the Avengers are not a family, at least not in this incarnation. They are soldiers.

I'll have more to say, I'm sure. But for now, here's a beginning of my reading order. I'll update in this post whenever I finish another stack of the story. Some bits get a bit convoluted (like should Bendis' Age of Ultron be in here somewhere, considering the time travel stuff that happens in the Original Sin crossovers?), but this is the order that seems to make sense to me.

New Avengers v.3 #1 - 3 - these issues take place before Avengers v.5 #1, as in the opening pages of that issue, Captain America has a dream/memory of events that take place in NA #3. Also, he is wearing the old-style costume that he eschews at the end of v.5 #1.

Avengers v.5 #1 - 6 - the first three issues are the story of the garden on Mars, and introduce Abyss, Ex Nihilo, and Aleph, all of whom become major players later in the series. Following these three issues are stand-alone "origin" issues, sort of, featuring Hyperion, Smasher, and Captain Universe. A good idea, these three, as they are the characters with whom even long-time Marvel readers might be the least familiar. On a personal note, putting Hyperion on the team is awesome, since he's basically Superman, and has now not only been displaced from his own planet, but from his own universe. And Smasher is Dan Dare's granddaughter.

New Avengers v.3 #4 - 6 - a brief storyline that pushes the Illuminati into the place they thought they could avoid, and much sooner than they expected. We also see the beginnings here of a group that is currently playing a major role in the Avengers titles, The Cabal. What New Avengers does really well is to show these extraordinary beings engaged in conflicts the size of which mere mortals would have trouble even conceiving. The heroes of the DC Universe are very often put into universe-altering conflicts, but the Marvel heroes are not often let loose on that scale. Yes, there's the occasional intergalactic war or something, but only very rarely do we see the nature of their very reality being threatened. It is cool to see Marvel heroes interacting on the god level of their universe.

Avengers v.5 #7 - 9 - A WHITE EVENT!!! I thought I was the only one who enjoyed Marvel's failed first try at a "more realistic" universe, the "New Universe." But here's Hickman re-introducing elements and making them frickin' awesome. The introduction of Nightmask and Starbrand here have vast consequences, and Starbrand's origin in particular really does play into the ramifications of the superheroic on the mundane. Also shades of Civil War here. The end of this story does present a continuity problem, as Starbrand and Nightmask are relegated to the Dyson sphere that Iron Man is constructing, the existence of which was previously only known to Stark, Reed Richards, and Hank McCoy. Does this mean that the newly-brain wiped Captain America knows of the sphere, or just that he trust Stark enough to allow him to sequester these two superbeings without knowing where they are? That doesn't seem like Cap to me.

So that's it for now. I'll update as I go, and as I figure out the storylines. Any suggestions for ancillary reading, or for changes to the order are more than welcome.

This Week's Picks

To say that my updates of all of my blogs have become erratic of late is an understatement.  That's grad school for you.  I'm making an effort, now that it's summer.

This week

Age of Ultron #7 - I think it was somewhere on Facebook I was decrying Bendis's later Avengers stories.  I thought he was running out of ideas.  And I think there was something to that, and it's probably a good thing he left.  But "Age of Ultron" is a nice return to form.  It's very dark, which I think is something that the Avengers have lacked over their history.  And perhaps that was the problem with his run, that it was always quite dark.  I'm enjoying "Age."  It's epic, it's disturbing, it's surprising.  I know, as an experienced comic reader, that this crossover will have no real lasting effects, but it has a lasting effect on the reader.  It's part of my thinking that superhero stories are much closer to mythology than to fiction.  Think about Odysseus, going off to fight the war at Troy, the most epic war ever fought, and then in his next adventure, we have the Odyssey.  A completely separate adventure, one that makes reference to previous adventures, but stands by itself just fine.  Anyway, topic for another time perhaps.

Avengers #11 - (And all the ones before, really)  I know I've said it before, and will again, but Jonathan Hickman is writing some of the best superhero comics right now.  With his Avengers series (the main one and "New Avengers"), he's giving the team the sort of treatment that really pushes them into JLA territory.  This links a bit with what I was just saying about mythology.  The Justice League are mythic.  They always have been.  The Avengers have always had that Marvel U realism attached, which keeps them from achieving mythic status, even characters like Thor or Hercules.  But Hickman's putting the team into adventures that truly force the characters past humanity and into achetyp-ity (?).  It's a bold move, and a good move, though I worry as to how the team will be handled after this.  How do you go from (spoiler alert!) interacting with entities designed to save universes, or collapses of multiverses, back to dealing with the Masters of Evil?  Hopefully Hickman will be around for a while so we won't have to answer these questions quite yet.

Dial H #12 - remember how much you loved Morrison's "Doom Patrol?"  Remember how fucked up and weird it was, how if made you feel as if there was something you weren't grasping just around the corner, and that when you did finally grasp it, it would make you wish you hadn't found out at all?  Maybe just me, then.  But Mieville's "Dial H" is very much like that.  Yes, it's a New 52 DCU title, but it's in a creepy and weird little corner of the DCU (which is in Toronto, apparently) that would make Superman shudder a bit.  Once more, spoiler, but we've got power-thieves and telephonic hell-dimensions, and a very unlikely couple, and now a team.  A team?  Of dialers?  I am burning with curiosity as to where this story is going, but it's very definitely going somewhere.  I urge you to get on board.