Superman/Wonder Woman Annual #1 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Superman returns.

The Review: About a month ago, I decided to stick to Doomed despite many misgivings about the storyline. It was a close call, however. Part of what kept me onboard was the resignation that the event was nearly over anyway. A few more issues, I could handle. Had I known the Doomed showrunners planned to add two annuals to the mix, I probably would have reconsidered my commitment. Annuals are costly things, and the thought of putting that much more money into Doomed was hard to take.

On the plus side, the annuals confirm that what we thought was a Doomsday story is actually a Brainiac one, which is an improvement, sort of. It seems somewhat repetitive to make the villain yet again the center of a major Superman story (the last time being one of Superman’s earliest big adventures); can’t they come up with someone else to challenge our hero? Must we always turn to the usual suspects? Shouldn’t there be at least a three year moratorium on a supervillain after he’s been featured in a major story arc?

Avengers/Invaders (TPB) – Revuew

Plot by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger, Written by Jim Krueger, Penciled by Steve Sadowki, Patrick Berkenkotter, Alex Ross, and Jack Herbert

We’ve all gotten those miniseries or events that have just too many issues and there’s easily one or even two issues that didn’t even need to be there. Avengers/Invaders is not one of those series. There is just a ton of stuff happening in this graphic novel that if anything, there’s so much going that there’s no room to breathe.

So what is Avengers/Invaders about? A lot. It starts with the American people so distraught over Cap’s death (this is after Civil War, before Secret Invasion) that their psyches, channeling though the villain D’Spayre, manipulate the cosmic cube and pull Captain America, along with Namor, Bucky, the Human Torch, Toro, and some poor soldier named Pau Anselm, out of World War Two and into present day. Their arrival is frickin’ amazing. They land right in New York interfering with a fight between Spider-Man and the Thunderbolts and the Invaders tear the Thunderbolts apart. Krueger’s script isn’t exactly cinematic, because if as much happened in these twelve chapters (and they do call them chapters) happened in a movie, I think the cast, crew, and director would commit mass suicide. It’s more like season for Lost, when they had to shorten the season due to the writer’s strike, so shit happened every single episode (except for that one crappy Juliet episode). In fact, Avengers/Invaders is much like Lost but with superheroes and you get answers at the end. The Invaders are stranded in our time, and then someone tries to change the past, screwing up even more than they fixed. But where it is most like Lost is in the character interaction. This series has a huge cast. The New Avengers (Dr. Strange, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Ronin, and Echo), Mighty Avengers (Iron Man, Black Widow, Spider-Woman, Ares, Sentry, Ms. Marvel, Wasp, and Wonder Man), and the Invaders (the ones listed before as well as Union Jack and Spitfire) are all represented and each member of the team truly get at least one moment to shine, one of my favorites being when Echo takes down D’Spayre. D’Spayre’s power is based on manipulating his opponent’s fear by basically telling them everything they don’t want to hear. As it turns out, Echo can’t hear anything and just walks up to him and punches him in the dick. Okay, so maybe it doesn’t quite happen like that, but you get the idea. Sure, some characters get a little more love than others, but none of them get robbed in any way. The only part of the story that I thought could be scaled back a little was the Life Model Decoy attack on the Avengers. I’d go more into why and who was behind it but, though it’s kind of obvious who it is, I don’t want to spoil it.