Infinity #6 – Review

by Jonathan Hickman (Writer), Jim Cheung, Dustin Weaver, Mark Morales, Guillermo Ortego, Dave Meikis, John Livesay (Artists), Justin Ponsor, Ive Svorcina (Colorists)

The Story: The fight against Thanos and the Black Order reach its crux as close to every players gets to weigh in on the ongoing action.

The Review: Well, this is it. Many events in Marvel’s history had a rather great premise, yet always failed to deliver on their ending, rushing things along to prepare for the next big status quo or to simply lead to the next big thing. However, with Infinity being rather different in many aspects when compared to the likes of Siege, Secret Invasion and Avengers vs. X-Men, does it actually delivers on the good with every players being in the grand finale against Thanos and his Black Order?

Surprisingly, Infinity goes for the unexpected as it manages to both create new possibilities for stories along with a new status quo, but it also conclude very well on some of its themes. Bringing a sense of evolution and change to some of its key players, the event does fulfill some of the promises that every events bring forth to readers. It doesn’t accomplish this without any sacrifice to some elements of the story, but it is still rather impressive nonetheless.

One of the biggest draw of this issue would be the action, with a good chunk of this book dedicated to the fight against Thanos and his lieutenants in the Cull Obsidian. These scenes, despite them not featuring most of the Avengers, are quite striking as members like Thor, Hyperion, Captain Marvel and other heavy hitters are along for the rather brutal, yet diverse enough slugfest. Other parts of the action are also divided amongst the Illuminati and the group fighting in space, but the main feature is the battle against the Mad Titan.

Infinity #1 – Review

Jonathan Hickman (Writer), Jim Cheung, Mark Morales, John Livesay, David Meikis (Artists), Justin Ponsor (Colorist)

The Story: The Builders are wreaking havoc everywhere in the cosmos as the Avengers prepare to face them in order to defend Earth. However, Thanos might just see this as an opportunity in disguise…

The Review: Event fatigue is something very real for readers. The world can be in crisis so many times before we can get jaded and tired of the fact that Earth (or America) always seems to be the target for whatever catastrophe is coming. Skrulls, political unrest, old Norse gods and so forth have tried to change the Marvel universe in a permanent way, yet nothing real stuck out in terms of quality*, nothing that people really called as timeless or flawlessly executed. However, this one is written by Jonathan Hickman himself, a master of long-form storytelling capable of reaching a rather large scope in terms of stories and conflicts. Could he be the one to actually deliver a Marvel event that could very well be satisfying?

It is, of course, much too early to say, as this is solely the first issue, yet this is a very promising debut. Hickman picks up a vast number of plot threads from his Avengers and New Avengers runs to create something that is logical and organic to his stories. The Builders, the destruction of the infinity gems, the fact that the universe is undergoing a certain crisis, all of these elements are brought to the forefront to create a large conflict that seems to expand as the issue goes on. People that followed both ongoing by Hickman shall be thoroughly pleased by this introduction.

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #7 – Review

By: Allan Heinberg (writer), Jim Cheung (pencils), Mark Morales, John Livesay, Dexter Vines & Cheung (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Cory Petit (letters), Lauren Sankovitch (associate editor) & Tom Brevoort (editor)

The Story: Now that the Scarlet Witch is back and can restore mutant powers, will she get the chance before someone tries to bring her to justice for M-Day.

What’s Good: Prior to the big events of issue #6, I’d honestly thought that this miniseries would be high quality since Heinberg is a wonderful writer and Jim Cheung can make grown men weep with his pencil work, but I really didn’t think it would “matter”.  How could Marvel have a bi-monthly 9-issue miniseries “matter”?  I just didn’t think they could plan ahead that well.  Well…issue #6 changed that and for that reason, readers picked up this issue with a big sense of anticipation.  That feeling is so rare in these days of internet spoilers that this comic scores some points before even being read.

And problems aside, this issue still left me with the feeling that important stuff is happening here.  Scarlet Witch is back and she can restore mutant powers.  And this story isn’t out-of-continuity either because X-Factor this week showed Rictor (who was repowered in issue #6) using his powers and there’s even an editor’s note in X-Factor referring to this series.  So there.  Now, there are still a lot of questions to be answered.  Will Scarlet Witch give all mutants their powers back?  What about the mutants who are happier to be “normal”?  Or will it just serve to restore a few mutants that some writer wants to play with?

There are moments of absolute artistic brilliance in this issue.  Unfortunately, the art is a little inconsistent, but it never gets into “bad” territory.  And the good pages are just glorious, but they do make you wish that all the pages could be so pretty.  I’d guess that this series is on more of a timeline that we originally thought since it seems to be syncing up with “present day” mutant events and that might be making some of it look rushed.

Avengers The Children’s Crusade #6 – Review

By: Allan Heinberg (writer), Jim Cheung (pencils), Mark Morales, John Livesay & Dave Meikis (inks), Justin Ponsor (colors), Cory Petit (letters), Lauren Sankovitch (associate editor) & Tom Brevoort (editor)

The Story: Now that the Young Avengers have found the Scarlet Witch, what do you think will happen?

What’s Good: How sneaky good and (possibly) momentous was this issue?  The cynical comic reader will look at this issue with a jaded eye and think that the events that seem to be taking place in this issue can’t be real.  Surely, if this was going to happen, Marvel would have had a press release hyping the issue or structured an event around the concept.  One could argue that this maxi-series is kind of an “event”, but it comes sans all the hype and tie-in miniseries that bloat most events in today’s comics.

Clearly, I’m being incredibly vague about this story because an event this cool that was completely unspoiled in this day of the internet, doesn’t deserve to be spoiled by a mere review.  And, it may not even hold up.  We might get to issue #7 in a few months and have everything reversed, but until then, this sort of spontaneous surprise in a comic reminded me of reading comics when I was a kid.

Aside from the big event that takes place, it is just a really nice comic that features the Young Avengers (who are just fun as hell), the Avengers and a bunch of stuff from the Avengers going all the way back to Disassembled.  No Avengers fan could fail to enjoy this comic.

Doom Patrol #20 – Review

By: Keith Giffen (writer), Matthew Clark & Ron Randall (pencillers), Art Thibert & John Livesay (inkers), Scott Clark with Dave Beaty, Jose Luis, Scott McDaniel (guest artists), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Wanted—studio space for four (one miniaturized), open access to power grid, appliances included.  Must love freaks.

The Review: With Doom Patrol’s cancellation imminent, it’s worth reflecting on the series’ possibly dooming shortcomings.  Of course, it’s a niche title, with a peculiar cast of characters.  It leans more towards comedy than drama—always risky, as comic book humor tends to be very hit or miss, as D.P. frequently is.  But the title’s biggest weakness is it has always been more interested in its character interaction than actually giving those characters things to do.

This issue serves as a good example: it’s one of the strongest of the series, yet basically involves nothing more than the Patrol looking for a place to crash after getting kicked off their base.  The interest comes from how each member’s particular brand of social awkwardness rubs off on the DCU’s more mainstream characters.  The ultimate unfruitfulness of the team’s efforts serves as a good reminder of how out of place they are in their world, and with readers in general.

You just can’t get a handle on these characters.  They’re ostensibly heroes, but as Beast Boy and Congorilla astutely point out, most of the Patrol’s endeavors to this point have come across more terrorist than heroic.  They’re more a gang of losers who can’t catch a break; most of their misadventures involve them acting out of self-preservation rather than for a good cause.

Doom Patrol #18 – Review

By: Keith Giffen (writer), Matthew Clark and Ron Randall (pencillers), John Livesay (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Things just get ickier for the Doom Patrol as the Aristocrats demonstrate the “hobbies” they’ve gained over the last century or two.  Hint: not stamp-collecting.

The Review: One of the flaws of the Star Wars prequel/sequel trilogy is how much time it spends pontificating on intergalactic politics.  It seems a little petty for a disturbance in the force.  The same thing applies to comics.  It’s ambitious of writers to insert some socio-political texture to the superhero world, but they’re not exactly the savviest individuals where world affairs are concerned.  The result, as in the recent string of Star Wars films, is a lot of oversimplified political concepts that never really seem like good motivators for superhero fare.

That’s the stumbling block Keith Giffen ran into last issue as he devoted a good half of it developing Oolong Island’s foreign policy (and bashing on North Korea).  Thankfully, the action this issue leaps into the red-hot zone as Keith Giffen sets aside those political intricacies to focus on giving the Doom Patrol some serious brawling to do.

Fast and furious seems the best pace for these characters to work at.  Their jokes fly better, or at least they seem to.  It’s the Laugh-In effect; before you have time to decide if the punchline is funny or not, you’re already pulled along to the next bit.  The friendly friction among the characters also have more to play with when they’re punching the lights out of immortal sadists than when they stand around ranting over the multitude problems in their lives.  The Patrol don’t do soul-searching very well.  They’re better off facing freaks even worse off than they are, and gleaning perspective out of the experience.

That said, the Aristocrats aren’t the most terrific opponents.  Physically, the ‘Crats have nothing on an energy being, a shapeshifter, and a robot.  They don’t bring much to the table in terms of motivating characters either.  Giffen writes them well, with all their excessive politeness on top of their lust for pain (theirs and others’), but he doesn’t embellish their history very well, nor why exactly they serve “Beloved Leader.”  And because they seem to have few stakes in the story, the stakes for the Patrol are even less.

Spider-Girl #2 – Review

By: Paul Tobin (writer), Clayton Henry (art pps 1-13), Ray Anthony Height, Walden Wong, John Livesay & Paris (?) (art pps 14-24), Chris Sotomayor (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters) & Tom Brennan (editor)

The Story: Red Hulk runs amok….what’s a Spider Girl to do?

What’s Good: This comic succeeds mostly at what (I think) it is trying to do: Show what it is like for a teenage girl with no powers to be a super-hero and deal with personal loss.

When we last left Spider-Girl, she was coming to her father’s rescue as the Red Hulk went rampaging through Manhattan.  Mind you, her Dad knew she was Spider-Girl and encouraged that behavior giving her a very different vibe than a young Peter Parker or any number of young heroes/heroines in Gotham City (Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, etc.).  What follows is a pretty big punch in the gut.  I’m just going to SPOIL it and say that……….. her Dad dies as a result of Red Hulk’s rampage.  To say that I was really surprised would be an understatement and I’m very intrigued to see what impact this has on young Anya and her desire to be a superhero.  For starters, where will she even live?

I also thought that Tobin did a good job handling the central conflict between Red Hulk and Spider-Girl.  Red Hulk’s obviously demented and not in his right mind and while it is unclear what he is after, it has something to do with Spider-Girl.  Tobin handles this nicely because she needs to show some spunk (because even unpowered heroes cannot squeal, spoil their pants and run when chased by a Hulk), but you can’t have Spider-Girl taking down Red Hulk in issue #2.  There is a story-arc for these sorts of heroes and they don’t get to take out Hulk-class opponents until around issue 20-30.

Doom Patrol #17 – Review

By: Keith Giffen (writer), Matthew Clark and Ron Randall (pencillers), John Livesay (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Fresh from yet another confrontation with the Chief that has now left them leaderless, the Doom Patrol reluctantly agree to accompany their newest benefactor to a gala in North Korea that’s more like a who’s-who of crazed sadists.  Worst among the violent weirdoes are the Aristocrats, an old family of considerable poise, history, and bloodlust.

The Review: The Doom Patrol is among the last surviving relics of DC’s legacy of exploring the weird.  They truly are an oddball group, with a grab-bag of low-key superpowers and a vague agenda pitting them against the other freakazoids of the DCU.  The Doom Patrol flourishes when writers avoid remaking them into more standard superhero fare, and embrace their inherent strangeness.  Small wonder Grant Morrison worked wonders with them under his pen, and now under Keith Giffen’s, they’re slowly gaining the semblance of liveliness again.

Giffen’s offbeat style is on full-speed from the first page, a “Previously, on Doom Patrol”-type brief written in Dick and Jane syntax (“Now the Chief can fly. / Fly, Chief, fly.”).  It lacks the cleverness that sells Greg Pak’s and Fred Van Lente’s “Previously” pages over on The Incredible Hercules, but it definitely sets the irreverent tone for the rest of the issue.

The self-mockery the characters go through occasionally feel forced (“Does this outfit make my thighs look chunky?”), but what’s really winning about this series is the interaction of its slew of eccentric characters.  Cliff, Rita, and Larry have had plenty of time to develop their voices, but it’s impressive that Giffen manages to make even first-timers sound fully realized from their first appearance.  As far as I know, the Aristocrats are completely new, but from a few exchanges (helped by an extensive expository piece at the issue’s start) you really get a strong sense of how disturbed they, how aware they are of their own twistedness, and how very little they care.

Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe #1 – Review

By Garth Ennis (writer) Dougie Braithwaite (pencils) Robin Riggs Sean Hardy Don Hudson Michael Halblieb Martin Griffith, John Livesay (inks) Bill Oakley (Letters) Shannon Blanchard Tom Smith (colors)

This is wonderful and ridiculous for the same reason: The Punisher kills every hero and villain in the Marvel Universe. Even as weird and unrealistic as all of this sounds, it remains a totally entertaining and satisfying read.

Punisher’s origin remains similar, with a minor change – it’s heroes who kill his family – not the mob. From there, he kills Cyclops and Jubilee only to be sprung from jail by a wealthy group of investors who were disfigured in similar hero battles. These guys want to finance The Punisher’s quest for revenge to reach their goal of a hero-less society. Since Frank Castle’s not a super powered being, Garth Ennis makes sure to note that he’s outsmarting these guys not outfighting them. Doom, Kingpin, and Wolverine all give Castle a beating before he’s able to sneak out a win. Throughout the book Daredevil tries to bring The Punisher back  to reality, before it’s too late. The flashback of young Frank saving Matt Murdock from getting beat up really adds to the poignancy of the book’s final moments.

Dougie Braithwaite’s art compliments Ennis’ writing very well. It’s a nice trip down memory lane to see the mid-1990s art again. I like the implication of Castle’s murders rather than showing brains everywhere. Nothing against brains, but sometimes the imagination is worse than anything you can be shown. It’s a technique used to great effect here. A number of the heroes have similar faces which gets distracting. Aside from a wrinkle or scar Castle, Wolverine, Cap and others look the same. That said, everything else shows a lot of good detail especially the interior backgrounds. My biggest complaint is on a few different pages. While killing, Castle sometimes gets this panicked, war-cry look on his face. It implies that he’s out of control, or uncomfortable with what he’s doing. It just seems out of place for the character.

Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe holds up pretty well. It’s so over the top it’s almost funny at times, but the core of the book is the story which remains satisfying. There are better stories out there, and it’s harder to fully appreciate since it’s just an alternate time line story, but it’s a complete story and one no true Punisher fan should miss. (Grade: B)

-Ben Berger