Warlord of Mars #2 – Review

By: Arvid Nelson (writer), Stephen Sadowski (illustrator), Adriano Lucas (colorist), Joe Rybandt (editor), based on the stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Story: A Tale of Two Planets, Part Two: John Carter’s friend Powell is captured by Apache warriors in Arizona. Tars, a nameless, unproven Thark on Mars, is challenged by Tarkas, an ambitious green warrior eager to make a kill and gain honor.

What’s Good: Sadowksi and Lucas again make this visual experience come alive. From the opening splash page staring into an Arizona canyon, to the splash page at the end with one green warrior standing over another, the dynamism of the movements and the emotions on the faces are there. Nelson is really lucky to have an artist like Sadowski who can transmit nuanced emotion so Nelson’s words don’t have to. Fear, rage, pride, cunning, disdain and confusion are all there, without any need for words or dialogue. Carter’s supplication to Mars, that red point of light in the sky, is close to religious, and is narrated in silent body language. Carter’s expressions throughout the book would have fit on the poster of any old western. And, while I don’t usually give a thumbs up to gratuitous sensuality, Campbell’s jaw-dropping cover reminds me of why boys and men love Dejah Thoris. No wonder I wanted to be John Carter.

On the plotting side, Nelson’s obviously got a roadmap to follow, and I have read the Princess of Mars so many times that even the slightest deviation is noticeable. That being said, where Nelson does deviate, I like what he’s doing. All of Tars’ story is new and intriguing. Carter’s exploration of the cave and the pictures on the wall tie later events more closely together, without the coincidence that Burroughs so often resorted to. Nelson did the same thing last issue by giving the Apache warriors a motive to hunt the white men.

Siege (Hardcover)-Review

Written by Brian Michael Bendis, Pencils by Oliver Coipel, Michael Lark, Jim Chueng, with art by Lucio Parillo, and colors by Laura Martin, John Rauch, Matt Holligsworth, and inks by Mark Morales and Stefano Gaudiano.

If you haven’t read this yet, there may be spoilers, but if you’ve been reading Marvel, all of this is known already.

Siege may go down in comic history as Marvel’s last big event before everything became an event. At only four issues, it’s hard to imagine that this series is supposed to conclude ten years of Avengers stories, but it does conclude a good three or four, at least from Civil War on. Not only that, but it unites the solo stories of Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man in a way that actually makes a lot of sense. Siege wouldn’t have worked without all three of them, and on a story level, they needed each other to finally defeat Norman Osborn and put down the Sentry.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Siege is the final battle of Osborne’s Dark Reign. Loki manipulates him into attacking Asgard, which forces Steve Rogers, Iron Man, and Thor to work together for the first time in years. It’s an event designed to do one thing: show why these three Avengers are so important to the superhero community. You can throw anyone you want onto an Avenger team, but when Cap (any Cap, it seems), Iron Man, and Thor are united as one? Well, shit gets done. If this event did anything, it rekindled the magic of superheroes. Civil War, Secret Invasion, and Dark Reign was such a, well, dark time for Marvel that seeing these three heroes come together was an amazing effect. People might not like Bendis, but he’s crafted the tone of the Marvel Universe perfectly over the years to make “the big three” coming together really mean something.

And while we’re on it, let’s talk about Bendis. Most people hate to admit it, but he is one of the best superhero writers out right now. He knows how to craft a story—but that doesn’t mean he always knows how to tell it. Avengers Disassembled was a good concept but poorly executed. House of M was an improvement, but the last couple of issues faltered too much. Secret Invasion was close to being really great, but it was too long and that last issue fell really flat even if the outcome was cool. So how does he do with Siege? Near perfectly, actually. It’s always the end issue that has fans going “okay, now Bendis is going to drop the ball.” But he doesn’t. Every issue is actually really well told, with important things happening. Maybe it’s the shortness of the series that did this—Bendis didn’t have time to drop the ball. That’s not to say Siege is perfect, but out of all of his events, Siege is the best written.

So, why isn’t it perfect? Well, there are a few things missing that might mean four issues were too short. It was a big event, but it could have been bigger. One issue of pure battle (like issue 7 of Secret Invasion) would have served it well. Also, and I know I might be chastised for saying this, the X-Men needed to be involved. Before you decide to hate me, hear me out. The semi-big event before Siege that Marvel made such a big deal about was Utopia, which pitted the Dark Avengers against the X-Men and finished with Cyclops starting his own island nation for mutant. Marvel kept saying and are still saying that the X-Men would be much more integrated with the rest of the Marvel Universe. So, when Captain America is leading the Avengers to Asgard, where are the X-Men? We get one panel of Wolverine and Cyclops watching the news, but I highly doubt that if they saw Cap leading the charge and they were in need of help—say, when the Hood’s army of super villains arrives—he would have stayed home. The Avengers may have appeared in Second Coming (not doing too much), but if Marvel really wanted to unite their universe, Siege was the place to do it. Cap, Iron Man, and Thor could have still saved the day; I’m not saying the X-Men should have done that, but they should have had much more of a presence considering that Osborne is trying to do to the Asgardians what he has already done to the mutants—drive them out.