Amazing Spider-Man #1.1 – Review

By: Dan Slott (Writer), Ramón Pérez (Artist), Ian Herring (Color Artist), Chris Eliopoulos with Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

The Story:
Spider-Man tries to make ends meet, while the Clash (not the band) meets his beginning.

The Review:
So, really, this comic should have been titled/numbered Amazing Fantasy #15.1, since it takes place right after Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s origin story. Spider-Man still has a talent agent and is working various gigs; Peter still has problems at school and with a social life.

What’s often interesting about the Peter/Spidey dynamic is that Peter usually shows only one side of himself in either identity. We’ve come to expect the more reserved Peter versus the “friendly neighborhood” jokester in a mask, but here it’s a reserved Peter and a bitter, more self-absorbed Spider-Man. Why, it’s as if he’s still learning his whole power/responsibility thing, while also still forming his “self.” This makes for an interesting story and a decidedly moody tone, but at the same time it basically just means that, for “now,” Spider-Man is kind of a jerk.

His supporting cast have also been reduced to their basic types. His manager is a archetypical sleezy get-whatever-you-can agent, Flash is a bully, and Aunt May is often sad but matronly dispenses wisdom without even knowing it. Quentin Beck (later, Mysterio) is set up here, too, as a disgruntled special effects artist. Kind of obvious, isn’t it? Especially if we anticipate him becoming one of Spidey’s first foes in this comic. (Although, if that doesn’t happen and he’s just a cameo, that would be awesome as it plays off our expectation.)

In fact, J. Jonah Jameson emerges as the one supporting cast member that really shines. His moment is only for a couple of pages, as we see him begin his anti-Spider-Man crusade, but here Jameson is presented as a genuinely concerned conservative-minded advocate. Yes, he’s still producing inflammatory tirades but it’s almost logical and not exactly unfair at this point.

Wolverine and the X-Men #42 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer); Nick Bradshaw, Pepe Larraz, Ramon Perez, Shawn Crystal, Steve Sanders, Nuno Alves, Tim Townsend, & Chris Bachalo (artists); Matt Milla & Lee Loughridge (color artists)

The Story: It’s graduation day for the Jean Grey School and Quentin Quire is in for a reckoning that’s been building all semester.

The Review: It’s been a long strange road for this series, but it’s finally over.

For this capstone story Jason Aaron returns us to the Jean Grey School of the future from WatXM #29. As the mutants of Earth-616 prepare for graduation, a tired old Logan prepares to shut down the school on Earth-13729.

Aaron, in no uncertain terms, focuses this story around the three most important characters of his run: Logan, Idie Okonkwo, and Quentin Quire. When the Jean Grey School opened, each one of them entered with blood on their hands. The struggle for each has not been to atone for past deeds, but rather to redefine themselves so that they have a future going forward.

Idie definitely gets the short end of the stick in terms of billing, but she’s actually one of the best characters in this issue. Both as her present self and as a confidant X-Man of the future, Idie shows drastic change from the beginning of the series. While I wish this transition had been more of a gradual process than a couple of off-screen leaps, the character that Idie has become is absolutely lovely. Her simple dialogue with Quire and Future Logan is probably some of the best work that Aaron has done with a female character over the whole of the run and makes her relationships with Logan and Quire feel real and substantial.

Meanwhile Quentin is dealing, or perhaps not dealing, with the fact that the Jean Grey School has changed him. Like a less flamboyant Stewie Griffin, he longs for the days when the mere thought of his dastardly plans made the hair stand up on Cyclops, Captain America, and Wolverine’s necks.  What Aaron fails to bring in reality, he certainly provides in humor and heart.

Wolverine and the X-Men #28 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (Writer), Ramon Pérez (Artist), Laura Martin, Matt Milla (Colorist)

The Story: As it turns out, the students of the Jean Grey School for higher learning are not so impressed with Dog and his class as Wolverine comes around to show them what kind of man he is.

The Review: Well, as it turns out, the conclusion here is much stronger than the actual story we got here. Could it be because of the fact that Jason Aaron used more character analysis here rather than mindless action? Could it also be because it delivers a somewhat satisfying conclusion to a storyline that had its share of small ups and crushing downs?

The answer for both these questions would be a resounding yes. Here, we get a higher focus on the real stars of this book: the students. As pretty much of the action in this arc had been focused on Wolverine, his brother and the students, it is much more interesting to see the students interact with each other in stressful situation, to see them evolve and adapt. Close to every students get a single moment, be it Broo that shows he still has some kind of intelligence under all that new savagery, or Eye-Boy who shows just what kind of stuff he can do with eye powers (even though that particular moment was almost ruined by the thought bubbles. No, I will never let that go.) By focusing on the way that the students become a bit more united, it makes the ending a little bit stronger as a result.

Wolverine and the X-Men #27 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (Writer), Ramon Pérez (Artist), Laura Martin, Matt Milla (Colorist)

The Story: The children of the Jean Grey School of higher learning have to survive against time-displaced cavemen, cowboys and robots.

The Review: Just when I thought the series could begin to get back on track, Jason Aaron goes and writes this issue. The craziness and the focus on the kids seemed to be back on track, but the kind of craziness he brings here is not particularly of the same quality as when this started.

Now, before going into the nasty stuff, there are actually some nice bits here and there, particularly the parts where we see some of the individual students partake in a conversation with Wolverine, where he show them just why he has chosen some of them for this class. Those are some of the better scenes of the book where we can actually see some characterization and some development that might make this book a bit more tolerable. However, there are still some major problems here.

Wolverine and the X-Men #26 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (Writer), Ramon Pérez (Artist), Laura Martin (Colorist)

The Story: Dog, Wolverine’s half-brother, beat the seven tars out of Wolverine as he explains just how he got this way and why he is doing just that.

The Review: Did anyone, in the readers, mind you, actually believe in the potential of Dog, a character created by Bill Jemas and Paul Jenkins in the Wolverine: Origins limited series? Did anyone really see a character that was originally created as a trick to the readers to make us believe originally that he was Wolverine has an actual potential as a big-shot villain? It seems that Jason Aaron firmly believes so, as this issue is solely based on him and what sort of character he is.

Wolverine and the X-Men #25 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (Writer), Ramòn Pérez (Artists), Laura Martin (Colorist)

The Story: Wolverine decides to teach the students of the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning all about survival in one the harshest place of the Marvel universe: the Savage Lands.

The Review: I do believe this is a step in the right direction for this series. For something that started with full of energy, style and humor, it is a little bit painful to see just how it all faltered. The faults can be traced down to many things, like an overly long tie-in story with AvX focusing on other characters that were not part of the cast, the vast retooling of said cast among many others. Still, this issue is a step in the right direction for many reasons.

One of them would be the tighter focus on the actual cast of the book, with people like Idie, Quentin Quire, Wolverine, Genesis and Broo being brought back front and center. This works much better, since most of them have been there since the inception (Genesis being the exception), allowing us to see just how they have evolved and changed thanks to the many happenings at the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning. Much of their sass and personalities are shown fully, which makes for a much more interesting comics than the latest arc focusing on some smaller or rather boring characters.

John Carter: The Gods of Mars #5 – Review

By: Sam Humphries (story), Ramón Pérez (art), Jordie Bellaire (colors)

The Story: Poor John Carter just can’t manage to keep his wife for long, can he?

The Review: You know one thing the old-timey storytellers knew how to do really well that modern ones either avoid or screw up?  They knew how to bring their heroes to the brink of a happy ending, then wrench it away in the most heartrending way possible.  It’s a very melodramatic fictional tactic, one that can easily go too far awry, but done right, it packs an emotional wallop.  Don’t tell me you saw the ending of Casino Royale without feeling for Bond.

Considering the corny—but tasteful—quality of this mini, you would’ve thought an ending where Carter and Dejah reunite and Issus goes down for good, leaving Barsoom in the light of a new era of pace, was inevitable.  But when—spoiler alert—the issue ends and none of those things happen, it leaves you in disbelief and sympathy for our hero.  This series has been calling out your inner child and it’s with a child’s disappointment that you go through the conclusion.  It’s as if you’re re-experiencing a bittersweet ending for the first time.

John Carter: The Gods of Mars #4 – Review

By: Sam Humphries (story), Ramón Pérez (art), Jordie Bellaire (colors)

The Story: This–is–Barsooooom!

The Review: As I explained to Jim in the comments to my review of The Avengers, I like to review and grade everything on this site according to what legal minds call a “partially individualized” test.  It means while I do make a big effort to be as objective as possible, I also give some weight to what the creators’ intent.  It doesn’t really make sense to evaluate, for example, a cartoon on Nickelodian in the same way I do for a literary masterwork.

So when it comes to a pulpy piece of sci-fi, I definitely offer a lot more leeway for cliché and silliness than I would with almost every other genre.  Obviously, the intention with these things isn’t to create some radical new form of storytelling; all these stories really want to do is provide an entertaining diversion that’s almost comforting in the way it relies on classical conventions.

John Carter: The Gods of Mars #3 – Review

By: Sam Humphries (story), Ramón Pérez (art), Jordie Bellaire (colors)

The Story: People throw swords at you to show moral support.  This really is a different world.

The Review: I personally view the purely written mediums of poetry and prose as superior to every other form of art because of how much substance they can convey in even the most restricted circumstances.  Because your own experiences and imagination are supplying all the visuals and drawing out all the subtext (and there’s much more subtext to be had because, well, there’s more text), you invariably get more out of the written word than any other medium.

For that reason, films, television, and comics all suffer because of the limitations of time and space.  When you indulge in a movie, a TV episode, or a monthly issue of some title or other, you reasonably expect something major to happen each time, an expectation you don’t strictly hold against chapters of a novel.  Exposition consistently causes suffering in other forms of storytelling because they must come out in the dialogue, and that takes time away from moving the plot forward.

John Carter: The Gods of Mars #2 – Review

By: Sam Humphries (story), Ramón Pérez (art), Jordie Bellaire (colors)

The Story: Whoever wrote the gospels on Barsoom clearly didn’t do his research.

The Review: Among the many plot elements John Carter sort of threw out there, yet never felt the need to elaborate upon, was the exposure of the Therns as false gods.  So much of Barsoom’s culture revolves around these mysterious figures that such a revelation should have made much more of an impact, but it came off as little more than a vaguely interesting plot twist.  If the producers expected a couple sequels to develop the storyline, they may be very disappointed.

So it’s left to this miniseries to reveal how Barsoom will deal with their whole spiritual dogma getting turned on its head and inside-out.  And by “Barsoom” I mean the planet as a whole, since this issue reveals that pretty much every single race has the wool pulled over their eyes.  Just as the Therns hold themselves out as “a holy race” and prey upon the common Martians and Tharks, the Black Pirates of Omean consider themselves “the first born” and prey on the Therns in the name of Issus—who just so happens to be the same divinity the Therns claim to act for.

John Carter: The Gods of Mars #1 – Review

By: Sam Humphries (writer), Ramón Pérez (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colorist)

The Story: Spend some time on Mars and Earth religions start looking pretty good, eh?

The Review: Even though I found John Carter visually exciting, bordering on spectacular, ultimately the whole movie fell flat from uneven pacing, clumsy structure, and blandness in the plot and character.  What’s particularly frustrating about the underwhelming quality of the movie is it belies the rich potential of the story itself.  There’s a minor epic to be had here, if we can find the right people to bring it out.

From the initial look of this issue, Humphries may be one of those people.  He dives right into the action, refusing to tarry with fancy narrative techniques or swaths of exposition.  Right away, he understands that a story like this works best at a breakneck pace, so he never allows you to linger for very long in quiet before the pulp kicks up again.  Almost as soon as Carter awakens to find himself back on Barsoom, he’s surrounded by danger and must fight for his life.  And would you have it any other way?

Within eight pages, Carter’s already on the verge of death, prompting the timely arrival of a valuable ally.  Tars Tarkas serves a valuable role in the plot by not only ciphering necessary information for Carter’s (and our) benefit, but also generating a lot of warmth through his obvious affection for his Earthman friend.  Much of the feel-good factor of this issue comes from the pairing of these unlikely buddies: “John Carter, my heart is glad you have returned.”  “Tars, you steely-eyed buzzard—the feeling is entirely mutual!”