X-Men Legacy #300 – Review

by Simon Spurrier, Mike Carey, Christos Gage (Writers), Tan Eng Huat, Steve Kurth, Rafa Sandoval, Craig Yeung, Allen Martinez, Jordi Tarragona (Artists), Jose Villarrubia, Rachelle Rosenberg, Ulises Arreola (Colorists)

The Story: It can be hard to make an impression when your very powers prevent you to do so.

The Review: I have to confess this issue confused me when I looked at the cover and the very concept of what it was supposed to be. Here was a book that starred three different characters, each having their own impact, their own cast and their own message, as done by the three writers that defined their very goals and concepts. The problem, though, was the fact that each of the characters that had been the protagonists of this book are now, let us say, in a problematic position of non-existence. With none of these characters actually there to advance the story or celebrate the title, how exactly could this issue manage to get to the point?

Enter Forgetmenot, a mutant with the power of getting no attention and being erased from the memory of those he previously met. Focusing the story on this unknown X-Man, all three writers are able to pinpoint a certain era where they wrote their character, inserting this particular one into the narrative. Essentially telling some important moments through the eyes of a character that no one can remember, does the issue actually manage to celebrate the very legacy that is included in the title?

The answer is not only a resounding yes, but one filled with a certain joy at seeing an experiment succeeding in a way that feels satisfactory. What makes this work very well, though, is the actual character of Forgetmenot. His powers and how he copes with them makes for a powerful message about individuality, but also about advancing through the adversary that is loneliness. His actions, his reactions and his feelings are very human at their core, with a presentation of his struggles that makes him very identifiable for readers. Who hasn’t dealt with being alone, be it with an opinion, an effort or a phase? Well, this character has been so through his entire life, making some of his actions all the more touching, yet also easy to sympathize with.

GI Joe #9 – Review

By: Fred Van Lente (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez (inks), Joana Lafuente (colors) and Shawn Lee (letters)

The Story: Destro, Duke and Mad Monk see their plans coming together.

Review (with SPOILERS): This is a very confounding issue.  I love the story, but I loathe the art.

Fred Van Lente’s story is great.  He has spent a number of issues creating layers of intrigue and it’s all starting to pay off.  Not only are GI Joe and Cobra locked in a battle, but each side has internal divisions.  Let’s start with Duke and whether he may or may not be a traitor.  I mean, how brave of a story choice is THAT?  Duke is basically the prototype for GI Joe: nice, no profanity, buzzcut, hard-working, honest, capable, leader-of-men, blah, blah…..  Just the thought that he might be a traitor is a brave step.  Even if he’s just allowing himself to be manipulated by Cobra because they kidnapped his wife pops some holes the the Duke mythos.  The Duke we think we know is duty-first, but the man in this story might be willing to compromise his duty and place comrades in danger to save his wife.  It’s understandable from a human point of view – many of us would do the same thing – but Duke is supposedly “better” than the rest of us.  Stay tuned to see how this works out.

Even more delicious than Duke’s possible betrayal is all the back-stabbing within Cobra.  This is already a time of turmoil for Cobra with Krake having only become the new Cobra Commander within the last year or so.  Baroness is on the outs for failing too many times, so she’s hanging out with Destro and Destro is always fun because of his questionable loyalties.  He seems to prefer Cobra’s ways, but that’s just because they buy his weapons… and he’s not above doing things to undermine Cobra if it means he’ll get to sell more weapons.  And then you have Mad Monk and Destro taking turns selling each other out……plus an appearance by Cobra Commander (who hasn’t been seen in many months)……and it’s all super-cool.

So, why isn’t a comic with all this plotting excellence the runaway “pick of the week”?  Well…..the art kinda stinks.  The art is bad enough that I’m considering dropping the title despite the cleverness of the story.

One problem with the art is that it is way, way too cartoony.  When I say “cartoony” I mean that the art plays too fast and loose with human anatomy and uses various artistic tricks to accentuate certain actions.  For example, a character who is doing something physical may be draw with arms and legs too long and a lean to their body that gravity would never allow.  And I actually like cartoony art, but I just don’t like it in GI Joe.  I think a story needs some element of comedy for cartoony art to work.  Spider-Man can be cartoony.  The Fantastic Four can be cartoony.  Batman?  Punisher?  Probably not.

So, I’m not objecting to the cartoony art because of a personal preference.  It’s simply that this art style is inappropriate for the subject matter.  This is GI Joe and there is nothing cartoony about terrorists and radiological bombs.

The other problem with the art is that it just isn’t very good from a sequential standpoint.  There are a number of action sequences in the comic where it just isn’t clear what happened.  Was Tunnel Rat throwing himself to the ground and letting the train pass over him OR was he diving to catch the back of the moving train?  Did Quick Kick throw both ends of his nun-chucks at the Dreadnoks?  These are quick-reading action sequences, not slower parts of the comic where you should be slowing down to see what happens.  There’s really no point in writing action sequences into a comic if the artists can’t do better; if the action has to look this poor, we might as well just have an extra serving of the political themes in the comic.

I really wish that IDW would get better with the art on the two “main” GI Joe books.  The Cobra-themed comic from Mike Costa and Antonio Fuso is fine, but the two GI Joe comics have been troublesome artistically for several years…..and this is at a time when the storytelling has been top-notch.  All the other IDW licensed comics from TMNT to Transformers to My Little Pony to Judge Dredd seem to have good art……I just wonder what GI Joe fans did to piss off some editor that we get this treatment.  It really baffles me.  I almost wonder if someone in the IDW-Hasbro licensing relationship is unhappy with the current state of the licensing contract and is burdening the comic series with poor art to force a renegotiation.

Conclusion: Story is great.  Art is not.   It would make a better audiobook than comic book.

Grade: C

– Dean Stell

GI Joe #8 – Review

By: Fred Van Lente (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez (inks), Joana Lafuente (colors) and Shawn Lee (letters)

The Story: Mad Monk continues playing games with GI Joe.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): This issue would be so much more enjoyable with better art.  The story is good enough to merit a higher grade, but this series will never reach great heights with art that is this problematic.  THAT could be the whole of the review, but read on if you want greater details….

It’s a shame because there is a lot to like about the basic story concepts that Fred Van Lente is using.  I really like the idea that Cobra is using a Myers Briggs-type personality test on it’s key employees to evaluate their leadership potential.  The (new) Cobra Commander basically buried the needle in the “natural born leader” range, but Mad Monk (who has just been appointed to run the NY office of Cobra) scored at the absolute bottom of the scale.  A jealous Baroness and Destro have a minor laugh at Mad Monk’s expense, but we’ve come to see over the last couple issues that having a low score in this area doesn’t mean that Mad Monk is an idiot…..he’s just not a leader.  In fact, he has no use for any sort of leadership structures at all.  He’s kinda an agent of chaos.  It’s a nice little spin to show that just because people are weak in some areas, they can be strong in others…..kinda like the continuum from severe autism to severe attention deficit disorder: Both ends of the scale have strengths and weaknesses.

GI Joe #5 – Review

By: Fred Van Lente (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez, Marc Deering and Juan Castro (inks), Joana LaFuente (colors), Chris Mowry (letters)

The Story: A small GI Joe team has to fight its way out of an American town that has been completely flipped by Cobra.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): “Pretty good story undone by poor art!”  THAT is the headline for this issue.

It’s never a good sign when an issue credits three inkers.  The art on this series hits new lows in this issue.  The problem is mostly related to depth.  If you stare at a lot of the panels, a crazy “magic eye” thing will happen.  Suddenly characters’ arms and legs will appear to be in totally different planes than the rest of their bodies.  It’s screwed up.  And once you start to see these problems with depth, the anatomy of the characters starts to come undone too because your mind starts trying to rationalize how an arm/leg could bend to achieve these weird depth positions.  Steve Kurth has never been my favorite penciller, but it’s not fair to heap this on him.  Depth problems are generally the fault of inkers and colorists.

GI Joe #1 – Review

By: Fred Van Lente (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez (inks), Joana Lafuente (colors), Neil Uyetake (letters) and John Barber (editor)

The Story: The Joes are no longer a secret organization, but they still have to fight Cobra.

A Few Things: 1). A fresh start. – I really want GI Joe comics to be good.  I’m the perfect age to know that everyone likes Star Wars, but the cool kids were into GI Joe and Transformers and their triumvirate of toys/cartoons/comics.  Unfortunately, the modern day GI Joe comics haven’t been all that awesome.  They usually have a decent story, but suffer from a $3.99 price tag, overly long story arcs, crossovers and some really mediocre art.

But, there’s always reason for optimism when GI Joe restarts.  That’s especially true when they bring in a new writer like Fred Van Lente.  Unlike the previous writer (Chuck Dixon), I know that Van Lente isn’t up to his armpits in military knowledge.  But, Van Lente is a very good writer and is willing to do his research (see Action Philosophers and Comic Book Comics).  IDW also brought in Steve Kurth to do pencils.  While Kurth isn’t at the top of my art list, he’s better than a lot of the folks IDW has hired for Joe books recently.  Optimism reigns supreme!

Avengers vs X-Men: Consequences #2

By: Keirron Gillen (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez (Inks), Jim Charalampidis (colors)

The Story: FINALLY! Someone is exploring what happens to Scott Summers going to jail. I thought nobody was going to show this guy behind bars. And I’m really glad someone is there to remind us of what a horrible person is, because we just haven’t had enough of it yet.

The Review: Was the sarcasm palpable enough? Yes, this is yet more Cyclops in jail. In fact, it’s an entire issue about Cyclops in jail. Not one of the plotlines from Consequences #1 are explored other than Cyclops and Wolverine. And it doesn’t look like this is going to be the end of it either.  Yes, by now we all fully understand–the Marvel Editors want to punish Scott Summers. But the person who wants to punish him the most? Scott Summers.

X-Men #22 – Review

By: Victor Gischler (writer), Will Conrad & Steve Kurth (pencils), Conrad & Jay Leisten (inkers), Chris Sotomayor (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Daniel Ketchum (associate editor) & Nick Lowe (editor)

The Story: A team of X-Men plus War Machine try to stop a Balkan leader from siccing a bunch of Sentinels on her neighbors.

Five Things: 

1. This is a well-scripted issue. – This is an issue where you really have to differentiate between the concept/script and the art because one is good and the other is not.  The idea of one of these wacko Balkan leaders modifying Sentinels so that they’ll attack neighbors is pretty interesting.  It’s also nice to see that the X-Men don’t moralize over it too much: They’re heroes so there is no drippy discussion of, “It would be wrong, but if we let the Sentinels kill those normal humans, maybe everyone will realize how dangerous the Sentinels are.”  Nope, Gischler is a better writer than to patronize us that way.  He also has a really good handle on all of the characters and works a lot of humor into this issue.  It’s a shame that Gischler is working with some inconsistent artists because I think he could do some really big things.

2. Hard to support this art. – I generally like Will Conrad.  I don’t think he’s “awesome”, but he does a page now and then that I wouldn’t mind owning.  He’s a very capable (if unflashy) artist and he draws an incredible Domino!  But, I got a few pages into this issue and said, “WTF?  Has Conrad lost it?”  I mean, there’s a fight between the heroes and a Sentinel that makes zero sense.  Look at the bottom panel of Page 1, what is Colossus doing?  Is the Sentinel sitting on the ground or has Colossus somehow grabbed it by the ankle and jumped into the air with it?  Does Colossus have enough mass to jump the Sentinel into the air?  Why isn’t the ground shown in the background to clarify the perspective?  If Colossus has merely tripped the Sentinel to the ground, why is Storm flying under its shoulder?  And if he tripped the Sentinel, what is the Sentinel doing on the next page (the epitome of an unnecessary splash page, btw) where it is falling down again?  So the storytelling of the art is all kinds of fucked up.  And we’ve got problems galore with depth in the splash page.  Or page 4 where Storm and War Machine are blasting the Sentinel in the face/neck and Colossus is punching him– in the ankle?  What’s with the ankles?  Then I turned the page and knew what happened.  I recognized these faces as the work of Steve Kurth, so I flipped back to the credits and saw Kurth’s name.  I hate to blast the guy too much (although I just did) because I’m sure he’s a nice guy and working hard AND he might have been working on a really tight deadline to fill in on this issue, but I really don’t care for his art.  Don’t like how we’re looking down on everyone’s face in these tight shots.  Don’t like the odd mixture of heavy blacks with overly highlighted color art.  Don’t like that Jubilee has breasts larger than her head (and is back in her thong uniform).  Heck, Storm also has breasts larger than her head.  I can’t believe that a cheesecake fan like me is complaining about breasts, but I don’t like it.  And the color art isn’t doing any favors either.  The depth is really screwed up in almost every panel and I’d expect a colorist as experienced as Sotomayor to be able to fix some of those problems coming from the inker.  Anyway, art is not great.

3. Fun to see the X-Men interacting with other heroes – It is fun to see the X-Men playing with War Machine.  I don’t know if that’s ever happened before, but sometimes it get’s a little dull to just see the mutants dealing with their own little cast of characters.  This is also a great use of War Machine.  Since he can’t sustain his own series, he might as well serve as a kinda linkage between various parts of the Marvel Universe.

X-Men Legacy #254 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Steve Kurth (penciler), Jay Leisten (inker), Brian Reber (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: Rogue, Magneto, Gambit & Frenzy are off to bring back Marvel Girl, Polaris & Havok from deep space.  What the hell have those three been up to for the last few years?

What’s Good: Two things really stood out as good about this issue.  For one thing, it was simply nice to see the lost trio of Marvel Girl, Polaris and Havok again because they’ve been missing since 2006’s Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire in Uncanny X-Men #475-486.  For me, those three were always important characters and I have much more affinity for them than most of the mutant kids or 90’s creations like Gambit.  So, even though the X-rosters are already overflowing and not everyone can get any page-time in the books, I’m very eager to have stories staring that trio again.

The other wonderful thing about this issue is the limited cast.  It isn’t new with this issue, but Mike Carey really deserves a round of applause for telling a story that doesn’t feature Wolverine, Cyclops and Emma.  I do love those three feature players, but they can be a bit of a crutch for a writer because you can always have Wolverine stab something or Cyclops act all commander-ish or Emma being snarky to someone.  Here we get to see: How would Frenzy and Gambit team up to destroy a huge mech/robot?  With all these X-titles, we really should have some that feature the B-listers and Legacy delivers on that front.

X-Men Legacy #250 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Khoi Pham, Tom Palmer & Marte Gracia (pencils/inks/colors – Legion Story), Steve Kurth, Jay Leisten & Brian Reber (pencils/inks/colors – Rachel Summers story), Cory Petit (letters), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: A two-parter for this special anniversary issue.  In the first part, we visit some of Legion’s out of control personalities.  In the second, we learn a little more about Revenant/Rachel Summers and where she and the Starjammers are.

What’s Good: I really like the general style of story telling that Mike Carey is going for here.  Too often modern comics have these discrete 6-issue arcs that collect nicely into trade paperbacks with each 6-issue arc having very little to do with the last one.  Here, Carey is picking up some ideas that spun out of his Age of X storyline and actually playing with them.  You wouldn’t be totally lost if you were a part-time X-Men reader and picked this issue up cold without reading Age of X, but you might be a little confused.  And that’s how it should be dammit!  Nothing makes me feel like a bigger chump than realizing the money I plunked down for the BIG STORY in 2010 isn’t having any impact on the stories I’m reading today.

The Legion story is well told and features a diverse grouping of X-Men: Legion, Professor X, Magneto, Rogue, Gambit and Frenzy.  Even though I do roll my eyes a little bit every time I see Legion or Gambit on the page, I think we should give credit to Carey and the X-editors for creating a team that doesn’t include Wolverine, Cyclops or Emma.  Just having this different team setting off on a different mission to contain some break-away Legion personalities is fun because I’m not wondering how these characters can be in multiple places at one time.

But, the star of the issue is the Starjammers storyline.  If you’ve been reading X-Men for longer than a couple years, you know that Ed Brubaker took the  team off into space for the Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire story.  That story lasted one year and when it was done, some of my favorite characters (Rachel Summers, Havok and Polaris) were left in space.  Well….they’ve been gone for ~4 years now with nary a peep so it is nice to see that story line being picked back up.  Again….this type of story telling makes fans feel like we weren’t chumps for buying those issues in 2007.  And I’m ready for another good X-Men-In-Space romp.

New Mutants #24 – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez (inks), Brian Reber (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: Age of X comes to a close.  Will there be any wrinkles beyond “it was all in Legion’s mind”?

What’s Good: If I’m being cheeky, I’d say the best thing about this is that Age of X is now over and we can move on to some new X-Men stories.  That’s a mean thing to say because a lot of people worked very hard on this crossover, but it’s true.

Another nugget to take from Age of X is that it brings Legion front and center again.  If cover art is to be trusted, X-Men Legacy is going to have some focus on Legion in upcoming story arcs and it’s likely that a lot of current X-readers aren’t that familiar with Charles Xavier’s mentally unstable son.  If nothing else, by the end of this Age of X story, all readers would say that Legion is (a) crazy and (b) very powerful.

The final nice bit of this story was seeing the X-Men after the regain their proper memories at the end of the story, but before the Age of X thoughts have completely faded.  So, we see Frenzy and Cyclops share a passionate kiss…as Emma looks on….  and we see Storm and Namor give each other a meaningful glance since they were apparently a couple in Age of X (although nothing was done with their relationship).

New Mutants #23 (Age of X, Chapter 4) – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez (inks), Brian Reber (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Sebastian Girner (assistant editor) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: Intrigue abounds as the action in Age of X turns inward.

What’s Good: As mentioned in the review of X-Men Legacy #246 two weeks ago, the Age of X event seems to be mostly skipping the traditional Act II of a story.  That is a very good storytelling choice by Mike Carey and the editorial team behind Age of X because Act II of stories doesn’t have much impact when we are dealing with characters that we already know well.  What is left of Act II deals primarily with revelations about the slightly different nature of these X-Men characters and that is plenty interesting because although we do know Magneto (or “The General”) and he has a very similar personality in this Age of X timeline, he has some fundamental differences from the wild type that are interesting to explore.

This issue also leaves the reader with a lot of mysteries unsolved.  We are now 2/3 of the way through Age of X and it is now pretty obvious that the big revelations will be coming right at the end of the story because things are clear as mud right now.

The strongest point of the art is the general layouts.  There really isn’t a panel in the issue where it is unclear what is going on with the story.  Now, there isn’t anything very adventurous about the pages and panel designs, but Kurth is not sacrificing storytelling by trying to feed us flashy images.

New Mutants #22 (Age of X: Chapter 2) – Review

By: Mike Carey (writer), Steve Kurth (art), Allen Martinez (inks), Brian Reber (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters), Jake Thomas & Sebastian Girner (assistant editors) & Daniel Ketchum (editor)

The Story: More is revealed in Age of X, Chapter #2.

What’s Good: Most of the really good things about this issue come from the editorial/publishing side of the equation.  The story is good too, but let’s take a second to slap some editorial backs.  First, good call to stretch out the opening act of this story.  The standard pacing to a 6-chapter story is two issues of opening, 2 boring middle issues and a 2-issue finale.  It makes a LOT of sense to stretch the opening because the boring middle act only is relevant if the story is actually going to change something in the X-universe.  Call it cynicism, but after reading hundreds of X-titles, nothing really changes.  So, let’s just have the fun mystery of the opening act flow directly into the slam-bang of the finale!

Second, it is great that this is truly a “Chapter 2” rather than an issue spotlighting the New Mutants as they deal with the same problems elucidated in Chapter 1 (“And now let’s go see how this set of characters is dealing with the same problem”).  Marvel had a nice opportunity to do this with Zeb Wells departure from New Mutants and they capitalize by making the events of this issue flow directly from Chapter 1.

Third, let’s give Marvel a little credit for just having the action of Age of X occur within the ongoing series rather than doing what they did with Shadowland or Chaos War and running a separate miniseries.  Those things are just sales gimmicks and while they do generate some sales, they raise fans’ expectations for the magnitude of the story and that leads to a cheapening of the underlying property.

As for the story itself, the mysteries are still building and that is fun and enjoyable.  Much of this issue deals with Rogue trying to get to the bottom of the appearance of Kitty Pryde in the last issue.  To investigate this, she has to invade Danger’s jailhouse where a LOT of mutants who seem to have some clues about what is really going on are being held.  We also get some tempting tidbits from Cyclops/Basilisk about the possible nature of the human troops attacking the Force Barrier protecting Fortress X.

Iron Man Legacy #5 – Review

By: Fred van Lente (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez (inks), John Rauch & Chris Chuckry (colors) & Dave Lanphear (letters)

The Story: The Big Bad behind the strife in Transia is revealed.  Surprise… It’s Doom.

What’s Good: This issue ends in the initial story arc on Iron Man Legacy and ends it on a positive note.  I have not been a tremendous fan of this series thus far and was concerned about this issue because endings to story arcs are hard: It is a lot easier to plop a lot of cool ideas onto a comic page at the beginning of a story than to do something interesting with them.

So, I was pleasantly surprised at the direction van Lente went with the issue of Tony Stark’s legacy.  Too often we have see his legacy illustrated by out of control Stark-tech falling into the hands of bad people.  Here we see that one of his other legacies is to inspire the inventors of the world to use their talents to create a better world for their peoples.  Thus, I was very happy to see them bring back the Dragana (the handicapped lady engineer from past issues) as a hero with a cool new armor suit that she hopes can become an inspiration to her people.  Actually, the suit is a little more like a mech that she sits inside, but you get the point.

Iron Man Legacy #4 – Review

By: Fred van Lente (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez (inks), John Rauch (colors) & Dave Lanphear (letters)

The Story: We finally get some Iron Man action in Iron Man Legacy as Stark has a throw down with a plethora of enemies.

What’s Good: Not a whole lot, to be honest.  It was refreshing to finally see the actual Iron Man be present in a comic titled Iron Man Legacy as we get to see a multi-way throw-down between Iron Man, Radioactive Man, Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo (thank goodness he isn’t named Crimson Man who that would have been a tedious sentence).  I enjoyed seeing a stranded Tony Stark get resupplied with armor by an orbital platform.

We also have the promise of better things to come with Dr. Doom getting in on the action with some Stark-tech juiced Doombots.

The art in this issue was quite improved mostly because the subject matter (armor battles) seems to play more to the strengths of Kurth’s pencils.  I’ve mentioned before that I think this more photo-realistic style in both Legacy and Invincible Iron Man work better on the armor than they do on the characters actual faces, so it is nice to see a story that is starting to play to the strengths of the artist.

Iron Man Legacy #3 – Review

By: Fred van Lente (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez (inks), John Rauch (colors) & Dave Lamphear (letters)

The Story: Tony Stark’s adventures in Eastern Europe continue as he tries to escape from the bad guys who are applying intense selective pressure to the locals to try to create a new Tony Stark.  Plus, Doom gets involved.

What’s good: I thought for a second that we were going to get to see Tony Stark hitting on a lady with no legs.  No wait… It happened in a really uncomfortable way, so it goes on the “bad” list!

The next best things that I can come up with “good” in this issue are that it has Doom in it along with Dreadknight and his winged horse.  But, other than that… This is pretty much a suckfest.

Iron Man Legacy #2 – Review

By: Fred van Lente (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez & Victor Olazaba (inks), John Rauch (colors) & Dave Lanphear (letters)

The Story: Tony Stark’s one-man war against the villains with stolen Iron Man technology in Transia continues.

What’s Good: I was a little hard on the initial issue of Iron Man Legacy,

but this issue feels a lot more grounded and put together.  One thing that bothered me about issue #1 was that although it was pretty clear that it wasn’t exactly in continuity with the rest of the Marvel Universe, it wasn’t clear when the action took place.  That is kind of answered here.  This story is taking place sometime before Tony Stark made it publicly known that he was the Iron Man.  That at least clears things up a little.

This is also very clearly a “new reader” comic.  The target for this comic is folks who loved Iron Man 2 and wanted to try reading an Iron Man comic.  The story is very unburdened by continuity (witness that I can’t figure out when this really happens).  As much as I love my continuity, it is a serious impediment for new readers and I’m glad to see Marvel trying to make this an easy title to jump onto.

The art has also calmed down a little bit.  I felt like in #1 there was almost an attempt to make the art look like Salvador Larroca’s work on Invincible Iron Man.  While this issue is still generally photo-realistic, it has its own look.  I particularly like the inking job on this issue.

Iron Man Legacy #1 – Review

By: Fred Van Lente (writer), Steve Kurth (pencils), Allen Martinez & Victor Olazaba (inkers), John Rauch (colors) and Dave Nphear (letters)

The Story: Iron Man gets a second on-going series where the bad-guy is using (no surprise) stolen Iron Man technology against civilians.

What’s Good: Not a whole lot to be honest.  The best part of this issue is on the final page where the villain is revealed.  I won’t spoil who it is, but I was really disappointed in this issue until turning the page and saying, “Ok….that might be interesting.”

I also think that Fred Van Lente is a good writer, so I have some faith that this series will get its issues sorted out.

What’s Not So Good: Perhaps we can start with the questionable need for another Iron Man ongoing series?  I would have rather taken more frequent issues of Invincible Iron Man (a la Amazing Spider-Man).  I’m sure this series is mostly motivated by the movie coming out and the desire to have a comic that new readers can follow along with.

Another problem I had was that it wasn’t clear when the events of this issue took place.  It sure didn’t feel like it was in current continuity: Tony Stark is happily running his business and there is no mention of SHIELD, Norman Osborn or erasing his mind.  If you try to date it by what armor we see, we see an automated suit of armor that looks kinda like the Extremis armor (but it could be that he’s got an old model on guard-dog duty).

The story wasn’t really doing it for me either.  This series is going to obviously get compared to Invincible Iron Man, so I’m a little confused that they would have the bad guys using rogue Iron Man tech to attack civilians (which is how IIM started off 2 years ago).

Avengers: The Initiative #20 (Dark Reign) – Review

By Dan Slott & Christos N. Gage (Writers), Steve Kurth (Pencils), Drew Hennessey (Inks), and Matt Milla (Colors)

Some Thoughts Before The Review: Avengers: The Initiative #20 marks the end of Dan Slott’s run with the series. While it’s a bit sad to see him go considering how consistently entertaining the series has been since the very beginning, I have no doubt that Slott’s writing partner, Christos Gage, will effortlessly continue to carry the torch as The Initiative heads into Dark Reign. Time to find out if Slott leaves the series with a bang or a whimper.

The Story: The twentieth issue of Avengers: The Initiative is all about setting a course for the future while addressing a few things from the past. Translation? There is a hell of a lot going on at Camp Hammond. Here is just a taste of some of the plot points dealt with in the book: Hank Pym confronts the loss of his wife and his absence head on, the Shadow Initiative gets a new mission and a new leader as the identity of Mutant Zero is finally revealed, the Skrull Kill Krew deals with the consequences of its actions, and Ant-Man gets something of a promotion. There are a few more plot points as well, but I don’t want to mention everything in order to avoid spoilers.

What’s Good: As usual, Dan Slott and Christos Gage do a fantastic job juggling a cast of dozens without missing a beat. I could go on and on about the character work, but if you have been following the series (or have read another of my reviews for the series), you know how good the writers can be. And they are at the top of their game in this one. Couple all that good stuff with several intriguing plot developments and you have one heck of a good read.

What’s Not So Good: There are only two things about the issue that I consider to be a negative. The first is that the reveal of Mutant Zero’s identity is a bit of a letdown, especially considering that the character isn’t exactly a major player (or at least hasn’t been for a while). The second is that the artwork, while fine enough and totally serviceable, isn’t exactly noteworthy in any way, shape, or form.

Conclusion: Avengers: The Initiative #20 is a prime example of why I consider the series to be one of the best that Marvel puts out. If you haven’t checked it out already or bailed during Secret Invasion, now would be a great time to get on board. The character work is fantastic, the artwork is almost always strong, the storylines are compelling, and the impressive size of the rotating cast always keeps the series feeling incredibly fresh and unpredictable.

Grade: B+

-Kyle Posluszny

Avengers: The Initiative #18 (Secret Invasion) – Review

By Dan Slott & Christos N. Gage (Writers), Steve Kurth (Pencils), Drew Hennessey (Inks), and Matt Milla (Colors)

The Story: The Skrull Kill Krew continues to go state-by-state eliminating all the Skrulls that have infiltrated the Initiative program. Meanwhile, Ant-Man continues to spy on a group of Skrulls as he tries to figure out some way to get the information he has learned into the right hands.

What’s Good: As always, it is a blast watching the creative team on this series play in the Marvel sandbox that is the Initiative program. The Skrull Kill Krew storyline provides the perfect opportunity to feature a variety of characters, provide some interesting reveals, and show loads of classic superhero action. Simply put, this is a fun book that makes the most of the Secret Invasion framework.

What’s Not So Good: Although most of the artwork is well-done in this book, it lacks the kinetic energy and vibrant colors that this story is known for. While not exactly deal breakers, the visual hiccups (like weird facial expressions) and muted colors keep this one from being all that it can be.

Conclusion: Avengers: The Initiative is at its best as a series when the creators truly embrace the concept of the Initiative program. That is exactly what is happening in the Secret Invasion issues and I really couldn’t be much happier with the result. Visual complaints aside, this is one of the best Invasion tie-ins on the stands.

Grade: B+

-Kyle Posluszny

Wolverine: Killing Made Simple #1 – Review

Christopher Yost, Todd Dezago (writers), Koi Turnbull, Steve Kurth (pencils), Sal Regla, Serge Lapointe (inks), Beth Sotelo, Joel Seguin (colors) Cory Petit (letters)

How would you go about killing Wolverine if that scenario ever came up? I can tell you this: without special powers you’re screwed. Killing Wolverine attempts to answer this age old question and is a “close but no cigar” book for me. What’s shown is creative and interesting, but ultimately misses that something “special” to make it a must buy.

Chris Yost’s story is all about Wolverine’s healing factor and how it can be beat. His dialogue for Logan is great – it’s blunt, cynical, and to the point – I just wish the parts about him dying tied better into the story. It seems like we can’t have a Wolverine story without a mention of the magic sword that can kill him. Thankfully it’s not the focal point here. Metal poisoning (without his healing factor), being shot into the sun, and decapitation (with the sword), are among the list of ways to kill Wolverine. Logan talks about it like it’s common knowledge which is a nice touch. Sadly, Yost’s offering is too light on story.

Todd Dezago’s Disturbing Consequences is a nice quick end to the book. Here, Logan is sent to investigate a secret facility some government lost contact with. From there it’s a cool looking fight with the infected sole-survivor from an experiment gone wrong. I wish elaborate more on the details, but that’s really it! The mission is a favor, but for whom? What were these guys studying? And most importantly, what would these people have done if Wolverine’s healing factor didn’t cure the virus?

Koi Turnbull has the stronger pencils in my eyes. A dead or dying Wolverine is always interesting to see because he’s rarely in that kind of danger. The nastiest image has Wolverine’s body de-aged and then trying to repair itself. It’s one panel, but it looks every bit as horrible as Yost’s description. Steve Kurth draws an awesome fight. It’s always cool to see Wolverine fight another savage with his feral instincts.

Killing Wolverine is a fun read, I’ll admit that. However, neither story feels as full or satisfying as it could, so it’s hard to justify the four bucks with so many other better titles out there. If you’re tight on cash you might want to pass on it, but hardcore Wolvie fans or those with some extra dough may want to give it a shot. (Grade: B-)

– Ben Berger

Iron Man: Director of SHIELD #31 – Review

By Stuart Moore (Writer), Carlo Pagulayan & Steve Kurth (Pencilers), and Jeffrey Huet & Andrew Hennessy (Inkers), Dean White (Colors)

Why isn’t this book better? Invincible Iron Man is good. Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas seems good, so far. So why is Iron Man: Director of SHIELD so… soulless?

For the past two years, this book has been plagued by missteps, from scenes of questionable taste (the flying intestines of issues 17 and 18 ) and the unnecessary deaths of Happy and Sal, to out-of-character dialogue (Sue Storm berating Tony for not killing Happy) and plotlines that were simply incomprehensible and/or interminable (I swear I thought the Mandarin story was over two issues before it ended). There’s plenty of action, but no actually stories.

This issue is more of the same. Nasim Rahimov, a former associate of Tony’s, has hijacked his technology, made it nuclear, and is planning to… destroy the world or something. Also, SHIELD weapons guru Nicolas Weir has fused with the Overkill Horn and become a giant, floating, mechanical brain that plans to… destroy the world or something. And Paladin has disabled Iron Man’s armor, but Tony uses Extremis to get himself out of trouble. Again.

The problem is that none of this is original, and we’re given no reason to care about any of it. There isn’t a single compelling or insightful line of dialogue. The characters have no depth or complexity. There’s no sense that the story is headed anywhere other than toward more violence.  And it doesn’t help that the art is, well, ugly.

I’m going to keep buying the book despite its considerable flaws, I suppose, since Iron Man is such an important part of the Marvel Universe right now, and plenty of other readers probably will too. Maybe that’s why the book is so bad. Because they know it can be. (Grade: D)

– Andrew C. Murphy

NewUniversal: Shockfront #2 – Review

By Warren Ellis (writer), Steve Kurth (penciler), and Andrew Hennessy (inker)

Okay, I have officially lost patience with this book. I mean, is it too much to ask that the so-called protagonists of a book actually do something? In eight issues (counting the previous mini-series), this is what has happened: Spitfire has gotten drunk; Starbrand has whined like a six-year-old girl; Nightmask has spoken to the mothership from Close Encounters and teleported to California. Whoopee. Justice, at least, has killed some people, but what’s he going to do next? Kill more people? Not exactly a masterpiece of suspense.

At this point I should summarize the plot of this issue, but honestly, nothing happens. A bunch of people talk to each other. And they’re not talking about their secret pasts or arguing competing points of view, either. No, they’re summarizing all the stuff we already know! Granted, something finally happens in the last few pages, but I’m not going to spoil the only bit of drama in the whole book.

The biggest problem with the “New” Universe (other than the mediocre art) is there’s nothing really “new” about anything in it. Parallel universe? Seen that. A government that hates and fears its heroes? Seen that, too. Murderous vigilante? Ditto. A reluctant hero that never asked for his powers in the first place? If I tried to list every time we’ve seen that cliché, I’d crash the weeklycomicbookreview server.

The only original bit in the whole storyline is the White Event, but the TV series Heroes did it first and did it better. Now, I know that’s not really fair, since the original “New” Universe predates Heroes by a long time, but the reason the first season of Heroes worked so well (and the second season didn’t) is that there was a clearly defined problem (the impending destruction of New York) that all the characters were trying actively to solve. In New Universal, though, I swear I haven’t seen a group this passive since the Enron oversight committee.

Come on, Ellis. You can do better than this. (Grade: C)

– Andrew C. Murphy

Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust? #1 – A Review

Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust? is an anthology, gathering together vignettes that concern the Secret Invasion, but didn’t fit in any of the regular books. As anthologies have always been since the first publisher crawled from the Precambrian sea, it’s an uneven mix—with A-listers, B-listers, and some folks I didn’t think were on any list at all.

Going from worst to best (IMHO):

Marvel Boy: Master of the Cube by Zeb Wells (Writer) and Steve Kurth & Drew Hennessey (Artists)
Who is this guy? Seriously. I first encountered him in the Young Avengers/Runaways miniseries. I didn’t like him then, and this story gives me no reason to reassess my opinion. For a character with the stupidest name and the ugliest costume in the Marvel Universe, he sure has a more-badass-than-thou attitude. The Skrulls invade the superhuman detention center—the Cube—that Marvel Boy has taken over, and Marvel Boy fights back. That’s the whole story.

Agents of ATLAS: The Resistance by Jeff Parker (Writer) and Leonard Kirk & Karl Kesel (Artists)
The 1950’s Avengers versus the Skrulls. A minor skirmish, but I enjoyed the contrast of these stupid old characters in a desperate modern setting. The best thing about this story is that the Agents hand the aliens their heads (in one case, literally). With the rest of the Marvel superheroes getting their asses kicked right now, it’s a nice change of pace.

Agent Brand: In Plain Sight by Mike Carey (Writer) and Timothy Green III (Artist)
This is a relatively subtle piece, one that requires a little thought… and when you think, you remember that the Trojan Horse is from the Odyssey, not the Iliad… but no matter. Like Hawkeye, I dig a woman with green hair and lips. Agent Brand, agent of SWORD, is assigned to the Peak, to watch over the various alien ambassadors stationed there, and she knows something is up with that shifty Skrull, but she just can’t figure out what it is. Until, of course, it’s too late.

Captain Marvel: Farewell by Brian Reed (Writer) and Lee Weeks (Artist)
This story is basically a bridge to the Secret Invasion from the Captain Marvel miniseries, and it has the same feel, the same moral ambiguity. Captain Marvel (who, as we learned in the mini-series, is actually just a Skrull who thinks he’s Captain Marvel) tells the Skrull army he wants to help their invasion by taking on the Thunderbolts. What are his real motivations? Does he want to do the right thing? And even if his intentions are good, will he end up making things better, or worse?

Wonder Man and the Beast: Seems Like Old Times by Christos N. Gage (Writer) and Mike Perkins (Artist)
This one harkens way back to when David Michelinie was writing the Avengers. During the Skrull/Avenger/dinosaur fight, Wonder Man and the Beast are separated from the others, and have to fight their way out of a cave filled with King-Kong-style giant insects. The problem is, it’s the modern Wonder Man, but the old, pointy-haired, devil-may-care Beast from the 80’s, and either one of them could be a Skrull. While the Beast takes this all in stride, Wonder Man’s discomfort is apparent from the beginning. He misses his old buddy, but he can’t trust him. Unlike most of the others in this anthology, this story doesn’t lead into anything bigger. It just takes two interesting characters and puts them in a unique situation that causes them to play off one another. Which is what every good vignette should do.

(Grade: B)

– Andrew C. Murphy