Mighty Avengers Vol. 1: The Ultron Initiative

Collects Mighty Avengers #1-6 written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Frank Cho.

The Avengers are back! Not the new beat working-in-the-shadows New Avengers, ooh no. This is the Avengers as we know them, facing off against the best villains the MU has to offer with the stature of a real powerhouse team. Iron Man, newly appointed leader of Shield, decides to build a new team of pro-registration Avengers and chooses Ms. Marvel as their leader. Together they assemble a team of old and new faces and immediately they're thrown into battle against a new version of Ultron, this time appearing in female form (and nakkid!).

Pretty much the whole book is about the Avengers fighting Ultron, and I probably won't reveal too much by saying that they do win in the end. But this book is not so much about Ultron, although the story is pretty good, this is about the characters - what they think, what they say and how they interact. In a stroke of genius, Bendis reintroduces the thought bubble, and uses this to reveal to us what each of the characters actually think of the others, and it's not all nice! My favorite example is Hank Pym's conversations with Ares, whom he obviously thinks of as very intellectually challenged and refers to as Thor-Lite.

In spite of all the big muscles and great action, this book is really about the characters. Before reading the book I was sceptical about the new roster, but Bendis makes it work to perfection with great characterization. Not using classic Avengers characters, such as Thor and Cap, gives Bendis the freedom to do whatever he wants with the team, and to create an as of yet unseen team dynamic for the Avengers.

So the Avengers are back and they are the powerhouse of the MU, as they should be, but they are different. I remember reading The Ultimates and thinking "Wow, wouldn't it be cool if MU Avengers was like this!". Bendis manages to give Mighty Avengers the same kind of coolness factor, while still infusing the book with it's own voice.

Cho is an excellent choice as the artist for this book. His clean line work and detailed panels make the Mighty Avengers seem that much more mighty, while at the same time showing the darker side of the characters just as well. Cho's action scenes are epic and his conversation scenes are filled with atmosphere. When leafing through the book you really notice the attention to facial expressions that Cho is putting into his work.

I'll recommend this book to anyone with a taste for super heroes. Not only does this book re-establish the Avengers right in the center of the MU, Bendis and Cho also re-restablish the Avengers as one of the Marvel books you just need to read. So go get it now!

9/10

World War Hulk: Damage Control

Collects the World War Hulk: Aftersmash one-shot written by Greg Pak and drawn by Rafa Sandoval and World War Hulk Aftersmash: Damage Control #1-3 written by Dwayne McDuffie and drawn by Salva Espin.

The Aftersmash one-shot deals with the situation in NY as the dust settles from the WWH brawl. Although the Hulk is gone, his soldiers are still left and they're not giving up so easily. Without a leader to show them the way, however, the different races start fighting among themselves, and the resident heroes have to step in to avoid further damage to the city. Besides leading into the Warbound and Damage Control stories, this story deals with what happens to some of the major characters of the WWH spin offs, such as Hercules, Amadeus Cho and Tom Foster (Goliath's nephew) right after WWH has ended. The story is a bit confusing as it attempts to wire up almost every remaining plot line from WWH, but the result is not all bad. The art is ok, nothing spectacular although some of the pages are very nicely composed.

The main piece of the book, however, is definitely the Damage Control story. As far as I know there hasn't been a Damage Control story since Civil War, so it seems to have become a title that is brought out of the closet after each major event. What I really liked about this story was the characters. They're not super heroes but they each come out very distinct and very funny. From mrs. Hoag who shows Tony Stark that being the director of Shield doesn't mean he can just commandeer everyone around to the construction foreman who has to keep a straight face while negotiating with a talking Chrysler building. Also, Tom Foster aka. (Black) Goliath, plays a major role in the series.

There isn't really any plot to speak of here, it's more like three stand alone stories, but the humor and the far out situations more than make up for that. The art is excellent and the coloring does it's share to make it even better. Espin's style is perfect for a humor book like this. I suspect a lot of time was put into the art, so we probably shouldn't expect this kind of art in a monthly book any time soon.

This book contains one so-so story and one really good story. It is by no means required reading, but if you've picked up WWH and are up for more, I recommend getting this one. If nothing else, then just for the Damage Control stories.

6/10

World War Hulk: Warbound

Collects World War Hulk: Warbound #1-5 written by Greg Pak with art by Lenoard Kirk and Rafa Sandoval.

This book is actually an Aftersmash title, and takes place right after the Aftersmash oneshot that is included in WWH: Damage Control. After Hulk has been subdued, the Warbound, the Hulk's merry band of alien sword fellows, escapes capture but then find themselves facing the Leader, who has created a giant radiactive dome, Gammaworld, where he keeps a lot of people captured and transforms them into monsters by using gamma rays. The US Army also shows up and endless fighting ensues. In fact, as the book ends the fighting is still not finished, and I'm not sure what that means for the Warbound. The high point of the book is where it's revealed that Korg, the rock man, is actually gay.

I have to admit that from the moment they were formed in Planet Hulk, I didn't like the Warbound. They just don't appeal to me. I don't find any of them interesting in any way, and, even though they were prisoners together, I find it unlikely that creatures with such different backgrounds would form such a strong bond as seems to be the case with these, uhm... fellows. Actually I still don't understand how they communicate, but that might have been explained at some point. There's a lot of science fiction in super hero literature, but this is more like science fiction with a bit of super heroics and it just doesn't work very well.

The story is standard super hero fare of the dime-a-dozen kind, the focus is on the Warbound, and this is the main weakness of the book. Each chapter is accompanied by a shorter story about one of the Warbound. Although these are generally of a higher quality than the main story, it is not enough to save the book, and knowing more about the individual characters does not improve the credibility of the group.

The art of the main story, drawn by Kirk, is boring and void of any kind of atmosphere. The coloring does not help on this, in fact, the coloring is very bad. The art of the shorter stories, by Sandoval, is actually pretty good, and it's just about the only nice thing I have to say about this book.

I would argue that this book was doomed to failure from the beginning. The idea of the book is obviously to tell a story about the Warbound, but they're just not interesting enough to build a story on, and coming up with such a bland plot to tell this story does not help either. If you've read Planet Hulk and/or WWH and thought that the Warbound were pretty cool, you might find this semi-interesting. Otherwise, I would stay way clear of it.

2/10

World War Hulk: X-Men

Collects World War Hulk: X-Men #1-3 (Christos Gage/Andrea Divito), Avengers: The Iniative #4-5 (Dan Slott/Stefano Castelli), The Irredeemable Ant-Man #10 (Robert Kirkman/Phil Hester), Ghost Rider #12-13 (Daniel Way/Javier Saltares) and Iron Man #19-20 (Christos Gage/Butch Guice).

This is a potpourri of stories from various series that is connected to WWH in smaller or larger degree. None of the stories are related except that they all concern WWH somehow, so it reads pretty much like a collection of short stories.

Let's start with the main event, the X-Men story. It sucks. In fact, calling it a story is a bit of a stretch, as it's pretty much just a drawn out slugfest going through all three issues and featuring different X-teams getting beaten silly by the Hulk, until he finally realizes that his fight is not really with the X-Men, and then walks away. This is obviously just a bad excuse for slapping the X-logo on a cover knowing that it'll sell.

The Avengers Initiative story is this books nice surprise. I didn't expect much from this, as I tend to prefer stories involving classic Marvel characters (I'm pretty conservative on that point...), but this story was both well written and well drawn, so I'll definitely be trying out the tpb's for this series. The story works very well within the greater context of WWH, without feeling tagged on or unnecessary, which is the case with some of the other tie-ins.

The Irredeemable Ant-Man is a fun little story. It's nice to see a Marvel series with a focus on comedy for a change. Phil Hester's art is excellent, so I might try out the digests of this series.

The Iron Man story is also pretty good. I quite like the direction Iron Man has taken after Civil War, and this story focuses heavily on his Shield responsibilities. The atmosphere of the story is moody, and the art augments this perfectly. This story also features the fight between Iron Man and the Hulk, which is a pivotal scene in the main WWH book, from a different view, namely that of Iron Man.

The Ghost Rider story manages to beat out the X-Men story in the 'The Story of this Book that Sucks the Most'-competition by a fair margin. There's just no reason for this story.

So as is usually the case with this kind of book, it's a mixed bag of hits and misses. It works pretty well as a collection of samples of various series, giving the reader interest in trying out books he otherwise would not and warning him about books he should stay miles away from. There really is no excuse for WWH: X-Men, however. As a limited series featuring a major team and tying in to a major event, it should have been better.

5/10

Thor

Collects Thor #1-6 written by J. Michael Straczynski with art by Olivier Coipel.

We interrupt the World War Hulk review marathon with a review of a book I've been waiting to read for a long time! Thor has not been seen publicly since a sub-plot in Avengers: Disassembled (well, it was barely a sub-plot, more like a stand-alone story, really) that left Valhalla, well... disassembled, and Thor sleeping the Slumber of Gods. Mjolnir reappeared during Civil War, but what people for a moment thought was the return of the God of Thunder, turned out to be a clone.

This time he's back and so is Donald Blake, his original alter ego, who actually had a cameo in Civil War. The first thing Thor decides to do is rebuild Valhalla and bring back the Asgardians. Apparently, he's a little tired of the snowy mountains of Asgard, however, because he decides to rebuild Valhalla in the middle of the Oklahoma desert. Yes, Oklahoma. And the Asgardians are spread out all over the world reincarnated as humans, so he has a bit of work to do...

One of the better issues concerns Thor's meeting with Iron Man. As director of Shield, Iron Man cannot ignore when someone occupies a large portion of the Oklahoma desert, so he goes to talk to his old friend Thor, but Thor has already been told of the Thor clone incident, and so is in less than a good mood. In fact, he kicks Iron Man's shiny butt all over the place, and tells him that if he comes back he'll do it again. So Iron Man decides to stay away...

Other than that, life is slow in Oklahoma, even for Norse gods. Very slow indeed. For example, the gods have to attend town meetings regarding town sanitation. And go hunt boars in Texas. In fact, some times the story slows down so much that it's a little difficult to see exactly where Straczynki wants it to go. Does he want Thor to be a story about what it would be like if gods lived among men? Because, frankly, I think that's a little boring. I mean, yes, the book does have it's funny moments, but for a series like Thor I would expect there to be some cracking of troll skulls and crunching of ice giant ribs. And dragons and demons and wizards and so on. But that is not to say that I didn't enjoy the story, I just felt it was missing something...Thorish. The story does start to take some shape when Thor starts thinking about whom of the gods he does not want to come back, but that plot line never really materalizes fully here. Maybe next time...

Those who have read the excellent Loki book and are hoping that the new Loki will be portrayed just a little bit as in that book, are going to be very disappointed. Straczynski has different plans for Loki, and personally I think that's a bit of a shame.

The art in this book is excellent. The line work is very crisp, and Coipel does splash pages, action scenes, talking heads etc. with equal skill. I also want to point out the very fine coloring in this book. It reallly infuses each location with a special atmosphere, and helps lift the book up a notch.

It's evident that Marvel considers this a high profile book considering the people doing it. And the art is really good here, but I feel that Straczynski has yet to show his worth on this book. I hope he has some mind blowing plots up his sleeve, because it could really use something like that. I do recommend giving this book a try. I liked many parts of it myself, and I will be getting the next book. But if you're an old time Thor reader, don't expect the Thor you're used to!

6/10

Old Articles for New Trades, September 2008

Looking at the list of trades that are coming out in September, I have to say there's not a whole lot of books that's making it to my pull list. In fact, I can only see two. Mind you, I do have a bunch of books on my to-read shelf, so it's no big problem, I'm covered. Also, keep in mind that I'm having a self-imposed Marvel-only policy right now. I'm perfectly aware that Marvel does not necessarily publish the best books, I just have a well-defined target of 'back-issues' I want to acquire before venturing into unknown territory.

The books I'm pulling this month is Ultimate Power and X-Men: Divided We Stand. The only other Ultimate title I've read so far is Ultimates, which I consider a must-have for anyone slightly interested in modern Marvel, and if Ultimate Power is anything like that, I'm game. X-Men is X-Men and I have actually enjoyed most of the X-Men I've been reading lately. It's not revolutionary in any way (except for Amazing X-Men of course!), but it's pretty solid super hero comics. As discussed in an earlier blog entry, the Messiah Complex book, which takes place before Divided We Stand, doesn't come out until October, so this book will have to take it's place on the to-read shelf until that. Stupid Marvel tpb scheduling policies...

I also thought about getting the Incredible Hercules tpb coming out, to see what happens after WWH, but then I realized that I don't really care about it, so I'm skipping it. If you think that I'm missing out on anything, please post a note!

The internet seems to be completely void of any articles regarding Ultimate Power, so again, if you know of any, please post them in the notes. Here's some articles about X-Men: Divided We Stand:

X-POSITION: Divided We Stand Book One
X-POSITION: X-Editors United

World War Hulk: Incredible Herc

Collects Incredible Hulk #106-111 written by Greg Pak with art by Gary Frank, Leonard Kirk and Carlo Pagulayan.

This book rolls along in pretty much exactly the same time frame as the main WWH book, and, although it does have a story of it's own, it serves as more of a complimentary story to that book. Super genius and annoying teenager, Amadeus Cho, wants to repay the Hulk for saving him a while back by helping him in his battle against everyone else in the MU. Joining him in his quest are the new selfproclaimed Defenders, consisting of Hercules, Angel and Namorra, and standing in their way is the evermore ubiquitous post-Civil War Shield. She-Hulk, Doc Samson and Rick Jones also have minor appearances, and, as expected, the Green Goliath himself shows up a couple of times! Many of the events of WWH are portrayed from a different view in this book, and in some cases, e.g. the ending, some minor details are also added. None of this, however, is so interesting or radical as to make the book a must-buy...

The book is written with more humor than the WWH main book, and this does feel refreshing, considering WWH's dark tone. Considering the characters banding together here, this book would probably have read pretty strangely had it not been spiced up with high doses of humor.

I have to say that the Amadeus Cho character does not work for me. Ok, he may be super smart, so much so that he can quickly calculate the trajectory required to throw a small piece of adamantium shrapnel so that it will take out an incoming missile. But that shouldn't give him the ability to actually throw the piece of shrapnel with the required precision. I know, it's nitpicking but still, people pay good money for this, godammit! The part where he hacks Iron Man's armor with a Game Boy is kind of a nice touch, however...

The art is pretty good in some places, but having three artists over six issues does leave a negative impact on the overall impression. Gary Frank delivers the best art here, but the book would have been better had the art been more consistent.

I recommend this book as a decent companion piece to those who haven't had enough of WWH yet. If you're not into WWH, you should probably avoid it. The story doesn't read very well on it's own, and the characters are, well, really not that interesting. I know that Hulk was restarted after WWH, so if you want to read Hulk, wait for that.

5/10