Now that the hype has died down, and everyone knows that Ultimate Peter Parker is dead, and there is a new Ultimate Spidey, and his name is Miles Morales, lets take a look at this new title from Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis tends to be pretty expository and in this reboot he is no different. Stan Lee took 11 pages to tell the origin of Peter Parker, and Bendis so far is up to 2 issues, and we haven’t even seen Miles in costume or seems like we will see him in costume anytime soon (other than on the cover of course!)
The Good:
-Sarah Pichelli’s art is stunning, she is a stickler for detail, and the lush backgrounds and character emotions she draws are outstanding. Really excited to see where she takes her artwork as she continues to develop into one of the industries top talents.
-Growing the supporting cast with Miles friend Ganke and also fleshing out his relationship with his father. Important thing to remember when reading this book, Miles is an 8th grader. An 8th grader, Peter was at least in high school when he got his powers. It throws a whole different wrench into the storytelling, and that shows in his discussions with his friend Ganke, and also when he is discovering his powers, and the two different reactions they share.
-As far as his father, it is an interesting dynamic, his father has a big reveal, and perhaps hints at more, as Miles is starting to come to grips as a scared kid, when something happens to change his mind. The whole discussion felt like a rehash of “With Great Power, comes great responsibility.” I am intrigued as to where this familial plot is headed, if it’s familiar Uncle Ben territory and he has to move in with his Uncle Ultimate Prowler, or something else. Also, where is this mother we keep hearing about?
-The last page, and how it mirrors a last page of the original Ultimate Spider-Man series, and the two main characters very different reactions to their new found abilities.
The Bad:
-Did I mention how talky and slow the plot is? I know that from Bendis it is natural to expect it to be a wordy book, but seriously almost nothing happens. This issue could have been condensed into 5 pages. Seriously. He is going to have to kick it up a notch before everyone starts to lose interest.
-Invisibility powers? Seriously? Is he the Ultimate Spidey Chameleon? Lame.
Overall, mostly the book is good. Artwork good, story generally pretty good, but it is very slow moving. Something needs to start happening to move us into him wearing the costume, and fast. My only worry is that it’s going to be jumping too fast to make up for the pace of the first two issues.
Story: 6/10
Art: 9/10
The Comic Vault is the new PBS of the comic book industry.
If you like what we do, buy a digital comic book.
Thank you for your support.
Dc’s new 52 has been a shockingly successful experiment in my opinion at least after this first month. If you’re like me you have to pick and choose what comics you get each week . We all know Superman , Batman , Wonder Woman and Green Lantern are going to sell and the reboot has injected new life into each of those respective books. However there have been a few Comics and characters that belong at the top of your pull list along with the aforementioned Superheroes. I wanted to highlight a few of those titles below and give props to the creative teams that are making me giddy with excitement for issue #2.
Batwoman #1
Written by : J.H. Williams III & W. Haden Blackman
Art by: J.H. Williams III
Let me start by saying this was one of the books I was most excited about but also most worried about. Over a year ago Detective Comics handed itself over to writer Greg Rucka and artist J.H. Williams while Bruce Wayne was Traveling through time with identity issues . This lead to an amazing run on Detective Comics that helped set the tone and character for Batwoman rebooting with issue #1 . After much delay and a change in writers ( Greg Rucka left and handed over shared writing duties ) Batwoman is back again in a issue #1 and it is just as spectacular as it was a year ago.
Immediately J.H. Williams’ Art and Layouts will knock your socks off. He uses a painterly style with Batwoman and pencils and inks for her alter ego Kate Kane . The Layouts themselves are some of the most creative Ive ever seen . You can tell every panel is thought out and you could spend an hour on each page easily making this one of the most beautiful titles of the relaunch. Further more I’m impressed with the ease at which our writing team is able to drop you right into the story and still inform you of the characters interactions and back story . The plot is great, and the antagonists are perfectly creepy. A well timed argument towards the end of the issue catches you up on anything you may have missed over a year ago while also continuing to push the story forward with ease. This book is amazing and is firing on all cylinders and deserves your attention.
Best surprise of the new 52 launch so far
Animal Man #1
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Travel Foreman and Dan Green
Jeff Lemire uses a very ingenious way to bring us into the story, and catch us up on all things Animal Man by having us read an interview featuring our title character on the first page. What follows is a double page spread showing Buddy Baker settling into his new life as Father and family man. This is a very grounded book which is great for building tension in a book where no one feels “safe” . Buddy however has an itch to go back out on Patrol as Animal Man and things go from bad to worse by the end of the issue. The art is greatly detailed with nice muted colors and a dream sequence with which the artist uses ink wash with pops of red to really create a sense of anguish and dread. However its the cliff hanger at the end involving his daughter Maxine , who has a unique take on her fathers power that has me biting at my nails to check out the next issue.
Swamp Thing #1
Writer : Scott Snyder
Artist : Yanick Paquette
Scott Snyder, who has been on a roll recently with Batman and Detective Comics now flexes his writing muscles on the new Swamp Thing reboot. Right off the bat we are introduced to a future Metropolis with Superman noticing Dead birds falling from the sky and then we are quickly sent to the Bat cave where we see Batman puzzled as his pet bats scatter and fall all around him. Scott Snyder quickly chooses to bring us into Alec Hollands life as he is now working in construction giving up his life’s work as a scientist in the process. For fans wanting to get a taste of what Superman will look and sound like after he’s grown out of his T shirt and jeans phase , look no further. Superman and Alec Holland share a great moment together in the opening pages that touches on how important of a character he is to the DC Universe now. I especially like the stern and direct approach Alec takes with Superman . Also having Alec remember all of Swamp Things memories from his long storied past is a nice way to show us that there is going to be a symbiotic relationship again between the two characters in the near future.
Yanick Paquette does amazing things with foliage and dead animals in this book . Necks get twisted , creepy bugs fly into ears, and people die in horrible ways , this by no means is kid stuff. After this first issue I’m convinced he was the perfect choice for art duties. The immediate threat as gruesome and shocking as it is , borrows a bit from The Happening . Instead of their being creepy wind , we get creepy wind with an actual disgusting monster. Scott however manages to inject enough intrigue and despair at the end of the issue with Swamp Thing coming back to claim his host. I am counting the days for the next issue to see how all of these story threads play out.
Mike DeVivo
The Comic Vault is the new PBS of the comic book industry.
If you like what we do, buy a digital comic book.
Thank you for your support.
A few weeks back, just for shits and giggles, I decided to see if I could translate the Latin bits in Baltimore: The Curse Bells #2 (W: Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden, A: Ben Stenbeck.) I’ve never studied Latin, mind you, but you can sometimes figure it out if you think about English-language words with latin roots. To wit: “veri” means “truth”. If we know the meaning of the word “verissimilitude” – which means something like “accuracy as compared to reality” – we maybe can put together that the word parts are like so: “veri” = reality or actuality or truth, “simili” = like, or similar (duh!), “tude” = the act of being. Bored? Great! Anyhow, I did that and ended up with this handy-dandy translation:
So there ya go. I DID actually study German (“study” is a huge overstatement. I got straight D’s for 2 years.) That’s what the second page there is, German. Monsters speak latin, Satanists speak German. Makes sense to me.
Part 2 – Banging it out all day
Today is 24-Hour-Comic-Book Day, wherein aybody that cares to can try to write and draw a full 24-page comic in the space of one consecutive 24-hour period. I was going to try and do it myself and see if my writing speed made up for my complete inability to draw, but starting yesterday I caught a flu which is tearing the ass outta me as we speak. Maybe next year. I DID go so far as to think about what I might maybe do, subject-wise. It would DEFINITELY be a superhero comic – the limitation of genre thus imposed makes a challenge for the artist to surmount (which is why superhero comics are like Lars von Trier. Some people think superhero comics are like a real Lindsay Lohan sex tape, other people think that they’re like cynical attempts to grab hits from Google. Think what ya want, I can’t stop you – YET.) So, my superhero was to be called the Crotch Crunch Crusader. His logo would look something like this:
His thing, if you will, would be to punch bad-guys in the nuts. But, in an ironic twist, he never actually uses that move because villains are too busy protecting their junk, when he fights them, to properly protect their jaws and shins and what-not. Maybe there would be some kind of added irony where he swore not to actually use his finishing move out of respect for the vas defrens and its importance in the reproductive process; or, like, his parents were killed that way (adopted by two gay dads.) It now occurs to me that I didn’t have a plan for how he’d fight female villains – I suppose he’d delegate that to an assistant or something. Anyway, it’s all moot, not gonna do it now, but I figured, hey, why let that two minutes of thinking about it go to waste? Hence, the preceding. I hope you enjoyed it. Have a nice evening, now, and you kids actually MAKING their own 24-hour comix, lotsa luck to you. TTFN!
The Comic Vault is the new PBS of the comic book industry.
If you like what we do, buy a digital comic book.
Thank you for your support.
Dance isn’t even an art form.
9/30/11 In this column, I’ll be reviewing Avengers Academy #19. First, though, I have to make some excuses.
Part 1: Hi!
Hello. To start with, I want you to know that I wish you well. By “you,” I mean YOU, the person reading these words that I’m writing right now, but will have long since written by the time you actually read them. I figure that if I let you know right away where you stand with me, you’ll know that I’m joking if I suggest that you might be a socially retarded schmuck, for example. Or I might maybe say that I’m going to stab you a hundred times in the face. I don’t think that I would do that, mind you, but I go where my muse takes me, and my muse is kind of a total prick. Also, I’m not real good with computers – like, for example, I’m pretty shaky on how to use the “Backspace” button. So, what I’m saying here is that it would be completely unfair to hold me liable – legally or morally – for any words or images “from” “me” that you might see here. It was an accident, or I was just joking, or it was my muse’s fault and you should blame him/her (my muse, Terpsichore, has both sets of genitals. Eww, right? S/he is WAY less hot than Olivia Newton-John was in Xanadu.)
This miraculous vision appeared on a glass of beer that some douchebag friend of mine was drinking this one time. Its meaning is obvious: Jesus was actually killed by Godzilla.
Part 2: Obstruction
I kinda wanted my first column here to be a think-piece explaining why superhero comics are like Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. Well, I wanted Barack Obama to be a liberal, and I didn’t get that either. I used to have such ambitious dreams. I used to think, “Some day, I’ll own all the poop, and people will have to pay me if they want poop.” But, you know, you grow older and get jaded. You realize that even if you could do it, they’d probably just figure out how to steal it, right?
Part 3: Am I going to start reviewing comics, or just sit here and keep playing with myself?
Both. Avengers Academy #19
Golly, I do hope you’re reading Avengers Academy. Christos Gage has been consistently writing a fantastic character study of six characters that he himself created. As an aside, I bet Marvel doesn’t pay him one red cent extra for having invented Reptil, Finesse, Hazmat, Striker, Veil, and Mettle. Well, maybe co-created along with some illustrator whose name I’m too lazy to look up… As long as I’m running off the rails with asides and digressions, I should admit right up front that I care about the writers of comics WAY more than the people who draw them. (In this issue, Tom Raney made pencil drawings, then Scott Hanna traced over those in ink, and then Jeromy Cox put in a bunch of colors, probably using some sort of computer. Every one of them does a serviceable job, nobody embarrasses himself. I guess Cox stands out with the pretty-neato colors on the opening splash. I bet HE didn’t get paid extra for that, either. Oh, and the letterer can go fuck himself.) Good lord, what is the comic-blog-reading public supposed to do with digressions like THAT? I owe you all a big apology, but don’t hold your breath. So… yeah, Gage created these characters, and they’re good ones, and after he quits or gets fired, Marvel will pay somebody else to make, like, the miniseries “Striker: Shocking Truths!” and Gage will just have to go suck it. Bummer!
Hazmat is disturbed when Striker gets a VERY ill-timed boner.
Anyhow, Gage has done a swell job making a series of characters whose reactions and personalities are well crafted and, you know, shit like that. Reptil, for example, is often comedy gold – he has been from his first appearance (in Avengers: The Initiative: Featuring: Reptil: The Boy Whose Powers Came From Colons), when he immediately asks Cloud 9 (evidently a famous super-heroine in the Marvel U at the time) if she’ll be his date to prom. He seems perhaps boring and straightlaced, but if you look deeper, you’ll find that he’s actually hilariously stupid. His deliriously senseless questions to Spider-Man in Amazing Just-Mentioned-Guy #661 are worth the four bucks just by themselves. Value, of course, is always relative. Like, if you’re a Mexican illegal immigrant stoop farmer making $1 an hour for your punishing toil, maybe it really isn’t worth the $3.99 (the penny actually MEANS something at that pay scale.) I await a wonderful discussion in the comments section with all of the Mexican stoop workers reading this blog. Sorry, no Guatemalans!
Mr. Gage (the writer, remember?) has also given us, in Striker, a character that has a problem I can relate to very much: he’s afraid to die. Like, really afraid. He thinks about dying, worries about dying, and talks about dying A LOT. Considering the fact that he’s a super-hero, this actually makes a shit-ton of sense. I’m sure that other super-heroes must have had this problem before, but this is the first time that I can recall. Well, I just wanna say that I think that’s pretty groovy.
As to the actual issue itself, it’s the conclusion of the Fear Itself arc wherein the Absorbing Man and Titania – power-upped and stupidly renamed as Skirn, Maker of Flan and Garygroth, Breaker of Balls, irrespectively – besiege the kids in the Infinite Avengers Mansion. The whole arc has been pretty solidly crafted, steadily pushing the stakes higher with each issue, and this issue’s plotting just ices the whole plot-cake with, like, some super-yummy cream-cheese frosting. Buttercream frosting is just fine for some cakes, but this comic is a carrot cake, and carrot cakes demand cream cheese frosting. ESPECIALLY when the cake is a metaphor!
So, Gage builds it up to a point and then BAM! He lands at a spot where the characters land at their only possible chance of saving a bajillion lives, which happens to involve GIVING UP THEIR OWN LIVES. Now, okay, it’s easy as hell to make characters you’re writing act bravely. For example: John Velousis walked straight ahead as Matthew “Mr. Nazi Sadist Baby Rapist” Evilman shot at him. John felt the first bullet destroy his femur, the most painful bone a human could break, but he kept walking, for if he ran or zig-zagged, then the bomb would kill all of those babies on the bus to their first day of Baby School. Another bullet hit his left eye, then his right. Blind, he soldiered on through the pain, guided only by the stench of evil. Reaching Evilman, John snapped his neck with one mega-awesome move, before collapsing himself. As he died, he said to The Chief, bawling nearby, “It was time for Evilman to take… a break.”
See? Easy! But Gage makes it work by seeding the characters exactly just so, where the reader buys it. It’s a superb story moment, and it gets much closer to the notion of what heroism is than super-hero comics usually do. Big ups, Chris Gage, big ups. Buy it, damn you!
PS The lettering here is done by VC’s Joe Caramagna, and I don’t really want him to go fuck himself. I have no problem with ANY of the Viet Cong, that conflict was a long time ago and the wounds have healed, with the obvious exception of any kind of wound that can’t actually heal.
The Comic Vault is the new PBS of the comic book industry.
If you like what we do, buy a digital comic book.
Thank you for your support.
Amazing Spider-Man #670 Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Humberto Ramos
Venom #7 Writer: Rick Remender
Artist: Tom Fowler
Just when you thought event storylines were stale and overplayed, along came Dan Slott with “Spider-Island.” This Spidey-centric event has, along with the X-Men’s “Schism” storyline, thus far surpassed any of the past few Marvel-wide books — including the current Fear Itself.
But I’ll get to that in a moment.
If you’ve missed the prelude in Amazing Spider-Man #666 and the first three parts of the story that followed, Dr. Miles Warren, AKA the Jackal, returned and unleashed an epidemic of genetically-altered bed bugs upon the city of New York. Bites from these bugs gave just about everyone in NYC spider powers, not everyone used them responsibly, Peter became the not-so-spectacular Spider-Man in light of everyone else having these powers, and the Avengers and several other heroes were called in to help keep the problem at bay.
Part four of Spider-Island, Amazing Spider-Man #670 opens right where the previous issue left off. Spider-Man’s current girlfriend, crime scene detective Carlie Cooper, has transformed into a spider creature along with the rest of the infected New Yorkers. Poor Pete…Now that all of Manhattan are spider monsters, he has no idea who he’s punching.
Moments like this are where Slott’s grasp on the book’s characters really shines through, and Ramos captures the breadth of Pete’s desperation accordingly in a full-page panel of Spidey on his knees, apologizing in vain to Carlie and watching helplessly as a stampede of formerly-human spider monsters rushes away into the city. Slott further delivers with a one-liner-filled Spidey/J. Jonah Jameson team-up that few others could have pulled off as well outside of a “What If?” book.
Alas, the team is not meant to last, as Jonah succumbs to the “spider flu” and transforms into a monster himself after arriving at his command center. I can’t elaborate any further without revealing a major spoiler, but it’s hard to imagine Jonah being the same after this.
Something that has really stuck out with me about this story arc is the effort put in to making sure the tie-in books fit in well with the main story. They aren’t necessary to have the full experience of “Spider-Island,” but they add depth and Marvel’s Spider Office has gone to great lengths to make sure everyone knows where they fit in the larger story. In this issue alone, there are at least two notes letting readers know where the Spider-Island: Avengers one-shot and Venom #7 fit.
Speaking of Venom #7, it basically details Venom’s (who, if you haven’t been keeping up, is now Flash Thompson and property of the U.S. Government) side-adventure to bring Eddie Brock AKA Anti-Venom to Reed Richards at Horizon Labs so an antidote can be extracted using the Anti-Venom symbiote. Rick Remender, who also writes the masterful Uncanny X-Force, captures Flash’s desperation to keep Venom under control as he fights the alien’s former host — even going so far as to tease fans by making it seem as though Venom is about to take over Brock again. (Damn you, Remender!) Fowler perfectly captures the fear in Eddie’s eyes as this is happening.
To add a bit of extra drama, Flash must complete this job quick, as his estranged, abusive father is in the hospital on his death bed with mere hours to live. Again, Remender captures the added turmoil within Flash throughout the book.
Overall, these are both solid issues. Slott and Ramos continue to deliver the goods in Amazing Spider-Man, delivering one of the most fun events in recent memory (while using a villain nobody wanted to go near after the “Clone Saga” storyline of the mid-90s, no less). You can get the full Spider-Island experience without Venom, but Remender’s run on the series has breathed new life into the character, and Fowler’s art is icing on the cake. I could go on all day, but if I did that, you wouldn’t need to read the books.
ASM #670
Story: 9.5/10
Art: 9/10
Venom #7 Story: 8/10
Art: 9/10
The Comic Vault is the new PBS of the comic book industry.
If you like what we do, buy a digital comic book.
Thank you for your support. The Comic Vault DC Comics Digital Store
Now that the hype has died down, and everyone knows that Ultimate Peter Parker is dead, and there is a new Ultimate Spidey, and his name is Miles Morales, lets take a look at this new title from Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis tends to be pretty expository and in this reboot he is no different. Stan Lee took 11 pages to tell the origin of Peter Parker, and Bendis so far is up to 2 issues, and we haven’t even seen Miles in costume or seems like we will see him in costume anytime soon (other than on the cover of course!)
Just when you thought event storylines were stale and overplayed, along came Dan Slott with “Spider-Island.” This Spidey-centric event has, along with the X-Men’s “Schism” storyline, thus far surpassed any of the past few Marvel-wide books — including the current Fear Itself.
Speaking of Venom #7, it basically details Venom’s (who, if you haven’t been keeping up, is now Flash Thompson and property of the U.S. Government) side-adventure to bring Eddie Brock AKA Anti-Venom to Reed Richards at Horizon Labs so an antidote can be extracted using the Anti-Venom symbiote. Rick Remender, who also writes the masterful Uncanny X-Force, captures Flash’s desperation to keep Venom under control as he fights the alien’s former host — even going so far as to tease fans by making it seem as though Venom is about to take over Brock again. (Damn you, Remender!) Fowler perfectly captures the fear in Eddie’s eyes as this is happening.