HOUSE OF X #1

Jonathan Hickman is back at Marvel and he's rejuvenating the X-Men franchise. The X-Men comic books have been on life support for some time. Can you remember the last time the X-Men books were any good? I suppose the last time they were halfway decent was when Bendis brought back the X-Men from the 60's via time travel in All New X-Men...and that was way back in 2012. Hickman, of course, is not exactly one of my favorite writers. There's a comic book store owner from Ohio that posts a lot of videos on YouTube when he gets his new books for the week and he recently called the writer Jonathan "Boring" Hickman...which isn't a minority opinion. Hickman tends to favor brain over brawn...meaning his books rely less on action and more on intricate, long-form storytelling that sometimes pays off but often gets bogged down in confusion and dullness. Hickman wrote one of the worst Marvel event books in recent memory, Infinity, and followed that up with Secret Wars, which, while semi-interesting, was probably best known for the great Esad Ribic artwork. He also wrote Fantastic Four and The Avengers...but hasn't been at Marvel since 2016. It was rumored that he was all set to go to DC but that never panned out. Meanwhile he's been writing stuff at Image like East of West. The best book he'll probably ever write is The Manhattan Projects for Image...although so far his new X-Men book has gotten off to a fantastic start and could possibly be his masterpiece. I think the problem with the X-Men books is that they're pretty rudimentary and been-there-done-that. You've got a group of superheroes and they fight super villains and that's about it. After fifty years of that, what more can be done with it? Well Hickman has definitely tried to break to mold and try something new, which is a good thing. House of X #1 kicks off what is basically the same thing Bendis has done with Superman over at DC. When Bendis came to DC they gave him both Superman books and he took over the whole character. Hickman is doing the same with the X-Men. He's doing two six part mini-series called House of X and Powers of X that will run until October when he unleashes the new Uncanny X-Men #1. And Hickman has pretty much re-done the entire X-Men world without even setting anything up. It's just completely different from the very first page. Which is a good thing, actually, considering every X-Men book has sucked for years. The story here is bold and also kind of hard to describe. The X-Men have used Krakatoa, who is kind of a mutant creature the size of an island, to create a paradise world where all mutants can live. Professor Xavier is, apparently, able to bring back the dead because of a few new drugs he created that every country on Earth is dying to get their hands on. Magneto is on the X-Men side but says that mutants are the new Gods and that man should start worshiping them. So the X-Men are kind of evil now...sort of? The Fantastic Four, Sabretooth, and Wolverine all show up in this...so it's definitely not one of those lame X-Men books with a bunch of nobody mutants no one cares about. Yes, the book is all set up to a larger story that will probably end up being humans vs. mutants...but it's fresh and interesting and intriguing stuff. It might just be the best book I've read all year...which is saying something considering how God-awful Marvel and DC books are these days. The one drawback is the art. Pepe Larraz is not exactly a superstar, and the art is maybe a little better than average at best. But Hickman is back and his book is excellent, which is a surprise. And the X-Men are relevant again. Fuck...it's been awhile. ***1/2

BATMAN #75

The biggest story in the comic book world this year has to be the fact that DC pulled Tom King off of Batman. King wasn't, of course, a big time, famous comic book writer like, say, Bendis or Kirkman or Grant Morrison or someone when he got the gig. King had a bonafide hit with Marvel's The Vision that everyone was talking about, so DC signed him to an exclusive and put him on their biggest book. Perhaps, though, they didn't do their homework. Did you read The Vision? Did DC read The Vision? Or Sheriff of Baghdad, King's other pre-Batman book (they definitely read Omega Men since it was a DC book)? King isn't exactly a fan friendly type of a writer. He's more dark and cerebral. So, 75 issues in, we kind of have gotten what we paid for. Two months ago, after a dismal, boring, weird, dream storyline that seemingly went on forever, DC announced that they were kicking King off the book and letting him finish his storyline in a 12 issue Batman/Catwoman mini-series. King will still get to write the book until the end of the year...which seems strange, unless he already had every script written, which seems absurd. It's going to end up being a year of King's Batman taken away and shrunken down to a 12 issue side book. The sales have slipped and the quality has slipped, although the book is still always the bestseller the week that it comes out. Supposedly one of the higher ups made the decision because he hated the book. That makes sense, as the book is a complete, baffling mess. Although I've read every issue, and since they're fast to read (he doesn't use a lot of words), I do usually read it as soon as it comes out, even if I'm often disappointed. The problems have always been there (the book didn't exactly start good and never really picked up steam, although a few arcs like "The War of Jokes & Riddles" and the Booster Gold storyline were pretty good) but they definitely reached the pinnacle with #50 which promised a Batman/Catwoman wedding and did not deliver. I suppose it's not a surprise that #75 ends with Catwoman saving Batman and apparently they're back together and ready to save the day. #75 is the best issue of the book all year. You can probably thank artist Tony Daniel for that. He's one of DC's best artists and he draws comic books the way you kind of want comic books to look like. As for the plot...well, I've been lost in the haze for awhile now. There was a long dream arc that made no sense. The problem was that we never really knew what was real or fake. Apparently, Bruce Wayne's father from the Flashpoint universe showed up and is now the new Batman in a city run by villains. King did not do a very good job developing that plot, though, as all of a sudden it seems to be a reality out of nowhere instead of steadily building it up. Batman was in the desert last issue but in this issue he's in the snow (huh?). This issue kicks off the "City of Bane" storyline yet Bane only appears on the cover. Gotham Girl shows up yet I can't even remember the last time she was in the book. Is she a villain now? It's kind of a problem when I read every issue and it comes out twice a week so the story is pretty fresh yet I'm still mystified at to what the fuck is going on. Will firing King be a good thing in the long run? I guess it depends on who they pick as the successor. I think we all know that it's going to Bendis. And will that be any better? Probably not. But in all of this there is tragedy. King's run was cut short which is a shame for King. But the real tragedy is a once great writer putting out a complete disaster of a book. **

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #25

Dan Slott wrote The Amazing Spider-Man for like ten years or something crazy, so I suppose it wasn't a surprise that for years there were angry fans desperate for him to leave. I wanted him to leave as well, though I didn't hate his run, I actually enjoyed it. I just thought that ten years was long enough for him showcase everything he'd ever do on the book and it was never a great book, just a sometimes entertaining, good book. Well I guess we all should have been careful what we wished for, because Nick Spencer has been the new writer on the book for a year now and it's officially worse than Slott's run. The best thing I can say about Spencer's run so far is that Ryan Ottley, who used to draw Invincible until it ended, is the perfect artist for Spider-Man and has knocked every issue out of the park. The bad part of that equation is that this book is bi-monthly, meaning Ottley doesn't draw every issue. #25 is a 60 page, $7.99 book and Ottley only drew 25 pages of it. And, not surprisingly, those 25 pages are the only good part. You would think a #25 issue, especially since it's triple size and costs more than a kid can probably afford (and comic books are supposed to be for kids, right?), would be super special and something big would happen. Nope. The biggest thing that happens in this is that Mary Jane, who is back dating Peter, becomes famous again. Wow. Really pulling out the big guns, Spencer. There's also a new villain that's been lurking around the past year that seems to finally be coming to the forefront. The problem is that the villain is fairly lame. He can bring back people from the dead and kind of looks like a mummy in a cloak. There's also bugs that crawl around the rooms he's in. The one huge problem with him is that he talks in dumb, supposed to be clever/funny Spencer speak, which robs him of any sort of menace. Spencer can be a good writer, but usually only when he's doing independent stuff at Image like his early work on Morning Glories and his hilarious, buddy cop comedy, The Fix. His work as Marvel has not been very good. He wrote a memorable run on Captain America when Captain America joined Hydra...but that was memorably bad. And so far...his run on The Amazing Spider-Man has been forgettable. The big storyline he had so far was a new Kraven's Last Hunt that was like that Ice-T movie, Surviving the Game, and The Hunger Games but under a dome in Central Park. That wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly exciting, fresh, new, vibrant, thrilling, super entertaining, fun, or, really, anything great that you want a comic book to be. This book is bland and there's no way around it. Slott lasted ten years. Let's hope that Spencer doesn't make it past two. *

THE WALKING DEAD #193

 

  Robert Kirkman has, at least with The Walking Dead, always liked to shock. He's killed off just about every character in the series, usually out of nowhere. Some of the deaths have been grisly, like Glenn being bludgeoned by a barbed-wire wrapped bat, the numerous heads put on stakes by Alpha, and Rick's wife and infant daughter being blown apart during the infamous prison raid #48 issue. A few years ago, Kirkman abruptly decided to end his book, Invincible, seemingly out of nowhere. And last summer he released a surprise book, Die! Die! Die!, without solicitation or a preview. Well he's back again at surprising and shocking us. He killed off The Walking Dead's main character, Rick Grimes, last issue, and this issue, #193, is the final issue. The shocking thing is that nobody knew it was the final issue until Monday when rumors spread online (the book was released on Wednesday, July 3rd). Kirkman and Image Comics even tricked people into thinking the book would continue. They released fake previews with covers of issues #195, #196, and #197. We all assumed after Rick died that Carl, his son, would be the main character and the book would continue until #300 like Kirkman had noted he wanted it to. The other surprise out of this is that the book was 80 pages with the same price tag, $3.99. Not surprising was that it completely sold out everywhere instantly and most comic book store owners were rightfully pissed off. They probably would have made a lot of money if the final issue was announced in advance and they could have ordered hundreds of copies. Instead, they ordered their usual pile, probably ten or twenty, and sold out right away and then got badgered with phone calls and angry customers in the store wanting a copy and being fucked. I can see why store owners are pissed off about this, and The Walking Dead has always been one of my favorite comics month in and month out, even though it was never as good as it was in the early days. The last time the book was great was probably about fifty or so issues ago when Alpha and her pack showed up wearing the skin of zombies. The book of course reached its pinnacle with The Governor storyline and never reached that height again, though it tried by, basically, re-doing that storyline but with a different Big Bad; Negan and then Alpha. The Walking Dead was one of the very few comic books I usually read right away when it was released, which means it was good. Sometimes I even loved the letters page more than the book. All in all, it will go down as being a pretty legendary comic book. I read every single issue and own probably half of the run, though I don't own any of the early issues that are worth thousands of dollars. Kirkman noted in his afterward that he was going to originally end the book right before issue #100 but he decided not to and came up with more story to fill another hundred issues. His original ending was bleak; we would see a statue of Rick Grimes in the future...and pull out to see no humans but only zombies milling about. So the original ending was bleak as hell. Compared to how he did end the book, I'd say that bleak ending would have been better, although I am glad he continued so we got to see Negan and The Whisperers. This last issue takes place years in the future when Carl is older, married to Sophia, and has a baby girl. We get to see that Eugene has built a railroad, Michonne is now a judge, and the zombies are pretty much extinct and not a threat anymore. Negan is still alive, though we only get to see his house. The last scene has Carl reading a bedtime story to his daughter about his father and her grandfather, the "great" Rick Grimes, who, apparently, is a mythological hero. There's even a statue of him in town. The last page has Carl and his daughter in a rocking chair and he's reading her the story from a book. So it's a nice, safe ending. It made me sad, though I think mostly because the book I've read for so long was ending. I anticipated seeing what Kirkman would cook up for #200, which was right around the corner, because he usually always did something big for those landmark issues. And I thought I'd be reading until #300 to see the adventures of Carl and the others and see the new villains and adventures and horrific deaths. Kirkman isn't done with comic books. He still has two that are currently running; the rather boring Outcast and the trippy, entertaining Oblivion Song. But now that Invincible and The Walking Dead are over, is Kirkman's career over, too? Will he still be relevant? Or will he end up like Garth Ennis, who, after Preacher, kind of faded out as being a great comic book writer? I doubt we'll ever see a great, long series like this again from Kirkman, but who knows? Anything can happen, and The Walking Dead was on the verge of cancellation early on and look at what happened to it. As for this last issue, it's merely an okay one. Maybe it was best to end it now instead of trudging on with a book that's never going to be as good as it once was. But I'll miss it. It's going to be tough reading comics knowing The Walking Dead doesn't exist anymore. It's like a punch to the gut...which is kind of like how its always been reading this book. Which is an apt way to end it I suppose, with a shock. **1/2