DEVIL'S REIGN #1

 

    For years now, Daredevil has been consistently Marvel's best book. The reason is fairly obvious: Marvel puts great writers on Daredevil and leaves them on the title for years. The modern Daredevil renaissance started when Bendis did a run that got everyone talking. Brubaker took over and, for my money, wrote one of the best runs of any mainstream superhero comic in the new century. Andy Diggle did Shadowland, which most people hated, but I enjoyed his run. Mark Waid did a colorful run. Charles Soule did a good run. And now we've got Chip Zdarsky, who put Matt Murdock in jail for murder, made Wilson Fisk the mayor of NYC, and made Elektra the new Daredevil. I don't necessarily think of Daredevil being a better, more interesting character than other Marvel heroes like the Hulk or Spider-Man or anyone, but perhaps his world is just a great place for writers to play in. Whatever the magic is, it's been the best Marvel book for over a decade now. Every writer makes it unique and adds some interesting choices. And now we've got the first big Daredevil mega event since Shadowland. Devil's Reign starts out with the same plot as Marvel's infamous Civil War event book. Wilson Fisk as mayor has added a new NYC law banning superheroes. This is because he's mad at Daredevil because Fisk forgot Daredevil's secret identity. The reason he forgot it is because The Purple Man, Jessica Jones' old nemesis, had kids that had a cult that made the world forget Daredevil's secret identity. Uh...okay. I'll admit that the first half of Devil's Reign #1 isn't that great. By the end, though, it had me hooked. Fisk starts stabbing The Purple Man at the end, getting purple blood splashed all over his face. Will this somehow give Fisk the powers of persuasion that The Purple Man has? Who knows? Also, Fisk is now running for President of the U.S. And since this is a Marvel event and not just a Daredevil story, we get a bunch of other heroes in this like The Fantastic Four and Spider-Man and Tony Stark, who's going to run for mayor of NYC against Fisk. So there's definitely a lot going on in this issue, which is #1 of #6. And since this is Marvel, get ready for the onslaught of tie-in books that nobody is going to read. Spider-Woman and Moon Knight are the only regular titles getting thrown into this storyline, but there are also a bunch of brand new mini-series coming out. There's Daredevil: Woman Without Fear, Luke Cage: City of Fire, Devil's Reign: Superior Four, and Devil's Reign: X-Men. There are actually a bunch of others, I'm just too lazy to list them all. For this main book. Chip Zdarsky is writing it and so far Marco Checchetto is drawing it. Checchetto's art is not the greatest, but it's decent. The story is pretty crazy, actually, which makes this a fun, wild read. I'm looking forward to #2. I can't even remember the last time I thought that about a Marvel event. ***

BATMAN #118

 

    When writer Tom King was fired from Batman, I swore that Brian Bendis would eventually be the new writer. I'm not sure what happened, but Brian Bendis' DC exclusive contract ended and he's not writing any DC books at the moment. Perhaps the DC brass actually read a few issues of his awful run on the two Superman titles? Or maybe none of his books sold well. Either way, the new writer on Batman is not, in fact, Brian Bendis. It's Joshua Williamson, DC's latest "it" boy now that James Tynion IV quit DC to go to Substack. Williamson was once a good, interesting writer. He wrote 3 Image books that were entertaining; Nailbiter, Birthright, and Ghosted. Sadly, he joined DC and for whatever reason his writing has fallen off kind of like how Jason Aaron's writing decreased in quality once he became a big name. I haven't read everything Williamson has written at DC, but the few issues of The Flash I did read were forgettable and his last Nailbiter series for Image was atrocious. But Batman has not been a great book in almost a decade. Tom King's run was hit or miss and Tynion's run was unexciting and mostly dull. So what was Williamson's big pitch going to be? Batman fighting The Penguin or something we've all seen before? Nope! Although Batman fighting a classic rogues gallery does happen in this issue. But Williamson's idea for Batman is actually something new and fresh. His great idea is to take Bruce Wayne and Batman out of Gotham City. First off, that's a terrible idea. I suppose a great writer might be able to pull it off...but even that I doubt. This first issue of Williamson's run starts off with a homage scene to the first scene in Tim Burton's Batman film. That's fantastic. Then there's a Billionaire's Ball that's also a costume ball where everyone is dressed up like villains such as The Joker and Mr. Freeze and what-not. Bad guys attack the ball, Batman saves the day. Then we get to the meat of the book; Batman, Inc., a motley group of "other" Batmen have been arrested for murder in some far off, foreign city. Batman goes there to investigate and ends up finding Lex Luthor there as well. The best thing I can say about this issue is the art. Jorge Molina and Mikel Janin did the art, although I'm not exactly sure who did what. Did they just both draw every page? Did Janin just polish it up? Did Janin ink it? The art looks prestigious, anyway. As for the story: you usually want to be hooked in a first issue and dying to read the next issue after a great climax. Seeing Lex Luthor show up just makes me care less about this book. And do I give a shit about Batman investigating a murder in another city far away from Gotham? Nope. I had high hopes for this new team simply because Tynion's run was so disagreeable. Now I'm just sad. Is it that fucking hard to write a good Batman book? Jesus. *1/2

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #80: "BEYOND" CHAPTER 6

  

   Nick Spencer left The Amazing Spider-Man to go work at Substack, the online newsletter site that somehow has seemingly billions of dollars to spend by offering contracts to every important comic book writer. Good riddance, as Spencer's run on The Amazing Spider-Man will go down as one of the worst in history. While the infamous, years long "Clone Saga" run might not have been the worst ever, it certainly was divisive. It ran from 1994 to 1996, a period that I didn't read Marvel comic books for one reason or another. The only thing I know about it is that Ben Reilly, Peter Parker's clone, became Spider-Man, and most people that read it back then either loved it or hated it. I doubt I'll ever read the "Clone Saga" simply because it took place over multiple years and multiple books and I don't think I want to read hundreds of issues. Well the new writers on The Amazing Spider-Man decided to make Ben Reilly Spider-Man again and be the star of the book. I'm not sure why they did this, though. I'd be happy if the book was just monthly and had one artist and one writer and Peter worked at The Bugle, look pictures, dated MJ, and fought bad guys. Oh, well. This issue, #80 (#881 in reality numbering), is Part 6 of 17 in the "Beyond" storyline. The book is now 3 times a month and has a whopping 5 writers working on it. No, I have no idea why there are 5 writers on this. Maybe if the story was shockingly awesome I wouldn't question it. After Spencer's terrible run, anything would be stellar, and "Beyond" has started out at least interesting. Peter Parker is in a coma. Ben Reilly is working for the Beyond Corporation who is controlling Spider-Man as a sort of corporate puppet with high-tech gadgetry. Of course the Beyond Corporation will turn out to be evil and Parker will wake up and return eventually. In this issue we have Ben Reilly fighting Kraven the Hunter. The climax has two big reveals; that the Beyond Corp wants to take out Miles Morales because they don't want another Spider-Man around and that Aunt May is getting Dr. Octopus to help her wake Peter up from his coma which is under mysterious circumstances. So there's a lot going on. The whole Kraven storyline, which lasted a mere two issues, was totally forgettable. It doesn't help that the Kraven mythos was fantastic but they fucked it up by bringing him back from the grave. And while this "Beyond" storyline is decent, I'm actually really excited what they're going to do after this. Will they keep 5 writers on board? What about the artists? This issue has Michael Dowling doing the art (it's okay) but they also have the superior Patrick Gleason doing some issues. All of the great covers are by Art Adams, although this particular cover is kind of lame. Spider-Man is a great character. Do you really need a frigging clone replacing him? Are they that bereft of ideas in this day and age? It took 5 writers to re-do the "Clone Saga?" Marvel's been floundering for awhile. Wake me up when they wake up. **