HULK #1

  

   I can't even remember the last time I was really excited to read a new superhero comic from the big two. Marvel and DC have been pretty forgettable lately for various reasons, but when I heard that writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Ottley were going to be the new team for The Incredible Hulk, I couldn't wait to read it. Cates is Marvel's best writer these days. Not everything he writes is solid gold or anything (his Venom started great and ran out of steam, his Thor run is dull), but he's very creative. With Venom, he literally created an entire new mythology around the character and really reignited a pointless book. Plus, Ryan Ottley is one of my favorite artists ever since he worked on Invincible. Ottley's art just screams superhero. I'm still baffled why he mysteriously left The Amazing Spider-Man and hasn't been drawing anything for the last year. But here's two creators I love with a new #1. So...of course Hulk #1 is kind of a letdown. Maybe, just maybe, I'm not really a Hulk fan. After all, Cates' and Ottley's Hulk #1 comes right after the 50 issue run of The Immortal Hulk that Al Ewing wrote. A ton of people online mentioned multiple times how Ewing's run was one of, if not the, best Hulk runs in history. I tried reading it twice and didn't think it was very good...so maybe I just don't give two shits about the Hulk. I'm not entirely sure if Cates has continued things from Ewing's run or not...but the basic premise is that Bruce Banner is evil and can now control the Hulk from his mind. Banner defeats Tony Stark and takes over a base that Stark had. Everything else is a bit confusing. I will say that Cates is as creative as ever with this book, and that's one of the reasons I usually enjoy is writing. Obviously, we'll have to get further into this run to see what it's going to be about and if it gets better or worse. And while I love Ottley's art...I'm not entirely sure putting him on a Hulk book was the best idea. Ottley's art is more cartoony than anything, so his serious, brutal, powerful Hulk looks a bit less menacing than it's supposed to since the book looks like a cartoon. The color in the book is also not as vibrant as it should be (Frank Martin did the colors). I really hate being so excited about a new book and then being letdown. Maybe I should have reviewed What's The Furthest Place From Here? #1 from Image, which I just read and is a 4 star masterpiece. Oh, well. **

SINISTER WAR #1

 

    Writer Nick Spencer is finally leaving The Amazing Spider-Man in the Fall. Unfortunately, Marvel's genius idea is to have four different writers on it after Spencer's run. Their other genius idea is to replace Peter Parker with his clone and have the clone be the star. So until all of that happens, Spencer has to finish his run by changing the infamous "One More Day" storyline. There's also Spencer's big "Sinister War" storyline to unfold. This is the first part of it, although it's pretty much just a continuation of his Amazing run. If you haven't been reading it then you'll be totally fucking lost. It's also a short mini-series at four issues. It's also pretty dumb. This issue starts off with Dr. Strange having a conversation with Mephisto about Peter Parker's bargain. This happened years ago when Joe Quesada had Peter Parker make a deal with the devil to make his marriage with Mary Jane disappear. Aunt May was shot and the deal let her live. This happened way back in 2007 but fans still seem to hate it and bring it up often, probably why Spencer is going back to change it. I'm not entirely sure why they wanted to get rid of Parker and Mary Jane's marriage in the first place. I suppose it was to free up more stories involving his love life...although has he even dated anyone since then significant? The other reason was to create controversy to sell books. Either way, it looks like Mephisto will renege on his deal somehow and Parker and Mary Jane will get married again. While that subplot is going on, Peter Parker and Mary Jane go to her movie premiere where The Savage Six and The Sinister Six both attack everyone. There's a huge fight. Afterwards, Spider-Man ends up fighting Kindred. And that's part 1. The Sinister Six of course is the infamous group of villains with The Sandman, Kraven, Dr. Octopus, Lizard, and Electro. The Savage Six is a new creation led by The Vulture. Rhino is in it. So are a bunch of nobodies like Tarantula. Mysterio is in this issue but he's supposedly a good guy now. Also he's secretly the director of the movie that Mary Jane starred in. Yep, I said this issue was dumb. It also doesn't help that Mark Bagley drew it. His art is pretty basic and harks back to the 90's...if you're into that old school look. For a short four issue event book that's supposed to be a big deal for Marvel, you'd think they'd get a better artist. It also doesn't help that Spencer's run has turned into a fucking mess. It's never been good and never got better. The one storyline he's continued with for years during his run is the menacing, villain Kindred. Kindred turned out to be (lamely) Harry Osbourne, Norman's son. I'm still not sure if Kindred is supposed to dead, alive, a zombie, supernatural, or what. I'm not entirely sure if even Spencer knows. But the entire run has featured this boring, confusing villain and that certainly never helped. This issue, thank God, is breezier and less wordy than the usual Spencer issue. So it's at least short and mildly amusing. I can't even remember the last time The Amazing Spider-Man was a great book. Was it when McFarlane and Larsen worked on it? Maybe parts of that J. Michael Straczynski run, which featured "One More Day." Will putting four different writers on the book change anything? Sounds like a recipe for incoherence and disaster. I guess we'll see. **

TOM KING WEEK: STRANGE ADVENTURES #10

 Published on May 26th, 2021

    Adam Strange was introduced in 1958, though I never heard of him until this series. His character is pretty much a ripoff of Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter, the American transported to Mars to fight aliens and fall in love with an alien woman. Burrough's also wrote Tarzan, so he definitely was pretty creative. I'm not sure "creative" is the word I would use to describe Tom King. This book is similar to his Rorschach book in that they're both unfolding mysteries that take a really long time to unfold. We're at #10 of #12 and we've finally solved the mystery of this book. The basic premise is that Adam Strange turned into a sadistic murderer to defeat the alien race, the Pykkts. This has seemingly got him into trouble with the Justice League and a superhero called Mr. Terrific because of the killing of innocents and what-not. In this issue, Mr. Terrific tells Adam's wife, Alanna, that Adam's true, secret plan was to make a deal with the Pykkts. He would be able to win the war on Raan, the alien planet, if he would give them Earth. Also, Adam Strange faked his daughter's death and the Pykkts have her as collateral in case the deal falls apart. And that's the whole book. I guess Adam Strange is officially a villain now? Either way, he's another Tom King character that's flawed and has "problems." If it wasn't for the spectacular art by Mitch Gerads and Ethan Shaner (my pick for Best Art of 2020 was this book...it started way back in March 2020), I'm not sure I would care about this book or even continue reading it. Every issue is split between the current time on Earth and the past time during the war on Raan between Adam and the Pykkts. Even with two stories going on, most of the issues in this series feel like filler. Like every Tom King book, it seems like he could do a 12 issue mini-series in half the issues and you wouldn't lose anything. The book is also a little bit too depressing, dark, and ugly for my taste. I've never read an Adam Strange book before, but I kind of think back in '58 he was probably a happy-go-lucky superhero doing fun superhero things. And now he's evil, broken, misguided, a shell of a man. I'm not sure what the point of this book is, and that's kind of a deathblow for me. *1/2

TOM KING WEEK: RORSCHACH #9

 

Published on June 9th, 2021

    I always feel a little uneasy when a something new in the Watchmen universe comes out. The reason is that the writer of Watchmen, Alan Moore, famously was told by DC that he'd get the rights to it back when it wasn't in print anymore. DC then sneakily never let it go out of print so they'd never lose the rights to it. There actually hasn't been much of anything done with Watchmen until ten years ago or so when DC published the Before Watchmen event with multiple books and the Watchmen movie came out. Then there was the great HBO TV show and the Doomsday Clock comic book and now Tom King's Rorschach 12 issue mini-series. The only thing worthwhile in any of that was J.J. Abrahm's HBO show. The comic book sequels/prequels have all been pretty forgettable. Rorschach seems to be the ultimate in pointlessness. After 9 issues, I'm still baffled as to why this exists. The book is a why-dunnit. It starts with a guy dressed up in a Rorschach mask and a girl dressed up like a cowboy being killed while trying to assassinate a politician running for president. The rest of the story follows a detective trying to figure out who those two assassins were and why they attempted it. So far the answers are pretty dull. The guy dressed up like Rorschach was a retired comic book artist. The Kid, a girl in a cowboy outfit, is still a bit of a mystery, though she believes that giant squids are telepathically controlling the world or something stupid. I guess this squid conspiracy has to do with the Trump Qanon conspiracy stuff and how people lose their minds over that sort of thing. In this issue, we learn that a political worker was killed at Rorschach and The Kid's house in the desert. And that's about it. A slow burn is putting it mildly. This book literally could have been wrapped up in one issue. Jorge Fornes does the art, and it definitely fits the 70's political/conspiracy vibe. His stuff reminds me of Outcast's Paul Azaceta a bit. I think the huge problem in this book is that in every issue you're waiting for some huge bombshell to show up and make the book interesting. Otherwise, it feels like it's going nowhere slowly. *1/2

TOM KING WEEK: BATMAN/CATWOMAN #5

 Published on June 2nd, 2020

    I mentioned yesterday that Tom King was fired from Batman. This was a huge story even though he wasn't fired from DC or anything tragic. One of the DC higher ups wanted him off the book. This happened right after King's weird, dream storyline that was terrible. The book was a good seller, so that wasn't the reason he was fired. Just some executive didn't like what he was doing on their big book. It was kind of weird that he was fired considering his run was almost over, anyway. The book was bi-monthly when he was writing it and he left at #85 and was supposed to carry on until around #120. He got to finish his run anyway because it just turned into this 12 issue mini-series, Batman/Catwoman. I read all 85 issues of his run and when it came out it was usually the first book I read that week, so it's not like I loathed it or anything. His run was hit-or-miss, though not particularly memorable. Making Bane the central villain probably didn't help. But his successor, James Tynion IV, hasn't really done anything better. Tynion's run is just boring. 

    Batman/Catwoman is a bit different because it takes place in the future & in the past. Selina Kyle kills The Joker in the future (The Joker is a retired, old dude in Florida). In this issue, Harley Quinn shows up to kill Selina in the future and they have a fight. Meanwhile, in the past, Catwoman meets up with Phantasm, a pseudo-villain. And we get more of Tom King's classic "broken" hero here, as Catwoman spends the present section drunk and reckless. Some things never change.

    The first four issues of this book were released monthly starting in December, but this book was delayed for two months for unknown reasons. Clay Man, the artist, has done phenomenal work on the previous four issues but this issue doesn't look as crisp. That means I'm assuming the delay was his fault for whatever reason.

    Like his 85 issue Batman run, this book feels like it's treading water. The pace is so molasses slow, and there's not a lot of meat to it. Batman does show up in the book but I don't think he even says a word. That Harley Quinn as a senior citizen is still dressing up in costume and acting the part is kind of an odd choice. One of the big surprises in this book, besides The Joker being murdered, is that Catwoman has a daughter, presumably one she had with Bruce Wayne. Will any of this future stuff even be remembered or be considered part of the official DC cannon? 

    This book is strange though it is engrossing. I'm guessing that the DC executive that fired him would read this and feel justified. But sometimes different is good, and I think this mini-series is unique enough to be worth reading.  **1/2

TOM KING WEEK: SUPERGIRL: WOMAN OF TOMORROW #1

Published on June 15th, 2020

   

    This week brings the first issue of writer Tom King's Supergirl 8 issue mini-series. Tom King was famously fired from writing Batman awhile back, so it's kind of amusing to see that he's currently writing 4 books at DC, one of them a Batman book. I guess he wasn't good enough to write the flagship title but he's still good enough to stay at the company? He is one of the more "famous" comic book writers these days. Most of this is due to his Vision mini-series at Marvel, which everyone loved. Now he's kind of a love him or hate him writer, and the ones that hate him love to proclaim their hatred in every corner of the internet. Why he's writing a new Supergirl title and why it even exists is kind of beyond me. Is there a Supergirl movie coming out soon? There was a Supergirl TV show on the CW. It was so popular I'm not entirely even sure if it's still on. And while I have read a lot of Superman comic books over the years, I can't remember ever reading a Supergirl comic or even seeing her in a comic. Who is she? I thought Krypton blew up, everyone died. Why do comic book writers always have people from the Krypton days popping up all of a sudden (Bendis did this with his first big villain of his forgettable run)? I looked up Supergirl on Wikipedia and learned that she was introduced in 1959. She was killed off in 1985 in the Crisis on Infinite Earths event, which I never read. Shocking, really, that she was killed off 35 years ago but is somehow in a new comic book. 

    Tom King's idea for this book, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, is a strange one. It's basically what if Supergirl took a time machine to Conan times. A young peasant girl in a Medieval type world sees her father killed by a brute and she seeks vengeance. Eventually she comes across Supergirl celebrating her 21st birthday in a tavern and tries to get Supergirl to help her kill Krem, the villanious brute that killed her father. By the end of this issue, Krem has stolen Supergirl's ship and taken off to who knows where. So this book is completely separate, at least so far, from the current DC world. I'm kind of wondering why Tom King didn't just want to write a current, typical, Supergirl in Metropolis fighting a villain type of a story. Why do a weird, Medieval set thing? And why have the main character be a peasant girl and not even Supergirl? Another aspect that is a little bit disappointing is that King has made Supergirl a hero with "problems." King loves this trope for some reason; the troubled hero. Supergirl gets introduced by being drunk and then hungover and puking into a bucket. Nice. And she says "fuck" a lot even if they can't print it. While this book at least held by interest, and the art by Bilquis Evely is nice, I think I'd have rather seen King try to write a straightforward, classic, hero vs. villain story in a metropolis in modern times. Supergirl isn't that famous...so why put her in strange, unfamiliar waters out of the gate? **1/2

READING THE CLASSICS: AVENGERS WEST COAST #52

  

Published on December 1st, 1989

   I was kind of wondering when this epic “Vision Quest” storyline would end. The whole Vision aspect ended a few issues ago but the mystery behind Wanda and Vision’s kids kept going until this issue when they’ve finally disappeared for good and Wanda’s memory has been wiped of their existence. I’ll give John Byrne credit, his run on this book is definitely unique because it’s not just a superhero group fighting bad guys. Granted, this issue has a superhero group fighting a bad guy…but there’s a lot more going on, which is a good thing. Mephisto has Wanda’s kids and has fused them onto his arms. There is a reason for this. Wanda wanted children but her husband is an android so, obviously, she couldn’t have kids with him. She used magic to make kids and the magic floating in the ether just happened to contain pieces of Mephisto’s soul. The West Coast Avengers head to Pandemonium to fight Mephisto and eventually the witch, Angela Harkness, helps them defeat him. She also wipes Wanda’s memory of the children since they’re now gone for good. So that’s the end of that. In WandaVision, her kids also disappear at the end…but so does Vision, since he was also a magical, fake creation. I did enjoy WandaVision but maybe some hardcore fans didn’t because I remember a few were upset that Mephisto never showed up in it. If that TV show had faithfully recreated the storyline in these comic books would it have been better? It probably wouldn’t have been as entertaining to the mainstream that adore everything Hollywood Marvel. And really, can you imagine a demon Mephisto with children as hands showing up on Disney+? **