Brand New Day: Invincible #100 Review

Editor’s Note: We can’t afford to be innocent. Stand up and face the spoilers.

Over ten years, Invincible has evolved from a book about a teenaged hero learning both his powers and how to balance being a superhero and a high school student, into an experiment in comic superhero universe building. Seriously: this book has gone from a relatively small-scale story about a dude whose dad was basically Superman, fighting small-scale villains like mad bombers blowing up high school kids, to a seriously ambitious epic about interstellar travel, interplanetary war, politics and intrigues across multiple race, numerous superteams, and a pinkish, one-eyed powerhouse named Allen. Okay, some parts were more ambitious than others, but that’s not the point.

The point is that Invincible, over the years, became something that in almost no way resembled what it started out as: a simple superhero book that was pretty reminiscent of early Spider-Man. And as with The Amazing Spider-Man, Invincible has built up a huge amount of continuity that could make the book inscrutable to new readers. Which means that, as with The Amazing Spider-Man, it seems that writer Robert Kirkman has decided that, with Invincible #100, it’s time for a good, old-fashioned reboot.

Sticky Fingers: The Superior Spider-Man #2 Review

Editor’s Note: Let me go wild, like a spoiler in the sun…

The problem with The Superior Spider-Man #2 is the scene. The scene.

You will know The Scene when you see it. In fact, you will have some difficulty unseeing it. And given that Doc Ock is occupying Peter Parker’s body, and given that Ock, a former ugly duckling, is suddenly in the body of a guy that can allow him to do things that he has never been able to do, while not necessarily understanding how to do those things, the scene makes complete and total sense.

And yet The Scene overpowers almost everything else in the issue, and it does it unnecessarily. Sure, it serves a purpose in furthering a main plot point, but it does it in a way where you almost won’t remember the plot point it furthers. The Scene just about turns this issue into the comics equivalent of Vincent Gallo’s Brown Bunny: do you have any idea what Brown Bunny is about? Of course not, all you know is that Gallo got his cock sucked by Chloe Sevigny on camera.

And we will address The Scene, and how it affects the comic… which, in spite of the scene, gives us more Peter Parker than I would have expected even a month ago, and which finally shows some real signs that maybe, just maybe, Otto Octavius really has some elements to be a superior Spider-Man… and, in some areas, a superior Peter Parker.

You know, if you can get past The Scene.

Pulp With A (Bad) Twist: The Spider #8 Review

For most people, when they think about pulp fiction, they think about period pieces. They picture men in tailored clothing driving vintage Packards, going from swanky cocktail party to party, pausing only to could mens’ minds and then shoot them in the face with a .45 before flying off on a rocket pack or autogyro or something. This is probably a natural association, as most of the classic pulp stories were published in the early 20th century, back when if a man wanted a little titilation, he needed to purchase a nickel story about a pulp hero rescuing a scantily-clad dame in chained dangers. You know, as opposed to today, when a man can pound his fist on his computer keyboard and see pictures of women and fine china, but not using it in a way that Lamont Cranston would find appropriate.

But that’s not necessarily what pulp fiction is at all. For your standard debonair urban pulp vigilante, all you need is a rich socialite, preferably an industrialist, with resources, an ally or group of allies working with him in his crusade on crime, and some kind of costume for his nocturnal activities. Oh – and a gun, and the willingness to use it. Sure, sometimes it’s better to place it in the 1930s or 1940s, when the idea of a guy being able to run around killing criminals without being caught made more sense since most people believed that a “fingerprint” was some form of sex act, possibly related to a Rusty Trombone, but the era doesn’t matter if you have the core elements at place.

So by that measure, The Spider #8, written by David Liss with art by Ivan Rodriguez, is most decidedly a pulp story. Richard Wentworth is a wealthy industrialist with a bodyguard who helps him in his adventures, a Margo Lane in reporter Nita Van Sloan, and even a gimmicky nemesis. And he has a pair of guns to completely make the nut. And it does it all set in good old 21st Century urban America… but it also does it with the worst of pulp tropes: a plot twist so obvious that a blind man could see it coming. For all the cool modernized pulp elements of The Spider #8, it most decidedly will not cloud any man’s mind.

Steampunk Ghostbusters: Witch Doctor: Mal Practice #3 Review

Witch Doctor has always been a book that has been pretty unabashed about wearing its influences on it’s sleeve. If you take a step back – and not even a big step – and unfocus your eyes a little bit, you can see past the characters on the page and see Ghostbuster jumpsuits, with Dr. Gregory House peeking out from Dr. Vincent Morrow’s eyes, and if you could get your hands on the plans for any given building, in the book, you’d probably see “Tim Burton, Architect” signed at the bottom.

This should be a recipe for disaster. After all, think about every groundbreaking hit movie you’ve seen, and then think about how many “homages” to that hit that came out a year and a half later, and how good they actually were. Sure, everyone loves Raiders of The Lost Ark, but a dare you to find me someone who pops wood over, say,Nate & Hayes, orHigh Road to Chinaor even someone who remembers them without resorting to IMDB – and one of those even starred the guy who was originally cast as Indiana Jones. Sure, the parts are all there, but just because they were magic in one place doesn’t mean they can work when you grab them and drop them someplace else.

So yeah: if you stop and think too much about Witch Doctor: Mal Practice #3 too much, you’ll see all the pieces working under the hood. And, depending on what kind of reader you are, that might prove too distracting to really get into the book. Which would be a shame, because even though you can see all the influences at work, writer Brandon Seifert and artist Lukas Ketner has put together one hell of a fun book, with entertaining and funny dialogue, nifty gadgets, and satisfying action. Sure, you’ve seen some of what underpins this story before… but you don’t see it done well often.

Kill Your Heroes: Deadpool Killustrated #1 Review

So Deadpool goes around killing every major hero in the history of literature. Fuck it, why not?

Deadpool Killustrated #1 is the first issue of what is supposed to be the sequel to Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe, but if you haven’t read it it’s not like it really matters. The theory behind the whole thing is that, in a non-616 version of the Marvel Universe, Deadpool has become aware that he is a fictional character, and he has killed all the other Marvel heroes to set them free from the tyranny of fandom, and yet he is still looking for a way to escape the world of fiction, and blah, blah, blah. Does you really give a shit?

The point is that this book is an excuse to have Deadpool use some truly impressive firepower to kill heroic characters from classic literature. So to say that Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe is the origin of Deadpool Killustrated is arbitrary. You might as well say that the origin of Deadpool Killustrated was writer Cullen Bunn, a six pack of Sam Adams and a pinner joint.

And I really don’t care. Because no matter why it is here, while it is not quite as well-thought as its predecessor (which is like saying that cotton candy isn’t quite as nutritious as Peanut M&Ms), it is big, stupid, goofy fun.

Overkill: Nightwing #16 Review

I now know where Walter White got all the cash he’s keeping in that storage unit in Breaking Bad: from The Joker. Because the only possible explanation for how Joker could not only take over and gin up Arkham Asylum the way he did in Batman #16, but set up the amusement park in the intricate way he did in Nightwing #16, is with a pile of azure crank so big it would make Tony Montana reconsider his life choices.

Nightwing #16 continues this month’s series of individual penultimate chapters of the Death of The Family event, which means that Joker is finally springing his trap against Nightwing. And, as in the beginning of this month of stories as established in Batman #16, Joker’s trap is so elaborate, hideous and wide-ranging that you will have a moment, while reading the story, where you say to yourself, “Um… Joker would have to have a team of trained engineers, including outsourced talent, to be able to pull this off. How does one find a demolitions engineer in another city? Do you go on Monster.com and search on ‘explosives,’ ‘9-11 hoax,’ and ‘Lyndon LaRouche’?”

So what writer Kyle Higgins has done here is to create a deathtrap so wide-ranging and intricate that it almost beggars belief. We have elements here that would require significant travel, transportation and varied expertise to pull off, not to mention days and days without sleep to do it in less than a few months. And on top of it, it almost requires Joker to know that Dick Grayson is Nightwing, so if DC decides to back off that plot point when the series is over, they’re gonna have a real problem unless someone along the line gives Joker some kind of meatball lobotomy, or maybe bring in Superman under the assumption that New 52 Supes has the same power set as Christopher Reeve in Superman II.

It’s almost an insurmountable challenge… but Higgins redeems himself by making Joker’s motivations and explanations for taking action against Nightwing somewhat compelling, even as the scope of what his motivations have led him to do simply beggar belief.

Well, he mostly redeems himself.

Don’t Know What You’ve Got Til It’s Gone: Winter Soldier #14 Review

I’ve been reading, and to varying degrees, enjoying, the books of the Marvel Now relaunch (but not a reboot! Because Marvel doesn’t reboot! And there have always been enough readers who give a tinker’s shit about Havok to put him on an Avengers team!), but the more I read, the more I am beginning to believe that we have just come off the back side of one hell of an era of Marvel comics. I mean, look back to, say, Civil War. Since then, and up until the Marvel Now books, we had Spider-Man’s Brand New Day and Dan Slott’s run of stories on that title. We’ve had Bendis’s Avengers and New Avengers arcs. Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man, and Christos Gage’s Avengers Academy. And while not all of the crossover events have been great shakes (everyone gets a hammer? Really?), you gotta admit that Marvel, in general, put out one hell of a run of comics in that period between 2006 and 2011.

And through it all has been Ed Brubaker on the Captain America titles. From the reincarnation of Bucky to the death of Captain America to his rebirth to the launch of Winter Soldier, Brubaker has delivered some damn good action / espionage stories through the years, and have singlehandedly put Captain America on my pull list for the first time, well, ever.

Well, Brubaker is already off of Captain America in favor of Rick Remender, but he has remained on Winter Soldier… until now. Brubaker says goodbye to Bucky and Captain America, at least for now, with Winter Soldier #14. And while I had some issues with the early issues of the title (somewhere along the line, we went from Captain America being martyred in the aftermath of Civil War to a filthy Commie monkey with a machine gun), as a swan song for Brubaker’s run in Cap and Bucky’s world, it is true to form, a fitting conclusion for his work with the character… and a reminder that we are in a whole new world with Marvel Now… for good or ill.

Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be: The Bionic Man Vs. The Bionic Woman #1 Review

As someone who was young enough to have the battery of Six Million Dollar Man toys as a kid – somewhere there exists an eight-track recording of me squealing with glee over my Maskatron Christmas gift that would earn me a scornful beating at my local dive bar – I reacted enthusiastically over the original, Kevin Smith plotted The Bionic Man series from Dynamite. As a modernization of Steve Austin’s origin story, which I still maintain is one of the classics of the sci-fi superhero genre, it was exciting and interesting while hitting all the old notes from the TV show that I loved so much as a your child.

The problems has been that you only get to tell an origin story once, unless you’re DC Comics. Since the opening arc, I’ve found that The Bionic Man has floundered by, well, trying to modernize more of the old Six Million Dollar Man story elements. Specifically, Bigfoot. Yes, there has been a lot of Bionic Bigfoot in The Bionic Man in recent months, and I’m sorry, but it’s not 1977 anymore. If you’re gonna have a Bigfoot in a story and it doesn’t pop the head off that hick in the “Gone Squatchin'” hat that I cackle at every week on The Soup, you’re missing the only opportunity that makes any sense for Bigfoot in 2013.

Because the problem endemic to any superhero story is that, eventually, that hero needs a superpowered villain to fight. And if it’s 1978 and you only have a TV-level special effects budget, sure: why not Bigfoot? He’s a gorilla suit with some wires sticking out of it. But these are comic books, with an unlimited special effects slush fund, so to force these characters to battle the bad guys whipped up by people who thought that wide polyester lapels and disco were good ideas has just left me cold.

So enter Dynamite’s The Bionic Man Vs. The Bionic Woman miniseries, where writer Keith Champagne takes the obvious choice for a superpowered antagonist and apparently embraces the old superhero comic trope of heroes fighting before joining forces… maybe. It’s too early to tell how the two characters, who never meet in the first issue, will interact, but at least there’s no arbitrary threat with bionics slapped into it for them to fight, right?

Right?

The Gun’s The Thing: The Black Beetle #1 Review

I’ve always believed that the difference between a superhero comic book and a pulp hero story is a gun, and the willingness to use it for its intended purpose. Sure, they have costumes and gadgets and secret headquarters in common, but in the end, the gun’s the thing. Batman has a batarang, The Shadow has a gun. Iron Man has repulsor rays, The Spider has a gun. Everything else is just setting, antagonist and motivation.

If you accept that fine, bright line – and there’s no reason you necessarily should, since my own acceptance of it varies depending on what I’m reading and how much whiskey was involved beforehand – then writer / artist Francesco Francavilla’s The Black Beetle, despite having the word “pulp” on the cover, is very much a superhero comic. The hero has a Beetlemobile, a gyrocopter backpack, and a secret headquarters… but he also defines himself as not being a killer, and he uses tranquilizer darts instead of bullets.

But he has a gun. Two of them, actually. Sweet-looking Colt M1911s that he wields and shoots two handed, like, well, The Shadow. So while this doesn’t technically meet my definition of “pulp,” it’s close enough. And it is one hell of a lot of fun… if a little light on some of the details.

Major Distractions: Captain Marvel #9 Review

I generally read superhero comics for a momentary escape from the horrific tedium of work and errands and appointments and the horror – the absolute savage and crippling fucking horror – of having to talk to people. After a day of interacting with humans in unpleasant scenarios, there’s nothing more fun than watching people with otherworldly powers stomp the living shit out of super villains, giant monsters, and during summer crossover event season, each other.

I’ve always found it relaxing and empowering, after a long day, to turn off the phone, turn off the brain with some strong drink, and imagine that I could be one of those people in costume, flying around and kicking ass – no one else wishes this of me, due to how my bloated, middle-aged ass would look in one of those costumes, but to hell with them – because generally those superheroes don’t have to slog through the same repetitive, boring shit that the rest of us do.

Unless you’re Captain Marvel. Who spends a surprising amount of Captain Marvel #9 having to put up with exactly the kind of rotten, irritating, day-to-day shit that we do, only with some distractions thrown in… provided you consider an unexpected dinosaur attack to be distracting. I probably wouldn’t, thanks to my previously-mentioned propensity for strong drink, but that’s not the point. The point is that we spend a lot of Captain Marvel #9 watching Carol Danvers keeping appointments… and yet it is actually a fairly compelling and entertaining book to read.

Not to look at, but we’ll get to that.