Has He Lost His Mind: Iron Man 3 Trailer Released

So I heard a weird and crazy rumor that that spastic behind the awesome 80s classic film script for Lethal Weapon, the underrated scripts to the 90s movies The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight, and the director behind the vastly underrated 2000s movie Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang was maybe gonna do a superhero movie. A rumor to which I put the normal weight one who has drunk a half-quart of whiskey would normally put.

And then I woke up with a crippling headache, and the following further evidence that one with a legally binding addiction should never comment on movie rumors:

Snap Bad Decisions: X-Factor #245 Review

With God as my witness, I will never understand what possessed writer Peter David and artist Leonard Kirk to open an issue of purely talking head non-action with a giant splash page, complete with Kirby Krackle, of Jamie Madrox heroically calling Havok a fuckup douchebag. It is a big, overblown, bombastic start to an issue that focuses itself on human moments rather than action – even if some of those moments are particularly heated – and on running far more than action.

This issue is all about running. Most of the primary characters of X-Factor’s current incarnation are in the process of trying to run in this book, be it trying to run toward something or away from something. The book eschews basic action in favor of characterization, but that characterization shows characters in real pain, trying to find a way to alleviate the pain of the aftermaths of the X-Factor Breaking Points event that this issue concludes, as well as the Avengers Vs. X-Men event, and it shows it a way that is almost more satisfying than seeing Cyclops clapped in irons and abused and denigrated by all comers… and if you know how I feel about that sanctimonious ruby-lensed hipster shaded douchenozzle, you’d realize what high praise it is indeed to call X-Factor #245 as satisfying as seeing Cyclops beaten, chewed and fucked by prison gangs.

Even if the issue does open with an image that implies that the most important thing in the book is Madrox’s hippocampus apparently violently exploding from the back of his head.

Hard Reboot: Ultimate Comics Iron Man #1 Review

There are a variety of ways to read Ultimate Comics Iron Man #1, some of them cynical, others of them pleasant and forgiving.

The cynical side of me says that this comic book, in the most mercenary manner, throws aside a decade of continuity behind the Ultimate Universe Iron Man in favor of mimicking the depiction of Tony Stark by Robert Downey Jr. in the Marvel Studios movies, in effect putting itself aside in favor of a mass marketed version of the character designed to attract the maximum number of mouth-breathing summer entertainment seekers who don’t have air conditioning at home.
However, the hopeful and forgiving side of me says that the Ultimate Universe version of Tony Stark was originally depicted, in his first two miniseries written by Orson Scott Card, as a blue-skinned wuss who was mostly brain (literally; if I remember right, he sat on his cerebellum and pissed out of his medulla oblongata), with stupid organic armor and, if Card wrote what he knows, special magical underpants. In short, while it is weird to have positive feelings toward a comic book that so quickly and willingly throws away its own identity in favor of a popular movie depiction, the fact is that the old Ultimate Iron Man sucked hard, and Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man was fucking awesome.

So what we got here is one damn strange book. One that feels like a cynical tack toward the widely popular while disgarding its own history… except its own history was mostly the sucky wankings of a controversial writer (not of comics) with some kind of spastic agenda who wrote the character as a snotty naked blue kid who sometimes liked to pretend he was a robot… which is arguably a bad story choice for a character written as having a brain situated in a way where getting a giant-robot-fetish-related atomic wedgie would give him a partial lobotomy.

All of which is a long way to go to describe what’s going on in a comic book stuck between a rock star and a polygamist’s place… but the overriding question is: despite what it is, is it any good?

Back To Square One: Avengers #31 Review

Brian Michael Bendis is soon leaving the Avengers titles after extended runs writing them going back around eight years. That’s a lot of story, including an immeasurable amount of character development, plot twists, and universe building. Most of it good and compelling, some of it not, but no matter what you think of the years of storytelling, you have to admit that it’s had an impact.

Or at least you have to admit that it had an impact. Because regardless of tenure or reach, Bendis does not own the Avengers. And now that he is moving on to Marvel’s X-Men titles, it is now apparently time to take some of the most impactful events of his time at the wheel… and roll them back to the 2003 status quo, just in time for the next guy to take over, do some stuff, and inevitably roll that back when a new person wants to play with the old toys.

In short, welcome to Avengers #31, the first part of the End Times storyline, and what appears to be the final retcon of a couple of the remaining epic events of Bendis’s Avengers story. He appears to be taking this final opportunity to glue the heads back on the last couple of action figures he mangled while he had custody of the toy box… and while it is giving me a temporary feeling of, “Goddammit, again?”, it is probably a wise long-term choice for Marvel… and one that could wind up being satisfying if executed well, if yet another example of showing that, in the comics world, Thomas Wayne, Martha Wayne and Uncle Ben are the unluckiest sons of bitches in the world.

Hey, Kids! Free Comics! Today Only!

It is a crappy fall day here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office in Boston, the kind of day where you just want to stay close to home and light the first fire of autumn… and once the neighbors across the street with their stupid, stupid yap dog that barks every damn night are well and truly burnt out and homeless, you just want to hang out on the couch with some cold whiskey and a comic book, bemoaning your decision to be too broke to attend the New York Comic-Con.

And if you’re stuck in the same situation, you’re in luck… kinda. Because thanks to the New York Comic-Con, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that today is Spider-Man day in the city, and to mark the occasion, Marvel has made the first issue of Ultimate Spider-Man’s Infinite Comic available for free via ComiXology, today only.

I Hate Being Right All The Time

The New York Comic-Con is under full swing, and news is trickling out fast and furious. We reported yesterday about the announcement that Marvel will be releasing The Superior Spider-Man after The Amazing Spider-Man closes up show with issue 700, and how writer Dan Slott is playing things close to the vest as to what will happen to Peter Parker in Amazing Spider-Man #700, who will be under the mask in Superior Spider-Man, and what makes this version of Spider-Man darker than Peter Parker currently is. And in the course of our reporting, I spun out a couple of theories of what is going to happen and who might be behind the mask and why.

Well, that was Thursday’s big story. Yesterday afternoon, at the NYCC Marvel Now panel, Marvel Editor in Chief Axel Alonso revealed the cover to The Superior Spider-Man #2.

Threat Or Menace: Slott on The Superior Spider-Man

So yeah – turns out they were talking about Spider-Man.

Yesterday was the retailer’s breakfast at New York Comic Con where The Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott announced what the hell “Superior” stood for, and apparently he then turned right around and told USA Today that, following the sooper seekrit events of the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man #700 – which will mark the end of that title, at least until someone at Marvel realizes there’s money to be made in releasing a book with the words “Spider-Man” and “800” on the cover – he will be writing a book titled The Superior Spider-Man about… some guy in a Spider-Man suit.

A guy who might, or might not, be Peter Parker.

“I’ve always been the omniscient hand that’s been protecting Peter Parker and Spider-Man, and not letting anything too bad happen to him,” [Slott said]. “And now I’ve become this cruel god. There’s something exciting about that, about going, ‘Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha, here is what’s going to happen to you, Spider-Man!’ And it’s drastic and it’s big and it’s exciting and it’s never been done before.”

So here’s what we know: Slott says that in The Amazing Spider-Man #700, Doctor Octopus has only one day to live, and he knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, and he is going to do something unfriendly to Pete. And whatever that thing is, it is going to lead to a somewhat darker Spider-Man.

So what do you have in mind, Dan?

Mistaken Identity: Uncanny Avengers #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: If we can’t save the Earth… you can be damn sure we’ll spoil it.

It is never a promising sign when the very first page of a new comic book is so confusing and misleading, it forces you to flip back from the middle of the book to the beginning to understand what the hell is going on.

Welcome to Uncanny Avengers #1, a decent book with some good dialogue that, unfortunately, opens with the storytelling equivalent of a dude putting down his beer, picking up an M-80, shouting “check this out!” and blowing off all his fingers.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

Baboons, Brontosaurs and Boobs: Frank Cho’s Savage Wolverine Announced By Marvel

Apparently Marvel realized that their one-word teaser, “Savage,” was about as inscrutable and murky as Crystal Pepsi, so they figured they might as well make things official.

Frank Cho will be writing and drawing the Marvel Now new series Savage Wolverine. Not to be confused with The Savage Hawkman from DC Comics; that book was about an angry guy with metal claws who liked liquor, but he could also fly, making it totally different.

Cho, best known in the superhero comic book world for his artwork on New Avengers and Mighty Avengers, and his writing / drawing of Shanna The She-Devil (not counting the giant vagina he drew on the cover of Avengers Vs. X-Men #0), is widely-known as a cheesecake guy, and therefore is totally the most obvious choice to write and draw a short, hairy, foulmouthed drunkard (Look, Ma! I’m in a comic!).

What made you wanna take the gig, Frank?

Flashpoint: Avengers Vs. X-Men #12 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: No more spoilers. Actually, a lot more spoilers.

Avengers Vs. X-Men #12 is a hard book to review because it endeavors to do a whole lot of things all at once. First, it needs to resolve the fact that Dark Phoenix is running around in the body of a petulant dink, and it generally accomplishes that. Second, considering the story was about two linchpins of the Marvel Universe, they had to, pretty much for the first time since the series started by showing Cyclops acting like he was one bad night away from handing the X-Men Nikes, track suits and tainted Kool-Aid, introduce some ambiguity as to who the good guys and the bad guys were, and it accomplishes that damn well.

However, one of the things it needed, and tried, to do, was rehabilitate the Scarlet Witch after the events of Avengers: Disassembled in 2004, when she single-handedly wiped out pretty much all the mutants in the 616. It also needed, given the commitment by Marvel editorial to integrate the X-Men back into the more mainstream, non-mutant based books, to make sure that there were actually X-Men around to add to the Avengers books. And it certainly accomplishes both of those things, but it does it in a strangely unsatisfying way, a way that feels like the decision was made that many of the main events of the past seven or eight years of Marvel stories simply don’t matter. It is the final nail in the events of Disassembled – Hawkeye’s alive again, the Vision’s back, and now the mutants are all returning – and it feels like someone at Marvel, be it Axel Alonso or Joe Quesada or Brian Michael Bendis or Ike Perlmutter, dusted off their hands and said, “There! Now we’re back to 1999!”

We make a lot of jokes here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives about how vehemently Marvel protests that they don’t reboot, but make no mistake: Avengers Vs. X-Men #12 is a reboot. The only question is: it is a good one?