Comic Review -- Avengers vs. X-Men #4 / Jonathan Hickman, John Romita, Jr., Scott Hanna, and Laura Martin

I know I've been pretty critical of this series, but I must admit I like this cover.  It says, "Get Hope."  We've got the young lass on the run, the Phoenix getting nearer, and two teams full of heroes hot on her trail.  It sells the issue pretty well, and Jim Cheung's pencils here really make it look pretty.

Wolverine, who has done a hilariously admirable job of surviving in the Antarctic since Captain America marooned him there last issue, is picked up by Hope Summers, who tells him he's the only one she trusts to finish her off if she can't control the Phoenix--but, she stipulates, she deserves a chance to try.  Wolverine reluctantly agrees, and as the other teams fight each other while trying to track Hope down, he raids  the A.I.M. Worldworks and helps her secure a shuttle to the moon.  Once there, she is confronted by the Avengers and the X-Men, who threaten to start fighting over her fate once more, until Thor comes careening into their location.  He's been hit hard by the Phoenix Force--which has just appeared to all of them.

It's too late.  For better or worse, the Phoenix is on hand.  If it's gunning for Hope, it will probably get her.

Things finally got a lot more interesting in this issue.  I'm not sure if it's due to Jonathan Hickman's deft handling of the material or if there was an emergency editorial meeting that mandated things actually get more readable, but either way, this issue is a marked improvement over what's come so far.  Hope's seeking out of Wolverine for the reason she ostensibly ran away--that he was willing to kill her--was unexpected, and makes me a little more willing to give the girl a chance in the hero department.  Up until now, she's just been a badly written teen, full of snot and noise at all the wrong times; now, she's shown a real willingness to own up to how big all this Phoenix business is, and I do like that.

The beginning of this issue had me in stitches, for two reasons.  First, seeing that Wolverine killed a polar bear and used it as a gory overcoat was nothing short of hilarious.  And of course, Hope using beer cans as bread crumbs to lure Wolverine to her aircraft was a tension-breaking touch of genius that showed that Hope--along with Hickman--knows how to motivate the tough-talking mutant.  Brilliant.

The montage of fight scenes between the two teams as they work their way around the world in search of Hope felt a little obligatory and really did little to add to the story except remind you to BUY AVX VS FOR THE FULL STORY OF THESE FIGHTS.  While I intend to do so--the writing in the first one was better than the writing I'd seen in the first three issues of this main series--I think it's worth saying that this kind of blatant salesmanship is a little insulting to the reader.  If you want to make these fight scenes important to the main narrative, I'm all for them, but for fate's sake, MAKE THEM RELEVANT.

Finally, there's the artwork.  I don't think I've made any secret that I'm not fond of John Romita, Jr.'s artwork for something this expansive and wide-ranging, so I'll stop crowing as much about it for a while.  I will say there's been some moderate improvement in various scenes, particularly the ones where he's just focused on one or two characters per panel.  I really did like the partially shadowed Wolverine at the A.I.M. base after he's just gotten done slaughtering a bunch of bad guys.  His renditions of Hope are also pretty good in some places as well.  It's like when he's just got a little to concentrate on, he does decent.

Overall, I'd say this issue is worth picking up.  The writing is engaging, the artwork is a little more palatable, and things really appear to be coming to a head.  Highly recommended.

Comic Review -- Avengers vs. X-Men #3 / Ed Brubaker, John Romita, Jr., Scott Hanna, and Laura Martin

I really like the cover of this issue.  It's intense, personal, and vicious as Cap and Wolverine struggle for dominance.  Costumes are torn, sweat and what appears to be blood are flying, and both men are determined to beat the other.  The artwork itself is wonderful, and it really sells the idea that this issue will contain some violence.

Wolverine recovers from his ordeal with Hope and is told that Cyclops and the X-Men have surrendered.  While Cap and Iron Man argue about how to handle their new prisoners, Wolverine immediately recognizes that the X-Men are merely playing possum, and isn't able to prevent them from escaping by using Magik to teleport away.  Both teams set out to locate and retrieve Hope, but she's gone and found a way to scramble Cerebra's sensors into putting her at five different locations across the world, forcing them to split up.

While talking with her over the intercom from Wolverine's school, Wolverine detects some attitude from Rachel, who it turns out is feeding information to the X-Men.  Cap confronts Wolverine about his inability to follow orders and how he tried to kill Hope, and Wolverine responds that he knows how to deal with the Phoenix, and that Cap won't be able to save Hope from the Phoenix Force.  A fight breaks out between them, and Wolverine is expelled from their shuttle.  Calling Cap a blind old-fashioned fool, Wolverine pulls himself up and sets out after them, convinced that their fates are all up to him.

I will say, the writing in this issue has gotten a little better than what I saw in Round 2, but that's actually not saying much.  I think Ed Brubaker is doing what he can to ameliorate the poor direction of this story, which has clearly been written by committee.  Great swaths of action get glossed over, and some plot points are just flat-out ignored.  So the X-Men all surrendered, off the page?  Not impossible, I suppose, but given the amount of event skipping already portrayed in this series, I'd think the writers would want to keep bridging events on the page.  And why was the fight between Dr. Strange and Magik not shown?  If she can beat the Sorceror Supreme, I want to see how!

Also, if Emma was effectively de-psionicized in the last issue, why does she only regain her abilities after they've escaped from the Avengers?  If she actually had recovered her telepathy at that point, she could have just shut all the Avengers down psychically.  Why didn't she?  It just seems the logical effects of the storyline are discarded or ignored at the whims of the writers, no matter how ridiculous it looks.

I was happy, however, to see that Wolverine's conflict with Cap didn't directly involve him having a change of heart and deciding he wanted to fight on Scott's side now.  It came about for a perfectly plausible reason, though I am more than a little skeptical that Captain America is only now realizing how far Logan would go to defeat the Phoenix Force.  It really raises the question of just how much research Cap's done about the Phoenix Force and the X-Men's brush with it.  Any idiot should know that the X-Men have faced this thing several times, and are both more experienced and more vicious in dealing with it.

I was also glad they at least acknowledged the parallels to the Civil War in this issue, as they were becoming very obvious.  While Scott is not free of blame here--he was written like a crazy person in issue #1--Cap is increasingly showing his lack of preparation and realism in this arc.  He's brushed off the input of two X-Men experienced in dealing with the Phoenix; he was willing to imprison the X-Men for getting in his way, when there was technically no call to do that--I'm glad Iron Man was the one to call him on that; and he basically pulls a Spock on Wolverine when he won't start marching to his orders, ejecting him out the shuttle.

Art-wise... John Romita, Jr. is again drawing far too wide a scale for his work to come off as anything but rushed, blocky, and distracting.  Nuff said.

Overall, I'd say this is an improvement over the last issue, though between JRJR's art and the flawed storytelling, it still leaves a lot to be desired.  The fight between Wolverine and Cap is pretty cool, and while I'm not surprised to see the X-Men still have a few tricks up their sleeve, they didn't really do much this issue.  Recommended.

Comic Review -- Avengers vs. X-Men #2 / Jason Aaron, John Romita, Jr., Scott Hanna, and Laura Martin

This cover is okay, but it does seem a little crowded this time around.  You've got nearly a dozen people on it, engaged in battle, and with the exception of the characters in the forefront, everyone's a bit overlit from the Phoenix flash coming from Hope Summers in the background.  It's not bad, really, and I can understand the need to convey the grand scale of the battle between the teams, but I think this effort could have come off better.

The gauntlet has been thrown down, so to speak, and the Avengers are engaging the X-Men in hand to hand combat, now that Cyclops has fired on Captain America.  As the battle begins, we see a jumble of match-ups and taunting as friends fight friends, lines are crossed, and relationships are stretched to the breaking point.  By the time the Avengers reach Hope, she has begun to feel the power of the Phoenix Force, and busts her way out of Utopia, leaving the skirmish behind to go and look for the Phoenix Force.  Meanwhile, in outer space, a team of Avengers has reached the approaching cosmic entity, and are preparing to battle it in the hopes of stopping it from reaching Hope.

I've got quite a few problems with this issue, a few of which stem from the previous issue's lead-in to the present.  For instance, Scott starts fighting with Cap out in the water, and the X-Men and the Avengers rush into the fray soon afterwards.  Now we seem to be back just before the fight, where something completely different happens.  Scott's standing with the X-Men, who are now asking him what the hell he's done, while the Avengers, up in the Helicarrier, contemplate the fact that they're about to engage the X-Men.

How the hell is that scene logical in terms of the previously established action?

There's a lot of taunting and smack-talking in this issue between combatants, which I can understand, but there is an undeniable air of awkwardness that comes from it all, as if in an attempt to squeeze as much meaning into each conflict, it all comes out stilted and artificial.  Yes, I know Tony Stark and Emma Frost had a thing some time back, but you don't need to insert that into the dialog.  Just pit the two against each other and let them fight.

Now, I will say that some of the descriptions are engaging, as Aaron puts a perspective on, say, the punch thrown by Emma Frost at Iron Man, or the Mach 5 family reunion between Quicksilver and Magneto, or the marital discord between Storm and Black Panther, complete with hurricane-force winds.  They get a little cheesy and overused at some points, but I do like them a lot more than much of the dialog employed.

I continue to dislike Hope, who continues to vacillate between brashness and idiocy at all the wrong times when she's not swaying to the call of the Phoenix.  By the time she's taken down the friends and allies trying to protect her and Wolverine shows up intent on killing her, I halfway want him to gut the little brat.  This isn't something I fault Aaron's writing for so much as the direction that's been taken with her by committee up to this point.  She's a Mary-Sue character without any redeeming qualities so far, and I have no sympathy or even liking for her at this point.

Finally, there's the art.  I know there are people out there who love John Romita, Jr. and worship the ground he walks on, and under certain circumstances, I'm a fan of his too.  But when it comes to large-scale, wide-ranging epic scenes of battle, I just can't get behind his style.  The art looks too rushed in panels featuring more than three characters at a time, and the overall aesthetic just comes off as too cartoony and awkward. Please, for the sake of reason, find another artist for this story!

Overall, I'm more than a little disappointed by this issue.  It has its good points, but between the clumsily relayed jumble of activities going on, the artwork that leaves much to be desired, and the central character who just oozes unlikability, I'm just not impressed with this one.  I think there's too much crammed into this story, and if the creators could take a less bloated and chaotic approach to the story, it would improve it immensely.

Many of the tie-ins to AvX work very well because they're telling a story, not squeezing an elephant onto a canoe.  It's for that reason that I'll stick with this limited series, but I don't think the main title is all that impressive, so far.

Barely recommended, with serious reservations.

Comic Review -- Avengers vs. X-Men #1 / Brian Michael Bendis, John Romita, Jr., Scott Hanna, and Laura Martin

The cover for this issue is decently drawn, but suffers from two things.  First and foremost, it's crowded as hell, which I understand.  Some covers are simply going to look like this, especially when you have a story covering two large super-hero teams.  That doesn't stop it from looking primarily like a bunch of angry heads on one page.  There's no real opportunity for action or dynamism.  The second problem is exposure: this image has been promoted for months, so we knew this was coming.  Still, it sets up the story and gives us an idea of who will be fighting who.

The plot, which has also been known for months, is that the Phoenix Force is on its way back to Earth, this time seeking out Hope Summers, the apparent mutant messiah, as its host.  The Avengers are intent on taking Hope into protective custody, while Cyclops and the X-Men are intent on keeping her on Utopia and dealing with the problem themselves.  Cyclops seems to be of the opinion that the Phoenix, though a destructive force, always brings rebirth, and that part of the equation could be the key to somehow resurrecting the mutant people, who were all but obliterated by the Scarlet Witch on M-Day.

The only thing Scott will ever have in common with Han
Solo?  He shot first.  This issue makes the X-Men--or at
least their leader, Scott--look like the aggressors.

The actual issue itself doesn't reveal too much that isn't already known, it just gets the game started.  Cap and company come to Utopia, hoping to peacefully retrieve Hope, and Scott, who's already been obsessively--one might almost say brutally--training Hope, brashly refuses to turn her over, to Cap's--and apparently Emma Frost's--disappointment.  He basically acts like a complete and total ass during this issue, which doesn't make me optimistic for the X-Men at this point.  Not only are the Avengers a larger team, but where Cap went diplomatically, with a good head on his shoulders, Scott is shooting from the hip, casting insults, and basically acting like a child.  I know being leader of a mutant team isn't easy, but he needs to get his head on straight, and quickly.

I'm guessing this has something to do with the fact that Bendis has been an Avengers-centric writer for a while, and either has to do with an unfamiliarity with or contempt for the X-Men.  That's fine--write what you know, I say--but I am hoping we'll get a more balanced view of both teams as the story arc widens.  I'm sure we will, as other writers and artists get involved, but with this kickoff issue as the only AvX title this week, it leaves things looking a little one-sided in terms of who has the moral high ground with this struggle.

It fulfills the sense of anticipation, and reads pretty well once the primary conflict is brought into play, but the lead-up does drag on a little bit--and for me to say that is a rare thing.  It consists primarily of material that was included in the previews, and some material involving Nova that seems contrived to provide action where there otherwise would be none.  I'm hoping things will be considerably tighter as this goes on.

Speaking of art, I have to say that I'm not a big fan of John Romita, Jr.'s work in this issue.  I've said it in the past, and I'll say it again: he does pretty well in more intimate, less wide-ranging stories, but when you have something as grand and sprawling as the Avengers versus the X-Men, his pencils really become distracting, to where I notice the style all the time, to its detriment.  It's something about the line work, the faces... I don't know if they just look overly cartoony, but something is making notice it, and not in a good way.

Overall, I'd say this issue suffers primarily from overexposure, and while I'm not too thrilled with the introduction, the actual start of the conflict brings things up to a more interesting level.  My issues with the artwork, I'm sure, are simply my own, but I just have issues with Romita's depictions of multiple characters over a wide-ranging group.  Nevertheless, as the start of the Marvel's premier summer event, it's a must-read for anyone who wants to get involved.  Recommended.

GN Review -- The Avengers, v. 2 (2010) / Brian Michael Bendis, John Romita, Jr. & Bryan Hitch

When I reviewed volume one of The Avengers, I said I’d keep an eye out for further adventures of this team, so I could see how they shape up over time. When I got my hands on volume two, I took one look at the summary, and just about lost my faculties at the sense of giddiness that ensued.

You could say that it was the plot, in which the Hood, some presumably minor Marvel villain, goes looking for the Infinity Gems in a search for power that could conceivably topple the super-team, that excited me. Or perhaps it was the added element that the gems were each hidden by the Illuminati--a clandestine group of established superheroes assembled by Tony Stark before the Civil War--and that Steve Rogers, currently in charge of the Avengers, was about to discover all of this for the first time. Throw in a few elements like the appearance of the Red Hulk, the discovery of Attilan’s earthly remains, and Wolverine, Beast, and Professor X interacting tensely, and I was sold.

I really enjoyed the premise of this story, for multiple reasons. The madman on a power quest that could actually humble all of the Avengers is an entertaining one, particularly if it’s well plotted, which this is, and well paced, which it also is. The fact of Tony Stark’s idea of the Illuminati assembly of super heroes coming back to give him a well-deserved bite in the ass is also entertaining, particularly since it’s Steve Rogers--with whom he has the longest history of both friendship and enmity--to whom he has to defend himself. It makes for an engaging piece of internal drama within the Avengers, who are noticeably affected by the fact that these two guys--two of the quintessential Avengers--are arguing almost as viciously as they ever did during the Civil War.

I’d personally never heard of the Hood until this story, but he’s a good choice for the villain, as a man who happens to stumble upon a clue to what has to be one of biggest secrets in the Marvel Universe. His quest is motivated by pure selfishness and a desire to only live in the world if he can bend it to his own will, and in grabbing just one of the vaunted Infinity Gems, he takes a major step in securing that reality. The tension between the Avengers and the now-exposed Illuminati--arguably some of the most singularly powerful and well-intentioned heroes around--is also an interesting dynamic, as they fluctuate between resentment, humility and understanding between one another with the onset of this particularly dangerous puzzle.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: I’m not John Romita, Jr.’s biggest fan when it comes to these kinds of wide-ranging, epics story arcs. Still, I actually felt his style worked in this particular arc, which revolved around several brightly colored gems and had to potential of affecting all of reality. He rises to the occasion during the times good visuals are called for on this story, and his rendering of facial expressions works especially well for the villain, Parker Robbins, who at the end of it all is a small man who only cares for the world as far as he can control it.

Overall, I was thoroughly entertained by this work, and highly recommend it to fans of superhero comics. It’s a good crisis aversion story, and the art and writing actually mesh very nicely to tell a tale that both entertains and moves quickly to a memorable denouement. Highly recommended.

GN Review -- Avengers, v. 1 (2010) / Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita, Jr.

It seems to have been a long while since there was an official, honest-to-goodness Avengers team. With big, universe-shaking crossovers like Civil War, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, and so forth, there just hasn't been time to put things back together and try to make at least a semblance of a return to the status quo.

Until now.

Brian Michael Bendis brings his flare for grand storytelling and his obvious love for this team and its characters straight to the table, reassembling the team he'd pulled apart in the Avengers Disassembled storyline from several years previous.

Immediately thrusting our heroes into a time-spanning, reality-shifting adventure brought on by the arrival of one of the Avengers' greatest foes, Kang the Conqueror. Appearing from the future, he reluctantly pleads with the heroes to stop their children from becoming horrendous supervillains who ruin reality. Of course, coming from Kang, things aren't quite as simple as he says they are, but it's enough to send the newly-formed team into the future as reality begins to collapse in on itself.

The writing was overall pretty good. It was uplifting to see Steve Rogers, now back from the dead, handpicking and recruiting heroes for the new superhero team. I certainly enjoyed the overall concept of the time/reality plot, although it got a little confusing to follow in certain places, occasionally distracting from the narrative. The dialog was not particularly memorable, though you did get the occasional gem when he paired some heroes--Spider-Man and Spider-Woman come to mind.

One event in this story that stood out in a negative way was Wonder Man's attacking of the new team. Yes, he warns Steve Rogers not to assemble them and acts all weird, but we're given no concrete reason why he's doing this, leaving me very frustrated at his sudden disappearance. I also did sometimes feel the strings of repetition being pulled in the back of my mind. So, Ultron and/or Kang are going to be responsible for ending the world, or reality, or existence at some point? Well, I've never heard of that one before. Bendis at least manages to take that particular plot point and infuse a sense of urgency into the endgame this time, leaving us to wonder if and when any loose ends will rear their heads for the heroes.

I was less impressed with the artwork in this story. I've never been a big fan of John Romita Jr.'s style in comics, but it does work well in some places. Sadly, this didn't feel like one of them. I think the exaggerations his art lends itself to, coupled with the number of characters and scale of the events he was drawing, just left things looking under-wrought and mischaracterized in places. His work during Straczynski's run on Amazing Spider-Man was very good. Here, it just seems perhaps he was spread too thin.

Overall, this was a fun read. The plot was not bad, the art is so-so, and the execution felt hurried at certain points, but it was good to see the Avengers--the REAL Avengers--re-formed and back in action. I'll look forward to see what happens next. Recommended.

GN Review -- Amazing Spider-Man: Ultimate Collection, v. 1 / J. Michael Straczynski and John Romita, Jr.

Some spoilers in this review if you haven't read this yet. You've been warned.

In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud makes a persuasive case that comic books don't have to be the juvenile, two-dimensional form of entertainment that they've been pigeon-holed as for decades. He suggests that the blend of text with pictures with pictures in sequential form has every bit as much potential as prose literature, film, and painting at their highest cultural, aesthetic, and narrative pinnacles as a medium for storytelling and expression. When you consider how comics had been perceived (up until, arguably, the late 1980s), it was difficult to find an example of the medium that could delight both critics and fans.

J. Michael Straczynski's run on Amazing Spider-Man was certainly not a grand first in terms of elevating comics to mature remarkable storytelling when it came along, but it was an excellent example of how a talented writer, in collaboration with a good artist and creative team, can breathe new life into a title and cause fans to fall in love with a character and his world all over again. From the get-go, JMS puts Peter Parker through the paces as fate's personal chew toy, delighting readers with clever dialog, imaginative new foes, allies, and situations, and a rock-solid depiction of Peter's persistence to do the right thing as Spider-Man even during the worst of times. Multiple overlapping story arcs and plot points converge to shake up the status quo of Peter's world in ways that both matured the series while bringing it back to its roots.

JMS has always been strong at writing engaging story arcs for characters in a series, and he really shines here, weaving a large number of events right on top of one another. We have the introduction of the totemic aspect of Peter's powers--which, like it or not, gave readers some interesting food for thought with regard to his origin--and two characters central to the concept, Ezekiel, an ally who knows Peter's identity as Spider-Man, and Morlun, a super-human who hunts and kills totemic recipients with single-minded devastation. We have Aunt May learning Peter's identity as a result of the fight with Morlun. We have her talking to Peter about it and them dealing with it. We have Dr. Strange showing up to help Peter as he tracks down missing teenagers. And we finally have Peter and May going to Hollywood to attempt to reconcile with Mary Jane--and, incidentally, help Doctor Octopus take down an upstart who's stolen his technology.

What works with all of these arcs is not only the pacing, which is varied and realistically handled, but also the dialog and plotting, both of which are pithy, fast-paced, and remarkably well tailored to the story. For example, when security guards ask Peter about his web shooters, Aunt May, who now knows her nephew's other occupation, lends a hand by mentioning that they are hers, used for gynecological purposes, making the security guards back off fast. It's a laugh-out-loud resolution to a potentially compromising situation, and one that wouldn't have been possible without May's discovery of Peter's life as Spider-Man. Peter also handles a variety of problems, from the typical super-villain fights (Dock Ock and Morlun) to the lower-powered but no less important mysteries of homeless teens disappearing from their refuge. JMS depicts a Spider-Man who's never lacking in people to help, and whose interest in helping other guarantees many and varied requests, none of which he's too good for.

Helped along by John Romita, Jr.'s strong pencil work, JMS chronicles Peter's life in and out of costume in iconic fashion. There was a time (long ago) where I didn't care for his artwork and dismissed it as too cartoony, but he really has come a long way since then. Either that or I have. His style is extremely well suited to Spider-Man and his world. Peter is his perfectly cheesy self as he struggles and perseveres through the loops he gets thrown for in his personal and "professional" lives. Mary Jane, his wife from whom he's currently separated, is beautiful and stunning in her independence she develops her career in Hollywood away from Peter. Yet she is also vulnerable and uncertain as she tries to reconcile her need to be away from the uncertainties of his costumed life with her deep and undeniable love for him. And Aunt May is the picture of quiet strength as she learns more about her nephew's life and comes to understand and accept more than she ever thought possible.

Right after the Morlun fight and Aunt May's discovery of Peter lying, bloodied, bandaged and unconscious in his bed, his torn Spider-Man costume nearby, the narrative is interrupted by a commemorative issue. It's the 9/11 acknowledgment from Marvel, which originally had a grave black cover. It depicts the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, with superheroes helping police, firefighters and EMS personnel rescue survivors, as super-villains look on, shaking their heads in acknowledging that these terrorists have gone too far. It gives weight to an horrific event that we all remember, and paid homage to the true heroes of 9/11 with a salute from Marvel's own heroes.

This volume of Spider-Man lore is a prime example of Scott McCloud's assertion that comics do indeed have the potential to be more than the juvenile, low-brow entertainment that they are commonly derided as. Super-hero stories can, with the right touch, be as captivating, poignant, and emotionally relevant as any other form of literature or art out there. With dramatic storylines, deep emotional investment, and breathtaking artwork, this tome is my go-to example of how deeply rewarding comic books can be. Very highly recommended.