Comic Review -- AvX VS #2 / Steve McNiven, Kieron Gillen, John Dell, Salvador Larroca, Morry Hollowell, and Jim Charalampidis

I like the illustrations on this cover.  Colossus looks out of his mind with rage as swings at a nimble and no-doubt quippy Spider-Man, while Gambit and Captain America both look like serious business as they struggle against one another.  While I'm not crazy about the large title in the center of the cover, it does make for a nice divider.  Not bad.

These two match-ups go a little more in line with what I expected in terms of an outcome, with plenty of action, name-calling, and destruction, along with a peppering of more AvX Fun Facts.  Though they eventually end up proving pointless within the context of the larger story, it's fun to see these match-ups with some detail and dynamics, as opposed to the brief gloss-overs you tend to see in the larger story.  A fight will start, and then move to another fight, and so on, before getting back to the main story, and such a sprawling narrative really needs a companion series like this, where things can really get exposed a little more in-depth.

Gambit may be one of my favorite X-Men, but watching him get his butt kicked by Captain America was actually very satisfying.  Theirs was actually a good fight, and Gambit got in an especially clever move by charging up Cap's uniform and making it explode while it was on him.  While I was a little surprised at how quickly Cap got up from that, I wasn't at all surprised when it came down to a fistfight, and Cap royally beat the crap out of Gambit.  I mean, for pure melee combat, there aren't many heroes that I think could stand toe-to-toe with Captain America.

And while I'm a big Spider-Man fan--you've seen my picture, right?--I'm not too surprised about how the Spidey-Colossus fight turned out, for two reasons.  First, Spidey was very cocky and presumptuous towards Colossus-Juggs, which is never a good way to go into a fight.  I don't know enough about Colossus since he acquired Cyttorak, but I'm betting he's even tougher than Cain Marko's Juggernaut.  So I'm willing to concede he may have an edge over Spidey.  Second, though, I don't think they'll do an issue where there are two Avengers or two X-Men wins in the same issue.  Just not gonna happen, as you'd risk alienating Avengers or X-Men fans.

When Cap won, I figured Spidey was going to lose.  And so far, my logic's worked.  We'll see if it stands up over the run of these issues.

Artistically, I like Dell's art in the Cap/Gambit match-up better than Larroca's in the Spidey/Colossus fight.  It's more realistic, less cartoony, and nowhere near as overdone.  Cap and Gambit both look like actual people within their uniforms, and while Spidey looks good in his story, Colossus looks too extreme, particularly with his facial expressions.  It's not bad art, but there was a noticeable difference between the two.

It almost makes me wonder how they would look if the artists would switch stories and draw their own versions of the others.  That'd actually be kind of cool to see, now that I think about it.

Overall, I am enjoying this mini-series, and can't wait to see more match-ups.  Are they great storytelling?  No.  Are they witty?  In places.  Are they full of action and destruction as two heroes beat the snot out of each other?  YES.  And that's what this series promises.  Successful delivery.  Highly recommended.

Book Review -- Civil War Script Book / Mark Millar & Steve McNiven

If you're looking to write comic book scripts, it's always good to have a few sample scripts on hand to look at. While there's no strict established standard for scripting, there are quite a few similarities between the layout, structure, and basic look of the more established scripts out there.  While the Civil War Script Book certainly isn't the only comic script sample book out there, it's a good example of a script for a sustained story arc, and contains a lot of extras that make it a delight to have around.

The Marvel Civil War was a huge event that took place a few years ago, featuring the majority of Marvel's superheroes fighting against one another over the issue of superhero registration.  It was a massive undertaking, requiring the collaboration of a legion of writers, artists, and editors to keep various plot points consistent and in good order.  In addition to the seven-part chronicle, there were virtually innumerable tie-ins, many of which expanded on smaller-scale stories of heroes, villains, and others who have been affected by the larger issues covered in the main story.

It was also a very involving story to anyone who read it, as I and no doubt others will readily attest.  While I had vehement reactions to the story as it developed, including a bitter resentment of the way it ended, I still couldn't help but admit that it was a hell of a good story.  As I read into how the story was conceived and put together, I was astounded at the sheer amount of manpower involved, the editorial logistics, and the overall feeling that, though this was a tale told by many, it still had the feel of a singular, cohesive story arc.

Civil War Script Book contains all seven scripts written by Mark Millar for the main story arc, along with a bevy of extra commentary, notes, and even some deleted (or at the very least, significantly altered) scenes from the story, from Millar as well as editor Tom Brevoort.  There's also plenty of artwork from Steve McNiven's original pages, as well as a few archive illustrations from other artists to give historical context to some of the relationships and themes addressed in the Civil War.  In addition to seeing how the story was written over the course of seven issues, the reader gets a good deal of insight into the writer's and editor's thought processes and motivations for setting things up the way they do.

One of the first things I noticed about the scene descriptions is that they tend to be very personalized at points, sometimes with the writer directly addressing the artist.  This is obviously something that most new writers won't (and shouldn't, in my opinion) be doing, but it's interesting to see the interplay between the creators beyond what you simply see on the finished comic pages.

Overall, this is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to look at finished scripts, even if they are all by a single writer.  It's also a nice extra for anyone who enjoyed the Civil War story arc, with all of the extras and a healthy does of Steve McNiven's stunning artwork.  While there are plenty of other script books out there that may provide more variety or how-to insight, Civil War Script Book does an admirable job of showing aspiring writers how the creators think during the process.  Highly recommended.