Comics Of The Weak: Hey! Mediocrity! Drink OR GET OUT

X-Force # 1
Written by Craig Kyle & Christ Yost
Art by Clayton Crain
Published by Marvel Comics

This can't really work, no matter how many times you read the advertisement that says "The X-Men Do Not Kill.  These Are Not The X-Men."  The concept of a black-ops super-team isn't really that bad of an idea, in theory--after all, one thing super-hero comics never really deal with is why, exactly, their aren't more crazy Punisher type vigilantes.  Nerd-wise, the biggest obstacle is always going to be a lack of drama--this new X-Force will kill people, sure, but they're just going to be killing the cannon-fodder, the henchmen, the mindless drones.  It's not like they're going to go after any bad guy that has any decent name recognition--and that's a big part of why the logic doesn't work.  The motive for their existence is that Cyclops is tired of the extravagant slaughter wrecked upon mutants by...somebody, one of those villains that probably means a lot to X-fans.  Of course, that doesn't mean the Cyke is going to loose this crew of blade-wielders against Magneto, or any of the other major bad guys the X-Men deal with.  (Toad?)  If there was any story logic there, he would, but there's not--this comic is just an excuse for Wolverine and that girl who looks like a female Wolverine, and that not-dead-anymore Native American, and that not-dead-anymore werewolf character to kill henchmen.  It's not as bad as that other, years old issue of X-Force #1, but at least the 90's version makes for a decent (while completely terrible) cultural artifact of bad comics.  This 2008 issue doesn't even come with a trading card.

Dead of Night # 1
Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Art by Kano & Nick Percival
Published by Marvel Comics

It's not just the cover--this issue is a straight up EC Comics rip-off.  It's not a satire, or a parody, or even really an homage.  It's just an issue of Tales From The Crypt with a different title telling the origin of Marvel Comics horror character "Man-Thing."  It's irritating--not because it's particularly bad or anything--the dialog and art are both effective takes on what the house of Gaines & Kurtzman were producing back in the 50's--but because it's such a needlessly lazy way to tell a story.  Doing a Marvel MAX book would, in theory at least, allow a comics writer to really explore what it is they want to do with a story--instead, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has taken the easiest route possible--add a little of the New Marvel Science (which is to blame every strange non-mutant character on the US government's attempts to recreate Captain America's powers) to a straight up nerd revenge tale, and bookend it with a thinly veiled Cryptkeeper-rip called "Digger."  There's a point where "old EC Comics are great, let's honor that" becomes "here's an imitation of an EC Comic trying to legitimize a rarely used Marvel character."  Dead of Night passed that point in the idea stage.

Fantastic Four # 554
Written by Mark Millar
Art by Bryan Hitch & Paul Neary
Published by Marvel Comics

Millar and Hitch, otherwise known as the team who somehow made The Avengers into something worth reading by calling it The Ultimates and making it really violent are now turning their respective popularity and talent onto one of the oldest war-houses in the super-hero drawer.  Sure, quite a bit of DC dates the Fantastic Four, but there's few comics that have had such intensely massive rises and falls.  Although it would be impossible to imagine from watching either of the terribly made films that bear their name, the original issues of the Four by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby are some of the best super-hero comics, like, ever.  Since the close of their collaboration, the Fantastic Four has struggled again and again to capture some of the wit and cleverness that seemed to so freely flow in those first hundred stories.  It's impossible to tell, and it will be that way for awhile, whether Millar and Hitch can succeed where basically every other comic writer has failed and bring some luster to this beast of a figurehead.  It's certainly worth a try.  This issue, their first on a planned 16 issue run, doesn't behave like their previous work--there's no over-the-top violence, very little overt pop culture references and until the end, not much of Hitch doing his trademark drawings of really detailed drawings of technical institutions.  Instead, Millar seems to be preparing for the long haul--which should probably concern anyone who remembers how tremendously late these two are when it comes turning in their work.  At this point, maybe it'll be good.  No one will know for sure though until 2014, which is when it's projected to be finished.

Green Arrow & Black Canary # 5
Written by Judd Winick
Art by Andre Coelho
Published by DC Comics

Considering that all the Factual offices have had to say about this new Green Arrow book is that it's pretty much the same as the last Green Arrow book, excepting being graced with excellent artwork, courtesy of Cliff Chiang, it's not much of a twist that this issue was a relative slog--Coelho is certainly an adequate substitute, but "adequate substitute" doesn't make up for what's a relatively boring book that is only worth looking at so that one can dive even deeper into the swamp of "emotion" that haunts Winick's work of late.  It might have been a good idea to write a book that's this emo back when the Promise Ring was still together and whatever merits that subculture had weren't completely decimated by Dashboard Confessional.  As it is, this book was just page after page of whining, with a dash of "Hey, Batman and Superman are extraordinarily incompetent!"  So close to the heels of the kidnapping of Robin and Damian, the new DC mandate seems to be a Batman who's ill-qualified to guard a coin-operated laundromat from stray cats.

The New Avengers # 38
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Michael Gaydos
Published by Marvel Comics

Enjoyment of this comic is dependent upon how much one misses Alias, the series that prominently featured New Avengers side-character Jessica Jones.  Of course, how many fans of Alias actually keep up with New Avengers can't be a huge number of people--that title wasn't exactly a high seller, and Jessica hasn't done anything in this series besides behave like a stock-harpy lugging a baby Skrull around.  Having an entire issue devoted to one of the most mind-numbing arguments in mind-numbing argument history isn't likely to earn her too many new fans either.  Quite literally, this entire issue consisted of her saying "I'm turning myself in because of the baby.  You should do that as well, because of the baby."  Luke Cage, then responds, "You're betraying me, and I don't like Iron Man."  Then they repeat this back-and-forth dialog, with variations on the prepositions and adjectives.  This goes on for the entire comic book.  It's either totally unnecessary and boring, or it's some kind of Andy Kaufman joke played on the reader by Brian Michael Bendis.  Neither of those make for an appetizing alternative to eating one's own shit.

100 Bullets # 88
Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Eduardo Risso
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

Most of the time, people who complain about spoilers should shut the fuck up.  If you're so in love with a story that you don't keep up with it when it's available but choose to go and read articles and reviews about it, then you're just an asshole.  Who does that, anyway?  That being said, there's no good reason to ruin the surprise of the final page of this issue--not out of any allegiance to lazy 100 Bullets fans who are waiting for the trade, but because it was such a genius move on the part of Azzarello that the twist itself deserves respect.  There's a lot of good stuff coming out of Vertigo right now-Scalped, DMZ and this-but nobody has regularly produced this level of misdirection since the glory days of Transmetropolitan.  100 Bullets: still the best book that Samuel L. Jackson reads in crappy music videos.

B.P.R.D. 1946 # 2
Written by Joshua Dysart & Mike Mignola
Art by Paul Azaceta
Published by Dark Horse Comics

Ah, the schizophrenic quality of Mignola's Hellboy fiefdom strikes again.  Scant weeks ago, Abe Sapian got his own mini-series and was a near complete disappointment.  Now, B.P.R.D. 1946 shows up and happens to be totally brilliant work.  That's the magic of the weekly shipment for you.  Whether it's the revolting little girl who wanders out of a vampire-infested barn with her entire arm covered in blood, claiming that the monster inside just had an "accident" or it's the horrified soldiers comforting each other that the comrade they just executed had it coming--being an undead monster and all--everything that didn't work about Abe Sapian is totally flipped on it's head here.  Funny when it's supposed to be, gruesome when it needs it, this little mini is turning out to be one of the finest that the house-that-Mignola built has done in years. 

DMZ # 28
Written by Brian Wood
Art by Riccardo Burchielli
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

Another done-in-one portrayal of a non-main character in Wood's DMZ, this one being a guy who's kind-of-sort-of batshit insane, but not in the funny Spider Jerusalem way, more the "hey Tom Hanks is talking to that volleyball way."  All in all, not that bad--Wood's on a wildlife kick right now, and that's always a pleasant vacation from comics that can't get enough of showing what it looks like when somebodies brains end up De Kooning themselves all over a television set.  Then again, DMZ ain't Local, and although the done-in-one's have been a nice excursion into solid short stories, the hey-remember-that-awesome story about the military slaughter of civilians from last year is what's needed right now.  Hopefully it'll involve this crazy nature-freak and that evil Triad sunuvabitch from a few months back, with more of Burchielli's art.  After all, Y: The Last Man is now gone, and if that puts Fables on top of the let's-talk-about-Vertigo heap, this reader might just puke out the words "I wish I was dead" in Campbell's alphabets.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Comments

[Sharif]

"Nerd-wise, the biggest obstacle is always going to be a lack of drama--this new X-Force will kill people, sure, but they're just going to be killing the cannon-fodder, the henchmen, the mindless drones."

Exactly. This is what robots are for; so that readers and characters can vent their rage without guilt. The robots don't hate the mutants: the mutants hate the robots. Poor robots.

Nerds suck.

Still, I would have bought it if it had come with a trading card.

[googum]

It probably doesn't deserve the word of defense, but for Dead of Night, featuring "a little of the New Marvel Science (which is to blame every strange non-mutant character on the US government's attempts to recreate Captain America's powers)" well, Man-Thing's origin always had that, I think. They were flogging that horse before it died, as it were.

And Man-Thing's like my least favorite comics character ever, and I still knew that. Crap.

[Tucker Stone]

Yesh. I think i was less irritated thinking that was a new story trick. Knowing it dates back that far just makes me feel really gross.

[Dan Coyle]

Dead of Night Featuring Man-Thing copies verbatim, with the exception of the monsters and that other man, the original Conway/Thomas/Morrow origin story from 35 years ago. It's freaking pathetic. Ellen's dialogue is copied straight from the original story!

I've suspected since Maria Hill walked on panel back in 2005, and have pretty much resigned myself to it, that Bendis' Avengers run is less about superhero plots than finding a way to win any argument he had with his wife that month.