EPIC!

So yesterday I sat down and read in a binge the entirety of Second Coming. Continuing where Cable ended, Second Coming begins with the pair’s return to the present, only to be imeediately met with gunfire and a cross-country chase. So off the bat my expectations were met as all the X teams mobilized to get this girl home.
Bastion as a villain worked nicely, since his whole purpose was to wipe out all mutants, and as a result stop Hope at all costs, but the two have never actually met. The story itself never let up the dire circumstances of keeping Hope safe, stating that only 181 mutants were left and several of those number fall before the battle is over.
Naturally, as in most crossover stories like this, people die and relationships change. For starters, Cyclops order for X-Force to finally use lethal force and to keep their existence secret finally comes to a head as the mutant community is divided on the decision. Nightcrawler especially opposes this shortly before his death, one that firmly stated the gloves were off.
Cable and Hope finally separate for the final time as Cable sacrifices himself to save X-Force and bring them home from their successful plan to sabotage Bastion’s plan to bring advanced Nimrod Sentinels from the future to wipe out the mutants. I really appreciated that the Avengers and Fantastic Four show up for this one to assist, giving the X-Men more relation to the Marvel universe that they typically get (except for maybe Wolverine).
But naturally what everyone wanted to know finally gets answered: What exactly is Hope’s power? Well that sort of gets answered in we actually see her use her abilities, but it is never clear what the full extent of her abilities are. For starters, she can mimic mutant powers (which was kind of funny to see Bastion and his lackeys get shredded with as a result), use telepathy to some extent, activate mutant powers in others, and so on. Literally I feel this character is going to replace Jean Grey as the swiss army knife of the X-men team in that she is left open to do just about anything.
I was disappointed in how easily the villains fell in this story though. All the main enemies were killed with almost no difficulty (Ok there was some difficulty but not as much as expected). Typically one person would get wounded or killed then he would just get stabbed or shot and that was that. Even Bastion, the big bad, arrived only to have Hope rip him apart with her bare hands (again, literally).
But overall, Second Coming fulfilled my expectations. People died, especially main characters. Seeing Bastion’s plan come together after years of reading felt satisfying, along with watching Hope develop as a character. Cable and Nightcrawler definitely got the send off they deserved, and the others just got blown away like cannon fodder, intensifying the storyline. It was good to see the X-Men develop as they went to Hell and back (literally again, they actually went to Hell at one point) and satisfying till the end.

Get Ready

With next week being the review of Second Coming (insert anxious gasp here), I felt that it would be appropriate to review the series Cable.
Cable is one of the X-men titles that spawned off the Messiah Complex arc (the first in the trilogy of arcs that Second Coming concludes). The series follows Cable (obviously) as he carries the baby mutant Hope further into the future to raise her away from all the bad things happening to the mutants in the present. Sadly, the renegade Bishop (a mutant cop from the future who was put in a concentration camp after Hope killed a million people in six minutes (did I forget to mention Hope can be good or evil?) in one version of her future) and is constantly trying to kill her.
For starters, it is good to finally see Cable down for the count more times than not considering he is considered one of the more powerful X-Men characters. I felt that his constant sacrifice to protect Hope really fleshed out his character after it has become so watered down over the past years. I’m pleased, yet feel guilty for saying so, that I was often unsure if Cable would survive some of the arcs, which goes to say something about the writing.
My favorite aspect of the series though was obviously watching the character Hope grow up over the 25 issues from a baby to an adult. Each time they jumped further into the future, the series would often skip a few years until by the end, Cable and Hope are both much older the when the series started, and Hope has learned quite a bit about how to survive (her first act of war was when she was a toddler and she stabbed the cockroach President of the United States in the face).
My biggest issue with the series is that each time it skips forward, the audience is introduced to a new post apocalyptic setting resulting from either Bishop, Stryfe, or war that makes each time they time travel worse and worse. As a result, we never really become attached to any specific setting and often we are lost to what is happening around Cable and Hope. This causes the series to be a more character driven piece, but we lose some of the tension as a result of lack of setting.
This is somewhat played at near the end when they return home and begin jumping back through all the places they’ve visited over the series. It’s funny to see Hope’s reaction as she meets parental figures she never knew, attempts to drive despite never seeing a car before, and also as she learns to swear, much to Cable’s disapproval.
I really did feel like they ignored the whole mutant messiah or antichrist aspect for Hope over the series, baring it down to Bishop hunting her because he’s from the future she was evil, and Cable protecting her since he’s from the good one. We do see a little bit of Hope’s dark side emerge from time to time as she ruthlessly survives the wastelands and when she finally stands up to Bishop and brutally defeats him, but this never really shows her potential for evil which her whole character was created for.

Dark Times Has Nothing on This

With the series coming to a close (again), this week’s choice is Star Wars Legacy. Set over 130 years after the first Star Wars movie, the series mainly focuses on Luke Skywalker’s great-grandson and the Sith who have taken over the Empire and the galaxy.
Cade Skywalker is a unique protagonist not only in the fact that he is a Skywalker that refuses to acknowledge his Jedi heritage, but that he utilizes both the light and dark side for his purposes. I enjoyed seeing a hero who would sudden have his eyes turn gold as he went to the dark side, then watching him lash out at friend and foe alike, which is understandable seeing as the Jedi are all but gone, and the Empire is soon to follow as of the beginning of the story. But Cade is not the only anti-hero character, as others succumb to their anger, and use it to destroy their enemies in a most unorthodox fashion. I admit at the end of the series, when Darth Krayt comes back to life stronger than ever and sends a call out to all the Sith, only one of the good guys was unable to hear the call.
Probably the greatest downfall of Legacy is that there are multiple stories occurring at once. There’s Cade and his crew’s story, his Imperial Moff mother and her secret identity as a spy, his sister who is ignorant of her relation to Cade and her desire to kill him, the Sith and Krayt’s desire to fully turn Cade, the resistance under Admiral Stazi, and the Empire under the Fel Leadership as it tries to hold out and retake the throne. Sound like a lot? I agree.
But this is tedious but necessary. For most of the series it is annoying that the characters I want to read about don’t appear for months at a time, but these other stories flesh out the setting and slowly weave together as the story concludes. And I have to say, it made it stronger as a result.
On a personal note, my biggest disappointment was the delivery of Darth Krayt. He first appeared as a Jedi survivor of purge that occurred in the movies who rejoined the Tusken Raiders and was eventually defeated and lost an arm by Kenobi when he attempted to attack Luke’s home. Krayt then met the Yuuzhan Vong, who replaced his missing limb with organic material that slowly consumes his body and requires him to need Cade to heal him. Thus, despite a strong first appearance as a Sith Lord and main antagonist in the series, Krayt soon becomes whiney and weak over his constant complaining over the Vong implants. Luckily this changes after he returns from the dead, making his appearance in the conclusion series, Legacy – War, extremely epic.
Overall, I liked seeing a Star Wars series where the lines between good and evil are blurred. While everyone knows what side they’re on (except maybe for the Skywalker family), their methods are always in question. Only a few characters seem completely in control of their emotions, and those are often the ones unable to fight.
While there has been a long series of upstanding Jedi characters in the Skywalker family (Ben, Leia, Jaina, Anakin (Solo), Kol, Nat, Mara, Sai, ect.) and many who have fallen (Jacen, Vader, Luke, ect.), this is the first time I’ve seen someone walk the line of good and evil since Quinlan Vos.

Since We're on the Subject. Enjoy:

Um... Are These Zombies Too???

Following Blackest Night, this week comes Brightest Day. After several dead heroes have returned from the dead (spoiler alert), peace has returned to the DC universe. But alas, peace is fleeting (since it would mean the unemployment of many writers and artists and the abundance of disposable income for nerds such as myself) as those who have been resurrected by the white light of creation must deal with their personal issues associated with their rebirth.
Among those are Aquaman, and his strange ability to only summon dead sea creatures; Firestorm, who can no longer split apart into his separate personalities; and Deadman, who now wears the white ring as it guides him to its true bearer. All these stories and more are interlaced throughout this year long, twenty-six issue arc.
Naturally, the main flaw with this is since these stories are often unrelated (especially in the beginning), some stories are the focus for an issue than completely ignored for another issue or so. This makes keeping track of the story difficult as the reader is required to remember several small threads that the recap fails to consistently cover. Not to mention that the cliffhangers are a real bummer seeing as it’s anyone’s guess when that particular storyline will be continued.
Furthermore, as more characters are introduced, more separate stories intertwine with the rest, making it extremely complicated for the weekly reader. I find myself feeling as I read that this is a story that needs to be read in one sitting to truly appreciate everything that is going on.
Another issue is that as a person who is unfamiliar with the DC universe (I prefer Marvel and some independent publishers. I was only in this for Green lantern who sadly was mostly absent) Many of the character’s backgrounds were of vague knowledge to me. This made it difficult as each character went on a soul searching journey that involved them digging far back into the continuity as DC tends to do in their larger stories. Thus becomes confusing to newer readers that don’t follow multiple books at once.
What was good about Brightest Day is that it does keep the suspense rolling from Blackest Night. With the white light in lantern form, I find myself eager to find out what roll it will now play in the DC universe if any. With Deadman running around with the ring, and the ring itself giving cryptic messages to “fight” or “live” (which was discovered to mean go get a hamburger for those of you who were wondering about how cryptic that can really be), I want to know how such a powerful tool will mainly affect the other lanterns.
Overall, I felt Brightest Day fell short after the spectacular Blackest Night. Despite this being somewhat expected as an aftermath piece that deals with many character issues resulting from Blackest Night, it definitely could have been handled better to avoid confusion.

Zombies!

This week’s blog is part one of two, DC Comic’s Blackest Night. This is a crossover title, which means that it is the main ongoing story within the universe, and most of the company titles interact and expand on it in some way. In this case it is a Green Lantern story that involves a series of black rings raising the heroes who have died over the years (and there have been a lot) and using them to destroy all life.
For the sake of consistency, I will only focus on the main eight issues and the eight issues of Green Lantern that make up the core of the series.
What is interesting about Blackest Night is despite it having been building up for several years like most major crossovers, this one can be clearly rooted in the origins of Green Lantern (seeing as their oath begins “In blackest night. In brightest day.”) since we see characters like Abin Sur, who gave Hal Jordan the ring in issue one.
The purpose of Blackest Night clearly is a resurrection story, which allows many major characters who have died to come back, such as Martian Manhunter and Flash. What is nice though is that DC didn’t overdo it and only kept ten heroes (several of which were recent deaths) alive once everything was all said and done. This helped readers from being overwhelmed by the number of old characters being reintroduced.
But this also introduces Blackest Night’s major flaw: it is rooted deeply in comic book continuity. For casual readers, the hundreds of old characters coming back are overwhelming and often have a meaningless impact since the reader doesn’t know who the character is. While some characters like Bruce Wayne coming back are easily recognizable, many people don’t realize there are more than one Superman, or who Terra is for example. This severely crippled the series ability to respond with new readers.
On the other hand, the strongest point of Blackest Night obviously falls in the court of Green Lantern fans. This is where all the different corps (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet) unite for the first time put aside their differences for a full color spectrum beat down (for those who don’t know, each color is based on an emotion based in the visible light spectrum, green being the emotion will that powers the ring).
Since for the longest time, green and yellow were the only two colors in the series, the other five are new and therefore relevant to readers new and old. Being a fairly new reader to DC comics myself, it was easy for me to catch up and understand the characters motivations and plots that culminated in Blackest Night.
Overall, Blackest Night was an extremely successful crossover and provided enough answers with enough new questions to keep me wanting more. Despite not understanding most of the character’s reaction within the tie in stories, the main story was straightforward enough that I had no trouble following it.

Revenge of the Clone Menace

So this week I’m covering Star Wars Empire.
This series is easy for the occasional reader since many of the stories are only a single or a few issues total, instead of arcs that encompass a larger arc. This is kind of nice since it allows for the series to focus on small characters or tell minor stories that really doesn’t affect the Star Wars Universe all that much.
What fans will really appreciate is the story of Biggs and Hobbie (those of you who don’t know, Biggs was the guy who got killed attacking the Death Star in the first movie and Hobbie was Wedge’s copilot in the second). This series really manages to flesh these characters out and follows them for the longer stories.
The main issue I have with this series though is that the longer stories get interrupted often. Bigg’s story was broken up into three or so parts, each at inappropriate times. Literally the comic book says, we’re going to take a break midway through this story and tell this one instead. So for months Hobbie is laying in bed dying of some strange disease or Biggs is floating in space without oxygen and I’m getting told a story about a storm trooper uncovering a plot on the Death Star that doesn’t really matter since it literally gets blown up two seconds later. This makes the series fall short in my book.
What worked well for Star Wars Empire is that it fills in many of the gaps left in the movies and Expanded Universe. For those who aren’t nerds like myself, one of the deleted scenes in the first movie had Biggs return home to say a final farewell to Luke before joining the rebellion. In Star Wars Empire they tell this story, although they change it so that it makes sense in the established continuity. Another story is what happened to Darth Vader after his tie fighter flew off into space when the Death Star blew up.
Fans of the X-Wing novels will also notice that many of the stories fill in the gaps the books left open by expanding on the cast of the series and explaining just how they came to meet. This is great for those that love the Expanded Universe storylines.
Overall, Star Wars Empire is good for those who want quick, but mildly entertaining episodic Star Wars stories. They don’t really add anything to the universe story wise, but they do characterize many of the small character never before explored in the universe. For me this is adds more to the other material than the books themselves since I feel more emotional when they die or succeed in their missions within the movies and other materials. As a result, I guess Empire is successful in adding to the story in that way.