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.

A Little Bit of Fun

So this week’s books are Zenescope’s Grimm Fairy Tales. As the name implies, it is a fairy tale based comic series.

Each book tells two stories, that of events happening within the storyline, and then a reflection of the events within a dark version of our favorite children’s tales that is extremely loosely based on the original. This is often done by Sela as a means of teaching the subject of the story a life lesson that often goes ignored. As a result, the books end depressingly for the most part.

What’s odd about Grimm Fairy Tales is that it took them sixteen issues to establish an overarching plot to the series. Despite the individual issues being overall entertaining enough for a quick read, I’m still confused on what is actually happening within the universe. Even at issue sixteen, all that was established was that there is another person like Sela running around doing evil (I’m serious. That’s it).

But four years worth of books into the series, I have to say it is getting quite interesting. Considering Zenescope is a small time publisher in the greater comic book community, I like the fact that all their books are interconnected. Although you don’t have to read the other books, you often want to understand completely the overall story and buy into their whole marketing ploy.

I do have to admit though; it is nice to see a sort of freaking horror comic able to stand on its two feet in such a competitive community.

My one major annoyance with Grimm Fairy Tales is the cheesy writing. While the story is entertaining enough to want to read, each time it open an issue it feels like I’m watching one of those old horror movie classic that you can see the strings attached to the monster, but you are so charmed by it you continue to watch. Everyone in the book comes off as dimwitted, which takes away from the series.

Personally, I think it is due to the series episodic nature, with two female characters (one good and one evil and that’s all that’s really explained) running around with other two dimensional punk characters who get killed in the end. Not enough time to form some actual characters.

This might also be once again due to the fact that they print extra material to pass out at conventions and in the trade paperback collections that are unavailable to the monthly issue collectors such as myself. So instead of buying the expensive hardback collections, I feel like I’m missing the back stories to the main character.

Overall I like Grimm Fairy Tales for what it was: mindless reads, with stories that are wrapped up within the issue itself. It allows for inconsistent reading, which was nice for someone who is as busy as me, but in the end left me wanting more. I guess next week I’ll have to find something more filling.

For Those Who Care

   For those of you who want to stay in the loop on Amazing Spider-Man and its previous and upcoming releases, I recommend IGN as the place to go. http://comics.ign.com/objects/740/740875.html
   IGN provides previews and reviews that might add some insight to my last review. It also posts most of the recent issue covers over the last few years.
   The beauty of the site though is that it is extremely comprehensive, and most mainstream titles can be found here. 

The Hunt is On

   So due to popular demand, this week’s comic will be an arc called Grim Hunt, covering issues of Amazing Spider-Man (ASM) 634 – 637. For those of you who don’t read the Marvel big time titles, they like to have one big story a year, typically with all the others leading up to that point (these are also the kinds of stories that get made into movies). So for several months before this arc, Spider-Man was forced into the Gauntlet, facing several classic villains each arc as Kraven the Hunter’s daughter was working behind the scenes to finish off our favorite web slinger for good.

   On one hand, it was good to see a classic villain, Kraven, back and running around without being forced to the backseat by the new villains as the arc progressed. After the arcs One More Day/Brand New Day, the ASM series has undergone a total revamp. Spider-man was no longer married as a result of selling his marriage to the Devil to save his aunt’s life, and several new villains were running around. The staff claimed that this would allow them to escape from the old villains (like Venom, Dr. Octopus, and the Green Goblin) who have had their characters watered down over the years and introduce new villains as a fresh start.
   Why am I explaining this in a review supposedly about Grim Hunt you ask? Because for a move that alienated most of ASM’s standing fan base in order to try to attract new readers with new characters, they sure have been falling back on the old characters but in new forms (for example one new villain is Grey Menace, who rides on a glider and has super powers from ingesting a formula based on the Green Goblin).

   So after a bloody start, Kraven’s back with his family of hunters and wrecking havoc on Spidey’s life. This goes on for a while as Spider-man is forced to face more and more trials before eventually overpowering the hunters and returning some normalcy to his life. In other words, nothing really new has happened in the end, which is normal for a regular arc, but not for one as hyped as this one.
   In the end I felt that the whole point of this arc was to characterize Kraven’s daughter so that she could take Kraven’s place in Spider-Man’s roster of villains. As a reader I couldn’t help but feel somewhat cheated by the whole thing since now instead of a hunter who just likes the thrill of the sport, we have a whiny age 12 little girl running around with daddy issues.
   Overall the arc was entertaining, but felt shallow. It was good to see the writers connect the new villains to their older classic counterparts, but at the same time it felt unnecessary to do so. Sure it attempts to add some depth to the new characters, but why say you’re going to give the readers something new if it’s just the same character wrapped in new packaging.
   But this is why I avoid a rating scale on these reviews. If you were to read just the arc itself, it would probably be entertaining and enjoyable. Yet if you’re a constant reader like I was, then you might feel a little let down after about a year of steadily building up to this and all the hype around it.

So after a long and tedious week of waking up and going to class, driving home to help my best friend out with his newborn son (Applaud here. It’s cool, I’ll wait), holding him for thirty minutes, then making the four and a half hour journey back; I read Scott Pilgrim (and played the video game… Don’t judge me).
Now this is one of those comic books that most people have never heard of until they make a movie of it and even then most don’t realize that the book came first (cough cough Green Hornet cough). I’m ashamed to say it but I was one of those people too. I guess being out of the comic gig has gotten me out of the loop. That or it’s because it’s Canadian. For the sake of my pride as a nerd and so that being a complete social outcast for the last 21 years has not been in vain, I’m going to go with answer B.
Anyways, usually I read the source material first, but as I said before the movie got to me first. Luckily it was a good movie considering they put six books worth of story into a single film, because I immediately went out to seek my own copies of the six books: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together,  Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Universe, and Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour. It makes sense though, because all six books are just a continuation of one another, and the movie wouldn’t make sense without having one big “To Be Continued” marked at the end. But that’s not why we’re here.
Scott Pilgrim is a 23 year old Canadian that really has yet to get his life around. He’s jobless, plays the bass in his band Sex Bob-omb, and lives with his cool gay roommate. But his like changes for the better when he first meets/stalks a girl by the name of Romona Flowers (actually it pretty much stays the same but he has Ramona now).
But in order for our comical protagonist to date Ramona, he must battle and defeat her seven evil exes who wish to control her love life and break off his relationship with Knives, his 17 year old current girlfriend.
The art itself is fitting for the kind of story Scott Pilgrim is. It’s simple and the frames move at a fast pace to match that of the story. The action can be a little jumpy, having it jump from frame to frame like an ADD jackrabbit one a hot summer’s day is part of the charm. It’s so random that you can’t help but laugh at some of the lines and banter exchanged between the characters.
The one problem that occurs is that the books seem to lose some of its comedic effect as the story progresses and the plot becomes more of the focus point. It’s still hilarious each time he must fight an evil ex and hearing Ramona explain her reasoning behind each one (like Asian twins at the same time), but the pacing seems to drag. This makes the art style suddenly lose its flair a bit, but typically it can pick right up again.
The events in the story work well and flow together quite nicely. Despite the books being published a year apart, they still feel like one piece of work, which works for the die-hard comic fans and possibly against the casual readers who want a quick read.
Overall I was quite surprised how charmed I was by Scott Pilgrim. For something so under my radar, it’s refreshing to see something this good that can constantly make me laugh. Anyone looking for a good time, I recommend taking a look at Scott Pilgrim.

Welcome to My World

   So as of late I've kind of been unemployed. With that comes all sorts of benefits such as being genuinely poor, and rationing (didn't we outlaw that after WWII or something?).
   But anyways, the point is that a longstanding hobby of mine (collecting comic books) was forced to be put down due to lack of funding for my addiction and my parents refusing to enable me. After the long and painful decision between comics and food (and it was a close one people), I decided that I would choose comics, and then later food after three weeks and a few missing pounds.
   So all that remains unread of my ten years of being a social outcast and the founding idea for the stereotypical nerd lies piled in a peanut box on a shelf next to real book that I will honestly get to someday (in Garrett’s Super Awesome Blog of Incrediblenessocity, TBA).

   In this box sits several runs of series that I had been holding off on reading just so I could truly appreciate the story, the art, and the overall interaction within the universe. The problem with this idea is now that the box is no longer overflowing, I’m never motivated to keep up with it like I was. I know the moment I hit the bottom it will all be over, and my childhood hobby will be dead.
   So how this blog will work is that each week I’ll post on some comic or series that I’ve read and discuss the elements within it. Some will be mainstream titles (like Marvel’s Spider-man) and others will be not so main stream (like Zenescope’s Grimm Fairy Tales). Heck some might even be legit books to lend myself some credibility as a reader.
   But that’s not all folks. For the next ten weeks we will be slowly working our way down to the granddaddy of them all. I’m talking about the last installment of the X-Men’s Messiah trilogy called Second Coming. Yes it’s a big deal. Let’s just say the first installment literally involved a DO NOT DISTURB announcement to a bus full of high school kids and a bribe to a freshman to hurt anyone who bothers me between issue 1 and 13. This was four years ago and I’ve been waiting eagerly to read this final arc ever since then.
   So sit back. Relax. Accept change (heh a little Secret Invasion humor for all those who know what a Skrull is. For those of you who don’t just laugh and back away slowly, making no sudden movements. My eyesight isn’t as good as yours).
   But most importantly I hope you have fun as I work my way through this list and enjoy the last pieces of my collection before I say goodnight to the hobby forever.