Chronic Review: Scarlet # 1

Scarlet # 1
Marvel Comics - Icon imprint
Script: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Alex Maleev
29 pages + extras for $3.95

There is a common comic book refrain (Alan Moore, I'm lookin' at you, kid) that goes something like this:

"Why does everything in comics have to be bland superhero testosterone fantasies? Where is the fresh? Where is the innovation? Who is pushing the medium further?"

I have some sympathy for those sentiments. (I will get to Scarlet eventually, I promise) Looking at the current comics palette...yup, we've got a surplus of superheroes, and an excess of excrement. So the system is imperfect, which is a huge shocker.

The problem is that the "solutions" are usually worse than the disease, loaded with froofy people engaging in inscrutable froofery like "Driven By Lemons." If that's pushing the envelope, leave the damn envelope where it is. Superheroes aren't your cup of tea? I get it. But too often we misdiagnose willful confusion as portent. It isn't. Portent is portent. I'm not making this up, you can look it up, folks.

Surely there is something in between, yes? Surely somewhere out there is a creator with a story and a passion for telling it that doesn't look, feel, taste like everything else. The list is very small, but you can add Scarlet to it.

I want to describe Scarlet as an anti-heroine taking you through a living ethics syllogism, but I say "anti-heroine" and it reminds me of the 90s bad girls, and I say "syllogism", and it reminds me of Aristotle, and that's not what it is at all. Even though she is an anti-heroine, and the book acts like a philosophy lesson.

The most striking aspect of the book is that Scarlet talks to you. I'm sure every reviewer will mention the fourth wall and the breaking of said wall. What it means is...she talks to you. Like this:

That decision takes balls. If you screw that up there is no book, and it's a pretty easy thing to screw up. Maleev helps, for sure. You get to see Scarlet squirm and furrow her brow over things she's mulling, obviously wrestling with the ideas and wondering if she's truly communicating. She mentions things she's never mentioned before and then wonders to you about whether she spoke it out loud to you prior.

I was prepared for this having listened to Bendis talk about the book with John Siuntres on Word Balloon. It still knocked me on my psychic ass for a bit. It's not a piece of flair, like Deadpool. The comic addresses you on very intimate terms, and it attempts to treat some outlandish elements in a very "realistic" style.

Again, if that's not hitting for you, the book derails and it's a colossal failure. I'll give Bendis this - Scarlet is one of the most ambitious and daring pieces of fiction I've ever read. He saw a razor wire tightrope with no net and a dragon perched on it and said "Fuck it, let's do that."

There are elements of action, romance, characterization. But probably the strangest fact about Scarlet is that it's an experiment in ethics dressed as a girly Punisher book. There are a lot of the "big questions" introduced in the first issue. Why do shitty things happen to good people? What is the appropriate response to the realization that shitty things do happen to good people?

The problem of evil is a doozy. We've been thinking about it as a species for thousands of years, and to my knowledge nobody has come up with a particularly satisfactory response yet. The Hindus tell us not to worry because it's all just a ride. Paul of Tarsus says "God is God, you're you, so shut the fuck the up and deal with it."

None of that registers as really inspiring to any of us, least of all Scarlet. She has a lot of questions, and occasionally answers herself with things that almost sound profound.

Needless to say, Scarlet is a change of pace next to, oh, New Avengers. It's different. It acts differently, it feels like it matters in the subtext, the way you could just feel that I Kill Giants really meant something to Joe Kelly, or the way that Cerebus meant everything to Dave Sim. Scarlet is important to Brian Bendis, and that...I don't know...urgency translates readily.

The fourth wall obliteration? It worked for me. The philosophy? It worked for me, big time. If you want knock-em-up fluff, and it's fine if you do, this isn't it. Scarlet tells you this herself very early. If you're in that "where's the good non-superhero stuff?" camp, here ya go. No froof required, either.

At the end of the issue, Scarlet mentions that we're going to be helping with her little revolution. That could just mean tagging along for the ride, but I have a suspicion that she means something more literal and direct.

Bendis is pretty active on his forum and Twitter account. This being the 21st century, interactive possibilities are ripe. I have the feeling that the readers are going to be invited to participate in this book. Scarlet surely has access to social networking, I think readers are going to be able to communicate with her, and we'll be able to see her responses inside the text. If she reacts to those messages and it impacts the story, the fourth wall is absolutely vaporized and we're looking at something perhaps unprecedented.

I'm not even going to bitch about the price point, because we got significantly more than the usual 22 pages, and the comic was probably just too goddamn good any way. Scarlet is a smart, gorgeous book with gigantic brass balls. We need to reward this kind of work. I'm in.

- Ryan

Chronic Rant: Continuity Crisis!

So here it is - New Avengers is actually a pretty fun read, and it's got some good ideas, and a lot of energy, and all that good stuff. Not enough good stuff to justify prying $4 from your wallet, but I got my copy of issue # 1 from DCBS for less than a dollar. Fine.

It's the blatant pissing in the salty face of continuity that really bugs the shit out of me, though.

I know what you're going to say, and I almost agree with you. "Is he really going to get upset that Wolverine appears in too many books after all these years? It's comic books, stupid! You don't like it, go read Jane Austen novels, douche bag!"

Sure, sure. I'm really not "that guy" who's going to lose sleep over comic book chronology bending the laws of time/space. But the thing of it is, there's bending it, and there's fashioning it into a full scale replica of Bronson Pinchot and ramming it into my asshole.

Look at the cover to New Avengers # 1. The Thing does not have time to be in the Fantastic Four and the New Avengers. Power Man is supposedly spearheading the newer new Thunderbolts and the new New Avengers? One of those teams is in Colorado, and one's on the east coast....are you shitting me? Spider-Man is in fewer books than his peak, but c'mon, man. Ms. Marvel, whatever. And then there's Wolverine, the king emperor of "fuck common sense, he's everywhere at every moment." That cover just sits there and laughs at you with 600 megatons of "we know you're stupid enough to buy this shit no matter HOW little sense it makes!" And that just doesn't feel good to me.

So yeah, I can exhibit a little suspension of disbelief. But this requires you to be a goddamn idiot, and then laughs at you for buying it! Tell me that isn't the point of this quip by Wolverine on the right. Brian Bendis is actively engaging you the reader and saying "Yeah, there's no fucking way this character could possibly do all of these things in a sensible universe - aren't we hilarious!" Well, no, actually you're not.

A big reason why I'm out of patience with this nonsense is the fact that so many of these books do not sell themselves on the artistic value of the stories or characters within. The selling point is always "Everything you've ever known and trusted about X is about to blow into a gajillion smithereens and change forever!!! BOOOOOOMMMM!!!!"

It may ninja up on you a little bit, but none of that matters without continuity. Changing a thing doesn't matter without a sense of attachment to what was. You need a history to engage with it intellectually and emotionally. You need the parts of the universe to be cohesive so you can believe in it, to trust it, to care about it.

This was part of the groundbreaking success of Marvel in the 1960s. Stories used to all be one-and-dones. What happened last month had no bearing on what you reading this month. Marvel came along and Stan Lee began to intermingle characters and events a bit. If Gwen Stacy fell off a building and died, that shit was going to matter next month. And Reed Richards might pop up and help out the X-Men for an issue. That continuity bred verisimilitude - sure, the action was over-the-top, but the universe was a place with shared experiences that felt like life.

And now Marvel is become a bit of a one trick pony that does nothing but trade on the illusion that it is "shaking up" that life-like shared universe. Nothing ever really matters. It's gone in a heartbeat. Where is any vestige of the "BBBOOOOOOOMMMM!" Civil War stuff? How 'bout Secret Invasion? Spider-Man: The Other? Or his stupid costume from Tony Stark? Will we even know Franken-Castle existed three weeks after his inevitable return to "normalcy?"

It doesn't matter, but the solicitations sure make it seem like it should. The entire marketing scheme is driven around a cohesive system that doesn't exist.

And you know what? I know that Brian Bendis has earned the keys to the car and all that. But why not make it make sense? Ben Grimm's reason for caving in and joining the Avengers is that his family is making him crazy??? No way. No goddamn way.

Read Hickman's Fantastic Four and tell me that makes any sense at all. The FF are dealing with galactic level threats, and when that's done with, he's got those moloid kids to take care of, and none of them are driving him crazy in the text. If you're going to break the social contract and press my disbelief on being in two places at once, can't the motivation seem plausible?

I feel no respect regarding the social contract between reader and publisher from New Avengers. The key to the "event" is to make the reader care about the house of cards. Not only is it difficult to give a shit about the house of cards after it's been threatened or supposedly knocked down 33 times in the past five years, but they don't even build the house correctly any more.

Where is the editorial mandate to protect the ship? Where is the voice of reason letting the field lie fallow for a bit so that the crops can grow again? Where is the captain with the discipline to say "Lucas Cage running two teams thousands of miles apart just doesn't make sense!" Because right now Marvel appears to be a thousand kids running around throwing dynamite to listen to it pop. Good luck with that.

Marvel needs a steward, and fast. They're pumping out 150 books of "canon" a month that nobody appears willing or able to keep track of, and their empire is currently built on the foundation of threatened continuity.

You can't have it both ways. If you're going to run your business on events....keep your shit straight. And if it just doesn't matter, then how are we supposed to care about the next big thing that will "never be the same"?

- Ryan

Chronic Breakdown: Siege # 4

Siege # 4
Marvel Comics
Script: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Olivier Coipel
30 pages for $3.99

So I finished Siege, and I ended up where I started...underwhelmed. I'm not so far gone that I can't render props where they are due. Kudos for keeping the damn thing to four issues instead of eight, as an example. Sure this thing is way overloaded with meaningless splash pages, but at least they gave us 30 pages of that for $3.99 instead of the usual 22. It says something I suppose that in this era, we victims are thankful for our rape when the bindings aren't too tight or overly chafing.

There were certainly plenty of monumentally explodey moments. I'm sure there's someone out there brain damaged enough to lament the "loss" of Ares for the four minutes he'll be gone. Asgard is basically rubble, Osborn is ousted and fully outed as a nutbag, the registration act is rescinded, and the heroes are back in charge. Yay?

Rationally, I can recognize that things happened in Siege. I have a difficult time caring about any of it, though, because it all felt less like a story and more like a corporate conveyor belt. By now we all know how these things are supposed to work. You paint a way too large picture of heroes in preposterous poses looking all menacing. They spout cliched dreck to show how tough they are. You'll need a dozen or so splash pages of powerful people hitting each other with stuff in place of any actual drama. A couple people "die", and then you erase everything that came before you so you can move on to the next Big Thing, which by the way won't remember you.

It's all been done, and that might actually work if it was done well, but this wasn't. Let me show you what I'm talking about:

The Dialogue Sucks

Everybody has their own laundry list of things they need out of their comic reading experience. I need dialogue. I need it to sell me on the characters, people's speech tells us who they are. Speech patterns should be distinct and appropriate to the character's history and environment. Occasionally, it should make us laugh, make us cringe, or surprise us.

So here's Nick Fury, the overconfident cigar-chomping military guy who's forgotten more trauma than most heroes will ever see. He should have a better rejoinder than "You bet you will." It's boring, and it's beneath the character. I don't think "toots" is a very clever choice, either. It's not a crime, but when the rest of it is so dull, it comes off to me as a dirty shortcut. You want to write an old school character? Write old school attitude, not "toots". It's lazy.

Here's Thor all irritated after the Sentry supposedly blew up his brother:


Again, it's boring. It's stock. If you showed a sixth grader a copy of Journey Into Mystery and then asked him or her to write that scene, that's the dialogue that would get written there. "Take that, vile fiend!" And you know what? I get that it's difficult to have a real good handle on all of those different characters, and I get that not everybody can be Gail Simone and just knock it out of the park every time.

But dialogue is supposed to be Bendis's wheelhouse - what the hell happened? Here's your major comedic moment in an unnecessary splash page featuring Spider-Man:


That isn't funny, or clever, or interesting. If you're going to waste that kind of space for a "zinger", make it count. This is the best we could come up with for our special event? This is the filet mignon of comedy? Let a dozen 8th graders re-write the line, and I bet eight of them score more laughs.

Here's the thing that bothers me the most, though...

Unsupported, Unfulfilling, Illogical "Big Moments"
Here's Steve Rogers passing the torch at the end of Siege:


Where the hell does that come from? Did I miss something? What happened that told Steve that Bucky is the guy now? It certainly wasn't anything that happened inside of Siege proper. Steve certainly seemed to have things under control when he was holding a casual conversation with Nick Fury while doing battle inside of the Siege: Secret Warriors one shot.

You can't have an impactful epiphany with no set-up. Captain America has been a huge part of Steve's life for a long time. He's not going to give that up on a lark. It needs to make more sense than "Well, we have this Secret Avengers book coming out next month." It's fine if you have that....but then tell the story in such a manner that the transition seems natural, even imperative.

Siege did nothing of the sort. It's irritating to read that scene, because it's telling me that I'm an idiot who should just roll over and accept whatever is said. Well... no. I'm an entirely different kind of idiot. You can't just say it, at least not on my watch. It has to make sense inside the story, or it feels like a cheat. And this was a cheat.

Same thing goes for registration, frankly. True, Osborne probably put a sour taste in people's mouths over his stewardship of the law....but that doesn't make the law illegitimate. That means you don't hire somebody with a clinical psychosis to run the damn thing.

Siege didn't build up a case inside the narrative that would lead me to believe the public would suddenly abandon the concept of responsible, accountable use of powers. This is not as egregious and out of left field as the Cap thing. There are people who would recognize that it was the unlicensed heroes who stepped in and stopped the chaos that the licensed folks caused.

To me, though, there is no case for the obvious abolishment of registration. There is an obvious case for Marvel wanting to return to the status quo and forget all the earth shattering "never be the same" moments of 2005. But inside the story, it feels hollow to me.

In the end, Siege reads like a giant action piece, full of sound and fury, and signifying the next step in the conveyor belt of money. This was not a story. This was a series of explosions designed to distract us from the fact that we paid $15.96 for a commercial about the next 19 Avengers books they want to sell us. Color me unsatisfied.

- Ryan

Chronic Reviews: An Assload

I have a whole pile of books I've collected over the past few weeks just itching to get talked about. I can't go in depth with the whole lot, it would take too long. I'm not Ethan Van Sciver here, folks. I can't pull out four whole pages of material in a week. Sorry.

Instead I present you with a veritable assload of teeny tiny reviews which shall serve no purpose other than to give me an excuse to say mean things about people who are simply trying to entertain me. So let's do it....hut! hut! hut!

Cloak & Dagger (one shot)
Marvel Comics
(W)Stuart Moore/(P)Mark Brooks

These characters continue to languish in re-boot hell. They've tried mini-series, multiple ongoings, and there seems to be something that behaves like an engram with these two, because now matter how much the books SUCK, they continue to tantalize.

There is nothing in this one-shot that begs for the story to continue, that's for sure. This is baseline "woe is me, I'm different" nonsense with a trace of "jungle fever" thrown in for good measure.

Here's what needs to happen. These characters are more than 20 years old now - they can grow up a little bit. Give them a province or a mission, and make them viable adults proficient at what they do. Forget the muddied origin story. (which they backtracked on again in this issue) Make them strong people with something interesting to do.

My take? Cloak at his best dips into the darkforce dimension and just knows shit that other people don't. Give them an invasion force that only Cloak can detect, kind of like "They Live". Hickman just brought the Dire Wraiths back in FF # 577, why not them? Now Cloak & Dagger can be fugitive heroes running around whacking important people in the community who are actually wraiths in disguise.

It's perfect! I just made you $300,000 between the kick-ass ongoing series and the hit Cloak & Dagger movie it would spawn. You're welcome, Marvel. All I ask in return is that you only charge me $2.99 per issue, and you get Paul Jenkins to write it. Next!

Blackest Night # 8
DC Comics
(W)Geoff Johns/(P) Ivan Reiss

I've been back and forth on this whole thing way too many times. At first I was very much in love, sometimes I think the whole spectrum thing got too complex and too silly, then we'd get some really nice character moments in the midst of the chaos and I was back in.

A few notes on this issue. Like every "event" book these days, so many of the beats are just boiler-plate, obligatory, and BORING. Did I sort of enjoy the little Hawkman/Shiera moment that you could see coming from Tucson? Yeah, I guess I did.

Did I feel anything for the Martian Manhunter or Aquaman coming back? Nah. Did I feel inspired by the mandatory super splash pages of DCs biggest hitters in white costumes fightin' together for truth, justice, and LIFE ITSELF?? (Dun! Dun! DUUNNNN!) No, not really.

Maybe I'm just jaded at this point. Maybe there's some kid out there who hasn't read every event book since they began with Secret Wars (sorry Contest of Champions, you don't count) and thinks this is the feline's sleepwear. I aint that kid, and this sort of wrap-up with all these neat moments reads dangerously close to fan fiction. When I got done with this, it didn't even feel like the completion of a story. It felt like the launch of 13 new spin-offs and ongoings. I want a story, not a marketing ploy.

I don't want to give you the impression that I hated the book or the series, because I did not. I'm sticking with the regular Green Lantern title, which frankly had better moments than Blackest Night proper. But something felt a little empty inside the kaboom on this finale.

Hack/Slash # 30
Devil's Due Comics (for now)
(W)Tim Seeley/(P) Daniel Leister

One of the things I like about this book now is that it has enough history to reference itself and develop things and add depth. It would be off base to say that Hack/Slash takes itself seriously, because it treats nothing reverently, which is a good thing. What I'm saying is that this is not just a series of one-offs poking fun at the next beloved B-Movie on the list. Seeley has enough plot points in the bank where Cassie and Vlad live in their own created universe, and that's kinda neat, actually.

This is not the greatest issue of the series. I like Samhain, and I like the Black Lamp conspiracy, but this is not super juicy to me. One page made this more than worthwhile for me. The book shines in the quiet moments when Vlad and Cassie get to actually share their friendship. This issue featured Vlad sharing an anthropological experiment he's conducting, and a little window artwork. That was worth the $3.50 right there, and there are always laugh out loud moments in this book.

X-Factor # 203
Marvel Comics
(W)Peter David/(P)Valentine De Landro

Before I get to the story, let me bitch about the art very quickly. I'm not going to complain about Valentine De Landro, I like him just fine, and he's the closest thing we've had to a regular penciller. But that's just it - there never has been a regular penciller on X-Factor, and I don't get it. Does nobody want to work with Peter David? Doesn't sound right. Are people unwilling to draw X-Books? That really doesn't sound right. The closest thing we've had to a "name brand" was Ryan Sook as well. What's up with that? But I digest.

We used to rant and hoot and holler about X-Factor once a week on Chronic, and don't talk about it much any more. Don't be fooled for a moment into thinking the book is any less good, though. Right now I have three ongoings that I eagerly anticipate and can't wait to get home and crack: Hickman's Fantastic Four, Simone's Secret Six, and yes, David's X-Factor.

The results are in and Peter David has "failed". Sales did not double, this is not a top 10 selling title. The fault does not lie at the feet of Mr. David, however. He kicked seven shades of ass and we're so buried in glop that nobody notices quality any more. This is another reason why we need to engage in "winnowing", so that we have less noise to distract from the quality that does abound if you're diligent or lucky enough to stumble upon it. But I digest. Again.

This is sort of a Guido issue, and I'm fine with that, because the guy is hilarious. Always. It also features Monet in a more vulnerable spot than we're used to. Plus, it looks like we may get to see Guido and Monet together in ways that we're not used to. Ways that should be really goddamn entertaining to watch, which is pretty much how X-Factor works. If you're missing this title, you're missing a lot. Truth in advertising? You will need the backstory in order to be in on everything. Go back to the beginning of this iteration and you'll be fine, trust me.

American Vampire # 1
DC/Vertigo Comics
(W)Scott Snyder & Stephen King/(P) Rafael Albuquerque

I was anticipating this one quite a bit, mostly for the original King material. You can hardly go wrong with Vertigo, though, which is a testament to the very much underrated Karen Berger.

This is an anthology series; Snyder gets the first half and focuses on a couple of would-be starlets who are visited by a mysterious stranger and may be biting off more than they can chew with their potential big break. King gets the second half and relates the tale of a dangerous criminal being transported by Pinkertons. Yes, there are vampires involved in both stories; both are interested in making you guess about who might be fangified or not.

These are both cute little vignettes, and in fact the thing that surprised me the most is that I might like Snyder's better. Nothing wrong with either end of the book, but neither am I super inspired to continue with it, either. Certainly not if they continue with the $3.99 price point. Stephen King fans and vampire fans, come on board! Unless you really can't stand period pieces, since both stories take place in the 1920s. (and seem like they might even dovetail together down the line)

Siege # 3
Marvel Comics
(W)Brian Bendis/(P) Olivier Coipel

I've been very public and very vocal about how much I despise Siege, and I was pretty much done with it after the second issue. But then I got to talking with Remy over at Where Monsters Dwell about this third issue, and he basically lost his ever-lovin' mind over the damn thing.

And then when I went to go find it at two of my local comic shops, there were no copies available. Hmmmm. Now I simply HAD to have it. So I ordered it from Lone Star and went for a third dose of Event Cancer.

Look, I'm not going to say I really like Siege. I just don't. It still has all the symptoms of Eventitis, in which it reads not as a story, per se, but as a very transparent marketing ploy that says all the same things we've been hearing in every other event book that has been pounded into us incessantly for the past...what...four years now? Big doings. Never the same. Everything changes here. BOOOOOOOM!

I'll say two nice things about Siege. 1) It isn't just marking time. This is an efficient title. Four issues, not seven or eight. There is a point, and Bendis is getting to it. Bravo.

2) You are definitely getting your fill of "big moments". If for some reason you are stupid enough to actually believe that any of this matters now, or that any of it will have ripples we'll feel even six months from now, than by all means enjoy your Epic Happenings, because they abound in Siege. Norman Osborne is gettin' his. He's wigging out. The Sentry is flexing his 1,000 sun explodey-type muscles. Entire kingdoms are looking like they're headed for the scratch-n-dent clearance bin.

It's all happening. Sort of. It's just, the other crap is too fresh in my mind. Remember Spider-Man: The Other? Yeah. Ever see anything that would lead you to believe that ever happened? Nah, me either. How about Civil War? Ever see folks hunting down fugitive heroes, or training to become certified, or putting people in the Negative Zone? You neither? Huh. That's weird.

Listen, if you're enjoying this, God bless you, ya little buggers. I'm glad you aren't jaded like the former Manatee. None of these explosions mean anything to me. The reader's investment is entirely predicated on their investment in the shared cohesive universe and the ramifications of mucking with that. There will be none. If you're stupid enough to believe there will be, you deserve your fate.

There will be a new "event" when this one dies that will not care one whit about Siege, and when sales on the ongoing books inevitably matriculate down a notch - guess what? It's reboot time!!!! Get ready to forget everything you ever knew about (insert name here) because now it's changing forever! And this time we mean it! Yawn.

Supergod # 3
Avatar Comics
(W)Warren Ellis/(P)Garrie Gastonny

Maybe I just don't have my thumb on the pulse...but my sense is that Warren's star has fallen a little bit. I remember when Mike & I first started recording Chronic in the summer of 2007, it was quite literally "The Summer of Ellis". He was everywhere, scowling, demanding attention. He had a novel come out, he was as big a name as comics had, and he was bigger than comics.

And that seems not to be the case any more. Nobody talks about that novel. Black Summer came and went, and I can't remember the last time we saw an issue of Doktor Sleepless. The Thunderbolts thing had some initial buzz, but that's over with. "Do Anything" is not a must-read column, I don't think.

The thing of it is, Warren is still Warren. Is that maybe the problem? Is his style and voice so distinctive at this point that we've already read all we need to? I sometimes wonder if the last vestige of us die-hard comic fans feel that way.

We're probably wrong about that, by the way, and the proof is in Supergod. Listen folks, Warren is still here, one half wide-eyed wondering child, one half sneering but wicked smart bastard.

Supergod is packed with wild epic ideas about real power, how governments feel about power, and of course there's some theology involved as well. Our narrator gets lectured by fungus god Morrigan Lugus in an absolute must-read bit. Is it soap box pontificating? Of course it is. This is what we pay (way too much) for when we buy a Warren Ellis comic book.

He's thought out the politics, the technology, and the social ramifications of a Supergod arms race. It's fun, it's intriguing, and you just can't get this anywhere else. Yes, our narrator sounds an awful lot like every other Warren Ellis character you've ever read in your life. Fuck that, who cares? It's a really good character, isn't it? The guy has a conversation with a Supergod twenty years in the past! You have to read it like three times to figure out what the hell is going on, because the idea is so fresh (at least it was to me) that you can't process it at first.

I do wish the goddamn thing didn't cost $3.99, but if I'm going to spend it...I'm spending it on stuff like this. "Morrigan Lugus was quite pleased, too. I should have been more worried about that." Are you kidding me? Long live Warren!

Brave & The Bold # 32
DC Comics
(W) JM Straczynski/(P)Jesus Saiz

JMS claims he's going to turn the world upside down and make it a top 10 book later in the year, and until then I'm just going to enjoy this book while it's good. Ideally books like this and Marvel's "What If" should be the height of entertainment. They're not bound particularly by continuity, you can mix-and-match anything you want, the sky is the limit! Of course ordinarily these things are yawners of the highest order, or hit-and-miss at best. JMS seems to be bringing it every month.

This month the pairing is Aquaman and The Demon, very odd to be sure. It fits with the premise though, which is very Lovecraftian and epic. If there's a weakness in the story, it's the constant transparent reminders about what a bad ass Aquaman is. OK, OK, we get it. We don't appreciate the guy enough! Jeez.

Outside of that, this is pretty entertaining. When you get done with this issue, you feel like you've been let in on a secret, something behind-the-scenes, and that's an element that a book like B&B should be using. Hey, go crazy, man!

I'm almost afraid now to get to the end of the year and have this little party ruined by the "bid doings". I'm so tired of that I could spew. Why can't we be satisfied with things that are actually interesting? I guess the answer is that 100,000 people will read whatever nonsense is thrown out there with an event banner on the cover, and only me and 14 other people read this issue.

Is it DCs fault? The retailers? I know DC doesn't really promote the title, even though they have a heavy hitter at the reins. I don't know about you, but I've never been directed to quality books at my LCS, other than little cards with so-and-sos "pick of the week". Of course not knowing how many times so-and-so has been in rehab or dropped as a child, it's difficult to know how much stock to put in such recommendations.

Bottom line, this is a really good title that nobody will ever know about until JMS starts throwing it into heavy continuity and probably ruins it. Awesome!

Chronic Review: Siege # 2

Siege # 2
Marvel Comics
Script: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Olivier Coipel
40 pages for $3.99


OK. Not only is thing $3.99, but it's an event book, which makes it completely anathema to me. So why am I buying this piece of crap?

Well, for credibility. I love to bitch about these things, no place quite as comfy as my soapbox of toxic filth, and I feel that it's important to sometimes get dirty so that I know whereof I speak. I talk a lot of shit about event books, but I haven't really sullied my hands with a Marvel event since Civil War.

Didn't read Secret Invasion. Bumped into Dark Reign just a bit during my normal reading of Amazing Spider-Man, and I read the Punisher: List book because Timmy Callahan put me onto Rick Remender's work there and I thought I'd test drive it. And that's about it.

So now after reading the first two issues of Marvel's new "blockbuster" Siege, you'll know that I speak from experience when I tell you what a pungent slop of rubbish this story is.



Let me show you exactly why these books just don't, just CAN'T work right now. And listen, it's not all bad. I dig the respect that Ares showed toward Heimdall. I dig the text-heavy backmatter at the end that tries to sell the gravity of attempting what amounts to a coup.

And of course something potentially very strong happens in this book, and I'm about to spoil it, so buckle up. The issue's been out long enough where everybody knows the "big doing" of this issue, so I don't feel too bad.

To put it plainly, the Sentry rips Ares inside out. He does. And they show it, in the sort of detail that you would expect Jacen Burrows might even cringe at. And it affected me not one jot.




Here's the thing. There is debate about the reality of "event fatigue" and I suppose that everybody has their own threshold. Maybe somebody out there can still feel something. I can't. I don't see how anybody could at this point, because it's been done so many times in the last, oh I don't know, 3 minutes that it's all rote now.

Bob splashed the ground with Ares' guts. OK. But that's not what I register as I page through Siege. I feel like I have Rowdy Roddy Piper sunglasses on from "They Live". And instead of seeing exploding god meat, what I actually see is "Insert super impactful character death demonstrating harsh reality of conflict threat here."

Because we've seen this before, and this is where that goes in Act 2 of this little machine they like to run. This is where Bill Foster bought it in Civil War. This is where Martian Manhunter bought it in Final Crisis. Insert "impactful" character "death." Yawn. It's paint by numbers, it's coupon redemption storytelling, and it happens so often now you can't help but see the bullshit behind the curtain.

That should have been the coolest thing ever, a shocking moment and a departure into the macabre for a mainstream entity. Yawn.

See here's the thing that eastern philosophy gets that we just can't get through our thick western skulls: the yang only has power because of the yin. Your coffee cup is useful because of its empty space. Excitement only seems that way because of the quiet moments in between. Take away the quiet, and all that shouting just drowns itself out as white noise. And that's where we're at, folks.

Marvel can turn the volume all the way up to 11 and I can't hear it, because it's all we've been hearing for years now. Shocking secret. Never the same again. Change this team forever. You won't believe what happens next. Yawn.

And you can't tell me that this is inspired, that this is the story Brian Bendis has been waiting his whole life to write. He doesn't care any more than you do. Let me prove it to you with a little blurb that really full-on pissed me off:




"I'll do what I do." Are you kidding me? Does that line land for ANYBODY? Would you think that was cool if you were eleven years old, even? I certainly hope not. As though that line says anything, means anything. It's just lazy writing.

And before anybody thinks I'm going too crazy on Bendis, let me say that his work on Daredevil is some of the best superhero comics ever written, and he does know inspired storytelling, and he does know fresh dialogue. But ahhhhh....this aint it.

My Rowdy Roddy glasses see that line and it reads "Insert super cool character elevating moment here." It's all so transparent and so tiresome. He didn't want to write that line, but it was that time in the cycle, and if you don't really give a shit, dreck like that will slip out.

And by the way, everything in Siege will all be undone and ignored three months from now, when the next unbelievable-never-be-the-same-again bullshit washes over us, and we all know that now as well, as sure as the sun will rise, as sure as gravity. We've seen it too much and too recently to forget any more. Marvel, give us time to forget!

Hey. I love comics, and I'm not going anywhere. But this is not where the medium lives and breathes. This is assembly line, neutered, RUBBISH. I saw it, so now I'm sayin' it. Now go find yourself a copy of Secret Six or Fantastic Four and discover how a living comic book operates. Do it now!

- Ryan