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Last Week's Superhero Comics In Twenty-Two Panels

Published Tue, 08 May 2012 15:00:40 -0500

Dr Manolis Vamvounis runs through last week's comics for Bleeding Cool.

It's MULTIVERSE WEEK at DC, with not one, not two, but THREE stories set in alternate realities!

EARTH 2 #1 begins "Five Years Ago", much like Justice League #1 back in September, and just like that series, it features the united might of that Earth's Big Three against the invading army of Apokolips. Only, in this instance, they fail. Miserably. Sure, they eventually manage to push them back at great personal sacrifice, but only after they have destroyed entire countries and assassinated all that Earth's heroes and gods! The real cast of the book, the handsome young Alan Scott and a 21-year old Jay Garrick, fresh out of college, only turn up near the end of the issue, after the jump to the present. It's a well-written and beautifully drawn comic… and it's also a big stinky mess.

[NERD-RANT] This is the first major alternate reality we've seen since September's reboot. It's never explained just what sets it apart from the main Earth. The Big Three look the same age as they do in their own books, with the difference that the Earth-2 Batman has a fully grown up daughter! This is supposedly DC's answer to fans' demands for the return of the JSA heroes, but JSA was a book about Legacy and the older generation guiding the new one. DC is giving fans what they asked for, but not what they wanted. Is it really that wrong to have a super-hero who's older than 30? STOP THE AGEISM DC! [/NERD-RANT]

Speaking of Batman's daughter, Huntress is officially (kinda) back to her pre-Crisis origin as the daughter of Batman and (I presume) Catwoman in WORLD'S FINEST #1, the title she now shares with Power Girl (who is sticking to her pre-Crisis origin as the Supergirl of Earth-2, the only slightly older cousin of that Earth's Superman). This is a surprisingly fun book, reinstating the beautiful friendship between the two reality castaways, and (finally!) putting George Perez to good use.

Grant Morrison also chooses this week for his first Multiverse-centric stand-alone story in ACTION COMICS #9. The story features not just a BLACK Superman, but a black PRESIDENT Superman: the decidedly Obama-esque Calvin Ellis. This Superman of an Earth populated seemingly entirely of black super-heroes or black versions of familiar super-heroes is confronted with the threat of another alternate reality "high concept" Superman, a mind construct or Tulpa (fans of Warren Ellis' DOCTOR SLEEPLESS should feel rewarded for their trouble right about now) that has (d)evolved into a super-placebo, a brand without identity, stripped of Superman's defining characteristics, becoming anything people want him to be. A meta-textual warning from Grant towards his DC bosses?

Everyone's going Gaga over Boy Chimney, but my favourite bit from the new DIAL H #1 was actually the emo-tastic Captain Lachrymose. He will beat you to tears! The DCNu reboot of the "Dial H for H.E.R.O." concept brings with it a dark, twisty and ironic sense of humour, and a gothic urban aesthetic, substituting the classic mysterious magic dial for a derelict telephone booth, with a wink towards the Fleischer Superman. This could easily have been a Vertigo title release, in both quality and approach. It's got the same adult approach as RESURRECTION MAN or ANIMAL MAN, with none of the pacing or decompression issues.

How stupid am I? Here I was, complaining about the absence of Greek heroes in the DCU, when I was simply failing to make the obvious connection between the mysterious Pandora from September's books and, well, THE Pandora, of ancient Greek myth. The secret is out of the box (sorry) with DC's THE NEW 52 FCBD #1: Pandora is a real Greek, and (apparently) "an evil girl", bad, bad, naughty.

TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #1 features the extra-sized first part of the "CULLING" crossover between TT and the cast of creatively floundering Legion Lost book. The two teams are trapped inside the underground Colony forced to battle each other to the death, Hunger Games style. It's all VERY 90s (in a good way). New characters, bright designs, funky names, some familiar, some not, and even some great surprises like the spooky Warblade redesign by Jim Lee (included in the back-matter of the book along with a gazillion other designs, sketches and cool trivia).

The DCNu versions of Beast Boy, Thunder & Lightning and Artemis also make their first appearance here. The young Bunker remains the breakout character of the book, and he really gets a chance to shine (I can't help myself) here.

The plot of STORMWATCH #9, split between two fights against a renegade Red Lantern and the honest-to-god original Vitruvian Man felt like page-fillers for what is the real appeal of the book: Apollo and Midnighter making googly eyes at each other.

The plot of GREEN ARROW #9 on the other hand has absolutely no redeeming qualities – apart from maybe a drunk polar bear hanging outside a traditional western saloon… in the Arctic! Despite original high hopes, Ann Nocenti has completely missed the mark on this new take on the book, skidding past ironic comedy into sheer incoherence.

Speaking of incoherence:

Amen, Tony. How do you react to a scene where Captain America is discussing IMPRISONING almost half the existing mutant race? Since issue 1 almost every single major hero has been behaving wildly out of character in order to serve the needs of the plot and rationalize the necessary amount of the promised Avengers-on-X-Men action. But the thing is, they don't. Cap and Cyclops still come off as bickering children, and the big end-all battle that was so heavily promoted for the start of the series sort of extinguished itself between issues, without either side suffering any visible scratches.

This is somewhat rectified later in AVENGERS VERSUS X-MEN #3 in an impressive beat-down between Cap and Wolverine as reprisal for Logan's disobedience last issue. Because that's what really makes the Avengers such a close-knit family, and Cap a respected leader. Face-punching. Hey, it worked out SO well for him in Civil War.

How hard can it be to write these crossovers but still have these seasoned heroes act like adults? Heck, the kids seem to be doing a better job of it over in AVENGERS ACADEMY #29. Cap and Wolvie show up (I'm No-Prizing this as mid-way stop before Cap throws Wolverine off a plane over the antarctic) to drop off the Generation Hope kids and the rest of Utopia's leftover population for "safe-keeping". These characters get more face-time and personal moments as guest-stars on this book, than they do the whole year over on the main X-titles. Did anyone even remember that Loa, Dust and Prodigy were still stuck on Utopia?

(and do you have any idea who the fishy looking guy in front of Pixie is?)

In X-FACTOR #235, Peter David decides to tackle real-life super-heroes within the confines of the actual Marvel U, and poke some fun at the shoulder pad-tastic 90s while he's at it. Madrox and Shatterstar infiltrate the "X-ceptionals", a group of non-powered, non-trained community reach super-heroes, under the assumed names of Multitask and Star Face. Well, not that it's any less ridiculous than Star's existing name.

In ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #10, Miles gets into a fight with his Uncle, the shady Prowler. Well, not "a" fight, THE fight, one of the coolest, and most intense duels we've seen this past year. And it's the bloody PROWLER, one of the lamest, gaudiest flops of the mainstream Marvel U. How is he suddenly so cool now? A tip of the hat to Bendis as well for his sneaky reversal of the classic Power and Responsibility motif.

David Marquez is the new fill-in artist on the book, and he manages in the span of one issue to overshadow even the crazy talented regular artist of the book, Sara Pichelli. The fluidity of the action, the body language, the facial expressions, the daring panel compositions… Editor Mark Paniccia has managed to keep this as the only book in the Ultimate line that is still just as consistently good and exciting as the very first year of Ultimate books – if not more.

In DAREDEVIL #12, Matt Murdock is struggling to keep up his always-entertaining (for sheer pointlessness) ruse that he is not DD against his new assistant D.A. girlfriend, as they go out on a "blind"-folded date and he shares a charming little exam-cheating mystery from his college days.

MIND THE SPOILERS!

In the final page of VENOM #17 Eddie Brock is taken hostage and forced to once again bond with a new symbiote, one of Venom's original "children", Toxin. Now, Tox was always the lamest, most generic looking of the third-generation symbiotes, but this new design (presumably by the fast-rising Kev Walker) is a real monstrosity of a beauty.

GORE-WATCH

A comparatively bloodless week, up until SUPREME #74. Eric Larsen has two of the Supremes (the classic and the Alan Moore one) liberate the original "Mean Supreme"… or as I like to call him: the FRANK MILLER SUPREME!

The rest of the issue? Absolute bloody mayhem, culminating in Frank Miller Supreme stealing all of the other Supremes' powers, leaving him as the Supreme supreme.

Apparently, this was always Eric Larsen's intended approach to the character, but he couldn't resist the fanboy urge to come up with an in-continuity, in-story explanation for the switch.

Then again there's that other scene in ANIMAL MAN #9, where zombie Buddy Baker "OzzyOsbourne"s the head off a live flying hawk. EEK.

Lots of #1 issues this week as DC's Second Wave made its great splash in the stores, but it's the low-key DIAL H #1 that made the best first impression. AVENGERS VERSUS X-MEN #3 remains the greatest disappointment on the stands.

Five valuable lessons that we learned from comics this week:

There's no leadership problem that can't be solved through a good punch in the face.

The new DC thinks anyone over 30 still wearing spandex is a pervert.

The only thing better than a black President, is a black SUPERMAN President.

Mark Paniccia is the coolest editor in comics.

Captain Lachrymose would totally own Boy Chimney in a fight (that would end in smoke and tears – literally)

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