Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1, Broken World #1, Comics, entertainment, Giant-Sized Little Marvels: Avengers Vs. X-Men #1, Marvel Comics, Midnighter #1, oni press, Secret Wars #3, Sixth Gun: Valley Of Death #1

Thor's Comic Review Column – Midnighter #1, Giant-Sized Little Marvels: Avengers Vs. X-Men #1, Broken World #1, Sixth Gun: Valley Of Death #1, Secret Wars #3, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1

This Week's Reviews:

Midnighter #1

Giant-Size Little Marvels: Avengers vs X-Men #1

Broken World #1

Sixth Gun: Valley of Death #1

Secret Wars #3

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1

Midnighter #1 (DC, $3.99)

By Graig Kent

It's hard to stay uniformly positive about DC Comics these days. It seems like for every one thing they do right, there's a half dozen things they do wrong. Hell, there's even a website dedicated to tracking the days since DC last did something stupid in the vein of a "days since last accident" tote board. But it's too easy to be cynical and stay cynical, amidst the all too recent art-splicing half-page ads and the supremely lackluster band-aid event that was Convergence, it's hard to look at DC with any optimism. But instead of continually pissing on them to the point that they feel any criticism directed at them is just sour grapes and easily dismissed, let's take the time to praise them for things done right and maybe they'll strive to do more things right.

This new Midnighter series is one of those things done right.

Sure, it's a beautifully illustrated book, but that's not what I'm talking about. Midnighter has always been a hyper-violent character, born in a time of grim and gritty comic book excessiveness, Midnighter was the ultimate in grim and gritty comic book excessiveness. He was Batman combined with Daredevil mashed up with Deathblow and the Punisher and every other character being pushed to ridiculously violent extremes in the late 1990's. The twist at the time, which still remains a good one now, is he's gay, subverting both action hero stereotypes and homosexual stereotypes.

As the Batman of the Wildstorm universe, he was pointedly paired with Apollo, the Superman of the Wildstorm Universe, slash fiction gone mainstream. But that relationship, which lasted for over a decade and a half (and a multitude of Stormwatch reboots) long ago felt like a forced conceit, the wink-wink-iness of it having long played out. I wasn't a huge Wildstorm reader, but what I had seen of their dynamic seemed rather chaste, like Cameron and Mitchell on Modern Family. Gay male sexuality still scares the mainstream. With this new series, Apollo is out of the picture, leaving Midnighter emotionally wounded (showing it about as much as you would expect), but free and clear to prowl — our introduction to him this issue is from his Grindr (or DC equivalent) profile, as reviewed by his date in a upscale Oakland restaurant.

The date is interrupted by Modoran assassins who teleport into the building sporting heavy-duty high-tech weaponry, and Midnighter naturally goes to work. Following a delightfully creative, kinetic, and violent 6-page fight sequence Midnighter nurses his wounds (more the emotional ones than the physical, as I don't think any of the Modorans even touched him) before cutting to a second date which leads to a full page, multi-panel, hot-and-heavy make out sequence followed by a terrific morning after conversation that highlights who Midnighter is as a character better than ever before.

Up until now, Midnighter's generally been written as a borderline psychopath, a guy in fetish gear who gets off on beating people up. Writer Steve Orlando manages to pull a human out of that hot mess, a man who supremely confident in his life and his place in the world. He understands exactly how he's flawed and won't apologize for it. "I fight for normal people, but I'll never be one," he states, unable to look his lover, Jason, in the eyes as he does. "I'm not a hero. Some people can't handle that."

The next moment Midnighter tags Jason in the neck with a "smartmark", a high-tech one way communication device, understanding that just by being in any proximity to him that Jason is likely to encounter trouble or strange phenomenon. As Jason recoils a bit ("…this is the definition of coming on strong"), Midnighter tries to play it off like it's just a precaution, but with Orlando's script, and artist ACO's wonderful staging, it's so obviously a sign of Midnighter's affection.

ACO (with Hugo Petrus assisting with inks and vibrant, cinematic colors from Romulo Fajardo, Jr.) constructs his pages with high panel density, cut shots and close-ups scattering all over the story panels to build the scene with a wealth of additional detail. It could be a mess, but there's a lot of thought put into the panel structure to keep it from being excessive busyness. The lack of hard black frames for the panels (using white borders instead) adds to the fluidness, and ACO uses it, finding plenty of opportunity to experiment with white space, as well as have characters or objects break the panels in clever, but not obtrusive, ways.

Beyond his seriously great storytelling chops, ACO gives Midnighter a definite style. In plainclothes he's a man who likes to look good, his quasi-mohawk slicked gelled back into something respectable, donning a vest and tie combo, with ACO putting just the right amount of stubble to dirty up the look just a little.

The seeds of a larger arc are also placed about as we're reintroduced to the Gardener, Midnighter's handler/mother figure, and keeper or all manner of interstellar and metaphysical weaponry, after she's been defeated and had her vast stores plundered. But as enticing as this story could be, the book is so wisely focused on establishing Midnighter as a complex person with a host of repressed emotions, that it makes it immediately worth investing in. It's a brilliant debut issue.

And come on, let's give DC a hand for not just not shying away from the character's sexuality, but embracing it, portraying it realistically when it could have so easily been exploitative instead. Even though the book goes from Midnighter kicking a rib eye from a steak through someone's head to two men kissing and tearing each other's clothes off, there's no intended shock value here, so if you're shocked, that's all on you. It's a phenomenal book.

Graig Kent just watched Kung Fury and wants its creators to make the Masters of the Universe movie. He thinks that kind of balls-out insanity is the only way to make a beefy dude in fur underpants sporting a pageboy haircut fighting a beefy purple dude with a skull face and a cape work. He tweets @thee_geekent sporadically.

Giant-Size Little Marvels: Avengers vs X-Men #1

By Adam X. Smith

There's been some back and forth recently between our fellow Comic Crewmember Devon and our Fearless Leader over whether or not DC Comics has any semblance of hope or joy in it. That conversation is one that will probably drag on and on and it's not a hill I really plan to die on any time soon (frankly the evidence speaks for itself in my hideously biased and embittered opinion), but I will say this: if there is any aspect of the modern DCU that comes remotely close to that of Skottie Young's work for Marvel, I haven't seen it. Sure there is (or was briefly) Lil' Gotham, but that's hardly on the same scale, and Yale Stewart's superb JL8 is a fan-work that only exists because current DC editorial isn't providing it and continues to exist because the gibbering chimps running the legal department haven't rammed a cease-and-desist down Stewart's throat yet. You may laugh, reader, but it could happen any time – the people running DC at the moment are clearly insane not to just give Stewart a bunch of money to put the existing strips out in omnibus format with their blessing; he's already done a load of children's books for them.

By contrast, Young's work is front and centre almost anytime you go to the local comic book emporium, whether it's on his Rocket Raccoon title or on the plethora of variant covers he does – hell, my copy of Secret Wars #1 is the Scottie Young variant and I wasn't even going out of my way to pick it up! So naturally when the time came to pitch potential titles for the annual massive sandbox crossover event, it's no surprise that the one we get from Young is a massive sandbox crossover book featuring his distinctive chibi-fied style, with lush pastel colours from Jean-Francois Beaulieu.

Set in a sort of Tiny Toons/Muppet Babies-esque pocket of the Battleworld called Marville complete with an expository theme tune, we start off with the Avengers fighting Magick with the X-Men smirking from the side-lines… until she gets called home for dinner. Next day, Toad and Blob find themselves peckish and unable to decide between the gradually escalating varieties of food being hawked by the two opposing teams. Various shenanigans occur between the Avengers and X-Men trying to woo the gathering crowd and later to destroy each other's food trucks, culminating in an almighty scrap that is only halted by the arrival of a moving van containing a certain pair of fraternal twins. No prize for guessing that both Cap and Cyclops call dibs on them.

It's almost a given that the brief but expansive freedom to f*ck around that an event like Secret Wars and a sandbox like Battleworld will produce some spin-off books that rule the roost and others that fail to launch; Little Marvels seems to take a third option and simply embrace its destiny as a fun, frivolous little distraction from the heavy plot-driven goings-on of the main maxi-series and proof that the House of Ideas is perfectly capable of not taking itself entirely too seriously.

And sometimes that's enough. That and not sticking ads for Twix in the middle of art pages.

Adam X. Smith could have easily harped on for another thousand words why he's less troubled by Marvel rebooting its universe from the ground up for (arguably) the first time concerns him less than DC's constant attempts to alienate him. But sometimes the desire for brevity and a sense of contented laziness save the day – like the fella said, time is short and life is cruel, and it's up to us to change this town called Malice. Whoa yeah.

Broken World #1 (Boom! Studios)

By Bart Bishop

The end of the world is popular these days. From The Walking Dead to Mad Max: Fury Road, there's a fascination with all-encompassing destruction, but most importantly with the aftermath. Usually there's nuclear war or biological plague, but a few authors hypothesize something outside than the Earth itself. Not unlike Seveneves, a new novel by Neal Stephenson that posits the moon exploding and raining debris upon the earth with humanity responding by evacuating on space arks, Frank Barbiere imagines with Broken World an asteroid on a collision course with the earth and rockets primed to take people to the stars. Except the writer throws in the hitch that a lottery will decide who goes. Along with artist Christopher Peterson, this new series is an articulate bridge between truth and honesty. Terra may live on for billions of years undisturbed by celestial interference, and the governments of the world may not respond like this even if the end was nigh, but it feels honest and that's what gives it power, even if it is well-trodden ground.

Broken World follows Professor Elena Marlowe in the near future. It's just 48 hours away from the last ships blasting off from earth, and she's scrambling. She has a son she loves very much, and a devoted husband (who is not the boy's father) that is completely unaware of her shady past. That past is the mystery at the center of this book, as Elena visits a forger full of cynical conspiracy theories and teaches her final class that can only be described as Exposition 101. With a non-linear framing that jumps around between the moment when Elena and family are about to board and the days leading up to it, there's a lot of provocative world building taking place here, but much more importantly is the character building. Everyone around Elena is a cipher, but she's fully fleshed out while still maintaining a mystique. She can fight, she's an academic, and all she wants is to have a normal life. It'll be fascinating to see how Barbiere parses out that final-panel twist, as there's many directions it can go from here.

Barbiere takes the hermeneutic route with this series, which is a slightly different approach than the last book of his I reviewed, Black Market, which was proairetic in its cause and effect approach. Withholding is an appropriate way to hook the audience, as a first issue should, but let's hope that Elena isn't arbitrarily kept cryptic. As Elmore Leonard said about writing don't keep anything from the audience, and as Hitchcock said, surprise is having an explosion while suspense is showing the audience the bomb. I like these characters so far and even though the end is inevitable it's what happens next that really matters. It really depends on the level of technology at play here. I appreciate the grounding in what appears to be today, but how will any possible space travel aspects work? Probably less Star Trek and more Apollo 13. Completely unrelated, as a teacher myself, I always love the obligatory laid-back, conversational class that seems to last five minutes and has no real lesson plan, although at least there's an excuse, what with the end of the world and all.

Peterson's art is appropriately impressionistic. Body types are exaggerated slightly, with Elena long and lanky with a swan's neck, and there's a nice bit of minutiae to most foregrounds. The opening in the forger's workshop is packed with scraps and random tools, hinting at a life without pounding it home. There's also a profound choice to focus tight on the people when surrounded by technology, so there's never a sharp look at the spaceships, and most of the settings are so mundane as to be timeless, such as elementary schools or suburban households. The fashions are relatable, but uniforms and symbols pertaining to the fictionalized government of Pax are realized in a unique and striking way. Some of the backgrounds are a bit blank, however, and there's a peculiar element to the landscapes in that the plant life has died off. Is this because of the approaching asteroid or because people have become neglectful? It's an extreme touch that jumps the gun in terms of post-apocalypse.

All in all, a vivid glimpse into the direction mankind is going if confronted with its own mortality. We've seen this before, and it may have been more powerful if the fascist government was our own rather than a hypothetical totalitarian state, but Broken World promises a pointed exploration of tough themes, something I appreciate.

Editor and teacher by day, comic book enthusiast by night, Bart has a background in journalism and is not afraid to use it. His first loves were movies and comic books, and although he grew up a Marvel Zombie he's been known to read another company or two. Married with a newborn, he sure hopes this whole writing thing makes him independently wealthy someday. Bart can be reached at bart.bishop@cincinnatistate.edu and on Twitter @BartLBishop.

Sixth Gun: Valley of Death #1 (Oni Press, $3.99)

By Cat Taylor

Even though I've become a fan of the Sixth Gun series and have yet to be disappointed by any of the issues, I still have a lot of catching up to do and haven't really been keeping up with the new issues like I should. So, I thought this new limited series would be a good time to check back in. As luck would have it this mini-series, although set in the same world as the rest of the Sixth Gun comics, has very little to do with the other stories. As I mentioned earlier, I've missed out on a lot but I am not familiar with any character in this issue. Right of the bat, the intro page even says something to the effect of, "while the Six have been dormant lately, there are other forces that threaten nature", which indicates to me that while this is a Sixth Gun comic, we aren't likely to see any of the Six in this story. However, the other Sixth Gun stories have been pretty strong. Therefore, I don't imagine a lack of familiarity with the characters will make much difference.

Although the lack of involvement by the title of the book feels a little like a cheat, when it comes down to it, Sixth Gun is just a name. What's important is a good story. Six or no Six, this issue reads like a Sixth Gun title and plays on the supernatural/western crossover theme that brings the best Jonah Hex comics to mind. It's probably important to acknowledge that I'm normally not a fan of westerns. However, I like Sixth Gun a lot. Whatever it is that bores me about most westerns is overcome by Brian Hurtt's writing in this issue. I'm sure the supernatural element helps, but a good writer knows how to advance a story with good pacing and suspense with any genre. I'd also like to point out that this is Hurtt's first work as a solo writer, which makes this comic all the more impressive. Of course, he is the co-creator of Sixth Gun and has extensive work as an artist. So, he has a bit of a head start over most rookies, especially with regard to the Sixth Gun universe.

Equal credit should also be given to the artwork of A.C. Zamudio and the colors by Ryan Hill. Hill is one of the current crop of indie colorists who have elevated the role of the colorist to nearly the same level as the illustrator. He somehow manages to capture the light of the area and time of day of the story and keep the colors bright even in a night scene. The earliest pages in this comic would be ideal examples to use in teaching the art of comic book coloring. As far as the illustrations are concerned, Zamudio's main strength is in the sequential artwork. The panels proceed smoothly and contain a good variety of close-ups, medium views, and long-distance scenes, very similar to the storyboards I've seen from movies. Zamudio also gives each character a distinct and individual appearance that captures each one's personality. The action scenes are a bit stiff but not distractingly so, and in combination with her rough, angular style, it works.

While I don't normally see a lot of point in giving a plot summary as part of a review, I think it might be of some benefit in this case considering that it doesn't seem that this story is going to involve the main characters or plotlines surrounding the six guns that readers of Sixth Gun would expect. Rather, this story follows some Native Americans who are being led by a couple of magical beings in an attempt to close off a rift that has opened between the material and spirit world. As with other stories of this kind, the rift is letting all manner of powerful and evil deities through who will bring destruction of the planet if they aren't stopped. Since the first issue is largely for set-up purposes, there's not a lot of action here, but we do get a tease of things to come with a short battle between the Native Americans and some patchwork zombies. Like with previous Sixth Gun comics, I suspect the action will pick up in the next issue. I will also be very surprised if there isn't a traitor in the midst of this group, either one of the Native Americans themselves, or one of their mystical guides. Kalfu is so darn creepy already that he seems like the obvious choice. Then again, it's never the one you suspect.

In conclusion, new Sixth Gun mini-series, good.

Cat Taylor has been reading comics since the 1970s. Some of his favorite writers are Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Peter Bagge, and Kurt Busiek. Prior to writing about comics, Taylor performed in punk rock bands and on the outlaw professional wrestling circuit. During that time he also wrote for music and pro wrestling fanzines. Now he patrols the streets looking for loose change that people have dropped. You can e-mail Cat at cizattaylor@hotmail.com.

Secret Wars #3 (Marvel, $4.99)

By Jeb D.

So here's where we start dividing the factions.

I don't think many comics fans would outright reject the possibility that superhero comics can, or should, engage with weighty issues of power, responsibility (hi, Stan!), destiny, divinity, etc.

But there's no question that the Marvel work of writer Jonathan Hickman has left plenty of readers with the sense that he's too willing to delve into such areas at the expense of the smash and the 'splode. A miniseries that destroys universes and establishes a new world dictatorship is going to have to get its hands dirty with a certain amount of such low-rent shenanigans, so the first two issues of Secret Wars struck something of a balance as it established Doom's world, blending the psychological implications of Vic's godhood, with stunts like the brutally charming Game of Thrones-inspired showdown between Sinister and Brian Braddock.

Issue 3 puts the brakes on much of that: it's a somber, moody examination of the relationships at the core of this new world, with nary a punch thrown (though we do see the aftermath of the murder of one of the Thors). The details of the Doom-Strange bromance that shaped Battleworld are engagingly fleshed out, Thanos' cabal is preparing its assault on Doom's realm, characters thought missing begin to reappear, and Hickman manages to bring a surprising amount of conviction, if not inevitability, to the choice of Susan Storm Richards as Doom's consort (Hickman and artist Esad Ribic also combine for a revelation that might be unprecedented in Marvel history).

Unfortunately, as is too often the case, Hickman's being somewhat undermined by the marketing department: the road maps that Marvel is providing to the press regarding the dramatis personae of the version of the Marvel U that will emerge following Secret Wars are obviously not revealing the complete picture, but what they do show leaves us betwixt and between: either Secret Wars is what will directly lead us to David Marquez' just-released oddball assemblage of characters, in which case too much of the puzzle's been revealed, or it's not, in which case Secret Wars would seem like a case of planned obsolescence. Will Secret Wars introduce us to Marquez' hoodie-rocking version of Karnak? Doesn't matter: his ticket's punched. Citizen V making a comeback? Locked in. It's to Hickman's credit that he makes the character work here so compelling, but it would be even more fun if we were assembling the puzzle pieces more from the comics than the teasers.

(Slight digression: I think David Marquez does terrific sequential work, but his costume design in that preview is for shit: Iron Man's skintight supersuit is verging on Clooney Batman levels of silliness, and I'm still trying to bleach the picture of Ben Grimm rocking those baggy pants out of my mind).

Granted, it's sort of fun to try and guess just how some of the survivors of the 626-Ultimate collision will fit into the new landscape. I won't spoil the list of Seven People You Meet InThe Crashed Remains of Reed Richards' Space Ark, but when combined with the not-quite-what-it-seems aspect of Bendis' Ultimate End series, it reinforces the feeling that the world of Secret Wars (and Battleworld) is even more richly complicated than it first appeared.

Despite the paucity of action, this is probably my favorite issue of Secret Wars yet: the dialog exchanges between Doom and his subjects are beautifully characterized ("I'm beginning to think that in my perfect world," mutters Doom, "I am the one flawed thing"), and Ribic's art continues to convey the awesome strangeness of this new world (and he ends on an absolutely delicious splash panel). There's always been a Shakespearan depth to Victor Von Doom's madness, and no one's ever brought it out more vividly than Hickman (in fact, despite what may or may not be going on with the Fox-Marvel tiff, Doom, and Reed and Sue Richards, are certainly not treated here as characters about to be mothballed). The first two issues of Secret Wars left us hungry for more of Marvel's greatest villain (character?); with issue 3, he's fully making his presence felt.

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1

(Marvel, $3.99)

One of the great running jokes on comics-focused blogs like this one is the astonishingly complete ineptitude of the newspaper comics version of Spider-Man. The heart of its storyline is usually Peter Parker's reluctance to let his secret identity slip, at any cost, with our hero expressing relief anytime he can duck out on actual crimefighting, leaving the story to be resolved by someone or something else (my favorite was probably the time he showed up for a physical exam, having forgotten he was wearing his costume under his clothes, and was saved from having the doctor see his identity not by any resourceful action on his own part, but by the doctor being called away to deal with an emergency elsewhere). And though I know that's not how it's actually supposed to read, I couldn't help thinking of that as I watched this particular Battleworld verison of Peter Parker taking his daughter out for a walk, while blithely ignoring the Vulture snatching some lady's purse.

When I first saw the title "Renew Your Vows," I had assumed we were somehow going to be once more haranguing the One More Day-derived idiocy of Marvel's backing and forthing on the Pete-MJ marriage* Instead, though, it's evidently going to be our latest revisit to the Power and Responsibility playoff. This Peter Parker is happily married to MJ, with a daughter (Annie, rather than Mayday, Parker), and when a tragedy of near-unprecedented proportions occurs, and Spider-Man finds himself the only hero left standing, writer Dan Slott effortlessly moves from the easy domesticity of his introduction of the Parker family to a crushing sense of loss. We've seen the whole "Spider-Man No More" bit before, but never quite like this.

There's plenty of action from penciler Adam Kubert and inker John Dell, and Slott brings vintage married-Parker-era characterization to the proceedings. I've never been particularly fond of Venom, but Slott makes him as hateful and effective a villain as he's ever been here. In fact, much of this first issue rivals the darkest moments of Superior Spider-Man; it's the bleakest Spidey I've ever seen from Slott, and it's a credit to the strength of the conception of Parker as a character that he emerges at the end of this first issue more strongly as a civilian than as a hero. As much as any of the Battleworld titles, Renew Your Vows bids fair to be a compelling story that will need little, if any, interaction with the rest of Doom's world, for its effectiveness.

*Dealing with One More Day was actually the high point of the Spider-Man newspaper strip: shortly after the marriage reset took place in Amazing Spider-Man, newspaper readers were abruptly treated to an suddenly-unmarried Peter Parker waking up back in Aunt May's house, with a narrative box that basically just said "Yeah, Peter's single. He's back living with Aunt May again. He's not married anymore. Because comics. Whatever."

I had actually hoped to fully cover a few more Battleworld titles this week, but work's just crushing. Years of Future Past is starting off as one of the better revisits to that classic series, Future Imperfect is a typically sharp and twisty Peter David tale, and X-Tinction Agenda features delightfully imaginative art from Carmine DiGiandomenico; but this week it's Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows that joins Old Man Logan and Where Monsters Dwell as the best Battleworld titles so far.

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