(Click title to go directly to the review)
SPIDER-MAN 2099 #1
I HATE FAIRYLAND #1
CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE #3
RAMPAGE JACKSON: STREET SOLDIER Original Graphic Novel
Marvel’s SECRET WARS BATTLEWORLD TRAVEL GUIDE PART XXI!
SPIDER-MAN 2099 #1
Writer: Peter DavidArtist: Will Sliney
Pulisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Lionel Putz
If the first issue of an ongoing comic book series is supposed to function like the pilot episode of a television series, then many of these All New All Different Marvel books are really more like season premieres of shows we already know and watch. Sure, there are some new books with new characters, but so many of these are really just new setups for existing characters with ongoing stories. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, for example, picks up with Peter still having finished his degree and continuing to build up Parker Industries in the wake of Otto’s time as the Superior Spider-Man. Similarly, SPIDER-MAN 2099 #1 picks up very much where we last left the titular temporally displaced wallcrawler, Miguel O’Hara, pre-SECRET WARS and post-Spiderverse: stuck in the present and trying to figure out what has gone wrong with the timeline to leave his beloved 2099 a barren, post-apocalyptic nightmare, a world destroyed by the villainous Alchemax Corporation, Miguel’s once and future employer.
Peter David continues his renaissance with his early 90s Spider-Creation, and I have to admit, it’s great having him back writing this character. I enjoy his work in general, but he’s certainly better with Miguel O’Hara than anywhere else--supremely comfortable with the character’s voice, a potentially toxic mix of casual misanthropy and largely unchecked narcissism. This is a very flawed character, and one that would easily become unlikeable—or worse, just a cliché—in another, lesser writer’s hands. This issue opens with Miguel competing on (and winning) an “American Ninja Warrior” knockoff reality show as his girlfriend (the pink-haired Tempest, last seen turning into a giant bug thing pre-SECRET WARS) cheers him on. It’s cheesy and cynical and brilliant and it’s very difficult to picture anyone else writing this gag with this character and making it work. Much of this book is the same, as Miguel proceeds to get lectured by Peter Parker—his new boss—and continue his quest to repair the future, which he checks in on through a portal in the basement of Parker Industries. Oh, and he’s quit being Spider-Man, quite-rightly pointing out that Peter, Miles, Jessica Drew, and Silk are more than enough Spider-People to take care of business (seriously, there’s a lot of Spider-Books out there, and we didn’t even mention Spider-Gwen). The issue closes with bombshell announcement from Tempest, followed by a much more literal bomb.
Visually, artist Will Sliney returns to the title following his brief stint on the SECRET WARS 2099 series with David. Sadly, even though this is a familiar artist and a team-up with which David must be comfortable as this is his third 2099 title with him in recent memory, the book looks a little off. I think color artist Frank D’Armata got a little too cute trying to add texture and depth to the drawings, and the result is a bit distracting, but this is still a minor complaint about a book I like very much.
So does this work as a #1? Frankly, as rewarding as I found it in the scheme of the larger plan David apparently has after Dan Slott’s resurrection of this character a few years ago, I’m not sure it’s as accessible for new readers as a first issue should be. Amid catching us up on the new job, the “retirement”, and his relationship with Tempest, we’re also reintroduced to Roberta Mendes, the Captain America from SECRET WARS 2099, a series tangential book that hardcore 2099 fans probably read, but certainly not everyone. A lot of great moments like that are probably not serviced as well as they need to be, and the end result is maybe a bit rushed. Again, I love this character and I’m happy to see a long-term vision for this character coming into focus between the last SPIDER-MAN 2099 series—which seemed to get sidetracked and lost quite a bit of momentum during Spiderverse—the SECRET WARS tie-in book, and this new series, but if someone were to tell me they found this all a bit inaccessible, I’d be hard pressed to argue.
In the end, this is still my favorite Spider-Book going. Miguel was always portrayed as more mature and more flawed than Peter Parker, and for the many (myself included and ad nauseam) who’ve complained about Peter’s de-aging and regression over the past few years—he may have gotten his degree, but he’s also had his marriage retconned out of existence—this book is probably the Spider-Title you should be reading. I’ll be sticking with this one for a while, both for its individual quality and most likely as the way I’m going to keep tabs on the other Spider-People swinging around Manhattan.
Lionel Putz is a lawyer by day. He watched Matlock in a bar last night; the sound wasn't on, but he's pretty sure he got the gist of it. Email him at lionel.putz@gmail.com
I HATE FAIRYLAND #1
Writer: Skottie YoungArtist: Skottie Young
Publisher: Image Comics
Reviewer: Humphrey Lee
Fairy tales are kind of dumb. I think we can agree on that as an “at the least” bar, and then sometimes they are downright horrifying. Hell, that is probably more of a “most times” scenario when you think about it. Even at their most innocuous they’re about gullible young women eating fruit handed to them by strangers; at their more insidious they’re about wolves eating grandmas and children being cooked by witches and so on. Fairytales over the years (and years and years and years) have essentially been “how not to get raped and/or murdered (sometimes eaten)” PSAs with rosy imagery so you can sell them to humans still in their single digits. So what happens when a little girl named Gertrude gets (literally) sucked into their bullshit and glitz for over two decades? Mayhem, that’s what.
Right from jump, Gertrude is vortexed into a mash-up land of your typical tropes of fantastical oddities. There are elf dudes in pointy hats, big pillowy clouds carrying castles in the sky, fairies, big shiny knights on big doofy-looking steeds, etc. Now, I say “typical” because this is a Skottie Young comic, and absolutely nothing is typical about the approach and visuals, which was 90% of the appeal in my trying out I HATE FAIRYLAND, with the actual take on fairy tale shenanigans a distant second. As I led into this piece with, actual fairytales and their warped messaging wrapped in flowery bullshit language I find kind of insipid, but I’ve got a shelf of FABLES volumes that say I enjoy a good adult take or send up of the things. I HATE FAIRYLAND is probably one third adult take, two thirds send up of such tales, all done through the completely one-of-a-kind lens that only Young’s art style can translate.
Anyway, Gertrude crashes in the middle of all this magical hogwash and is immediately quested, as is the norm in such lands, and holy fuck does she come to hate it because it’s been twenty-seven fucking years and she still hasn’t come close to finishing the goddamned quest--profanity added for emphasis in that last sentence to reflect the shift in personality of Gertrude from “concussed and bewildered” when she was pulled into Fairyland into “fucking pissed off” after spending so much time in the realm with no end in sight. I referenced FABLES just a second ago, and Gertrude’s new grown-in attitude is very reminiscent of that early scene of that recently ended, instant classic series where someone is talking to Pinocchio and he talks about how he’s been stuck as boy for centuries now and he just wants his “balls to drop and to get laid” is how I believe it went. I HATE FAIRYLAND doesn’t so much go crude as insinuate that a now thirty-two (ish) brain in a five year old’s (or whatever Gert was on her way down her own rabbit hole) body is having those kinds of urges slamming down on her, but she definitely has decades of frustration now pressing on her shoulders, and she’s more than willing to take it out on Fairyland’s denizens.
That’s where the fun really begins in I HATE FAIRYLAND: one very angry woman in one cutesy little body taking any cartoonish device of death and destruction she can to any rhyme- or riddle-speaking anthropomorphized animal or thing around. And, again, this is where Skottie Young’s art comes in and really sells the action and the book itself. It’s not just the novelty of Gertrude whipping out a cannon the size of herself and blowing half the face off the talking moon, it’s that completely exaggerated, Saturday morning cartoon style of art. It’s a pop-up book on LSD, which is fitting as there is a sequence where Gertrude goes full zombie apocalypse on some mushroom men and starts hallucinating in a land where even Dr. Seuss would probably start feeling burnt out after a week. That is more or less the level to which Young takes the adult part of the humor as he mixes it in with such a level of extreme cartoon violence that even Wile E. Coyote would finally pack it up and leave the damn bird alone if he experienced it firsthand. It’s a visual feast of over-exaggerated violence that plows through story beats like a locomotive usually does that aforementioned cartoon wild dog at some point during one of his shorts with the Roadrunner. But therein lines my one problem with I HATE FAIRYLAND…
It’s not so much that I HATE FAIRYLAND moves at a breakneck pace through all its ridiculous levels of cartoon savagery, it’s that I’m wary that the pace can be maintained. This may come down to that whole personal preference thing when it comes to the inspiring material, but I’m not sold that Gertrude getting medieval on talking cows or singing stars or whatever is something that will be as entertaining as it is now four or five issues into the run, especially if this book is an actual ongoing title, because it seems Image has not exactly been upfront about labeling their books as miniseries of late. I imagine I was not the only one surprised to see that Brian K. Vaughan’s WE STAND ON GUARD, what I assumed was going to be a multi-year epic about a war of Southern Aggression of the United States invading Canada, is really only a six issue mini. For now I’m left to assume that I HATE FAIRYLAND is also one of those multi-year deals, and I’m not sure I buy it having legs past an arc or two, even with a lot of source material to draw from. I think this would make one hell of a fun and gorgeous eight issue hardcover on my shelf, but given the example set in one issue I think multiple volumes sounds almost exhausting, to be honest.
But, that is a problem for the future, and Skottie Young is an absolutely unique talent. If the pacing slows down a bit and Young starts developing Gertrude’s frazzled personality some more, and/or just comes up with some creative new lands of his own instead of using a “greatest hits” of established fantasy tropes, we can really be cooking. I just don’t know yet after one issue if the point of this book is to have that visual eye candy of Gertrude rampaging through these magical settings with some blue humor such as her little LSD trip, or if there is something more going on here with our green-locked heroine and her brutal adventures through this space. But I do know that there was a lot of fun to be had in this debut, watching Gertrude literally carve her way through some of these more sugary and cheesy clichés, and Gertrude is somewhat adorable in her dichotomy of adult brain in innocent little girl body. At the very least, the absolutely sublime artwork of Young’s (with props to Jean-Francois Beaulieu’s vibrant coloring job) has earned my trying a couple more issues of I HATE FAIRYLAND to see what kind of plot arcs develop or if some of the themes shift at all. Right now, I HATE FAIRYLAND is a slam-dunk recommend as an ice cream treat, with a disclaimer that multiple servings of it could give you a potential sugar-overloaded stomachache.
Humphrey Lee has been an avid comic book reader going on fifteen years now and a contributor to Ain't It Cool comics for quite a few as well. In fact, reading comics is about all he does in his free time and where all the money from his day job wages goes to - funding his comic book habit so he can talk about them to you, our loyal readers (lucky you). He's a bit of a social networking whore, so you can find him all over the Interwebs on sites like Twitter, The MySpaces, Facebookand a blog where he also mostly talks about comics with his free time because he hasn't the slightest semblance of a life. Sad but true, and he gladly encourages you to add, read, and comment as you will.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: WHITE #3
Writer: Jeph LoebArtist: Tim Sale
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Masked Man
The overly conservative talking heads probably should have read this Captain America comic last week. He's white and punching out white Nazis, the way it's supposed to be, though it was still written by an evil Hollywood liberal. Either way, this tale of the original Captain America is not as politically charged as the Falconed one. And this is a much more personal piece about Cap and Bucky--with Nazi punching as well.
The overall plot of this issue isn't so much (spoiler time) Cap and company escapes some Nazis, then bumps heads with a French Resistance leader, Marilyne the Gypsy, only to discover ol’ bone-face himself, Skelato- er – the Red Skull is in Paris. What makes the issue interesting is the concepts Loeb plays with. One (more for amusement), is Cap's inability, as it were, with women. Teenage Bucky, apparently, is much more knowledgeable about the so-called fairer sex, since he was never a 90 lb. weakling. It's a cute attempt by Loeb to have some give and take between the pair instead of Bucky just taking all the time as a sidekick.
The second concept, and far more interesting one, is the question of superheroes killing. Unlike more recent comics, which depict Cap as more soldier than superhero (i.e. killing doesn't really bother him), Loeb goes old school and shows Cap above killing (at least while not in combat, considering what happened in issue #1). Sgt. Fury and others are not too happy about this; it is a war, after all. Personally, I've always found this topic interesting. Superheroes are suppose to be better than us, so they won't kill, right? But as superheroes move closer to the 'real world', where killing is a fact of life, what is the superhero, or concept of a superhero, supposed to do? Are they still superheroes if they kill? How hard should they fight to protect the villain’s life? Should they punish the non-superheroes for killing the villains? In not too heavy a hand, Loeb throws all this at Cap in this issue and gives it an extra dimension.
Artwork-wise, it's nice to see Tim Sale back in the swing of things. His coloring is as gorgeous as ever, his pencil work—well, it's good, but not as strong as it was. His other color books (DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, SPIDER-MAN: BLUE, HULK: GRAY) are much stronger based on the pencil lines themselves. He also did something in this issue I'm a little taken aback by. He swiped a full page (almost) from Jack Kirby (TALES OF SUSPENSE #85), which features a classic battle between Captain America and Batroc. He gives credit, but still--the whole page? I'm sure it's an homage, and that Jeph Loeb was in on it, but it just doesn't quite seem right to me--not sure why, though.There is a lot of good stuff in this issue and series; any Captain America fan would be crazy not to pick it up. I'm not so sure it's as strong as the other three series, but it's still a great comic book.
RAMPAGE JACKSON: STREET SOLDIER Origiinal Graphic Novel
Writers: Fabian Nicieza, Mike Baron, Barbara Kesel, Martin Pasko, Tom Peyer, Adam Beechen, Marc Bernardin, Adam FreemanIllustrators: Leonardo Romero, Lucas Werneck, Fabiano Neves
Publisher: Lion Forge Comics
Reviewer: Mr. Pasty
Lion Forge Comics is doubling down on its RAMPAGE JACKSON: STREET SOLDIER comic book series with a new graphic novel, which bears the same name as the terse but enjoyable slug-a-thon we reviewed back in late 2013. I'm surprised by the decision to commit more than 150 pages to a mixed martial arts (MMA) star who has competed just once over the last 18 months. This "novel" is actually a disjointed series of standalone stories that finds new and unexciting ways to feature Jackson punching things. In addition, it illustrates a bizarre creative direction for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight, who battles monsters, aliens, and a whole slew of stock do-badders you'll recognize from the comic book pantry.
The selling point of STREET SOLDIER, according to its marketing release, is that it’s presented "like the comics we grew up reading, when you could grab any random issue off the newsstand and still have a blast without missing a beat." That actually hurts the experience, particularly from my point of view as someone who covers MMA for a living and has followed Jackson from day one. Instead of making a linear graphic novel that celebrates what makes "Rampage" so unique, the creators have dumbed him down, stripped him of his edge, and shoehorned him into varying degrees of animated silliness. This is the MR. T cartoon for this generation of combat sports fans, except our protagonist punches a Godzilla knock-off instead of a man-eating shark. Considering what Jackson does for a living, and the way he conducts himself outside the cage, I would have sprinted to the cash register had Lion Forge Comics attempted something in the same vein as PUNISHER: MAX. Imagine "Rampage" returning to the streets of Tokyo to do battle with the Yakuza bosses who ran his old company out of Japan? Something along those lines stays within the confines of the MMA world and gives fans of cage fighting (the most likely buyers) a familiar narrative with a new twist. I know it's not my job as a reviewer to declare "this is what I would have done," but ultimately, I'm a fan of both MMA and comic books and STREET SOLDIER doesn't work for me in either genre.
The decision to appeal to a broader audience might have been more successful in 2013, when Jackson signed with Bellator MMA and had a recurring spot on Spike TV, but his relationship with Viacom has since soured, and he's failed to make headlines after returning to UFC (who benched him while his contract is being disputed in court). I think the idea here is that MMA fans will buy this comic because it's about "Rampage" while the comic fans browsing the online shelves might grab it because it's chock full of cool comic-y book type stuff. Established talent like Fabian Nicieza and Leonardo Romero lend a certain amount of credibility to STREET SOLDIER, but without a cohesive story to tell, this reads less like a graphic novel and more like Colorforms. Here's a fierce-looking Jackson posed against action-packed backgrounds! Lion Forge Comics promises "the beginning of a bold new era of superhero fun," but there is nothing bold or fun about an MMA fighter who transforms into a monster-mashing superhero simply because the plot requires him to.
Web heads who can’t get enough of Mr. Pasty’s word vomit are encouraged to watch him operate as Nostradumbass over at MMaMania.com here. Love, hate and Mafia Wars requests should be directed here.
SECRET WARS BATTLEWORLD TRAVEL GUIDE PART XXI
orThis week, in mid 2000’s nostalgia…
By Henry Higgins is My Homeboy
A-FORCE #5 (Marguerite Bennett & G. Willow Wilson, Jorge Molina)All of A-Force is so quippy. No judgement--do what you got to do when you’re dealing with a straight up superpowered zombie armada. But it’s pretty nice to see some characters I never get to see (Was that Captain Monica Marvel one shotting a zombie Hulk? WAS THAT MARIKO YOSHIDA BEHEADING SUPER POWERED ZOMBIES WITH A SAMURAI SWORD?!?) being awesome. This world was fun, but never really went anywhere. But then again, it’s a world where I got to see Mariko Yoshida murder zombies with a sword. I don’t even know what I’m complaining about.
MARVEL ZOMBIES #4 (Simon Spurrier & Kev Walker)Elsa Bloodstone is great, which I think we already all knew. But here’s the thing – beyond the Wall, she’s even better. I mean, not as good as Nextwave Elsa, but the only thing that’s going to be that good is the Warren Ellis Elsa Bloodstone ongoing I see in my dreams.
Also, Ulysses Bloodstone shows up and is made of zombies and magic.
Elsa has to fistfight him. It’s great.
CIVIL WAR #5 (Charles Soule & Leinil Francis Yu)Civil War begets Secret Invasion, which is a really clever/hysterical way to approach the end of the war in this sector. Captain America and Iron Man are at their most political, but still also ready to tag team an army of aliens. It’s the funnest that “serious Marvel that also stars fucking Yellowjacket” has to offer, which is actually a compliment.
BATTLEWORLD TRAVEL TIP!
Don’t be afraid to team up with obscure heroes on your travels. Fucking Mariko Yashida showed up in A-FORCE, and was in one panel, and she was straight murdering zombies.
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
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