Comic Picks By The Glick

Part one can be found below.  The party continues with #'s 11-1.

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All based on my subjective opinion, of course.  The party starts inside with #'s 20-12.

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The title of this volume proves to be particularly apt, as Mark Grayson starts to realize that he’s not really making a difference in the world just by stopping the bad guys.  Like just about every superhero ever, he’s simply maintaining the status quo.  That all changes here.  It starts small, with him talking things out with a would-be supervillain named Gravitator, helping misguided foe Powerplex achieve a breakthrough in dealing with the loss of his family, and finding a way to free Universa and get her planet the power it needs.  Then he sees that one of his biggest foes, who achieves a stunning “Watchmen”-esque upset in this volume, was actually right and teams up with him to help save the world.

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I mentioned this in passing on Wednesday, and as you might’ve guessed, I REALLY liked it.  There have been dozens of Wolverine and Spider-Man team-up stories in the past and there will likely be hundreds more in the future, whatever shape the industry takes.  Will there be any as good as this one?  I doubt it.  (Also, between this, “Schism,” and “Wolverine vs. The X-Men,” it would appear that you really can’t have too many Jason Aaron-written Wolverine stories.)

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Not wanting to be forgotten amidst the “Before Watchmen” hoo-ha yesterday, Marvel released a teaser for their next “Spider-Event” in June.  The teaser has an amalgamation of the insignia for Peter Parker and Miles Morales.  Now this could mean that Peter will be back in some way or form in “Ultimate Spider-Man,” which I doubt because Bendis is too smart to play that card so early in Miles’ tenure as the character.  More interestingly, some have even speculated that this could actually be a crossover between the regular 616 Marvel Universe and the Ultimate one.

… I sure as hell hope that’s not the case.

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I was going to write about “Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine” today, but guess what I saw when I opened up the L.A. Times today.

That this was coming was no surprise.  Rich Johnston broke the story months ago and after leaks of character art got hit with C&D notices from DC’s lawyers it only became more credible.  When I first heard that they were doing this, my initial thought was, “Are you people out of your minds!”  Trying to add on to what is effectively the “Citizen Kane” of graphic novels, let alone compete with Alan Moore at the top of his game, strikes me as the errand of a complete fool.  Now that it’s here, I find myself strangely indifferent to the whole event.

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When we last saw him, Wolverine had beaten the Devil and crawled up out of Hell back into his own body.  It should’ve been a triumphant victory for everyone’s favorite Canadian berserker mutant, but it turns out that the demons that were inhabiting his body while his soul was in Hell are still there.  Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magneto and Namor are also on hand to put him down, if necessary.  Hoping to play the host of last resorts are his girlfriend Melita, Daimon Hellstorm, Ghost Riders Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch, and Mystique (no, really...).  Will their combined might be able to put down the hell-spawned fiends which inhabit their friend/comrade/lover’s body?  Nope.  It’s going to take much more than that, and even then some people are going to have to come back from beyond the grave to lend a hand.

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As the last volume finally caught up to what was covered in the anime, this one should be completely AWESOME since I’m finally reading all-new content!  Or at least, that’s what I think it would’ve been if pages weren’t wasted on pointless sidequests or rehashing “Dawn of the Dead.”  I was afraid that rehashing George Romero’s definitive zombie movie was going to be the order of the day after reading the description on the back cover, but that’s only true up to a point.  Though they are in a mall and the societal order does start breaking down, the kids wind up providing a stabilizing influence on the panicking adults in the mall.  Then they go off to raid a nearby clinic to save an elderly woman who needs a blood transfusion, dither some more about what to do next and that’s it.

The majority of this volume is actually given over to making overweight otaku Kouta look like a badass in front of new character Asami, a police officer deeply lacking in confidence who also feels the need to constantly refer to herself in the third person.  Glamorizing Kouta doesn’t come off as annoying as you’d think since everything he does here is really an extension of what we’ve already seen him do in previous volumes.  It does seem curious that after trying to build up his relationship with Asami so much that the creators would tear it all down in the end instead of having him be the first cast member to actually get some.  Apparently they’re convinced that constant sexual titillation only works without providing any kind of release.  Even so, while the energy that has driven the series is still present to an extent here, this is easily the weakest volume released to date.

As I write this, the future of “Generation Hope” has been all but announced as its absence from the most recent issue of “Previews” has led many to conclude that new writer James Asmus’ first arc will also be his last.  Sales for the series started out mediocre and only got worse from there, save for the “Schism” tie-ins collected here, so all that’s left is to consider why this well-written series didn’t connect with readers.  Much like Joe Casey’s “Wildcats,” I think the reason is that the series departed from-- or rather, didn’t embrace the superhero paradigm enough.

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The worst thing that can be said about this title is that it’s an editorial mandate in its purest form.  Somewhere along the line, someone decided that the X-titles were kind of directionless and needed an event to re-shape the line’s focus.  You’d think that would’ve been the aim of events like “Messiah Complex” and “Second Coming,” but as good as they were these crossovers were only of importance to the overall narrative of the line post “M-Day.”  Contrary to what I thought at the time, they didn’t necessarily leave the line in better shape as whatever plot threads they left to be followed up on were either quickly resolved or fizzled out.  So now we have “Schism” which sets the tone for the franchise and the direction of the relaunched “Uncanny” and the new “Wolverine and the X-Men.”

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