What a strange comic book, reads like someone decided to string a story between random pictures in a Metal Gear Solid game guide.
I know this should be right up my alley - future Thor with full-on Odin-power throwing down with Galactus on a dying Earth (of course Thor is still completely outclassed, but he's still enough of a shit-talker to make it half a fight) - but I dunno, something about this book is just failing to click with me, even though I've come around to much of Aaron's work on the X-Men books - and the less said about whatever boring shit Thor is up to fighting old Captain Planet villains in the present day the better.
Future Eisner winner, somehow manages to mush together two characters you would have bet money had already fought at some point, but oddly bloodless, which is a reaction I've had to most of Cullen Bunn's Deadpool work - and I'm usually inclined to be charitable to Deadpool based on positive memories of his mid-90s salad days.
Remember what I said earlier about Aaron's X-Men - he's doing God's work here, getting back to the business of writing X-Men comics for people who have been reading X-Men comics since at least the Reagan administration, but my question is, what the hell is the point of the Cyclops / Jean Grey School schism if they literally get together for clambakes every week?
This is a book where things seem to happen every issue in random fashion, akin to someone who keeps waiting for the spaghetti to finish cooking and covers the wall with half-cooked pasta in an attempt to make something, anything stick - the best that can be said for it, besides some decent art, is that it's completely not written for the trade, and an argument could be made that the series' free-form nature is a callback to the good old days when every storyline wasn't four or six issues exactly - after all Bendis' Avengers work, it's nice to see him taking some of his Ultimate Spider-Man plotting mojo and at least trying to make his mainstream Marvel work more interesting as long-term narrative - but sadly emphasis still far more strongly on "trying" than "succeeding."
Despite an occasionally shaky history, What If...? remains one of my favorite Marvel books of all time - silly me, though, expecting a story advertised as being a "What If...?" relating to the Age of Ultron storyline to be a "What If...?" relating to the Age of Ultron storyline, and not some random Nick Fury / Black Widow vs. a dragon thing.
Good book, distinctive and very solid art, really nice character work, let's see how fast it drops down the charts because ew girls and why isn't she hot and the art is lame why not Ed Benes and just wait until someone at Fox News gets ahold of this one.
I hope I'm never too old to appreciate a good Spider-Man story - and after 31 issues, that's exactly what this turned out to be . . . I'm not always impressed with Slott's fixation with the super sci-fi elements of Spider-Man's adventures (always with the new
Man was that last run a misfire or what - Mark Bagley's pencils improve so much under the guidance of a decent inker - I do have to question the logic of how the Hulk couldn't heal any injury incurred by Banner, since it's pretty well established that the Hulk has the strongest healing factor on Earth, but I'm guessing we may be going in a "Hulk smart / Banner dumb" direction, so we'll see how it pans out.
Unlikable versions of characters you like doing vague things in the aftermath of a terrible "event" - and has anyone else pointed out that the way the Ultimates beat Galactus in Cataclysm was stolen wholesale from the last episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes?
After basically shitting itself for a year, I remain to be convinced it can pull out before completely cratering - but I will admit that I am happy to see the ever-underrated Clay Mann take over pencil duties starting this month - if only the book wasn't still mired in the most boring storyline known to man or God.
Someone didn't get the memo that Quentin Quire was a private joke on Morrison's part, and now we're supposed to care about the most hackneyed teen rebel character since James Dean took a bad turn with his Porsche.
Surprisingly readable, Paul Cornell is putting in a good attempt to make a Wolverine solo book not seem like the definition of useless - but since this is the middle chapter in an umpty-year long saga, so much will depend on the landing that it's almost silly to predict whether he'll be able to stay the course.
Bland bland bland bland oh it's Cosmo and Beta Ray Bill they're cool but the rest of the book is still bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland bland like sugar-free Jell-O pudding.
3 comments :
I feel like I'm the only person who didn't love the conclusion of Superior Spidey. It just didn't seem "earned" enough for me.
These stories are as old as time at this point. Old character seems to be getting a little stale. Suddenly introduce newer, flashier, "modern" version of the character. Write a ham-fisted story showing that the older version of the character was actually better all along. (See, e.g., Az-Bats, the many Supermen, and countless others).
But, after 31 issues, I felt like Slott botched that last step. It violated the important axiom of show-not-tell. Otto told me he couldn't handle the situation with the Goblin and told me that only Peter could, but the story didn't try very hard to show me that either was true.
Instead, it came across as a bit of a wink and a nudge, "Well, the movie is coming out, so we'd better get Peter back into the costume" type of move.
No, you're not even close to the only one. I'm not sure if Tim's been on the Superior bus for all 31 of these issues (he's been so mum about his comic reading lately), but a bunch of people over at chasingamazingblog (including myself) who were super invested felt majorly let down by the conclusion.
Somehow in my long-winded comment over there I forgot to mention how much I hate "No one dies." It's such a weird and unnatural thing to say that's only in there because it's the kind of callback that happens in the third act of a superhero movie. Rick Remender did a similar thing in Captain America where he constantly had Steve telling himself "Stand up, you always stand up." You can almost see that phrase circled in his notebook, under the heading "Who Is Captain America?"
Turning notebook-style character summaries into dialogue makes sense in a two-hour movie, but in a long-form story about a character the readers have been following for decades, it just doesn't work. Boiling the hero down to a three-word phrase doesn't feel like compression to me. It feels like you're giving me a cheaper version of the rich character I had in my head from years of reading.
Do you read any DC now? I was down to The Flash but after Manapul left there was no more point.
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