PROPAGANDA Reviews: Dark Avengers issue 1

Dark Avengers # 1

by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato

It’s the aftermath of the recent Skrull Secret Invasio; the Skrull invaders have been revealed and defeated by the combined forces of Marvel’s greatest super heroes and villains. And up steps Norman Osborn; he of the weird hairstyle; ex-Green Goblin and current homicidal, psychotic, power-mad Thunderbolts leader who rather decisively cemented his position as lord high commander of whatever he damn well pleases in this post Secret Invasion world with the kill shot that took down the Skrull Queen.

In this post Invasion Marvel Universe Tony Stark’s gone from running SHIELD and The Avengers and Osborn has managed to manoeuvre into position to become head of both agencies. So this is the new Marvel order: evil rules the roost and they’re going to have fun. These are not the adventures of the nice, trustworthy Avengers you once knew. Hence the title.

It’s a good enough idea: make up an Avengers from the bad (and rather morally ambiguous) guys: Venom as Spider-Man, Moonstone as Ms Marvel, Bullseye as Hawkeye, Ares, Sentry, Wolverine’s son (Wolverine has a son? This is how bad I am at keeping up with Marvel stuff) and Grant Morrison’s terminally underused hero: Noh-Varr as Captain Marvel. The entirety of this first issue follows Osborn recruiting his Dark Avengers team and is really just one long set up for the series. It’s not great, but neither is it particularly bad. And I imagine that once it gets the inevitable collection it will make a fairly good no brainer summer blockbuster type adventure. But this first issue just didn’t have enough of anything in it to justify the $4 cover price, no matter how good some of the dialogue is between Norm and his new deputy director:

“You’re my new deputy director”
“Of what?”
“H.A.M.M.E.R.”
“Does it stand for anything?”
“Yes”
“What?”
“Get to work on it for me. That is one of the many things on your to do list”

Because it’s written by Bendis you know that this sort of dialogue will be peppering the book, and like I said before, it’s a nice enough idea. But Dark Avengers #1 from the point of view of this sometimes observer of the Marvel Universe is a little bit too much of a confusing mess. Too much cross continuity, too much knowledge taken for granted. Perhaps this is the way in the Marvel Universe now. But I just don’t think it should be like that. I can remember picking up countless Marvel UK titles reprinting old Marvel US strips and being introduced to all sorts of new characters and always coming out of a single issue knowing enough about the characters to want to find out more. Dark Avengers doesn’t do that, it just assumes complete knowledge and I just don’t think that’s good enough. I think that’s just a case of preaching to the choir and sucking the last drop of money out of the existing readership using a comic that’s all concept and dialogue and nothing more that takes 32 pages to say what should take about 6.

One silly little thing that’s worth comment: although Deodato’s artwork is pretty good in places for the story he’s trying to tell, there’s not only the obligatory ridiculous ass shots of Ms Marvel, which we’ve all sadly come to expect in a standard superhero comic nowadays, but there’s also a laughable tendency to make all of his heroes try to adopt the same stupid, chest out, hips thrust to one side posing. Have a look at the panel above; it’s meant to be the heroic introduction of this dubious team, but one look at the faux Wolverine just had me smirking. Probably not the impression Bendis wanted to pull off when he described that panel to his artist?

Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You

You find me a better pop opener this year than the one-two punch of Everyone’s At It and The Fear and I shall be amazed. And after that there’s at least 5 other good to great songs on the album. Of course that does leave about 5 duds / filler tracks – but that’s what the delete key in iTunes is for. I still expect one o fthe first two tracks to make it onto the best of year list though.

More Molly art and writing

Click to enbiggen.
Worth it for the last paragraph:

Good Catholic girl! Got that morbid appreciation of death.

DFC Friday – Issue 37

It’s Friday, so it’s DFC day. The red and yellow envelope was waiting for us as we got back from school. Well, neither Molly or I may not really like the strip, but that’s one impressive cover featuring Spider Moon (keep wanting to write Sailor Moon!) which starts it’s second run in the comic this week.

The other notable newbie / returnee is Gary Northfield‘s really great Lil’ Cutie. (And have you all picked up your copies of his ace Derek The Sheep?) Molly very happy to see it back. Molly had a quick look at it before rushing out of the door for a snowball fight (as great as the DFC may be – there’s no way it’s going to win over the prospect of a snowball fight – quite right as well). She thought Vern & Lettuce looked “pretty” again with the gorgeous salmon pink colours and that was about it.

I’ve read it though while she’s been outside and it’s business as usual, which is no bad thing where business as usual is excellence through most of the pages. Elsewhere in the comic we have more Frontier (which is still suffering from the problem of too little per page – but still entertaining despite that) and another 5 pages of Mirabilis, which appears to be slowing slightly and as it does the art looks a little less polished, a little more rushed. Still keen to see the collection to read it in one go, but hope the quality holds up to the end. Vern & Lettuce, Sausage & Carrots, Bodkin & The Bear, Super Animal Detective Squad all highly enjoyable.

And there’s a little preview of a new strip beginning next week: Spectrum Black. Looks lovely and has the required “lots of stuff on each page” factor that seems to be essential for the serious adventure strips to really work. More on that next week.

But in the meantime – get off and subscribe!

Latest Molly art

She is now a comics artist!

Dear Windows Update: F Off.

If I wanted to restart the computer I bloody well would. Is it possible you could stop popping up every couple of bloody minutes while I’m writing? Because sometimes I go a few minutes without actually looking at the screen (touch typer I am not) and it’s rather annoying to find that all I’ve been doing is futilely clicking on your dumb windows message.

Propaganda Reviews: The Spirit Book 2 by Darwyn Cooke & J Bone

Spirit Book 2

by Darwyn Cooke & J Bone

with extra material by Walter Simonson, Kyle Baker, Glen David Gold, Gail Simone, Denny O’Neil, Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Eduardo Risso, Phil Hester, Andy Parks, Ty Templeton.

I’ve already reviewed Cooke & Bone’s Spirit twice on this blog. (Here & here). So it should really come as no surprise to anyone that I thought this second collection was just as wonderful as the first.

It starts with the Summer Special issue and ends with a Holiday Special issue; both fill-in issues. Just looking at the list of creators involved with these fill-in issues gives you some idea of what you’re up against when you decide to fill-in for Cooke & Bone. It’s an indication of just how good the Spirit by Darwyn Cooke & J Bone really is that the majority of the creators here are writing and drawing at the very peak of their abilities and still get completely eclipsed by the skills of Cooke & Bone.

The final Darwyn Cooke & J Bone issue “Sand” is possibly the finest story of the entire run and certainly the closest thing Cooke’s written to truly capturing the very spirit and essence of Eisner. But that shouldn’t be a surprise, because, as Darwyn Cooke said in this interview with Newsarama, it’s the one story they adapted from Eisner’s original:

Originally we were going to kick off year two with a two-part story introducing Sand. When we saw our run wasn’t going to last two years, it was the one story I couldn’t abandon. I decided to do something we’ve avoided on our run. We actually adapted Will’s original story.

It seemed a fitting way to close out our run. It gives the reader the largest slice of backstory that Will created for his character, and in many ways, it helped me define Denny for the reader who may have found him a cut out or cipher.

“Sand” is a bittersweet look back by the Spirit on the lost love of his life, but also serves as Darwyn Cooke’s heartfelt goodbye to the book. Cooke’s decision to leave with issue 12 because his artistic collaborator J Bone was unable to commit to any more is understandable and laudable. As a final issue “Sand” is almost perfection and serves as a fantastic ending to the best adaptations of Eisner’s classic character.

(Cooke & Bone say their goodbyes to the Spirit in typically beautiful fashion.)

As you finish “Sand” with that gorgeous page above, the realisation hits that you’ll most probably never read anything that so perfectly captures everything that was great about Will Eisner’s most famous creation. Every single story of the Cooke and Bone run is excellent, with story and art that you will simply fall in love with. It’s a truly marvellous series and one that deserves to be sitting on your bookcase alongside all those marvellous Will Eisner volumes.

Wiped out

Got in from the snowy wastes of Pocklington tonight after a good few snowball fights with Molly on the way home and crashed. Spent all night practically comatose on the sofas downstairs and have only just woken up and been conscious enough to actually write anything. Thank God it’s half term tomorrow. Thank God it’s my half day as well. No hanging around at lunchtime tomorrow, straight home and rest. Then sleep for a weekend probably.

But for now; wide awake and raring to go. Tons of things to get done before bedtime to try and clear the decks before half term.

Mark Thomas at Pocklington Arts Centre.

It’s rare we get out for the night, even rarer that we get to see great comedy and even rarer that both arrive on our doorstep. But tonight it was Mark Thomas at Pocklington Arts Centre.

Just got in and really tired, so only a quick blog about it, but it was, as expected, a thoroughly great evening. The best bits; a description of Pocklington as the heterosexual Hebden Bridge, and the frankly brilliant idea of a new national maximum wage based on a percentage of the average wage. The more we thought about it, the better the idea got – for the highest paid to get even more money would mean the lowest paid had to see an increase as well.

That and much more in a really long, really great show

PROPAGANDA Reviews @ the FPI blog: Umbrella Academy Dallas 1-3

Yet another review at the FPI blog. This time it’s the second Umbrella Academy series:

Umbrella Academy: Dallas issues 1-3

Halfway through there’s a fight scene that I read and immediately thought of the phrase “orchestra of violence” to describe it. It really is that good.