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Columnist Thunder Mod
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Denver Area, between Asgard and Krypton
Posts: 21,360
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The Mighty Reviews 9/10/10
Wktf’s Reviews
Thor #614
Marvel Comics
Written by: Kieron Gillen
Drawn by: Doug Braithwaite
Covers by: Michael Suayan & Chris Stephens
Well, this stellar story arc comes to a close and, with it, the all-too-brief writing tenure of Kieron Gillen. When JMS came off this title many of us readers, myself included, feared the worst. Not only did Gillen not disappoint but, with his Latverian Prometheus arc, seemed not to miss a single step from where JMS left off. With his crafting of the Loki one-shot Siege book, wherein Loki brokered a deal for Hela to receive a slice of Mephisto’s Hell where she, in turn, could tend to her charges who previously had been left to wander the Earth after Asgard settled over Oklahoma, all for which Loki gained the boon of being written out of Hel, we could only hope this story would deliver some kind of pay off later. Sure enough, here it is. When dealing with Loki and Mephisto no one, not even Hela, should turn a back or blind eye. And, sure enough, Loki also brought the Disir to Hell as payment to Mephisto for his end of the bargain. These ancient monsters, Bor’s former Valkyries, feast on the souls of Asgardian dead. So, Hela’s torment meant plenty of sport for Mephisto. And who should be called in to help safeguard the fallen Asgardian souls? None other than the God of Thunder, himself, of course!
“Thor in Hell” has been a fascinating and even riveting read. The Thunder God and Tyr, Asgardian God of War, have faced significant hurdles in their quest to save Hela’s realm and stop the Disir. In this fourth and final installment, we find the two traveling partners separated as Tyr stays to guard Hela and Thor makes for Mephisto’s throne to acquire the one weapon, an enchanted sword magically embedded in the Earth, that can slay the Disir. As Tyr, the war god who ironically had to face his own cowardice during the Siege storyline, must face his fears and battle hopeless odds The Mighty Thor, as a hero can and must, places himself in death’s own way on a desperate gamble that only he, as child of both Odin and Gaia, would dare stake in order to save Hela, Tyr and their fallen Asgardian brethren.
Despite the truly annoying back-and-forth toggling of artistic chores, this has been one of the most original and truly frightening Thor arcs in many years. As well, the tension and action in the main storyline is complemented by a final, terrible scene between Thor and Hela wherein Loki’s final fate may well be pronounced, and yet another desperate scene where Loki’s evil machinations nearly take the life of an Asgardian at the cost of yet another Asgardian’s soul. When this arc is packaged as a trade, I highly recommend picking it up. And, as the final sequence in this story arc goes, for its overall sense of desperation, sadness and finality, it’s certainly my pick of the week.
Invaders Now #1 (of 5)
Marvel Comics
Story by: Christos Cage & Alex Ross
Written by: Christos Gage
Drawn by: Caio Reis
Covers by: Alex Ross, Adi Granov & Sal Buscema
If you’ve read the Avengers/Invaders cross-over, then you know that Toro and the Golden Age Vision (a Joe Simon/Jack Kirby creation, I believe) returned. Toro was brought back to life by Bucky Barnes through the power of the Cosmic Cube, just as Steve Rogers repaired Bucky’s psyche with the cube in Cap’s book. Also, if you’ve read the recent Torch series you know the Original Human Torch is back among us as well. So, if you think about the core members of The Invaders, that wonderful ‘70s creation of Roy Thomas’, you realize that Captain America (Steve Rogers), the Original Human Torch, The Sub-Mariner, Bucky (now Cap II) and Toro are back among us. Given that Spitfire’s now an immortal vampire, only Joey Chapman as Union Jack is the only Invaders character who’s not a member of the original cast. Pretty cool if, like me, you were a fan of and collected The Invaders comic book series back in the day.
With this book we see some long-awaited re-pairing of characters, though certainly not of the romantic variety. Particularly fun is Toro and Bucky, fast partners and friends as fellow kid sidekicks during WWII meet again for the first time in this issue. Their conversation, as Toro confuses a man talking into a headset for a crazy person, feels warm and familiar. As if two old friends really are catching up after decades apart. And when they go into action together it’s almost as if they’d never been apart. Similarly, the reunion of The Original Human Torch and The Sub-Mariner, once bitter enemies but now two friends with a shared past and mutual understanding, is also a satisfying read. That mutual, and rather harsh, understanding is brought to the surface when The Torch responds to some junior X-Men’s questions about his killing Hitler. And much to Namor’s approval. So, the nostalgia factor in this book really is pretty high. The final ingredient in this concept of reuniting the original team, the piece to really give this concept some real legs, is to come up with a good enough cause to unite them. And, unfortunately, this is where the book underdelivers. There is some mysterious threat that seems big enough, even without tracing it back to what Steve Rogers refers to as “the worst moment of the war,” for The Vision to unite the team. But there’s not enough given in this issue to make it really compelling and in fact, considering this threat probably is one Christos Gage is going to cook up and retcon, feels even like an eye-roller.
The worst part of these recent Alex Ross inspired WWII Marvel character revisitations, in every case, has been the art, and the same is true here unfortunately. There are some times when Reis’ art really hits the mark, such as the glee on Buck’s face when he asks Toro if he wants to hit something. But, for the most part, the art feels stiff and blocky and doesn’t really carry the story all that well. And between the art and the conceit of why this team has been assembled, I’d say this book is off to a lack-luster though not terrible start. Still, for a title I was looking forward to picking up, it was a bit of a downer.
X-Men #3
Marvel Comics
Written by: Victor Gischler
Drawn by: Paco Medina
Covers by: Adi Granov, Marko Djurdjevic & Paco Medina
Part 3 of The Curse of The Mutants really ratchets up the conflict of this whole mutants versus vampires storyline. This issue moves in two directions at once. Though the reader knows that Jubilee submitted herself to the bite of Xarus, Dracula’s son, the X-Men do not and, so, Cyclops dispatches Wolverine to bring her back. But not before Dr. Nemesis extracts some blood from Logan’s arm and Scott is questioned about not telling Logan “the whole plan.” What plan is this and what’s Logan’s part. Scott’s staying mum about it but we can only hope it’s something that’ll come back around to helping Logan out of the predicament he’s about to be in. The other plot line in this issue is Scott’s desperate gamble, revealed last issue, to resurrect Dracula much to both Blade and Logan’s protestations. With Namor having retrieved the former Dracula’s head from under the sea, and Storm and Gambit having retrieved the Vampire Lord’s body from an island in Greece, Cyclops goes to some length to bring Dracula back to undead life with the purpose of setting him loose to take revenge against his mutinous son. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of thing.
All the action in this story takes part during Wolverine’s question to find Jubilee. To say the least, he’s in a “take no prisoners” frame of mind and, considering his opposition is the undead and that slicing off their heads can be as effecting as a wooden stake through the heart, Logan goes all out to find his dear friend. Medina’s art is particularly stellar here as Logan wade’s through regular vampires, Nosferatu vampires and Atlantean vampires. The odds are overwhelming but the slicing and dicing takes place at a frenzied and breakneck rate, wonderfully demonstrating Wolverine’s sense of anger and desperation. As strong as he is at action sequences, Medina’s depiction of facial expressions really carries the story as well, especially during the negotiation period between the newly revived Dracula and Cyclops. Between Logan’s predicament and Cyclops’ desperate gamble (and that may actually be plural, gambles, but we’ll have to wait and see on that one) this story is really heating up.
My one complaint, and it’s been my complaint from the beginning, is Gischler’s seemingly ignoring all the Marvel Dracula and vampire lore of the last fourty years. Why does Dracula sport long white hair, ceremonial earings, and red armor? And, once revived, why can’t Dracula assume the form of mist or a bat to escape his bonds? And since when do victims of vampire bites turn to the undead after a single bite, rather than being so drained of blood that they die only to rise three days later? And, of course, Janus (Dracula’s son, seen only in the Storm/Gambit one-shot since The Death of Dracula) now being a vampire rather than the angelic figure he was portrayed in Tomb of Dracula is particularly galling. I keep saying that this story’s proving to be lots of fun if the reader can overlook these inconsistencies, and yet I keep coming back to them. It feels like a gigantic and intentional storytelling failure on Marvel’s part that, truly, is inhibiting the quality of an otherwise riveting and, at times, horror-movie level scary comic book story.
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