Dark Reign: Young Avengers #1
Written: Paul Cornell
Art: Mark Brooks
Opening Comments: As I’ve mentioned, I was really hyped for this. But even with that I kept a reasonable amount of thought to know it could be disappointing. It is a first issue after all and this series really came out of nowhere. Well it’s not the trip to
Story Comments: We open with a simple robbery that is immediately thwarted by the Young Avengers. At least…I think that’s what happens, it doesn’t go the simple super hero way where they beat the bad guys and the cops take them away.
When we see these are villains they truly are that as they get pretty brutal. Most of the robbers end up dead except for one who just gets turned into a dog thanks to our new Enchantress. This was a pretty brutal way to open the book and show that these new Young Avengers aren’t doing a very good job of honoring the title, though that is half the point of what they do.
After this the Young Avengers retreat to a bar where Enchantress fakes their ID, in a sense, and they cool off. We get to see more of Melter and through the issue the key point was to show that Melter is a good guy leading a team of fairly bad guys. Big Zero is a racist towards…every race! I don’t even know how that works, Executioner is similar to Punisher but even more violent. Enchantress honestly isn’t anywhere near as brutal as the others but she’s certainly a thief who deserved to get kicked out of Asgard. Coat of Arms is…again, someone I’m not sure about, I think she may be similar to Melter but at the same time she is very cryptic. Egghead is kind of funny, his relationship with Big Zero is even funnier.
These characters are all very nicely introduced and often have great moments here and there. Cornell makes sure to fit in a good moment here and there to show off their unique and interesting personalities.
We see the Melter and Enchantress are lovers in a pretty funny scene. Though we also see through all of Melter’s reactions to his team that he’s a really good guy, a hero as well as the team leader but is forced to make compromises with his villainous teammates. Especially since his power is….well, melting things.
My favorite moment was near the end, Melter accidentally trips an old woman and he tries to help her up. She thinks she’s being robbed so she pepper sprays him in the eyes, he freaks out and accidentally melts her. His freaking out was a really nice moment and it was kind of, in a twisted way, funny that he’s trying to be a good guy, do the right thing, and someone got killed. Though unfortunately the cliff-hanger following was an obvious one where the real Young Avengers show up.
Overall Cornell did an impressive job, he came over the hurdle of First-Issue syndrome that most comics suffer from. He packed in a great introduction with interesting characters that are all debuted nicely and all vary nicely as well. He hooked my attention and has me excited for more.
Art Comments: Mark Brooks is a great artist, but often his cover work overshadows his actual interiors when in comparison. While his art still doesn’t reach that smooth greatness he brings to cover art he achieves a new level of greatness for him as an artist as it seems he’s really pushing his art to be the best it can be. He still suffers from some edgy faces once in a while but it’s a rare complaint as his artwork is solid and great.
Final Comments: I’m excited and ready for more next time when the real Young Avengers show up but for their debut issue these Dark Young Avengers have done a great job winning me over. It’s not everything I hoped it would be but for both a first issue and for brand new characters I was very, very impressed.
Writing: 5 out of 5
Art: 5 out of 5
Overall: 5 out of 5
Must Have
Wolverine #73
Written: Jason Aaron and
Art: Adam Kubert and Tommy Lee Edwards
Opening Comments: I was considering just shelving this and saving myself 3 bucks for next week. But I decided to get it as it’s got some serious talent behind it and I liked the solicits for the two stories. While my hopes where not high they where mild and even then they where not fully met.
Story Comments: The first story is about the life of Wolverine, how he’s always such a busy guy and how does he do it. We get, day by day, what he does. Wee see him each day doing something new and this is either done panel by panel or page by page, since there are only so many pages allotted we don’t get a lot of room.
Some panels where great, we saw a team up of wolverine, Punisher and Ghost Rider, Mystique’s return which I would love to see as an actual story some day, a team up with Spider-man and even Deadpool which was hilarious.
Aaron certainly does a great job of establishing how busy and hectic
The second story will supposedly lead in to Dark Wolverine but I can’t see how. It’s basically
I admit I’m not a huge fan of
Overall both stories where okay reads and since this was only 3 dollars opposed to 4 I certainly didn’t mind it.
Art Comments: 2 very talented writers threw their hats in for these 2 stories. I’m very pleased to see Kubert (Adam) back at Marvel and he does some really cool stuff with these panels. Sure he has a few weird panels I admit but his art is really strong and cool work and he did a great job here. Edwards did the same and his art really worked well and bring the cool story that Way to life more.
Final Comments: It’s a good entertaining read with incredible artistic talent onboard. Not really much to say though, if you saw the Wolverine Movie and are looking for an interesting read this is it for you, a good read with incredible art. But not much else.
Writing: 3 out of 5
Art: 5 out of 5
Overall: 3 out of 5
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Ultimate Spider-man #132
Written: Brian Bendis
Art: Stuart Immonen
Opening Comments: Ultimatum is taking it’s toll on one of my favorite comics. With things such as delays and other problems Ultimate Spider-man has finally been dragged down into the muck, even though this issue wasn’t terrible ,it had it’s bright spots, it’s just not looking good for Spidey…though not like it ever was.
Story Comments: The storyline is fairly simple really, we get an introduction to the whole portal where Dr. Strange’s big bag of evil magic stuff is and as we see later on, it’s open, all the monsters and crazy evil magic is out of the bag. There was a brief “fight” between MJ and Kitty like on the cover, but it was more MJ smacking Kitty 2 times and crying so it’s hardly worth mentioning.
Put simply from there Nightmare escapes, he is using Dr. Strange as a vessel and he fights and torments Spider-man and Hulk. We got some really interesting moments of inner monologue from Spider-man, how it is all seeming really futile for him and he’s slowly losing hope more and more of being a hero.
Though really the plot is fairly thin, like last issue. It ends with Hulk smashing the hell out of Nightmare causing a giant explosion near Spider-man. I have a theory that Spider-man doesn’t die from the explosion, but rather it sends him to some evil dimension or something like that. Though I’d really hope we not do a cheap death/ending like that.
Really there isn’t too much to say here, Bendis did an all right job with what he could but it seems Ultimatum has limited him a bit and no writer works very well with limits. The characters are done well enough and it has it’s moments but it never really does anything overly interesting or great.
Art Comments: Immonen is a talented artist who does a good job with what he can here. His talents are shown off when Nightmare pulls up some of Spidey’s villains and when Hulk gets to go all rampaging but that’s about it. Still his usual great work.
Final Comments: Ultimate Spider-man is having some trouble on it’s last leg of life before it bows out for the next volume. Still an all right read but not much else.
Writing: 3 out of 5
Art: 4 out of 5
Overall: 3 out of 5
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