Avengers/Invaders 8 of 12. This mini-series, scripted by the talented Alex Ross (more famous for his photo-realistic art), has become something of a train wreck. There never really appeared to be any reason to bring the Invaders (the WW II Marvel team retrofitted into history by Roy Thomas in the 1970s) to the present to join forces with and alternately fight the two versions of the Avengers. Once they brought in SHIELD, Dr. Strange, the Cosmic Cube... well. And now this 12 issue series is way out of current continuity, with some of the characters dead or revealed to be alien invaders more recently. And after all the fairly meaningless screwing around in the present, now a bunch of them seem to be getting sucked back to the past. This has really been a disappointment. Not recommended.
Batman 686. Did you know they killed Batman? Yeah, DC made a hash of it. Killing Superman back in the early 90s was a big deal, killing Captain America more recently over at Marvel was another national story. You would think offing Batman would be a big story. But no, instead it was just confusing. He appeared to die (exploding helicopter but no body, like anyone would believe that) in his own book. Then he appeared to die again in Final Crisis a few weeks ago, and there was even a body. But the editor in chief at DC, Dan Didio, had already let slip that of course Batman wasn't really dead. Just a stunt, and a stunt they didn't make much use of, and a story that doesn't make any sense at all, since the two occurrences didn't appear to fit together in any sort of coherent way. Well, now we're getting a two-part "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" story by Neil Gaiman, with beautiful art by Andy Kubert, and this issue is the first part.
For the uninitiated, back in 1986, when they rebooted the Silver Age Superman after the original Crisis on Infinite Earths story, they got Alan Moore to write and legendary Silver Age artist Curt Swan to draw a coda for the old Superman, and it was a wonderful, fondly remembered story. One of my favorite comic stories ever, in fact. So clearly, DC felt now would be a good time to recruit a very high profile writer to do something similar for Bats.
This starts with a nifty cover, depicting a line of Batman supporting characters filing into a bar with a splendid gothic backdrop and a looming, ghostly Batman figure hovering over all. The story is difficult to describe, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone who plans to read it. But obviously there is going to be a wake for Batman, and the supporting cast is arriving to be present. But this is not just any supporting cast; the Riddler is obviously the one from the old 60s TV series; the Joker is the memorable version from the 90s animated show. And the visual homages to various moments in the long, long history of Batman are nifty: Catwoman arrives in her car, her Catillac, of course (according to the Best Shots reviewer at Newsarama) but not only is this a cool scene, it is an effective echo of the legendary arrival of the Batmobile at the climax of The Killing Joke. There's much more, with characters drawn from every era of Batman stories, sometimes in multiple versions, although we don't see them at the same time.
I probably shouldn't review this until the second issue and conclusion, but so far I'm impressed. Gaiman is also referencing himself, from The Wake near the end of his Sandman run. I guess when you're as good as he is, you get to do that. Highly recommended.
Captain Britain and MI 13 10. The British heroes are enjoying downtime while we see an axis of the damned developing between Dr. Doom and Dracula. (Yes, the famous vampire has a background as the star of a long-running Marvel series back in the 70s. Not my cup of tea, but it was good - he was unabashedly depicted as a bad guy, not glamorized.) They mean to take over England. This quirky little series continues to be a lot of fun. Can't imagine it'll be published for long, but I'm enjoying while I can. Highly recommended.
Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds 3 of 5. This off-shoot of the Final Crisis event has nothing to do with the main storyline. Instead, it appears they're using FC as an opportunity to clean up the messy Legion situation going forward. (Readers will recall that I discussed the tangled history of the three versions of the Legion of Super-Heroes in an earlier post.) With gorgeous art by George Perez, this is too much fun to be bad. But it's also pretty confusing. It looks to me like they're going to politely wipe away the two surplus "reboot" Legions and leave us with the original set, which is ok with me. Unnecessary, of course. Why not just publish the adventures of the old LSH and ignore the other two as superfluous and now unwanted versions? The continuity of this story is impossible, even with Geoff Johns cleaning up and explaining as best he can. What point in time is the "Threeboot" Legion drawn from? Can't tell. Some writers are calling this the "retroboot" Legion, and I think that's about right, because they don't resemble the original Legion as we last saw them - instead, these guys are from an earlier point before all the continuity trouble began after the 1986 Crisis. It doesn't bother me, but I wish they'd explain that. There are some nice scenes, as with all three Phantom Girls (one of them "Apparition", of course) admiring the relatively-grown up but still youthful original Ultra Boy, and an explanation that will clearly lead to the reboot XS character, one of the more interesting new Legionnaires from the 90s, sticking around after her colleagues are no longer cluttering things up. Recommended, if only for the Perez art and the need to keep up.
Futurama 41. Bongo Comics does nice versions of the Simpsons in several ongoing series (I have never read them, but they look amusing) and this bimonthly relic of the late, lamented Futurama series presently enjoying a semi-comeback in direct to DVD animated movies. Futurama is clever, raucous fun, fairly like the cartoon in tone but tailored for the page in a professional way. It reminds me immensely of humor comics from my youth, but I can't quite put my finger on precisely what title I'm recalling; possibly Mad Magazine. This issue is typical; playing off characters and events in the cartoons in agreeable ways, with the amusing gimmick of Leela being suddenly fascinated with ex-lover and starship captain Zapp Brannigan because he refuses to pay attention to her for a change. The creators love to get Leela out of her clothes - it's a rare issue in which she doesn't get undressed to whatever degree they think they can get away with, and in this issue she runs around in her nightgown, then gets tied up, then has to seduce the egregious Zapp to snap him out of his strange trance, and loses even the nightgown. I'm not sure why they thought it was interesting to put her in a muu-muu for the climax, but there you go. Recommended, not least because the creators are so obviously enjoying themselves.
R.E.B.E.L.S. 1. You know, I won't even try to explain the background of this revival of an old minor 90s science fantasy series from DC (originally L.E.G.I.O.N.). Suffice to say that it is pretty decent, quite amusing in spots and features an appearance by the LSH (there was originally a tenuous connection between the two groups). I won't buy it again, I think, but I am not unhappy to have tried it. The really interesting thing about this issue is that it represents another demonstration of how utterly confused and incoherent the editorial coordination at DC is these days. The LSH appearance features Brainiac 5, but the Threeboot version. Now, why would you connect a new ongoing series with a superfluous version of the Legion from an alternate world, as we explicitly were reminded in Legion of 3 Worlds this month? You could excuse it in various contrived ways, but I'm pretty sure it's just that writer Tony Bedard was not clued in on what Geoff Johns was doing over in Lo3W. Very mildly recommended.
Thor 600. I mentioned earlier that my original favorite character from Marvel was Thor. Eventually, the lack of consistent quality on that title during the 70s, 80s and 90s wore me down and I tranferred my interest to Dr. Strange. But I still have a soft spot for Thor and would read it given half a chance. The recent revival of the title by writer Joe Straczynski (of Babylon 5 fame) and Olivier Coipel did not hold my attention for long. It was grim, incredibly slow-paced and just not what I'm interested in reading. But I'd like to give it a chance - JMS is a good writer much of the time, and I do like Thor. So when they returned the title to its original numbering for its 600th issue (it was originally Journey Into Mystery for 82 issues and then was Journey Into Mystery with the Mighty Thor from 83 on; he eventually took over the entire title as The Mighty Thor, monthly until it became JIM again for a while in the 90s, got cancelled and rebooted from issue 1 in the current decade, cancelled and rebooted again a couple of years ago), I figured I should give it a try. This issue was much better. Things actually happened - there is in fact a complete story that does not make the ongoing plot mysterious or unclear.
Dr. Doom appear here, too, at the end, so time out for my Marvel continuity rant. Over in Fantastic Four, Doom is deposed as ruler of Latveria and in prison in the Hague. In Captain Britain, he's back in power and conspiring with Dracula. In Thor, he's back in power and conspiring with Loki. (Oh, and he's conspiring with the "Illuminaughty" in the Dark Reign event, too, but not back in power yet, and not in prison.) How did he get out of prison and back in power? Well, we have to allow for the possibility that I missed the story, but I think it's actually going to happen in the pages of yet another book, Dark Avengers, which I don't read. Sheesh. Not only do all these guys not make much of an effort on continuity, I don't think they even care about it. Yeah, yeah, I know if it's a good story, who cares, but in serial fiction in a shared universe, couldn't they try, just a little? It does add to the sense of verisimilitude.
I'm not completely sold on Thor, but this was more lively and interesting that what I'd seen recently. The backups are downright good - a neat little tale written by Stan Lee himself, a humorous strip satirizing events in Thor and the Marvel Universe by humorist Chris Giarrusso and finally some stunning reprints from the old Tales of Asgard backup strip by Lee and Kirby. Man, those guys were good. (I have some of those in the original.) And finally there is a cover gallery of all 600 issues, including the original JIM stuff. Very cool. Recommended.
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