Sunday, August 25, 2013

Sunday Comics Aug 25 2013...

This week's Sunday comics choices are both written by Cullen Bunn and one sadly is on the soon to be gone list.

Venom which stars one time bully and long time Spiderman fan Flash Thompson as the symbiot host and darker edged hero trying to do the right thing, fighting his deep personal demons and the influence of Venom. The book goes from self seraching personal drama to frenetic action featuring webs, guns and bombs with repercussions for both the personal and superhero conflicts in Flash's life. The recent storyline has him setting up himself in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia, where heroes are scarce and a villain named Lord Ogre has free reign. Starting a new life after his failures in the big apple Flash takes up residence and to the streets as a hero for the people who have no spandex wearing defender.

Flash was crippled in the war on terror and lives life in a wheel chair when not sharing his body with the alien symbiot, he's a coach for a local highschool and seems a man trying to make up for a past he regrets. He's the kind of character I particularly love, much like Jamie Lannister of Game of Thrones he is a man though we know has done bad things he has a code of morals when seen from his point of view as readers we can get. Like so many of the heroes in Marvel that I love he is not a first stringer, he is a character who's past informs his present and will shape his future; he is not Peter Parker who carries the weight of being an icon, Flash gets to be a person beyond the brand of being a brand like Spider-Man or X-men.

The the most recent run of issues have culminated in paranoia on Flash's part, superpowered mercenaries and assassins running roughshod over Phliiy looking for the bounty on Agent Venom's head and his contactes in Philly as Venom are seeking information on the new hero. In his many attempts to be the hero he idolizes Flash inadvertently has created another spawn of the Venom symbiot and gained a "sidekick" in the teen girl now called Mania. The art by Declan Shalvey is unique, dynamic and characterful and may not be to everyone's tastes but I personally love the fresh approach to action. His strengths lie in the expressiveness of the characters faces and when the symbiots are out and in action its a whole new SFX ball game much like Cameron's The Thing for the eighties. Vemon is a book that has action adventure and drama in spades and I'm sad that it will be a memory come November... Both Rick Remender's and Cullen Bunn's runs on this unappreciated book are available to Marvel Ultimate subscribers but if you do check it out get it from a local friendly comic shop.

 

I've mentioned Fearless Defeneders before but since I want this all "life on the d list" marvel women title to survive the current cull that seems to be going on in the second stringer title family at the new excellent house of ideas. This is a superhero comic that is part Big Trouble in Little China with its crazy Hong Kong cinema approach to action and fast forward adventure and part Farscape with its modern media reference points and snappy sarcastic dialogue. Cullen pulls on the whole catalogue of Marvel heroines with this bringing back long sadly ignored characters like the onetime apprentice of Dr Strange Clea and the one time Nextwave monster hunter Elisa Bloodstone. Issue seven was a Valkerie centric episode that used a trip to the Viking afterlife to bring home the perils of the afterlife and reintroduce Clea who I forgot I totally missed and issue eight was a Big Trouble in Marvel little China with a Brood influenced twist.

Fearless defenders spotlights characters that need more so called screen time. Misty Knight has been knocking around the Marvel universe for so long as their version of the bionic woman its great to see her shining as well as seeing Danille Moonstar being more then just another mutant and Brunhild just as a female Thor replacement. These issues are at their best when Cullen is giving us their everyday non-fighting lives. With Journey into Mystery ending next month I need a title like this to get a bit more fan love.

I love these kinds of titles; the Hero's for Hire, the Defenders, the thrid stringers, the d listers; their stories usually involve change that remains with them. Marvel carries stories forward... I say this because of the so called new 52. DC has long been known to push the reset button on stories for the time of the end of the first Crisis in 1985. I loved Crisis and what came after bit as time has gone on their predilection to push the rest button has become a crutch for DC editorial see the recent posts about the new Lobo ideas. Marvel has committed lots of bad summer and yearly events and summer crossovers and the debacle of the clone saga... What I will commend Marvel for the their embracing the past stories and create lemon aid from lemons. I would love the opportunity to read stories I could not afford to own and these days with Marvel Unlimited I can read them... History matters to Marvel so far and this I respect. I know someday Cyclopse will be the golden boy of Xavier and Magneto will be the enemy but there will hopefully be someone who recalles when he was the bad guy... Checkout Venom and Fearless Defenders... They are in sore need of fans... And Marvel loves telling stories these days....

 

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Mind fcuk....

Mind Mgmt is a subversive comic, it is a comic that plays with the idea that people can manipulate one another at a subconscious level to frightening levels. Matt Kindt has written and drawn a comic that plays on the same weaknesses and fears that the novel Lexicon by Max Barry and the movie In the Mouth of Madness plays upon; the basic question of if you can not trust your sences, if at the subconscious level you can be lies to what can you trust. As a reader and a watcher I love this kind of existential horror and with a book like Mind MGNT and John Carpetner's Mouth of Madness I'm totally onboard because the characters are relateable and compelling. Don't get me wrong I loved Lexicon by Max Barry but it's best elements were the ideas, the concepts that drove the tale and here it is the neat Xmen like characters that are the force that gives power to the ideas. If the mind is mailable and can kill with concepts Mind MGMT imagines a world where it happens and where few people use this power to its most powerful aspect, among the privileged few who know of its existence.

Ming MGNT is a world of psionic powers and conspiracy gone corporate, gone viral, and been broken up before a catastrophe. It is a place where subtle powers like telepathy predicts the near future, where ad copy can influence the actions of others more then is the real world and. A select few can erase memory with a whim and kill just by sending a letter with a silly haiku or by pointing their fingers and saying bang. This is a would a mystery crime writer named Meru finds herself living in in Mind MGMT vol 2 and the one I fell into reading it. She is a thriller writer who is failing to writer her promised new novel because of reoccurring thoughts about stories and conspiracies that involve her mailman and letters and such. These worrying thoughts lead her down a rabbit hole that lead to murder, danger and a man named Lyme, people who played with others minds and killed because they could till the Eraser came along.

This is a book highly reminiscent of the eighties comic and RPG Espers written by Mage writer Matt Wagner when he posited a story about characters with ESP powers in the modern paranoia spy driven world of the paranoid eighties. These days its not the red menace that is the fear element but fear is a big element in modern post 2000 lifeline and Matt Kindt taps into that in this comic with its water color highlighted primative lined art and its look over your shoulder storytelling. Given its somewhat amnesiac protagonist and the deceptive nature of the heroes I am still guessing as to the nature of the real story. Yes I came in at the opening of the second act and myself may be Rosenstern but I can hardly tell hero from villain. This is a caper tale where as readers we are forced to be astute and pay attention to the whole picture if we hope to understand the story.

Along the course of this story our reporter heroine Meru encounters many potential allies in her quest to tell the story; her savior Lyle, a man who may not be worthy of her full trust bet is fighting for a bigger goal and seems to be getting the sharp end of the stick, Duncan who seems a sociopath but may just be the tales hero, Perrier who is the most used by the old power who has the most to gain by taking Meru's side and is the most worthy of vengeance and Dusty who well has a lot lose and the most to protect. In the end Matt leaves you with a heroine you still want to follow heroes to root for and villains to despise but your not really sure of things. This is a great overall caper tale like that of Inception the movie in that he end though clear may not be so clear and the story has angles yet to persue. The villain the Eraser is still out there and if we get her/his tale next who knows where the story will go. I like this kind of thing that plays havoc with expectations and makes you wonder though you think you know the story... I'm laughing in the cinema seats with the doomed hero in this one like at the end of Mouth of Madness... At least that is the end I hope for... Its dark but well truth is a darkness sometimes...

If you like mind f7cking stories Mind MGMT may be for you its a great caper bringing the band back together tale.... Excelsior

Mind MGMT by Matt Kindt is a densely packed caper story that has much in common with the thriller Lexicon by Matt Barry I can't help but wonder, but that is the human mind looking for connections (cause and effect) where no conspiracy or link exists. Dropping into this complex mind and memory manipulation tale blind in volume two was no hindrance to understanding the story and getting the characters. It is really more a mix of Xmen and Lexicon since each of the characters has a special ability like being able to read others thoughts, seeing and feeling through their twin or knowing how to twist someone unseen through words an images an addition o being trained today with people's minds on a subconscious level.

 

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Sunday Comics

Wolverine by Paul Cornell is one of those titles... you know the ones it is one you want to love and you like and tickles the right spot just enough that you can't give it up. Last issue I did like but at almost 4 dollars I should love it to continue but because of something I just can't say indeed to stop NOW. Paul is pulling from Marvel history in a way I love; he is tapping into the old Mike Golden Micronauts,the old Frankenstein titles and delves into Logan as a character and not Wolverine as an ICON. It is totally a book I would not balk at 2.99 but at 3.99 I think it always has to prove itself and this issue does it in spades.

Alan Davis is back on the art so it is a feast for the eyes and the emotion in the issue comes out of the corners to hit you as a reader. Wolverine 8 is a winner in terms of story and art renewing my trust in the title... I want so much to love this title that I may be clouding my own opinion but I think its totally up to the task of living up to its price. Black Panther has not looked better in a long time and Logan has not been as sympathetic; he has been for so long a man who's pain has come with little consequence and this issue points our the realities of being Wolverine from several angles because of all the various players in the story including Black Panther, Victoria Frankenstein and several others. I love the fact Paul is thinking about the real emergent behavior of being the Wolverine or having access to resurrection or rebirth or super science... Its a smart book a dim so sad people may have checked out before this happened. I am still on the hook for this one. Thanks Paul for the thinking mans Marvel Comic.... Of yeah could we please have a Victoria Frankenstein mini series written by Deconnick and Cornell.....

Excelsior....

 

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Sunday Comics...aug 4

Catalyst Comix... By Joe Casey and a cast artists....

Once upon a time Dark Horse Comics started a series of superhero comics refered to as Comics Greatest World; the world was populated by such characters as X,Ghost, Motörhead to name just the few that occur to me the fastest but there were many more. This was a setting that survived a while and was cool in many ways but in the morass of the superhero glut it got lost and buried in the mass of the mediocre. Writers are returning to these concepts and characters today and I for one hope that with the new reality of comics they can gain an audience.

There are some great current writers and some writing stars of years past that are writing in this setting that traders should be looking farther afield from Marvel these days for good superhero stories. There are reasons I exclude DC and it has to do with my taste and my dissatisfaction with the new 52stable. I will say I loved Frankenstein and the agents of Shadow, Demon Knights, Dial H, Justice League Dark and the Simon Baz Green Lantern but on the whole the new DCU falls totally flat for me especially the big three they are worth nought these days and the new standard is the greatness is the old house of ideas.... Marvel.

Marvel currently has the writing of people who have ideas and artists nat are given the free reign to draw to their strength. Captain Marvel is about the best of the stable these days followed closely by Hawkeye and Daredevil. To me an OLD comics fan its like the early eighties when DC has a couple good books considered c level titles and Marvel and the Indys had the lead in storytelling. This is where I will talk about the cool that is Catalyst Comics #1

This issue introduces us to the heroes and stories of a world which has survived a cosmic apocalypse of Lovecraftian proportions. Among the three tales we get a superman like tale of the single superhero against the cosmic horror but with consequences and emotional baggage, we get the story of the possible cause and solution to the crisis in the first back up story and in the last we set a bringing the band back together story in a superhero vein. This book makes me wish I had picked up the Deconnick Ghost series because I love her writing on Captain Marvel and Hopeless's title for Dark Horse too. These are titles that may hall beneath the usual superhero collectors radar but these tales are just as good as the big two.... I was a long time fan of the Elementals and this stable have the feel of the old First comics.... Take a look they are not the big guys but they are no less for it.

Along the same line I have to point out the Zenith comics project from kickstarter that needs support. Its a comics fan that wants to bring the light back to the grim dark that has swallowed the comics world. Here is the link to the project. I read the script for the first issue and it looks to be as good as the feat of things on the shelf and worthy of sharing the space with them. It has a great pedigree and I hope to see it as a reality.. Take a look let me know what you think.... Again go http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/412792115/zenith-comics-presents-heroic?ref=search to look at the project....

 I think its worth a look if you have the dosh to let go of... I think this may be worth it...


Take a look to at Catalyst, Ghost, X Captain Midnight from Dark Horse... If there are more super hero comics the ones put there will get better .... I dug the first issue of Catalyst and will be adding the second to my pull list....