I won't review: August Edition

Welcome to "I won't review" A short series of paragraphs where I give an overview of books I don't wish to review in depth. Mostly because they're rubbish. It's a new idea that probably won't last into next month.

 

GYAHH!! NEVER SHOW ME THAT SMILE AGAIN!

Amazing Spider-Man 2014- the whole run by Dan Slott

 

There once was a hero named Spidey,

Who said "my best days are behind me.

My marriage is gone,

puberty is prolonged,

and that's why nobody will buy me"

 

One out of five limericks.

 

Waste of a perfectly good Venom

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3: Guardians Disassembled by Brian Michael Bendis

 

Okay Brian, here's something to consider. If a month from after reading your book somebody says "Hey, what's Guardians Disassembled about? I need something to fill in the time between sticking my tongue in the toaster and gouging my vitals organs out with a spoon." and I can't tell them what happened, you haven't written a great book. I'm not even sorry.

 

Two out of five vital organs.

 

Nyawww... look at the widdle Thanos!

Guaridans of the Galaxy vol. 4: Original Sin by Brian Michael Bendis

 

I was going to say that my experience reading Guardians thus far has been like an alcoholic swearing he'd never drink again after a rager only to find himself puking all over his hallway the week after. I've got a better one now, though; it's an embodiment of the old idiom "beating the dead horse". Well, except Marvel have not only killed the horse, they've brought it back to life, killed it again have beaten it, brought it back to life again, killed it again and are now trying to figure out new and exciting ways to keep beating it.

 

Two and a half out five horses.

 

Gee, it would be great to have more Fantastic
Four books, wouldn't it, MARVEL!?!?

Civil War: Fantastic Four by J Miacheal Straczynski

 

Remember how I said I wasn't reviewing these books mostly because they're rubbish? Well this is the exception: a book that takes actual time and effort in between mindless jokes an dumb action to deliver actual character development and depth. In case the title wasn't clear enough let me drop you a hint: It's a Civil War tie in. And by that I mean the good Civil War. No, not the one where Captain Marvel stole the treatment for Minority Report, that's the bad one. No, not the movie that final answers the "will they,  won't they" question Tumblr's been assuming to know the answer to for years now, that's also the bad one. I mean the one written by Mark Millar and actually dared to suggest that things were actually happening in the Marvel universe that wasn't going to be retconned  by the following Tuesday. The entire FF deal with the fallout of what is basically Sue and Reed's divorce and it goes about a smoothly as you would imagine. That is to say as smoothly as the end to this not-review.

 

Four out of five "will they; won't they" questions.

 

 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Angela (Marvel NOW!) Review

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Angela (Marvel NOW!)

Look at all of these characters... That
are totally boring.

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artists: Sara Pichelli and Francesco Francavilla

Collects: Guardians of the Galaxy #4-10

Background Information:

The Guardians of the Galaxy... is a group of heroes who defend... earth... not the galaxy. At the moment their big concern is earth and to hell with everything else!

Not really a big surprise; when a team called "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" consists of an American playboy, an American soldier, an American archer, an American scientist, the most American russian woman I have ever seen on film and a guy who is from an entirely fictional location it's no surprise that the Guardians are only concerned with earth because there is no way characters can be relatable unless the nationalities and locations are our own, right?

Right?

Right?

Review:

If there's evidence that Marvel will keep publishing any old shlock so long as there is a MCU franchise alongside it, it's Marvel NOW!'s Guardians of the Galaxy. Two volumes in and there is nothing particularly good about it. This is the same company that cancelled the rather enjoyable New Warriors and the at-least-coherent Fantastic Four because there are no MCU movies attached to the title. Angela is a bland, pointless book that fails to hold readers' attention.

It's okay; it's not like her universe was using her.

So, Angela, a woman from heaven has wound up in the Earth realm and is getting into fights. That'
s it- that's the whole story. If that sounds totally boring and pointless, it's becasue it is. Nobody in this book seems to know their reason for fighting- and to be honest, I couldn't remember if there was. Either way, these battles are anti-climatic and bland. There's no reason to care about the victor in these fights because Bendis fails to ramp up the tension in any meaningful way. Nothing hinges on anything in this volume and if you want to see an example of that; a battle with the forces of Thanos for the fate of Earth portrays no sense of urgency whatsoever.

The introduction of Angela also fails to be a significant as Bendis clearly pretends it is. Even though the entire book is based around her, her presence doesn't seem to pose a threat. She is there to see if Earth actually exists. Nobody is chasing her, her presence hasn't upset the natural order and she isn't out to kill anyone. Yet Bendis devotes five issues to this non-story.

I like Bendis, I really do, but I like him for his character development. He's not great at action books and Angela is living proof of that. All-New X-Men, Ultimate Spider-Man; for all of the flaws of these books, they've got great character moments. I haven't seen any of that in Guardians of the Galaxy, and it's grating.

I could colour thins properly, buuuuut....

I will give Bendis this though, It's the one thing this book does right. I don't think it justifies the cost of the book. But Bendis gives us a Tony Stark that is totally out of his depth. On Earth, Tony gets too sweet a deal. His role as the face of the MCU means that everyone thinks he's a genius-supersoldier-immortal-stallion on Earth. In space, his intelligence is dwarfed by a talking racoon- which is not the least of the halariously awkward situations he finds himself in. As someone who HATES Tony Stark (I'm definitely team Steve for Civil War), it was a joy to behold. Unfortunately, these moments are few and far between and don't save this series from bombing hard.

Art here is a mixed bag of mediocre and mistaking-terrible-for-unique. There is one issue where the colourist seemed to be in the last thirty minutes of his friday shift and decided to colour each panel in one or two colours. It's not as interesting as I think the artist hoped it would be.

I never understood why people criticise Bendis until this Angela. Now? I think "oh, THAT'S why people think he can't write." This gets a one out of five minutes before the end of a friday shift.

*

+ Tony Stark looking like a fool.
- Dull story.
- Mediocre to awful art.

Alternate Option: All-New X-Men: Yesterday's X-Men

This is why Bendis still has a job with Marvel. Read it.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1: Cosmic Avengers (Marvel NOW!) Review

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 1: Cosmic Avengers

Starlord wants you!... To take the
racoon seriously.

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artists: Steve McNiven, Sara Pichelli

Collects:  Guardians of the Galaxy #1-3 and #0.1 AND Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrows Avengers #1

Background Information:

So the Guardians of the Galaxy movie opens in August, so what better time to explain who these guys are?

Peter Quill, AKA Starlord, is the son of an Earth woman and a man from the planet Spartax. Upon learning of his heritage, he took to space and now hangs out with Gamora (Daughter of Thanos), Drax the Destroyer (psycho killing-you-guy), Groot (y’know those tree things from Lord of the Rings? Kinda like that, but only says “I am Groot”).

Oh, yeah, and a talking racoon.

Review

Would you eat an otherwise perfect chocolate cake if there was a cockroach cooked into it?

That’s kinda the feeling I get when reading Cosmic Avengers; it’s good, but there’s that one ingredient that takes it from being great to being vomit-inducing. It’s a pity, because there’s plenty to like here, but that one major failing stops me from being excited about further volumes.

So Quill’s rotten father is letting him know that the Earth is officially off-limits to interstellar visitors. That’s good, right?

For the record- we've never heard of the Power Rangers

Not so much. See, apparently saying “don’t go there” just encourages interstellar bad guys to... well... go there. Enter the Guardians (joined for the moment by Iron Man) who are trying to stop interstellar bad guys. Of course, there’s a lot more that happens in the book apart from that, but that’s as spoiler free as I can do for the moment.

Okay, it seems pretty clear at the moment that Bendis is effectively trying to reboot-without-rebooting Guardians of the Galaxy (something that seems to be a habit for All-New-All-Now-New-Now-All Marvel NOW!), but it thankfully somewhat works. The first issue treats us to an origin story for Starlord, as well as a quick introduction to Iron Man being on the team. I say somewhat, because there is still plenty we don’t know about the rest of the guardians.

But that’s pretty forgivable because the following three issues don’t suffer from the same lack of information. There’s plenty of great moments for each character to shine, Drax lives up to his title as destroyer very well; showing a brutality unrivalled by any of the other Guardians. Gamora has plenty of great sword-swinging, gun-shooting moments, and thankfully, there’s no sign of sexual exploitation on the character (although I’m suspicious that there may be in the movie). I won’t spoil Groot’s best moment here because, although you can see it coming a mile away, it’s so satisfying when you see yourself proven right.

Peter Quill comes off very much as a Han Solo-style character. He’s dismissive of authority figures, is fairly laid back, and can trash talk pretty much at will. It’s cliché, sure, but damn if it isn’t highly enjoyable to read.

Alright, fine, I’ll talk about Rocket Racoon. Honestly, I think Marvel are overestimating the character’s

Has gun. Will kill guys.

appeal, here. He’s fun to read about for sure- enjoying the killing aspect of the Guardians’ missions more than anyone else in the team (and remember, one of those other team members has “the Destroyer” in his name; let that sink in). The problem is, I just couldn’t help but think of a smaller, furrier Deadpool whenever I saw him. If you really want to see that kind of character, you’re probably better off reading Deadpool. He works well in the team though, so this isn’t a big enough problem to warrant a low score.

Artwork is done pretty seamlessly. Despite having two different artists, there’s no immediate difference in the artwork between the book’s main four issues.

Up until this point, I’ve really had no problem with the book in terms of story or art, but that’s not where Cosmic Avengers fails. No, this isn’t a bad comic, but it is a bad collection of issues.

Now, the way Marvel collects their trade paperback has always been a problem with me. On average, you can expect a Marvel trade to have five issues. That’s not bad in and of itself, but then they charge around $20 for it. Now, I can buy a DC trade for around $18 and get minimum six issues, and that feels more like my money’s worth. You can argue quality of stories all you want, but the fact remains that with Marvel, you’re paying more for less story.

But Cosmic Avengers ups the anti in this regard. See, the actual story content is only covered in three issues. Otherwise, it’s bookended by the good-but-not-significant #0.1 and the boring-and-insignificant Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow’s Avengers #1. Now, I know that the others stories may not match up, but reading so little actual story content (especially in the Tomorrow’s Avengers, which only acknowledges the story, rather than adding to it) left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

So here’s hoping the second volume is better collected but right now Guardians of the Galaxy get’s a three out of five issues that further the story.

***

+ Characters are great.

+ Good for new readers

- The Tomorrow’s Avengers issue is horrible.

Alternate Option: Nova Vol. 1

Not one I’ve read, but I’ve heard great things about it. And it may just be the better choice if you want something in Marvel’s cosmic realm.