Iron Man Director of Shield #30 came out this last week and my response is this: blah.
The plot itself was boring, very little actually happening, mostly background story on the new villain who is an expert at miniaturizing weapons. He was an acquaintance of Stark’s in the past and they looked to make weapons together after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately the man’s country went into civil war and his wife was killed and himself imprisoned. So now he’s out for revenge, or justice, or whatever.
So very little happens, and IM once again goes in like a special troop squad with the Shield agents with Stark Tech as his backup. When they take out the bad guys HQ some two bit lame villain called Paladin brings Stark a message from his old partner who gives him the rundown on what happened.
And then comes something that pretty much angers every comic book fan of any character. Paladin shoots Stark with some kind of electrical charge that sucks away his armors power and makes it dead weight. And how was it explained? Well in the first part of the issue with the background Stark agreed to give the guy some access to Stark miniaturized technology, which apparently has to do with his Iron Man technology.
So let me get this straight, Stark actually allowed someone access to his armor technology that wasn't a totally trusted friend. Right. But furthermore, this guy probably had access to technology that has nothing to do with Extremis, or even the most recent armors. Yet he was able to figure a counter to it based on old technology. While not totally unfeasible it’s highly unlikely.
So yeah, the issue was pretty much a bore and some two bit villain taking down Stark with a two bit explanation would have ruined it even if it was a good story. All in all, a crappy issue. But at least colorist Dean White didn’t smudge things nearly as much as he normally does. Sadly that was probably the best thing about the issue.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Legacy of Doom #3
So it dawns on me I forgot to mention my thoughts on Legacy of Doom #3.
Again I am loving this creative team. Frankly, this is the first time in years I feel like I'm reading the real Tony Stark (though to their credit the Knaufs were getting the character back to that place). Dave and Bob have him down so pat its almost scary. Lim's pencils continue with that classic feel and the colors are nice and vibrant. It really feels like we're reading a comic from the 80's.
The plot was good, with Stark needing to use his brains once again to get out of a mess rather than brute force. And to me, Tony saying "I hate magic" never gets old. I also like the insult Tony threw at Doom (don't want to ruin it if you didn't read the book, and shame on you if you're not picking it up).
The issue ends with Stark "donning" the Mystical Armor (posted below for your viewing pleasure), which I have to say is really cool (my only peeve being the pony tail thing on the helmet which I've never liked on any armor, but I digress). Though I must ponder why Excalibur changed Doom's tunic from green to black while the Iron Man armor was completely changed in shape. Maybe I'm just thinking too much.
I have to say I'm disappointed this is only a four issue series and we are coming up on the final one. Its really been a blast from the past in many ways and I look forward to the finale next month.
Again I am loving this creative team. Frankly, this is the first time in years I feel like I'm reading the real Tony Stark (though to their credit the Knaufs were getting the character back to that place). Dave and Bob have him down so pat its almost scary. Lim's pencils continue with that classic feel and the colors are nice and vibrant. It really feels like we're reading a comic from the 80's.
The plot was good, with Stark needing to use his brains once again to get out of a mess rather than brute force. And to me, Tony saying "I hate magic" never gets old. I also like the insult Tony threw at Doom (don't want to ruin it if you didn't read the book, and shame on you if you're not picking it up).
The issue ends with Stark "donning" the Mystical Armor (posted below for your viewing pleasure), which I have to say is really cool (my only peeve being the pony tail thing on the helmet which I've never liked on any armor, but I digress). Though I must ponder why Excalibur changed Doom's tunic from green to black while the Iron Man armor was completely changed in shape. Maybe I'm just thinking too much.
I have to say I'm disappointed this is only a four issue series and we are coming up on the final one. Its really been a blast from the past in many ways and I look forward to the finale next month.
Monday, June 16, 2008
World War Hulk- A Failure as Big as the Character
In the past you’ve seen me make some (derogatory) references to the World War Hulk event Marvel had back in 2007. I’ve reviewed Civil War so you could get an impression of my thoughts on that, but I’ve never said my due on World War Hulk. So here is what I think of World War Hulk.
The concept wasn't that bad in general. Hulk has always been one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe, there’s no doubt about that, so it’s not a surprise there would be an event where the heroes would have to stop a rampaging Hulk from destroying everything. Unfortunately, this wasn't really the basis for the event. In fact the reasons behind World War Hulk were outright pathetic. I’m not talking about the story behind it, as in the reason that was given for the Hulk to go want to lay a beating on everyone. I mean what drove the people at Marvel to make the event (the normal making money thing aside of course), and that is this: a bunch of Hulk fanboys needed to get their jollies off on their favorite character beating up on everyone. Yes, I do believe that was the whole point of this event, and let me explain why.
“He’s never been this mad”
This is how the Hulk managed to beat everyone, even the Sentry whose power is pretty much limitless. We all know Hulk gets stronger the madder he gets, it’s been said a million times. But now he’s really, really, really, really mad and so his power is far greater than ever before! Excuse my sarcasm for making a joke out of it but that’s what it is; a joke. Will Tony Stark be able to beat up everyone with his Iron Man armor under the phrase “he’s never been this inventive before” ??? How about Professor Xavier controlling everyone justified by the phrase “he’s never been this focused before” ??? Or how about Speedball beating everyone up because “he’s never gone this fast before” ??? Sounds stupid? Of course it does, because it is. It is really one of the sorriest excuses ever on how somehow has pretty much become invincible and is capable of now beating everyone, even using powers that can destroy a planet.
Hulk was not the good guy
The writers desperately tried to make Hulk look like the good guy. He was the one wronged, he was the one shot into space, he has a right to be mad etc. To a degree he is entitled to these things, but here is the catch: the second you threaten to destroy and entire race in order to seek revenge on five people, you are in no way, shape or form the good guy. You are not entitled to justice or revenge when you announce you are a homicidal maniac. What Hulk did was not a whole lot better than Hitler. Actually, you can say the Hulk is worse than Hitler was.
Did the Illuminati, in particular Stark shoot Hulk into space? Yes, but Stark’s intention was he go to a world where no one else lived and finally be at peace and be left alone, something Hulk has wanted since pretty much his existence. But things went wrong and instead of getting what he always wanted he went to a world where hew as forced to fight, something he had always chosen to do and had no qualms with but now absolutely hated doing so. Again, not that he shouldn’t be pissed he was essentially made a slave, but the fact is someone tried to give him the only thing he ever wanted and instead of trying to look at that, he merely became enraged again. Which brings me to my next point…
Hulk was as mindless and savage as ever
The current Hulk was supposed to be more intelligent than the last. He could actually think and reason, and even had Banner’s personality at his disposal so he retained a level of logic and reason. Of course, this wasn't the case at all.
Instead of thinking that “hey, if they wanted to really kill me wouldn’t they have just flown me into the sun?” Nope. Hulk once again showed his penchant for not thinking at all and only looking to excise his rage onto someone. Is having your wife, your unborn child and friends killed a reason to be enraged? Damn right. But is it right to threaten an entire race in order to get your revenge, essentially becoming far worse than those you seek revenge on and being a far greater evil than what you proclaim they did to you? Not at all. But yet that last part was ignored. It didn’t matter Hulk was ready to kill billions, it only mattered he was wronged and he was right to seek revenge by any means necessary.
And what did he want to do when he got a hold of them? Well fight of course, you know, the thing he didn’t want to do anymore. For someone just looking for peace he always manages to somehow keep fighting.
The Illuminati: big on brains, but apparently not on strategy
The Illuminati are the smartest people on Earth (and the moon in case of Black Bolt) and twist events so that the world is a better and safer place. When something is bigger than just one of them, they ban together to try and find a solution to the problem. That is until the Hulk comes back of course. For some reason the smartest people on Earth didn’t think to ban together to use their separate abilities to stop a rampaging beat they knew was coming. Instead they all tried to take him on one on one. This was nothing more than a pathetic plot device by the writers to have Hulk beat each one up individually. And while that makes for more entertaining, the fact is it’s not how it would have happened. For people that seem hell bent on realism, they sure like to ignore it when it suits their purposes.
Heroes would have never sided with him
Funny how heroes have sworn themselves to protect the lives and welfare of the innocent, yet some of them joined the Hulk in his quest for revenge, something considered to be a petty motive by heroes with strong morals. Yet there were the likes of Hercules and Angel siding with the Hulk and helping him in his quest for a bloodbath. Does anyone see a major flaw in that? That heroes abandoned everything they believed in and sided with a possible mass murderer for the sake of a motive they have always looked down upon? Again, its just horrible writing in a lame attempt to make their character look right.
Final Thoughts
World War Hulk was everything a Hulk fanboy could want: mindless violence with the Hulk and his allies easily beating up on their enemies. It lacked real plot, story and common sense, and I guess in a way that is great for Hulk fanboys as some seem to display the intelligence level of the Hulk himself.
Notice how that word “fanboy” keeps popping up? That’s why instead of referring to it as the official title “World War Hulk” I refer to it as “Marvel’s Hulk Hard-on” because when it boils down to it, that’s all it was. The event was every bit as mindless and poorly thought out as the character it was based on. As much as I dislike Civil War, Millar at least tried to write a real story. This was nothing but sheer bias and a love fest for the Hulk lovers at Marvel.
The concept wasn't that bad in general. Hulk has always been one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe, there’s no doubt about that, so it’s not a surprise there would be an event where the heroes would have to stop a rampaging Hulk from destroying everything. Unfortunately, this wasn't really the basis for the event. In fact the reasons behind World War Hulk were outright pathetic. I’m not talking about the story behind it, as in the reason that was given for the Hulk to go want to lay a beating on everyone. I mean what drove the people at Marvel to make the event (the normal making money thing aside of course), and that is this: a bunch of Hulk fanboys needed to get their jollies off on their favorite character beating up on everyone. Yes, I do believe that was the whole point of this event, and let me explain why.
“He’s never been this mad”
This is how the Hulk managed to beat everyone, even the Sentry whose power is pretty much limitless. We all know Hulk gets stronger the madder he gets, it’s been said a million times. But now he’s really, really, really, really mad and so his power is far greater than ever before! Excuse my sarcasm for making a joke out of it but that’s what it is; a joke. Will Tony Stark be able to beat up everyone with his Iron Man armor under the phrase “he’s never been this inventive before” ??? How about Professor Xavier controlling everyone justified by the phrase “he’s never been this focused before” ??? Or how about Speedball beating everyone up because “he’s never gone this fast before” ??? Sounds stupid? Of course it does, because it is. It is really one of the sorriest excuses ever on how somehow has pretty much become invincible and is capable of now beating everyone, even using powers that can destroy a planet.
Hulk was not the good guy
The writers desperately tried to make Hulk look like the good guy. He was the one wronged, he was the one shot into space, he has a right to be mad etc. To a degree he is entitled to these things, but here is the catch: the second you threaten to destroy and entire race in order to seek revenge on five people, you are in no way, shape or form the good guy. You are not entitled to justice or revenge when you announce you are a homicidal maniac. What Hulk did was not a whole lot better than Hitler. Actually, you can say the Hulk is worse than Hitler was.
Did the Illuminati, in particular Stark shoot Hulk into space? Yes, but Stark’s intention was he go to a world where no one else lived and finally be at peace and be left alone, something Hulk has wanted since pretty much his existence. But things went wrong and instead of getting what he always wanted he went to a world where hew as forced to fight, something he had always chosen to do and had no qualms with but now absolutely hated doing so. Again, not that he shouldn’t be pissed he was essentially made a slave, but the fact is someone tried to give him the only thing he ever wanted and instead of trying to look at that, he merely became enraged again. Which brings me to my next point…
Hulk was as mindless and savage as ever
The current Hulk was supposed to be more intelligent than the last. He could actually think and reason, and even had Banner’s personality at his disposal so he retained a level of logic and reason. Of course, this wasn't the case at all.
Instead of thinking that “hey, if they wanted to really kill me wouldn’t they have just flown me into the sun?” Nope. Hulk once again showed his penchant for not thinking at all and only looking to excise his rage onto someone. Is having your wife, your unborn child and friends killed a reason to be enraged? Damn right. But is it right to threaten an entire race in order to get your revenge, essentially becoming far worse than those you seek revenge on and being a far greater evil than what you proclaim they did to you? Not at all. But yet that last part was ignored. It didn’t matter Hulk was ready to kill billions, it only mattered he was wronged and he was right to seek revenge by any means necessary.
And what did he want to do when he got a hold of them? Well fight of course, you know, the thing he didn’t want to do anymore. For someone just looking for peace he always manages to somehow keep fighting.
The Illuminati: big on brains, but apparently not on strategy
The Illuminati are the smartest people on Earth (and the moon in case of Black Bolt) and twist events so that the world is a better and safer place. When something is bigger than just one of them, they ban together to try and find a solution to the problem. That is until the Hulk comes back of course. For some reason the smartest people on Earth didn’t think to ban together to use their separate abilities to stop a rampaging beat they knew was coming. Instead they all tried to take him on one on one. This was nothing more than a pathetic plot device by the writers to have Hulk beat each one up individually. And while that makes for more entertaining, the fact is it’s not how it would have happened. For people that seem hell bent on realism, they sure like to ignore it when it suits their purposes.
Heroes would have never sided with him
Funny how heroes have sworn themselves to protect the lives and welfare of the innocent, yet some of them joined the Hulk in his quest for revenge, something considered to be a petty motive by heroes with strong morals. Yet there were the likes of Hercules and Angel siding with the Hulk and helping him in his quest for a bloodbath. Does anyone see a major flaw in that? That heroes abandoned everything they believed in and sided with a possible mass murderer for the sake of a motive they have always looked down upon? Again, its just horrible writing in a lame attempt to make their character look right.
Final Thoughts
World War Hulk was everything a Hulk fanboy could want: mindless violence with the Hulk and his allies easily beating up on their enemies. It lacked real plot, story and common sense, and I guess in a way that is great for Hulk fanboys as some seem to display the intelligence level of the Hulk himself.
Notice how that word “fanboy” keeps popping up? That’s why instead of referring to it as the official title “World War Hulk” I refer to it as “Marvel’s Hulk Hard-on” because when it boils down to it, that’s all it was. The event was every bit as mindless and poorly thought out as the character it was based on. As much as I dislike Civil War, Millar at least tried to write a real story. This was nothing but sheer bias and a love fest for the Hulk lovers at Marvel.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Thoughts on Invincible Iron Man #2
With the second issue of the new monthly series out, we get a little more substance to the issue as the first was more of a set up.
To start Iron Man easily takes down the members of AGM and their leader MODOG, who in my opinion was dealt with a bit too easily. In a way it is nice to see Stark handle a foe whos predecessors in the past were major adversaries, in this case MODOK and MODAM, but it just seemed a bit too quick. What I did like about the exchange was that Tony mentioned how he was still using boot jets, and it was hinted that we may be getting a new propulsion system soon. This was actually my favorite part of the book because I felt the boot jets seemed very low tech compared to the rest of the suits features. I think an upgrade to the propulsion system has been needed for some time.
Writer Matt Fraction also seems to have a good grip on Stark through two issues. I am getting vibes of pre-extremis Tony with the writing, him making all his witty comments and retorts. It is also interesting to see Pepper seems to have a thing for Tony once more, but he seems rather oblivious to it. And I still cant help but think that the mention of Bethany Cabe in the first issue is a herald to her return to the series.
The issue ends with Ezekiel Stane introducing himself to Tony and setting off another one of their biological bombs. Personally I like the way this is shape up with the "Iron Man 2.0" thing. Looks like we're going to have a showdown between a Iron Man 1.0 (mechanical) vs Iron Man 2.0 (biological).
And while I dont like the idea of Stane's kid coming back to haunt Tony, Fraction is at least making good use of it, and already you hate the character, and thats a good sign.
To start Iron Man easily takes down the members of AGM and their leader MODOG, who in my opinion was dealt with a bit too easily. In a way it is nice to see Stark handle a foe whos predecessors in the past were major adversaries, in this case MODOK and MODAM, but it just seemed a bit too quick. What I did like about the exchange was that Tony mentioned how he was still using boot jets, and it was hinted that we may be getting a new propulsion system soon. This was actually my favorite part of the book because I felt the boot jets seemed very low tech compared to the rest of the suits features. I think an upgrade to the propulsion system has been needed for some time.
Writer Matt Fraction also seems to have a good grip on Stark through two issues. I am getting vibes of pre-extremis Tony with the writing, him making all his witty comments and retorts. It is also interesting to see Pepper seems to have a thing for Tony once more, but he seems rather oblivious to it. And I still cant help but think that the mention of Bethany Cabe in the first issue is a herald to her return to the series.
The issue ends with Ezekiel Stane introducing himself to Tony and setting off another one of their biological bombs. Personally I like the way this is shape up with the "Iron Man 2.0" thing. Looks like we're going to have a showdown between a Iron Man 1.0 (mechanical) vs Iron Man 2.0 (biological).
And while I dont like the idea of Stane's kid coming back to haunt Tony, Fraction is at least making good use of it, and already you hate the character, and thats a good sign.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Knaufs No More
So for those that havent heard father and son team Daniel and Charles Knauf will no longer be on the Iron Man: Director of Shield title. No new creative team has been announced but one or two arcs shall have guest teams.
All in all I'm not that upset about this. Dont get me wrong, I'm not calling the Knaufs bad. They have a good grasp of Tony and have written him well, especially undoing a lot of the personality changes that extremis had caused. They were writing Iron Man correctly and partially at a time when he was being kicked around left and right. The problem with the Knaufs were that for the most part, their stories were slow going.
Many issues had a lot of drama and filler, and while some is fine a comic isnt about drama. Many of their arcs I found to be a bit lackluster, and the latest Mandarin arc didnt really pick up until the final issues. Plus it seemed like they wanted to do a lot but just didnt have the pages to do it.
The only thing I am excited about with this move is that there will be a new colorist on board. As I said in my post "A Matter of Color" a few months back, I was very displeased with the dull and drab coloring of the book that really muted the livliness of the story, plus also degraded the quality of art from De La Torra and Guice. It really looked like color was being smugged on and the art suffered greatly because of it.
As much as I hope the new team would be the current team of Michelinie, Layton and Lim on the Legacy of Doom book, or the now de-lurking Kaminski, I'm not really holding out hope. Still we will have to take a wait and see attitude until the new regular team is announced.
All in all I'm not that upset about this. Dont get me wrong, I'm not calling the Knaufs bad. They have a good grasp of Tony and have written him well, especially undoing a lot of the personality changes that extremis had caused. They were writing Iron Man correctly and partially at a time when he was being kicked around left and right. The problem with the Knaufs were that for the most part, their stories were slow going.
Many issues had a lot of drama and filler, and while some is fine a comic isnt about drama. Many of their arcs I found to be a bit lackluster, and the latest Mandarin arc didnt really pick up until the final issues. Plus it seemed like they wanted to do a lot but just didnt have the pages to do it.
The only thing I am excited about with this move is that there will be a new colorist on board. As I said in my post "A Matter of Color" a few months back, I was very displeased with the dull and drab coloring of the book that really muted the livliness of the story, plus also degraded the quality of art from De La Torra and Guice. It really looked like color was being smugged on and the art suffered greatly because of it.
As much as I hope the new team would be the current team of Michelinie, Layton and Lim on the Legacy of Doom book, or the now de-lurking Kaminski, I'm not really holding out hope. Still we will have to take a wait and see attitude until the new regular team is announced.
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