Roger Stern Avengers

The series finale of Star Trek: TNG just ended on TV.  The final scene remains beautiful and give me feels after all these years.  “Five card stud, nothing wild, and the sky’s the limit.”

These are the voyages...

Avengers 280-285

Bob Harras, future bigshot X-Men editor, guest writes issue 280.  Bob Hall, who seems to be the fill-in artist for this title, returns for this interlude.  The issue walks us through Jarvis’ thoughts during his convalescence after Mister Hyde’s severe beating.  While much of it involves a detailed recounting of his time as Avengers butler, the flashbacks did not annoy me at all, due to the strong voice Harras gives Jarvis.  The narration does not come across as rote exposition, but is told with Jarvis’ distinct point of view.  It’s a very human, sweet tale of a man fighting through his fears and unearthing his own heroism after being surrounded by heroes for so many years.  

The rest of today’s comics cover the team’s extended stay in Olympus after Zeus is fooled into blaming them for Hercules’ thrashing during the Siege at Avengers Mansion.  It’s a misunderstanding that somehow stretches over five issues, and I was surprised at how much I dug it, especially considering my two main gripes:

1. I have an aversion to stories that are driven by character stupidity.  Zeus is an idiot, plain and simple.  He jumps to conclusions and refuses to listen to reason.  Screw him.
2. The mixing of Roman and Greek names in the Olympian pantheon is absolutely maddening to this mythology fan.  Look at what we’ve got:

• Greek:: Zeus, Artemis, Hermes, Athena, Hephaestus, Hera
• Roman: Hercules, Neptune, Pluto, Venus

(I hope I got those right, or I’m going to look like an idiot.)

They also made Cerberus a humanoid and not a three-headed dog.  That’s just not cricket.

Despite that, it’s a fun, rollicking adventure with epic battles and feats of awesome.  Thor, in particular, shines in the final fight again Zeus.  He’s been cursed by Hela with brittle bones while being denied the ability to die, so at this point he’s basically a broken mass of jelly encased in armor at this point.  Yet he continues to fight.  It’s a mighty fine extension of Simonson’s plot device from Thor.

Great pose, better speech.

I also respect that this Avengers team makes every effort to talk their way out of the situation.  (Granted, it’s because they realize Zeus is way above their weight class, but still.)  

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Pretty Good

 

Other stuff:

Still chilling and relevant.

Roger Stern Avengers (Siege at Avengers Mansion)

Writing this on Notepad because my hotel doesn't have wifi, and I have no desire to write for half an hour with my thumbs on my phone.  I'll post this tomorrow when I'm back to civilization.  Also, Steph's out for at least two weeks, so nothing's right with the world.

Avengers 270-272

Three issues that accomplished two things:

1) Got Namor off the team (on a leave of absence to help Marrina).

2) Set up the roster for the next big arc.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? No

Rating: Fine

Avengers 273-277

The next big arc.  The Masters of Evil take over Avengers Mansion!  By far the highlight of Stern's run, these five issues kept me engaged throughout.  

• Stern ties in numerous threads from the entirety of his run - Hercules bridling at Wasp's (female) leadership, Black Knight's crush on Wasp, Blackout's key role, Wasp's growth as a leader.
• Wasp's growth as a leader.  How far Janet has come under the stewardship of Stern!  She is so removed from the insecure airhead who mooned over Hank Pym.  She exists as her own person, capable and heroic.
• The Avengers straight up get their asses kicked by Baron Zemo and the Masters of Evil.  Captain America, Hercules, Black Knight are incapacitated for the majority of the storyline.  Jarvis' pummeling at the hands of Mister Hyde is legit disturbing.  Support characters are rarely treated so cruelly in comics.  Sure, they'll get into scrapes now and again, but never to this extent.  Even if they're killed, it's usually quick and painless.  (Though now that I think about it, Women in Refrigerators proves that statement to be completely false.)
• Not sure how Wasp, Captain Marvel, and Ant-Man infiltrated the mansion in issue 276.  Blackout still had the barrier up.  
• This would make for a sweet movie.  It's not so epic in scope that the world is at stake (Avengers), and not so small that I don't care about what happens (Ant-Man).  It's at the Captain America airport battle level - mostly contained to a single locale, plenty of moments for each character to shine, and genuine emotional weight behind the fighting.
• It's great to see Thor back.  Hercules is but a faint shadow as European gods go. Seriously can't wait to get to Simonson's work.   
• Why Doctor Druid??
• I tore through these issues.  I wonder if it's because I'm in my hotel room with fewer distractions than I normally have, or if because this story was really that much better than everything else in Stern's run.  I hope it's the latter.  I don't want to be second guessing my ratings.  

Classic "Refer to the next or previous person by name so that the reader knows who you are" device.

Heh.  (He's won three since.)

Moonstone: Starscream of the Masters of Evil.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Good

Avengers 278-279

Aftermath issues.  Wasp resigns as chairman on her own terms.  Black Knight is feeling useless after spending most of the mansion siege knocked out with a concussion.  Doctor Druid (why???), She-Hulk, and Thor rejoin the team.  The Avengers select Captain Marvel to be their new leader.  

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? No

Rating: Fine

Roger Stern Avengers

Watching the replay of the Warriors/Pelicans game.  The Warriors came back from 21 down at the half.  Curry rules all.  Hope the ankle isn't serious.

Avengers 267-269

It’s a three-part Kang saga, culminating in Kang and Immortus spending most of issue 269 speechifying to the Avengers and each other.  If a cardinal rule of comics is "show don’t tell", surely the worst sin "don't just tell, tell in narrated flashback."  What a sub-optimal implementation of story.  

To make today’s read even more grueling, I already had to go through an essentially identical experience a couple of weeks ago; this arc was part of the stultifying Great Kang Retcon that was issue 9 of Avengers Forever.  I went back to take a look, and homage or not, it just feels lazy to me:

I’m happy to have read Busiek’s source material, though, since it gives us this classic, no-where-but-in-comics line:

Bold to be using a straight razor with the possibility of unexpected chronal turbulence.

Other notes:

• Calling out the cover of 269, since I have a distinct memory of it from my childhood:

Now granted, Buscema poses Kang and Immortus rather dramatically, but I couldn’t understand why it was so recognizable to me, since I didn’t buy the issue until college.  Until I saw this page in the issue itself:

Love that X-Men cover.

It was an ad must also have run in Transformers 18, which I definitely read as a kid.  My mind chooses to remember the oddest things.

Regret buying?  No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again?  No

Rating: Okay

Arrow, Roger Stern Avengers

After the DC TV four-parter last week, my wife (Raindancer) has been clamoring for us to watch Arrow, as it’s not in our regular rotation.  (Only Flash and Supergirl from the CW.)   I know where she’s coming from; I’m tempted every year to give Arrow a shot post-crossover, and sometimes I even give it a try.  But it always ends up too bleak for my taste, and it never sticks.  

Raindancer’s reasons are sound.  Well, there’s really only one.  FELICITY!  We both love her so much.  She needs to join Team Flash full time, and then we would never have to worry about Arrow.  

SO MUCH.

At any rate, we started watching season 1 today.  Two episodes in and I’ve already driven Raindancer nuts.  Whenever Ollie goes into his narration, I can’t help but follow each of his lines with, “I am...the FLASH!”  It fits so well.  

It’s funny watching this show from the beginning, knowing everything that’s going to come for the Arrow gang.  Sara Lance is on screen for a minute in the pilot before she dies:

Don’t worry.  You’ll be recast, come back from certain death as an assassin, become Black Canary, die for reals, come back again, become White Canary, join the Legends of Tomorrow, and hook up with badass Alex Danvers.  Worth it. 

And so on for everyone else - Diggle, Ollie, Thea, Laurel.  The interwebs say second season is the best, so we’ll probably stick with it through that.  Apparently episode 3 is when FELICITY! shows up, looking forward to that.

Avengers 262-266

Whoa, I had forgotten that the Avengers were the ones who found Jean Grey under the ocean post-Dark Phoenix.  I had remembered it as the FF (which is where the story continues after Avengers 263).  

Namor joins the team in these issues.  Fine, whatevs.  (And by the way, I really miss the heads-in-the-corner logo that the 80’s Marvel comics all had.)

If you're in the corner, you're in the team.

Ain't nothing like a good old fashioned clam bake.

265 and 266 tie in with the end of Secret Wars II, which I’ve never read.  (I hear it was a mess and not as good as the first one.)  Some nice colors by Christie Scheele to support Molecule Man summoning mountains out of the earth.  Panels on consecutive pages show what a difference colors can make:

Small panel on one page...

...Splash page on the next.  Love the depth and grandeur that the green creates.

Avengers, Avengers Annual

12/2/17

Posting of the reviews I wrote before I started the blog has caught up with the writing.  Woots.

Missed writing yesterday because our company party went later than I expected.  It’s an hour of writing for me tonight.  The Top 8 of the World Magic Cup tournament is streaming on Twitch, I’ve got a glass of orange juice, let’s do this.

Avengers 251-254

Vision’s slow burn towards world domination finally comes to fruition.  The standard “I know what’s best, so I’ll take over all the nations’ computers and rule over a world of peace” trope.  At least we’ve seen the last of Al Milgrom, as Bob Hall pencils these four issues.  Which means that we get some nice moments, including this sequence as Vision begins his assimilation all the networks.  

Nice colors by Julianna Ferriter as well.

Anti-climactically, after a full year of build up, it takes the rest of the Avengers literally two pages to convince the Vision that maybe this isn’t the best course of action.  Two pages.  Not that I was eager to see this story dragged out any longer, but come on, Vision!  Have the strength of your convictions.

Cap and the others are surprisingly quick to forgive Vision, who with the Scarlet Witch leaves the team in the aftermath.

Other notes:

• A cheap joke, but still amusing:

Waiting for the Hercules/Rat Creatures crossover.

• I’m flabbergasted at the price of a VHS tape back then.  I love Scarlett, but kids are paying 65 cents to buy this comic.  35 bucks might be asking a bit much of them.  And their parents.  

I totally wanted this when I was seven.

Regret buying?  No

Would buy again? No

Would read again?  No

Rating: Fine.  The upgrade from Milgrom bumps it up a notch.

Avengers 255-261, Avengers Annual 14

Joy of joys, John Buscema takes over to show everyone the full potential of the Marvel Way.  Given that Roger Stern remains the writer, the improvement in art has got to be the reason why my enjoyment of these stories immediately increased.  Terminus feels far more epic than the usual monster-of-the-month that he ends up being, and I’m positive I would have been bored silly with the Skrull/Nebula arc in the hands of a lesser artist.  

Which isn’t to say that Buscema is anywhere near my list of favorite artists.  He does a fine job, and I think that it’s his time on Avengers that I fondly remember about Stern’s run.  But look at this odd panel layout.  I intuitively want to read the lower left panel before the one on the right, but he opts for the clockwise flow instead.

Byrne’s work on Annual 14 (a continuation of issue 260) just makes me wish I was reading Fantastic Four right now.    

I'm noticing my weakness for well-drawn Captain Americas.

Imagine Milgrom trying to draw Bogart.

Regret buying?  No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again?  No

Rating: Fine.  

Roger Stern Avengers

Avengers 245, 246, 248-250

Missing issue 247.  If these stories had been remotely interesting, I’d care a lot more about finding them to complete the Stern run.  As it is, I may not be keeping the issues I have.  

Issue 245 completes the Dire Wraith arc from yesterday.  It’s a tie-in with a story that was happening over in Rom: Spaceknight, which I’ve never read.  The only thing of note is the absolutely absurd visual of Wasp holding a Dire Wraith at gunpoint while in her shrunken state:

The physics of holding the gun and pulling the trigger escape me.  Not to mention what the recoil would do to her.

Bad enough to see it once, but Milgrom has to draw her in this ridiculous pose for multiple panels. The story would have worked just as well with Janet at full size.

Another pic of Vision smiling like a crazy person.  I gave Milgrom crap yesterday for his facial expressions, but he’s got this one mastered.  I’m genuinely creeped out.

"Okay, maybe a sketchy Starfox would be preferable to this."

The rest of the issues deal with Maelstrom, a half-Eternal half-Deviant baddie.  (I know who the Eternals are, don’t remember anything about the Deviants.)  He’s got the same powers as Sebastian Shaw, but has the technology to transfer his mind into a cloned body whenever he dies.  It takes the combined efforts of both coasts of Avengers to defeat him, in a way that’s pretty interesting: Maelstrom has the ability to grow as he absorbs kinetic energy.  The Avengers pour energy into him as such a fast rate that he grows in size without increasing in mass, so he eventually dissipates into nothingness.  Kinda neat.  

Issue 249 is a fun little tie-in to the Malekith/Casket of Eternal Winters/Surtur/Ragnarok arc in the Thor comic.  The hordes of Surtur’s demons give a hint of the epicness that Simonson brings to Thor, and I can imagine how sweet this issue would have looked under his pencil.  (Stern’s Avengers runs in parallel with some storied runs on other titles - Simonson’s Thor, Byrne’s Fantastic Four, and Claremont’s X-Men.  If my memory doesn’t fail me, this title is by far the weakest of them.  I hope that it doesn’t; If those are as dreary as the Avengers is right now, I’m going to be in trouble.)

Roger Stern Avengers, Crisis on Earth-X

Avengers 241-244

More of the same.  Vision continues to work towards some sort of ultimate scheme, smiling way too much as he does so.  

Not creepy at all.

The Avengers get zapped away by the Beyonder to take part in the Secret War, which was a nice reminder.  I hope that it’s aged well when I eventually get to it.  

I wonder if my tepid reaction to the Stern Avengers has to do with the target audience.  I have a suspicion that this would have played like gangbusters to the ten-year old me.  But comic writing has shifted towards an older audience in the thirty years since then, and I’m finding it difficult to shift back.  

I haven’t talked about Al Milgrom’s art at all yet.  I have nothing nice to say.  It’s a weak display of the Marvel house style.  His poses are awkward and lack both power and conviction.  His anatomy and faces are inconsistent.  It’s unfortunately not worthy of one of Marvel’s premiere teams.

Finally:

"I'm just a married woman.  This isn't awkward at all."

Crisis on Earth-X

Moving on to something that was way better.  This year’s DC CW crossover was pure bliss.  It started off with one of the best episodes ever - Barry Allen and Iris West’s wedding is interrupted by Nazis from Earth-X, with the cast of Supergirl, Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow in attendance.  Fighting ensues.  So much fun, and everyone gets a chance to shine.  Huge smile on my face the whole time, with multiple yelps of joy.  

Best part of the crossover was the unexpected but welcome hookup between White Canary and Alex Danvers.  Even better was the aftermath.  The morning-after meetup of shame (for Alex.  Sara was unfazed) was one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen all year.  (In a year when Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place have been phenomenal.)  The writers also made it a point to have the two of them pair up in most of their fight scenes, and they work so well together.  (The Prometheus fight was so well done.  Though to be honest, the action sequences for all the heroes across the board were top notch.)  And they had some emotional beats that were sweet as well.

As always, there were a number of plot contortions that have to be forgiven.  The “random McGuffin to explain why this too-powerful hero has to be offscreen for a while” explanations are to be expected.  Even the “if only too-powerful hero who somehow wasn’t written to be offscreen used his/her powers in this way, everything would be fine” moments can be excused.  But the one that had me screaming at the screen was the “there’s no need to blow up the Nazi Waverider, you’ve taken control of it” scene.  Sure you had to destroy it while it was killing civilians, but once you cleared it of Nazis, why not keep it?  A fresh coat of paint to cover the swastikas and you have two Waveriders!  How is that not better???  I call this the “we have to get rid of the Pegasus because we don’t want to deal with two Battlestars” solution.  

Must watch again.