Superior Spider-Man 2, Hawkeye 7, Journey into Mystery 648

Superior Spider-Man 2
Slott (w) and Stegman (a) and Delgado (c)

I was not as sold on this issue as I was on the first one. HOWEVER, it did make me worry again about the issues I had with issue one. I think the story that's happening right now is pretty interesting. Despite all of the qualms comic readers naturally have with death and resurrection in comics, this is an interesting idea. You take probably the most moral character, the most human but still moral character, in the Marvel Universe, you yank him out of his body and you put in someone who is notably less moral. More than that (because they're already doing that in Scarlet Spider), you give him all the memories and the weight of those memories of the moral guy and you see what it does to the immoral guy. It's the nature vs. nurture argument dissected, but with the argument revolving around someone who is born of both nature and nurture. After 700 issues in the main series and tons more in other series and appearances, we kind of know how Peter's going to react in just about every situation. We also tend to know how Doc Ock will react in just about every situation (though he's more mysterious, as we don't typically have his inner monologue running constantly in front of us). So what happens when you cram the two together? That's far less predictable.

My worry is that it won't be, especially with the revelation last issue that Peter's consciousness is still in his body and able to fight some of Doc Ock's actions. Yes, Doc Ock will still surprise us from time to time, as he did this issue by telling Mary Jane that they can never be together after spending most of the issue trying to be with her, but Peter never really will. We'd never ask him to, either; we love him because he's so moral and so how we'd want to be with his powers. But it takes a little bit of the intrigue of "wait, what will Doc Ock do now?" if we know Peter's there to possibly stop it. Would it have been really disturbing to watch Peter Parker's Spider-Man beat in a guy's face? Yup. Would it at least change the dynamic that we were expecting? Most definitely. The other problem with the two of them inhabiting the same space is that now we get Doc Ock's need to hear himself talk and his complete lack of social skills tied with Peter's need to hear himself talk and his, now that he's not able to do anything about it, kind of whiny personality. Like, I love Peter and I do think Slott is probably writing his personality correctly (as I implicitly trust Dan Slott), but when Peter's not capable of Spider-Manning, especially after growing up with that ability, he's pretty whiny. So we get Doc's flourishes and rambles died to Peter constantly going "NO NO NO, DON'T DO THAT NO." Again, I don't think either character is acting a way they wouldn't, so I can't justifiably be upset about it, but I can still be annoyed.

As I said, we definitely can still be surprised by Doc's actions here, and Peter still sharing the body doesn't negate the fact that we're seeing the old Doc Ock with a new spin. There's still plenty of hope for this new Spider-Man, and I do still appreciate that he's the hero who solves problems with his brain first and his powers second, but I do worry if some of these problems will just expand as the series goes along. I don't know how you quiet down either character or how you have tension between them while they share the same body without having Peter stop Otto but then again, I'm not the one writing Spider-Man. If I knew how to solve these problems effectively, I'd be writing Spider-Man (SPOILER: no I probably wouldn't). Slott is writing Spider-Man, so I have to imagine he's ready for this and more.

Hawkeye 7
Fraction (w) and Lieber and Hamm (a) and Hollingsworth (c)

As I stated in yesterday's post, the profits of this issue of the fantastic Hawkeye series go to the Red Cross's efforts for Hurricane Sandy. It shows, but not in a bad way. Usually, when "it shows," it's heavy-handed or a throwaway issue with the focus being on the cause. This issue certainly focuses on the cause, Hurricane Sandy, but not in a really heavy-handed way or in a way that doesn't fit with the rest of the book. This book, so far, has largely been Hawkeye and Hawkeye, when she's around, doing heroic things (or mildly heroic things) that you don't equate to superheroes. Fraction has gone out of his way to not have the Hawkeyes do superheroic things. Only in a couple of issues have pre-established comic heroes or villains shown up. Not to say that Fraction hasn't created his own villains, they're just, as it stands, more floor-level villains. Mobsters, mostly. Spider-Man might fight mobsters occasionally, but you can bet that Mr. Negative or Hammerhead is backing them up. Daredevil gets through hordes of gangsters to find his way to Kingpin. Hawkeye, so far, has not found his way to any higher-powered villain, just an older one (it's possible more "powers" will come later, but whatever, we're not there yet and I'm writing this now, without future guidance). What I'm saying in my very long-winded way is that the Hawkeyes have fought bad guys. Not supervillains, not Hydra (okay, once they did but only a little bit. They mostly ran). Just bad dudes who were threatening normal people. So it's not out of place at all that what they're doing when Hurricane Sandy touches down is helping normal people.

Even the better books that have been spawned from tragedy or things along those lines tend to be a little hard to ground. The thing about comics is that they're escapism, at their core. We all want to be able to be these heroes, we want these heroes to exist. Sure, I'd argue they're far more than that. They're good fiction, they're amazing examples of a serialized fiction that changes hands endlessly allowing us to view all sorts of angles of all sorts of characters. But they're not real. Even if a tragedy happens in that world, it's removed from us so, as sad or alarming as it may be to read (if it's written well), there's a limit to the connection we can feel. We're in Captain America's head, or Spider-Man's head, or Wolverine's head, seeing this happen to their world. They are infinitely better prepared for this kind of thing. Even when they're at a loss for what to do, they can go out there and likely do more than I can so I sit in the passenger seat and watch them do it. When these kinds of inspired-by-reality books come along, it's a little jarring. We see Cap at the Twin Towers and we can't just be a spectator. We know that's our world and Captain America isn't really there watching. There are thousands of real heroes in our world and his demeanor serves to remind us of them. But those are real people, just as the people who died there were real people and we can never forget that. The same is true to this Hawkeye issue, but to a far lesser degree. It helps that the Hawkeyes aren't powered. They're just people. And it certainly helps that, in this issue, not a single arrow is fired. Kate threatens looters with them and gets knocked out for her troubles, only to awaken and find townspeople have stopped the looters and recovered her stolen weapons. Clint helps a man from his apartment building connect with his father while they work together to stay alive amidst terrible floods. It feels far more real than Thor aiding firemen while they lift debris. It's because Clint and Kate are people in this book, something Fraction's already done so well prior to this that it just slides right in here without question. When people are beset by tragedy, they don't pull out their armor and start helping in ways we can't fathom. They go and help in ways they can on an individual basis. So this book feels real and it's worth buying. It's worth buying because it's a good book and because it's a good cause. Just go buy it.

Journey into Mystery 648
Immonen (w) and Schiti (a) and Bellaire (c)

Sif's journey is very different than Loki's was previously in this title. Where Loki had been transformed into a child with no memory of his past self or his past crimes, but still an inclination for mischief, only to be reverted back to his true self with the last pages of his long arc, Sif transforms herself into something more powerful and deadly at the very start of her arc. Loki, who many would like to have cast away, was protected by his brother and attempted to earn everyone's trust. Sif, who has been cast away by her brother, seeks to earn everyone's respect as the greatest warrior. Where this story will go, I'm still not sure. We'll figure that out when we get there, I suppose. HOWEVER, this is a journey into mystery, so we might as well examine the trip Sif takes. In this particular issue, hot off being cast out by Heimdall to the place where all the other berserkers before her have been sent, Sif swiftly and violently kills a big monster before maiming the three remaining berserkers of Asgard. They stop her just before she kills them too and they all eat and have a chat. The berserkers have been here a long time and are a bit defeated. They would still fight, but time has worn them down and there are fewer enemies and less bloodlust. Sif has no problem with bloodlust and she asks for the biggest enemy around. Meanwhile, Heimdall in Asgardia visits Aerndis, who bestowed the gift of the berserker on Sif a couple issues back, who ominously tells Heimdall that his sending Sif to the foreign land has opened a tunnel, not a gate. We understand this a bit better when the issue closes with Sif and the three berserkers and their giant monster rival appearing on Earth and Spider-Man (Superior style, as the rest of the Universe appears to be catching up) promptly entering the fray.

I admit, I have some trouble getting into Asgard stuff. I've never been huge into fantasy and a lot of the fantasy tropes are bound to show up in Asgard. I largely still read it because I care about plenty of the Asgardians and I wouldn't drop this book because Gillen's run was great, Immonen is a good writer, and Sif is already interesting. It's hard not to compare this book to the last run of it (as shown above) and also not to compare her to Wolverine, what with the term "berserker" being tossed all around. The interesting bit, though, doesn't come from the direct comparison to Wolverine. It comes from the fact that Wolverine does everything in his power to keep the uncontrollable berserker down, while Sif embraces it and uses it to be the best warrior she can. She comes from a warrior race, no less one typically dominated by males. When you think of warriors of Asgard, you think of Thor and, perhaps appropriately given their name, the Warriors Three. Sif might be there too, maybe as an afterthought, but you might as well also think of Balder, Heimdall, Odin, Tyr, hell, even Bill. Even if Sif IS on that list, she's heavily outnumbered by males. So she has something to prove, whether it's fair or not. While she and Wolverine are both great warriors without the berserker part of them, she'll take the berserker to give her the edge, where Wolverine will try to dull it even if it slows him. It's a very interesting idea and it'll be fun to watch it expand as we go forward.