Avenging Spider-Man 21, Venom 35, Morbius the Living Vampire 5

Avenging Spider-Man 21
Yost (w) and Checchetto (a) and Rosenberg (c)

The two-parter Chameleon story continues as the Saints wreak havoc on the Helicarrier in an attempt to get to Chameleon. They send Hulk out of the Helicarrier and are prepared to put Spidey down before a suspicious Nick Fury appears to save him. Meanwhile the Helicarrier is getting torn apart, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Coulson are fighting back a horde of Russian henchmen the Saints brought with them, and Chameleon is loose somewhere, wearing the face of his doctor. Literally wearing his face, not like Chameleon'd into it. It's creepy and weird and no one appreciates it. Spider-Man eventually tracks him down at the same time as one of the Saints and, after another battle between them, Spider-Man puts him down and spies a teleport device on him. With Chameleon and the Saint incapacitated, Spider-Man teleports them away and into his lab (the one in which he's collecting the other Sinister Six members). Fury sees the teleport as it's happening and Spider-Man tells him that the Saint got Chameleon before he could but oh, look at that, they've teleported to that pesky ship nearby! The Helicarrier blows up the ship and everyone feels pretty good about what happened, particularly Spider-Man, who has triumphed again.

The Sinister Six collection storyline continues as Chameleon ends up in Doc Ock's lab for reasons still yet unknown. Will this resolve itself before the title switches over to Superior Spider-Man Team-Up? Will this be the inciting incident that causes the switch? Will the reunion of the Sinister Six be the kickoff for Superior Spider-Man Team-Up? I can't know any of these things. I do like the way this issue treats SHIELD, though, as a sort of fun-loving bunch. That's probably inaccurate. However, my mind is on The Venture Brothers this week as the long awaited fifth season kicks off Sunday night, so I can't help drawing comparisons to this version of SHIELD feeling like the OSI or SPHINX at their tamest. Yost continues to characterize the Doc Ock Spidey with aplomb and makes the story and characters worth reading. Fun book.

Venom 35
Bunn (w) and Shalvey (a) and Loughridge (c)

Hot off his fight with Toxin and the Figure, Flash heads into school with a black eye and a worry about how things in Philly are working out so far. Those worries are amplified when he sees Eddie Brock enter the school and approach him. The two talk out their problems and decide where they want to fight (Brock doesn't want any children harmed either, but that's part of why he's so mad at Flash, who has brought his symbiote into a school) before a crowd of Figures appear, set on destroying the two symbiotes. Flash rushes the kids into safety while Brock approaches the Figures. Flash toys with the idea of letting Toxin and the Figures finish each other off, leaving him to just cleanup after and taking out some of his own enemies at the same time, but eventually jumps into the fight to protect Toxin. They eventually fight back the Figures and turn back to face one another. Toxin is still set on killing Venom, convinced that Flash won't be able to control it forever and it's silly to keep it if it's just going to go crazy on him. However, Flash convinces Toxin that he's keeping it in control because he's fighting for something worth controlling it. He argues that Brock never had anything to live for before the symbiote so he let the symbiote take control of him. Flash, on the other hand, has a family and friends and is trying to make a new life for himself so he's going to work to keep Venom under control. Toxin reluctantly agrees to allow him to try to make his life, but warns that he'll kill him once the symbiote takes charge.

Watching symbiotes fight is always going to be entertaining in comics and it's good to see that Eddie Brock's transformation from Antitoxin to Toxin hasn't changed his feeling on symbiotes as a whole. I've really liked Shalvey's art throughout his whole run here. I don't know if there's anything else to add to that or any reason it sticks out particularly here, just occurred to me that I hadn't really said it and I don't have a ton to analyze about this book for some reason. But yeah, Shalvey's art has been pretty great all the way through. I've commented on his covers but his art is really holding this book together in some ways. Not that I don't think the story is fine or the characters are good, but it's been moving a little slowly as of late. I think he made it to Philadelphia in, I want to say, issue 27 or something like that and it feels like he hasn't been there for eight issues. That's a weird thing to feel at this point. Still, pretty good book, really good art, interesting enough, which is sometimes all you need.

Morbius the Living Vampire 5
Keatinge (w) and Elson with C. Rodriguez (a) and Fabela (c)

I'm still not sold on this series. Granted, today I have something of a headache so my reviews have been a bit off and my reading skills may be down a peg or two, but by and large this series feels like it's trying to be something but it's not sure what it's trying to be. There are hints of Batman in here, with a sole-protector vibe mixed with an I'm-no-hero vibe. There are bits of crime books, trying to weave a complex tale of drug running and gang warfare and "who's playing who" about all of Brownsville. The art style is weirdly reminiscent of The Walking Dead in some places, though I'd say far less detailed and often less realistic. Morbius is so over the top anti-hero that it makes it kind of difficult to read at times (though that might also be the headache). All the while, it seems like the book wants to toe the line between cheeky and quirky and sinister and dark, which is an odd line to toe and is not typically done particularly well. It's a tricky book in general because it's really still hard to figure out who this book is for. Is Morbius this popular of a character? What age group is enjoying this book?

Anyway, Morbius cleans up some of the gangs in the city following the death of Noah St. Germain and receives the blessing of the normal neighborhood people, who wish to take back the town. However, he's quickly pulled away by the Rose, who explains that he's been the one positioning Morbius for all of this, from his arrival in Brownsville to his fight with Noah to this defeat of the gangs. He also warns Morbius that he has Morbius' mother captive so Morbius should probably do what he says. What he says is that he's going to continue to allow Morbius to do whatever work he wants to do but, in eight weeks, everything's going to go belly-up and Morbius will take the fall for it and the Rose will profit, because that's what the Rose does. Who is pulling the Rose's strings, though? At the end of the issue, we find out that this goes one level even deeper and he's being funded by Morbius' own father, who, had you asked me, I would have guessed was dead, based on absolutely no evidence. I don't know, something about the book comes off as trying too hard and not giving enough of a reward. I guess we'll see as this series moves into its next arc.

Comic popularity

As the Marvel and Batman movies have shown over the last five to ten years, there is a way to take comic books and make them appeal to a more mainstream audience. As a result, Marvel has started putting out more comics that are aimed at easing readers into their universe. It's a really smart tactic and I understand why they do it. Certainly there's some trepidation there, as you worry about alienating long time and loyal fans by catering too much to potential new markets but, by and large, Marvel has been well-balanced in their approach. Also, I used to be a big fan of the adult cartoon programming block, [adultswim]. Bear with me. I liked a lot of their original shows which were all relatively cheaply made but had really great elements that appealed to me. They were also fairly unique. Eventually, they bought the rights to the dead Family Guy and Futurama. Both easily brought in the most viewership of any shows on the block. They brought in so much traffic, in fact, that both shows ended up being renewed years after their cancellations. You would normally have to watch a couple hours of these two shows before getting into the original programming. I like Futurama and I didn't used to have a big problem with old Family Guy. However, it wasn't what I watched [as] for. Although the two shows inconvenienced me, I accepted their existence with [as] because I knew they were the cash cows that allowed my little shows to exist. THAT'S WHERE I'M GOING WITH THIS. I'm totally happy with Marvel having a few books to lure readers in in the hopes that they can get more money for their other books (there is a fundamental fear here, and one that [as] fell into long ago. Eventually you start to realize that ALL your media can copy your big hitters and hope that it translates to more money, but that's not here nor there).

Look, I'm sorry I'm being long-winded and indecisive about what I want to write about. It's been a long day coming off a long week. Let's get to what I want to get to now.

With the recent success of AMC's The Walking Dead, more attention is being paid to independent comics. I don't review any indie comics here because this blog is called "Marvels" and I'd feel awfully silly posting about Saga in here. However, they still directly impact Marvel, and not just for the market shares. More and more, indie comics are kinder to the creators, meaning that more writers and artists would likely prefer to work in that market. That means that people tend to make a name for themselves with the big two before slowly branching out and bringing their audience to a new book that lets them retain the rights. I'm all for creator rights and everything, so I harbor no ill-will towards people who do that. I'm still sad because I'll always love Marvel and it forcefully reminds me that Marvel isn't really the end-game for a lot of these creators. However, it's created an interesting and great little problem for Marvel.

As comics are finding a more mainstream appeal, more writers and artists are looking into the industry. That means we're getting more talent and allowing the producers of comics to find even better talent. Even though we lose someone like Ed Brubaker to his own excellent series of comics after a great long stretch at Marvel, we get someone amazingly talented to fill his shoes (like Rick Remender). With the indie market looking stronger than ever, the amount of good talent filtering through the big two first has really put readers in a great place. Yes it's still going to be sad when your favorite artist or writer or colorist leaves for greener pastures (Bettie Breitweiser's contract with Marvel ended a couple months ago, though she is also heading over to Brubaker's excellent series), but there's a whole wealth of talent bursting right under the seams. I guess what I'm long-windedly getting to is that we're in an exciting time for new comics. Comics haven't had this much wide-stream appeal in my lifetime, maybe ever. Hopefully they can maintain this because, ideally, with success comes better product.