Miracleman 1, Revolutionary War - Dark Angel 1

Miracleman 1
Anglo (w and a) and D. Lawrence (a) and Moore (w) and Leach (a) and Oliff (c)

It's a re-release for Marvelman/Miracleman as MIRACLEMAN 1 kicks off with a triple size issue. In the issue are stories from original Miracleman creator Mick Anglo, including one where the Miracleman Family, comprising of Miracleman, Young Miracleman, and Kid Miracleman, is roped into a tale of time travel and science fiction when invaders from 25 years in the future, the year 1981, come back to good, old 1956 to wreak havoc, solved when Miracleman and Young Miracleman travel to 1981 and stop their time-travel ships before they can get off the ground, creating something of a paradox but it was 1956 so WHO WOULD POSSIBLY CARE? (Doc Brown would, as a note) The issue moves from the Mick Anglo story to Alan Moore's reboot, WARRIOR, in 1982 (Moore's name is carefully removed from all parts of this book, per his own wishes). In the present (1982, keep up), Michael Moran has been living with his wife Liz for a decade and a half and has no memories of his history as Miracleman, save for some migraines and dreams of flying. Michael's freelance journalist job brings him, though, to what quickly turns into hostage situation. Unfortunately, he is one of those taken hostage but FORTUNATELY he sees the word "atomic" backwards which makes him remember his life as Miracleman. Shouting "Kimota!" he becomes Miracleman again for the first time in twenty years and ends the terrorist threat, returning home that night to talk to Liz about his powers and what he can remember. After a full synopsis of his history, he reveals that the last thing he remembers as Miracleman is a mission that pit him and Young and Kid up against arch-nemesis Gargunza, a mission that would result in Miracleman discovering that the Miracleman Family is not invulnerable to the A-bomb. The last thing he saw was Young Miracleman, who, with Kid, had dove straight into the action, pretty much exploding in front of him. Miracleman came crashing down to Earth in bad shape and didn't wake up for two months, forgetting everything he had been before that. As he explains everything to Liz, someone else who remembers Miracleman sees the news footage from the day and curses Miracleman. The issue ends with an interview between Joe Quesada and Mick Anglo, some concept drawings, and a couple more Anglo stories.

Solid execution here as Marvel brings a 1980s series based on a 1950s character into the 2010s. It's the Back to the Future trifecta (I almost wish I hadn't referenced Doc Brown above but I did and I never wanna stop so it's okay). Of course, this is only issue one so I don't want to heap too much praise on it (lest it turn a Back to the Future II on me) but presumably the art restoration will, if nothing else does, keep up the way it's going and the book looks great. The colors are well done (Moore's original book was black and white) and the art looks crisp as ever. I'll admit that I don't have a background with MIRACLEMAN so I'm one of those people who is just glad that it's getting reprinted since it's so hard to find anywhere. I don't know how much of these reviews will be about story (as these are stories that have already been published, up until they get to the new material from Gaiman) but that's okay with me, if my reviews end up a little shorter on these books on the whole (obviously not this issue, okay). I'll probably just talk about Back to the Future more, which is ALSO totally great with me.

Revolutionary War - Dark Angel 1
Gillen (w) and D. Smith (a) and R. Redmond (c)

Another peek into Marvel UK as current comic superstar Kieron Gillen gives us a one-shot for the hero Dark Angel (Shevaun Hadley) which grants her a somewhat self-contained story that plays into the scale of this event and goes a little deeper into the story while also giving us a pretty full rundown on the character. Dark Angel's father was a member of Mys-Tech who was, of course, killed by Mephisto after trying to break their deal in the modern day. Shevaun was granted powers as part of the deal, as Gillen puts it, and fought against Mys-Tech. Still, the debt her father and his cronies accrued needs to be paid off so Shevaun has to help Mephisto with things here and there, leaving very little time and power for her own exploits (kind of cool about Shevaun's power: there is a daily limit to them). The terms of the deal are particularly hard on her as Mys-Tech begins to rise again and she's forced to fight some of their hidden tech before she's chased by one of the biggest techs her father ever created, Psycho-Wraith Prime. With no will left to fight, she summons Mephisto and asks for a new deal, one that will take her powers away in the hopes that it will keep them from Mys-Tech. Mephisto has her sign a new contract but, you know, he's Mephisto so it all goes rather belly-up as she's sucked into the contract and Psycho-Wraith Prime gets his hands on her anyway, finding, as Mephisto says, one sixth of the power he needs. Life ends, your debts live on.

As this event is still pretty young, I'm very interested in how it's going to play out going forward. There's clearly a big story here but it's only got a set amount of time to explain itself as every book seems to be something of a one-shot that happens to tie in to the main plot. Because every book is focused on a different character or team or set of characters (not necessarily in team form) and most of these characters aren't well-known by US audiences, part of the issue has to be dedicated to explaining who a character is, what he or she is (roughly) about, and what his or her powers are. That means that issues like this one read a little bit slower and it puts the writer in a tricky spot of knowingly slowing their pace down to make sure the audience is mostly on the same page. Despite that, Gillen does a good job to get the gist of the character across and to give her a real chip on her shoulder, helping to fully realize Shevaun. At the end of it all, it's very much a story about the sins of the father (pretty explicitly) and the idea that, as Shevaun puts it, "we paid for their Heaven and now we live in their Hell." It's a good story, she's a good character, we get a little bit of the Mys-Tech story, and Dietrich Smith's art is perfect for the issue. Next up: the Knights of Pendragon, featuring UNION JACK! You guys, I love Union Jack.

Comics this week

Lotta big books out this week worth talking about so let's get right to it.

Daredevil 35
Just a bunch of fun, this book, so as we reach the penultimate issue of this run I'd say it's definitely one to keep an eye on. The last issue ended with yet ANOTHER cliffhanger that could call the fate of Foggy Nelson into question and that cliffhanger does NOT get any easier to read. Just as things are starting to look up for Daredevil with his strike right at the heart of the Serpents and his new re-girlfriend, will things take a turn for his best friend?

Miracleman 1
The 1980s massive title MIRACLEMAN is being reprinted for this digital age and I for one am excited to check out the reprint. Alan Moore kicked this one off as writer and if you don't know that name, you're probably not actually reading this blog (thanks for your support, though!). After Moore, Neil Gaiman took the reins of the book and Gaiman has agreed to finish the story when the time comes for it, so this is one to watch for. Beware though, Marvel is apparently dying to cash in on this book, with the regular cover issue (there are about a million variants that are no doubt more expensive) going for 5.99, two dollars more expensive than the typical higher price for an ongoing Marvel book (Annuals have lately been around the 4.99 mark).

Superior Spider-Man 25
In another money-grab move, the newest issue of SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN will jump from 3.99 to 4.99 as we hit issue 25. The good news on this one, though, is twofold. One: this issue will be oversized so you may be paying more but at least you're also getting more. Two: this issue promises to contain a giant plot point that will be incredibly important to both the Spider-Man and Marvel Universe as a whole as the year continues. Thanks to the horrible necessary evil that are solicits, that news has been spoiled for a lot of readers (myself included, I add bitterly) but I'm not willing to spoil it here (until I review it probably on Thursday or, you know, whenever. Maybe Wednesday, if it's really that big).

Thunderbolts 20
Technically this is THUNDERBOLTS 20.NOW! but I don't really want to get into a rhythm of adding that to every book that has that designation (I sure didn't do it last week!). Anyway, should be a big issue for the extremely entertaining series as the new Ghost Rider joins the team. According to the solicits (I KNOW WHAT I SAID ABOUT SOLICITS, OKAY?), this Ghost Rider will be Johnny Blaze, the original Ghost Rider, and not the one who is on the verge of the release of his own ongoing (the new one drives a car!). Should be fun!

X-Men Legacy 22
The me-proclaimed best series of 2013 launches into 2014 before it reaches its conclusion and David is up against a big ol' fight. I really love this series and, while I'm depressed it's going to be ending, I take solace in knowing that the ending will be huge. I don't know if it will make me happy or sad or angry or what (I assume not angry, actually, because angry implies I don't trust Spurrier and I absolutely do) but it will be an ending and it will be different. Spurrier himself promised that it's not anything you could expect and that he "positively refuse[s] to restore the bloody status quo." Love that attitude.

Captain Marvel 14, Guardians of the Galaxy 5, Ultimates 28

Captain Marvel 14
DeConnick (w) and Hepburn w/ Sandoval (a) and Troy (c)

The Enemy Within storyline ends as Carol discovers that the the source to all of Yon-Rogg's power, to his return, is a piece of him stored away in her mind all these years. With that piece, now amplified by the sentries Yon-Rogg has put into place, the former Kree commander has used the psyche-magnitron to bring all manner of Kree weaponry and haunts from Carol's past to real existence. That includes the dinosaurs we've seen, Deathbird, the Brood attack, and everything else strange in this crossover recently. For the finale, Yon-Rogg has whipped up his biggest creation: a duplicate of Kree-La, the capital city of the Kree home world, which he intends to bring down on New York City. Will the Avengers stop the signal from the sentries or will Carol have to take matters into her own hands?

You should read this book. I know I've been a staunch supporter of this series since its inception and have done nothing but recommend it on this blog but really, you should read this book. It's another good story with a lot of great art and amazing character moments. Captain Marvel has become one of the best defined characters of the Marvel Universe in an immensely short time. My girlfriend and I were talking about her character the other day and she felt, as the one who has read more of the Ms. Marvel back-catalogue, that this series was very slightly a departure from the character we've seen. There are aspects there for sure, like her loyalty and her dedication to duty, but she's stronger and more decisive, more strong-willed in this series. It's not anything that DeConnick has hit us over the head with but it's certainly there and it's certainly defined. Unlike other writers, DeConnick doesn't have someone piping in to say "gee Carol, you're so strong-willed!" every five minutes, preferring instead to show and not tell with her characters and their actions. Be prepared for some changes in the Captain Marvel Universe, which spans particularly across Captain Marvel, Avengers Assemble, and Avengers. If you want to get in on the ground floor of understanding what she's going through, pick up this issue. No spoilers here, at least not yet. But boy is it hard not to spoil things. Another great issue, solid event overall. This event isn't in the style of a really big, universe spanning event. Instead, it's an event in that it spans two separate books telling the same story. A crossover, really. I would argue, though, that it was a necessary one and a well-executed one. It's not an event in the same way Marvel does where the plot takes precedence and everyone's just along for the ride. Here this story has very specifically to do with Captain Marvel and the Avengers Assemble team is her team, so they're there because the threat requires them but also because their teammate requires them. One of the nice things about Avengers Assemble has been DeConnick's dedication to showing them as a real team who likes each other and who works well together. Of course they needed to be in this storyline as one of their own is directly threatened. Good choices all the way through.

Guardians of the Galaxy 5
Bendis (w) and Pichelli (a) and Ponsor (c)

Peter Quill felt the rip in space-time from issue ten of Age of Ultron and it's haunting him. Despite being wanted by the Spartax armada, he makes his way to Rigel 7 to talk to Mantis, hoping she has some knowledge of this or that she's heard something in her travels. She hasn't but she recommends he talk to someone more connected than she, though also significantly more dangerous, if he wants answers. Meanwhile, Neil Gaiman's creation Angela from the Spawn comics has been dumped unceremoniously into the Marvel Universe and, though she doesn't know why she's here, she wants revenge for it.

The issue starts with a long scene between Rocket and Tony about fixing his armor and about Gamora, which gives us a little more insight into both of their characters. It's rife with that snappy dialogue Bendis loves (working slightly better here since both characters are supposed to be snappy-ish throughout their histories) and Bendis uses Rocket to straight up tell the audience what the characters are about (humans are unimpressive and unevolved, Gamora has daddy issues, etc.). From there, they discover Angela, leaving Peter back on Rigel 7 (they don't know where he and Drax are) so they can fly back towards Earth to stop her from getting too close. Finally, Peter takes a trip across the galaxy to talk to the mysterious and dangerous foe who, if you've been paying any attention to Marvel in the last year, you will probably immediately identify, though the book doesn't reveal it officially until the last page, dragging a few pages worth of dialogue out first. Neil Gaiman is credited as a consultant on this issue, which signifies his "return" to Marvel, as Marvel has been thrilled to repeatedly announce. Not sure if he's actually going to come back in a role greater than that as we continue with Angela, his creation and for whom he got involved in a long legal battle with Todd McFarlane. The rips in space time are clearly going to be a big deal in the upcoming Infinity event and in this series presumably among others so it's useful to see them discussed and actually weighing on a character, but overall the issue moved a bit predictably.

Ultimates 28
Fialkov (w) and Di Giandomenico and Ruggiero (a) and Charalampidis (c)

Things are as bad as they've been for the Ultimates with Reed Richards, Hulk, Quicksilver, and Kang (revealed to be Wanda Maximoff) gathering the Infinity Gems one by one, now only one away from having the entire set. Meanwhile, Tony Stark appears dead, Cap, Thor, and Hawkeye have all been injured, captured, and contained. Fury has a team prepped and ready to move but Reed's team is more powerful and is backed up by patrolling Herbietrons. All is not lost, though, as Iron Man has safeties built into his armor that even Reed didn't foresee and that begin wreaking havoc the minute Reed attempts to synch with the armory. To make matters more complicated, Reed's team is at odds with one another and unhappy to need to work together. Will the Ultimates be able to stop Reed et al before they send their newest recruit to the center of the Earth to recover the last gem?

Another solid issue of this arc from Fialkov as everything is falling apart for everyone. Somehow Tony's death seems to have helped the team and hurt Reed at the same time and we're really starting to see more of the cracks in the armor for Reed's team. Reed has started creating doppelgängers out of his own flesh (weird) and Pietro points out, pretty accurately, that those are the only people Reed could ever love. Meanwhile, Hulk is angrier than ever with humanity but kept in check by the Herbietrons. Pietro and Wanda, as always, are their own entity and hard to classify. I will say, as someone who isn't as familiar with the Ultimate Universe as with the 616, Reed's attitude is a strange one. He's far more flippant and casual than the Reed of any other dimension we've seen, which is a little weirdly jarring. Still, the writing is good and the story is better. Each character seems to be getting his due (not so much her due since there are only like, three women currently appearing among all the men and only two of them have lines in this book...one of those women is simply nagging) and the plot is moving well enough to keep readers interested. Should be interesting. Don't be surprised if it ties into Fialkov's other Marvel book Hunger, as both take place in the Ultimate Universe and have to do with the possible destruction of the world and more.

Age of Ultron 6, Wolverine and the X-Men 27AU

Hello again! I've missed you all terribly while I was away but NO TIME FOR THAT NOW, NOW THERE ARE 19* BOOKS TO REVIEW.

*I know, I said in my pre-game that there were 20 but that was apparently incorrect and I, in my vacation-craving mind, counted a reprint of All-New X-Men 1, of all things, as a new release this week. Can't win 'em all.

Age of Ultron 6
Bendis (w) and Peterson, Pacheco, and Martinez (a) and Mounts and Villarrubia (c)

Bit of a confusing by-line to add up there. Bendis wrote the entire issue while Peterson illustrated things that happened in the future with Mounts coloring it and Pacheco and Martinez pencilled and inked (respectively) the bits in the past with Villarrubia's colors. So hope that's all cleared up. ONWARDS.
I've talked a lot about this series in recent weeks because there have been six issues since March so I've covered a great deal, I think, about what this series is doing as a whole. Now we're starting to get into the bread and butter of it, which involves a great deal of time travel. I talked last issue about time travel sneaking into the plot and now it seems we're going full-bore into the sci-fi aspect of comics. That means that the butterfly effect is in play, everybody, the sci-fi, timey-wimey law of "don't change anything whatsoever in the past or else it will change the future." Wolverine and Sue Storm (who snuck out of the mission to the future to stop Wolverine from killing Pym in the past) travel to a time when Pym is studying Dragon Man, his first real run-in with artificial intelligence and his inspiration for Ultron. Wolverine, who asked Sue to stay outside, attacks Pym. Meanwhile, in the future, the Ultron strike team finds itself in a somewhat serene world which mixes nature and technology and seems pretty devoid of Ultrons. However, they eventually run into a fleet of smaller Ultrons patrolling the technological wonder that was New York. The strike team attacks and is quickly and fiercely retaliated against, leading to many injuries and seemingly the decapitation of Captain America. Just a friendly reminder, it would seem, that none of this will have an impact on regular continuity after the series ends. In the past, Wolverine eventually defeats Hank and, after a momentary restraint from Sue, kills him. The cover for next issue features the results of this butterfly effect, with a Quake (or Maria Hill, I suppose, because they look identical) Captain Marvel, a Nick Fury-esque Captain America, a Cyclops-Cable thing, and more.
The main takeaway from this for me is, as it has been, that none of this will likely stick. Again, it seems the ten issues is excessive for a giant event that will likely not have lasting effects on the Marvel Universe. There's also an interesting debate going on my head about the merits of using the butterfly effect as a much plot twist. Firstly, of course, I don't think it matters because everything will be reset ANYWAY. But secondly, I was torn on the kind of over-explanation of what the butterfly effect is (just as I think next issue will focus on just how crazy some of these effects are) because, on the one hand, that's pretty basic knowledge for the people you assume are reading comics but, on the other hand, you don't want to assume anything about your audience. Bendis tends to do this, for better or worse, the over-explanation and reliance on twists that don't REALLY feel like twists to people who know sci-fi and things like that. I think that's one of the things that makes him such a popular writer; he's pretty easily accessible. I've talked about Hickman's new Avengers series not particularly caring if you're following or not and being all the better for it. I do think that limits the audience to people who aren't frustrated by that, but I think it has a greater payoff. But with an event like this, do you want it to be so easily accessible? It's clearly going to be reset or something and now you're trying to get new readers into it, into a world that won't exist post AU 10? Weird to me. I did find out this week that Neil Gaiman will be involved in the final issue of this series, so there's some hope yet.

Wolverine and the X-Men 27AU
Kindt (w) and Medina and Vlasco (a) and Curiel w/Rosenberg (c)

Another tie-in to the Age of Ultron event as we watch Sue and Wolverine travel to the past to stop Pym from creating Ultron. Nick Fury's car, which they stole in AU6 after he conveniently landed in the Savage Land right where they had traveled to, breaks down and they need to get a battery from a nearby secret-SHIELD base. While inside, their opinions seem to shift into the opposite of what each had been thinking in the first place; Wolverine starts to believe that maybe he shouldn't mess with the past after accidentally shaping the Brood into a much fiercer foe than they would have been, and Sue begins to think that they need to stop Pym at any cost after finding surveillance of Reed and remembering things. Like the other AU tie-ins, I don't think this is particularly necessary to read for plot, more for character and, in this case, more explanation of the butterfly effect. The art is supplemented by original images from Jack Kirby and John Buscema, which was interesting to me and a pretty nice touch. It was also interesting to me that this took place before Wolverine killed Pym and had Wolverine second-guessing himself, even though people who may have read AU6 first know that he did, in fact, have no real qualms with killing Pym. It felt a little like adding morality questions where there weren't any. Not that Wolverine doesn't have morality or anything, just that he doesn't question his convictions. He's always done what he thinks needs to be done without hesitation. Killing Pym fits into that, though again I'd question why they don't just go to a time when they, without question, know where Ultron is and when he's weaker than in the present and disable him there and then. Solves everything, I win the day.
Not too much else to say about this issue except that there's a weird amount of focus on Sue's breasts. I guess it's not weird, it is comics, after all, but there are shots set from her breasts up which is a little weird. Male gaze and all that. I think that's about all I've got. I don't think it's the best tie-in. We get some questioning of motivations but those questions are all kind of erased by the actions of this pair in AU6 anyway so this seems pretty avoidable on the whole. Nice to see Kirby/Buscema art sprinkled throughout.