The Other Side of Avengers #1

Comic Book Resources and Comics Should Be Good! each have reviews up for Avengers #1, the script of which I enjoyed, the art not so much. Chad Nevett writes about the issue for CBR here, and Brian Cronin posts on his blog here. I wish I had the same appreciation for JRJR's work on this one!

HA Avengers #1

Putting John Romita, Jr. on pencils here totally fucking baffles me. I think I remember reading that Marvel was going for an artist with a sort of generational appeal, someone who's been around awhile but who still seems contemporary and new. That makes sense to me, since the Heroic Age promises to be a fresh take on Silver Age classics, the return of Cap, Thor, Iron Man, and the Avengers. I guess in theory Romita, Jr. fits that bill - he's a legacy artist, the son of a legend, and he's had his hand in Marvel classics old and new.

But this is ugly.

Lest I seem a complete asshole, I'll go for constructive criticism. And I'm not talking JRJR in general here, I'm talking JRJR on this Avengers book. His linework is blocky, angular, and generally unappealing. His faces appear universally mousy, and he has a distracting & overworked method for defining cheekbones. His character proportions are inconsistent from page to page and panel to panel, and his heroes all share peculiar and unsettling doll-like expressions, like they were hurriedly hewn from wood. I do love Kang's entrance splash page and the following spread of Thor pouring it on with Mjolnir, that's some dynamic work. But it's not enough to carry the book.

I mean by and large I don't have anything against Romita, Jr. And on paper, sure, this might make sense. But when you look at the finished product, it's just plain off. I don't think this is the kind of work that has any real mass appeal - and I feel awful writing that, because I shouldn't give a fuck about mass appeal - but these are the Avengers, and this is the Heroic Age, and while this line is being marketed as a new and more optimistic direction for the Marvel Universe, it also purports to be the return of our classic heroes. These heroes don't look heroic. And I don't think that all classic heroes should have to look the same all the time. I can't emphasize that enough, I'm not looking for derivative & manufactured art. I loves me some nuance, some personal style. But the Heroic Age merits something more pure than this. JRJR's work here is stylized to the point of distraction.

Such great distraction, in fact, that it overwhelms a pretty decent script by Bendis. Good pace, nice team-building and personal conflicts, cool cliffhanger. Bendis' Spidey is a little too quippy for me (here and elsewhere) - it'd be nice if he said something substantive once in a while. And, for a book that's supposed to be launching a new line, the new reader would have absolutely no fucking idea what's going on without several years of background story, or at least one of those nifty recap pages featured at the beginning of most Marvel books these days.

Check out the two pages penciled by Art Adams and Jack Kirby in the back. When I first read about the Heroic Age concept, that's kind of what I had in mind. They each showcase the distinct personal style of their pencillers, but they also look righteously heroic. The rest of this comic, not so much.

Free Comic Book Day: Owly and Friends

Dude I think Owly is too tough for me. I mean he/she is fucking adorable so I want to love him/her, but I swear I had to read this short twice before I could figure out exactly what happened. Which is pathetic, because it's a wordless comic meant for kids, but there it is. To be fair, it did make perfect sense the second time around, but that first reading was ugly. For a comic that relies entirely on pictures to convey the story, Runton's thick and chunky inks and dense panels are a little much for my meager mind. Still fucking adorable though.








Owly's friends are more my speed. Kochalka's Johnny Boo is just delightful, kind of a cross between Calvin and Hobbes and Tiny Titans. In this one, Johnny introduces Squiggle to yawn power, his new technique for producing the most boring of boring adventures, only Squiggle gets in way over his head. It's cute and fluffy and ridiculous, but it's got a little bite to it: "Oh, Squiggle! You're so funny when you say stupid stuff!" Words hurt, Johnny.

Ann and Christian Slade's Korgi short is my favorite, though. It's another wordless comic, but the thin & delicate line work is just staggeringly good, really emotive. Sprout the korgi passes out after a pie binge, only to be haunted by hungry muffins, angry waves, and other unnatural forces of nature. Sprout wakes up safe & spots an unguarded plate of cookies. You think the little fucker learned his lesson? Cutest thing ever.

Silver Surfer: Judgment Day

This is the most gorgeously illustrated thing I have ever seen. John Buscema, with Max Scheele on colors, cranks out 64 full page panels, each one a cosmically hallucinatory piece of perfection (Well to be fair, page 28 is broken down into 3 panels). I've never seen anything like it. And I just read "The Coming of Galactus." Even Kirby can't match this.












I found "Judgment Day" during a FCBG splooge-fest at the comic shop - it's an 8 1/4" x 11" hardcover from 1988 with a righteous Joe Jusko cover painting, so it kinda stands out. Looks like there's a more recent TPB version, but this is the original edition. Pfff!

It sports an obnoxious introduction by Stan Lee, who handles the script as plotted by Buscema and Tom DeFalco. I could do without Lee's writing on this one - he actually shows a remarkable amount of restraint, but he just can't let the artist do the talking, and Buscema is the real attraction.

I mean the script is still cool. We get Silver Surfer's existential musings, Mephisto's brimstone histrionics, Galactus' "unfeeling force elemental." And Nova's general hotness. That voluptuous space harlot sets up a battle for the Surfer's soul, and the showdown between Mephisto and Galactus culminates in fucking wild spread on pages 58 and 59.

"Judgment Day" is another reminder of the emotional complexity of Galactus and his former herald. They have a really interesting relationship, and Stan does a nice job here. I mean everyone knows that Norrin Radd is the intergalactic exile, the once sterile instrument of Galactus awakened by the emotions of Earthlings. I guess I tend to see Galactus more as an insatiable force than a sentient character, but Stan gives him more depth.

He is emotionless, apparently, and driven only by an undefinable mission to feed on planetary energy. But for an emotionless guy, he's fucking moody and protective of his property.

He admits not knowing whether or not he actually has a soul. He responds to the Surfer's plea to end interstellar destruction and offers his former herald a momentary sense of gratitude. Galactus balks at the mention of friendship, but there's a sense that his purpose and solitude are self-imposed, or at least a source of some doubt or regret: "I could not do what I do, I could not be what I am, if, like humans, I were subject to emotions unbridled. No! I am Galactus! I cannot be more! I dare not be less!" The devourer of worlds is kinda vulnerable.


Still, the art is supreme. 64 utterly dazzling & unparalleled spacescapes. John Buscema died in 2002. Dude wielded the Power Cosmic.

Silver Surfer: The Coming of Galactus

As much as I revere classic superhero stories, particularly ones from Marvel, I tend to avoid reading or re-reading them as I get older. If I have fond & sappy memories of discovering a Golden or Silver Age book when I was I kid, it's generally better that I leave them alone now.

You know, 'cause they might actually suck. I mean not the memories, the comics. And finding out that your childhood & consequently your adultish personality is based on something that sucks, well that sucks even more.

But today I saw "The Coming of Galactus" for 5 bucks and I bought it and it rocked my fucking socks off. I actually don't remember if I'd ever read the Fantastic Four #48-50 as a kid (seems like something that would be blasted into my pre-pubscent brain, so I'm thinking I hadn't), but reading it now was delightful.

Lee scripts, Kirby pencils, Sinnott inks, Roussos colors. Straight-foward stuff, world-devouring Galactus needs energy and isn't too discriminating about where he gets it, herald Silver Surfer lands him Earth, Fantastic Four plus Watcher defend. The story's a classic, so even if you haven't read it, you know what happens. What I didn't know, though, was that Galactus sort of has a conscience. He expresses both regret and affection. Like the Watcher says, he's really neither good nor evil. He's just really fucking hungry all the time.

It's hard to criticize Stan Lee for overwriting his scripts, but Stan Lee overwrites his scripts. That's nothing new, but it's generally what kills the classics for me. His imagination and stories are above and beyond just about anything you'll find anywhere else, he just needed to cut down his word count. Small complaint, righteous story.

Kirby's art is cosmically mind-boggling. I'll take most Silver Age art over anything that sees print today, but reading this book reminds me why Kirby's influence is so universal. I don't have the technical acumen to properly describe comic book art, but I think most current mainstream stuff is just overwrought, crowded, muddled, and forgettable. Looking at something like Blackest Night over at DC, I recognize the amazing talent of someone like Ivan Reis, but after all the inking and coloring is done, the impact is lost on me (and maybe I wouldn't appreciate just the straight pencils if I had seen them, I dunno). Right here, with Kirby and Sinnott and Roussos, everything just pops off the page. The coloring is basic and the backgrounds are simple. There's a cleanness to each page that my eyes adore. It's like every panel is iconic.

So a great read for 5 bucks & it makes me appreciate Hickman and Eaglesham's work on the current Fantastic Four even more. They nail the spirit & dynamism of Lee and Kirby, and they make it feel new. Big shoes to fill, but they step strongly into the cosmos.