FiftyTwo 42

Now this is more like it. Fifty-Two has been dreadfully hit and miss for the past 15 issues or so.

The premise was dodgy to begin with, the prevalent feeling was that the good bits would fel curtailed and make you wish they had their own book, and the bits you didn’t care about would seem to go on forever.

And so it’s gone. Black Adam’s exploits and the end/rebirth of The Question deserved their own miniseries. Less so the tiresome space exploits, predictable Everyman story line and the massive disappointment of what the evil scientists were up to.

It was 4…….big……..robots. Wow. They’ll take Green Lantern all of 30 seconds to destroy.

We’ve also been let down through teased death’s and resurrections Booster’s dead! ….no he isn’t. Animal Man’s dead!!!….. wait, no he isn’t. To be fair though The Question really is dead. And now so is Ralph Dibney, the Elongated Man.

Ralph’s wife died in the pages of Identity Crisis. Since then Ralph went utterly to pieces. There’s a lot of criticism of the “Girlfriend in the fridge” tactic in comics (Hero’s girl gets killed horribly by Bad Guy to create angst that lasts at most a TPB. Hero defeats Bad Guy, then moves on to shag the next alien chick that comes his way), but Sue’s death is different.

Her loss consumed Ralph, and he’s spent the last year trying to bring her back or, if that fails, join her.

So Ralph’s been chatting to the helmet of Nabu as to how he can bring her back. The helmet’s been talking back, bringing him through various magical tests in order to finally resurrect his bride.

As it turns out this issue though, the helmet of Nabu is in fact Faust, and the old wizard’s been trying to get Ralph to give his soul to Neron in exchange for him gaining power. It’s all explained very well, all the little scenes from the year come together brilliantly. Faust however is no criminal genius, and the worlds second greatest detective could see through it.

It turns out Ralph was onto the fix from the start and has manipulating the situation into a way for him to trap his tormentors. Faust is defeated, Neron shows up to take him back to hell, but Ralph claims Faust as his own. Neron responds to this by killing Ralph with his own wedding ring, only to realise that both he and Faust are trapped forever in a tower by Ralph’s magic. The Elongated Man dies with a smile on his face as he goes to meet his wife.

Best book DC’s put out this year. A fitting goodbye to Ralph, who's always been characterised by his detective skills and love for his wife than his powers Buy it now.

A+

Civil War 7

A very interesting end to the Civil war. Marvel’s been pretty up front all along that this wasn’t going to be a series that had a set beginning and end, and the book certainly makes that clear. These are spoilered reviews so if you don’t want to know what happens…..well you’re on the wrong page aren’t you?

The 2 sides fight. In order to escape another lockdown, Cloak teleports EVERYONE to co-ordinates given to him by Black Panther which is in the middle of a city. Big fight scene ensues. Namor turns up to even the odds in Caps favour. RoboThor has his head caved in by Hercules (With the FAKE hammer folks) and Spiderman gets some nice moments.

Tony and Cap square off. Vision incapacitates Iron Man, and Cap takes him apart. Before he can land the finishing blow, a bunch of cops/firemen tackle Captain America. Cap looks at the carnage being caused, realises “We're not fighting for the people anymore,.. Look at us. We're just fighting” and gives himself up. Most of his team do the same.

The book ends with Tony as head of SHIELD and Cap in jail with Spiderman and Cage as part of the underground and Wonderman, Ms Marvel, Sentry and a couple of others back as new Avengers. It also has the Super team in every state plan rolled out, Hank Pym (Man of the year) shaking Panther’s hand and the public knowing all about (And embracing) the idea of locking the supercriminals up in the Negative zone.

It’s an undoubtedly flawed book (and series as a whole). It’s simply been too small and to quick to effect what are major changes to the Marvel Universe. As an issue:

Ø Why have Sentry join anyone’s group if he wasn’t going to DO anything? It’s crazy that a guy with Superman level powers has such little effect in a fight with such a comparatively weak opposition.

Ø Why bring back Mar-vell in this manner (or at all?) He did nothing in the story.

Ø Why did Strange pick a side after the fight? We see him with Spiderman and Cage at the end of the book

Ø The fight scenes feel inconsequential and light. This is mainly due to the restrictions placed on them by the size of the book, but compared to the stand out moments of infinite crisis, there’s only one here, the trouncing of RoboThor by Hercules.

Ø Just because Captain America thinks it’s over, the rest of his team follows suit? They didn’t get into this because of him; they got into it because they fundamentally objected to what was being forced on them. Cage and Spiderman stand tall but that’s all we really see.

Ø For that matter: Namor has just invaded America with his army. He’s sure as hell not going to turn around just because Cap lost his nerve.

Ø Tony thinks Captain America is actually going to kill him. Idiot.

Ø Why is T’Challa making nice with Pym at the end of all this? America has obviously made its choice, in direct contrast to what T’Challa, Namor and the Inhumans were planning against. Shouldn’t we be seeing the beginning of a cold war?

Ultimately the war itself IS unimportant. It’s what the results of the war are, and what they set up for the future. This is where the book succeeds; it’s painting a very authoritarian future for the 616 America, far more like the Ultimate universe than anything. And that’s where the book’s succeeded.

We now have:

Public support for the Registration Act

Public support for the Negative Zone prison

A Superhero team in every state

Tony Stark as head of SHIELD and keeper of the secret ID list

Captain America in prison

Luke Cage, Strange and Spiderman still fighting the power.

Presumably Black Panther’s group are still planning on their economic and diplomatic isolation of America.

And that’s what Civil War was always going to be, a setup series. That’s what Marvel said and that’s what we got. It’s spotty in patches but in the end it gets the job done.

B

Astonishing X-Men 20

An issue of Astonishing X-Men? Why we must have changed seasons again. Merrily ignoring any semblance of a fixed schedule has had 2 effects on the book. Firstly the sales have diminished (although it’s still the top selling X-Book) and secondly, it’s quite easy as a reader to forget the thing exists.

It’s not as if they’re doing anything terribly relevant (Saving or destroying Breakworld is not going to have a longterm impact either way) and the erratic nature of publication means that any downtime issues really stick out.

And this is a downtime issue. The bare minimum is achieved. The X-men go from being in space to being on Breakworld. They walk about a bit. They see a pretty window with Collossus in it. The end.

The big reveal on the last page of a massive stained glass window of Collosus destroying the world doesn’t work, simply because we already knew that the people of Breakworld suspected him of doing this. Maybe it’s just Galactus in new duds.

The story is suffering from the same problem as the Cerebro plot. It’s an old idea told with a semi-interesting twist, but it’s simply going on far too long and the release dates make it even longer.

Which shouldn’t allow you to ignore the good in the book. Whedon continues to write excellent dialogue, Cassidy is the best there is, and I think everyone’s growing quite fond of young Armour, the newest member of the x-men.

So is it worth buying for a 2 pages of really nice dialogue between Wolverine and Armour, and impossibly pretty art for the rest of the book? Yes. But barely.

B-

Wolverine Origins 11

Wow. Where to begin. In theory a lot is happening in this book. Jubilee has been gutted, Maverick has died, Dum Dum Duggan has died at the hands of a debuting 2 clawed child of Wolverine's , and Cyber has come back from the dead! It's all so exciting!!!

Or something. Maverick and Dum Dum will come back. We already had a 2 clawed child of Wolverine. Her name was X-23. The difference between her and the new guy is that she's a well thought out character we can understand and empathise with, this guy is a very dull serial killer that only seems to be brought out to boost sales and to tie in with the release of the new Hannibal Rising movie.

Cyber has returned, looking exactly like the Shadow King. He's corrupting a mentally retarded strong guy mutant, which is always depressing. Cyber wasn't interesting 10 years ago when they killed him off in a side story. The guy sucked so badly that the Dark Riders managed to kill him for pities sake, why is his return being treated like the second coming of Elvis?

But it brings up a broader problem facing the Mutant books: We now don't have 198 mutants, we have 200. This is the first definitive point at which M Day is being circumvented. In a book where it's effects have been clearly mentioned (By Maverick) There's either a plan, or the editors are napping.

The story is moving along now at last, but it's just not nearly as interesting as it thinks it is. The art is static, the story lacks consequence (my money has it that the kid isn't Wolverine's) and ultimately, your money is better spent elsewhere.

D+

Green Arrow 71

Seeing Red part 3

Judd Winick has almost managed to undo the considerable good work he did prior to Crisis by lurching from extreme to extreme. The book's previous subtle social commentary and conflicted view of our hero has long been pushed aside in favour of grossly over the top social commentary (Gay marriages for all!) and BIG! ACTION! SCENES! with our now perfect Green Arrow. A welcome return to action from Speedy is offset by the departure of Connor, and it's simply not an even tradeoff.

Anyway. Our current storyline sees Brick, (who's a criminal mastermind remember), deciding that the best way to defeat Green Arrow, an undeniably B lister is to team up with the Red Hood, the one guy in the world guaranteed to bring the wrath of Batman.

The far more interesting B story is Deathstroke and Drakon's whacky adventures as they very slowly make their way towards Queen. It's an interesting problem. Drakon should murder Arrow. Slade should murder Queen (hell he took the JLA out), there's no conceivable way Queen can win this on his own or with assistance from his normal team. But that's for 2 months away.

In the now, our 2 heroes trade opponents leading to Batman facing Brick, a guy he has no history with, and Arrow facing Red Hood, a guy who should mop the floor with Arrow in a fist or sword fight.

Batman's fight is a rehash of every Solomon Grundy fight ever, except Bats gets to show less personality than a cinderblock. Green Arrow's fight is a pretty boring draw. There's just no reason for this team up at all. Red Hood's aim is to clean up drugs. Exporting his mayhem to Star City and assisting Brick is not the way to do that.

As such it's hard to view this as yet another disjointed and contradictory chapter in the return of Jason Todd as opposed to a Green Arrow book. If you're looking for a great book featuring a revived sidkick, get Marvel's Winter Soldier. If you're after some great Green Arrow stuff, grab the pre-crisis work.

c-