Marvel Reviews (Yes, Marvel Reviews)

Yesterday's mail held treasures beyond my expectations. Not just one, but two orders of comics awaited my perusal when the work day was over.

I devoured the Marvel books, particularly the Wolverine List special. I'll admit, I'm one of those people annoyed to see Marvel Boy disappear from Dark Avengers. I like the character, even as written by Bendis. He's clearly a hero, but his bitterness is directed externally. That's usually a villain thing (heroes with angst tend to hate themselves most of all, or be hated by everyone else), but in Noh-varr's case the misunderstanding is perfectly understandable. The way in which he approaches and discards revenge in favor for actually helping the planet he hates tells us he has an incredibly strong moral backbone. He knows the solution to his problems with Earth are to solve Earth's problems, but his youth, his poor intel, and his astronomically bad first impression of the planet make this a pretty tough prescription. So we get to see him get angry, attack, help, and slowly learn that humans don't necessarily match his assumptions. He's like a teenaged Namor, updated for the 21st Century. I like this, and I like that they're integrating him into the mainstream universe.

I was so happy someone used him that I was willing to overlook the art that made him seem way too old. (I hate to admit I prefer anything of Deodato's, but he can draw a teenager to look like a teenager.)

It was nice to see Fantomex too. I would never read Fantomex in a starring role (He is a show up and annoy the hero sort of guest star, really), but he's got this obnoxious blase` that's fun to play off someone uptight like Noh-varr. And I like characters like Fantomex and Wolverine trying to outjade each other.

I hope this is a sign that Marvels willing to play with all those wonderful presents that Morrison left in their toybox. I absolutely loved New X-Men (for the same reasons David Brothers outlines here I've had trouble getting back into the X-Men franchise since Morrison left) and it was disappointed when they tried to roll everything back right after he left. The only thing that survived was Scott and Emma, which was the only thing I was hoping they'd roll back (or at least just make it the counterpart to the Logan and Jean thing, where Scott comes back to Jean always but there's this mutual attraction between him and Emma that comes up from time to time.)

New Avengers finally had a really good Bucky moment. (I guarantee there are people online complaining about it, but with the element of surprise it makes sense.) Ares really can't seem to get Bucky, can he? He got floored here, and in Reborn he needed a distraction. I wonder if this means we'll see a third fight from them.

Dark Avengers has me seriously thinking of Kenny McCormick. I could swear that the Sentry has died at least once per storyline, and it looks like they're even past commenting on it by this point.

Ms. Marvel and Fantastic Four ended their storylines neatly. The take on Karla in the former was seriously unexpected, the take on Reed in the latter was not but I still liked it.

Iron Man #19 was impressive. I'd been reading the Twitter reaction, and while I really got a kick out of what they pulled during the fight with Osborn. The reveal of who had Tony's Power of Attorney was hilarious. Dark Reign is fun simply for Osborn's reactions sometimes.

I haven't read the DC stuff yet. Mainly because the top of my reading list there is Blackest Night and Green Lantern, and I have this weird impulse to save them. This is like when I'm reading a book I'm really absorbed in and have to put it down between chapters, just because I know the author is going to introduce a twist soon and I'm comfortable with the line of thought I have about the story. There's a chance that it will go the way I expect, a chance it'll disappoint me a little, a chance that it'll open new and beautiful paths for my mind to explore, and a chance it'll go somewhere I don't like at all. I can keep the line of thought that I'm enjoying only until I read the twist. So right now, Blackest Night is sitting on my read pile until I'm ready for a change.

It may seem weird, but that break is part of the appeal of serialized fiction for me.