As I mentioned in the post below, we’re horribly off schedule here at House to Astonish. \u00a0And to make matters worse, there’s no new comics this week, because apparently Diamond UK can’t deliver in snow. \u00a0(Normally at this point I’d complain about the ineptitude of Diamond UK. \u00a0But to be honest, since the M8 was closed for two days this week and the Transport Minister has just resigned over it, I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt for a change.)<\/p>\n
Fortunately, I still haven’t got around to reviewing last week’s books – which include the first issues of Wolverine: The Best There Is<\/em> and Heroes for Hire<\/em>, plus the second issue of Generation Hope<\/em> – so I’m going to write about those instead. \u00a0Still remember what happened in them? \u00a0No? \u00a0Well, rack your brains now…<\/p>\n Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 <\/em>#39 – I’ve complained from time to time about the shortcomings of Marvel’s recap pages (which are often considerable, though it varies). \u00a0So it’s only fair to point out that Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/em> has the most useless recaps in Christendom. \u00a0Now, granted, not many people are going to be picking up this issue – “Last Gleaming”, part four – as their jumping on point. \u00a0The series is building to its climax. \u00a0But even then, while the creators may think about this stuff on a full time basis, chances are that even the regular reader probably hasn’t thought about the book for at least three weeks, and the story itself isn’t going to screw up the collected edition by explaining the plot, and so that’s why we need recap pages.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Here is the recap from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8<\/em> #39:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n “Temperatures run high when Buffy and Angel reunite to fight all matter [sic<\/em>] of evil things. \u00a0Enter Spike – vampire with a soul, former lover, latest prophecy keeper. \u00a0Needless to say, things get complicated. \u00a0In order to save humanity from crumbling in on itself, Buffy must elicit the help of those closest to her and take the fight home.”<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Now, I’ve read the whole series and I don’t know what that means<\/em>. \u00a0I don’t have a clue what they think a new reader’s supposed to make of it, or what actual function the “recap” serves at all, other than to fill a blank space on the inside front cover. \u00a0Call me tragically old fashioned if you will, but it seems to me that as a bare minimum the recap needs to explain (i) what the threat is, in concrete terms, (ii) why the threat has arisen, (iii) the nature of the macguffin which was introduced last issue and (iv) the key dilemma, which is whether to destroy said macguffin or not, the possible consequences being central to the plot. \u00a0No? \u00a0Am I being unreasonable here?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n So anyway. \u00a0This is an enormous fight in which people hit each other while alluding to motivations which I suspect were more fully explained in earlier issues, and frankly it’s an almighty mess. \u00a0Until we get to the bit where people are actually fighting over said macguffin, and Buffy makes the big decision, and we get a few pages of the immediate consequences – and that works pretty well. \u00a0Now, obviously it’s a feint, since they’ve already announced Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9<\/em>, which presumably isn’t going to consist entirely of Buffy doing completely ordinary things. \u00a0But it’s a nice climactic moment – just a shame the build is too chaotic to generate as much momentum as they were going for.<\/p>\n Generation Hope<\/em> #2<\/strong> – We-e-e-elll… it’s a second issue of everyone fighting Kenji, and it looks like it’s heading into a third issue of everyone fighting Kenji, and yeah. \u00a0The positive: Kenji’s fabulously pretentious art\/emo dialogue is pretty funny. \u00a0There are some lovely little moments with Gabriel, and a cute little exchange with Tenon. \u00a0And the art is gorgeous; while Salvador Espin still seems a little uncomfortable with Wolverine, he’s doing a lovely job with Kenji’s weird tumour\/mechanism character design, and pulling that off rather nicely. \u00a0Visually, the “Hope makes an eye” sequence is impressively handled.<\/p>\n But the downside… it’s essentially an extended fight scene more than a story. \u00a0And it’s one that mainly features Hope and Kenji with three of the X-Men as guest stars. \u00a0The other four main characters pretty much get relegated to the sidelines, aside from a few pages in the middle, and for my money, that’s a miscalculation – certainly in the opening issues when the characters are still being established. \u00a0I don’t really understand why the X-Men are in this book at all, to be honest. \u00a0Traditionally, this is the point where you’d do “oh no, the X-Men can’t make it \/ have all been beaten up, now it’s down to the rookies to save the day.” \u00a0Or something along those lines, anyway. \u00a0A bit of a cliche, of course, but at least it gets the regular cast into the foreground. \u00a0This issue relegates them to the sidelines, which feels like a bit of a waste; presumably they’re going to have a bigger role next month, but I can’t help feeling it would have been a lot more effective if we’d got to that point in issue #2.<\/p>\n Heroes for Hire<\/em> #1<\/strong> – It’s trademark renewal time, as an old name already applied to three essentially unrelated series is dusted off for a fourth one! \u00a0This time it’s Misty Knight acting a despatcher for a loose assembly of characters most of whom had roles in the Shadowland<\/em> satellite minis. \u00a0Iron Fist, Ghost Rider and Punisher may be front and centre on the cover, but the issue actually features Falcon, Black Widow, Moon Knight and Elektra. \u00a0It’s basically Birds of Prey<\/em> crossed with Secret Defenders <\/em>and\u00a0featuring Marvel’s more or less street-level characters.<\/p>\n It’s written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, fresh from a well-received few years of running Marvel’s cosmic books, and changing tack when it comes to the setting. \u00a0They certainly hit the ground running with a string of action set pieces all of which contribute to a weird drug-conspiracy story joined in progress. \u00a0So far, so decent; there’s not much in the way of character development, but each character has their own voice, and it’s not exactly a reflective sort of book. \u00a0Still, it’s looking like a fairly straightforward action book with above average art, up until the closing cliffhanger. \u00a0I won’t give it away, since it’s a genuinely out-of-left-field twist, not least because it’s something you wouldn’t normally expect in Marvel’s street-level titles. \u00a0(And I suspect it probably works even if you don’t know anything about the character involved.) \u00a0That’s enough to put it over the top and persuade me that I want to come back and see where this is heading.<\/p>\n Shadowland<\/em> #5<\/strong> – As I’ve said before, expanding the “Daredevil gets corrupted by the Hand” storyline into a crossover event, and bringing in hordes of guest stars, seemed to me to dilute the central story. \u00a0Elektra belongs here, as do long-time supporting characters White Tiger and Black Tarantula, but I’m not convinced that the fight scene with Ghost Rider does any favours for a story that ultimately wants to be about Matt Murdock making a personal choice. \u00a0This seems to be Andy Diggle taking the title’s direction from the last few years to its logical, scorched-earth conclusion and tearing everything down in order to start over literally from scratch. \u00a0That’s understandable; boxed into a corner, the book has resorted to setting about the walls with a sledgehammer. \u00a0Still, I think it would have worked better as a smaller and more personal story. \u00a0And while I can understand the commercial pressures, I think it’s a mistake to get Matt Murdock straight back into circulation; I’d rather have seen a few months of the supporting cast dealing with the fallout before reintroducing Matt into the mix. \u00a0There’s a good story in here somewhere, but overall, expanding it into an event has had a distorting effect which wasn’t for the best.<\/p>\n Sweet Tooth<\/em> #16<\/strong> – By the standards of Sweet Tooth<\/em>, an all-action issue as Jepperd leads his bunch of religious lunatics in an assault on the compound. \u00a0But it’s Jeff Lemire’s artwork that really stands out here, with some truly memorable page layouts – a splash page close-up of Jepperd with panels obscuring his face is striking stuff, and nicely inverted when the “cut-outs” from the panels are superimposed onto the next page. \u00a0The originality of Sweet Tooth<\/em> arguably lies more in the execution than in the post-apocalyptic story, but the book’s strangely dream-like and fragile quality makes the end product hugely impressive.<\/p>\n Taskmaster<\/em> #4<\/strong> – Final issue of the mini, and while the cover says it features the Secret Avengers, that’s a bit of an overstatement. \u00a0All for the best, of course, because the main event here is the big storyline about Taskmaster’s identity. \u00a0I’m fairly sure this whole series (casting Taskmaster as an amnesiac, basically) amounts to a massive retcon, and the premise may be difficult for writers to work with in future, but for the purposes of this four-issue series it’s an immensely strong hook. \u00a0Fred van Lante’s story manages to have it both ways by combining outright absurdity with powerful sentimentality, without any grinding gear shifts. \u00a0Jefte Palo’s artwork is beautiful, and there’s some great use of the form by using superimposed panels to get across the idea of Taskmaster mimicking other people’s fighting styles – something which has been set up throughout the series and allows this issue’s climax to be played without dialogue. \u00a0These people know what they’re doing. \u00a0Probably the best superhero mini I’ve read this year, actually.<\/p>\n Wolverine: The Best There Is<\/em> #1<\/strong> – I’ve written before over at the Beat – and apparently the October sales column is going up on Monday, by the way – about how badly things went wrong when they last tried relaunching the Wolverine books. \u00a0Wolverine<\/em> was turned into Dark Wolverine<\/em>, and the readers drifted away; Wolverine himself was spun off into the new title Wolverine: Weapon X<\/em>, and the readers didn’t follow. \u00a0Huge cock-up. \u00a0Utter disaster. \u00a0So it’s understandable that they’re rebooting again to try and reverse the damage.<\/p>\n What’s much more questionable is the decision to expand the line at the same time. \u00a0Technically, X-23<\/em> is the new book here – Wolverine: The Best There Is<\/em> is the replacement for Daniel Way’s Wolverine: Origins<\/em> series. \u00a0But when you’ve got a fragile franchise in need of repair, expanding seems like folly. \u00a0This whole title has the distinct whiff of existing purely as a desperate attempt to meet revenue targets.<\/p>\n None of which is necessarily fatal. \u00a0After all, Thor: The Mighty Avenger<\/em> was similarly conceived in a spirit of insane overexpansion. \u00a0It was good.<\/p>\n Wolverine: The Best There Is<\/em> is not. \u00a0Which is a bit surprising, actually, because on paper the creative team seem like a reasonable choice. \u00a0Charlie Huston’s a decent writer, and his crime\/pulp background seems like a match for the character. \u00a0Juan Jose Ryp’s been doing work at Avatar for years, and is overdue his shot at the big time. \u00a0The overload of detail can detract from his scenes, and there’s something a little bit clumsy about his Wolverine, but his establishing shots are probably the best thing in this issue. \u00a0And years at Avatar certainly establish that he’s big on drawing violence.<\/p>\n But, as a first issue, this need to do two things. \u00a0It needs to say what makes this Wolverine title different (whatever else you say about Wolverine: Origins<\/em>, at least it had an answer to that question). \u00a0And it needs to get a decent story underway. \u00a0It doesn’t manage either. \u00a0If there’s an angle here, it’s the ultra-violent Wolverine title; but it’s not, really, just a bit more bloody than normal. \u00a0Oh, and swearing – which is asterisked out. \u00a0An array of obscure villains with healing powers suggests that we’re heading for loads of gross-out healing stunts over the next few issues, and if that’s the idea, I can’t help wondering why they’re not doing it with Deadpool. \u00a0If anything, it feels like a pitch that started life as Wolverine Max<\/em> and got watered down.<\/p>\n As for the story… it’s just a mess. \u00a0The first eight pages are spent on a vignette about anti-mutant lunatics kidnapping Wolverine and putting him in a cage-fighting match against the Griz (the villain from the first arc of Slingers<\/em>, believe it or not) – none of which seems to have anything to do with the rest of the issue. \u00a0As near as I can make out, it’s there to be the equivalent of the James Bond pre-credit sequence, or the bit in a 1983 Spider-Man comic where he demonstrates his powers by beating up some muggers in an alley. \u00a0Except it goes on for a third of the book. \u00a0Which might be okay if it were inventive, but it’s just a cliche.<\/p>\n So, having got out of that, Wolverine hitches a ride home, and apparently by sheer coincidence gets picked up by a woman who’ll later turn out to be connected to the story’s villain. \u00a0She invites him to a party. \u00a0Then we get a scene with Vic Slaughter (he’s a 1990s Morbius<\/em> villain)\u00a0recovering a guy with healing powers from a pool of quicksand, and an off-panel boss – that would be the villain – testing some sort of infection power on him. \u00a0Quite why his face is kept off panel, I have no idea, because it’s then revealed offhandedly three pages later, and it’s nobody you’ve heard of. \u00a0So. \u00a0Wolverine goes to this party, the bad guy touches him, he goes mad, there’s an utterly impenetrable sequence where everyone’s suddenly fighting for no reason, and then Wolverine staggers out into an alley, apparently to try and stab himself in the stomach with his own claws (and my heart goes out to Ryp, trying to make such a silly pose look dramatic).<\/p>\n It’s absolutely all over the place, and while it’s conceivable the plot might fall into line in later chapters, as a first issue it’s a bit of a car crash. \u00a0More troubling is that the book has no real sense of identity beyond hamfisted attempts to feel edgy. \u00a0It’s relying too much on the edgy violence card that was so tiresome in X-Force<\/em>, while at the same time being a book that bleeps out the word “ass”. \u00a0The creators can do better than this – Huston’s Moon Knight<\/em>, while far from subtle, was in a different league altogether – and it’s always possible the book will find its feet, but there’s little in this first issue to recommend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I mentioned in the post below, we’re horribly off schedule here at House to Astonish. \u00a0And to make matters worse, there’s no new comics this week, because apparently Diamond UK can’t deliver in snow. \u00a0(Normally at this point I’d complain about the ineptitude of Diamond UK. \u00a0But to be honest, since the M8 was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}