Of all the superintelligent, super-strong and super-muscularly-enhanced supermen I’ve super-reviewed in my super-column, one of the superest of the super ones I’ve super-neglected up until now is Super-Thor. No, wait, he’s just Thor. Sorry, I was super-overloaded there.

The God of Thunder, the Odinson, the Norse Avenger, or for those of you more familiar with the films, the Guy with the Tremendously Sexy Biceps. The closest I’ve come to checking him out (his character, not his muscles, mind) is when I reviewed the book that killed him. That doesn’t really bode well, does it?

In all honesty, Thor’s a character I like in small doses, and in particular sets of circumstances. As a bruiser Avenger he’s pretty neat, as a decrier of Tony Stark’s douchebaggery he’s pretty cool, and whenever he and Captain America get together it seems that the Lawful-Good-Patriotism-O-Meter goes off the freakin’ charts. As a solo character, though, he can be quite hit-and-miss – you can go from something awesome like J. Michael Straczynski’s Thor omnibus, with lots of character development and a fast-moving and engaging plot, straight into something mediocre like Kieron Gillen’s Siege Aftermath, mostly dealing with the blokes Thor hangs out with on weekends, or even into the terminably awful like Stan Lee’s ill-advised backup story in Lateverian Prometheus, which should never be viewed by human eyeballs. It seems he’s a superhero that some writers don’t always know what to super-do with.

So can Jason Aaron, sterling writer of the actually-pretty-good X-Men: Schism and Wolverine and the X-Men, bring something new to the table that falls on the Straczynski side of the Good-Thor-Bad-Thor spectrum? Or will he doom the God of Thunder to the eternal damnation that writers like Stan Lee inflict upon him?

Thor is a young, untrained Norse deity hanging out on pre-millennial Earth when a dead god suddenly washes up on his shore. In the present, Thor is the Avenger we know and love and is investigating the disappearances of several major figures of worship across the galaxy, only to discover they’ve all been murdered brutally by the eponymous God Butcher. And in the future, several thousand years after all other Norse mythological figures have kicked the bucket, Thor wears a badass eyepatch and fights off the God Butcher’s black dingo minions as the last King of Asgard.

The story shifts between the three perspectives, tying a narrative across millennia in a simple and effective way that’s never disorientating. It’s easy to follow the story but the layers are still pretty dense, giving a depth of narrative across three different time periods that few other works can match. Plus, there’s something kind of awesome in seeing one-eyed piratesque Thor in the distant future kick the crap out of black dingo-looking dudes with a hammer and a metal arm that’d make the Winter Soldier jealous.

The character focus is front and center, fleshing out the hulking viking divinity with some greatly grounded moments that occasionally make you forget you’re reading about someone almost on the same level, superpower-wise, as post-crucifixion Jesus. While the cast of supporting characters is minimal, with the occasional appearance of Iron Man really being the only thread connecting this story to the larger Avengers-verse, what we get from the Blonde Bicep himself is more than enough to compensate. Anyone looking for ways to make absurdly powerful superheroes a bit more realistic and mired in the actual (lookin’ at you, Superman) could gain a lot from following some of the cues The God Butcher lays down.

The artwork by Esad Ribic is nothing short of breathtaking. Being a fan of those who take the time to really illustrate the page rather than just draw and CGI it (in the vein of names like Alex Ross, who paints every single page of every single comic he’s involved in from scratch) it’s refreshing to see an artist give us a beautiful, layered and toned piece of work that oozes with lots of TLC. All three Thor incarnations look great, the villain looks creepy as all get-out, the carnage is visceral, the alien vistas are gorgeous, and not an inch of the visuals feels wasted. There is an odd habit that sees Thor have his mouth open in an ‘O’ rather frequently, but rather than marking down the artwork I’ll just chalk that up to an appeal to the “homoerotic fanfiction writing” demographic that Marvel seem to be catering to.

Dialogue is good, with some pretty awesome and laugh-out-loud lines, but some characters seem to shift a bit too far in their personalities sometimes. A good example of this is the archivist Thor meets in some kind of deep space library, who alternates between “cool old guy” and “admonishing old guy who hates Thor”. Since this is coming from the writer of standout dialogue work from books like X-Men: Schism, it’s a little disappointing that characterisations flit about like an autistic hummingbird a little too often. It’s not a major strike against the book, but a point of contention nonetheless.

On the whole, though, The God Butcher kicks ass literally and figuratively. It puts me in mind of Stracyznski’s Thor magnum opus, giving us a protagonist we can relate to, a villain with pathos and proper motivation, some truly excellent artwork and a myth arc that looks set to be both epic in scale and methodical in execution. It’s pretty clear Jason Aaron has mapped out a lot of what’s to come already, which leaves me waiting with bated breath for the part of the story where Thor decides to lose his eye in order to become the biggest Norse pirate badass since Erik the Red.

STORY: 5/5

ARTWORK: 5/5

DIALOGUE: 3.5/5

OVERALL: 13.5/15

BEST QUOTE: “Now if you’ll excuse me. There is always someone somewhere in need of smiting with a very large hammer. And Thor is always happy to oblige.” – Thor

It seems like each week I’ve got a new reason to say that Marvel beat DC in the relaunch game.

First it was by having their previous canon actually mean more than a handkerchief full of whale bile, then it was the streamlining and consistency of their premier super-team into less of a miasma of metahumanity and more an easily-digestible team of movie stars and random yahoos. Now, it’s their depiction of feminism – in and out of universe. DC copped a lot of flak for having only one female writer at the time of their reboot (and not a very good one at that) and a bunch of superheroines depicted as having had balloons and silicone implants for parents. On the flip-side, Marvel is kicking lots of ass with lots of ass-kicking women, some of whom are even written by the somewhat larger feminine talent pool they currently possess.

If there’s one book that has concretely proven that a lady superhero doesn’t have to be awesome by shedding all but a square inch of fabric from their person, it’s Captain Marvel. Written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and backed by some of the weirdest art I’ve seen since Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Carol Danvers – probably the youngest Air Force Colonel in the history of America’s military – is struggling to adjust to her new status as the fully-clothed, fully-powered and fully-feminist hero Captain Marvel. It seems she’s got some some alien tomfoolery going on in her brain that gives her the blessing of superpowers but the suckiness of impending amnesia and possible cancer. So, while dealing with this mixed bag of superheroic traits, she travels back in time to fight with an all-girl squad of soldiers in the middle of World War II, meets her past self and does battle with a childhood hero of hers, battles a robot made of sunken airplanes and air-tackles some kind of bird-lady by jumping off a flying motorcycle.

And they say superhero comics are unoriginal these days.

In a nutshell, this is a book for people wanting something different from garden-variety superhero fare. It’s like a mashup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Back to the Future and Heroes, and takes a few of the life-on-the-street aspects that Hawkeye put to good use. Carol is a really well fleshed out character, with struggles, conflicts and dialogue that are at once believable and at the same time engaging with readers. She’s not a plastic bimbo with a fetish for barely-covering superheroine stripper outfits, nor is she an testosterone-poisoned man-lady with nothing but an insatiable bloodlust and barely-contained lesbian subtext. The new Captain Marvel is smart, funny and kickass as well as still being pretty sexy (if you seriously don’t find something hot about the all-encompassing blue and red suit she wears, you need to reassess your standards). Most importantly, she’s not there as eye candy for less-than-discerning male readers. She’s there to tell a story, not to be ogled at with digitally-enhanced curves and legs that wouldn’t look out of place on a Bond girl.

The story itself does a great job of escalation, peppered with nice character moments; taking the two books as parts of a whole, there’s a distinct direction towards something big. Little bits and pieces of a myth arc are dropped, and by the end of the second book it’s apparent that we’re working towards a tremendous pay-off. All the little disparities the book has seem to fit nicely together, even if they go from one extreme (World War II girl scouts) to the other (Megatron’s bastard child made of airplanes). It’s a solid, satisfying read.

The artwork is the only major thing that brings the story down. Emma Rios and Dexter Soy are certainly not esoteric illustrators, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but problems start to crop up when the characters’ skins look as green as a Skrull and the physical proportions take on some weird dimensions for both boys and girls (see the image above for an example). While I’m all for seeing different, more abstract art on a page compared to the chiselled abs and paintbox colours of most other superhero books, this one gets a little too abstract. It can kinda throw you out of the story when great, human dialogue is juxtaposed against almost hyper-animesque visuals, but if you can knuckle through it then the ultimate rewards the story gives you are worth it.

While underappreciated and, to my mind, far too under-exposed, Captain Marvel’s first two books are solid efforts with engaging, unique stories, some cracking wit in the dialogue and art that can be off-putting but is worth getting through. It also decisively proves that a female superhero doesn’t have to show off her ass in order to kick some.

STORY: 5/5

ARTWORK: 2.5/5

DIALOGUE: 5/5

OVERALL: 12.5/15

BEST QUOTE: “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go punch a dinosaur.” – Captain Marvel

Those of you who were with me during the dark, prehistoric era of 2012, when the world was careening towards an apocalypse as anti-climactic as the end of the Twilight saga, will remember I reviewed the first issue of a series called Uncanny Avengers. Heralded as the flagship title in Marvel’s NOW relaunch, it was a promising beginning to what was hopefully a far better-handled rebooting effort than anything DC could conjure.

The series sold itself in the title as being an X-Men (hence the Uncanny) and Avengers title (hence the…Avengers). In the wake of Avengers vs. X-Men‘s disappointing conclusion, a new team of superheroes sourced from New York’s longtime saviours and those weirdo outcast people living in San Fran comes together to defend us from baddies. Their first villain – a retooled Red Skull clone who has implanted himself with the psychically-overpowered brain of the X-Men’s former leader, Charles Xavier.

I’ll get this out of the way right now – those of you gunning for a great gateway entry to Marvel, like Hickman’s Avengers title, shouldn’t get your hopes up here. Rick Remender is giving us a series built upon quite a bit of prior continuity, not to mention the massive story he told pre-relaunch in Uncanny X-Force. Those of you not firmly entrenched in the continuity may be left scratching your head through a lot of this book, and thus would probably be better served reading Hawkeye instead.

Those of you still here after that will be pleased to know Remender isn’t mishandling the reins on this one. If he’d been the one to write AvX it’s possible we would’ve gotten a far superior story with actual moral dilemmas, since there’s quite a bit of that presented throughout The Red Shadow. When you get right down to it the story is fairly basic – I mean, who hasn’t worn the “mega villain attacks New York” t-shirt and not made it overdone? – but it’s the characters that are centre stage here. There’s a ton of introspection among all the main headliners, and the plot itself actually gets resolved far quicker than I’d’ve anticipated for a lead-in story like this. In fact, in a rare feat for cape comics, the entire final issue of the book almost exclusively deals with the fallout of the preceding narrative and gives a really satisfying denouement with a great sequel hook into the next volume. It’s everything I ask for in a good character study, not just in comics, and it really brings great efforts like Batman and Robin to mind by having an ending that doesn’t entirely resort to fisticuffs for a resolution.

That being said, there is one major crime The Red Shadow is guilty of: remember that introspective dialogue I mentioned earlier? How there’s a ton of it? I don’t use that word idly. The number of little white boxes that give us present tense descriptions of what the characters are doing gets a bit ridiculous when they make up more than half the lettering of any given issue in this book. I get that there’s not a lot of room for mouthing off against supervillains when you’re mid-flight or swinging an ancient Norse hammer, and it would’ve detracted significantly from the book’s pacing if the heroes stopped mid-battle for a soliloquy every page, but there is far too much of the mind-babbling going on for me to keep that pace anyway. It’s great that Remender really wants us to know what the characters are feeling, that it’s not just a great big outdoor bar brawl, but there’s a point where you really need to just let some images speak for themselves sans dialogue. It’s something he pulled off really well in Uncanny X-Force, so why can’t we see some more of that here?

So the story’s pretty good, the dialogue is fairly snappy (when it’s not in those goddamn little white boxes) and overall it’s an enjoying read. There’s not a lot I can say about the artwork since it’s handled by John Cassaday (responsible for the gorgeousness that is Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run) and Olivier Coipel (one of the finest Avengers artists in the business), and is thus pretty damn pretty. So go on, read it. It’s pretty good.

Sorry if I seem a little distracted in this shorter review, my reading list appears to have somehow evolved into a metric ton and I’m supposed to be churning through them right now. Though my ton of books is certainly bigger than Remender’s ton of motherloving little white boxes.

Daniel Way’s new Thunderbolts run is “Colorful and expressive”, according to Comic Book Resources. Remember this quote, I’ll come back to it later.

One of the many, many lacklustre series that Marvel had before their beautiful new relaunch was an ongoing for a character you may have heard of called Deadpool. Written by Daniel Way, the series started off great with the titular anti-hero living up to his nickname “the Merc with a Mouth”. There were jokes, there were meta-jokes, and there were pancakes. Soooooo many pancakes.

Then, as time went on, the series stagnated. The jokes became old. The self-aware humour became stale. The comedy aspect got hyper-violent and incredibly goofy, all to the detriment of one of Marvel’s most beloved antagonist protagonists. The series came to be colloquially identified online as “Way-pool”, after its author’s surname, distinguished almost entirely from every other incarnation of the character by being stupid, irreverent and, in some cases, blatantly offensive. If there are any female readers who’ve managed to get through Way’s latter Deadpool books without feeling your feminism tracts start to ignite, please send me an email because I’m pretty sure you have iron constitution.

So the relaunch comes, and Daniel Way is given the new Thunderbolts book to write. For those not in the know, the Thunderbolts were a team of anti-heroes and outright villains who went around doing odd-jobs like killing baddies and squabbling with each other. I’m not hugely familiar with the team pre-NOW, but I’m willing to bet they never had Deadpool along before this point. If they did, I’m pretty sure Way would’ve been out on his ass for suggesting him as part of the new team.

Trying my best to keep an open mind, I dove into Thunderbolts: No Quarter with as little expectation as possible. After all, it was Daniel Way (a writer I can’t stand) doing a team of anti-heroes and supervillains (a story that is far better executed in books like Uncanny X-Force) with his version of Deadpool (who, as we’ve established, is kind of bordering on dad-joke levels of humourlessness) in addition to Red Hulk, Elektra, Venom and the Punisher. That concoction of foul demon seed and whale sperm couldn’t possibly be as bad as all that, right?

Oh, optimism. You are a bitch.

Let’s be blunt – there is no story here. Seriously. The half-assed aspect of “anti-heroes kick ass together” is so paper-thin that half the anti-heroes don’t show up for most of the book, and the ones that do have achingly awkward dialogue that makes them seem as lively and likely to get along as six swordfish in a bucket. Apart from that, there’s some plot about finding a guy who was a former Hulk villain and trying to get him to do something with a computer that isn’t entirely (or even partially) explained until literally five pages before the end. Oh, and the Punisher and Elektra are apparently f**king, and Deadpool has a crush on the latter.

The casualness and unexpected nature with which I dispensed that last tidbit should tell you a lot about the curveballs the story likes to throw at you from absolute thin air. Character motivations, internal plot twists and changes in nature seem to come out of the goddamn ether with absolutely zero expectation, but in the worst way possible. Since when has Deadpool had the hots for Elektra? Why the hell is Venom housebroken enough to work with a team without laying them low to his flying black symbiote spaghetti monster? And just where the hell does General Ross’ moustache go when he turns into Red Hulk? Is the ‘stache retreating into his body what gives him his arms as thick as a pair of copulating dolphins?

This review has seemed a bit muddled and all over the place, right? Well, so’s the damn book. The plot jumps around in medias res for absolutely no bloody reason, and it’s hard to stay invested in protagonists who are about as stable in characterisation and execution as Patrick Bateman suffering from Alzheimer’s. Adding to that the lack of a plot, an incredibly ridiculous midpoint monologue from Deadpool that makes Ctrl+Alt+Del‘s walls of text seem conservative and an ending that is just so pointless it doesn’t even bear giving a spoiler warning for – it concludes with the team having to get into a submarine to go find something, meaning lots and lots of that whole “six degrees of separation” wackiness that only someone as mind-bogglingly untalented as Daniel Way could come up with as a comedic device.

What’d I say at the beginning, that Way’s run is “Colorful and expressive”? I’ll give you the first part – there is certainly a shedload of colour on display, and all of it used to ill effect. Red seems to be the predominant palette, including an incredibly stupid new crimson skull to replace the usually-white one on the Punisher’s chest, and the skin tones of all the non-masked, non-Asian characters seem to switch between Latino and Edward Cullen at the drop of a hat. Steve Dillon doesn’t do a particularly memorable job on art duties here, giving us something serviceable but unremarkable.

The second part of that accolade, “expressive”, gets shot in the kneecaps through some entirely superfluous dialogue throughout. It doesn’t quite reach Tony Daniel levels of awfulness, but on the whole it’s just bland, flat and incredibly two-dimensional. The depth of every character (particularly and most heinously Venom) is about as shallow as a broken teacup, and dialogue is so standard they’d do a better job emoting through interpretive dance. The only real stand-out in this area for me is Deadpool, but, again, for entirely the wrong reasons.

You see, there’s a reason I didn’t like the latter parts of Daniel Way’s Deadpool run – the comedy, besides being flatter than a West German orchestra, got way too American. It started to remind me of really bad sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory and Mike and Molly, where the humour comes from slapstick, angst and plain dialogue. While I enjoy an unsophisticated laugh like everyone else, it doesn’t really work when the players talk to make themselves laugh in order to make you laugh.

Well, Daniel Way is nothing if not consistent – his Deadpool here is as annoying, slapsticky and underdeveloped as it was in his core run. All that wonderful depth and black comedy brought to him in Uncanny X-Force seems to have been conveniently left out, replaced with some truly facepalm-worthy plot about Deapdool wanting to bone Elektra but getting all pouty because the Punisher got there first. It only goes downhill from there.

At the end of the day, No Quarter is an entirely forgettable, entirely superfluous and entirely ridiculous entry into the Marvel NOW canon that should be grateful it’s not currently lying in the sewage outlet pipe beside my apartment block.

STORY: 1/5
ARTWORK: 2.5/5
DIALOGUE: 1/5

OVERALL: 4.5/15

BEST QUOTE: “Who gives a #$&% where pineapples grow?” – Deadpool

I am an Unorthodox Christian.

Whilst being christened under the Church of England and attending a public school with some of the most dogmatic Thursday-religion-class teachers I’ve ever suffered through might give me a great springboard towards becoming a forward-thinking, God-loving Christian without additional appellations, it wasn’t meant to be. The boring version is that there were personal issues and crises of faith during and post-High School, and in the end I came to the decision I believed there was a God (made up of only the better parts of his description), that a couple of the things in the Bible were alright, and that there was a Heaven. That was where I drew the line.

The biggest problem I find is that it’s difficult to reconcile the notion of a benevolent, loving, all-encompassing entity who also practices an almost dictatorial way of life that ensures only the best brown-nosers are ensured a place at the top when the Rapture comes. If God really does love each and every one of the delicate little snowflakes living in his planet-sized ant farm, why is he stricter than even the most stringent military procession in terms of how we live and how we die? If we’re meant to be free from the tyranny of sin, why is there a laundry list of protocols that determine what we are and aren’t allowed to do between cradle and grave? Doesn’t the idea of a strict adherence to rules not only defy the notion of free will and love of the world that we have ingrained in us since birth, but also creates a dichotomous entity in the form of our Father who art in Heaven, offering us the good afterlife if we toe the line downstairs?

Obviously the ideas of Christianity, as well as the arguments for and against, are far too vast and complex to be resolved succinctly over the course of a few paragraphs, or indeed within the pages of a book like Punk Rock Jesus. So put all my religious blathering aside for a while, and we’ll get into what you actually came here to read about.

The story, penned by Sean Murphy, is simple in premise but massively layered in execution; in a near-future where reality television is taken to its logical conclusion and becomes probably the most world-encompassing social presence since Facebook, a show company manages to create a clone of Jesus from DNA found on the Shroud of Turin implanted in a teenage virgin. The child is raised on a secret island as part of the “J2” show, which turns out to be the biggest ratings success ever (quoted as having the viewership of 27 Superbowls-worth of gormless social pollutants). Far from being a new Eden, the island and its master, Rick Slate, turn out to have less than savory plans for both the reborn messiah and his virgin mother, and things quickly spiral out of control.

The narrative follows years in the lives of several characters aside from the titular musically-influenced protagonist, showcasing not only the negative effects of both reality TV and the drive for bigger ratings, but also the extremes religion can go to in order to get their point across – both with disastrous results. The Punk Rock part comes in when, as a young adult, Jesus 2.0 joins a band to spread a message condemning the church, proclaiming his status as an atheist and inciting the people to rebel against those responsible for the reality show.

While it’s very easy for any creative or factual work to point at Christianity and label the Church as a bunch of child-molesting, moral-less thugs, it’s difficult to express disdain for their practices in an intelligent, grounded manner that still manages to have an impact without turning into a rambling author tract. Similarly, simply calling the money-hoarding masterminds behind Keeping Up with the Kardashians a load of talentless whores just doesn’t cut it as part of an intelligent and meaningful discourse. Both these points are masterfully executed by Punk Rock Jesus; points for and against both the church and the TV show are pulled off in a fashion that strongly, and intelligently, points out the minor and massive flaws inherent in both concepts. The scary dogma of the former and the hyper-fiscal drive of the latter are presented as their biggest (and, in some cases, most evil) traits, neither being shown as something to aspire to. The character dilemmas while interacting with both institutions also avoid the pitfalls of having a simplistic, one-sided disagreement with either one (that is, the characters don’t dislike either establishment simply because “they’re evil”).

To be succint, Punk Rock Jesus is fantastic. Utterly sublime, from start to finish. The plot is engrossing, the characters are fleshed out and believable in both flaws and strengths (including the truly morally reprehensible antagonist, who’s probably the most evil black-and-white-illustrated comic villain since The Governor), and there’s very little of the book that feels extraneous. The arguments against the church and reality TV, clearly fuelled by Murphy’s own thoughts on both matters, manage to be presented intelligently while still smacking the crap out of their intended targets in a way that satisfies the reader immensely. In addition, if you really don’t see the appeal of the new messiah being a mohawked, anti-establishment punk rocker who leads his fans the way a trigger-happy American General might lead his monkeys into a third-world country, then it’s probably time to reassess your life choices.

The artwork is great, but at times a bit confusing. One of the major problems faced by a black-and-white story is that the visual layers can get confusing if there’s not much definition between them, making important elements fade into the background of associated paletting. It’s not a big complaint, but there were a few moments where people or things I was supposed to notice prominently seemed to blend into the rest of the landscape. It’s also difficult to differentiate characters if they have similar faces and there’s no distinct colour variation in their outfits, which is a similar problem The Walking Dead faced. Again, not a huge issue, but it does throw you out of the reading a little when the awesome big guy character you’re meant to be liking turns out to actually be the evil big guy character who looks like his evil twin brother and is busy throwing another sackful of children into a trash compactor.

Where the artwork falters, though, the dialogue compensates. At times the tone can shift a little too awkwardly into black comedy from the serious roots of the piece, and you might think the inclusion of a punk-rocking Jesus after the opening first half of emotionally-charged world-building is a little incongruous, but overall it blends together beautifully in a way I’d not have thought possible. There’s wit, there’s drama, there’s some really heartwarming moments and there’s more obscenities than an episode of South Park dedicated to fornicating.

I really get the impression that Sean Murphy has been working on this for a long while as a labour of love, something he says as much in the afterword, and it really shows. I’d almost go so far as to call it a comic book equivalent of Inception; it’s a magnum opus, lovingly crafted from the ground up and polished long before it ever hit the media circuit, backed by a story and characters that the creator really seems invested in. Punk Rock Jesus is one of those rare delights where incongruity and social commentary fuse together to create something fantastic, and the end result is a tale that left me thoroughly satisfied.

Now if you’ll excuse me, as an Unorthodox Christian it’s time for my daily prayer to Batman.

STORY: 5/5
ARTWORK: 3.5/5
DIALOGUE: 5/5

OVERALL: 13.5/15

BEST QUOTE: “HELLO AMERICA! The most Christian nation on Earth! The one that God has blessed! This is Jesus Christ, coming to you live from Lower Manhattan, telling you all GO F**K YOURSELF! JESUS HATES YOU!” – Chris.

Hi, DC?

Yeah, this is Marvel. We win.


I imagine this must’ve been a phonecall made somewhere along the line after both companies’ respective rebranding-relaunchy-rebooty things. Seriously, I’ve now checked out roughly half a dozen of Marvel’s new NOW books, and compared to the first half dozen New 52 stories I read it seems that Marvel have a significantly stronger upper hand here.

It may be complete, blind luck that I managed to snag titles that kicked ass all in one go (or the really bad stuff hasn’t been released yet, in which case I’ll gladly bake some humble pie and beg Batman to take me back), but so far Marvel’s new offerings have been awesome. Part of it’s because the writers are top-notch, part of it’s because the company seems to be (at least so far) treating their characters with respect, and a big part of it is because previous continuity still matters a damn. DC Comics might be raking in the big bucks in the comic world right now, but Marvel are kicking ass and taking names to such a degree with storylines and characters at the moment that I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney buys  DC out and fuses the two companies together. You could call it MC – Marvel Comics.

Oh, wait.

So while I may have tipped my hand a bit early with this review, allow me to say that Jonathan Hickman’s new take on the Avengers is frikkin’ sweet. I could just wrap it up there and give no further elucidation, but I wouldn’t be the semi-professional comic critic I pretend to be if I didn’t at least go through the motions a little.

Following a need to reinvent the characters we like, as well as pare down the truly immense roster of members that’s as easy to keep balanced as a truck on a volcano lip, Hickman cuts the team down to the core six from the films – Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hulk and Hawkeye. After a mission to a terraformed Mars ends with all the heroes bar Cap getting captured by the creepiest evolutionist cult to exist since the Four Horsemen in Uncanny X-Force, the team expands by taking on some former members – like old-hands Wolverine and Spider-Man – and some newbies that most casual and even long-time fans, myself included, wouldn’t know at first blush. I mean, how many of you have heard of Sunspot or Cannonball?

Don’t answer that question.

After the initial arc dealing with said cult, the book does one of the most intelligent Avengers moves
I’ve ever read; namely, instead of having six million heroes on the page at once in each issue, it takes key members of the roster and explores them for a while. A handy little diagram, nicknamed the Avengers Machine (pictured right), shows at the beginning of each story which particular members they’ll be focussing on for that issue. On top of that, we get some more in-depth character exploration with one or two of the newbies each time, since we all know by now the deeper motivations of characters like Iron Man and Hulk.

It’s a really unique take on an Avengers title, showing us the underdogs alongside the old guard while still presenting a story that feels fresh and looks awesome. In a clear break from recycled stories by long-time scribes like Brian Bendis and Dan Slott, where a bunch of heroes show up and kick the ass of the threat-of-the-week, Hickman gives us the superhero element alongside ideas of metaphysics, human psychology and creation myths that seem inspired by his indie work on titles like Red Mass for Mars and Pax Romana. The result is a story that, for me, was never boring, kept me engaged and had a great variety of unique qualities to offer as far as superhero stories go.

The artwork looks aged, but that’s not a hit against it; I mean to say it looks like a weathered, towering oak, aged by time but no less imposing. Jerome Opena and Adam Kubert do a great job at giving us the old in a new way, and while there is a clear distinction in palette and shape between the old Avengers and the newer ones it doesn’t get too jarring. There are a few moments where battle scenes can get visually confusing and colours can overlap a little, but overall it looks fantastic.

Plus, they seem to make Captain America look a little more grizzled and a little less cherry-cheeked here, which I kind of like. He looks wearier, has got more stubble than usual and has a bit of a gaunter jawline thing going on. That, combined with his newer costume, really brings him back to the soldier roots that defined him as a character – he ain’t shiny and clean, he’s gritty and ready for a fight. That’s the kind of Cap I haven’t seen since Ed Brubaker’s Winter Soldier, and it was a nice little touch.

Dialogue is pretty good, though I’ve yet to read any that feels specifically Hickman-esque. Right now we seem to be mostly getting character voices derived from who they’ve been for the past seven decades without any real new input from the author, or anything that feels distinctly like a Hickman line, but that’s ok. This is still early days, and I’m hoping that further down the line we’ll start getting characters with some more Hickman bite in their dialogue.

Overall, Avengers World kicks ass and takes names we may not have heard before, and is definitely worth your time. As Avengers stories go it’s a very intelligent read, which might put off someone looking for a good, honest superhero punch-em-up, but if you’re after a slightly denser read then it behooves you to check it out. If nothing else, it’ll make you question just how a character called Sunspot thought it was a good idea to name himself after something that causes cancer.

STORY: 5/5
ARTWORK: 5/5
DIALOGUE: 4/5

OVERALL: 14/15

BEST QUOTE: “Hey…when we get home, remind me to put “get pies” on Jarvis’ to-do list.” – Iron Man

With a movie, at time of writing, out in less than a week, as well as a host of inclusions in additional series’ like Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, it seems like Iron Man is everywhere. The Crimson Avenger (though the first part of that descriptor ain’t entirely true right now) has almost become the poster child for the Marvel Universe the way Batman proudly represents DC, especially since casual fans still seem to be giving the cold shoulder to jingoists like Captain America and fantasy Norse playboys like Thor. Not that Iron Man representing the Marvel U is a bad thing, but it does start to raise the same issues Batman has in that his appearances become bland and the overall experience becomes incredibly thin since he’s everywhere now.

It also means his narratives come under closer scrutiny, since reviewers like me need to wonder if Iron Man is the best choice of story to rope in new readers who see the super-suit and rush off to the nearest comic store. Are fans getting the hero they deserve, or has mass-market appeal diluted Iron Man to the point of Tony Daniel levels of poor dialogue, flimsy characterisation and plot so far up its own ass that its in danger of choking on tonsils?

Following on the heels of Matt Fraction’s landmark run, the relaunched Iron Man starts with Tony Stark discovering that the Extremis virus (which you may remember from this excellent reboot/origin story), the basis behind his current Iron Man tech and a key element of his recent suit-building escapades, has been stolen by terrorists and is being utilised to create crazy armour-clad villains based off Arthurian legend. During the course of this brief narrative, Tony puts on as many different-coloured Iron Man suits as he can get away with in order to dismantle the terrorist operation, recover Extremis and quite possibly remove almost every bit of character development he gained throughout the recent Fraction storyline.

While Believe is by no means a bad story at all, the biggest gripe I have with it is that the previous 11 volumes worth of Matt Fraction’s story seems to mean almost diddly-bupkiss to the current story. The deep and tragic elements of Tony Stark, the broken man beneath the bravado, the strange yet comforting relationship with Pepper Potts, all that harrowing characterisation he evolved during World’s Most Wanted when he was literally fighting for his life…almost all of it’s gone. Tony’s gone full-playboy in this one, probably taking cues from the film universe version with none of the undertones of damage, and there’s scant evidence to suggest he and Pepper ever had a relationship. That’s like crafting an entry for the Guinness World Records Largest Pie Ever competition, only to have it eaten by Homer Simpson and a team of rabid beavers.

So in that respect, this makes Believe an absolutely excellent introductory volume for new readers – if you already know the origin story, but by now we can all probably sing it by rote. As much as the eschewing of Matt Fraction’s brilliant work irks me somewhat, I’ve got to admit Believe is pretty kickass. There’s a good balance of action and character moments (even if the former does reach some pretty ridiculous heights, like battling the aforementioned Arthurian supervillains), there’s not a hell of a lot of prior reading necessary to get what’s going on, and the artwork by Greg Land (despite what people may think of him) is pretty great. The narrative does stumble a little during a chapter that tries to blend a Skyrim dungeon with the Cult of Cthulhu, but overall succeeds at holding attention and kicking ass.

The dialogue – kinda flimsy. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Kieron Gillen, but even he manages to get some oomph into his scripting every now and then. This just feels kinda lifeless, like there’s some good speaking going on but nothing that really jumps out at me the way writers like Scott Snyder and Brian K. Vaughan do. It’s kinda hard to describe without going into depth of particular scenes, which’ll probably bore the few of you keen enough to read this review, so just take my word that Gillen’s dialogue is kinda lacking. But hey, you could do worse – you could have Tony Da…actually never mind, that riff’s getting a little overplayed now.

In the end, Iron Man: Believe is a good jumping-on point, a solid story with some good artwork and passable dialogue. If you’re reading this after seeing Iron Man 3 and thinking “Oh wow, I’d sure love to be reading more of that stuff right now!”, you could definitely do worse. If, however, you’re gunning for something with a bit more depth and flesh on its bones, I’d point you towards Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man run instead – if it hadn’t been retconned because more than five minutes without new readers have passed.

STORY: 3.5/5
ARTWORK: 4/5
DIALOGUE: 2.5/5

OVERALL: 10/15

BEST QUOTE: “The thought does occur…”Lightbender” is a very silly name for such an awesome toy.” – Iron Man

So we’re well and truly into the releases of Marvel’s new NOW initiative that portends to be a relaunch rather than DC’s ill-advised reboot in this Golden Age of appealing to as many demographics, fan cultures and bank accounts as possible. It’d be rather bland of me to simply take the same route I did with the New 52 and have a look at the good ones along with a few wildcards, but since I’m not one for innovation at the moment – or, rather, not one for shifting what few innovation genes I possess away from the stories I’m currently writing – let’s go with the tried-and-true, ok?

To be honest, there’s not an awful lot in Marvel NOW that I’m sufficiently married to the concept to review for. Old-hand staples like Captain America, Iron Man and X-Men are all well and good, but at least 50% of the series on offer appeal to me in no way whatsoever. Granted, DC managed to get me into Superman and Teen Titans of all mother-loving things, so I’m definitely open to trying something I haven’t experienced before. But there isn’t much that really tickles my intrigue to get me interested in checking them out. I mean, I’d rather ingest varnish than dive into a new Fantastic Four hack-rag.

One of the few exceptions to this is the new Hawkeye series. Fans of Joss Whedon’s masterpiece movie might remember him as that one guy that Loki possessed with a fondness for arrows and Bond one-liners. In this new story he’s less a wisecracking Avenger and more a wisecracking street-level spy with a greater fondness for arrows and Bond one-liners and a distinct love of everything purple.

The story is, summarily, quite simple; in his off-hours from saving the world Clint Barton uses the Hawkeye monniker – sans superhero outfit – to take on jobs that are kind of a cross between James Bond, Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher, all the while teamed up with his sidekick-come-successor Kate Bishop and clothing himself in any form of purple he can possibly find. Seriously, there’s a scene where he’s interviewed by Captain America (who has a bright blue and red costume, mind) and the most distinctively coloured elements on the page are his royal purple Converses. Not that I’m complaining, just saying this comic would’ve been really expensive to print back in the Elizabethan era when all that purple ink was the same cost as a small island.

Within said simplicity lies a keen undertone of life on the street well apart from the perceived glamour of being an Avenger. Barton is at once an approachable and yet distinctly alienating character, with both elements juxtaposed and explored quite nicely through his relationship with newbie Hawkeye and almost like the relationship a companion has in Doctor Who, except this companion knows her way around a bow and looks good in a villain’s outfit. I also presume she doesn’t have incredibly annoying and singularly-hinted accent.

resident deadpan snarker Bishop. It’s

The point I’m trying eloquently and laboriously to get to is that the book is really well-balanced between action and character development. There’s lots of good fight sequences and stunts that wouldn’t be out of place in a Die Hard film, and the soft, gooey centre of the unguarded Barton in-between missions is enough to make women go “Awww!” and men laugh derisively at his perceived pussy status. It’s got hints of darker goings-on but never reaches anything bleak or depressing, and the lightness present throughout never reaches absurd or overly-comic-book-ish proportions. It’s like a really well-cooked meal with perfect appetizer and nice wine supplement. It’s also really prettily laid out on the plate, and now I’ve made myself really hungry.

The artwork by David Aja and Javier Pulido kicks lots of ass, and is strongly reminiscent of greats like Alex Maleev (Daredevil), Michael Lark (Daredevil) and Paolo Rivera (umm…Daredevil) in terms of minimalist yet punchy artistry. If I have an issue with the art it’s that Barton all too often doesn’t stand out on the palette when he’s not wearing purple, but I guess that’s part of the theme – Hawkeye, when not with the Avengers, is able to blend into society in a way well-known figureheads like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers can’t. If that was the intent behind the choice of Aja and Pulido, then more power to ’em. Still looks good, even if occasionally you get more pastel colours than Ned Flanders’ wardrobe.

The script is incredibly tight, like a corset fastened by a hydropress. The dialogue feels realistic and like things people would actually say, there’s some nice snark in Barton’s inner monologuing that doesn’t feel too navel-gazey or like he’s trying to rip off Sam Spade, and there’s some quite witty banter exchanged between the two Hawkeyes as they go off on missions together. Also (hope you’re reading this, Allan Heinberg), Kate Bishop is written as a much more intelligent and involving character with dialogue that doesn’t come pre-packaged with enough angst to produce a Linkin Park album. Writer Matt Fraction seems to have a bit of difficulty distinguishing the relationship between Kate and Clint at times, alternating brother-sister, mentor-student opposite-aged-love-interests, so a bit of distinction in later books would be good.

On the whole, as one of the first entrants out of the gate for Marvel NOW you could certainly do a lot worse than picking up the new Hawkeye series. It’s a wee bit short, but it’ll certainly leave you wanting more. Kind of like what the ending of each my reviews fails to do.

STORY: 4.5/5
ARTWORK: 4/5
DIALOGUE: 4/5

OVERALL: 12.5/15

BEST QUOTE: “Okay…this looks bad.” – Clint Barton

In one corner: the first contemporary presence of DC’s premier superhero team in current continuity, fresh from the flashback volume establishing how the band got together.

In the other corner: a team of Avengers based entirely off those featured in Joss Whedon’s 2012 masterpiece, but still remaining within regular Marvel continuity (so no Scarlett Johansson, unfortunately).

Both feature their current main team lineups, both are intended to appeal to new and old readers, and both are written and illustrated by some of the top talent from their respective comic book companies. Also, they’re both really bad books.

But which team comes out on top, and which ends up seeming worse than Daniel Way’s Deadpool run?

STORY

The premise behind Avengers Assemble could not be more simple if it was a three-word cliff note written on a piece of toast. While sticking to the established Marvel continuity as opposed to spinning out of the film ‘verse, the team lineup from the movie get together (for reasons never clearly explained) to fight the latest incarnation of supervillain team The Zodiac. Oh, and the Guardians of the Galaxy and [SPOILER] show up. That’s about it really.

ARTWORK

DIALOGUE

The finale featuring the much-touted kiss between Superman and Wonder Woman tries so damn hard to be poignant and connective, but fails utterly. For one thing, as with the Trevor and Wonder Woman example above, there’s almost nothing to suggest either of the superheroes had feelings for each other than went beyond the friend zone, and yet here it’s presented as if they’ve been making eyes at each other for a little while. There’s too much tell and not enough show, ironically, so as with Trevor I have little to no emotional investment in either of them as characters or as part of a relationship like this. Hell, Alana and Marko from Saga managed to make me care about them as a couple in less time than this book took to hook Supes and WW up. Give us some background, especially since you want us to assume everything before 2011 never happened.

WINNER: