What kinds of crazy super heroic comic books could possibly make me come about my blogging hibernation? Well, I think its safe to say that we all know the answer to that one question, now don't we.
Secret Invasion # 1. Yes. It is true. I have just read Secret Invasion # 1 and now I'm gonna throw a bunch of hate all over it 'cause how we do when we do it. Where can we start on this? From what you heard (if you have not had the pleasure of reading it) its got all kinds of your typical Brian Michael Bendis speechifying in the word balloons. And of course, its completely foreign and alien to those who have not been following along this little ride that Marvel's Golden Boy has taken the Marvel U on. This things that people say are unfalse! You can't just pick up the Bible and start reading at Revelations, my friends! You gotta get on at Genesis and see how that shit rides.
Luckily, I'm one of those morons that starting reading this Marvel Bible at the beginning. I may have skipped a couple chapters of Numbers and Deuterononmy(sp?), but I got the main picture all mapped out in my head. Something has been amiss for awhile now and today is the day that we take a moment to sort this crap out.
Having read this first issue I have decided that this isn't a very good book. Why?
Bendis can't do melodramatic. He just can't. His forte is the half-assed comedic scripting that he culled from Aaron Sorkin's assorted TV dramas and faux-cheekiness of the WB's Tuesday night line up, with the "realistic" stutter of some guy named David Mamet. Its HBO Sopranos Cool disseminated through the likes Hank Pym and Luke Cage. Every character is smart and funny, except for those who TRY to be smart and funny, only to their own mid-fight embarassment. More often than not, it is pretty damn boring.
From the moment that Iron Man opens his stupid mouth on the first page, to the shocking reveal at the end, everything comes with a self-imposed weight that does not deliver in any kind of convincing manner whatsoever. When Tony Stark tells us readers that he's telling us the biggest secret there is in the world, the eyes only roll.
We've seen this all before. It was called Civil War and it had heroes fighting other heroes. Throwing in the added bonus that some of these heroes are really just aliens in disguise makes it a little more interesting. I just can't help but think that its a premise that is not in capable hands. And that feeling seems to permeate alot of what Marvel has been putting out the past two years. These are great ideas that I could do a million times better. And I'm a horrible writer.
But I'll be around until the end, if only to give me something to hate about.
Now the new All Star Superman # 10? That's a great book. Everything that Secret Invasion # 1 did wrong, All Star Superman # 10 did right. Each page is packed with something new. We aren't just flipping through a comic book about Superman, we're turning a new corner with him. Its all ground that we have traveled before. We just have a better guide than we did last time. We have a writer that is able to make us stop and look at everything differently. This is, without a doubt, a Superman tale that will be remembered for a long, long time by fans of both super hero and non-super hero genres.
But I'm feeling like you all knew that, right? Right.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
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