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Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers – New Avengers Vol. 3-4 (Hardcover) (Review/Retrospective)

This is the eighth in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s continuity (and, in particular at their “Avengers” franchise) over the past five or so years, as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity.

And now we’re entering a continuity-heavy area. You have been warned. As if we’ve been in a continuity-free zone for the past couple of weeks, remarks you, trusted reader. This is where my little experiment to venture deep into the heart of Marvel’s comic book continuity becomes a little bit more complicated and a little bit more difficult. Whereas the first part of Bendis’ run on New Avengers was relatively stand-alone (while still drawing on decades of events and continuity), it’s at this point the series becomes irrevocably intertwined with the on-going events at the heart of the Marvel Universe. It’s been described as “a spine”, and that’s pretty much exactly what it is: it’s a support structure which ties together the big Marvel events year-on-year, a thread that joins events like Civil War and Secret Invasion and Siege to each other and the greater fictional universe.

Wolverine learns the hard way not to bring claws to a gun fight...

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X-Men: Messiah Complex (Review/Retrospective)

This is the seventh in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s core continuity (and in particular their “Avengers” franchise) over the past five or so years, as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity.

It has been commonly accepted that the “golden days” of X-Men crossovers are behind us. Of course, “golden days” is a subjective term – for every Age of Apocalypse, there was an Onslaught Saga – but there’s no way to argue that the mutants didn’t dominate Marvel’s output in the nineties. One would have thought that with Bryan Singer’s X-Men helping give birth to the superhero genre, this past decade might have been an even better one for the franchise, but it was not to be. In fact, The Avengers seem to have replaced the X-Men as the engine driving Marvel’s storytelling universe. Some might suggest that it is so blatant that it looks intentional (prompting a movie-related “conspiracy theory”), although Marvel have casually denied it – with vice president Tom Brevoort stating “these things tend to go in waves”. However, Messiah Complex is the first of a series of crossovers with the X-Men titles following House of Mwhich would chart the franchise’s gradual return to the status quo.

Cyclops has warmed to Ms. Frost…

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Leapin’ Lizards: Spider-Man’s Next Opponent Revealed…

It was recently revealed that the villain of the Spider-Man reboot would be The Lizard as played by Rhys Ifans. While the presence of Andrew Garfield and Rhys Ifans in the film run the risk of turning the movie into a British invasion, I’m actually relatively impressed by the way that this film is coming together – the casting of Emma Stone and the hiring of director Marc Webb have helped greatly. However, I remain somewhat skeptical of the film – given the nature of its production, the fact that it’s a reboot and unfortunate departure of Sam Raimi. So it comes as something of a bittersweet pill that the villain is named as Spider-Man’s long-term reptile opponent. Apparently Raimi had a long and on-going argument with the studio about the character, him wanting to use the man-sized reptile adversary, but the studio balking over it.

It's not easy being green

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Annihilation – Vol. 1-3 (Hardcover) (Review/Retrospective)

This is the fifth in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s mainstream shared universe over the past five or so years – primarily with a focus on The Avengers as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity. This is more of a tangential entry, though, as we’re going into space with marvel’s “cosmic” titles. But still, sometimes you need to go away to come back.

When people think of the Marvel crossover events of the past decade, they’ll name ones like Civil War or Secret Invasion or House of M. Very few will mention Annihilation, Marvel’s first big cosmic crossover event of the past ten years, but those few will generally speak quite highly of it.

The Silver Surfer goes for gold...

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Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers – New Avengers Vol. 1-2 (Hardcover) (Review/Retrospective)

This is the first in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s “Avengers” franchise over the past five or so years, as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity. Get an overview of what I’m trying to take a look at here.

Alright. I figure I sound a bit hypocritical complaining about the impact of big events on Marvel’s storytelling continuity without reading said big events. Well, actually, I don’t think I’m a hypocrite – I think it’s perfectly reasonably that a reader should be able to pick up Ed Brubaker’s Captain America without having to worry about Mark Millar’s massive Civil War crossover which they either don’t know enough to care about or know enough not to care about. However, I feel like maybe – just maybe – I should try to ride this “cross-continuity” thing out just once and see if the story somehow justifies the damage it causes to the cohesion of individual runs.  Yes, I’m going to jump head-first into the event-populated minefield of continuity which is recent Marvel history, and I will be using New Avengers as a checklist to that. I’m going down the rabbit hole, following the arc from Civil War through to Siege.

Sentry is responsible for the Carnage in this run...

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A Sight for Thor Eyes: Thoughts on the Set Design of Thor…

The first on-set photographs of Kenneth Branagh’s Thor have arrived on-line. And a lot of people are, understandably, turned off. I’ll be honest, I can see where they’re coming from: it’s camp and kitsch in a way that would allow it to serve as a backdrop for an Abba music video – and that ain’t the demographic we’re going for here. Anthony Hopkins looks like he has fashioned his eyepatch out of Ferraro Roche wrappers. However I, ever the contrarian in small and insignificant ways, love it. Let’s call it the Donner factor. Because that’s much more sophisticated than “the Superman factor”.

I think that style is quite super...

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Has Jonah Hex Killed the Comic Book B-Movie?

The reviews for Jonah Hex are not good. The box office for Jonah Hex is equally not good. I think it’s safe to say that there won’t be a sequel. But are the implications deeper than that? I’ve certainly read some suggestions that this might not just be a bad result for the bad ass, facially-scarred cowboy, but for fans of minor comic book characters in general:

Remember all those ambitious plans DC and Marvel’s film crews had to use their massive character libraries as movie R&D? After sub par returns for Kick-Ass, The Losers (two movies that deserved better box-office) and with Jonah Hex a near-certain bomb, fans may want to dial down those dreams of an Ant-Man or Booster Gold movie.

When the bell finally tolls in Hollywood for films based on B-list comic book characters – and you can bet Quasimodo is warming up in the bell tower — you might be able to blame Jonah Hex for being the tipping point.

So, has Jonah Hex killed any chance for lesser known characters on the big screen?

Has Jonah put a Hex on less popular comic book characters?

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The Immortal Iron Fist Omnibus

My name is Daniel Rand. I am the Immortal Iron Fist. And though it may be in chaos, my world just got a little bigger. My sense of self has grown ten thousandfold.

– Danny Rand reflects on the first half of his run

Who the hell is the Immortal Iron Fist, I hear you ask? It’s a good question. The character traces his roots back to 1974, with Marvel attempting to work off the success of the period’s kung-fu films with a line of martial arts comics. Just like they used to have western comics and war comics and so on. However, the character – despite enjoying success at the time and creating a vocal supportive fan base – never really breached pop culture consciousness in the same way that the truly big comic book characters did. He remained mostly a cult figure, beloved of some and virtually unknown to others. Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker, two very talented comic book creators who had recently found a home at Marvel, decided to stage a revival of the character in the middle of the last decade. Apparently Marvel was so happen with the result that they omnibus’ed it, releasing it in one giant collection.

Okay, maybe ‘giant’ is exaggerating, but it’s certainly impressive.

Everybody was kung-fu fighting...

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Iron Man: Extremis (Review/Retrospective)

John Pillinger says the Iron Man suit is a military application. I told him he was wrong. I’m trying to decide if I was lying. I’ve never sold any element of the Iron Man to the military. It’s used for extraordinary rescue and response situations. Iron Man saves lives. Iron Man used to represent the future.

– Tony Stark considers his legacy

What’s the Iron Man for, Tony?

– Sal cuts straight to the heart of the matter

The more Iron Man stories I read – and the more movies I see as well – it appears that Tony Stark as a lost individual isn’t a metaphor, it’s more of a metaphysical observation. He’s typically well written and carefully considered (of course, there are glaring exceptions), but he rarely seems to find himself involved in any particularly strong narratives. His appeal is centred entirely on the character’s charm, charisma and pride of place as one of fiction’s most famous and prestigious futurists. I don’t mean this as a slight on Extremis by any means – in fact, Warren Ellis’ revised mission statement for the true man of tomorrow may be the best Iron Man story I’ve read.

What is Tony Stark made of?

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Daredevil by Ed Brubaker Omnibus, Vol. I

It’s pretty tough taking over a beloved cult title from a run which certainly measures among its best. Daredevil has long been a testing ground for many an iconic comic book writer, but Brian Michael Bendis left the book seeming to have done the impossible. Depending on who you asked, he had either come extremely close to matching the seminal run by Frank Miller, or had simply left it in the dust behind him. So taking over from Bendis would be no easy task. Thankfully, Ed Brubaker is more than up to the task.

Brubaker dives headfirst into his run...

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