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Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s Thor – The Might Thor Omnibus, Vol. 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Thor: The Dark World towards the end of next month, we’ll be looking at some Thor and Avenger-related comics throughout September. Check back weekly for the latest reviews and retrospectives.

I am a massive fan of The Mighty Thor. There’s just something so clever and playful about the idea of a classic Norse deity reimagined as a Marvel superhero, a self-aware take on the whole “modern myth” approach to American comic book storytelling that it’s hard not to love. Indeed, I would rank portions of Lee and Kirby’s work on Thor among the best of their output from the Silver Age, a truly epic large-scale epic fantasy narrative that isn’t anchored or tethered to any limitations beyond the imaginations of those working on it.

While The Fantastic Four is a lot more consistent and a lot more important in the grand scheme of comic book history, Thor is a bit rockier. It took Lee and Kirby a considerable amount of time to find their creative voice on Thor – a difficulty compounded by the fact that heavy work loads on other Marvel often forced the duo to delegate the early issues of the book to other writers and artists. As a result, this mammoth tome of Thor serves more as a learning curve, building towards a point where the duo will have figured out quite how to tell compelling and exciting stories featuring the God of Thunders.

Taking the hammer for a spin...

Taking the hammer for a spin…

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Rick Remender’s Run on Secret Avengers – Avengers vs. X-Men (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Thor: The Dark World towards the end of next month, we’ll be looking at some Thor and Avenger-related comics throughout September. Check back weekly for the latest reviews and retrospectives.

Secret Avengers manages one of the strongest tie-ins to Avengers vs. X-Men. I will confess that I am not normally a fan of comic book event tie-ins. They tend to distract from on-going narratives crafted by long-term writers in order to assure a cynical short-term sales boost. At worst, they can feel like vacuous filler, comics full of nonsense that are impossible to decipher unless you’re reading the giant crossover of the month. Both Ed Brubaker’s Captain America and Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man lost a lot of momentum thanks to crossovers.

On the other hand, I’ll concede that good writers can shrewdly use crossovers to tell their own stories. Perhaps the most obvious example is Alan Moore’s wonderful Swamp Thing tie-in to Crisis on Infinite Earths – stories that can be read (and be quite entertaining) on their own terms, without requiring the reader to constantly flick back or forth. Kieron Gillen’s Uncanny X-Men tie-in to Avengers vs. X-Men manages to retain its own identity and tell its own story, and Rick Remender’s Secret Avengers makes a valiant attempt.

Into the fire...

Into the fire…

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Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Don Heck’s Avengers – Avengers Omnibus, Vol. 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Thor: The Dark World towards the end of next month, we’ll be looking at some Thor and Avenger-related comics throughout September. Check back weekly for the latest reviews and retrospectives.

It’s always fascinating to go back and read the original sixties Marvel comic books, to get a sense of just how influential or informative they were on the generations of writers and artists who followed. While it’s not quite as spectacular a mess as The Incredible Hulk or The X-Men, I’ll admit that I never entirely warmed to the classic version of The Avengers. I like select stories – Roy Thomas’ Kree-Skrull War, Starlin’s Infinity trilogy – but, as a whole, these classic Avengers comics never really grabbed me.

Don’t get me wrong. These are massively iconic and influential books, and they’re well constructed, laying down a blueprint for decades of adventures to follow. There’s a sense of wry self-awareness here, and there’s no denying that these are vitally important classic superhero comics books. However, I could just never bring myself to love them.

Holding it all together...

Holding it all together…

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Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye (Review)

Posted on September 5, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Thor: The Dark World towards the end of next month, we’ll be looking at some Thor and Avenger-related comics throughout September. Check back weekly for the latest reviews and retrospectives.

Ultimate Comics: Hawkeye is pretty much a companion piece to Jonathan Hickman’s Ultimate Comics: Ultimates run. Unlike other miniseries like Ultimate Comics: Thor or Ultimate Comics: Captain America, Hawkeye isn’t designed to be read on its own. It is clearly intended as a story to be read in parallel with Hickman’s on-going Ultimates narrative, unfolding at the same time alongside that particular story. As such, it’s a weird miniseries to read on its own terms, doing a rather excellent job of fleshing out the global scale of Hickman’s Ultimates work, but never really working on its own terms.

Broken arrow...

Broken arrow…

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Watch! New Thor: The Dark World Trailer!

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Darren

I’m looking forward to Thor: The Dark World, if only because (somewhat controversially) I think that Kenneth Branagh’s Thor is the best of Marvel Studios’ films to date. Branagh isn’t back directing, but I’m always a sucker for high-concept fantasy and a wonderful cast. From the looks of it, Thor: The Dark World is really cashing in on this year’s hip new cinematic trend: destroying London. It joins Red 2, The Fast and the Furious 6, Star Trek: Into Darkness, among others, in laying waste to the capital.

The Dark World features returning performers Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba and Anthony Hopkins, which is reason enough to watch. Add in Christopher Eccleston and I’m intrigued.

Anyway, the traielr is below. Check it out.

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Watch! Thor: The Dark World Trailer!

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Darren

Look! It’s Great Britain! Isn’t that so fantastical and surreal, arguably as strange as any of the nine worlds?

The first teaser for Thor: The Dark World has arrived. I’d be lying if I wasn’t a little disappointed. I’ve made no secret that I think that Branagh’s Thor is the best of the films Marvel has produced, and I’m wary of trying to use some television directors to offer a large-scale fantasy. Still, while the trailer seems a bit jumpy and jumbled, there are some nice things. I like that Asgard seems to be getting its design tips from S.H.I.E.L.D. and that they seem to have taken some trouble to ensure Loki will feel right at home in a whited-out holding cell. And Anthony Hopkins’ narration is as wonderful as ever.

Anyway, check out the trailer and let me know what you think.

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Stan Lee’s Iron Man – The Invincible Iron Man Omnibus, Vol. 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 10, 2013 by Darren

To get ready for Iron Man 3, we’ll be taking a look at some Iron Man and Avengers stories, both modern and classic. We hope to do two or three a week throughout the month, so check back regularly for the latest update.

Working in collaboration with a stable of fantastic artists, Stan Lee created so many iconic characters and franchises at Marvel Comics that you could easily believe that everything he touched turned to gold. His work on The Fantastic Four, Thor and The Avengers with Jack Kirby so perfectly captured the sci-fi spirit of the sixties, and his creation of The Amazing Spider-Man with Steve Ditko redefined comic books, so it’s hard not to imagine that everything Lee set his mind to worked out perfectly.

Of course, inevitably, there were books that didn’t quite work right out of the gate. While his first reboot of Captain America was so awkward that he had to retroactively re-write the stories to feature a crazed Captain America impersonator, a lot of these titles were given the time and space necessary to try to figure out how to make them work. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Lee was quite sentimental towards some of his creations, with the awkward development history of The Incredible Hulk suggesting that Lee was going to try to figure out any way to make that character gel.

The Invincible Iron Man was never quite that troublesome, but he also never entirely clicked under Lee’s pen. While none of the character’s re-tools and re-workings are as severe as the kind of things that Marvel tried to do with the Hulk, there’s a very clear sense – reading this mammoth collection of Tales of Suspense short stories – that Lee wasn’t entirely sure about how to write Iron Man.

I am Iron Man!

I am Iron Man!

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12 Movie Moments of 2012: Throwing the Toys Together (The Avengers)

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Darren

As well as counting down the top twelve films, I’m also going to count down my top twelve movie related “moments” of 2012. The term “moment” is elastic, so expect some crazy nonsense here. And, as usual, I accept that my taste is completely absurd, so I fully expect you to disagree. With that in mind, this is #9…

The Avengers had its share of problems – it was weirdly paced; the Hulk’s character arc seemed to come a bit out of left field; Loki had no real sense of motivation; the film effectively undermined the wonderful ending to Thor; it didn’t really deal with any of the questions raised by Nick Fury’s actions; and Disney insisted that we call it Marvel’s Avengers Assemble in this part of the world, in case my grandmother might show up and wonder where “the nice chap with the umbrella” had gone. However, it also had its strengths, and these strengths were rooted in the fact that director Joss Whedon was keen not overly intellectualise the premise or the characters, and accepted the glee of knocking all those iconic toys together.

avengers15

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Meme of the Moment: Honest Trailer for The Avengers

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Darren

Readers will know that I’m a big fan of geeky stuff. So I thought I’d pass this on. It’s Screen Junkies’ surprisingly reflective commentary on The Avengers, which opened up 2012’s blockbuster season with a bang. While I enjoyed it, I wasn’t as much of a fan of it as most, and a lot of the reasons are covered in the trailer. (In particular, the fact it completely invalidates the ending to Thor, the fact that Loki has no motivation for what he’s doing, and the contrivance of his plan to bring together the only people who could beat him.) It doesn’t quite cover the somewhat thematic and structural problems raised by Nick Fury, which the film alludes to, but never addresses  – but it’s all in good fun. And well worth a look.

Although, to be honest, gentle tongue-in-cheek ribbing aside, I think I’m still in the minority in not quite loving The Avengers as much as everybody else. Again, not hating or disliking, but just not liking as much.

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J. Michael Straczynski’s (and John Romita Jr.’s) Run on the Amazing Spider-Man – The Best of Spider-Man, Vol. 3-4 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Darren

I honestly believe that had J. Michael Straczynski’s Amazing Spider-Man run ended with his collaborator John Romita Jr., his time on Marvel’s iconic web-crawler would have gone down as one of the great runs. Sure, it is flawed – sometimes significantly so. However, if you divorce it from Sins Past and the mess of crisis crossover tie-in issues and awkward continuity reboots that followed, Straczynski’s early run was bold, exciting and entertaining enough to get away with doing something relatively new to Peter Parker. Given that the run includes the five hundredth issue headlined by the hero, that’s quite an accomplishment in-and-of itself. It’s not perfect, and I don’t think it’s as strong as many of the runs happening simultaneously at Marvel, but it is an intriguing direction for the pop culture icon.

How many iconic villains do you spy dere?

Note: The fourth hardcover also includes the start of Mike Deodato’s run. I am going to cover those issues separately. This review or retrospective is going to be concerned with the second half of the collaboration between John Romita and J. Michael Straczynski, culminating in The Amazing Spider-Man #508.

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