POBB August 25, 2020

Pick of the Brown Bag

August 25, 2020

by

Ray Tate

I've been skirting around it.  I've been teasing with tie-ins, but wait no longer, this week, the Pick of the Brown Bag looks at Marvel's number one issue of the Big Stupid Event, Empyre.  Heretofore known as Empire because my spellcheck insists, and the English don't spell it that way either.

To be fair, I don't believe Empire is a horrible Big Stupid Event.  Just an average one.  The Marvel editors were sitting around, shooting the bull in the pen, or maybe they actually tasked writer Al Ewing to come up with something big and boffo about the Power Cosmic.  

Ewing is the goto guy for such things.  He wrote the mostly cool Power Cosmic series The Ultimates before heading to horror with The Immortal Hulk.  Dan Slott likely entered the picture to protect the Fantastic.  Nobody writes the FF like Dan Slott.  

For the sake of brevity, I'm going to assume Ewing and Slott conceived the entirety.  I'm sure somebody like Kelly Thompson may have stopped by the office and gifted an idea or two, but Marvel credits Slott and Ewing as the writers.  So, that's where the buck will stop.

I like a lot of Empire.  The central theme of the Kree and the Skrull laying aside an eternity of racial hatred and consequential war to combat a greater threat to the cosmos is a strong original concept.  We've seen this happen before with enemies such as the Klingons and the Cardassians on Star Trek, but the Kree and the Skrull never entertained such a peace.  So, this is novel.

The characterization of the Fantastic Four and the Avengers rings true.  Everybody sounds and behaves like themselves.  No diversions of personae to serve a plot.  In fact the heroes' blunders arise from their shared history and their personalities.  That's a rarity in Big Stupid Events.  

Though keen about the truce, the FF are suspicious of the Skrull.  The Avengers are suspicious of the Kree and the Skrull.  The FF would be suspicious of the Kree, but they're more familiar with the Skrull. 

 

Every cape and cowl thinks the Kree and the Skrull exploit the naive Young Avenger Hulkling.  If you were wondering who that blonde, green fellow is wonder no more.

The Kree and Skrull claim that the Hulkling united their races because he's a product of both.  The FF and the Avengers believe he's being duped.  The heroes are so blinded by their prejudice against the Kree and the Skrull, that they cannot see the obvious.  

The Kree and the Skrull do not need an excuse to band together in order to exterminate a species they deem inimical.  They could have just done it.  They have no reason to fool Hulkling.  They selected him as a leader because they're thinking ahead to after the war.  What happens then? Do the Kree and Skrull go back to tearing at each other's throat, or can they achieve a lasting peace?

Blinded by bias, the FF and the Avengers battle the Kree and the Skrull.  Most of the fighting is pretty tame because nobody wants to actually hurt each other.  That is refreshing.

Iron Man through the creation of a Thor-clone killed Black Goliath in The Civil War.  No worries.  The current model of Tony Stark is the combination of a new cloned body and a back-up memory recorded before The Civil War.  Thus, this version of Iron Man is blameless for the bloodshed caused by so-called superheroes under his direction.  

The Young Avenger is more responsible than all the adults in the room.  He's even more the hero by giving the enemy a chance to surrender.  This presents a dilemma for the reader.  Do they root for the Kree-Skrull Alliance, or their favorites the Avengers and the Fantastic Four?  

The skirmishes allow for some cool visuals such as a Ghost Quinjet and the demonstration of some major cunning involving Iron Man and Thor's hammer.  Outside of the arena, Ewing and Slott include several satisfying moments such as She-Hulk regaining her wits.

And Black Panther donning the equivalent of Batman's Hellbat.

However, there's no moment in Empire that really wowed me on a gut level.  Al Ewing's Immortal Hulk and Dan Slott's Fantastic Four do that frequently.  Wait a minute.  Did the Hulk just devour a guy? Holy.  Did Ben Grimm just deck the Hulk?  I don't get that feeling from Empire.

Let me just say the art by Valerio Schitti and Marte Garcia  display a wide range of pleasure.  My caveats do not reflect on the vivid visual narrative.  The danger to the multitude is just a let down.  The enemy's lack of gravitas and predictability undermine the potential cinematic quality of the war.  This isn't the Avengers, the FF, the Kree and the Skrull teaming up against Thanos and/or Galactus.

I'm going to try not to spoil things, but you may be able to guess.  So, if you're really intent on keeping things mum.  Stop reading now.  

Empire essentially portrays a Hippie Uprising.  It's the thing that Sgt. Joe Friday feared the most in the latter era of Dragnet.

Dragnet debuted on radio.  It transitioned to television in excellent shape.  Friday used to investigate cases involving serial killers, the mob and murderous bank robbers.  

Early Dragnet was almost noir.  That all changed upon the arrival of color television.  Suddenly Joe Friday began harassing the free love generation.  The show became a kind of Republican pushback against counterculture.  The earnest depiction of the LAPD's pursuit against crime became utterly preposterous.  That's kind of what happens here.  

POBB August 18, 2020

Pick of the Brown Bag

August 18, 2020

by

Ray Tate

Empyre heretofore known as Empire, to give my spellchecker a rest, is the latest Big, Stupid Event at Marvel Comics.  I wasn't too happy with the Avengers participation.  However, I'm no fan of the Celestial Madonna saga from the nineteen seventies, which appears to be rooted in Empire's plot.  

Now, the Fantastic Four enter the picture, but here's the difference.  Writer Dan Slott teams with R.B. Silva and Sean Izaakse to produce a Fantastic Four antic that's only tangential to Empire.  In addition, Slott doesn't mention a fern plant let alone the Celestial Madonna.

You don't need to read this Fantastic Four special in order to understand Empire.  You should read this book if you like fun, the Fantastic Four, Marvel's power cosmic genre and/or quality writing and artwork.  

The story doesn't really take place anywhen in particular.  You can slot it practically anywhere in the current Fantastic Four run.  See what I did there? The tale begins at an intergalactic casino. 

Is the Profiteer a new character or an old character? I don't care.  Just look at her.  So elegant, so vibrant an alien figure.  A huckster in haute couture that boils down a chunk of Marvel history in two panels.  Read on, and you'll discover her to be the sister of the Grandmaster, but even that relationship is merely color.

The Profiteer stages a blood match between the Kree and the Skrull, but not just any Kree and Skrull.

This Elder of the Universe pits children against each other, twenty-four seven.  It's pee-wee Ultimate Cage Fighting.  The Cage holographically recreates famous battle sites from the perpetual Kree/Skrull war, but these are not mere reenactments. Anybody can win, fair and square.  The Profiteer lives up to her name.

With the situation briskly established, it's time to see where and how the Fantastic Four end up at Casino Cosmico.  In the best Scooby-Doo Where Are You tradition, they run out of gas.

Make a note.  This is the only time an imaginatively rendered Cthulhu type beastie doesn't have a connection with the dark god.  No Cthulhu here, just a bit of a call back to the Thing's cosmic wrestling days.  Something the Torch quickly takes advantage of.

Very Chris Evans of Johnny.  The FF soon hit the casino.  The Fantastic daughter Val has a great idea.

We'll see how that pans out later.  I also appreciated the playful dig to the phrase Omega Level.  

The FF attend the latest match between the Kree and the Skrull.  Reed though quickly loses himself to the analysis of the strange new peace between the two bellicose races.  Ben makes a startling discovery that upsets the board.

Of course, this cannot be allowed.  The Thing and the Torch soon intervene.  The Profiteer plays the angles.  Reed and Sue meanwhile do what they do best.

And there you have it.  The makings of a superb Fantastic Four adventure.  I'm not going to spoil anything.  Will Val succeed in breaking the bank? Will The Fantastic Four rescue the tykes in the arena?  

Will they get their needed fuel to jet home? What is the fate of the Casino Cosmico.  You'll need to check that our yourself.

Fantastic Four Empire is five dollars, but it's actually worth it.  Excluding the ads, the book is about thirty pages; so it's double the length of a normal comic book.  The art is Spectrum worthy with a plethora of alien extras that would make Wayne Barlowe green with envy.  Kudos go out also the color artists Marte Garcia and Marcio Many.  As to the story, pure joy. 

POBB March 31, 2020

Pick of the Brown Bag

March 31, 2020

by

Ray Tate

Everybody knows the story of the Fantastic Four.  Determined to reach the stars, Reed Richards and Sue Storm convince brother Johnny Storm and best friend Ben Grimm to take the risk of a life time.

Alas, the shielding on the rocket proves inadequate.  Cosmic rays bombard the ship and force an emergency landing back to earth.  The four survive, but the cosmic rays mutate them into The Invisible Girl, Mr. Fantastic, The Human Torch and the Thing.

Recently, the FF decided to readdress their epic fail.  Reed and Johnny rebuild the rocket from scratch.  No cheating with superpowers.  Just using the tools they had in the past.  This time with bitchin heavy cosmic ray resistance.  The FF end up on the planet Spyre, and the people of Spyre expected them.  They refer to the FF as the Fourtold.  

In subsequent issues, the FF learn how the Overseer of Spyre affected their original rocket flight.  They also learn something of the culture, and the idea of soul mates, symbolized with arm bands.  

These pairings appear to be omniversal.  The Great Eye confirms Reed and Sue.  Johnny on the other hand discovers his soul mate is a beautiful bird woman from Spyre named Sky.

This most recent issue of the Fantastic Four focuses on Sky.  Last issue, Sky intended to be with her soul mate.  She therefore asked to accompany the quartet back to earth.  Everybody’s talking about her.

Essentially, Sky is Hawkgirl without the mace and helmet.

Oh, sure, she has a different personality and everything, but her power set is analogous to Hawkgirl, with a smidge of Black Canary thrown in for good measure.

She’s a woman of color, but that's not ground breaking.  DC already contributed a black Hawkgirl when the Powers That Be reimagined their multiverse.

Earth 2

I’m not trying to disparage the character.  Sky is actually kind of nice.  She’s a stranger in a strange land and all that.  Her want to help is sincere, as is her belief in the soul mate paradigm, granting her a sort of innocence.  Sky though is no dummy.  Like Hawkgirl, she comes from a culture facilitated by advanced science and technology.  She also understands that Johnny has yet to accept what's inevitable to her.  It’s furthermore interesting to see how the Fantastic Four react to Sky.  Reed of course welcomes her.  Cause that’s Reed.

Ben is noncommittal, and Sue is positively icy.  The Black Cat commented on never crossing paths with Sue if she can help it.  To be fair, Sue thinks Sky wasted this trip, and her flighty brother, the soul mate, will cast the winged woman aside.  

The running joke being Sky’s another Crystal.

Crystal is an Inhuman.  She’s sister to Medusa and took Sue’s place on the Fantastic Four when Sue became pregnant.

Writer Dan Slott fosters a running joke throughout the arc, saying that Johnny’s romance with Sky is like that of his relationship with Crystal.  The implication that it was fleeting.  Yet, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced Crystal way back in Fantastic Four #45.  She lasted until issue one-zero-five.  Quite a run.

Johnny is a really clueless banana in this issue of the Fantastic Four.  However, he starts seeing Sky in a different light when the Mole Man attacks the Keewazi Reservation.  

The Mole Man faced the Fantastic Four in their debut issue, and he’s been nutty ever since.  On occasion, the Mole Man seems content, but these moments are mere blips on a radar. 

The Keewazi are a Marvel Native American Tribe.  Wyatt Wingfoot is their most famous member.

That may change since the Keewazi though fictional behave under the authentic traditions of the Natives.  The Keewazi react to the earth movement with fear and trepidation.  After the Moloids appear, the townspeople accept and welcome the strange visitors.

This issue of the Fantastic Four ends much differently than one expects, and that’s all thanks to Sky.  We expected a big brouhaha drama pitting the FF against the Mole Man.   Instead, it’s a done-in-one comedy that eschews the usual violence associated with the FF’s dealings with the little fruitcake. 

In the context of pop culture, Dan Slott is actually reimagining Superman and the Mole Men.  He built the subplot a few issues ago, with rumblings from beneath the tribal earth.  

In the Superman film. mankind uncovers the existence of the Mole Men, and unlike the Keewazi, the humans are not keen to live in peace and harmony.  It's up to Superman to show these asses the error of their ways.  

The movie's available for streaming on Youtube and Amazon for about three bucks, if you so desire.  The cynicism toward the human race and confident acting overcome the horrible, horrible cheapness of the affair.  Adventures of Superman broadcasts on television a year later with much better production values.

POBB February 19, 2020 Part Two

Pick of the Brown Bag

February 19, 2020

Part Two

by

Ray Tate

In part two of the POBB, I examine the merits of The Amazing Mary Jane, Captain Marvel, Fantastic Four and Ghost Spider.  I posted the Twitter version of the POBB days ago: #PickoftheBrownBag.  So if you need a decision right now and haven't time to read the entirety of the blog, you know where to go.

A Big Bad that you likely never heard of named Vox Supreme captured Captain Marvel.  He stuck her in a bugged and controllable nano-suit.  He then threatened the lives of innocent people should Carol not do his bidding.  These demands consist of killing the Avengers and bringing their bodies to him.

Carol came up with an alternate scheme.  Fight the Avengers, yes.  Defeat them, yes, but hide them in a living, pocket dimension of her acquaintance and give Vox Supreme conveniently cloned bodies, already dead.

This issue, Carol faces the She-Hulk.  She fought the She-Hulk before, but only as a friend.  Because of the mask, She-Hulk thinks of Carol as an enemy.  So, only holding back a little.  

The way in which Carol defeats the She-Hulk is pretty clever, and the nod to A-Force is welcome.  

I had misgivings about the start of this story, and I'm still unimpressed by Vox Supreme who looks like a ragged cross between a Predator, Venom and a Mandalorian.  This however is a pre-existing character.  So not entirely Kelly Thompson's fault.  In any case, the story shaped up by the second chapter and steamed along without letting up.  Part of the successful energy in Captain Marvel can be credited to former Batman and Loki artist Lee Garbett as well as colorist Tamra Bonvillain.

Thompson though should be given major props for making a story out what seems to be leftovers: Singularity from Thompson's own defunct A-Force, cloned Avengers and some goof from a low-rent Inhumans mini-series.  I had to look up that last one.

Dan Slott concludes the Fantastic Four story involving the planet Spyre.  He furthermore sets up the pieces for the next tale which involves Wyatt Wingfoot and the Mole Man.

On the planet Spyre, Avengers/Thunderbolts knock-offs greeted the FF as foretold enemies.  Things smoothed out, but the FF learned a terrible secret.  That knowledge catalyzed Ben Grimm to lead a pack of so-called monsters against the pretty boy superheroes of the world.  For the most part this was all Outer Limits fun and games until an even more awful, personal revelation occurred.  That divulgence resulted in catastrophic damage.

Ben may have ripped apart their culture.  That still doesn't absolve the Overseer whose crimes against science and the FF instill in Reed a rare physical rage.  

That's the Overseer in the Lex Luthor armor.  Sue kind of gets off on Reed getting medieval, which is proper for her persona and wrong ethically.  So, it's a nice demonstration of Sue just being a fallible human but without making her a liability to the team.

Sue's a little kinky.  Perfect expression.  Speaking of relationships, Spyre pairs up people based on some sort of funky science.  This was largely an excuse to give Johnny a girlfriend in Skye.

Lovely colors on the wings.  Skye joins the FF on their journey back home.  Thus, keeping the tradition of Franke Raye and Crystal alive.  Fantastic Four is just good solid adventure writing from Dan Slott and artwork from Sean Izaakse.  As with Captain Marvel, I didn't really care for the opener, but as each chapter dropped the story became respectable.

The reliable Ghost Spider doesn't disappoint.  Last issue, writer Seanan McGuire revealed that the Johnny and Sue Storm of Ghost Spider's parallel earth diverged from our more familiar sibs.  They never became astronauts, nor were they bombarded by cosmic rays.  Instead, they became influencers, until one day they disappeared.

What Gwen said.  The Storms return without explanation for their four year absence, and they seem to be the real thing.

  Ghost Spider though curious turns her attention to crime.

Before Gwen can demonstrate her arachnid abilities.  Somebody distracts the gunmen with flame.  Hmmmn.  Gwen's no mean detective, but it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to add two and two.

One thing's for certain, the Maker had nothing to do with it.  He's as surprised at the Storms' return as everybody else.  Wait? What's Reed Richards' evil doppelgänger doing in Ghost Spider?

McGuire gives readers and Ghost Spider a puzzle to solve or a knot to untangle each issue.  In addition, McGuire weaves a consistent web similar to the ongoing day-to-day comic strip.  

Gwen is going to school on Earth Marvel Proper, only this time she skips class because she overslept for reasons involving her father.  Gwen once empowered by the bite of a spider, now derives her abilities from a suit knit together by symbiotic spider-like creatures.  As such, she must feed them, something starchy.  As well we get Ig Guara illustration and Ian Herring colors.  So there's always something interesting going on in Ghost Spider, and Gwen looks great doing whatever that something may be.

Amazing Mary Jane concludes with the redemption of Quentin Beck alias Mysterio.  Yeah, I know he can be battling Spider-Man somewhere, some title soon.  I mean, hell, I thought Mysterio pined for the fjords.  I guess if Norman Osborn can come back.  So can Mysterio.  

For this moment, Beck accomplished what he set out to do.  Make a movie of his life with Mary Jane Watson portraying his henchwench/ love interest.

Incidentally, the relationship is just an act.  One of the best things about the story.  Mysterio doesn't get all scuzzy like Norman Osborn.  He respects Mary Jane as a fellow artist.  

Beck made this film on the up and up, mostly.  Beck created the illusion of Cage McKnight while he sent the real auteur on a penguin expedition.  With Mary Jane's help, he secured all the funding.  He attracted a big name actor.  He also offered some fellow felons some honest coin.

You really could not help but to root for Mysterio.  

There's just one fly in the ointment.  Some of Mysterio's fellow rogues aren't too keen on their portrayals.  They spooked the Spider-Man star, and after a particularly devastating humiliation, they've taken names, including Mary Jane's.

Mary Jane put her heart and soul in the movie to gain a good part and to keep Mysterio on the road to redemption.  That means, she's got a lot of fans in her corner.

The big dukeroo illustrated by Red Sonja's Carlos Gomez makes excellent use of Mysterio's powers and B to C List Spider-Man foes.  Gomez also contributes a cool double page spread of practical special effects that MJ uses in her defense that would have otherwise appeared as culled together random images if not for his expertise.