Pointless Nonsense

Posted in comics by Bill on January 4, 2014

Comics, new-ish and old, roughly best-to-worst:

Velvet is essentially what if Moneypenny was secretly a trained operative, possibly even more dangerous than 007. It’s by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting, who used to do quality Captain America comics together, so action and espionage are right up their alleys. velvet
Leaving Megalopolis is by Gail Simone and Jim Calafiore, the same people who did Secret Six, and tells the story of a city overrun by superheroes turned evil, and regular people’s struggles to get out alive. It’s a not-too-subtle commentary on comics in general (since modern grim and gritty comics generally feature asshole superheroes, and fans of superheroes are largely trapped reading them or none at all). It wasn’t great, Simone’s at her best when she writes people having fun and making lots of jokes. But it’s not bad at all. lm
Armor Wars is supposedly the classic Iron Man story, and it wasn’t bad. The concept is solid, Hammer stole some Stark tech and sold it to a bunch of armored villains, and Tony is determined to reclaim it all. But despite being from 1987-88, after the big deal comics like Watchmen, Born Again, TDKR, Year One, etc, seemed to modernize superhero comics, it’s 100% old-fashioned. armorwars
Amazing X-Men seems to be the comic where they’ll bring Nightcrawler back to life, as foreshadowed in Wolverine and the X-Men, which is also written by Jason Aaron. It’s kind of amusing so far, but not being a huge X-Men fan I’m only lukewarm on it. amazingxmen
Buzzkill has a killer concept, a superhero goes to AA to battle his addictions, but he gets his superpowers through booze and drugs. In execution it’s a little disappointing. Probably has some interesting things to say about addiction and its impact on your loved ones, but that’s pretty lost on me. buzzkill
Demon In a Bottle is the Iron Man story from the late 70s that establishes Tony Stark as an alcoholic. It also introduces Justin Hammer as a villain. It’s a pretty decent read for its time, but it’s pretty weird how quickly the story breezes through the process of addressing his alcoholism. Modern comics definitely would have drawn out the angst a whole lot more. diab

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