Geoffrey vs. Hawkeye #16

Hawkeye is straight up my favourite Marvel superhero. Hearing-impaired, ex-con, powerless Everyman with a bow FTW. This is of course the Clint Barton Hawkeye I am referring to. He's right there on the background image of my blog, from the cover of West Coast Avengers #24, the first American comic I ever bought as a comic collector and fan, though of course faaaaaar from the first comic I ever read. At some point I will do a whole thing on Matt Fraction and David Aja's masterpiece, Hawkeye. Today is not that day. I did finish #16 of that series earlier, an issue that focused on the female Hawkeye, Kate Bishop.

Here's the best panel from that issue. A little meta, and it is only gonna be funny to more-hardcore Marvelites, but it's a good one. A real good one.

Bwah ha ha has all round.

One criticism regarding the current Hawkeyes: the sunglasses instead of masks thing. Clint Barton's classic Hawkeye costume is THE BEST COSTUME EVER. Dear, sweet Marvel. Please revert. Thx.

Geoffrey vs. Nick Spencer's Bedlam: Volume 1

Another kinda sorta violation, but this one hinges on a personal hang up rather than anything in the work itself that may read to me as an objective flaw.

I am talking about the first trade collection of the Image Comics series Bedlam, by Nick Spencer, Riley Rossmo and Jean Paul Csuka. Covers by Fraser Irving.

I am currently really enjoying Spencer's work on the Marvel Comics series Secret Avengers (and Avengers World, though I have only read issue 1) so I thought I would give this a try.

The high concept here is what if a villain somewhat like the Joker got cured and turned to crime fighting instead of crime doing. Solid enough premise for my tastes.

The art by Rossmo is scratchy and sketchy in a very appealing way. The book looks really nice. The story was good. The lead, Fillmore Press, is likable (after he is cured anyway) and the mystery surrounding his cure is honestly quite compelling.

Here's where it lost me. The opening scene is Madder Red (Fillmore's supervillain name) in his last stand. He kills a bunch of kids on a school field trip at a concert hall. This scene seemed to be a call back to the Joker's actions in The Dark Knight Returns, where he kills a studio audience and later a bunch of  boy scouts. It's chilling and frightening and very effective.

Ever since I had my daughter though, I can't stomach violence against little girls. Fiction is supposed to be fun to read and I can't find any fun in it. I can think of other scenarios that might have the same emotional resonance without killing a little girl and I have to wonder why, why specifically it had to be a little girl killed.

This has thrown me out of other fiction too. The Night Lords trilogy, a Warhammer 40000 book series by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, has two different scenes of little girls getting killed by giant cybernetic warriors. Why? I am really not sure. All I know is it threw me out of the work, which I had been loving, and after the second scene I only slogged through to the end to finish the book. The enjoyment was gone. It threw me so far out that I have not since been able to bring myself to read any more books by Dembski-Bowden because I don't want to read about the murder of little girls in my fiction based on a game of little plastic spacemen fighting each other.

Anyway. Not to slag on that dude. He's a really good writer. As I said at the start, this is really a personal peccadillo.

So. Dead little girl. I kept reading and I really did like Bedlam. I would like to see where it is going. I just hope that Spencer can maybe kill someone other than a little girl next time we need to see just how awful Madder Red used to be.

I think Nick Spencer is definitely "One To Watch". He seems to tap into the Big Ideas I really love in comics (like Grant Morrison and Jonathan Hickman). I will have to explore his other creator owned works when I have the money.

EDIT: Totally forgot to shout out Superior Foes of Spider-Man. That is an AMAZING series.

Geoffrey vs. Velvet Volume 1: Before the Living End

This post will kinda sorta violate the ethos behind these blog posts. Since I have yet to publicly define the ethos of this blog, I shall do so now.

When it comes to talking about comics, or indeed any form of so-called "geek media", so much of what is written is negative. It's just nerdrage after nerdrage about everything from Pakistani Ms. Marvel to J.J. Abrams on Star Wars and blah blah blah. If you are a geek/nerd/some other identifier that gets what I am talking about, you know what I mean. You've probably done it. Nerdraged. I know I have.

If I am going to spend time writing about comics, which I love, I am not going to indulge in this. It's low-hanging fruit to come up with witty barbs with which to sting the hands of those who would craft these geek media artifacts which I may scorn.

This blog is only for me to write about comics (and maybe other stuff too but for now comics) that I love. I sorta dropped the ball on that in my New 52 post, which was not overly negative but really did indicate my feelings about the failings of the...see? There I go. Not gonna do it.

So. Comics I love.

Which brings me to Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting's Velvet: Volume 1 - Before the Living End.

I decided to try some creator owned stuff. I picked three comic writers that I genuinely enjoy and ordered the first trades of some of their series. All coincidentally Image publications. The already mentioned Velvet, Bedlam by Nick Spencer, and Rick Remender's Black Science.

Since I paid for and read all three, I feel like I want to write about all three, even if my level of love for the three works is varying and therein lies the violation in a kinda sorta way.

I did not love Velvet. I guess I liked it well enough. Epting's art (colours by Elizabeth Breitweiser) is wonderful. The character of Velvet Templeton is different and compelling (a middle aged bad ass female spy). The rub is that I guess I do not love pure espionage stories. This work seems very old school James Bond. The story turns, while not being maybe that surprising, are well told and since this is but the first chapter of an ongoing, I suppose it could surprise the reader well enough down the line.

So. Lukewarm? Yeah, I guess. I was kind of disappointed. I LOVED Brubaker's run on Captain America and have loved some of his other work. I really felt the ball was in my court for loving Velvet.

I'd still recommend it to people who like pure espionage stories. I am not super familiar with the genre, as it leaves me cold, but this does seem like a comic that would really blow someone into that kind of thing away. I honestly think my parents would LOVE it but getting them to read graphic fiction would be a huge feat. I will probably try anyway.

I really want to support creators of work I love and I genuinely feel bad that I did not like this as much as I was thinking I would going in.

Geoffrey vs. Afterlife With Archie

I am no Archie aficionado. As a comics fan and long time comics reader, I know I must have owned Archie comics during my past, even if I never collected them. I am sure those grocery store digests must have made for some easy and disposable reading at some point in my life.

So while not an Archie fan, I am not a hater either. I guess I can appreciate the charm and admire the Jugheadian fantasy of being able to eat a seemingly unending plate of cheeseburgers.

Recently, the fine folks at Archie Comics, after over 70 years of accumulated stories, decided to spice up the already spiced up world of Archie by killing Jughead, turning him into a zombie, and having Riverdale overrun with a cannibalistic orgy of violence.

Just another day in the Afterlife with Archie!

I bought the first trade recently and was very, very impressed.

It's not played for laughs and a lot of the comic style hijinks from the regular comics seem to come across as being a bit more sinister. But it's also not played for grossness for grossnesses sake either.

The series is written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa with art by Francesco Francavilla. Aguirre-Sacasa is a writer and producer for the TV series Glee. I don't have much to say about Glee because I have never watched Glee. That's about all I know about Glee. I can sure tell you though that his writing on Afterlife with Archie is stellar.

I think it's ballsy to take a 73 year old perpetually teenaged wacky hijinks comic character and translate it into a dark, serious, mature work that echoes old EC Comics horror stories. Ballsy is kind of Archie Comics' brand these days though, as they introduce openly gay characters and give them their own series (Archie's pal, Kevin Kellar) and advance the plot through two different series exploring Archie marrying Betty and Veronica. The latter isn't as ground-breaking as the former but it is still pretty big when most of Archie's adventures seem to involve thwarting Reggie's attempt to cheat on a high school test while eating cheeseburgers at Pop's and mooning over the same two girls.

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE!

Back to Zombie Jughead. Juggy's dog Hot Dog gets run over and he approaches Sabrina the Teenaged Witch (sadly not played by Melissa Joan Hart - the only flaw in the story I think) to Pet Semetary the furry brute back to life. Faster than you can say "Necronomicon", zombie Hot Dog is spreading the undead cannibal plague all about Riverdale and a horde led by Jughead "Zombie" Jones is surrounding the surviving Riverdellians, holed up at Veronica's Lodge Manor.

There are dark character moments, strong action beats, scary and constructive uses of the zombie tropes, and really clever plays on 70+ years of character building that pay off even for casually Archie-aware readers, such as myself.

All round I have to say this is the best zombie comic I have read. Sorry, The Walking Dead. It's also one of the best horror stories I have read in a while too.

Now, about that art...

Holy crap do I love Francesco Francavilla's work!  GALLERY GO!

The above is his cover to Avengers Arena #16, featuring Cammi, a Marvel character. It's dark, retro, modern, dangerous...AWESOME!

Fantomex Max #1. It's Jim Steranko and Mike Mignola's art love child for this fantastic take on personal fave Grant Morrison's Danger: Diabolik expy Fantomex! AWESOME!

Check that out! Jason has never looked better! AWESOME!

I love how he uses red. And somehow he makes post-AvX Cyclops look like a Kirby-created classic. AWESOME!

This is just a piece Francavilla did for kicks. JUST FOR KICKS! This comic doesn't exist but I wish Steve McQueen had been Batman. AWESOME!

Here's a take he did for horror writer Joe Hill's novel N0S4A2. Which was the best horror story I have read in years. MORE AWESOME RED! Has he made some devil-deal to use the blood of angels in his art? I don't know and I don't care because it is AWESOME!

I forget what this was from. I think it was just a pin up in a What If?. AWESOME!

I love his art because it feels simultaneously modern and classic. Like I could have found this in 1922, 1952, 1982 or 2222. Timeless. These could be covers, panels, posters...they just work. The composition is so brilliant, with the lights and darks and OH MY GOD THE RED.

Yes I am gushing. But I have not found an artist I have enjoyed this much since Frank Quitely. (Aside: Laurence Fishburne looks like a living Frank Quitely drawing. Go ahead, watch an episode of NBC's awesome show Hannibal and tell me I am wrong. You cannot.)

Should it ever come to pass that someday I am a writer of illustrated fiction, I would love to work with Francesco Francavilla.

Ahem.

All that aside, I really did like Afterlife with Archie and I will definitely be following it in trades as it goes along.

Geoffrey vs. Deadpool #22

I have a love/indifference relationship with Deadpool. I used to think he was a worthless 90s relic buuuut...lately I have noticed he is kinda hilarious in the right hands. Those hands right now are writers Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan. Posehn is an actor/comedian who you have definitely seen in things. Duggan is...some guy, I dunno. But he seems to know his way around a pen.

ANYWAY! I never cared for Deadpool because I felt his overall design was unappealing (cheap Deathstroke knock-off), his powerset was ill-defined and weird in the way of most 90s Marvel mutant characters, and  he always seemed to be featured in punny-not-funny stories that were clearly outside continuity.

I started to get the appeal a bit after reading his appearances in Rick Remender's run on Uncanny X-Force. Deadpool worked in there. I kinda thought it was just due to the situation in that particular book by that particular writer.

Then I read the most recent run on Thunderbolts, written by Daniel Way and later by Charles Soule. I liked Deadpool there too, especially his interactions with the non-mutant portion of the Marvel universe.

So I decided to give Deadpool's main series a try, starting with the storyline called "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", which involves, in the broadest terms possible, Deadpool going to North Korea to look for his daughter, accompanied by Captain America and Wolverine.

This storyline was action packed, funny, and emotionally moving. What more could you want, right? So now I quite like Deadpool.

Here is my fave panel from issue #22. This made me crack up but it probably won't make too much sense out of context, even though Deadpool explains it all with dialogue in-panel Art by Mike Hawthorne, colours by Jordie Bellaire.

There he is, flying along in Phil Coulson's car. Hee hee hee! Delightful!

Anyway. I like Deadpool.

Added bonus contextually hilarious panel from Thunderbolts # 15, written by Soule, art by Jefte Palo.

Oddly enough, both the above panels are from stories in which Deadpool uses a hansom cab. Is that his signature vehicle? If not, it should be.

Geoffrey vs. Ed Brubaker's Captain America

I was into Captain America long before I ever started being into comics. I can remember throwing frisbees and pretending they were the shield. Also garbage can lids.

I think my appreciation of Cap goes back to this:

This little black and white softcover paperback was bought for me on a camping trip probably in 1982, the year it was released. So I would have been 7. This book contains a two part story about Captain America fighting a Nazi vampire, and a 1 part story about Cap running for President. Story by Roger Stern, art by John Byrne.

This panel:

Probably is the one that sold me on superheroes in general. Buncha good guys I had no clue about, bunch of obvious, creepy bad guys...to this day I thrill at panels like this. These issues are why Union Jack and Spitfire remain some of my Marvel faves, even though they are definitely lesser lights of the superhero universe.

These issues were originally in Captain America 250 and 253-254. If I still had this book, I think I would give it a read tonight. Instead I will read it on the Marvel Unlimited app sometime soon.

Oh check out this panel:

Awesome.

My favourite run of Captain America, this time in my early years of comic collecting in North America, is probably the mid-late 300s of the series, so late 80s and early 90s. This stuff was written by Marc Gruenwald with art primarily by Kieron Dwyer and Ron Lim. The Bloodstone Hunt, from issues 357-362 pretty much defined how I like my superhero stories.

And Cap's Rogue's Gallery! Man, it is awesome. It is an often overlooked one but it contains some great villains. Red Skull (mais oui), Arnim Zola, MODOK, A.I.M., Baron Zemo, Strucker, Hydra, Viper, Batroc the Leaper, the Serpent Squad, Crossbones, Mother Night, Flagsmasher, Sin...these are seriously bad people, as well as being complex characters.

Anyway so I love Captain America blah blah blah.

So why did it take me so long to get around to reading Brubaker's acclaimed run? Well I like Brubaker as a writer (as mentioned before, his Smells Like Teen President is a long standing fave of mine...). I like Cap. What was the deal?

Bucky. Cap's teen sidekick, dead since WW2, and jokingly referred to as the one Marvel guy who doesn't come back from the dead. Well Ed Brubaker brought him back from the dead and made him a Soviet era hitman.

I was kinda Meh to that idea.

With the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I thought I might delve into the Marvel Unlimited archives and finally read the Winter Soldier storyline. See what was what.

My expected 6-12 issue read turned into a marathon 100 issue festival of shield slinging red, white, and blue.

Like all other great superhero comic stuff, this run takes the best parts of the past and spins them up modern. The changes are the stylistic story elements, not the story substance. Given Brubaker's success with crime style comics, I guess I kind of expected a lack of superhero type stuff, but nope. It's all there. And all rooted firmly in the Marvel Universe. Serpent Squad, Crossbones, Red Skull...and he even goes superhero nuts with the concepts, giving the world Zola-Skull, which is a simultaneously goofy and terrifying image, and MODOCs, and just plain fun stuff that felt modern and mature.

My largest concern, Bucky's return, was handled with what I guess should have been expected skill. This was no hack job. That guy came back, he earned his return and he redeemed his checkered past. And he was a different Captain America during his time in the suit too, but was still a really solid Captain America.

It was great. I wish it could have gone on forever.

Oh and Steve Epting's art, as well as Butch Guice and Alan Davis and everyone else, was all just wonderful.

Read it when you can. It's all TPBed up or also available digitally through Marvel.com or on Marvel Unlimited.

PS: Even squeezed in Diamondback.  Sweet.

Geoffrey vs. The Superior Foes of Spider-Man #6

Two panels from Superior Foes of Spider-Man #6, written by Nick Spencer, art by Steve Lieber and Rachelle Rosenberg, letters by Joe Caramagna.

Both these panels are from the same page. 

So funny.