As always, quick thoughts on the comics I got this week that I'm not reviewing for CBR...
The Boys #39: Another quiet character-based issue. The sex stuff between Hughie and Annie made me laugh, especially Hughie's homophobia being followed up with him stopping the porn on the lesbian scene. Mother's Milk's couple of pages were... yeah, pretty much what you'd expect Ennis to show after revealing his origin. John McCrea and Keith Burns did the art and it's serviceable, but just makes me long for Robertson. The payoff at the end is done well. Let's get into the second half of this book's run! [***]
Criminal: The Sinners #4: Man, Tracy is a stupid guy sometimes. A gorgeous comic as always. Glad that it's back on a regular schedule. [****]
Ghost Riders: Heaven's on Fire #6: A minor complaint: no letters page for this finale? Damn. The Irish Ghost Rider made me laugh quite a bit. Roland Boschi knocks it out of the park with Dan Brown's orange/red colours almost hurting the eyes on some pages they're so dominant. The conclusion to Jason Aaron's run on the character is good, not great. He doesn't give us the all-out brawl we expect, but it's an intelligent and smart conclusion. If there's a book likely to be discussed in this week's podcast, it's this one, I imagine. [***1/2]
The Great Ten #4: An enjoyable issue that answers some questions and raises others. The story behind the Immortal Man in Darkness is good and a nice spin on the Blackhawks that's a lot more subtle than last issue's Superman/Thundermind thing. I do love the energy of Scott McDaniel's art, but the finishes aren't as polished as I would like. [**1/2]
Greek Street #8: One of the better issues of this series as things seem to be moving in a direction. The first arc was a lot of promise of an eventual direction, but this one has shown movement as the characters converge and interact more. Still not a great read, though. [***]
Siege #2: No one saw that coming. I know I didn't. It's not unusual for violence of that scale to happen in superhero comics now, but, in this case, it was done well -- and was shocking. The look on Hawkeye's (Bullseye) face tells it all. The final page was going for a certain effect, but was reaching for it too much. I liked this issue more than the first. It hasn't exactly progressed beyond the concept yet, but it's executing it in a suprising manner. The text piece at the back of this issue adds to the story in a way that last issue's text piece didn't. Good stuff all around. [***1/2]
Later
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6 comments:
I rather enjoyed Siege #2... I'd say it was my favorite comic from Bendis in a long while.
I would only have two nitpicks about the issue. First, I still hate the way Bendis writes Thor-- I thought JMS completely nailed it when we reconceived Thor and the Asgardians' speech patterns, and I hate to see Bendis not following that. Although, I must admit that, so far in Siege, Thor hasn't had the painfully bad dialogue he had in Secret Invasion.
Second, I didn't really enjoy the text piece-- I wound up skimming through it, I just couldn't force myself to read it. Again, a problem with the dialogue.
But, these were pretty minor-- overall I really, really enjoyed the issue, start to finish-- I'd have to agree that it was at least a 3.5 star book.
The text piece is a little grating since Bendis's dialogue goes a bit over the top when not restrained by the art and panel limits. But, this one is pretty good at shedding some light on Fury and his crew...
The issue had a bunch of problems, partly because Bendis is repeating plot material seen in other issues.
As in SECRET INVASION, there's nominally a big operation underway -- the invasion of Asgard -- but Bendis has reduced it to Osborn and the Sentry vs. Thor, et al. There's no sense of how the overall "siege" is progressing, not that it matters.
Osborn's rationale for invading Asgard is as irrational as he is; Loki telling him to do it is very similar to Wanda's imaginary kids telling her she was being threatened in "Avengers Disassembled."
The bit with the Void pulling Ares apart repeats the She-Hulk/Vision bit from AVENGERS #500.
Other problems:
The President isn't even mentioned, although he has the authority to order a halt to the attack. Is the timeline that compressed?
Osborn telling Thor he was under arrest for "treason" was absurd. Bendis had to have Osborn say something, but not that.
If Dr. Strange had created the wormhole, there would have been complaints about a deus ex machina (DEM). Fury doing it is even more of a DEM. The DEM vs. Hill's use of Army ordnance is a typical case of Bendis veering from one extreme to the other, instead of having heroes use powers.
The Sentry/Ares sequence is the highlight of the issue, according to Bendis's tweet and others, but how would non-fans receive it? Would anyone tout the issue by telling his friend, "Gosh, you've gotta read this! Ares and the Sentry fight -- and Sentry pulls him apart! You see his guts--!"
Yes, thrilling stuff. Just the sort of thing that gets non-comics loving people to love comics, and thrills Avengers fans whose memories are so poor that they've forgotten AVENGERS #500.
The Asgardians are indistinguishable from medieval humans out of their proper era. There's no sense that they're godly in the least.
There's no sense of an actual storyline with a functional premise, plot, and theme underway. Bendis is just piecing together a scenario, using elements from other stories (scenarios), and trusting that the artwork will fool people into thinking that there is an actual story. Too bad there are suckers everywhere.
SRS
The repetition of the She-Hulk/Vision scene from Avengers #500 just makes the scene here better... thanks for pointing that out.
As for the rest: different things work in different contexts; I don't care what 'non-fans' are meant to think about the book because I'm a fan and trying to imagine what they'll think is outside of my experience (and I don't want to generalise about that group); not all Asgardians are gods; that you don't see a premise or a plot here baffles me because the premise is the plot and it's damned simple. Considering your known bias against Bendis's work, I have to wonder why you're bothering with this at all.
Considering your known bias against Bendis's work, I have to wonder why you're bothering with this at all.
Because it's useful to point out to people who are unfamiliar with his work, or his faults, just how bad his stories are in terms of storytelling mechanics, and how some people will deliberately avoid describing the problems, or minimize them. The "different things work in different contexts;" is, essentially, "It's all relative. Junk, gold, who gives a %^&(!"
For a nice roundup of Bendis's various mistakes and systemic storytelling problems, see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrianBendis
SRS
When it comes to the use of certain techniques, it is relative to the story in question. The violence here is more effective than it has been in other places because of the context.
Also, being very familiar with Bendis's work, I don't exactly need someone telling me what's wrong with it. Particularly when what you see as negatives, others may see as positives.
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