Gotta admit,of this week's crop of books, not a lot really stood out. This was the second week of the DC relaunch but none of the books really hit me. The Green Lantern book seemed more like a continuation from the last series instead of a re-launch. And I think that is the problem with the DC relaunch, there's not a true theme. It appears for the most part that this event seems more concerned with soliciting new readers with the guise of a new #1 issue for all of their titles as opposed to really re-starting their universe. The big launch of the Justice League book which started it all was kind of... plodding. Not say that some of the books haven't stood out, far from it, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Stormwatch, Detective and several others were if not all outsatnding were compelling enough to warrant further reading. So while DC has achieved their desired effect, people are talking about their books and characters, my concern is that this campaign was a little short-sighted. Hopefully it will work out for DC and the readers, time will tell....
As for Marvel, they are winding up their big event for the year, Fear Itself. To be absolutely blunt, its just not been very good. Because of my OCD I will see this through to the end. Instead of these line-wide events Marvel should have stopped after the Siege event and just focused on the healing of the characters and the fallout from that. I was speaking with Brian, owner of the shop i get my comics from A-1 Comics, and he made an excellent point about Marvel. He told me if Marvel would hold off on the "event" type of books which crossover the entire line, which causes writers of various books to bend their story to accommodate the event, regardless of what's happening in those books. He suggested that they, Marvel, shelve the company-wide crossover events, let the books remain in their natural family of books and concentrate on developing the characters which will result in better stories, which will result in increased sales and satisfied customers! Imagine that...
Not all of the books this week were "just there" a couple did really stand out.
Punisher MAX #17 written by Jason Aaron and art by Steve Dillon. For the uninitiated the Punisher is a former Marine named Frank Castle who returned from duty and was with his family on a picnic when they were caught in the middle of a Mob hit. His family was killed and from that moment on Frank Castle ceased to exist and the Punisher was born. The Punisher has declared war on the criminal element in the Marvel universe, and over the years he has conducted his war on criminals, but the fatality list was conspicously small, at one point he was even using "Mercy Bullets" against people who got in his way.
But that was in the Marvel universe.
This is the MAX universe.
Anything goes in the MAX universe, people die, horribly and in very large numbers. This is a line of books for adults. Not that there is nudity, there is some, but that is what this line is about. It's about telling a story about a vigilante told without any restrictions on the dialog. Which is perfect for this character, he needs to be violent, and the language needs to be coarse to reflect what is really happening in this world.
At this point in the story, the Punisher has escaped from prison during a riot, he was previously arrested and locked up when an attack on crime lord The Kingpin's penthouse was unsuccessful. While he was in custody, the police located and seized his home, leaving him with no weapons or any of his equipment. Now that he has escaped custody, the first order of business is rebuilding the arsenal, then the second will be to deal with the Kingpin.
Now on the street the Punisher encounters three punks who are coincidentally enough discussing whether the Punisher is real or a myth, and since he fought in Viet Nam he'd be too old to do anything to them anyway. After killing the three punks, he thinks to himself: "One gun. Six bullets. It's a start."
On the other side of the city, the Kingpin is fortifying his defenses and training with new bodyguards when he is contacted by someone who informs him he has the bodyguard that he needs. And in walks Elektra. After dismissing her because she is a woman, the man who brought her said "Tell your men to kill her." She then kills the four bodyguards rapidly and very brutally. The art by Steve Dillon captures the brutality and precision of her onslaught without being overly bloody. In fact she killed them all, again, in brutal fashion, and didn't spill a drop of blood on the floor. Not one. Needless to say she is hired.
Returning back to the Punisher, having now made his way back to the Kingpin's penthouse, is on the roof and runs into one of the guards on the tower...
"Two guns. Thirteen bullets."
But as the night moves on, it appears all is not as it seems. It turns out that Elektra has the interests of another employer in mind. We meet Vanessa who has arranged for Elektra to be placed in the Kingpin's employ. Vanessa has plans to see the Kingpin's entire empire in ruins. The she plans to see him dead. It turns out that Vanessa is the Kingpin's ex-wife.
This is about to get good.
The Marvel MAX line is a universe where creators can tell the stories they want to tell without any censorship limitations. Again, the line is not for everyone, and there are MAX titles that I don't care for. Simply adding adult dialog to any story doesn't make it good. Just like adding cuss words to a stand-up comedy act doesn't make it funny. But this book is perfect, because the Punisher is the type of character whose nature requires the language be of a certain sort to accurately reflect the criminal element around him. Not just the language but the violence as well. in this last issue when Elektra was dispatching the the Kingpin's former bodyguards, she ran her weapon of choice, the Sai, up one guy's nose well into his brain, and put her fingers in the eyes of another causing his eyes to pop out. Truly grisly, but needed in the sense to truly portray just how dangerous and lethal she is. If you look at some of the panels, you can see the Kingpin is if not scared of her, he's definitely concerned. But at the same time he is attracted to her, which will probably add to his problems...
This story to was clearly best of the week's issues, and the for next week my list, thanks to the guys at ifanboy for permission to link, can be seen here:
http://ifanboy.com/users/k5blazer/comics/
The DC relaunch continues with Batman, Wonder Woman and Birds of Prey, Fear Itself continues in the pages of Avengers and Iron Man, and the X-Men event continues in Schism, and I get my fix of Indie comics with All Nighter. This look like to be a good week for reading and once I get these digested I'll let you know what the standout books, at least for me, were.
Until next time!
Marc
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