PrettyFakes

Well, Contessa and I have been on the road a lot lately—last weekend we saw very young people playing very old instruments at a Cajun music show, and then Contessa held an alligator, and then we saw some old locomotives rusting in a forest, and then we heard a Chamber of Commerce spiel about how important leadership is and how much easier it would be to compete with China if it weren’t for commie-style rules like minimum wage and stuff. And now we’re about to head off on another odyssey. So, forgive the random and disjointed nature of these remarks to follow:

Infinite Crisis: Secret Files and Origins. In which we see that Marv Wolfman believes that Lucy Lawless’ “a wizard did it” catch-all explanation for things that don’t make sense is in fact a brilliant narrative tool. This issue offers a believable reason why Superboy-Prime might be such a head-case, but that’s about all it does well. At the climax—I use the term advisedly—of the story, Alexander Luthor strips naked and inspires Superboy-P to punch really, really hard. That sound you just heard was Frederic Wertham’s zombified (sorry, Frederic, I mean “zuvembified”!) corpse rising from its grave and heading directly for DC’s offices.

The New Avengers: Illuminati. In which a group of Marvel’s greatest heroes come together because of a looming political and moral crisis, choose sides more or less at random as best serves the dictates of the plot, and then, despite their passionately arbitrary differences, unite once again to drive me far, far away from this tiresome summer event.

All-Star Superman #3. Of course this was great—Morrison, Quitely, Superman, etc. Marc Singer raises some legitimate complaints about this ish here, but I’ve got to think that all this is intentional on Morrison’s part.

Young Avengers #11. This comic continues to surprise me with each new issue. First of all, because I’m always surprised when a new issue comes out, given its chronic lateness. But mainly because there’s just no way that this concept—teenaged superheroes with lousy codenames—should work so well. And yet it does. Writer Allen Heinberg manages to write a story involving the Kree, the Skrulls, Mephisto, Master Pandemonium, and several decades’ worth of Avengers backstory and weave it all together seamlessly, making all that history serve the current storyline instead of indulging in pointless nostalgia for its own sake. Heinberg writes the Super-Skrull—whom you know you love—as a kind of tragic, noble patriot figure, and I’m not sure how well that fits with other depictions of the character; in the stories I’ve read, he’s usually more of a stereotypical super-thug. But I like this version of the character, and I hope he’ll stick around in a supporting role. (Since the Skrulls figure to feature prominently in Runaways, and since there’s a Young Avengers/Runaways crossover in the works, it’s safe to say he’ll be back).

Flying, green-skinned, bat-winged aliens wielding 1970s-model hair dryers. Thank you, comic books.

Oh, and Gorjus’ comments on The Blackhawks and Jujitsu for Christ were illuminating and insightful. He did leave out one important aspect of Blackhawks lore, though.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 13th, 2006 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Comixx, Professor Fury. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.