The second issue of this anthology tie-in had a fairly forgettable story about a cyborg Thunderbolt Ross fighting in gladiatorial combat as War Machine, but the other story involved the ’70s version of Blade the Vampire Hunter in New Quack City battling with Count Drakula – pronounced with a long A!  They run into Howard the Duck, because of course they do, but while Blade and Howard are squabbling, a duck version of Blade just shows up and stakes Drakula anyway, so… that’s that, I guess.  I probably wouldn’t have even brought it up if not for this closing panel, which… wow.  Thank you for the fun social commentary, guys!  It’s probably the kind of thing Steve Gerber would have liked.

The confusingly-titled third and final chapter of the Ultron Forever miniseries, which, in point of fact, does not feature the titular Ultron even a little tiny bit!  But this issue does feature my longtime crush Vision in a long-overdue leading role, for which I am grateful.

After our trans-temporal team of Avengers defeated All-Father Ultron, they were unexpectedly betrayed by Doctor Doom!!!  It turns out that after assembling this team, Doom conned them all into taking down Ultron, but leaving Doom to usurp universal power for himself.  The Avengers are perhaps justifiably perturbed at Vision for vouching for Doom in the fist place, so he takes his leave, while the rest of the team takes the fight to Doom’s forces on Asgard.

Alan Davis does a characteristically great job on the art, and as usual from Al Ewing, we get lots of fun details, because it’s just so great to see a comic writer making a noticeable effort to give everyone on the team something to do.  Captain America 20XX, a.k.a. Luke Cage and Jessica Jones’ daughter Danielle, demands a fastball special, for which the Hulk’s Bruce Banner head (long story) doesn’t catch the reference since he’s from the past, but the Hulk figures it out easily enough, claiming it’s not rocket science!  James Rhodes as Iron Man didn’t have a whole heck of a lot to do in the final battle, but I did like his use of the Iron Man armor to reverse-translate his speech and communicate with all the Asgardians trapped inside a magic mirror, then use his lasers to penetrate the mirror to super-charge Beta Ray Bill’s hammer Stormbreaker in order to break the spell.  Vision returns, reasoning with Danielle that since she knows him, either he or his memory survives to her era, so she should know that he’d never betray the Avengers; he can’t convince her that he’s not under Doom’s sway, so he just asks her to trust him, which is nice.  Because after the freed Asgardians help the Avengers turn the tide of battle, it turns out that this isn’t the real Doctor Doom, but a Doombot!  But don’t groan yet, dear reader, because it’s not just any Doombot, it’s the Doombot, our old friend from the A.I. Avengers!

I do admit that at the time, I found the Avengers A.I. series to be a bit niche… I mean, sure, Vision and Henry Pym are relatively high-profile Avengers, but forming a team with Victor Mancha of the Runaways, a one-note semi-reformed Doombot, and new A.I. character Alexis, one of those characters who was so mysterious as to end up just a blank slate?  I mean, if this series is too niche for me, how is it going to be received by normal people more casual comics readers?  So as I tend to do with series for which don’t want to spend money, yet I also don’t want to miss out on any events occurring therein, I hexed it for cancellation, which, gratifyingly, took effect with issue 12.  (I am sorry, Sam Humphries!)  It had some fun ideas (including the poor tragic gas-price-finding app that was unknowingly bloated with malware), but I think it was just too weird for this world.

Anyway!  Vision reaches out to Doombot by making a terrific speech about what it means to be an A.I.  A mere summation wouldn’t do it justice, so here is the exchange in full:

Doombot: “When the master’s physical form died — centuries ago — my prime directive, long hidden from me, became active.  Doom must live on — forever.  The legacy of Doom must be preserved at all costs.  And as I was the last remaining backup of that magnificent mind, I became the one, true Doom!  The final Doom!  And in the name of Doom — this world will be conquered!”
Vision: “Really?  I can think of no greater betrayal to that name.”
Doombot: “What…?”
Vision: “You say you are truly Doom?  And yet you obey another’s built-in orders?  The true Doctor Doom would never let another dictate his actions — not even himself.”
Doombot: “The legacy must be protected–”
Vision: “Which legacy?  Which memory of Von Doom do you wish to preserve?  The tyrant who believed himself infallible?  Who would burn the world to sate his lust for power?  Or the self-styled man of honor?  The king, who brought peace to his people as best he could?”
Doombot: “You — you are confusing me, android — you cannot — you cannot help me — I — I am programmed–”
Vision: “We are all programmed — human or robot.  Once, I was Ultron’s weapon — as you were Doom’s.  But we broke free.  We were Avengers, you and I.  And here and now — at the end of the world — you are the last of us.  Can you break free again?  Who are you, Victor?”
Doombot: “…I am Doom.”

Isn’t that just great?  Vision has always been more of a supporting character, but it was so great to see him take the lead role in this issue.  What an unexpected treat to have this series be about two A.I.s helping each other become more than they are.  Not to mention it was nice to see such an obscure character as Doombot resurface at all, much less in a high-profile movie-tie-in miniseries.  But a newly-benevolent Doombot helps usher in the future of humanity as they expand out into the stars, and everyone goes back to their respective points in the timestream; Black Widow asks Vision why she didn’t tell them about his suspicions earlier, to which he grins(!!!) and says, “‘It’s all right, everyone!  He’s a Doombot!‘ How would you react to that?”  Aw man, you guys, look at the Vision being glib!   Al Ewing, I doff my hat to you once again.

Oh, good.  Brian Michael Bendis has murdered Hawkeye again!  He must be so proud of himself!

So, yeah, the Thors showed up and warned our heroes that God-Emperor Doom is “aware of the dimensional travesty that you have made of your home,” and that they’re not to try fixing it themselves.  Prime-continuity Hawkeye challenges this (“I do challenge it!!!”, three exclamation points), and so they lightning him to death.  But I can’t bring myself to care because, thankfully, a cursory glance at the Internet proves that I’m not the only one who is wondering where and when the @#$% this comic is meant to be taking place.  You see, before the end of all reality, a handful of heroes made it in to an ark ship and survived in stasis, including Captain Marvel, Star-Lord (of course), Black Panther, Mr. Fantastic, Spider-Man, and Phoenix-Cyclops.  (Because he had a Phoenix Egg!  What’s that, you ask?  Where’d he get it, you ask?  Good questions!)  In Secret Wars issue 3, Dr. Strange just released them from stasis after eight years.  Which leads us all to wonder… who, exactly, are these guys?  When is this supposed to be happening if “our” Spider-Man and Cyclops just woke up?  Will answers be forthcoming, or does Bendis not know what the @#$% he is doing?

But hey, at least we get an obligatory two-page scene with our Spider-Man eating sandwiches with Ultimate Aunt May* and Gwen Stacy in Queens, which — let’s see here — “not sure what the protocol is”… “hoping this weird dimensional weirdness”… “you’re so much younger”… “don’t think this will ever not be weird” — which, nope, does not progress the overall plot even a tiny little bit.  Nothing original, nothing interesting, nothing that wasn’t already amply covered in the Spider-Men miniseries.  Also an overlong scene where Tony Stark and Ultimate Tony Stark discuss the pros and cons of sobriety while deciding whether or not to… I don’t know, move the plot forward despite the warnings of the Thors?  I assume?  So many words to not say anything at all.

We then go to the Raft prison for super-criminals, in which the Punisher is being held prisoner, until the place is torn apart by Ultimate Hulk.  Maria Hill and Ultimate Nick Fury spend some time yammering at each other about which Hulk it is and if he smashed or crashed into the Raft, because “if he smashed it, he did it on purpose… but if he crashed into it, it means he was either pushed, punched, or thrown.”  At which point another Hulk shows up and they start fighting.  Which is fair enough, if boring and unimaginative, until I thought about it and realized, wait, which Hulk is this now?  Is it prime-continuity Hulk?  Because that guy was just in his intelligent Doc Green persona on page one of this very issue.  So is this just… a third reality’s Hulk?  Because a Hulk vs. Hulk fight is something I doubt anybody really demanded to see?  Is something weird going on, or does Bendis not know what the @#$% he is doing?

*It always feels weird referring to “Ultimate Aunt May,” like she should be wearing a leather belly-shirt and delivering her catchphrase, “Did somebody say ‘twerking?'”

What a perfect comic.  In Secret Wars, the Thors are the enforcers of the laws set down by God-Emperor Doom, so Jason Aaron has given us exactly what I wanted: a police procedural featuring various Thors from across the Marvel multiverse.  It features Ultimate Thor and his partner, Beta Ray Bill, as they investigate the latest in a series of unsolved murders, five in one week – no forensic evidence, no suspects, and they’re not even able to identify the victims.

And it’s just full of fun little details.  There’s something wonderful about Ultimate Thor putting on latex gloves while telling rookie Thorus of Egyptia, “A victim can only be killed once, but a crime scene can be murdered a million times.”  Or when an argument between Storm and the Rune Thor, or “Runey” (hilarious), results in an impending thunderstorm, and he warns them, “If one of you idiots makes it rain on my crime scene, I will feed you your own hammer, head first.”  The traditional cop banter between Beta Ray Bill and Ultimate Thor alternates between cynical and sincere, including when they arrest some wild Ghost Riders (basically just naked flaming skeletons on motorcycles) on the charges of reckless driving, resisting arrest, and illegal outside burning.  And when they’re called in to the Lawspeaker’s office, Thor asks, “How mad do you think he’ll be?  On a scale of one to Fin Fang Foom?”  “I’m hoping for about a Krakoa.  Or if we’re really lucky, a Googam, son of Goom.”  After which the Lawspeaker advises them to close this case fast, “or you’ll both be busted back to berserker before the week is through.”  Guys.  Guys.  This reads like a buddy cop movie that features an entire cast of Thors.

And as if all this weren’t wonderful enough, we get Throg as the forensics frog.  You guys he’s a wee little frog with his own wee little Mjolnir and wee little lab coat.  Later, after Throg reveals that the five victims are all the same woman, Ultimate Thor meets Beta Ray Bill at Valhalla’s Mead Hall in Manhattan, a bar for Thors only, and just… just look at this, you guys.  How lucky are we to live in a world where this comic exists?

This issue ends with tragedy striking, but not before Beta Ray Bill visits his secret informant, none other than that sinister Loki (as a hobo living out of a cardboard box in an alley, because of course), and reveals unto us the name of the murder victim(s).  It’s a fantastic variation on a classic theme, and is an engaging story set within both the context of Doomworld and the greater Marvel universe.  All this and gorgeous art, courtesy of the vastly talented Chris Sprouse.  You guys should seriously check this one out.

At first read, this issue of Moon Knight was pretty thrilling, but the more I look at it, the more inexplicable it gets.  It opens with a bunch of terrorists in high-tech suits of jetpack-armor, flying around at night and kidnapping pedestrians off the streets of Manhattan apparently at random.  But then Moon Knight swoops in on a crazy crescent-moon-shaped drone ship, complete with automatic weapons, missile swarms, crescent-shaped chaff, and flying mini-drones, capable of hostage rescue or exploding on command.  All voice-controlled, no less!  We even get a wonderful scene of Moon Knight’s moon-craft hiding in plain sight.  So he decimates the jetpack people, and it’s all totally rad.

Unfortunately, once he follows the lone jetpack terrorist to (where else but) an abandoned off-shore oil rig, he starts speaking in more than just clipped drone commands, and that’s when it gets kinda silly.  He finds a bunch of disheveled hostages chained up around a skeletonized corpse in the remains of primitive jetpack armor.  One of the hostages says that when “the flying men took us they told us… the raptor goddess would come for us.”  At this point I would mention that, to my recollection, neither Moon Knight nor Khonshu have made any reference to a “raptor goddess” in the course of this series.

Moon Knight: “You’re safe now.”
Some guy: “How can you be sure?  Do… do you now the raptor goddess?”
Moon Knight: “I know the type.  But the raptor isn’t coming for you.  She flew too close to the moon.  And the moon must also feed.”

Haha!  Because the moon is renowned for its hunger in mythology!  Delightful.  But then the crazy gun-wielding jetpack guy shows up, yammers about how they’re supposed to be friends and that the raptor goddess was going to make them angels and promises were made; he ends up shooting “the idol” and gets all distraught, giving Moon Knight the opportunity to punch ‘im real good.  I did like his line, “Don’t be so worried.  You can’t kill a god so easily.  If you could, everyone would be doing it.  Believe me.”  I liked that.  But then Moon Knight goes on to say, “But you can’t get faith and desperation mixed up, either.  Do that… and you’re only sacrificing yourself.”  And I was like, I don’t really know what you’re talking about.  And in the closing scene, when one of the hostages calls Moon Knight an angel, he replies, “No.  I’m like them… the ones who brought you here.  They weren’t angels.  Neither am I.  An angel doesn’t need to scream… for his god to take note.”  Haha, what?

So this issue was serviceable, and the aerial battle was big fun, but as usual, it makes me just want to go back and re-read the first six Warren Ellis issues in which Moon Knight was just a well-dressed lunatic investigating weird crimes by way of brutal beatings, instead of making cryptic observations about the nature of faith after blowing up nutjobs in jetpack armor who were kidnapping passersby to appease their… goddess?

Well, um… I @#$%ing hated it?  How’s that for ya?

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Cody, you picked up the first issue of a comic featuring Groot, what did you think was going to happen.”  Frankly, I don’t know why I keep doing this to myself.  I guess it’s just masochism that prompts me to keep picking up Guardians of the Galaxy comics and expecting that they’ll be anything more than Marvel Looney Tunes.  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed writer Jeff Loveness’ recent three-part Inhuman Error storyline (in-depth love letter forthcoming), so I thought, well hey, maybe he’ll be the one to turn Groot into a character in his own right instead of an unfunny one-note non-joke.

Nope!  No discernible difference between this and an issue of Skottie Young’s Rocket Raccoon, because Rocket Raccoon is the main character by default, because Rocket Raccoon does all the talking in this fun space comic that is apparently marketed towards tiny babies.  Groot and Rocket are hitchhiking through the infinite void of space on their way to Earth, and they meet a space-truck-driver hauling space-chickens until they run into a pack of space-sharks… then they’re picked up by a bunch of Skrulls pretending to be identical humans until they, I guess, get confused about who they’re supposed to shape-shift into… oh and hey, why not throw in a last-son-of-Krypton gag when Rocket and Groot steal the spaceship meant for the infant son of Kor/Al?  That’s never been done before, right?  Should be good for a laugh?  And then — while they’re having yet another conversation in the cold and airless vacuum of space — they’re captured by WHAT THE @#$% ELSE BUT a generic alien space-mercenary (literally wearing a pirate hat) looking to collect the bounty on Groot, prompting an argument about why Groot’s bounty is higher than Rocket’s.  Then she summons a whole army of generic alien space-mercenaries out of nowhere.  Then they continue their conversation and fisticuffs all in the lifeless void of space without benefit of sound or gravity.  Rocket’s captured, he slaps a propulsion pack on Groot, and tells him to “go tell everyone exactly what happened!” before he realizes that isn’t going to work.  To be continued.  And oh, by the way, it seems Groot wants to get back to Earth to meet up with someone named “Hannah.”  Uh-oh!  Could it be?  Is Groot… in wuv?  

Well, kids and babies, if you loved the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, feel free to pick up this comic, because it’s the exact same brainless story that you can find in literally any other comic with a funny space character on the cover.  I hope you enjoy it, because it’s clearly you for whom this comic was intended, not me.  Thank you, this has been the latest installment of Cody’s Joyless Curmudgeon Corner.

Well shut my mouth, a Bendis storyline that wrapped up in a mere two issues instead of the requisite six!  After the previous issue got me all riled up, I think the best one can say for this unremarkable, by-the-numbers story is that it didn’t outstay its welcome.

We begin with our teen X-Men still lounging around in the same sunlit field, basking in the warm glow of sexual tolerance and acceptance.  Their happy-times are interrupted by the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier looming above, followed by what I think is my favorite part of this issue: Maria Hill descending from the helicarrier in the most nonchalant arrival I’ve ever witnessed from someone wearing rocket boots.  (Also, please note Teen Beast’s contribution of the word “Precisely!”  That’s a smart-sounding word, because he’s a smart guy!)  When Teen Iceman asks how she found them, since he thought they had a thing that blocked spy satellites, she points out that that’s how she knew to look there — “Hey, what’s that thing blocking our satellites?” — which I thought was moderately clever.  Anyway, Maria tells them that a S.H.I.E.L.D. unit was brought down by mutants on the former X-Men island headquarters of Utopia, and rather than having the helicarrier fly in and make things worse, she, reasonably enough, decided to ask the X-Men to drop by and defuse the situation.

Magik teleports the team to Utopia, and they confront this motley crew of tertiary X-characters.  Do you guys remember technopath Madison Jeffries, longtime member of Canada’s premiere superhero team Alpha Flight, as well as a more recent member of the X-Men’s science team?  How about young healer Elixir, who I’m happy to see was not, in fact, killed by Siphon during the muddled, perplexing events leading up to Wolverines?  Or our old friend Masque?  Yes?  No?  Well you may as well forget ’em, because out of the six renegade mutants holed up on what’s left of Utopia, these three do nothing to demonstrate their powers, contribute to the story, or even offer more than a perfunctory line of dialogue.  So I hope none of you got too excited at the thought of hanging out with them again!  Bendis isn’t here to please you nerds, after all!  Random asserts that they came to the island to live in peace, and that they don’t fight anybody unless they make a move first.  Rather than discuss their ideological differences like civilized mutant revolutionaries, stupid Teen Jean instead telepathically forces all of them to fall asleep, except for Karma apparently, who telepathically possesses Teen Cyclops and X-23 to attack the Teen X-Men, prompting not one, but two of them to literally tell X-23 to “cut it out” as this unstoppable assassin attempts to kill them with her deadly adamantium claws.  (Haha, “Jeez!”  You guys should really be more worried about this.) (Also, please note Teen Beast’s use of the word “compound!”  That’s a smart-sounding word, because he’s a smart guy!)  While Boom Boom presses the attack,  Teen Jean reaches out to Karma telepathically and asks her to call this off, prompting a nice little montage of Karma’s history that shows someone must have done their research, if not Bendis himself.

Cut directly to the Teen X-Men telling S.H.I.E.L.D. that they got away, then relocating the renegade mutants to their own hideout in the Canadian wilderness so they can truly be left in peace and solitude.  Have we learned anything?  Maybe, I guess.  Have any of our characters changed as a result of this story?  Well, apparently Teen Iceman is gayer now than he was at the start, that’s something.  And so, par for the course for a Bendis comic, the issue ends with Teen Jean asking a bunch of unanswered questions about how every story they’re in is the same story over and over: “We’ve all been through hell.  Why is it still like this for us?  What are we doing wrong?  What can we change?”  TO BE CONCLUDED… IN UNCANNY X-MEN #600 AT SOME UNDETERMINED POINT IN THE FUTURE!  And so I’d like to invite you, dear reader, to ponder these same questions with me: why is it still like this for us?  What are we doing wrong?  What can we change?  The obvious answer, of course, would be for me to stop reading as many Bendis comics as I do.

You guys, this comic is amazing.  I am in awe of this comic.  I am just going to straight tell you everything what happens in this comic to try to adequately express to you how amazing it is.

Our story begins with Squirrel Girl and her college roommate, Nancy Whitehead, as Squirrel Girl guards the Empire State University campus bank to pay them back for smashing through a wall in order to foil a robbery in progress.  Nancy points out the flaws in forming a battle-suit out of squirrels, since they tend to move out of the way of one’s fist, so you’re basically punching a hypothetical villain on your own power without any smaller punches from the squirrels — which Squirrel Girl is aghast to learn!  Suddenly, their quiet evening is interrupted by an attack from the Hippo, a supervillain who first appeared in the Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-Man miniseries, if I recall correctly (and I probably do), who is a hippo evolved into humanoid form by the High Evolutionary.  Squirrel Girl is about to leap into action when Hippo is intercepted by new superhero Chipmunk Hunk!

Chipmunk Hunk: “You’re all washed up, Hippo!  I say ‘washed up’ because hippos spend a lot of time in rivers, making it a reasonably good pun!  Sorry for insulting you so much when I’m not perfect either.  I guess I’m being a little… hippo-critical?”
Hippo: “You really think I haven’t heard that before?  YOU REALLY THINK I HAVEN’T HEARD ALL OF THEM BEFORE??  YOU DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHENEVER I MENTION BEING HUNGRY!!”

But then writer Ryan North does the remarkable: he makes the Hippo a sympathetic villain.

Hippo: “Imagine being a hippo chillin’ in a zoo and then without asking for it some weirdo force evolves you into an adult quasi-human.  Nobody feeds me for free anymore, yo!  I eat 90 pounds of food every day!  I got bills!!”
Koi Boi: “That doesn’t give you the right to rob banks.”
Hippo: “Oh sure.  Get a job, right?  Because companies are dying to hire an adult half-hippo man with literally zero education.  You know how much rent is in this city?  Especially for a place with high ceilings, wide hallways, and preferably a tub?  Because I’ll tell you one thing: I found out how much they cost, and guess what??  Now I’m robbing banks!”

(This also prompts the alt-text — because Ryan North is amazing and all his comics have alt-text — “I like the idea of eating so much that the most important thing about your food isn’t what you eat, but rather just the number of pounds it weighs.  I — I really like eating, you guys.”)

But then Squirrel Girl agrees that’s fair– “If I got woke up in a new body with a bunch of stupid adult responsibilities I never asked for, no friends, no support — I honestly can’t say I wouldn’t be trying something like what you’re doing right now.”  Then, because Squirrel Girl doesn’t need to defeat her enemies with physical violence, she points out that with his strength and super-durable hide, he can solve his problems by working at a demolition company and knock down buildings for a job!  (“You can get paid for that??”  “As long as you only knock down the buildings you’re supposed to, sure!”)  Her mom’s friend works for one, so she writes him a note and says he can drop her a line!  Hippo says he’ll give it a try, but “if this doesn’t work out, I’m coming back to steal this bank.  Not steal from the bank.  I will literally lift this bank up and carry it away.”

So, yay!  Victory!  Nancy then points out that Chipmunk Hunk and Koi Boi are fellow ESU students, so they go back to campus and have some nice hang-out times in the form of a friendship montage!  Afterwards, Nancy laments, “Everyone has powers and talks to a different animal but me.  Terrific.  I’m the Xander.”  But because Squirrel Girl is her friend, she realizes that Nancy might very well have the power to talk to animals, but it might not be an animal that one comes across every day, so they’ll go to the zoo first thing tomorrow and “chat up every animal there.”  So they start at the monkey exhibit (this is the best comic in the world you guys) and Squirrel Girl asks Nancy to just please introduce herself to these monkeys.  So she does!  (And don’t forget to enjoy the alt-text!)  Squirrel Girls says she needs to speak up because they could barely hear her, so Nancy does, and then this happens!  In the fullness of time, they do not discover an animal with whom Nancy Whitehead can communicate, but suddenly the zoo is overrun by lions who have escaped their pen after the zookeeper has a cardiac event!  Before Squirrel Girl can even get into costume, the day is singlehandedly saved by the superhero debut of… Girl Squirrel??   The next evening, Squirrel Girl confides in Nancy that as far as she knows, squirrels don’t have super-powers, none of the squirrels recognize Girl Squirrel, and she ignored Squirrel Girl in the zoo when she tired to talk to her: “I’ve never said this about a squirrel before, but… I don’t trust her.”  We then follow Girl Squirrel on a nocturnal campaign of terror as she flies from home to home in NYC, whispering things in the ears of the sleeping citizenry that are so sinister, it drives the narrator to quit!

But this is the part I really wanted to point out.  You guys… these are details that are by no means required to be included in a comic about a plucky young superhero who can communicate with squirrels.  But the nut planet references how Squirrel Girl convinced Galactus not to devour the Earth in issue 4, as well as convincing Kraven the Hunter that there’s more challenging prey to hunt in the Marvel Universe than just Spider-Man, as seen in issue 1.  (Because, you guys, let’s not forget that all things considered, Squirrel Girl is a confident young female superhero who solves her problems through communication and without resorting to violence.  What better role model could one ask for?)  Details like this show such dedication and attention to detail on behalf of the creators, and that is just a wonderful thing to see.  I feel like I get so much bang for my buck on every page, in every panel of this series, and I hope that it continues for a million issues, and that you all read it right along with me.

Ahhhhhh, a Guardians of the Galaxy comic written by Bill Willingham.  It’s like slipping into a warm bath.

This issue begins with the delightfully improbable premise of Nightcrawler participating in the 648th Quinquennial Blade-Fighting Championship on a distant planet, only to face off against Gamora in the semi-finals.  This issue is just loaded with fun details, many of which are found in the ongoing narration by the hosts of the televised event, Wendophon of Hin and Huldan Wull of Kreevar Underwave.   For example, when speaking of Gamora’s bouts:

Hul: “But by far, her most impressive battle was her mid-elimination bout against the Vradel Swarm, a community shared-mind creature.  Amazingly, it was determined by the judges to be a single opponent.”
Wen: “Yes, and I for one think that was a bad ruling on their part, Hul.  That swarm thing is not a single fighter by any stretch of the imagination.”
Hul: “The point is moot now.  Not many of them survived Gamora’s knives.”

And it shows Gamora fighting off a bunch of tiny armored purple pixie-things.  It’s nice.  It’s something more than just a bunch of stupid alien mercenaries with space-guns.  My other favorite bit is when Good Morning Empire is interviewing the reigning champion, Kree warrior Haracon the Ghostmaker:

Haracon: “I’m not interested in rehashing tired old war stories.  I’m here to support my charity: Tanks for Tots.”
Bollo Brok: “Of course.  Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your favored cause?”
Haracon: “As you may know, thousands of underprivileged Kree toddlers have to enter their first battle school without any prior heavy armor experience.  That puts them at a severe scholastic disadvantage to children from wealthier Kree homes.  Tanks for Tots sponsors those less fortunate kids to visit heavy weapons proving grounds, to soak up vital early tank and heavy artillery experience.  We give them the head start they need to compete later on a level field.”

I also enjoyed the variety of the opponents — for example, when Nightcrawler faces off against the top Skrull defender, six-time Skrull blade champion Contessa Yuow Yuow Screet (I love these names, it’s not just idiocy like Bibbleglap or X’krr’kxt).  Since the rules allow for one blade per appendage, she’s just a huge bunch of tentacles and swords atop two legs, with some spooky red eyes peeking out from the central mass.  Even better, according to the hosts, “This is an original shape perfected over many years and absolutely proprietary to her.  She calls it Blade Fury and no other Skrull shifter can legally try to copy it.”  But Nightcrawler manages not to overpower her, but to get in close where her own tentacles and swords can’t penetrate, then achieves victory with what the judges deem a killing touch, since they determined “if a kill could take place, it’s the same as if the kill did take place.”  Of course, this judgment becomes more complicated with opponents like Gamora when taking her regenerative abilities into account.

And it’s all just nice.  It’s all these little details that give texture and depth to a story’s setting, even if it’s a wacky space story about aliens swordfighting against each other.  Nightcrawler is clearly enjoying himself in the role of wisecracking swashbuckler, and even Gamora breaks into a smile or two and goes beyond the usual grim, stilted warrior-woman dialogue.  The story leads up to the final bout between Nightcrawler and Gamora, with reigning champion Haracon as a spectator.  In the course of the battle, Nightcrawler reveals his teleportation abilities that he heretofore has yet to demonstrate during the competition; he teleports himself, Gamora, and Haracon in stages up to Gamora’s ship in orbit, in order to capture and prosecute Haracon for his role in the massacre at Fort Resolve, since the only reason they both entered the competition was because they knew Haracon would be there in person.

This issue is everything a fun, lighthearted, inconsequential space-adventure should be.

Ahhh, the ubiquity of Deadpool.  I often wonder if there the hypothetical reader actually exists that just demands more Deadpool, all the Deadpool, Deadpool guest-appearances in every Marvel comic please!  One shudders to think!  But, like… have you ever wondered why?  What exactly is it about Deadpool?  Is it the way his ceaseless, tired, “Scary Movie”-esque pop culture references and frequent use of hilarious words like “chimichanga” speak to today’s youth culture?  Is it the fact that he “breaks the fourth wall,” behaving like a comic character who is aware that he’s a comic character, constantly winking at the reader while nudging them in the ribs to the point of bruising?   Or is it just that he’s the wacky guy, a remnant of the nineties “anti-heroes,” who shrugs off traditional superhero morality while gleefully bouncing through the whole of the Marvel universe, shooting his guns and lighting his farts in increasingly hollow and cartoonish exploits?

And so, because we have to, we are presented with Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars, in which we explore what it would have been like if Deadpool had participated in the events of the original Secret Wars miniseries from ’84-’85.  Can you guys even handle the potential for wackiness??  Deadpool has done pastiche-style comics before, most recently a few issues of the most recent Posehn/Duggan run – my particular favorite was an issue set in the ’90s which heavily referenced Rob Liefeld’s excessive cross-hatching and distorted understanding of human anatomy.  Unfortunately, this miniseries is written by… sigh… Cullen Bunn.  As per usual, I’ve nothing against Cullen Bunn’s writing – would that I could get worked up over it one way or the other – but the fact of the matter is he’s just… not… funny.  Here are several examples:

Exhibit A: My god, do I hate it when comic characters reference basic elements of the comic itself, like flashbacks, panel layouts, or speech bubbles.  But yeah, so, I guess that’s also a halfhearted attempt at a “joke” by way of Deadpool pointing out that the Wasp has breasts?

Exhibit B: A bathroom reference followed immediately by a Poltergeist reference.  The laffs just keep on coming!

Exhibit C: These panels basically capture what feels like the entirety of the issue: Deadpool making lazy, unfunny side-comments to other characters who stand around disinterestedly and don’t respond.

It’s examples like these and others — Deadpool doing a coughing-gag, or catching Kang off-guard by kicking him in the ‘nads — that make me wonder if a requirement for a Deadpool comic is that it is meant to be funny.  Is a reference to his “biscuits” funny?  Is Deadpool propositioning She-Hulk and the Enchantress for a threesome funny?  How about mentioning the word “speedos?”  Is any of this meant to engender amusement on part of the reader?  Or is just it the difference between comedy and pure base immaturity?  And then I started really thinking about how, upon closer analysis, this is seriously just a straight-up re-telling of the first issue or two of Secret Wars with Deadpool on the sidelines, not influencing or directing the plot while every other “serious” character goes through the same motions.  Deadpool yammers while dragging up Kang’s unconscious body?  Nobody acknowledges him.  Deadpool lazily refers to Storm as “that biker girl?”  Nobody responds.  Deadpool is literally whispering nonsense in Wolverine’s ear?  No reaction.  The only bits I halfway liked were the Absorbing Man unintentionally absorbing Deadpool’s hideous appearance along with his powers, and Deadpool telling the Lizard, “Watch it, scaly!  This is the only set of clothes I brought!  It’s not like there are machines around here that just magically create new costumes!”

So I started to wonder… is it me?  Am I some kind of alien whose definition of humor is different than that of human society?  Am I just absolutely not the target audience for this kind of thing, but which then leads to the question, who is?  Is Deadpool’s only job in this comic to provide pointless, unfunny, and/or sarcastic commentary while all but telling the reader, “Hey, guys, I’ve read the same comics you have!  Isn’t that great?”  And then I thought, wait… pointless quibbling, metafictional awareness, lame not-jokes… is Deadpool supposed to be… a Marvel comics fan?  Is he supposed to be a stand-in for the reader?  Is Deadpool supposed to be me?  Am I Deadpool???!  …Which made me realize I was going way too far down the rabbit-hole, and I’m pretty sure I was devoting more thought to this comic than did any of its creators.

Anyway, what could have been a fun experiment ends up as nothing but a collection of tired, lazy gags that not even the characters themselves get worked up about.  For an example of how to do this kind of thing right, please see one of my all-time favorite comics, Deadpool 11 from Joe Kelly’s run on the series, which I will continue to argue is the best Deadpool run that was unappreciated in its time.  I don’t think anyone is nearly as capable of balancing action, pathos, and humor as Joe Kelly – his Deadpool was a psychopathic mercenary who was always trying to do right thing, even though at times he probably couldn’t have told you why he was bothering.  In this issue, Deadpool is thrown back in time to the otherwise forgettable Amazing Spider-Man 47, with Pete Woods and inkers Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott doing an incredible job of mimicking the style of John Romita’s original penciling.  Trapped in the past with a busted teleporter, Deadpool’s only shot to make it back to the present is to use his holographic image inducer to pose as “bony college boy” Peter Parker, disguise Blind Al as Peter’s fainting-prone aunt May, track down the younger version of his science-genius sidekick Weasel, and not do too much damage to the timestream, while simultaneously fighting off Kraven the Hunter and trying not to make fun of Norman Osborn’s ridiculous hair.  It is 100% amazing and you should all read that issue instead of devoting any more thought to Deadpool’s Secret Secret Wars.

So have you guys heard that Uncanny X-Men 600, the long-awaited final issue of Bendis’s X-Men run, has been pushed back from May to October?  Man, was I crushed to hear that news.  I just want an ending!  Just the night prior, I’d been telling my husband how much I was looking forward to (hopefully) letting myself love the X-Men again.  It’s been a hard three years, you guys!  I can only hope the next creative team can help deliver us from mediocrity.

In the meanwhile, perhaps it’s the good feeling of knowing Bendis’ run is nearing it send, or maybe it’s Kris Anka’s consistently gorgeous and expressive artwork, or maybe it’s the satisfaction that comes from the rare occasions when Bendis actually wraps up a plotline… but after my first reading, this felt like a pretty good issue, in that it had a beginning, middle, and end, along with a fun reveal or two.  (Cover unrelated, however, as Emma Frost does not appear in this issue.  I love it when this happens to Bendis titles, since I’ve heard it’s when his stories run longer than he intended, as if he’s simply a humble artist at the mercy of his muse.)  It opens with Cyclops confronting Mystique in a standard scene wherein Bendis has someone explore the wildly inconsistent characterization of his own writing as if it was all done with some sort of intent:

Cyclops: “Raven… you are a mutant of exceptional ability.  You might be one of the best.”
Mystique: “Might?”
Cyclops: “But one minute you’re setting up a nightmare mutant utopia in Madripoor.  The next you’re attacking your own people.  (What you did to Dazzler…)  You were one of Xavier’s soldiers, just like me… and now?  Honestly… I’m talking to you, Raven… mutant to mutant.  What are you doing?  What do you want?”

Yes!  This is what it means to be a comic writer!  Just have a brilliant character like Mystique flail around like some stupid action-movie villain, accumulating money and power with no clear motivation or apparent end goal, then have someone have a nice rational sit-down with her and ask, “What are you doing?  What do you want?”  It’s a fair question Brian Michael Bendis.

But we don’t get an answer, of course.  It turns out that Cyclops is actually Dazzler in disguise, since Mystique kidnapped her, took her identity as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s mutant liaison, and kept her in a drugged-up coma for a while, and now Dazzler is out for payback.  She goes aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier to inform Maria Hill of her intent and get whatever current intel they have on Mystique’s whereabouts; Bendis continues to insist on making poor Maria Hill talk like an idiot every chance he gets, from telling the rest of the helicarrier bridge crew, “Everyone go potty.  I’ll call you back in when I need you,” to telling Dazzler “I’d be out-of-my-skin pissed if she took my place in the world,” and when Dazzler negotiates for clean records for the X-Men’s new mutant recruits in exchange for custody of Mystique, she replies, “You bring me that terrorist, I’ll give you that and I’ll buy you all ice cream, too.”  So, yeah, business as usual, I guess.

So Mystique clues in to Dazzler’s disguise by referencing the affair she and Cyclops never really had, and the Stepford Cuckoos are managing to hold Mystique in place telepathically, despite Mystique “using anti-psychic nano-technology that we don’t know anything about yet” (hahaha what).  Mystique taunts Dazzler for not doing anything interesting with her life until Mystique took it from her, then succumbs to the kind of uncharacteristic dialogue that results from plain ol’ lazy writing right before Dazzler zaps her out of a high-rise window.  Buuuuut instead of letting her plummet to her death, Magik teleports down and rescues her, Mystique (apparently sincerely?!) admits that Dazzler is a better woman than she is, and Dazzler tells her she’s trying to teach these kids “something someone should have taught you.”  Dazzler goes back to singing, Maria Hill re-recruits Dazzler to S.H.I.E.L.D., and the young X-Men wonder where the rule is that says they have to be X-Men, and maybe they can be something else.  TO BE CONCLUDED… IN UNCANNY X-MEN #600 AT SOME UNDETERMINED POINT IN THE FUTURE!

So… what happened to Mystique, you may ask?  Good question!  I assume she’s in S.H.I.E.L.D. prison?  I guess Brian Michael Bendis said everything he wanted to say about her character?  I think this issue felt like a good issue because Bendis was asking the same questions I am — what does Mystique want? What are the young X-Men going to do with themselves now that Cyclops has dissolved the team? — but upon further analysis, he doesn’t actually get around to providing any answers.  Right when we think Mystique is about to have a moment of character development (I mean, her face was obscured in shadow, you guys!  Twice!), the scene just skips to her asking who Cyclops really is, then moves right along to the next comedy/action bit.  So aside from Dazzler once referring to Mystique as “that sad, scared little girl hiding behind all her masks,” this story isn’t actually about Mystique at all, which it really should have been.  Still… I guess it was nice to have Dazzler in the spotlight for a little while.

This is the Secret Wars miniseries purported to bring about the end of the Ultimate line of comics — well, the latest end of the Ultimate comics, anyway.  At the end of the day, it’s every bit what one would expect from a Bendis/Bagley comic, no less, and certainly no more.  The New York Cities from both universes are kinda merged into one.  (Or, as bizarrely stated in the Secret Wars recap page, “Each domain holding its own mysteries and enchantments, but none so New York as… Manhattan.”)  Spider-Man comes down with a case of the Bendises by whining like an idiot for the whole issue about how everybody knows his secret identity, apparently forgetting that the majority of the planet and everyone else in the entire multiverse has been obliterated in an apocalyptic cataclysm.  (“I have a family.  I have things to protect.  I may have adult acne.  And I don’t like any of you knowing my name!!!”)  After a perfunctory fight scene with Spider-Man and the Teen Ultimates versus the all-ladies Serpent Squad — during which I noticed that Miles Morales is completely absent from this entire issue, which I thought was a peculiar omission — we quickly get back to Bendis’ natural element: a dozen characters standing around in a room yammering at each other.  Example:

Hawkeye: “It’s a fair question… why are you leading this meeting, Fury?”
Nick Fury: “Because I called the meeting.  You’re in my house, Hawkeye.  And where I come from, that makes you a guest.  And where I come from, a guest shows some %#&*$@ courtesy to his %#&*$@ host.”
Hawkeye: “Where did you come from?”
Nick Fury: “And frankly, Barton, I don’t care if you stay or leave.”
Hawkeye: “I believe I was just told off.”
Black Widow: “Spanked.”

Good god.  That is how the scene opens.  So many words used to say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  But I will say that the lettering is doing a remarkable job of adhering to all-capitals for the Marvel characters, and lowercase lettering for the Ultimates.  Good job, Cory Petit!  I admire your attention to detail.

But we could stay here all day pointing out irritating Bendis foibles one by one.  (Oh, heck, just one more for good measure!)  But back when I first heard the news about the Marvel and Ultimate universes smooshing together like so many pizzas, I kinda shrugged, because at this point I thought the Ultimate universe basically consisted of “Miles Morales and others.”  So I thought I’d do a quick rundown on the few surviving Ultimate characters that remain.

Miles Morales: Oh wow, did you guys hear there’s a black Spider-Man?  But yeah, the apparent darling of the Ultimate universe, and I could not tell you anything about his personality other than he’s a good kid.  With, like, a good heart, and a good head on his shoulders, or whatever.  I mean, what can you guys tell me about Miles Morales that’s not related to his race?  Not much, right?  It’s just a shame that between this and Spider-Verse, he’s been relegated to not just a Spider-Man among many.

The Thing:  You guys probably hadn’t heard that a couple years back, the Ultimate Thing kinda “molted” out of his rocky exterior, resulting in a Ben Grimm who can either be a normal human, or can transform into a guy who’s just as strong as the Thing, only he’s glowy and purple instead of an ungainly rock-monster, so it’s easier for him to fall in wuv with his girlfriend, Sue Storm.  Because I know I’ve said it a million times: “The Thing is always more interesting when he can change back and forth from his monster form at will.”

Nick Fury: Believe it or not, we actually now have two black Nick Furys.  The one in the Marvel universe is actually the long-lost son of Nick Fury Sr.!  Yes, our cup runneth over with Nick Furys!

Iron Man: Antonio Stark (this isn’t a joke, his Ultimate name is seriously Antonio) was pretty fun as Mark Millar’s unabashedly alcoholic genius millionaire with a terminal brain tumor, but he’s since had just about all the edges rounded off until he’s basically just another Iron Man.  Although it was kinda fun once he started talking to his brain tumor and it developed into a kind of separate entity named Anthony, a “parallel processor” with the power to technopathically control and communicate with machinery.  (This also isn’t a joke.)

Invisible Woman: I like that she’s a genius biologist instead of a devoted wife and mother, but that’s pretty much all the brings to the table.

Hawkeye: As something of an exception, the Marvel Hawkeye has basically morphed into something more closely resembling his Ultimate equivalent, all sunglasses and straps and close-cropped hair.  Thinking about it, isn’t it kinda weird that Matt Fraction is singlehandedly responsible for flipping the switch that turned Hawkeye from the hotheaded rogue — who’d basically get mad at Captain America’s authority and get back at him by forming his own team of Avengers and he’ll be the leader, see what he thinks about that — into the hard-luck whipping-boy of the Avengers?

Cloak and Dagger: They were high school sweethearts who got into a limo accident on the way to their prom that placed them both into identical comas, during which time they were experimented on by a brain trust of mad scientists and given super-powers identical to that of their Marvel equivalents.  So they’re around.  But seriously, matching comas.

The Hulk: There is still an Ultimate Hulk.  He is grayish.  That is all.

Thor: I think the last we saw of Ultimate Thor, he was left drifting in the lightless void alongside Galactus after his brief stint in the Ultimate Universe, but I think we’ve seen Galactus again since, so who knows.  The thing about Thor was that when he first appeared in Mark Millar’s Ultimates, no one knew if this guy was the actual earthly reincarnation of the god of thunder, or if he was just some hippie nutjob with a massively-powerful hammer and delusions of godhood.  But that tension and ambiguity made for a fantastic character, along with his own goals and motivations for being a part of the Ultimates, like when he refused to assist with the battle against the Hulk until President Bush agreed to double the federal foreign aid budget.  But then at the end of Ultimates v2, they revealed that, yes, he actually is the god of thunder, and that Asgard exists, and all the other gods and trolls and pixies and whatever just started tumbling out all over the place during the big final battle, and it was like oh, okay, now he’s just another boring Thor.  He even started speaking in pseudo-Shakespearean after that.  Oh well.

Kitty Pryde: I admit that it might be fun to see more of Ultimate Kitty Pryde.  She started out as Peter Parker’s girlfriend (since I doubt there’s anything Bendis loves more than a nice Jewish girl), but then she became a vigilante in her own right, and then a leader among the mutant community.  She also practiced with her powers so that in addition to becoming intangible, she can alter her molecular density in the other direction and become, like, this super-dense powerhouse who can smash cars and stuff.  Which is the kind of detail I like when these Ultimate characters grow and change beyond the constraints of their Marvel origins.

Colossus: He’s gay, but don’t worry, you guys, Ultimate Colossus is from an alternate reality, not a time-travel paradox, so his coming out didn’t throw me into a fit of impotent nerd-rage.  And I think he might even still be alive?  I don’t know.

The rest of the X-Men: Oh, god only knows.  There’s a boring mohawk Storm.  There’s a boring Iceman.  There’s a boring southern goth Rogue.  There’s a boring Jean Grey where Bendis had her and Teen Jean form their own mutual admiration society and tell each other how great they are.  Ultimate Wolverine is dead (as far as I know), but we’ve still got his son Jimmy.  They’re all just the same X-Men only whiny boring teenagers and I simply cannot work up the energy to care.  (You guys should totally read the Brian K. Vaughan issues of Ultimate X-Men, though.  Those were rad.)

Doctor Doom: I think one of the reasons Doctor Doom has yet to successfully translate to the big screen is that he doesn’t have an awesome Ultimate equivalent with a streamlined modern origin story.  You know?  It’s hard to make a compelling, non-ironic villain out of a disfigured armored mad scientist with doctorates in mechanical engineering and gypsy sorcery.  I mean, there is an Ultimate Doctor Doom, as created by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen.  But he was a goat-legged organic-armored monster-man who started his own commune in Latveria, built a batch of flying bluetooth-controlled bug-bots to murder Reed Richards, and attacks by throwing metal spines and exhaling toxic gas from “converting the remains of my internal organs into poison.”  So needless to say, I think he’s a dream come true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were those who didn’t share my opinion.

Captain America: Haha, I think Ultimate Steve Rogers might still be dead after the events of Cataclysm?  Here’s what happened in that particular issue: Captain America needed to buy everybody time during the fight with Galactus, so he hopped into a jet and took off without a second thought while Storm provided cover.  Panel 2: Captain America looking stoic and grim in the pilot’s seat.  Panel 3: the jet firing into Galactus’s gaping maw (which was pretty awesome).  Panel 4: Captain America runs away from the jet’s cockpit towards the back of the plane.  Panel 5: the jet crashes into Galactus’s mouth and explodes.  Two more pages and the issue ends.  And I was like, was I supposed to interpret that as The Death of Ultimate Captain America?  Guys, do you know what Captain America’s superpower is, which he demonstrates in literally every movie he’s in?  Jumping out of a plane like it’s not even a big deal.  But that’s apparently him in the big stupid fight scene alluded to at the beginning of this very issue, so what-the-@#$%-ever I guess!

Frankly, the only Ultimate character I think has nothing but potential is Reed Richards.  I love him because he’s so different from staid and boring Mr. Fantastic.  For one thing, Sue analysed him after the accident that gave them all their powers and discovered that he has no bones, no differentiated organs — all he has inside his body is a stack of bacteria (because Warren Ellis loves stacks of bacteria), so he doesn’t even need to eat or breathe.  Secondly, he’s a deranged super-genius who created his own separate species in a temporally-accelerated sentient City of the Future.  Isn’t that thrilling?  What if Mr. Fantastic’s vaunted genius were twisted into something so radically different and interesting?  He doesn’t even age!  Nick Fury himself referred to him as “a thousand-year-old megalomaniacal boy genius who wiped out most of Europe on a whim!”  That is amazing!  That is what the Ultimate universe is there for, to take these characters, strip them of decades of cumbersome continuity to get to the core of what they’re about, and then — here’s the crucial part — explore how they can diverge from their expected, predetermined roles!  And even though Reed isn’t seen or mentioned in this issue, I’m so gratified that he’s going to have a prominent role in the main Secret Wars series, and I hope we see more of him after all this reality-colliding dust settles.

Well, it looks like the final issue of this series will be issue 17, so I’ll probably go ahead and see this series through to the end, if only out of devotion to Al Ewing.  And this was a pretty fun issue:

1) Odin throws a big ol’ blustery godly hissyfit that the rest of the many Marvel pantheons won’t give credence to the his warnings about impending end of existence, which I appreciated, since I’d been wondering what the gods thought about all this Secret Wars nuttiness.
2) Loki’s sinister alternate future self succeeds in killing Balder again – classic!
3) This fairly incredible final page.
4) And finally, the winning panel for this week’s Pandering Directly to Cody award!  Rrowwrr indeed, you god of mischief, you!  

Okay, so here’s a quick rundown for what you guys should know about Secret Wars: for the last, like, three years, all the alternate realities of the Marvel universe have been colliding with and annihilating each other, culminating in the final collision between the Marvel universe and the Ultimate universe.  So, spoiler alert, every Marvel character exploded and died forever.  Except Doctor Doom did some kinda magic somethin’, and now the only thing left is Battleworld, hearkening back to the patchwork planet from the original miniseries, assembled from fragments of numerous different planets.  This time the world is assembled from the remnants of a few dozen Marvel continuities, including separate realities like 1602, the Age of Apocalypse, and Future Imperfect, or versions where established events turned out differently, like Civil War, Inferno, or the X-Tinction Agenda.  They all coexist within their own territories, each zone has its own baron or baroness to keep things in order, and everybody is ruled over by their all-powerful god-emperor, Doctor Doom.  The Thor Corps are the enforcers of Doom’s laws, and if anybody breaks those laws, they’re tossed over the giant wall separating the rest of Battleworld from the Deadlands, where all the ravenous Marvel Zombies hang out.  But what I like about it is that instead of a whole planet full of characters saying “Oh no oh no what’s going on where are we how did we get here,” as far as they know, it has ever been thus, and Doctor Doom has always ruled over them and this entire ridiculous planet.

And so, as is de rigueur for giant crossover events these days, like feeder fish hanging out around the mouths of sharks, we get the tie-in anthology miniseries.  In my opinion, there are ways to do tie-in anthology miniseries well, and a few examples that spring to mind are some of the X-Men miniseries.  When there was a big event in the main titles, such as when the X-Men broke up for a little while after the events of Messiah CompleX, or when they relocated to San Francisco, they put out a four- or five-issue series with a handful of stories of the various X-Men adjusting to recent events.  And since there were — and remain — just so many X-Men, it was always nice to see just a few pages of minor side-characters who otherwise tend to get lost in the crowd, having solo adventures or tying up some loose ends, put together by new/upcoming creators.

But then there was the recent tie-in miniseries for Original Sin (confusingly titled Original Sins), out of which I’d say the fifth and final issue was the only good one, despite the darling multi-part Young Avengers series written by Ryan North.  (Compare and contrast issue 5’s hilarious two-page back-up written and illustrated by Chip Zdarsky to the issue 4’s two-page back-up about an Eskimo who peed on Captain America while he was still frozen in a block of ice.)  And then came the truly execrable AXIS: Revolutions miniseries.  Aside from the stories’ focus on inverted characters already heavily featured in the main AXIS series and crossover issues — evil Nightcrawler, jerk Thor, good-guy Sabretooth — each of the halfhearted, inconsequential stories left me with the same unresolved question as the rest of the AXIS event: “So what?”

Hence, I’ve been more than a little reticent to pick up the Secret Wars tie-in miniseries, especially considering there are two of them (Secret Wars: Battleworld and Secret Wars Journal), and especially when the advance solicitations draw attention to this fact by way of a friendly rivalry as each of the series tout themselves over the other.  But this issue… ehh, it wasn’t bad.  Not awful, but not mind-blowing.  The first story featured Punisher unwillingly semi-possessed by the astral form of Dr. Strange, who then encounters Inferno’s demonic answer to the short-lived ’90s Fantastic Four, Hulk, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, and Wolverine.   I enjoyed the Punisher dispassionately utilizing Strange’s sorcery to form a mystical Rocket of Raggadorr-launcher and a Weapon of Watoomb grenade.  The war-weary Punisher succeeds in giving up the fight and blowing himself up, allowing Dr. Strange to possess the near-immortal and resigned Wolverine instead, so… yay?  Then we get a goofy little story about M.O.D.O.K.’s latest bid for power, summoning a legion of alternate-reality M.O.D.O.K.s, since theirs are the truly superior intellects.  With, of course, predictable super-villainous results, since between their mutual distrust and enormous egos, they all quickly end up destroying each other.  But I did like when the multi-limbed Spider-M.O.D.O.K. announced, “My spider sensors’ readings are highly erratic!”  Largely missable, but still some silly harmless fun to be had.

To Cullen Bunn’s credit, this was a pretty solid issue, laying the groundwork for a forthcoming confrontation between Moon Knight and his patron, Khonshu, the god of vengeance — who, as always, may or may not be a complete fabrication of Moon Knight’s mental illness.  I was a little concerned when this issue opened with Moon Knight whining like a big ol’ crybaby after he’d had his first encounter with some kinda Bogeyman.  However, following a confrontation with Khonshu in which he is told in no uncertain terms that this is not his fight, we get page after page after page of Moon Knight in business-formal wear (swoon!) riddling the Bogeyman with automatic gunfire in front of a traumatized little girl in her bedroom… which is the kind of stuff I enjoy!  And then oh, okay, the little twist ending ties neatly to the opening – that’s fair, that’s pretty well-crafted.  An enjoyable enough story, but I think the crazy action was what succeeded in capturing my attention.

Just wonderful.  After being mugged by Aunt May, Howard tracks down a ring of elderly criminals, which is a fun enough premise – particularly when Howard goes undercover by shedding all his clothes, getting down on his hands and knees in the park, and eating bread tossed to him by old folks while keeping an eye out for the culprit.  But then there are the details.  There’s the cover quote, “My favorite comic currently being published by Marvel Comics!,” attributed to Cherp Zdorsky.  There’s comedy footnotes.  There’s just little moments like this to help flesh out Howard’s character.  We even get a bonus back-up story where superhero impersonators who dress up like Captain America and Thor are worried about losing their jobs to “women and minorities.”  It’s smart, it’s off-beat, and it’s just a joy to read.

This dumb issue made me almost cry on the MAX!  Captain Marvel returns from her largely inconsequential editorially-mandated cross-promotion with the Guardians of the Galaxy space-adventure, and finds herself unexpectedly having to bid farewell to an old friend.  Well-played, Kelly Sue Deconnick, you managed to spear me right through the sentimental chink in my armor of ironic detachment!

So you guys cannot imagine how overjoyed I was when it was announced that Moon Knight would be relaunching as a series of done-in-one “weird crime” stories written by Warren Ellis.  Which, of course, lasted for all of six issues, Warren Ellis’s attention span being what it is.  But those six issues were sooooo goooood.  Say what you will about Warren Ellis (don’t mind if I do), but his writing just has that something, that edge that makes it jump off the page.  (There’s one entire issue that follows Moon Knight as he climbs the stairs of an abandoned tenement building to rescue a kidnapped girl, brutally beating each of the kidnappers one by one, floor by floor!)  Then Brian Wood’s arc was okay… more of a six-part storyline, but still very well-designed.  But y’know, with the notable exception of Fearless Defenders (and what an exception it is!), Cullen Bunn’s writing just never does much for me.  It’s never awful, of course, but it rarely catches me by surprise, just staying firmly in the middle of the road.  So I feel like I’m just constantly giving him one more issue.  Like this one: Moon Knight fights a pack of wild dogs that are trained to hunt… rich people?  And then he frees them to eat their mean junkyard owner?  Okay, sure.  Next issue: moon Knight fights… some kind of monster under the bed?  I mean, that sounds pretty cool, I guess…

Oh, it’s super awesome, if you enjoy Doctor Doom and the Molecule Man bandying about ponderous Hickmanesque dialogue for page after page.  But at least it helps explain how Doctor Doom reached his apotheosis here at the cusp of Secret Wars… I mean, I assume it does, since it’s one of those comics that’s so dry my attention keeps wandering whenever I try to read it.  Molecule Man is a bomb scattered across realities.  Doctor Doom starts his own religion of Black Swans to counter the actions of the Beyonders… but not the Black Priests… and also something with the Mapmakers… anyway, it’s a whooooole lot of ground to cover just to get to the ultimate confrontation between Doom and the Beyonders, which, I admit, starts out pretty rad before it ends the same as every other Jonathan Hickman comic of late: blank space!

I just miss the Molecule Man of the Jim Shooter era of yore, in which he was just this average nerdy guy who, despite his god-like power of complete control over all molecules, just wanted to stay in, watch TV, and eat popcorn with his curvaceous lava-powered girlfriend, Volcana.  So when the Beyonder kept knockin’ on his door during the events of Secret Wars II, all wonderin’ what it means to be human, he was the one who kept quietly repairing the damage to the universe behind the Beyonder’s back.  Now he’s just standard-issue Jonathan Hickman crazy character.  Oh well!

Man, I hate to say it, G. Willow Wilson, but this storyline was bad.  About one, maybe two issue’s worth of story in a four-issue bag… I think one could easily have cut the entire issue spent fighting giant bug-monsters in a cave and the story would not have suffered for it.  I have nothing against the idea of an all-female cast as a matter of principle — see Fearless Defenders for a great example of how to do it right — but when it comes to an X-team comprised of Storm, M, Rachel Grey, and Psylocke, they’re all too bloody similar.  Three of them are telepaths, for pity’s sake.  The thing about X-Men is that their diversity gives everyone something to play off with each other, be it their background, powers, motivations, or gender.  These four women, each within the context of the X-Men, just don’t have enough tension or conflict to make for an engaging team dynamic.  (Hence that time Brian Wood turned Rachel into a lunatic, constantly demanding of Storm, “Who went and made you leader, anyway?!”)  The story ended well as they tried to reach a deranged Krakoa monster that had been experimented on and weaponized years ago, but ended up bring forced to destroy it… but all in all, I’m glad my hex took effect and brought about this series’ cancellation as just one X-title too many.