Here Comes the Rain Again

Check my epic-fatigues

Well, here we are at another epic cross-roads: the continuing convergence of secret crises laid bare in multi-cross-over and auxiliary issue form; soon to become a major omnibus at a comic shop near you. I’m talking about the recent mega-events from “convoluted comics”, aka: Marvel and DC of course. I should also throw in the advent of Avengers: Age of Ultron, now in theatres, which is making buckets of cash while generating lesser praise than its predecessor. I have sampled a portion of each of these high-profile works in the past few days and I’m feeling a little worn out by the epic-ness of it all. Allow me to share my impressions:

Marvel: Secret Wars #1.

I remember picking up the original series from the drug-store spinner rack back in 1984, and can’t say I was terribly impressed by it. Sure, the premise was cool: a bunch of heroes and villains get abducted from earth to duke it out on some crazy-quilt planet. The Mike Zeck art sure was awesome. But, I felt that it was too much about a few minor skirmishes and there was not enough grandiose peril involved. Oh, yah: I guess Galactus was going to eat the planet: so there’s that. It could have been called “Secret Lunch”, I guess. But, then came the “Beyonder”! Whoa. I’m supposed to be impressed by some omnipotent master playing games with a few dozen confused costumed characters for kicks? And still there’s Galactus who just wants his happy meal. Like, why build a planet for super-heroes to fight on when you invite the ultimate kill-joy along? The only great thing about Secret Wars to me was Doctor Doom and his scheme to siphon the power out of the Beyonder. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those pesky editors. I mean…who cares. Everyone came home no worse for wear and someone got a new pair of threads. Next!

This new Secret Wars has me slightly more intrigued because the lead-up story has been massive and mostly entertaining as . Say what you will about Hickman being overly conceptual or having a tendency to draaaag things out too super-long, but the intricate incursion plot line has kept my attention all the way through. Now, here we have some real grandiose peril the way I like it! Boom goes the planet-marbals one-by-one like some giant candy-crush machine. There can be only one! Mu-ha ha! So, after much fretting and moral dilemma-ing, we get to the end of the worlds’ finale. Multiversal kaput. Told in ultra-mega-epic fashion. Ok. Plus, the promise of bonkers tie-in books spanning the history of all Marvel Comics taking place simultaneously on one single world. This is crazy. This is totally throwing everything in but the kitchen sink wars. I’m actually thinking this could be kind of fun for a minute.

But, wait. What the is going on here? The entire Marvel Universe just died? Yes, I know “everything dies Hickman”! I know things die for real. Do we really need to kill the entire universe just so we can smash up all the good stuff from the past 50 years into some epic free-for-all? Can’t we just go to another planet or another reality for a little while to spin out this bit of madness? Remember how cool the Age of Apocalypse was? This is like a hundred times AOA plus death. I have my reservations weather this is a good idea or not. Mostly because the drama is now completely removed from the equation and we are going to be left with flat out fantasy from here on out. Unless Mephisto somehow drops in to make another deal with Parker to “magically” bring everything back to the way it was, I don’t know how this new status quo can persist. We still need a street-level, identifiable character in an identifiable location to stay emotionally connected to these characters. Otherwise, dead means nothing…

Marvel: Avengers: Age of Ultron movie.

Which brings me to the latest flick from the ever-expanding Marvel Movie Universe. Once again, I’m going to sound elitist by saying I wasn’t completely blown away by the first one. I liked the initial Avengers movie. I found parts of it to be derivative but that’s to be expected when movies steal all the good parts from a litany of comics I’ve read. I was delighted by certain scenes like the Black Widow owning Loki and Hulk smashing stuff. The effects were great and the characters were all believable even though most of them wore ridiculous looking costumes. I love how Chris Evans totally embodies his character like a boss, even while looking silly doing so. Hemsworth is fantastic. Good acting, great effects, fun story=entertainment.

This new movie is also great. I loved watching all the little battles with the mini-trons and how Cap’s shield bounced over so many different objects at perfectly impossible angles. I enjoyed the new characters like Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch and the little vignettes inside each character’s head while the Witch with them. I even liked the country time oasis part in the middle where everyone was flannel for a day. Ultron was fine. Everything was fine. There wasn’t much wrong with anything in the film actually. I did not like the characterization of Rhodey. He’s the voice of reason to Tony’s mischief. Cheadle came off as a clown in armor in this one. Not cool. There was a little too much witty banter at weird times as well. About the running joke: shut your mouth about all the stupid swearing jokes. it, Whedon! Son of a , that was annoying as . Otherwise, though: it was good fun.

Anyway, I liked AOU about as much as I enjoyed the first one. I liked it about as much as the first Secret Wars. Which is to say: it was entertaining and had a couple of nice moments but ultimately said nothing. A lot of pomp and circumstance as you might say. I know Joss wanted to insert a few quiet moments into this movie: a few scenes to draw the audience more into the characters amid the chaos. I applaud his efforts, however, it did feel like there were two different movies going on simultaneously at times. The wounded warrior routine and the gung-ho heroic arcs were often mashed together awkwardly. And the Vision was pure fan-service or just Joss service: I can’t tell the difference anymore. One in the same? Is this Joss-fanning? While AOU could have been a pure action-adventure story with life-like cartoon characters, Joss took the time to include some emotional elements and kept things grounded…until the end when things were literally “not-grounded at all”. So before we get all Battle-worlded to death in the next few months, at least I got some of my favorite heroes in a cool adventure on the same earth as I am still familiar with.

DC: Convergence.

Sigh. Where to begin? Even though I have been recently reading through my epic piles of old DC comics, I haven’t really been keeping up much with the New 52. I gave it a good heroic try when the line was first launched, but quickly dropped out when I found most of it to be inferior. I hear Batman’s good. That’s fine. I read Batman Inc. for a while. I prefer to just leave the character at Final Crisis. Although my nose is somewhat stuck in the air about DC these days, I’ve taken a few dips here and there to see how the water is. Future’s End was a fun re-visioning that had no consequence. Do I detect a trend? But wait: here comes the mother of all re-visions. Convergence! We get all the fun stories from years gone by, smashed together in some sort of “contest of champions” across time and space. Do I detect a trend here? Am I repeating myself or am I still talking about the Secret Kitchen Sink?

I read Convergence: Swamp Thing and threw up. I want to tear that book into shreds. This is Len Wein and Kelley freaking Jones doing Swamp Thing for ’s sake! Do something useful guys! It’s a horrible mess. First: anyone who has read the original stories can tell you that they are far superior to this garbage. Second: anyone who hasn’t read the original stories wouldn’t give two about this garbage. It’s a monstrosity. And I’m not talking about the actual Swamp Thing character. The comic itself is an actual “muck-monster”. Its expository cliff-notes ham-fistedly inserted into a plot device that makes no sense. I hate Convergence already. Then, I read the actual Convergence #0 where Superman has a confusing conversation with multiple Brainiacs who he then punches in the face at least one time for affect. There are multiple flash-backy things showing scenes from popular stories of days gone by and finally the story rests on the revelation of what this whole mess is about after all. Can somebody please just drop a bunch of heroes and villains on an abandoned planet and have them duke it out for no particular reason without having to involve some long convoluted overly-epic grand scheme…please! Oh, yah: that was Secret Wars.

Sigh.

I understand the “suits” are noticing that multi-part mega-crossover event thingies are a cash cow in the business. The mandate seems to have become: the bigger the better. We, as readers and consumers of these comics don’t necessarily agree with this assessment (especially with our pocket books becoming flatter), but the bottom line is: as long as we stay interested, the major comic companies will continue to raise the stakes. I see this new Secret Wars as the ultimate un-doing of all that we faithful readers have enjoyed over the years. It is not merely an event: it’s a shift from what Stan & Jack (or “just Jack and Steve” as some have claimed) originally conceived of when birthing Marvel: what if a regular guy was suddenly endowed with powers beyond belief? What if: super-powered individuals began to pop up all over the world? How would that affect your life if that happened to your neighbor, husband, wife, girlfriend or even yourself? Marvel took the concept of super-heroes from passive wonder to empowering imaginations. And when we read these fantastic, amazing and incredible stories: they were indeed “epic” in our own minds. They took on a life in our imaginations and we began to envision what adventures we could have in our own lives. This new Secret Wars has stolen that empowerment from our imaginations. We now have Battleworld to watch passively and root for our favorite hero to survive. No longer are we included in the story. That said, I’m sure I will be buying the out of Secret Wars this year. Excelsior!

Reading for the month of May is as follows:

Aztek the Ultimate Man #1-10

Justice League: A Midsummer’s Nightmare #1-3

JLA #1-17

JLA Secret Files #1