Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "mc2-universe"

Amazing Spider-Girl - Volume 1: Whatever Happened to the Daughter of Spider-Man by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A mere six months after the end of the first Spider-girl series, Amazing Spider-girl returned. This book collects material from Issues 0-6

May Parker, the daughter of the Amazing Spider-man in Marvel MC2 universe had hung up her webs after a confrontations with the Hobgoblin that nearly killed her as well as the events of Last Planet Standing much to the relief of her parents. She's enjoying life as an ordinary teenager with a new baby brother, closer relationships with her friends, plus she's growing into a beautiful young woman with a handsome boyfriend.

However, when the the battered women's shelter she volunteers at is targeted by gangster working for the Hobgoblin, May goes back into action even without the costume. And reluctantly, her mom returns her web shooters and costume to save a life. Still, she's trying to keep her work as Spider-girl on the downlow and struggling with what the right thing to do is. She finds herself having to choose between keeping her word to her parents as well as following through on her commitments or on saving lives as Spider-girl.

May is a great character and her values and courage make her someone you cheer for. This book is really about doing the right thing and trying to figure out what that is. She also has a bit more with than she did at the beginning of the run. For the most part, the story is well-paced. Some old favorites appear on both the hero and villain side, including the Black Tarantula. The action is well-done and certainly not predictable.

That said, I don't quite care for how the volume ends, though I'll hope that it'll turn out better for May as her actions towards the end of the book have scream, "Unintended consequences."

While May's struggle is noble and I can understand exactly what she's thinking, her parents are another story particularly Peter (the former Spider-man). His responses to the situation are inconsistent. In Issue 1, he wonders to Mary Jane how long May can stick with quitting the Spider-girl thing, but then erupts like an exploding volcano.

In many ways, DeFalco is treading ground he explored in the first eight issues of the series where it certainly made sense for Peter not to want his inexperienced daughter to get herself killed playing hero. In the context of a hero who has fought alongside the Fantastic Four and taken on villains like Loki and the Kingpin, this seems kind of dumb. He also is shocked that she would hide her Spider-girl activity from him or lie despite the fact he did this for years with his Aunt May. The problem is that Peter is acting in a way that's convenient for the writer rather than one that actually makes sense based on what we know of the character, leading to a portrayal that's kind of contrived in this first volume.

Still I'm optimistic and looking forward to the rest of the series.



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Fantastic Five: The Final Doom by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


In this second Fantastic Five volume (set in Marvel's MC2 Universe), Dr. Doom escapes from where he's been imprisoned by Namor the Submariner in an attempt to wreck vengeance on his old enemies who are now the Fantastic Five. At the same time, back from the negative zone, Reed Richards is reasserting leadership over the group leading to Johnny to start thinking about starting his own group. Then Doom comes acalling with the goal of defeating the FF and taking over the world.

This volume of the Fantastic Five is far better than the previous unfocused story, and it shows great promise with a central villain in Dr. Doom living up to his reputation and making audacious plays that are mostly successful in his efforts to shoehorn his hated enemies. I particularly loved the focus on Ben Grimm in Issue 2 after Doctor Doom left him for dead. It really showed what a great character Grimm is.

Unfortunately, the story ran into problems in the second half. There were simply too many characters running around. While the group is style the Fantastic Five, in addition to Reed, Ben, Sue, Johnny Storm, and Franklin Richards, the FF also contains Johnny's wife, his kid, and Ben's two kids by his ex-wife, as well as Dr. Doom's ex-apprentice Kristos: All with powers and all in the story. This was the state of play after the previous FF story. What became clear was that the goal of the book was to whittle the team down to a true Fantastic Five with people deciding to leave or otherwise be incapacitated.

And that really hurts the story in the end. Also, some conflicts are raised but never really addressed, particularly surrounding Reed Richards as his conflicts with both Sue and Johnny are raised but ultimately left un-addressed by the book. This makes it puzzling that the authors decide to give a page or two of the book away to cameos with other characters discussing the situation and trying to figure plans that really won't play into the story.

Issue 5 does contain a big, and almost certainly final confrontation between Doom and Reed that's interesting, although it ends on an unsatisfying and anti-climatic note.

In the end, this isn't a bad book or series, it actually has some strong elements in it, but it's a story that was more concerned about the destination of changing the Status Quo on the team rather than telling a great story and the even with Doom as the villain, the result is disappointing.



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American Dream: Beyond Courage by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This volume collects the five issue American Dream series from the MC2 universe and was the third limited edition series launched following the renewal of Spider-girl.

In the story, non-Super Powered Avenger American Dream (i.e. Shannon Carter) stumbling into a host of bad guys most notably Sillikong, a crystal creature in what's supposed to be a solo story. While she's ordered off the case by S.H.I.E.L.D. she stumbled back into it as she's helping a woman find her illegal alien boyfriend.

The action scenes are solid, if the banter's not always great, and I like the character bits. Her story of being inspired by Captain America to go from being seriously injured in a car wreck to being Captain America's successor is downright inspiring. The story isn't bad, but it's not very good either.

At times, it struggles from a lack of focus.`There are things that work in Spider-girl but don't work in a limited series like this. Everything has to be developed in five issues and much of it isn't. There's Shannon's life out of uniform or lack thereof which is really dealt with in a way that's just not satisfactory, nor was her relationship with Thunderstrike. On top of this, DeFalco introduces the hot button topic of immigration which is dealt with in a very superficial and silly way. Some illegals being granted citizenship for cooperation with law enforcement, which shows how little DeFalco understood how things worked or how much he thought he could get away with. I'm not saying politics are always well-handled in comics, but here the handling seems especially superficial.

The villain would be okay once again for a Spider-girl comic or for American Dream if she had a long series. In the limited series, it's just weak. Considering that the previous Avengers Next and Fantastic Five stories had Loki's daughter as their villains, both seeking to take over the world. American Dream gets a one shot villain like Sillikong who would never be seen again. Red Queen was a secondary villain and could have been a great main villain had DeFalco gone that route.

While the book's back cover has a picture that suggests American Dream was branded a traitor, nothing so dramatic happened. She had a warrant issued for her arrest and resigned the Avengers to keep them out of it, but what was mostly going on was Maria Hill acting like an idiot, a role she played in the second Amazing Spider-girl volume. Another pet peeve is that the Avengers took such an active part in this book which almost made it another Avengers Next story.

The result here is mediocre. The final result is better than Avengers Next: Rebirth but worse than Fantastic Five: The Final Doom. If I rated on the decimal system I'd say 2.7 stars. There are some good bits, but nothing great. It could have been better, but once again De Falco failed to create an MC2 series that could last beside Spider-girl, and this would be his last chance, as the rest of the MC2 stories would be Spider-girl stories. And it's a shame because American Dream deserved better.



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