Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes, page 98

Book Review: Last Hero Standing

Last Hero Standing Tpb by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Marvel's tradition of big universe-wide team up stories dates back to Secret Wars and finally this tradition comes to the MC2 Universe when heroes start disappearing. (Note this began in Spider-girl #86 and #87 which have yet to be collected with the disappearance of Wolverine and a Lady Hawk.) The situation escalates as Peter Parker is taken along with the Thing. Whose behind it.

Spider-girl's Avenger status is activated as an aging Captain America leads the team. The Captain is aging and at last, starting to lose a step, and he's also unsure of the new heroes having been absent from the MC2 reality fighting alongside the sun of Thunderstrike in another dimension. Doubts are cast aside as he leads one last mission and this is a big one as they face an old malevolent foe.

I'm not a usual fan of the giant battles as they're usually just an excuse for copious amounts of gratuitous violence. This one is too, but it's different. The plot of the story goes to the heart of what it means to be a hero. It's about inter-generational relations and how heroes of the MC2 Universe relate to those who blazed the trail before them. Plus, the results do matter and the book doesn't just represent a continuation of the status quo.

Without giving it away, the end is moving and well-done. More than One well-known Marvel character takes an apparent permanent exit. In addition, at five issues in length, the story is far tighter than your average big Marvel epic, which means it avoid the bloating that makes so many of them not even worth reading.

It was a little weird when they group ended up in Asgard and Thor welcomed the explorters to his "humble kingdom." (Really?) But these are minor points. It's a worthwhile story otherwise.



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Book Review: Marvel Masterworks, Golden Age USA Comics, Volume 1

Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age U.S.A. Comics, Vol. 1 by Stan Lee

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Marvel already had Marvel Mystery Magazine, and solo titles for Sub-Mariner, Captain America, and the Golden Age Human Torch. Narvel comics honcho Martin Goodman was never one to settle for good enough and so USA comics was yet another one of the comics and this book collects Issues 1-4, each containing multiple stories.

It was home to a lot of second tier material and characters and at least in a couple of places, , but the book was not without its charm. The first three issues featured long stories of nearly twenty pages, a rare thing in the golden age, allowing for complex plots. So let's dig into the highlights and lowlights of this book:

1) Rockman: This is a cool hero who really could have been developed further. Rockman was leader of an underground kingdom who surfaced (ha ha) when learning about the dangers of the coming war. The design and powers of the characters were cool. With a better creative team, this could have emerged. It's not quite the Destroyer, but still a great little feature.

2) The Whizzer: Marvel's golden age speedster superhero acquired his power after getting injected by mongoose blood. The character was really one of the best of Marvel's second tier golden age characters and his origin story (silly as it is) is here.

3) Captain Terror: This character appeared only in Issues 2-4, but was memorable. In his true life identity Dan Kane, he was not allowed to join the Navy due to his heart troubles and is persistently turned down when trying to help the country. However as Captain Terror, he's able to take on the enemies of America and be a heroic figure. The character is just inspiring and I can't help but wonder if in the back of his mind, Stan Lee wasn't inspired by this character when he created his own hero with heart problems, Iron Man. Lee was a young man at the time, working for Marvel and even wrote a couple stories in this book.

4) Corporal Dix: This feature only appeared in Issue 4 but was actually pretty well-done and endearing. Dix is a tough soldier on furlough and spending time with his little brother whose falling in with a bad crowd. It's a sweet, moving, and patriotic tale. I've read that there's more about him in the 2nd volume of USA comics which gives him a promotion to Sergeant.

5) Jack Frost: This is where I become a little less positive. Frost was a decent enough character and his ice powers were fun to watch, and the story in Issue 4 was particularly good, but really he seemed to be like an ice version of the sub-mariner with a very similar personality.

6) The Vagabond: A story about law enforcement officer who disguises himself as a hobo, and often the disguise just doesn't make any sense. It seems a little dumb.

7) The Defender: His story was actually a 19-page cover in USA comics #1 and was a prime example of Marvel ripping off itself. The Defender was dressed in a red, white, and blue costume and fought evil alongside a boy sidekick who looked almost identical (except for hair color) to Bucky. In addition, the costume is just atrociously designed. Red and white striped pants aren't patriotic. The thought behind this seemed, "To be a hero like Captain America except in the Marines, without the super soldier serum, and in a poorly designed costume." The scripts were weaker versions of Captain America stories. The only good thing I can say for the book is that it really made me appreciate the elegance and timelessness of Jack Kirby's design for Captain America even more.

And the one-shot features, "The Young Avenger" and "Powers of the Press" are both forgettable.

Overall, the collection has some good points such as Captain Terror and the Whizzer's origin that make it a decent book, but certainly not one that's worth its retail price.



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Book Review: Fantastic Five: In Search of Doom

Spider-Girl Presents Fantastic Five: In Search of Doom by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This book, like the Spider-girl books was sent in Marvel's MC2 Universe. It's fifteen years in the future and so things have happened to characters and teams. Thus the Fantastic Four has seen some roster changes. Gone: Sue Richards. In: Ms. Fantastic (Lyja) and Psylord (Franklin Richards) with a Reed Richards powered robot called, "Big Brain."

I've gone back and forth between a 2-star rating and a 3-star rating for the book because there are some great features. Spider-girl does show up in Issue #3 in a great appearance. There are some touching and imaginative scenes regarding the fate of Reed and Sue Richards.

However, the book too often zags when it should zig. To be fair, you may get more out of this if you've read the FF for years where Lyja, Franklin Reed and Sharon Ventura (who is portrayed as the Thing's Ex-Wife) have been read. However, as this is targeted to younger readers, that's not much help.

This book collects the complete five issue first set of Fantastic Five.

The first two issues when we should be getting a feel for the team are spent in pointless fights against second rate villains that show us a little of their powers but fail to capture the imagination. Issue 3, hopes were raised, the plot was going somewhere with an exciting climax in Issue 4. However, in Issue 4, instead of a tense action sequence, we get a mostly flashback story that ends up with our heroes not being needed.

Issue 5 wraps up okay, but it's not enough to save the book and we learn that FF may have to stand for "Fantastic Fifteen" with everyone who wants to join including Dr. Doom's not so evil successor. Interesting stuff, but not well-presented at all. Don't know whether this was cancelled suddenly or always supposed to be limited series. Either way,it should have been better planned.



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Book Review: The Spider: The Flame Master

The Spider, Master of Men! #18: The Flame Master by Grant Stockbridge

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Spider, a 1930s pulp hero returns in this 18th issue of his magazine. In a previous issue, he'd been thought killed and Richard Wentworth (the Spider's real identity) had the heat taken off by a servant confessing to the Spider's crimes-as the Spider would often kill criminals taking upon himself the role of judge, jury, and executioner.

However, the Spider's brought into action with a story of a man who can create man-made lightening and fear that he may have fallen into the hands of criminals who are ready to exploit the lightening power for their own nefarious purposes. The Spider is shocked when he finds his unusual foe is Aronk Dong, a self-proclaimed lion man from Mars.

The book has several strong points. First, like many pulp books, it's just a great ride: the main weapon is lightening firing remote controlled balloons, you have an alleged man from mars, and you even have the French underworld take a hand.

On the other hand, Wentworth is a vigilante killer. From a plot point what makes the book more difficult is that the Spider and his cohorts are constantly going around pretending to be tough and unafraid but are really scared out of their wits. All of the, "He gave a fake smile but what he really thought" moments were a little much. At times, it seemed like no human relationship portrayed in the book was at all believable. And despite his goals of world domination, it seems like Aronk Dong would rather be an evil supervillain than actually conquer the Earth by simply and quickly destroying his enemies.

Despite the over the top nature of the story, it was the 1930s and plot was king and you'll find few more compelling than this one among the pulps. There are plenty of ticking time bombs and 1920s weird science to satisfy any reader. Overall, this is a decent read if you know what you're getting into.



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Book Review: The Forgotten Realm (Doc Savage)

The Forgotten Realm by Kenneth Robeson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Before there were superheroes, there was Doc Savage. The Man of Bronze and his five assistants encountered amazing adventures in bizarre forgotten lands. They're explorers and they're adventures. The Savage books represent a high point of men's adventures.

The Forgotten Realm begins when a man known only Xman escapes from a Scottish insane asylum. Quickly, we finds our heroes starting a wild journey in England that will lead them into the heart of Africa where they'll encounter Pygmies and Ancient Roman legions. Are they going back in time? The mystery abounds.

Overall, this was just a superb men's adventure book. While it was completed by Will Murray in the 1990s, it has a real period feel to it and manages to capture the Spirit of the original.

The plot is just a wild ride of plane crashes, gas bombs, sea battles, gladiatorial fights, mystery, impersonations. It's perfectly paced and a ton of fun.

This book features only three of Doc's fabulous five assistant but that seems to work here. In both my previous encounters with the Man of Bronze in Showcase Presents: Doc Savage and in the radio version, it felt like there were too many characters to get in. Here, they strike the balance with Ham and Monk, each other's continual foils added to the verbose Johnny Littlejohn to make the action complete.

If you want to press it, I'm suppose you can find problems with the book like whether the place they went to truly didn't keep track of time, or whether it was really necessary to refer to Ham as "the dapper lawyer" every time he was described. But this is a book that's really meant to be enjoyed not analyzed and man it definitely did its job.



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Book Reviews: Spider-girl Vols. 11 and 12

Spider-Girl - Volume 11: Marked for Death by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book collects Spider-girl #60-66 is probably the best of the Spider-girl books yet. Spider-girl finds herself caught in the crossfire of a gang war. Her friend, ally, and occasional heckler Darkdevil disappears when a bomb strikes Riker's Island in an attempt to assassinate Wilson Fiske.

The mastermind of the attack doesn't stop there, as another bomb nearly takes down the reformed Green Goblin. What we have is a true thriller, a whodunit with Spider-girl having to play reluctant to investigate a twisting tale of intrigue that leaves everyone guessing whose lying, whose telling the true and who is ultimately behind a series of attacks that will change the MC2 universe.

This is a truly great superhero epic at its finest with everything handled well. May is clearly growing as a hero and as a person.

Some of that growth is painful as her relationship with BFF Davida hits a hard place as May's Spider-girl career and Davida's actions change their relationship forever. And there's also a very well-done plot where a classmate is suffering through domestic violence. May's reactions and that of the victim are both realistic and movingly done.

May goes through a gammit of emotions in seven issues and shines through as a humble, courageous, and caring heroine. Really a great role model character. It's a pity that Marvel never let this character grow to full womanhood and perhaps a bigger pity that if she had, she wouldn't have been allowed to be as a good a person as an adult.




Spider-Girl - Volume 12: The Games Villains Play by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book collects issues 67-72, wrapping up Spider-girl's 6th year of publication for Spider-girl (Mayday) Parker

The first issue is much more of a housekeeping story as it deals with mutant teenager Nancy Liu's exit and persecution at school as well as dealing with May's menacing confrontation of an abusive boyfriend in the prior volume. Unlike previous issues that dealt with issues like forgiveness such as the classic scene with Normie Osborne, this one felt forced and preachy, like it was trying to resolve the Nancy Liu issue and at the same time respond to some people who were concerned about May's actions.

The good news is that once May apologizes for her participation in the cycle of violence, she gets back to kicking tale. Issues 68-70 feature a reluctant team up with the Buzz as they fight the new Doctor Octopus in a scheme that involves Buzz's father John Jameson, monsters, and a battle with Dr. Jade and the new Doctor Octopus. I really don't care for recasting this character as a second Dr. Octopus. To me, there's only one and he's a classic, and recasting all the male heroes with females taking their mantles seems a bit of a cheat. But other than that, this arch is a solid tale.

Issue 71, we get a Spider-girl team up with J2 and Darmagnus (the successor to Doctor Strange). I'm never too keen on these sort of tales, and Darmagnus was never one of DeFalco's better adaptations.

Finally, we wrap up with Issue 72 which features Spider-girl thrust into another confrontation with the new Doctor Octopus while facing a wardrobe malfunction from deciding to dry her costume rather than hang it up. This hales to some of the early Spider-man tales in the first couple of years.

Overall, this isn't the powerful classic the previous book was, but it's pretty fun for fans of Spider-girl.



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Rebranding and Book Reviews

First of all, I've made a slight change to the blog's name, changing to Christians and Superheroes. While I write Christian Superhero stories, most of my reviews and such don't include actual Christian characters, because there aren't that many.

Secondly, I've begun posting a lot of reviews because I've been writing reviews that have just posted on Goodreads without actually posting them here on the blog or on Amazon. So, expect some reviews of some mostly cool superhero stories. For ease going through all the archived reviews and I started with Daredevil, now I'm doing Spider-girl and the MC2 universe. Then I'll move on to some of the Marvel Masterworks, and then we'll do Superman and some other DC characters.

Book Reviews: Spider-Girl Vols 9 and 10

Spider-Girl - Volume 9: Secret Lives by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 45-50 of Spider-girl and finds our heroine with a whole lot of problems. Not only has the group she founded, The New Warriors, de facto expelled her, her dad is trying a mid-40s comeback at being the Amazing Spider-man because he's lost confidence in her, and someone's discovered her secret identity and that someone's is a thirteen year old who wants to be May's partner. At the same time, her mother's in a difficult pregnancy that has her wheelchair bound.

DeFalco has some strong highlights in this book. He adds complexity to May's life without making it overwhelming. The nicest touch is that quietly DeFalco is weaving multiple plots. Kaine, the former paid assassin who saved May from Norman Osborne as a baby is back, so is Alison Mongrain who helped Obsorne in the kidnapping, as our Funny Face and his mother Angel Face who May unadvisedly let go in the last book. They're all brought together in Issue 50.

Add to that the presence of the Fantastic Five and May saving her father and the world from a new breed of Super Skrull and you've got an idea of the book's highlights.

The ending seemed somewhat inexplicable given the rest of the story. But overall, May's come off well in another great Spider-girl collection.



Spider-Girl - Volume 10: Season of the Serpent by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book collects Spider-girl #52-#59.

The first two issues are typical of the Spider-girl stories up to this point. There's plenty of teen issues as Felcity Harding deals with problems at home and May Parker faces a question as to whether remain Spider-girl and finds support from an unexpected source a longtime Spider-girl critic.

Then there's a random teenager who shows up feeling invisible which is kind of sad but not what we read superhero comics for.

Then we get issues 54-59, the Season of the Serpent storyline which focuses on a battle against longtime Marvel villains, the Serpents, and their leaders. This storyline really works.

Six issue story lines in modern comic book usually mean a lot of stuff that's just plain boring but DeFalco gets this to work. Most of the supporting teenage cast takes a break during this storyline is slimmed and we get action, with the main personal problem being concern over Mary Jane's pregnancy. May gets beat up, her costume is torn, she travels to another dimension and fights an alternate dimension version of her father, plus several great battles with "Seth, the Serpent god," the leader of the Scorpions, and we've got a great story.

There's also some good growth shown by Peter Parker in letting his daughter be Spider-girl without lame comebacks. Overall, great book.





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Book Review: Daredevil Yellow

Daredevil Legends, Vol. 1: Yellow by Jeph Loeb

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Before reading Daredevil: Yellow, I read the original Daredevil Comics in Essential Daredevil Volumes 1-3 containing most of the early stories of the Man Without Fear's encounters with Karen Page. To me, Karen Page was really one of the worst love interests in Silver Age Marveldom. At times, she was condescending to Matt Murdoch's blindness. At others, she was irritatingly stupid. At others still, she was just plain annoying. And I kept find myself really asking, "What does a great guy like Matt Murdoch see in her?"

This gives me a special appreciate for what Loeb and Sale did in this book. They took a love letter to a deceased character like Page and made the book work. That is art and that is talent.

These better told than the originals, but on all essentials, the basic plot is the same. The art is expressive and astounding in Tim Sale style. Combined with with Loeb's evocative scripts, the story flows brilliantly. We get more on "Battlin' Jack" Murdoch than Issue 1 of Daredevil had, and a real strong feel for who this man was and what he meant to Matt.

The book is about Matt's honor for his father, his nostalgia for a better time when the costumed villains didn't kill, and yes his love for Page. In the end, I didn't feel any better about Karen at the end, but also realized I didn't matter. Karen's like that girlfriend you know is bad for a good friend. But when she dies, she remains forever as he remembered her. It's true that love, like Daredevil is blind.

The re-imagining manages to add depth and quality to the original along with a knowledge of what would be retconned into Daredevil's past. Making a great package combination of old and new and a must read for comic fans.



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Superior Spider Sales Falling Off

The big experiment of having Peter Parker die and Doctor Octopus take over his body become Spider-man spurned a lot of fan anger but also spurred on sales in the short-term, but those appear to have dropped off.

In February, Superior Spiderman #3 sold 101,811 copies and Superior Spider-man #4 sold 95,892. In May, the sales dropped to 93,856 for Superior Spider-man #9 and 85,346 for Superman Spider-man #10. And then in August, we had 78,636 for Superior Spider-man #15 and 78,087 for Superior Spider-man #16. So far Superior Spider-man lost about 20% of its audience and I think it will continue to lose audience as it drags out. Clearly, the game Marvel is playing is one where they try to keep this going long enough to get as much extra money as they can from curiosity seekers while not continuing on so long that they end up with a magazine that sells worse than the post-One More Day Amazing Spider-man. Yep, it's all about finding the best way to squeeze money from fans which makes for lousy comics and plot, which is what's wrong with both Marvel and DC these days.

Of course, Superior Spider-man has spawned two spin-off magazines: Superior Spider-man Team Up and the Superior Foes of Spider-man. Both sold very well in July when their first issues came out. August numbers show a predictable drop off. The Superior Spider-man team up sold 41,155 in August and Superior Foes of Spider-man sold 34, 300. For comparison, the previous Spider-man team up book, the Avenging Spider-man sold 34,537 copies last year which is kind of where I expect sales for Superior Spider-man Team Up to shrink to.

Personally, I find the numbers interesting. Reading stories and paying a company to further ruin a brand that they've been dragging through the mud for seven years, not so much. But I do think that it's safe to say that we're probably more than half way to the end of Superior Spider-man based on the numbers.

Source for Sales Numbers: Comic Chroicles