Trade Waiting Retrospective: New Avengers

New Avengers Volume 1: Breakout

New Avengers Volume 2: Sentry

New Avengers Volume 3: Secrets and Lies

New Avengers Volume 4: Collective

New Avengers Volume 5: Civil War

New Avengers Volume 6: Revolution

The past weekend I decided to reread all of Brian Michael Bendis’s New Avengers, the six trades that are out.  This was to prepare for the forthcoming seventh trade and to prepare myself for the Secret Invasion.  Clues abound in the series on the extent of the Skrull infiltration.   New Avengers truly is Marvel’s flagship title.  It touches on every major Marvel event in the past three years and ties them all together, leading the universe to the inevitable showdown between Earth’s heroes and the Skrull invaders.

The make-up of the team is interesting.  Marvel clearly gathered some of their most powerful and popular characters and united them in a single book.  Wolverine and Spider-man are both well placed in the public eye because of their highly successful movies.  Iron Man and Captain America are both standards in the Marvel Universe so they get in.  The inclusion of the little known Jessica Drew as Spider-woman was interesting.  I had never heard of her before New Avengers, but her role as a triple agent, lying to everyone about what her true motivations are, make her one of the best characters in the series.

Black Tattoo

The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven

I hate to admit it but I picked this up based mostly on its cover. It just screamed too cool for school. And then I started reading it and couldn’t put it down. It’s a very quick and engrossing read, with plenty of action and a fresh take on the demon/hell subgenre.

Black Tattoo is the story of three teens and their attempts to thwart the evil Scourge, a demon intent on destroying all of reality. Esme is the young heroine who has magical abilities, such as flight, but can also kick major bootie with a sword and hand to hand combat. Then there is Charlie, whose parents recently divorced. He is pretty angry at his parents and the world. Then all of a sudden he is given magical abilities because of a mysterious black tattoo that appears on his body. Having unlimited power and being angry is not the best situation a young man could find himself in. Fortunately for Charlie he has his best friend for the ride, Jack. After Esme and Charlie, Jack is just a normal everyday teen. Through out the journey he proves time again that despite not having powers, and being pretty much scared witless all the time even a normal boy can become a hero.

What I really liked about this book though is where the second half of the book occurs, Hell. Although it resembles a fire and brimstone hell, it really is its own world, full of different monsters, gladiator battles, and a mysterious dragon at the heart of reality.

I’d highly recommend this book. It’s the perfect distraction on a winter afternoon.

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga

Fanboy is your standard geek.  He’s in to computers and comics.  He’s constantly bullied at school and has no where to turn.  His mother is pregnant and his stepfather is just another bully.  His only refuge is the comic book he’s creating in the middle of the night, and his only dream is to meet Brian Michael Bendis, who will surely help Fanboy get his book published.  Then he meets your standard goth girl Kyra, and they become friends based on their shared hatred of the same bullies.

Barry Lyga’s book has a great blend of humor and drama.  Most of the humor is very sarcastic.  Fanboy makes hysterical comments about high school society in his very dry, sardonic voice.  There are also lots of in-jokes about the world of comics.  If the reader doesn’t know comics well, most of these jokes may be lost.  This use of humor based on the world of comics would make me recommend this to a person who has read a lot of comics but doesn’t read a lot of traditional novels.  Fanboy’s cynical voice and wry observations of high school and the world of comics makes for an enjoyable book.

The book is also, at times, very dark and depressing.  There is a constant threat of violence throughout the book.  Fanboy has a List, a running tally of all those who have ever tormented him.  These are not petty bullying episodes, they are violent incidents that are completely unjustified.  Fanboy is quiet, keeps to himself, is viewed as weak, and is therefore a target.  It is at times difficult to read and you question why he just won’t stand up for himself.  In addition to the List, he carries a bullet with him at all times, reaching for it almost like a religious icon when he is being bullied.  Kyra is far more vocal about her violent tendencies, and one of the central stories of the book is learning why she is so angry.

I particularly enjoyed the fact that the two title characters are not romantically involved.  They have great banter, constantly bickering with each other but developing a great friendship.  So many books of this sort show the weak hero all of a sudden coming into his own and finding the love of his life.  Fanboy definitely begins to stand up for himself, but he isn’t shown getting a relationship.  Not every milestone has to happen before the age of 18.

I felt this book was very relatable without being too preachy, and I never felt that this was an adult writing.  This is pretty much a pitch-perfect angsty teenager who is being pushed to the edge by bullies.  I especially liked the book because not everything was resolved at the end.  Fanboy is slightly more assertive, but you see that he is still a work in progress.  His relationship with his mother and stepfather seem to get better, but it’s still not perfect.  I highly enjoyed this book, because this was me in high school.  Cynical, angry at the world, feeling like there is no place to turn, and learning that there are people out there ready to listen if you are willing to open up.  I would recommend this to everyone, and I’m going to close this by saying I’m glad high school is over for me.

What the Dead Know

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

This is a great mystery novel. The story takes place in the present and the past. In the present a mysterious woman gets into a traffic accident that requires a hospital stay and questions by police. She refuses to reveal her identity, and claims that she is one of two sisters that went missing decades previously. The parts of the novel that occur in the past are not flashbacks but rather they follow the sisters the day they went missing. The tension between the two accounts create a complicated yarn where the facts of both storylines becomes fuzzy and uncertain. What really happened to the sisters long ago? And does the woman claiming to be one of them returned telling the truth? Or is she just a impostor who has been leading everyone along?

In the end the truth is a good place to hide because it is so easily twisted to meet other people’s expectations. The real delight for me was how three dimensional the characters become over the course of the novel. Their heartbreaks (and there are a lot of those) ring true and are the best kind of engrossing.

Definitely worth a read!

Trade Waiting: Endangered Species

Endangered Species

Written By: Mike Carey, Chris Yost, and Christos Gage

Art By: Scot Eaton, Mark Bagley, Mike Perkins, and Andrea De Vito

Issues:  X-Men: Endangered Species One-Shot, 17 8-page chapters.

Endangered Species is the X-Men event that works to lead into Messiah Complex.  The story follows Beast as he searches for a cure to the depowering of the world’s mutants.  He begins a world tour, meeting with all of Marvel’s top minds, heroic and villainous.  Beast pairs with his corrupt counterpart from the Age of Apocalypse, Dark Beast, and search the world for answers, from the ruins of Genosha to the Neverland mutant containment facility.

The series does some good things and some bad things.  Most of the bad comes from the format.  17 short 8-page stories doesn’t give much time for development.  The characters don’t really go anywhere.  I said the same thing about Illuminati, but I feel this is more from inadequate space to develop the characters more than too many heavy-hitters on the page.  The story is likewise just filler.  While pegged as the lead in to Messiah Complex, I don’t see how this should be required reading.

Hero

Hero by Perry Moore

There’s really nothing the super hero genre hasn’t already done.  It hasn’t really forged any new ground, and has instead continued using the same archetypes of heroes granted godlike powers and all kinds of insecurities.  “I can fly at the speed of sound, can’t be killed, and I just can’t get Lois Lane/Mary Jane/Jean Grey/etc.”  Don’t get me wrong, I love my superhero comics, but the major characters haven’t really evolved.  The same could be said for coming out literature.  Starting with Alex Sanchez’s Rainbow Boys, the number of books involving gay characters coming to grips with their sexuality has grown substantially.  But they are still basically Dawson’s Creek with gay characters.  “Oh, I love you but I can never be with you…Oh woe is me…”  Perry Moore’s Hero manages to merge the two genres into a pretty seamless package.  While it doesn’t forge new ground in either genre, as a combined effort, it’s a great young adult novel.

Thom Creed is not your average kid.  He goes to high school and he plays basketball, but he is far from being a normal teenager.  His father was once a superhero.  He was apprenticed to a character similar to Superman, but was disgraced and driven from the League, a massive group of heroes who protect the Earth and are modeled after DC’s pantheon.  The mystery of Thom’s father’s fall from grace is central to the plot, and is intriguing enough to keep reading.

Trade Waiting: New Avengers Illuminati

New Avengers: Illuminati

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis and Brian Reed

Art: Jim Cheung

Issues: Illuminati #1-5

I have been waiting for this book forever.  There are times that I regret waiting for the trades.  I’m impatient, but I definitely prefer reading the whole arc at once.  I have loved the concept of the Illuminati since their first appearance in New Avengers.  Marvel’s strongest characters banding together to take on monumental tasks.  Pretty cool stuff.  However, I was slightly disappointed by their actual miniseries.  That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the book, but I had it built up far more in my head, and the big revelation at the end had already been spoiled for me.

The Illuminati team is made up of six of Marvel’s strongest characters, each representing another team in this sort of meta-team.  Charles Xavier represents the X-men, Reed Richards is here for the Fantastic Four, Namor for Atlantis, Black Bolt for the Inhumans, Iron Man for the Avengers, and Dr. Strange representing all the magic users in the Marvel Universe.  The team first gathered together after the Kree-Skrull War, to determine how to safeguard Earth so such an event never happens again.  This mini-series shows their decision: Travel to the Skrull homeworld, make some threats, and blow up the Skrull emperor’s ship.