State of the Longbox Address

I've been feeling for a little while that the crop of books I'm buying is getting a little stale.  Here is my pull list:

Captain America

Captain America & Bucky

Thor

Journey Into Mystery

Secret Avengers

Alpha Flight

Avengers: Children's Crusade

Avengers Solo (slot "any solo Hawkeye books" here)

I've found that some books just haven't been getting me very excited lately, and it was time for a change.

I think Ed Brubaker does a spectacular job with Captain America, but I'm getting kind of bored with all the WWII/Cold War stuff in the title.  Going to the well here and there is great, but it gets a little old after awhile, and Brubaker has been on the book for quite awhile now (a great accomplishment in this day and age).  That theme doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, since he will be launching a Winter Soldier ongoing (provided Marvel doesn't cut the feet out from under it before it launches) in 2012.

I was tempted to get the Winter Soldier seres, to have a complete collection of Brubaker's work in the Captain America universe, plus he will be re-teaming with Butch Guice, but as I said, I'm burnt out on the old war story stuff.  Therefore, I made the decision to axe Captain America & Bucky from my list, and will not be getting the Winter Soldier series.

Thor has been a disappointment for me ever since Matt Fraction took over the title.  I feel he has ignored recent continuity, as established by J. Michael Stracynski and Kieron Gillen, and that really makes it hard to enjoy the book as an ongoing series.  I feel that the dialogue is terrible, as Fraction cannot decide if Thor is eloquent or a brute, and the rest of the characters aren't much better.  Fraction is good at starting things at a slow boil, but his conclusions leave a lot to be desired.  With the price of comics today it is really hard to justify buying the book, even though I have a complete run going back to Volume 2 (and we're on the equivalent of Volume 4 right now). 

Secret Avengers was a book I was really excited for.  I don't care for Bendis' Avengers, and Brubaker picked a really great line-up for the book; Steve Rogers, Sharon Carter, Ant-Man (Eric O'Grady), War Machine, Valkyrie, Beast, Moon Knight, and Nova.  This was a great blend of characters I thought would play well off of each other, but unfortunately the book under Brubaker always felts like "Steve Rogers and friends", not a true team book.  I gave the Warren Ellis issues a try but they haven't really seemed to be going anywhere, and I have no great emotional attachment to the series (as I do Thor) since it never quite achieved its potential to my mind, so cutting it off is just the way to go.

So now we are at:

Captain America

Captain America & Bucky

Thor

Journey Into Mystery

Secret Avengers

Alpha Flight

Avengers: Children's Crusade

Avengers Solo (slot "any solo Hawkeye books" here)

Of the remaining books, Journey Into Mystery is a real treat.  I feel that Kieron Gillen has a grasp of Thor and the world of Asgard second only to the great Walt Simonson himself.  Gillen's fill-in work on the Thor title, before Fraction took over, was spectacular.  I firmly believe that he should be the writer of the main Thor book; I would be back in a flash if that were to happen.

Even though I am tired of the World War II inspired stories in Captain America, Alan Davis is coming on board as the artist starting with #6, and anyone who follows this blog know how much I love Alan Davis.  Therefore Captain America's main book will be spared the chopping block.

I absolutely love Alpha Flight, and I have every issue of their various on-goings and mini-series ever produced, and am working on getting their notable appearances in other titles (I am a proud owner of their first full appearance thanks to a trade with Tom Breevort, in Uncanny X-Men #121).  I was very sad that Marvel toyed with my emotions by announcing the mini-series by Pak and Eaglesham would be made into an ongoing (yay!), then they later announced it was reduced back to a mini (boo!).  While I haven't completely fallen in love with the current story, I think it was going to establish a good base to go forward with.

Avengers: Children's Crusade has been alright, though I'm starting to find Young Avengers books to be a little formulaic; kids confront a problem, Avengers tell them to stay out of it, kids defy Avengers.  And if there is an in-story reason why these kids aren't a apart of Avengers Academy I'd love to hear it; I assume the in-story is that the Children's Crusade book couldn't even keep to a bi-monthly schedule, makes it hard to include them in other books. 

Avengers Solo #1 was okay, though I wasn't blown away.  I think I need to re-read it, as part of the problem may be that it was a fairly dense read, and I'm not as used to that as I used to be, with the way comics are currently written.  I will still collect the whole mini-series though.

So with all that being said, I felt it was time for a bit of a change.  What books have I added to the mix and why?  Stay tuned for "Time For a Change", same Blog Time, same Blog Channel!

Book Reviews: Canadians, Americans, and Asgardians

Alpha Flight #3 - Fred Van Lente, Greg Pak & Dale Eaglesham
When Marvel announced that Alpha Flight was getting a new 8 (9 counting the 0.1 issue) issue mini-series, nobody was happier than me.  I have a complete run of every volume of Alpha Flight, including annuals and mini-series, even the godawful volume 3.  I love Alpha Flight.

Therefore, it makes me kind of sad that the new series isn't really grabbing me.  It is head and shoulders better than the last series, don't get me wrong.  But it just feels like a retread of the past, even though it features the classic team, which really has very few appearances together as a unit.  Alpha Flight in conflict with Department H and the Canadian government used to happen on a regular basis in the first volume.  It was the entire basis of the second volume.  It's been done.  A lot.

I'm also not digging the personality re-write for Marrina.  I realize that the creators wanted someone to create conflict, but Marinna was the sweetest being you'd ever meet, and I always liked that hopeful optimism she brought to the team.  If an in-story event lead to this new portrayal I'd be fine with it, but instead the past is being ignored.  I would rather they used another Plodex character in this role than simply ignoring Marinna's previous personality.

On the plus side, the book is gorgeous, and some of the smaller details are fun.  Aurora battling Jeanne Marie at superspeed was a nice touch, and the banter between Sasquatch and Shaman is great.  And Puck is back, which makes everything right with the world.

Marvel has announced that Alpha is becoming an on-going and will be a part of a new Commonwealth of Heroes...now that is a new concept that I am very much anticipating.  I'm willing to give the creative team some time to grow into the book so I hope you can do the same.

Captain America Corps #3 - Roger Stern & Phillipe Briones
This book is old-school Marvel fun, no surprise considering the legend himself, Mr. Roger Stern, is the one writing this tale.  I almost skipped this book at first; I didn't even know it was coming out, the guys at my shop put it aside for me because they thought I'd like it.  In the end I thought the concept was fun, and Stern was writing it, so I gave it a try.

Absolutely loving it.

As I said, the concept is just plain fun.  Seeing Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, John Walker, and Shannon Carter running around together slingin' shields is a real treat (and the new guy, Commander A, is starting to grow on me).  They are fighting a team called the Ammericommand, which at first I though was kinda hokey but hey, this is a team of out-of-time patriots out to save the multiverse, I'm just going to enjoy the ride.

The art is very well done and the colouring is crisp.  I really have no complaints about this mini-series at all.  On the extra bonus side, Stern uses thought balloons!  I can't remember the last time I saw thought balloons!

You cannot go wrong picking this up!

The Mighty Thor #4 - Matt Fraction & Oliver Coipel
When Thor was relaunched in The Mighty Thor, I almost skipped picking up the title, and I have a full run of Thor starting with volume 2, so I didn't consider this lightly.  However, the art of Olive Coipel convinced me to stick around.

So far the art is the only reason I'm sticking around.

Sure, the idea of Galactus at war with Asgard is fun, I'll give Fraction that.  But the execution really isn't grabbing me, in particular the dialogue.  I had a post a couple of days ago featuring my re-write of the dialogue in #5, and it's no better in #4.

My beef with the dialogue is the lack of consistency.  On one page it feels like Fraction is trying to capture the somewhat grander speech patterns JMS brought to the book; he did away with the thee's & thou's but Thor still spoke with a grandeur and authority that made it clear he was a god not to be trifled with.  But then on the next, Thor is speaking like any regular joe; if you had to take a shot every time Thor tells someone to "Shut up" in the past 4 issues you'd be wasted out of your mind.

I will give Fraction credit, his first arc on Mighty Thor is far better than his first arc in the pages of Thor, but I am still on the fence on continuing to get this book once the current arc is finished.