Pop! Goes the Icon

I am not a good reviewer. I’m not sure why this is. As a music writer, my least favorite thing to do is review CDs. I do not like to review concerts. I’ve done one film review and it almost hurt to do it. I guess I just have enough trouble organizing my thoughts that when it comes to absorbing and relaying both my thoughts and related connections of a work of media, things just fall apart.

With that in mind, I’m still going to expose the world to some thoughts on the crop of Marvel comics I picked up this week, because, well, I can:

Uncanny X-Men 497: Is it just me or do comic stories move super slowly these days? I think there is waaaay too much emphasis on story “arcs” and not enough on making single issues of comic series equally awesome. The entire series is an ongoing story arc, my friends — they don’t have to be segmented into neat, six-part designations to fit into next year’s overstuffed trade paperback shelves. Ugh. Anyway, I’m kinda bored with this “San Francisco transformed into hippie paradise” storyline. Honestly, if you walked into the city and it was all hippies and peace and love and crap, would your first thought be “we have to get to the bottom of this and stop the madness?” Or would it be, “Oh, it’s ‘Frisco. Whatever?” Yes, I know, Angel is lost in the hippie soup somewhere. So? He could use a groovy trip.

And the Russian plotline is dragging too. Seriously — this would have been a two-issue story back in the ’80s. Wolvie, Petey and the fuzzy elf get captured, the villain reveals some wicked backstory, and then in the second issue they escape and kick some ass and go have beers while Logan makes some snarky comment about Piotr’s innocence. Sigh … why am I not writing this stuff? Whatever. I’m basically waiting it out until issue 500, when the X-Men become all official again and set up new shop in San Fran. I did like their SF issues back when Claremont and Romita, Jr. were rocking it in the mid-80s, so I say bring it on.

Thor 8: Well, I’ll say this: Marko Djurdjevic’s first stab at interior, sequential art was much better than I expected. See, he can do more than just computer paint pretty covers. Speaking of: Dear Marvel: Your covers can actually show some action and not just heroic poses of the title’s stars. Thanks. Anyway, it’s not likely I’ll stick around after this. I gave it a two-issue shot, but compared to the ’80s and early-’90s Thor comics, I just can’t hang. Sorry JMS. It’s not you, it’s me.

Mighty Avengers 12: Great Nick Fury story. But this is not an Avengers comic. Sigh. And Alex Maleev’s realistic art is rad, but Nick Fury doesn’t look like Nick Fury. This practice of modeling comic characters after real life models is kinda dumb. Being influenced is one thing (see John Byrne’s Christopher Reeve-flavored Superman), but redrawing characters in ways that eliminate their distinctive features (such as Fury’s strong jaw, bent nose, etc.) is just as bad as a writer writing someone out of character.

Oh. The story. Um, it’s interesting how Marvel is using the Secret Invasion tie-ins to tell the backstory of what’s happening in the Secret Invasion series, but it just … I dunno, all this stuff feels really disjointed to me. I’m not sure why. Thoughts?

I guess that’s it. My wrist hurts and I have other work to do so I’m going to stop typing for a few minutes before something breaks.