Random Dive #3

Last Wednesday, I had a very nice surprise at my local comic store. They were selling bundles of ten random comics for $1.50, and all you could see were the two books on the outside of the bag. It is pretty obvious that there is no way I could pass this up. So I grabbed my new comics and tossed two of these mystery packs in there too. The reason I bring this up is because as soon as I opened them up to see what books fate had dealt me, I thought I should grab a couple that look the most interesting and write some notes about them here. So here we go with the three books that I thought looked the best just from their covers.

The first book I found that piqued my interest was The Spectre #4 by J. M. DeMatteis and Ryan Sook. While the cover is very nice, it was actually the creative team that drew me in. I am a huge fan of both DeMatteis and Sook and having them working on the same book made this a must read for me. Basically, the story is that the Spectre, Superman, and Batman must stop this demigod woman and Zauriel who has been possessed by the literal "Wrath of God." The story gets pretty interesting and metaphysical which was a welcome change to the books that I normally find in the bargain bins. Now the thing that I really think is worth noting about The Spectre is the art. I became a big fan of Ryan Sook's art with his run on X-Factor. When I read those issues though, not once did Sook's art remind me of Mike Mignola and Hellboy. The Spectre on the other hand is very reminiscent of Mignola and his Hellboy work. Don't get me wrong. This is not a negative at all. It works with The Spectre's story. It is just interesting that Sook's art style seems so different to what I know from more recent books.

The second book that grabbed my attention was The Flash #220 by Geoff Johns and Howard Porter. I like the character of the Flash, but I must admit that I have never really read a lot of The Flash. Most of my knowledge of Wally West comes from team books like Justice League of America and not from his own book. From the cover, I got the feeling that this might be one of those "big bang for your buck" books where you get a whole lot of characters and action. Luckily, the book did not disappoint. This was a great primer on Flash's famous Rogues Gallery as Captain Cold introduces all the Rogues and what they are doing post-Identity Crisis. I couldn't have asked for a better crash course through Flash's villains. I will definitely be on the lookout for the rest of the issues in this storyline.

Saving the best for last, we have a cross company team up as the X-Men visit the Malibu Comics universe in The Phoenix Resurrection: Revelations. It apparently took a small army to bring this book to life with Ian Edginton and Dan Abnett on writing duty and Kevin West, John Royle, Randy Green, and Rick Leonardi on art. Now I knew that Marvel acquired Malibu Comics in the 90's and tried to integrate some of their characters into Malibu's "Ultraverse." (Nerd fact: The Ultraverse is still part of Marvel multiverse and is designated Earth-93060). This book has characters crossing over every which way and the Phoenix force going nuts and being used by an alien supercomputer to destroy the Earth. We can't have that, now can we!? So all of these heroes all team up in order to save the world. The thing that kept creeping into my head while I was reading this is that Marvel could take a page out of DC's play book and bring some of these Malibu characters back. DC owns the Impact and Milestone characters and is folding them into the DC Universe. Why couldn't Marvel do the same with Malibu? Honestly, even in this book, there are a couple characters that could be pretty interesting. Marvel's Exiles series jumps around to other universes and would be a great way to mine some characters from the Malibu books. Well who knows? Maybe we will see Night Man or Topaz again. Like they say, all it takes is a creator with a good story and any character can have a comeback.

Spider-Man versus who!?

It has been a while since I had time to write about the comics that I've been reading lately. Due to some major problems with my apartment, comics have taken a backseat to dealing with real life. But hey! I'm back, and I have a moment to write about the topic that came to me a week or two ago. I realized a couple weeks ago that I haven't read anything with our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in a very long time (All I will say is that I was a fan of Peter and Mary Jane together.) So, I thought this lack of Spidey in my comic diet needed to be remedied. Into the Marvel box I went and grabbed some Spider-Man issues. As I read them, one saying came to mind that you hear in the special features of any superhero movie DVD: "Heroes are measured by the villains they face." If this axiom is true then Spider-Man should only be considered a mediocre hero at best, and the comics you find in the bargains bin are proof. Sure, the Webhead has gone up against the likes of Doc Ock, Venom, and Dr. Doom, but he has also fought a lot of losers as you'll see from the books I read.

First, we have Spectacular Spider-Man #167 written by Gerry Conway with Sal Buscema on art. Our hero is in Liverpool, England to hunt down two super powered assassins. These two assassins are our first examples of Spider-Man's not-so-spectacular victories. They are Knight and Fogg. Right off the bat, we break the stereotype meter. All we need is Bad Teeth Man, The Guv'na, and Tea Time and you can have the most evil coalition in British history. Apparently Spidey fought Knight and Fogg in the previous issue, was knocked unconscious when he fell in a river, and got amnesia. Of course, his memory returns to him just in time to defeat these two evildoers and save the day. Honestly though, becoming fog is a superpower you would expect in a bad superhero comedy movie. What boggles my mind though is that these two ne'erdowells came from the mind of Gerry Conway, the same man who created the Punisher and wrote the death of Gwen Stacy. I guess I just need to chalk this up to nobody's perfect or maybe editorial needed a script as soon as possible. Knight and Fogg might be bad but it gets worse, I assure you.

Now we move from total stereotypes to a total copy. If I said guess the supervillain that is the most accurate marksman ever, wears a high tech mask and wrist mounted guns and a name that starts with "Dead," most, if not all, comic fans would guess DC's Deadshot. As Spectacular Spider-Man #210 (by Steven Grant and Sal Buscema) shows us, there is another character that fits the description, just not as well. The ripoff in question is named Deadaim, and Spider-Man must prevent him from killing the Foreigner (who is also a former Spidey villain that turned semi-good). This issue was honestly hard to read not only because of the extremely unoriginal villain, but also the subplot of J. Jonah Jameson not having enough time for his wife. This copy cat character couldn't feel a whole issue, so we have to see how JJ is obsessed with the Daily Bugle and doesn't appreciate Mrs. Jameson. Not only does the main plot leave enough space in the issue for a subplot, but there is a backup story as well. Actually the backup was the only readable part with some real dialogue between Felicia Hardy and Flash Thompson. So if you see Spectacular Spider-Man #210 sitting in the quarter bin, just leave it. You aren't missing anything.

Time for the worst of the bunch, and this will be very ironic because it would not surprise me if this issue is in a lot of peoples' collections. I am talking about Amazing Spider-Man #299 by David Micheline with art by the famous Todd McFarlane. In case you didn't know, the reason this issue is special and is in a lot of collections is that fact that this is the first appearance of Venom. "But Mike, Venom is one of Spider-Man's best villains!?" Yeah, he is but he doesn't appear until the last page. Before we get to that point, Spider-Man has to spend the whole issue dealing with and eventually teaming with the villain on the cover, Chance. Chance is a gambler and gun for hire who has no powers, but thinks he is so good that he wagers all of his pay on if he can complete the contract. That is his whole schtick. I'm not kidding you. How many nerds have found this issue somewhere, realizing what it is, and waited all issue to see Venom just to endure an onslaught of suckiness that is Chance?

As you can see, Spider-Man has had his fair share of terrible villains to fight over the years. Let's just hope the trend has ended for now and we won't have any more Foggs or Deadaims or Chances for a long time.

Funny sidenote: I wanted to link to bio of Deadaim like I did for the other characters, but he is so forgettable that I couldn't even find one.