Take 4
So, I had to go to Evansville over the weekend. With my local comic shop closed, Comic Quest in Evansville, a two hour drive away, is the most prominent comic shop I now have access to. Obviously, much loading up on comics was called for. Before I left I asked Boolah if he wanted anything, and all he could think of was "Infinite Crisis #7" and "Civil War #1". I rolled my eyes and muttered something, but agreed to pick up the books if I could find them.
Surely enough, found copies of each, and picked up a fat stack of books for myself (for all my bitching about crossovers here lately, I ended up buying three crossover related books myself: Annihalation Silver Surfer, Annihalation Ronan, and Seven Soldiers Frankenstien. Sooner or later everyone's a hypocrite). Anyway, I get home and read my books. And since Boolah hasn't been able to pick up his books yet, I end up reading Infinite Crisis #7 and Civil War #1, because I can't NOT read a comic that's sitting front of me.
Infinite Crisis #7 had the steepest learning curve because I hadn't read any of the previous issues, and I'm not a DCU history guru. Still, it was all pretty easy to figure out. Buncha people fight. Big bad guy does something crazy. Buncha people try to stop him. Fight, fight, fight. The Holy Trio of DC remember what defines each of them. Some people die. The end. All in all, it was easy enough to follow if you've got a head for this kinda crap. Sure, I didn't grasp some of the finer details, but overall I think I got it. What did I think? Meh. Uneven art (absolutely beautiful in some places, garishly bad in others), outside of the five central characters, characterization is thrown out the window in favor of the old "let's see how many characters we can cram onto a page" approach, and really for an event that was supposed to come across as Super Ultra Epic, the thing felt far less epic than, say, Seven Soldiers. Like I said, meh.
On the other hand, I gotta admit I was pleasantly surprised by Marvel's Civil War #1. The plot was easy to follow, and the handful of things I didn't know ahead of time (where's Nick Fury, and why do the SHIELD soldiers look like rejects from Halo?) were easy enough to understand. I didn't see the plot twist coming (one surprising character sides with the rebels...), and the action sequence in the middle did, in fact, rock the house. And not only was the art consistant, it was absolutely beautiful. Overall, it wasn't bad, but still not good enough to warrant me actually picking this series up. It's just too unwieldly, and I know for a fact that there will be entire issues of this series where nothing will happen. Oh, and before I forget, if you look up the word "ASS" in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of Spiderman's new costume.
But there was something I noticed while reading these two series. Super heroes died. A LOT. In fact, that seems to be the trend nowadays. You have a big crossover, you get out your list of characters, and you just start randomly selecting guys to kill off. Hell, half the time there's no real rhyme or reason to any of it, either. I don't even know why it bugs the hell out of me, but it does. Don't get wrong, I've killed off characters in my books before, but usually they were characters who hadn't been around very long. I am bound and determined that when it's time for a character to die, that they get a worthwhile send off, and not be the casulty of some event designed to boost sales. Bah.
Surely enough, found copies of each, and picked up a fat stack of books for myself (for all my bitching about crossovers here lately, I ended up buying three crossover related books myself: Annihalation Silver Surfer, Annihalation Ronan, and Seven Soldiers Frankenstien. Sooner or later everyone's a hypocrite). Anyway, I get home and read my books. And since Boolah hasn't been able to pick up his books yet, I end up reading Infinite Crisis #7 and Civil War #1, because I can't NOT read a comic that's sitting front of me.
Infinite Crisis #7 had the steepest learning curve because I hadn't read any of the previous issues, and I'm not a DCU history guru. Still, it was all pretty easy to figure out. Buncha people fight. Big bad guy does something crazy. Buncha people try to stop him. Fight, fight, fight. The Holy Trio of DC remember what defines each of them. Some people die. The end. All in all, it was easy enough to follow if you've got a head for this kinda crap. Sure, I didn't grasp some of the finer details, but overall I think I got it. What did I think? Meh. Uneven art (absolutely beautiful in some places, garishly bad in others), outside of the five central characters, characterization is thrown out the window in favor of the old "let's see how many characters we can cram onto a page" approach, and really for an event that was supposed to come across as Super Ultra Epic, the thing felt far less epic than, say, Seven Soldiers. Like I said, meh.
On the other hand, I gotta admit I was pleasantly surprised by Marvel's Civil War #1. The plot was easy to follow, and the handful of things I didn't know ahead of time (where's Nick Fury, and why do the SHIELD soldiers look like rejects from Halo?) were easy enough to understand. I didn't see the plot twist coming (one surprising character sides with the rebels...), and the action sequence in the middle did, in fact, rock the house. And not only was the art consistant, it was absolutely beautiful. Overall, it wasn't bad, but still not good enough to warrant me actually picking this series up. It's just too unwieldly, and I know for a fact that there will be entire issues of this series where nothing will happen. Oh, and before I forget, if you look up the word "ASS" in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of Spiderman's new costume.
But there was something I noticed while reading these two series. Super heroes died. A LOT. In fact, that seems to be the trend nowadays. You have a big crossover, you get out your list of characters, and you just start randomly selecting guys to kill off. Hell, half the time there's no real rhyme or reason to any of it, either. I don't even know why it bugs the hell out of me, but it does. Don't get wrong, I've killed off characters in my books before, but usually they were characters who hadn't been around very long. I am bound and determined that when it's time for a character to die, that they get a worthwhile send off, and not be the casulty of some event designed to boost sales. Bah.
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