Marvel - Review - FA Online

Hawkeye: Blindspot 1

How many lousy ideas can you fit in the first issue of a mini-series starring one of Marvel’s finest characters? Not a challenge anyone should be taking up, but McCann seems to be having a good go.

I was bewildered by the Iron Man .1 issue, and this adds to my confusion. These are supposed to be ‘jumping-on points’ for new readers, but like Iron Man 500.1, this makes no attempt to give you any idea that there are interesting things to come for the title. At least in Iron Man you got plenty of sense of where the character is right now, which is something: here, what you get is no Spider-Man at all.

Silver Surfer 1

Oh, look, it’s the return of the Silver Surfer again. Oh my Shalla Bal! Oh, my Zenn-La! Woe is me and shalt I talk in a florid sub-Shakespearean language that invariably ends in exclamation marks?! Shalt I ever develop a sense of humour or shalt I muse over the world’s follies in an obviously messianic fashion?! In my dotage shalt I join my namesakes and take to browsing the web and contacting distant friends via Facebook?!

Marvel Girl 1

I can’t quite work this out: it seems to be set pretty early in X-Men continuity, presumably to link in to the new movie set back then, but it sets up Jean as, in Professor X’s words, “one of the strongest beings on the planet,” which was certainly not the case in the original run of X-Men comics.

Venom/Deadpool What If? 1

I’ve never read a Deadpool comic before, and it would be unwise to rely on this one for any guidance as to the character. It’s set in a not terribly serious alternate universe, one in which the Beyonder has grafted MODOK to Galactus’s ass and Galactus hires mercenary assassin Deadpool to kill the Beyonder.

Avengers vs New Ultimates 1

This confused the hell out of me. The banner at the top, where we expect the title to be, says Ultimate Death of Spider-Man; at the bottom it says Avengers vs New Ultimates 1. Fortunately I didn’t have to work out what it was, since it’s by Mark Millar so an automatic buy for me. It’s a good thing that that was my reason, since there is no detectable connection to the upcoming death of Spider-Man.

Power Man and Iron Fist 1

I’m trying lots of new titles these days. Despite liking the old title, many, many years ago (an oddly charming run, I thought), the crappy cover here nearly put me off.

Ultimate Spider-Man 153

Like the first issue of Avengers vs New Ultimates, this has a Death of Spider-Man banner; at least this comic has Spider-Man in it, and I suppose this story actually is the lead-in towards that death. Certainly the threat level is vast enough, since it involves some artefact with wishing powers, with no implied limits on it – maybe that level of danger will in due course drag in the big teams.

Magneto 1

I’ve read a few one-offs lately where the purpose of their existence is unclear. I am imagining editors deciding they want, say, a Magneto one-shot and handing the job to someone, ignoring their protests that they have zero ideas as to what to do with one issue with that character.

Invincible Iron Man 500.1

This is the first of Marvel’s .1 sequence of issues over the next couple of months, intended to provide jumping-on points for new readers. I plan on trying most of them, as they will be new to me. I’ll be interested to see if they really are comprehensible for someone who has been out of touch for ages on most of the Marvel Universe, and interested to see how many keep me coming back for the subsequent issues.

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