Comics Recap #5: Odds & Ends Part 1

Generally with the articles I've written for this site so far I've tried to write about comics I recently read that could fit into a wider context.  Then there are some that either don't or I'm just too plain lazy to write about at length.  So here we go with these odds and ends, mostly Marvel comics because they had a bunch on sale for the Kindle.

Joker by Brian Azzarello:  This came out about the time of "The Dark Knight" and features a Joker who is largely the same as the Heath Ledger version.  The story is narrated by a thug named Johnny who slowly becomes disillusioned with the Joker as he accompanies him from one criminal racket to another until of course Batman shows up.  If you like the Heath Ledger version then you'll like this book.  Which I do, so I did.  If you're partial more to Cesar Romero or Jack Nicholson then probably not so much.  (4/5)

Captain America in Dimension Z Volume 1 by Rick Remender:  After Ed Brubaker's lengthy run on the title the new team of writers decided to beam Cap into another dimension ruled by the evil Zola and populated with bizarre creatures.  Cap wakes up in a lab and of course escapes, along with a baby, who over ensuing years he raises as his son.  Meanwhile he joins up with a tribe of creatures (they're not really aliens since technically he's the alien here) to try to survive.  It seemed kind of like the Planet Hulk storyline where the Hulk was banished to an alien planet, except instead of falling in love with a hot chick, Cap gets a kid.  I guess you'd have to read Volume 2 to see how he escapes.  I didn't like this all that much.  I mean when you take Captain America and put him in another dimension, what's the point?  I guess you could say the point was to make him a man out of place and time, but really this might have worked better with another hero. (3/5)

Age of X by Mike Carey:  This is another of those parallel universe event comics I so love.  In this case it's a world where mutants have been hunted to the brink of extinction, except for a fortress Magneto creates by mashing together much of New York's tallest buildings.  Basically every day the mutants fight the same battle with human forces.  Most of the familiar mutant heroes like Cyclops and Rogue have different names (Basilisk and Legacy respectively) so it'd probably help if you're familiar with the X-Men comics of the time, which clearly I am not.  About halfway through the secret of this world is revealed...and it doesn't make a lot of sense.  (Spoilers ahead!)  The idea is that Professor X's son Legion has multiple personalities and one has taken over and used his psychic powers to reinvent the world.  But why it would create such a terrible world made no sense to me.  The only reason I could think of is it wanted to create a world where Legion was an important hero and not a freak.  But really it would have made more sense to do like House of M where the mutants were in charge rather than a world where they're being killed, a dream rather than a nightmare.  But what do I know?  Something that annoyed me is at the end it promises another issue of "the Aftermath" but that's not included.  Instead we get two issues of alternate universe Avengers where Captain America is more of a yes-man thug, Iron Man is a zombie, Spider-Woman is a mute assassin, Sue Storm's family has been arrested for harboring mutants, the Hulk can talk and is rabidly anti-mutant for accidentally dousing him with gamma radiation, and Frank Castle (the Punisher) is basically the Nick Fury bossing them around.  The alternate universe Avengers first try to assault Magneto's lair and then have to stop a bomb plot.  It was OK but sort of pointless.  Mostly I think it existed to answer where the other superheroes were during this story.  Each of the two issues includes backup stories that have Spider-Man being hunted even though he's not technically a mutant and Dr. Strange--Mutant Hunter!  That last one has a clever twist.  (3.5/5)

Marvel Universe The End by Jim Starlin:  When some ancient pharoah comes back to take over Earth, the evil Thanos ends up with all the power of the universe.  This doesn't really involve a lot of superheroes, which isn't unexpected when you're talking about infinite god powers.  There's not a lot of action either.  It was kind of fun, even though by now "The End" has been overwritten. (4/5)

The Ultimates Vol. 1 by Mark Millar:  This is like The Avengers if it had been written by the writers of Grey's Anatomy.  The only action is in the fifth of six issues when Banner becomes the Hulk so "the Ultimates" have someone to fight.  Other than Captain America the rest of the team is fairly different than the big screen version.  Banner is a pathetic loser pining after Betty Ross.  Thor is a Nordic hippie.  I'm pretty sure Iron Man was a closet homosexual.  The Pyms take domestic violence to another level.  There are a lot of circa 2002 celebrity references like Shannon Elizabeth and Freddie Prinze Jr who are probably bussing tables or something by now.  The most ironically hilarious is the joke, "He's been smashed more times than Robert Downey Jr."  It would have been better if they had been referring to Tony Stark.  Anyway, if you like a lot of soap opera drama and not a lot of superhero action, then here you go. (3/5)

Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk by Damon Lindelof:  This was the miniseries where the Hulk famously rips Wolverine in half.  The series actually plays this down because it doesn't present the battle between Wolverine and the Hulk in chronological order so what should be this huge moment fails to become a dramatic payoff and is instead shown at the beginning where it has far less impact.  But I guess we already used it for the cover, so it didn't much matter.  Also it comes from one of JJ Abrams's stable of writers from Lost, who also wrote the fairly dumb Prometheus, so you can't expect too much.  Anyway, this was talkier than I expected, with much less fighting than you'd probably expect.  In the end it's about Wolverine and the Hulk coming to have grudging respect for each other or something.  Wolverine's healing powers are taken to absurd extremes to where he can not only be ripped in half but also beheaded at one point and still survive.  I guess that's what makes him "ultimate" eh?  As with any fight between these two it's ultimately (pun intended) pointless. (3/5)

Secret War by Brian Michael Bendis: I remember this story as part of the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 video game.  Basically Nick Fury goes rogue by using some superheroes to overthrow Latveria, with dire consequences.  There's sort of a deux ex machina in the form of a young SHIELD agent who's barely shown in the first four issues.  (3/5) This helped pave the way for Civil War and then...

Secret Invasion by Brian Michael Bendis:  This kind of reminds me of Deep Space Nine where panic struck Earth once they found out Changelings might be among them.  So then everyone started to get paranoid and worry that everyone they met might be an alien saboteur.  And then one of the Changelings tells Sisko that their are only like 4 of them on the planet and look at all the trouble they caused?  Another example is John Carpenter's version of The Thing, where an alien shapeshifter starts to pick off the humans of an Antarctic outpost.  In this case, the alien shapeshifters are the Skrull, who are vastly different than the mindless minions we saw in the Avengers movie.  The Skrull decide they need a new planet and decide to move to Earth.  They take on the form of various superheroes, which starts everyone wondering who's the real deal and who isn't.  But whereas DS9 used this to thoughtfully contemplate the problem of mass hysteria and John Carpenter used it to induce terror at not knowing who to trust, Bendis uses it as an excuse for heroes to beat each other up.  Again.  Also it's pretty easy for Reed Richards to figure out how to tell who's real and who's not.  But hey it's comics so we shouldn't expect subtlety or difficult answers. (3/5)

Siege by Brian Michael Bendis:  Bendis probably should have looked up the definition of a siege first, because there really isn't a siege at all in this.  A siege is where the enemy surrounds a fortified position to weaken the enemy until they either surrender or become easier prey.  In this case, for whatever reason Asgard has fallen to Midgard and is hovering over a small Oklahoma town.  Norman Osborn and his Avengers team instigate an incident to launch a strike on Asgard.  Which again is not a "siege;" more like a sneak attack or a blitzkrieg.  The real Avengers have to assemble to save Asgard.   (3/5)  And that leads to... 

Fear Itself by Matt Fraction:  While the Avengers are planning to rebuild

Asgard on Earth, Red Skull's daughter finds an old hammer and releases someone called "the serpent" who seeks to destroy the world and Asgard.  Then some other old hammers turn the Hulk and Thing and some villains into gods who go around destroying everything in their path.  Ultimately the focus is on Thor, who is prophecized to kill the serpent.  Since by now all of this has been overwritten it becomes one of those curiosities where you say, "Hey remember when?"  This is also notable for killing Captain America...again.  As far as event comics go it was meh.  (3/5)