Review: Ultimate Comics Avengers & Secret Invasion

Took a bunch of old Wizards back with me during my trip to my hometown for my grandma's funeral. Read them with my kids. Saw the Mark Millar interview and feature on his "Ultimate Comics: Avengers". Loved the sweet Carlos Pacheco artwork. I picked up the hardcover collection as soon as I was back in KL. Read it in two sittings. Actually finished reading it after a spectacular "buka puasa" meal with my wife at my workplace. Yes, we messed up the place with our satay, murtabak, nasi dagang, etc. After cleaning up, I read the final two chapters and closed the book with a satisfied smile on my face. Granted, this run isn't especially ambitious in comparison with Millar's previous outings on The Ultimates with Bryan Hitch. In fact, it isn't even half as ambitious as his Ultimate X-Men, Spider-Man or Wolverine stuff. It's just a collection of six issues of very entertaining, no social commentary, no metatextual nonsense, COMIC featuring lots of crazy action and the coolest character ever created: Ultimate Captain America. Carlos Pacheco's artwork has this breezy effect in this one. It's not busy like his collaboration with Kurt Busiek on Avengers Forever or Superman: Fall of Camelot. It's a little closer to his Green Lantern work with Geoff Johns. You get the feeling that the man is simply enjoying his work and his work is drawing some super-fantastic action panels with all the emotion that you can hope for.

Finally, yes, Ultimate Red Skull really is Cap's son and Millar tried to make his story a sad and tragic one but somehow you'll find it difficult to symphatize with this messed-up sadist. That being the case, the manipulative ways of Ultimate Nick Fury and Gregory Stark (Tony's brother) make the Ultimate Red Skull look pretty tame in comparison.

First, there was the "waiting-for-the-trade" trend that swept through comicsdom. Now, it's waiting for the crazy oversized hardback. Yes. I did not buy the individual issues of "Secret Invasion" by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu when they came out monthly two years ago. I also did not buy the softcover trade that came out soon after. I waited and waited and waited. Then all my waiting paid off and Marvel finally released the oversized hardback, which I seized straight off the shelves yesterday and finished reading an hour ago. Kinokuniya was having some special Geek-Month sale and everyone was snatching up copies of Bendis' "Siege". But little ol' me haven't even read "Secret Invasion" so I bought that instead. And boy, am I glad that I did. The below are the things that I liked about this book:

• Queen Veranke aka Spider-Woman. I am totally in love with this character because of her nobility, faith and self-sacrifice. I think many fans share my opinion which explains why the return of the *real* Jessica Drew didn't really spark any interest. In fact, if you think about it, the Skrull Spider-Woman was what brought the New Avengers together and plotted the first 5-6 years of Marvel stories since the Bendis-Era began!
• The Return of Nick Fury. The real one. With the big guns and the attitude. Not the Sam Jackson one from the Ultimate Universe or the movies. This was the Nick Fury that you wanted to grow up and become. This was the Steranko Fury that romanced dangerous women and showed up to save the day while saying stuff like, "Well, my god has a hammer!"
• The Return of Bobbi Morse aka Mockingbird. As I've said many times before, Mockingbird was the first female comicbook character that I fell in love with. I'm just glad that she's back. Wait till she learns about Hawkeye's affairs with the late Wasp, the Scarlet Witch and Echo!
• Norman Osborn and the Shot-Heard-Around-The-World. I love it that SI ended but set up Dark Reign (that has also ended with the Siege crossover). It was great to see the ascension of Normie.
• The Hood and his army against the Skrull Army. The Hood is slowly becoming my favourite new villain in the 616-MU. Unlike Wilson Fisk (Kingpin), the Hood is an all-around action guy. You can't imagine old Fisk leading the charge of the villains into battle (like Theoden leading the Rohirrim in LOTR) but you sure can picture the Hood doing that with battle-cries and guns blazing.
• Leinil Francis Yu's artwork. SI wouldn't be so good without Yu's crazy/frenetic artwork.
• The "Embrace Change" Advertisements. Yes, they are all reprinted in the book along with tons of extras like interviews, sketches and scripts. If you need more extras, go to the official Embrace Change website.
• Free geek book. Finally, after all the discounts, I literally got the book "The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl" for free. It's by Barry Lyga and it's unashamedly fanboy-ish. Brian Michael Bendis, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman get mentioned quite a lot in the book.

Review: New Avengers Vol. 4 (hardcover)

I was down with fever yesterday evening. Spent the entire evening reading the fourth oversized "New Avengers" hardcover that I just picked up. I love reading comics in large chunks rather wait for the monthly doses. This is especially true for anything Brian Bendis writes. He writes in such a decompressed style that the book reads much better in a huge hardcover collection than in the monthly floppies.

Anyway, this 4th hardcover collects New Avengers #32-37, Annual #2 and the entire Illuminati #1-5 miniseries. The NA issues and the Annual is actually one arc by itself which ties in to the happenings in "Mighty Avengers" but adds so much more characterisation and details to the story that leads into the mega-crossover, "Secret Invasion". The story is basically the aftermath of the NA's discovery that a Skrull was masquerading as Elektra and leading the Hand for some time. Trust between the team quickly fall apart as no one can really be sure who is a Skrull and who isn't. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the Civil War, Iron Man's Avengers are hunting the fugitive NA who are unregistered. While heroes are fighting heroes in an ongoing misguided war, the underworld gets a new leader/kingpin in Parker Robbins (The Hood).

Overall, there's so much going on all the time but Bendis doesn't discount the characterisation and his trademark snappy dialogue just to advance the story. The whole thing reads as a story by a man who loves these characters. Of course, I'm not sure if Bendis loves Tigra though - I mean, Tigra goes through some pretty bad treatment in this book. As a kid who grew up with the West Coast Avengers, the scenes showing The Hood and Jigsaw bashing up Tigra was very painful to read.

Finally, the real highlight of this book is Leinil Francis Yu. His artwork lifts the book from a very good comic into an actual comic masterpiece. I've always loved the man's artwork - all the way back from his "Wolverine" days to "Superman: Birthright" and "New Avengers/Secret Invasion". I'm really looking forward to his pairing with Mark Millar on the upcoming "Superior". Yu brings a frenetic insanity and roughness to the story that fits in very well with the story Bendis wants to tell.

The only downside to this hardcover is probably the Illuminati miniseries that I really didn't enjoy that much. Not that it was a bad comic (Bendis plots and Brian Reed scripts/co-plots). It just doesn't pack the punch that I was looking for and that's funny because the mini is rooted in some of my favourite past Marvel storylines such as the Kree-Skrull War, Secret Wars and the Infinity Gauntlet.

All in all, this hardcover makes me want to read and collect the entire "Secret Invasion" crossover (that I haven't read yet). I'm waiting for the SI hardcover scheduled to arrive end of August 2010.