Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 17

Secret Wars continues to roll on  as Dan looks at the SW romantic comedy/bromance of Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde, while I watch Peter David bring down the curtain on Future Imperfect...

Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde #3

Story:  Sam Humphries

Art:  Alti Firmansyah and Jessica Kholinne

Back when Secret Wars #4 came out, Matt and I ranked all the various tie-ins that had been released to date. Were we to redo that list today, this book would be in my top five.

Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde is a love story between a space-hopping scoundrel and (the Age of Apocalypse proxy of) his globetrotting mutant nerd girlfriend, but it turns out it’s also a love story between a space-hopping scoundrel and his space bros.

Yes, in the end, Peter Quill gets to kiss an alternate-reality version of his fiancée from the 616 universe, but he also gets to keep the anomaly Kitty was tracking down when the story began: Rocket Raccoon’s tail. Rocket – 616 Rocket, anyway – got iced during the fighting waaaay back in Secret Wars #1, just before Quill got teleported onto Reed Richards’ Raft. It’s another reminder of a home that doesn’t exist anymore, and the people he loved and lost.

But as Kitty returns to Doomgard and Quill is left with a tail and a little bit of lipstick on his face, he also has a new friend in the Manhattan Domain’s version of Drax, an ebullient, pompadoured, pop-culture loving now-ex-nightclub manager who would dress up like God Emperor Doom and break into a museum to save his golden-voiced lounge singer buddy. It’s a Casablanca ending in a movie filled with Disney references, but it works, because if Frozen taught us anything, it’s that there’s other kinds of love besides the romantic kind.

As for the book’s primary antagonist, Gambit has made the perfect villain for this story, perhaps even moreso than when he was a horseman of Apocalypse. Here he gets to play the full-on sleazebag we always knew he could be; the Gaston to Kitty’s Belle, as it were. And when the chips are down, he can throw one of Longshot’s bone knives and run away to sleaze another day. Even when he’s staring down the business end of four Thor hammers (Hey, it’s Eric Masterson again!), he’s got one last lucky, kinetically charged knife to play, because hey, it’s Gambit. He’s a total creep, but he’s a beloved total creep.

Future Imperfect #5
Story: Peter David
Art: Greg Land, Jay Leisten, & Nolan Woodward

Peter David wraps up Future Imperfect with one final appearance from a classic character from the original series. The Rick Jones of the original series pops up as The Guardian of the wishing well that sits at the center of Doom's power, and holds the Destroyer armor the Maestro, the evil Hulk, has been searching for to take on God Emperor Doom. I love the way David writes Rick, still willing to snark and stand up to the more powerful Maestro, doing his duty to Doom. I also got a kick out of Peter David's little meta-commentary moment about Rick's time as A-Bomb; I love David's talent for working those commentaries in seamlessly, so it doesn't come off as too much of a wink at the camera. And when Maestro reaches the armor, we get the battle between Doom and Maestro. Greg Land does a solid job drawing what is a clash of the titans, as Maestro uses the Asgardian might of the Destroyer armor to prove himself Doom's equal. Most of the issue is dedicated to the fight, coming back around at the end for one final bit of commentary on being careful what you wish for. I know there are going to be some people who hate the ending, and feel like it's a cop out, but David lays out the framework well enough that the twist makes perfect sense. It's hard to talk about the ending, since any comment on it will give away the twist that was built in, but I think it makes sense, and as we know Maestro will be back after Secret Wars, it makes me wonder if this was setting up this Maestro as the version in Contest of Champions, but we'll see. All I can say for sure is that any chance Peter David has to gather some of his best characters, and put them together in one mini-series is something that everyone should check out.

Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 5

Welcome back to Battleworld, everyone. This week, Dan Grote looks at the new issue of the core Secret Wars title, and the much anticipated return of a married Spider-Man...

Secret Wars #3

Story: Jonathan Hickman

Art: Esad Ribic and Ive Svorcina

Imagine you survived the end of the world. Now imagine you were supposed to survive the end with all your loved ones, but you watched them ripped away from you at the last second. NOW imagine you wake up in a new world where your sworn enemy isn’t just its ruler or its savior but its GOD. Not only that, but, as Dr. Strange puts it, “He is very, very good at playing God.” NOW imagine how Reed will react next issue or whenever he finds out his wife and daughter are Doom’s most trusted advisers, his son spends all day playing in the palm of a planet-eating giant and his brother-in-law is [spoiler].

And we were worried Marvel didn’t care about the FF anymore.

Secret Wars #3 dedicates itself primarily to answering questions, which is good because I’ve had a lot of them since this event started. As of this issue, we now know:

• What happened to Reed Richards’ Raft ™ from the 616 universe and its passengers, which if you’ll recall from issue #1 included Black Panther, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Captain Marvel, Thor, and a Phoenixed-up Cyclops.     
• A very few select characters remember what happened before Battleworld, and we know why the rest don’t recall.
•  How much time has passed since the final incursion.
• Where Johnny Storm is, and oo-da-lolli it’s a mini gut punch that makes perfect sense.
• Why Dr. Strange is the right hand of God Emperor Doom ™, and what happened to the Molecule Man, last seen confronting the Beyonders alongside Doom and Strange in New Avengers #33.
• How many Spider-Men survived the final incursion (although if you saw some of Marvel’s post-Secret Wars teaser images, I suppose you’ve already had that spoiled).

It’s a lot to take in, and besides most readers who haven’t seen everything Jonathan Hickman’s written for Marvel since Secret Warriors, nobody’s having a harder time with this than 616 Reed Richards, whom Esad Ribic draws in a perpetual state of exhausted, bearded shellshock. But I can only imagine the moment of clarity issue #3 provides will be brief, as Battleworld has much more to reveal, and we’re not even halfway there.

Side note: As someone who’s met him at cons, I very much appreciated the full-page house ad toward the end of the issue memorializing Herb Trimpe, who was the first Marvel artist to draw Wolverine for publication, among his many other credits for the company. Trimpe died in April at 75.

Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1

Story: Dan Slott

Art:  Adam Kubert, John Dell and Justin Ponsor

Some Secret Wars comics are meant to tell the complex story of Battleword (Secret Wars). Some are meant to be jumping-on points for new readers (A-Force, MODOK: Assassin). And some, unabashedly, are love letters to Comics Fans of a Certain Age. This book (and the digital-first X-Men ’92) is most certainly the latter.

Renew Your Vows takes place in what, at least to start, feels like a simpler time. Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson are married and have a young daughter, Annie. He works at the Daily Bugle and brings hot-scoop photos to an always-yelling J. Jonah Jameson. He’s not an Avenger. He patrols the streets of New York with other street-level heroes like Daredevil, the Punisher and Moon Knight. Captain America wears his old wing-tipped mask. Eddie Brock is still Venom and looks like a big, slobbering black-and-white monster.

Dan Slott’s name may be on the cover, but it sure reads like David Michelinie or J.M. DeMatteis to me. And it’s all being drawn by Adam Kubert, one of Marvel’s rock-star artists in the years after the Image exodus. For Spider-fans, this book is a warm, fuzzy blanket.

At least to start.

When a supervillain named Regent starts killing off superheroes and claiming their powers as his own, and Venom escapes from prison and threatens his family, Peter is forced to make a choice that will inform the series going forward.

“That was the day I learned what trumps great power … an even greater responsibility.”

We’ve seen alternate-future takes on Spider-spawn – “Mayday” Parker swings immediately to mind – but we’ve never seen Peter actively raise a child, at least to my recollection. “Renew Your Vows” turns back the clock on basically every Spider-Man story of the past decade, but it also sets it forward, showing us the darkness of a world where “One More Day” never happened. Is this Spider-Man’s darkest timeline (and if so, is there still paintball)? It’s too early to tell, but it’s worth sticking around to see.


...While I examine the return of the evil future Hulk and the most light-hearted of any tie-in you're likely to see.

Future Imperfect #1
Story: Peter David
Art: Greg Land

Peter David has a long history with Marvel comics, and despite famed runs on Spider-Man and X-Factor, it will be his Hulk run that he is most remembered for. And of that run, Future Imperfect, the story of the Hulk going into the future to fight an evil version of himself called the Maestro, is probably the most famous, so it makes sense that if Marvel was picking and choosing great alternate history stories to make realms of Battleworld it would be one of them, and make even more sense they'd get Peter David to write it. David jumps right into the deep end, referencing the Secret Wars status quo with Maestro as this realm's Baron. Not only do we get the Maestro and Janis, Rick Jones's granddaughter introduced in the original story and who plays a role not only there but in the back end of David's original run on the ongoing Hulk series, but Ruby Summers, the daughter of Scott Summers and Emma Frost introduced in a dystopic future X-Factor story. The issue establishes what Dystopia, the city ruled by the Maestro, is like, and we see that there's a rebellion in place against it, which includes Ruby and Janis. The desert, the city, it's all classic dark future stuff, but David works with it and keeps it feeling fresh. When Ruby stumbles across a old man in an eyepatch wandering the desert claiming to be Odin, she thinks she's struck gold for the rebellion. Unfortunately, after she brings him to their base, it's clearly not Odin. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to reveal that "Odin" is in fact the Maestro reverted to human form, and a battle commences. Greg Land is an artist I can take or leave (I was a huge fan of his early work on Birds of Prey and Nightwing, but his excessive photo-referencing in recent years leaves me cold), and while in combat nearly all his characters have screaming their heads off expressions on their faces, his page layouts were solid for the fight between the rebels and the Maestro, and it came together well in the end. As with a lot of these Secret Wars tie-in first issues, the final page has a shock reveal, this time of a surviving hero who is leading the rebellion, and it's a nice reveal, one that should lead to a classic throw down in the next issue. With its nods to previous Peter David work, and his usual quick ear for witty dialogue, Future Imperfect looks to be a solid entry to the Secret Wars tie-ins, and since Marvel has said the Maestro is here to stay after the event, this would be a good place to get to know him.

Giant-Size Little Marvel: A Vs. X #1
Story and Art: Skottie Young

All these dark Secret Wars tie-ins got you down? Well, Giant Size Little Marvel is the cure for what ails you! The opening montage, which has musical notes bouncing around the narration and made me try to read them to the tune of the Tiny Toon Adventures theme song, lays out exactly what Secret Wars is about before before bringing us into the kingdom of Marville (not to be confused with the Bill Jemas series of the same name, possible the worst comic Marvel ever published), where at the intersection of Avengers Street and X-Men Way, the little heroes get into all kinds of mischief. The opening fight scene, which is perfectly tame and all ages, is a result of Iron Man melting one of Magik's toy ponies, and her summoning a monster to eat him. The main plot of the issue revolves around an escalating battle to build the best food stand at the corner, from lemonade, to hit dogs, to hamburgers, to Asgardian ribs, and so on, until it all breaks out in a brawl. Skottie Young is a master of drawing adorable little versions of Marvel characters, and the cameos fly fast and furious throughout the comic. While this isn't going to give you insight into the greater working of Battleworld and God King Doom, it's delightful fun and a good palette cleanser. Between this series, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and the new Groot ongoing from Marvel, and DC's new Bat-Mite and Bizarro series, it's a good time for all-ages superheroes from the Big 2.

A Tuesday Miscellany

One of the real problems with being an amateur blogger is that I have various professional and personal responsibilities that keep me from writing as much as I'd like. There is always something else that happens that I think, "Huh, that would make a nice short piece," or, 'People should really know about that." So, to wit, I'm writing this post that will have a few small items, and I can't for the life of me remember if I actually posted about this here or not, so I'll once again, or for the first time, say that The Matt Signal is now on Facebook. Go, like the page, and I'll try to put some more content up on there. I've put some stuff beyond just links to these posts already, but I'm hoping to get more up there regularly.

- This past week was Will Eisner Week, and alas, I didn't get a chance to write anything about the American father of modern comics and graphic novels. It can't be stressed how important Eisner was to the development of comics. I just found all of my Eisner graphic novels, and so I will at some point hopefully before next year's Will Eisner Week be writing about some of those Eisner graphic novels. But suffice it to say, whether it was the stylish use of logos and non-traditional plots of the best of his Spirit strips, the early American graphic novel A Contract With God, or the inside autobiography The Dreamer, Eisner was a true master of the form and someone who should be studied.

-It felt like last week was Maestro week. The Maestro, for those of you who don't know, is an evil future version of the Hulk created by Peter David for his mini-series, Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect, a story voted by Comic Book Resources readers as the Greatest Peter David Story Ever Told. Gerry Duggan has been teasing Maestro in his recent Hulk arc, and David brought him back in Spider-Man 2099 two weeks back, but if that wasn't a bounty on it's own, it was announced last week that Maestro would be added to one of Marvel's on-line games, Contest of Champions, and headlining one of the Secret Wars tie-ins, appropriately called Future Imperfect, written by none other than David himself. And to top it all off, Sunday's episode of Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. featured the animated debut of the character. Agents of S.M.A.S.H. has been hit or miss for me, but this was a solid episode, and I have to give a lot of credit for that to Fred Tatasciore, who did a great job voicing both Hulk and Maestro. An evil version of hero isn't a unique concept, as a matter of fact it's about as old a chestnut as comics have. But the Maestro was such a terrifying character partly because that rage and evil always seems right below the surface for the Hulk, and Future Imperfect was such a memorable introduction. I think writers since have always felt they can tease the Maestro just around the corner for the Hulk, and it's nice to see that one of the best aspects of one of the best runs on any Marvel comic ever still resonates. And, as one of those fanboy ideas, wouldn't it be cool to get a Peter David/Jim Starlin co-plotted, David scripted, Starlin drawn story featuring The Magus, dark future version of Adam Warlock, coming to invade an Earth ruled by The Maestro, dark future version of the Hulk? Just saying...

- This weekend marked the second Camden Comic Con, held at the Camden campus of Rutgers University. This is right in my backyard, so to speak, and it was a free Con, so I figured what the heck, let me give it a shot. It had a nice guest list, and a good variety of vendors, so I figured the worst that would happen is I'd walk out with a bunch of back issues. I did that and more, as I found it to be a well organized and very pleasant con.

Wandering the floor, I was pleased to see a variety of creators, most of whom were local and small press. One of the great things about this type of con is that, while you don't get a ton of creators from Marvel and DC, you do get to see all kind of work you usually wouldn't. I did spend some time talking to Adam McGovern, whose Nightworld came out from Image earlier this year (full disclosure, Adam does shop with us at Dewey's and has made store appearances, so I knew him going in). I got three sketches for my ever growing sketchbook, the first of which was an AzBats from Bun Leung.

AzBats should have been one I expected to get or ask for, but it never occurred to me, and that's why I usually tell the artist to draw what he or she wants. You never know what you're going to get that way. Among the other creators I spoke to over the course of the day were the guys from On The Square Comics. I picked up the two self published books they had on hand, Opposing Forces and Centralia, and artist Jay Taylor added a nice Batman to my sketchbook.

On the back issue front, I was finally able to complete my run of the Archie Goodwin/Al Williamson Classic Star Wars newspaper strip reprints, as well as moving closer to completing the run of 80s Infinity Inc. I also stumbled across a 90s prestige format one shot from Marvel called Dr.Strange: What is it That Disturbs You, Stephen? by Mark Andreyko and P. Craig Russell, which I had never heard of. That's one of the real joys of diving through bins at cons for me, finding those gems that you never knew existed and that you just can't resist picking up. And the prices are usually so reasonable that you can't help but take a chance on them.

I didn't make any of the panels, as I was too distracted by chatting with creators and digging through back issue bins, but it was an impressive assortment. There was a symposium on female creators, characters, and fans. And there were a bunch of how-to workshops, from self publishing to cosplay.

So, all in all, I had a great experience at Camden Comic Con, and I look forward to seeing what they have lined up for next year.