Marvel Pick Of The Week – July 23, 2014

PICK OF THE WEEK!

Mighty Avengers 12 by Al Ewing and Greg Land

This title usually follows a collection of street-level heroes (Luke Cage, Monica Rambeau, Adam the Blue Marvel, Blade, She-Hulk, White Tiger, and Power Man) fighting crime in New York, but for the tie-in issues to Original Sin, the creators have developed a secret assortment of folks who got together once in the 70’s to stop four powerful figures from sacrificing human-animal hybrid monsters to end humanity. Yep. 70’s. Animal-men. Trenchcoats. Bushy facial hair. It has all the makings of a silly diversion, but it manages to tell a story with as much serious danger and action as the best episodes of Buffy. Blade is always a welcome sight, especially in his original costume, but the rest of the team gives support to the believability of the story without trying to hard to steal the spotlight. Al Ewing clearly knows the difference between a supporting ensemble cast and generic scene-fillers.

I admire Mighty Avengers 12 for telling a cool, 70’s-cop-show story and never beating the reader over the head with how proud of themselves the creators are. Some great ideas don’t need to be hyped too much. Unless people aren’t reading. General public, I urge you to pick this series up, sending a message to Marvel that you appreciate diversity in character and creativity in writing. I will not be held responsible the next time you roll your eyes at another female-led title getting cancelled in favor for another Wolverine-X-Men-Avengers iteration.

Honorable Mentions:

Amazing Spider-Man 4, for taking Parker’s funny visual gag of Spidey-whities from issue 1 (he made briefs out of webbing when he accidentally ended up naked in a fight, it was awesome, and yes, kind of hot) and turning it sinister by giving it to Silk, a female classmate of Parker’s who was also bitten by the radioactive spider on that field trip. She’s shown up heavily on promotional media for this storyline, but readers don’t know much about her, and by the end of the issue, she could be an ally or an enemy. She is the Black Cat in sexy webbing, and I want her to be around forever.

Daredevil 6, for forcing me into the pun that after reading a lackluster story about a man dressed as a devil trying to help his nun mother, I am damning it with faint praise. As for the Original Sin mystery, Daredevil sees his father standing over his mother, and she has clearly been assaulted, but he has to rescue his mother before he can conclude that his father was the perpetrator. It’s fine, really, it’s fine, but the change in artist makes me long for the self-aware cartooning of Samnee, Rivera, and Martin. In a great double-page spread, Daredevil listens to every sound in a building, and this deserves praise, but I kept thinking about how much more I liked the bit when it was Daredevil walking down a street in New York in issue 1. Meh, not too bad.

Original Sins 4, for a main story that creates one of the most believable jerk characters in recent memory in an arrogant investor who plans to blackmail Dr. Doom with the secrets revealed in the Original Sin title, then offers poetic justice worthy of the most beloved Tales From The Crypt episodes. This doesn’t quite redeem writer James Robinson for the Fantastic Four issue that failed as both crossover tie-in and as a presentation of the written word. But it’s a great story and proof that this is a writer worth watching. This anthology book loses a couple points for the last story, where the reader is asked to accept that it took two writers to make a 2-page pee joke about Captain America.

Storm 1,  for proving that Greg Pak has something original to say about one of the most consistently popular X-Men of the last forty years. I wasn’t looking forward to this issue. I’ve been bored with this character since around the time of her wedding. Rather than simplifying Storm to one of her accepted roles (leader, thief, goddess, queen, heroine), he puts forth a woman who remains confident but recognizes that her power comes in her ability to incorporate such different experiences. She can’t wait to see which role pulls her forward next, and I have to say I agree.