30 Comic Review CHALLONGE

            SCHNAP, DAY 2, NOODLE HERE, EATING POCKET SQUARES, MAKIN DREAMS, OUT OF BOATS! LET'S GET INTO IT!

            Day 2 is dominated in a brutal yet loving fashion by I..I...I gotta pick up the issue, right now, hold on, HOLD YOUR HORSES...Dark Avengers #179, written by Jeff Parker, art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta for the Dark Avengers story and Kev Walker for the Thunderbolts story, with Joe Caramagna again for the lettering, but this time he has a WIIIILD VC'S IN FRONT OF HIS NAME! Does that stand for Vice City? HE HE HEH, you see? I did a gta reference there, did you catch it?! DID YOU?

            Anyway, the issue......was okay, the two stories are good for what they are, the Dark Avengers was fun to read as a time-romping back to fuuuuuuuuuture story, though there's complete underpinings of Judge Dredd stories, and I'm actually seeing a recurring idea of "armies" or superheroes being formed in alternate realities, because WHY NOT. But...the Dark Avengers story is raping me, Superman, IT IS STEALING MY INNOCENCE WITH IT'S BUFFOONERY. Like, we have a huge superhuman asset like the R.A.F.T., holding the worst of the worst villians that haven't been killed or have killed themselves yet, and from the get-go, their authority is usurped. USURPED by an organization called F.A.C.T. ...BECAUSE ADVENTURES! So we're seeing another story involving the Sultan Magus, which is pronounced Mm Ah Guhs, NOT MAH GOOSE! Anyway, the team is dropped in to steal his fishsticks or whatever, basically just a trolling mission, and he appears as he is wont to do and makes it REAL right away, and so, after a big battle against versions of the chimera, hippogryph, and I forget, a lobster monster or something, most of the members of the team fly off, and leave Cage alone with just Skaar in his company. I don't really care about fighting Sultan Magus, that could be fun to see and watch developed, but I hate that Parker immediately begins this whole idea of the team of Dark Avengers, running from the rest of the team led by Luke Cage and then being sleeper agents for this F.A.C.T. nonsense. Again, BECAUSE REASONS! The problem is that I just don't care about F.A.C.T., who are these young turks? Get them out of here!

               On to the art, I love Kev Walker's art, it's colorful, it's dynamic, there's inventive perspective, and little details you can't help but love like during an exposition scene, before Ghost starts explaining what's going on, where Boomerang has a reflection of the other team members in his mask. There are inventive future characters, like a green goblin/dr. octopus combination, I believe, and the big baddie is a version of Luke Cage wearing Iron Man armor, with a Punisher skull on his shoulder and riding a flaming cycle like Ghost Rider's...*phew* Basically, he's everyone ALL AT ONCE.  Now the Dark Avengers....*sigh* Gabriel Hernandez Walta's art......ugh...how can there be such a vast contrast in a single book? The colors are drab and boring, the linework is intermediate skill, at best. And my most hated aspect is the facial expressions...we have perfectly circular eyes...like literally circles with white in them and a black dot for retinas. Inexplicably SQUARE mouths. And teeth that look lazily drawn on, as well as a scene where Luke Cage's mouth gains a rectangular quality. I feel like this is a drawing done by that kid in high school that you knew was a good drawer but, key point, he was still in high school! That's this art for you, it feels adolescent in quality.

            What's awful because I actually prefer the Dark Avengers team to the Thunderbolts team, but after what I've been seeing, I am starting to gravitate toward the Thunderbolts team, because the Dark Avengers art in this issue and the story..just boring..frustrating if anything. Who is F.A.C.T. and why should I care? Seriously. The Sultan Magus shouldn't be a recurring villain to this extent, and yet, here he is. Wavin his magic hands in our faces, going WOOOOOOHOOOOO SULTAN MAGGUSSSSS!  STOP IT, DARK AVENGERS! STOP RUINING EVERY EXPECTATION I HAD OF YOUR SERIES! STOP IT!

30-day comic book review CHALLONGE

           Heyyy guys, it's the Noodle or Jacob Harris here, host of the Comic Comic College Cast, writing out some new things for you all to enjoy with your eyeballs and your hair and your feet, with your shirt. This idea came to me when I was walking home from my day job as a warehouse worker, which happens to be right next to a local entertainment store, where I've committed to buying an issue of something everytime I get off of a shift. So why not do a review of a single issue every day that I do this? I have a comic blog, I have a keyboard, I HAVE THE TOOLS, I HAVE THE TALENT! ....*ahem* Apologies, anyway...  This is going to be my 30-day comic book review CHALLONGE(challenge but imagine the O sound being very prominent in this version of the word)!

So, I'm already 7 days behind, I'll begin.

My first pick is Scarlet Spider #7, written by Chris Yost, pencilled by Khoi Pham, inked by Tom Palmer, colored by Edgar Delgado, and lettered by Joe Caramagna. Not the most current issue, I know, but I think this issue really cements the Scarlet Spider character as a fixture of Houston and, more deeply, a heroic character, if not a hero with a degree of moral ambiguity. Honestly, when I first came upon the character, I was expecting a Spider-Man that would mess people up, essentially a masked Punisher, if you will. And I was disappointed, even frustrated, to see Kaine continuously decline to become that kind of vengeful character.

But the stories that Chris Yost have been writing for the character have made me see past that and gain an appreciation for Kaine as a troubled character, awkwardly squeezing into these new shoes of responsibility. Especially now, in this issue, we see Kaine starting to show he has a handle on the "process" of super hero'ing as it were, even breaking some of his own expectations as well as another inclusion of the shadowy, but decidedly foreboding corporate entity of Roxxon, as well as an appearance by a team IIIII didn't even know existed! The Rangers! The only thing I kindof find weird, not really annoying, yet, but just weird is Kaine's "charge" Aracely, a woman he found in a slave trafficking ring, who, for whatever reason, has psychic powers. I love that in this issue, you see her react to Kaine's internal turmoil in a humorous way that also pushes the story, but it just feels weird to me why she couldn't just be a normal girl, you know? Guess I'm just used to that sort of thing in Spider titles.

Coupled with great pencils, colors and inks, this book has such a great look to it, much in the way a Humberto Ramos book would look usually, really nicely shaped characters, that aren't so uber realistic as other styles. Though really, I think what makes this book pop is Edgar Delgado's coloring, where even the shades of Scarlet Spider's costume vary from scarlet red, to almost orangish hues, giving the reader a real sense of environmental influence. One thing I didn't really get in the book was during a confrontation between Kaine and Roxxon's security guards, Kaine comes crashing through a door with an INORDINATE amount of smoke billowing out...what are we supposed to expect has happened in the room he was in previously? Did someone drop a smoke grenade? We don't know and because of that, this panel seems a little unneccesary, or rather, the smoke in this panel.

The lettering of Joe Caramagna is kindof cool, kindof typical though, but what shone to me was in a scene where off-screen, someone is knocking on the door, the "nok" effects are placed more towards the edges of the panel, which, again, lends to a sense of environmental immersion for the reader. The sound plays in their head off to one side, just as it would if someone were actually knocking on their door to their periphery.

Overall, I'm pleased with the work that has been done on Scarlet Spider and I would recommend this title to anyone who hasn't read it but wants a title that's fun and not so entrenched in messy lore and a wide cast of characters. This book has the advantage of being almost entirely new, which affords it more of a smaller scope, so if you want smaller storylines with interesting, developing characters, give it a shot!

And that has been the first of many comic reviews of my private endeavor, was it as good for you as it was for me? I doubt that, because it was AAAAMAZING for me, but if you think you can match or beat my enthusiasm, feel free to comment or if you hated it, comment as well, though, I have to be honest, I PROBABLY won't listen, because FREEDOM. :D

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