Even
more a disappointment than iZombie, is Avenger's Academy (Christos Gage). It's still going.
But, I'm hoping it ends soon, to be honest. I've heard whispers that we may see
the end of it somewhere during the current "Avengers vs. X-men" story
arch going now. I can see it as an easy out for them to get rid of a
desperately floundering title.
Like
I mentioned earlier, I was super excited about this title. I picked it up right
from the start, seeing the new characters, the new story in a universe that we've
known for quite some time. And it started out strong. We get a new cast of five
or six heroes, who've all been screwed over by seemingly the worst villain in
the Marvel universe currently, Norman Osborne. So, good ol' Hank Pym (one of my
personal favorites) steps in and adopts them, brings them to the Avenger's
mansion and raises 'em to be good little heroes, instead of the villains that
Osborne was vying for. Of course there's the teenage angst, confusion of
identity, all that good stuff that you get with regular high schoolers, just
add great power and great responsibility. Think a little more organized version
of Runaways (whom we just saw in the last two issues (27 & 28). It
was crap).
I
have a few complaints about Avenger's Academy. First of all, the artist
has changed quite a few times (Mike McKone as artist to Jorge Molina as
penciler, back to McKone, to Sean Chen’s pencils, then to Tom Raney, back to
Chen, then back and forth more and more, until Tom Grummet joins at 24 is when
it gets bad), and the current one (Karl Moline) is really pretty crummy. I
loved the crisp lines, the just-enough detail in the background of the first
artist. Now it feels too fluid (and not in a good way) to the point of sloppy,
too messy to really appreciate the art. The story itself has gone downhill
right from the start. I do think that it started out strong and with potential,
but it has since then spiraled into a confusing, convoluted clusterduck. There
was even a point, when I'd picked up the latest issue a few months back, that I
had to stop and look at the past month's issues. I literally had to double
check that I hadn't missed an issue, that's how faulty the writing was. It was
the issue where, all of a sudden, they brought in a second string of recruits
to the academy (“1st Issue of a New Era” they claim). I had no idea
what was going on. And, by that point in the story, it was getting relatively
confusing already. Adding another dozen characters in there, for seemingly no
reason, made it even harder to follow. Just before the addition of the new
team, the Avenger's Academy was sucked into Marvel's universe-wide
story, "Fear Itself", issues 15 - 20. (which, I didn't read any of
the outlying issues, I just read the nine-part mini-series and the issues that
hit Academy. It had great potential, but really seemed like it flopped.)
Ultimately,
it feels as if Marvel just tucked Avenger's Academy into the back of a
closet and forget about it, and it's been slowly degrading and melting away
ever since. And the reason I hope that the end is in sight is that a) they can
end the series with some semblance of dignity; and 2) so I don't feel obliged
to buy anymore crap issues.
And
now, the crown jewel of my collection: American Vampire (Scott Snyder). First and foremost,
the art in this series (Rafael Albuquerque) definitely needs a mention. We’ve
seen a change of artist four times. Mateus Santolouco (10 &11), Sean Murphy
(Survival of the Fittest mini-series,
1-5), Daniel Zezelj (12, his art is chunkier, darker, less detail, it’s okay,
not my favorite), and Jordi Bennet (The
Beast in the Cave storyline, 19-21). This last one was noticeably
different, and certainly not as good. But it's back to the old art, and the
style that I fell in love with. It was only one of the story lines that I
didn't quite dig (coincidentally the one where I didn’t really like the art),
but it wasn't terrible. And it was actually crucial to the back story of two of
the main characters. The story that just ended (22-25, think vampire Fonzie)
had a fantastic little twist right at the end. And the rather short story
currently running (only three issues, I think), is very cool. What American
Vampire does so well is follow this main idea of vampires, not always
following the same characters, but the same general idea throughout the books.
They span generations, time periods, eras, but it's the same through line. The
writing is top-notch (kudos, Snyder). The reason Matt never picked it up is
because he doesn't want anything to do with society's current obsession with
the nosferatu, but I think, if you can get past the vampires, it's a
really solid read. And you even find yourself routing for the villain (with the
coolest name, pretty much ever, Skinner Sweet).
So
those are the first four comics that I really got serious with. I'm reading a
bunch more now, and in time, I'll tell you about them.
No comments:
Post a Comment