Comic Review: Thunderbolt Jaxon

PUBLISHER: WILDSTORM (2006)
WRITER: DAVE GIBBONS
ARTIST: JOHN HIGGINS

Wildstorm/DC brought up the rights to the fabled comic wing of IPC/Fleetway in 2005 and promised a selection of new material and reprints (the main hitch in the latter being the absence and poor condition of most physical masters). The opening gambit was Albion, written by Leah Moore and John Reppion and maybe read or spellchecked or vaguely acknowledged by Alan Moore. This was a hugely clumsy attempt to "do a Watchmen" for the characters but while it was nice to see so many characters back in print after decades on the sidelines and it was nowhere near the desecration of the infamous 2000AD Holiday Special it's generally considered impolite to mention the whole thing now. Phase two was a pair of spin-off five part miniseries "from the world of Albion!" largely chosen by casting around for British Invasion creators who had fond memories and asking them if they wanted to write anything. Dave Gibbons answered the call and chose Thunderbolt Jaxon, but there were two major catches - he didn't want to draw it and apparently he didn't want to write about Thunderbolt Jaxon either. Jaxon was never quite in Fleetway's first echelon, mainly being limited to Comet and Knockout rather than the A-list and his big moment might well have been a whiny death in Grant Morrison's Zenith. He was left out of Albion and you get the impression it wasn't so much to keep him free for this mini but because the writers didn't know who he was.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 11 - World War 3

PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITER: JAMES ROBINSON 
ARTISTS: MIKE WIERINGO, MICHAEL RYAN, LARRY STROMAN, RON LIM

With the 12-issue contract with Image (or more Wildstorm by this stage) done with and a glorious return to in-house at Marvel ready to go the Heroes Reborn universe seemed to have ran its' course. However, a 13th issue of each title still came out, a crossover with Wildstorm's superhero books. Why I'm not sure - maybe as a thanks to the company for stepping in, maybe as a contractual thing, maybe as a last-minute fill-in. There's a certain oddness to the way it's presented in that each issue has nothing on the cover really announcing the presence of the Wildstorm heroes, depending on readers recognising the likes of Maul and Burnout, so it doesn't seem to be to give the Image studio a big money-spinning golden handshake.

The rub is that via the Negative Zone an alliance of Doctor Doom, the Skrulls and the Daemonites have been able to bind the Wildstorm universe and the Heroes Reborn universe together through a dimensional lock and the resulting alliance is winning the battle for Earth. It's really just an excuse for some smashing mix-up team line-ups - the Fantastic Four consist of Reed, Sue, Maul and Burn-Out; the Avengers of Captain America (actually Hadrian from WildCATs), the Scarlet Witch, Thor, Hellstrike, the Swordsman, Freefall and Brass; Stormwatch are Battalion, Hawksmoor, Fuji, Fairchild, Winter, Jenny Sparks, the Vision and Triton of the Inhumans; Wetworks consist of Dane, Jester, Mother-One, Pilgrim and Hawkeye; WildCATs are made up of Lord Emp, Zealot, Goliath, Gorgon, Grifter, Warblade and Void. Iron Man, the Thing, the Human Torch, Namor, Deathblow and the Hulk among those already MIA, Captain America is off being Nomad and Nick Fury's just died, replaced by Jeremy Stone as head of SHIELD - whose main weapon is Dane Whitman's Black Knights. No, Dane didn't get Onslaughted but there he is.

Now, if that's all got your eyes rolling this isn't for you. But I love this kind of mash-up and the writer is the superlative James Robinson, who turns in an 88-page action thriller full of everything you want from a crossover. There are deaths galore, big action set pieces, minimal plot intrusion, smart lines and a general "deal with it" attitude. There's also lots of detail thrown in that makes this amalgamated universe feel more natural than it should and each issue manages a great "oh shit" moment. Most of the Wildstorm characters get short shrift surprisingly though it's not really a story where characterisation is the aim of the game anyway, more just increasingly violent deaths as the combined heroes realise Doom's game and try to separate the universes as much as possible.

It's arguable that part of the success is that the basis in Heroes Reborn is only really recognisable due to a few design choices (like the Iron Man armour) and a few cast choices (fair play to Robinson for remembering the Swordsman when most of the Avengers writers didn't). It all makes for some good balls-to-the-wall comic book fun, something lacking over the preceding year. Sadly, with the copyright situation of the Wildstorm characters now being owned by DC and World War 3 being so minor league a reprint looks unlikely and it does deserve better than that.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn, Part 9: Captain America #7-11

PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITER: JAMES ROBINSON
ARTIST: JOE PHILLIPS, TRAVIS CHAREST, AL RIO, JOE BENNETT

While the second halves of Fantastic Four, The Avengers and Iron Man declining in quality, albeit only slightly for the latter, the surprise of the second half of Captain America is a drastic improvement even with a dodgy ending. The key factor is not only the binning of Rob Liefield but also the brief stint of the excellent James Robinson. He came on board when the title was reassigned to Wildstorm and purposefully takes Cap out of the mass of jangled plotlines and on a bike ride to get back in touch with the country. It's an old device that won't be to the taste of anyone who doesn't like Captain America comics anyway but it brings it more in line with Mark Waid's pre-Onslaught work.

Naturally rather than getting to meet the backbone of America he runs into racial supremacy group Sons of the Serpent. Thus follows a few issues of subterfuge and commando raids with Cap being unflappable, firm and principled but not a flt platitude-spouting poser like in the Loeb/Liefield material, with some sharp dialogue and crisp, clean art from Joe Bennett.

However, someone must have told Robinson there were some regulations that required stuffing up any perfectly sensible story. Nick Fury is rapidly revealed to be the head of the Serpent Society, except that he's really not, it's an L.M.D. and the real thing has been in a cell on the Helicarrier since long before the start of the series. This seems to be a response to a belief that Nick wouldn't have done some of the incredibly dicey stuff he does in the series, once again filing any edges that set the Heroes Reborn version out from the Marvel Universe version right off. And it plain doesn't make any sense either, as the real Fury immediately knows everything that's happened since his imprisonment.

Add in a belated appearance by Sam Wilson as the Falcon and Rikki Barnes' rarely-glimpsed Bucky and the last couple of issues are a same. As for the rest while its not bad it falls into the same trap as the good segments of Fantastic Four and Iron Man, in that it's not significantly better than any old run on their normal comics anyway.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 8 - Iron Man #7-11

PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITERS: SCOTT LOBDELL, JEPH LOEB, JIM LEE
ARTISTS: RYAN BENJAMIN, WHILCE PORTACIO 

The dash towards the end of Heroes Reborn produced some very poor comics but once again Iron Man came through relatively well due to the writers opting to concentrate on their own ideas instead of just cramming cameos in. Jeph Loeb does wash up as writer but he's largely working from Scott Lobdell's plotting and doesn't do too much harm while intermittent pages from Whilce Portacio not only add a little visual continuity but also mean it comes closest to keeping its' superstar artist.

This means that the issues we get aren't wasting time undermining previous work. There's a nice organic plot featuring the return of Rebel Reilly, the believed-dead original armour test pilot. He comes back initially as a catspaw of Hydra, who are working really for the Mandarin who in turn is really a front for Victor von Doom. It flows better than it sounds, trust me. There are inevitably heavy references to the main Marvel Universe, notably a trip through famous classics courtesy of von Doom's time travel equipment and references to how Rebel (created for the Heroes Reborn universe) always felt like he didn't belong. Uatu then turns up and says as much.

Pepper takes a relative back seat which is a shame, while Happy gets some panel time only to die almost immediately. Maybe; he's upgraded to alive out out of nowhere in the closing issues or no readily apparent reason. While it gets off relatively lightly for cast congestion there is a predictable return from the dead for Bruce Banner while Jasper Sitwell's torture of Doc Samson with gamma radiation turns the good doctor into the Abomination, though only for a few frames before some handwaved blood transfusion with Jennifer Walters leaves him as a ripped green-haired version of his human self and her as She-Hulk, the trio forming the Hulkbusters on the last page of #11.

In among all of this Tony Stark comes through quite well, as does von Doom. It is not a great comic, nothing compared to most of the title's back catalogue or much of what was to come. However there aren't a great many of occasions when you feel like punching yourself in the balls for reading it. 

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 7 - The Avengers #7-11

PUBLISHER: MARVEL
WRITERS: JEPH LOEB, ROB LIEFIELD, WALTER SIMONSON
ARTISTS: IAN CHURCHILL, MICHAEL RYAN

The midpoint of Heroes Reborn saw Rob Liefield effectively booted off the titles due to a combination of a difficulty in keeping deadlines, disappointing sales and vitriolic critical reaction. The Avengers and Captain America were instead transferred across to Wildstorm. There was still some overhang - Avengers #7 featured a Liefield cover and storyline and was pencilled by Ian Churchill; the artistic improvement was immense while the script continued on from the Industrial Revolution, featuring the Avengers moving into a mansion provided by Tony Stark, who has also joined the team as Iron Man (though no-one knows who's inside the armour). It ends with the arrival of the Lethal Legion, joined by the previously-missing Scarlet Witch.

This was only a temporary fill-in through and the remaining issues were penned by good ol' Walt Simonson. Y'know, good old Walt. Like Scott Lobdell, Walt's no visionary but he's a reliable pair of hands, always good for 22 pages of solid superhero capers. Which makes it all the more baffling that the result is a disaster, an absolute mess that's probably the worst segment of Heroes Reborn. Naturally a prominent thread for Thor and Loki is to the expected from Simonson; what actually happens is the Thor we've been reading about for seven issues is revealed to not be 'our' Thor, who appears within the reactor on the ruins of Avengers Island.

The previous Thor is revealed to be the 'real' Thor from this world rather than ours or something and quickly becomes a bad guy, battles our Thor and then finds redemption and neatly dies. Loki meanwhile bombards Avengers Mansion with a succession of bad guys (the Lethal Legion and the Masters of Evil) all orchestrated as some batty plan by Loki, who swallows up the plot threads previously in place with the Enchantress, Ultron and Kang. There's a general neatening as Ant-Man returns; despite the fact Hank had used his shrinking particles for the first time and promptly gone missing inside the Vision his wife Jan immediately takes some and becomes the Wasp just to make things nice and neat, Wanda's rapidly revealed to have been a witless dupe and Hellcat gets tricked by Loki and trapped in a mirror for not being central cast.

While Loeb & Liefield's stint was far, far from good at least it had a coherent central core plot; this second half of the title is just a mess, a disorientating stream of redesigned characters, nonsensical twists and schizophrenic characterisation. Michael Ryan's art is capable enough with some interesting takes on classic characters (though his rapid conversion of Hellcat to a more conventional Tigra-esque look is perhaps a shame) but with this script it's all for nothing. A complete bloody shambles.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 6 - Fantastic Four #7-11

PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITERS: JIM LEE, BRANDON CHOI
ARTISTS: BRETT BOOTH, RON LIM

Post-'Industrial Revolution' it was clear the Heroes Reborn universe would be rejoining the main Marvel universe to some extent sooner rather than later; solid reasons why are hard to find from credible sources during a time of considerable upheaval for the House of Ideas. It might have been that new management felt such big properties should be in-house, that sales were disappointing, that the critical backlash had an effect,, that it was a short-term plan to generate publicity or none of those things or all of them.

The decision was made to have the last two issues of each Heroes Reborn title be a crossover, with the dangling possibility floated that the universe would be actually destroyed by Galactus. Thus there was effectively five issues of each to get from the state of affairs seen in the 'Industrial Revolution' crossover in the sixth issue of each to the 'Heroes Reunited' storyline in the twelfth.

This halfway point saw many of the creative teams reorganised; Fantastic Four would continue with storylines plotted by Wildstorm founder Jim Lee and writer Brandon Choi but Lee stopped contributing interior art. Brett Booth, best known for his work on the early issues of Stormwatch alongside Lee, comes in and does a decent replica job for a few issues before handing over to cosmic crossover specialist Ron Lim.

Plotwise it's the same breathless stream of introductions as the first chunk of issues but here it seems masochistic, like Wildstorm want to do their version of the Negative Zone (and Burstaar), the Inhumans (overkill as only Crystal was actually brought into the universe) and the Heralds of Galactus. None of this gets much development; the Negative Zone serves the narrative purpose of allowing a few fun flashbacks to earlier adventures (including mention of Franklin Richards) and showing the growing realisation of the characters that something is badly amiss with the universe. 

After that it's a rush off to Attilan to meet the Inhumans and another predictable "fight through misunderstanding then all become friends" story. Interspersed with all of this are introductions to three of the Heralds - Firelord, Plasma and Terrax, who turns up to fight the group and deliver official notice of Galactus' imminent arrival. All of which is overcomplication as the already-established Silver Surfer and maybe Terrax could have covered most of what they add to the plot advancement; they just take up pages. It might have made sense if Jim Lee was still drawing and wanted to put his stamp on the characters but as it is it's just bizarre; the Inhumans will also make minimal impact on the later crossover despite foreshadowing Galactus and you're left wondering why we need a remake of how they met the F4 at this juncture.

The Four themselves are reduced to a bunch of stock phrases with the odd bit of soap opera thrown in (Sue's inexplicably pregnant! Johnny and Crystal fall in love immediately) and by now there's basically no point in them being separate from their regular incarnations - Sue's business position or Johnny's casino antics aren't mentioned, for example. They're just the first family of superheroes like they were six months before.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 5 - Industrial Revolution

PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1997
WRITERS: JIM LEE, BRANDON CHOI, JEPH LOEB, SCOTT LOBDELL
ARTISTS: JIM LEE, ROB LIEFIELD, RYAN BENJAMIN

The sixth issue of each of the heroes reborn titles saw a crossover drawing all the characters together - although there had already been some overlap. So it's a bit of a damp squib anyway even before the scant content. The storyline tentatively starts in Fantastic Four #6 but really it concerns tidying up the whole Latveria Doctor Doom/Silver Surfer/Super Skrull storyline - including linking the four's powers to those of the surfer and the first glimpse of this universe's galactus. Then at the end they're alerted to a situation brewing at Avengers Island.  

 

There the gamma reactor used for whatever the avengers need power for that requires a gamma reactor being built under a superhero base is going critical in their tussle with the Hulk. The Four and Iron Man head in to help - requiring Hawkeye and the Swordsman to be invalided out of the plot. Everyone meets up, speaks platitudes to each other and then Bruce Banner sacrifices himself (or likely not) for the second time in seven issues trying to save the ever-imperiled Eastern seaboard from gamma meltdown. Avengers Island still gets wasted but without any other casualties, the reactor being saved even if the team's base in trashed. Apart from maybe Hellcat, who Lobdell loses track of, and the Scarlet Witch, who's involved in some posession subplot that doesn't seem to be going anywhere good. And there's no mention of Hank Pym or the Vision either. There is a fleeting hallucination of Onslaught in the island's reactor, however, the first real glimpse that how the Heroes got where they are might be a plot point.
 

That just about stretches to filling Avengers #6 and Iron Man #6, so there's still Captain America's contribution. Occe again the dynamic team of Loeb and Liefield manage to drop the standard because most of it is a random battle aboard the SHIELD helicarrier between AIM, Modok and Zemo on one side with Cap and Cable on the other. Yeah, Cable, Liefield's creation from the main Marvel Universe turning up somehow thanks to time travel magic to big Cap up for 18 pages of awful splash pages while Bucky inexplicably tells everyone she just had a piss. Cable's snapped away at the end, realising the Heroes are still alive and needs to find out where. Which is a nice plot avenue that doesn't really ring true as it's hard to imagine Cable giving much of a toss about Iron Man or the Human Torch. The dialogue and actual plotting meanwhile are so bad; it's just a random fight scene with Cap spouting catchphrases about stopping Nazis like he's in a first gen licensed tie-in game while Cable creams at how inspiring he is. Oh and in the last couple of pages someone reminds him it's part of the crossover and the Avengers and Iron Man materialise in Nick Fury's office to tell him Tony Stark will be taking over the team. In a splash page.
 

Not only could this huge plot point have taken up page space otherwise used establishing that Bucky needs to read a sign to remind her to wash her hands after a slash but it also reverts much of the setup to pre-Onslaught formatting, making the first arcs of three of the books totally pointless. An apt summary for a poor crossover even on charitable relative terms.

Comic Review: Heroes Reborn Part 1 - Fantastic Four #1-5

PUBLISHER: MARVEL, 1996
PLOT & PENCILS: JIM LEE
SCRIPT: BRANDON CHOI

In the mid-1990s Marvel had a bit of a problem; anything X-Men and Spider-Man related was selling well, anything else really wasn't. The Avengers and its' satellite titles - Captain America, Iron Man, Mighty Thor and several smaller series - weren't selling well at all and neither was the venerable Fantastic 4. Part of the problem was a sequence of ever-convoluted storylines and retcons, most notably The Crossing event which saw Tony Stark outed as a bad guy, killed off and replaced by an alternate reality teenage version - this being in the days when Marvel would actually keep stupid ideas like that it continuity rather than the current method of just pretending they didn't happen.

The solution was a pair of publicity stunts; these groups would be tied into the gigantic X-Men led Onslaught crossover and 'killed off' - and by killed off it means shunted into a pocket universe created by Franklin Richards, though this precise revelation would at least be teased out. In the meantime for part two of the event their old ongoings were cancelled (with the exception of Thor's book, which returned to the name Journey into Mystery and covered other Asgardian happenings) and the books were relaunched with a new #1, always Marvel's default idea for anything in 1996.

For further attention the books were 'outsourced' - while still actually remaining under Marvel branding the actual content was handed to former employees at Image, in the form of Jim Lee's Wildstorm and Rob Liefield's Awesome Comics, for 12 months. This was a smart idea; regardless of the merits of either both were sales gold at the time and embracing big name creators rather than losing talent was something of a new direction for Marvel, who had a rigid structure and was still overrun by long-serving staffers.

Wildstorm took over production of Fantastic Four and Iron Man and the decision was made to do a new if not fresh origin for each group. Fantastic Four benefited from the pencils of Jim Lee himself, who also laid down the framework for the altered reality. Much of the basics are the same; like the later Ultimate universe it's more of an update as once again a situation is contrived to get scientist Reed Richards, his squeeze Susan Storm (here a high ranking executive in the Storm Foundation business empire), her brother Johnny (who handles the Foundation's casino in Las Vegas) and their broken down pilot friend Ben Grimm into a spacecraft in time to get a healthy dose of cosmic radiation - thus ending up with Fantastic powers.

The leaden dropping of the word fantastic, the characters' self-selected superhero names, the ease with which they deal with their transformations, Sue creating the team logos out of electrical tape and the general lampshading of the situation makes you wonder why they bothered with an origin story instead of starting up with the Four in full flow after a brief summary or even just handle it in flashbacks and dialogue, such is the level of discomfort in meshing the Silver Age cheese and modern trappings.

Still, once that's done Lee and Choi don't hang around, rapidly introducing us to the pocket universe's versions of Mole Man the Black Panther, the Silver Surfer, Doctor Doom and the Super Skrull across six issues - not to mention Alicia Masters and Wyatt Wingfoot, plus Namor. An odd thing that would run across all four titles is that not all of these were actually swallowed up by Onslaught, which can be explained by Franklin drawing on his knowledge of the heroes to fill out the world but does also somewhat go against the spirit of things.

The flow and speed actually helps and once again harks back to the Silver Age when in the early issues Fantastic Four really was like that with a future legend debuting every issue or so. It's not a bad read, it's just not an especially good one either, with the price of the brake-neck speed being an abundance of infodump speeches and busy frames packed with narration boxes. Jim Lee's work is similarly adequate, though I've never personally considered him much more than a good superhero artist rather than a genuine great. He doesn't do a bad job or anything but there's nothing to get excited about here.

Comic Review - Albion

I've read Albion over a dozen times now, and I'm still not sure how to evaluate it. I'll admit I was expecting something a little more straightforward, possibly Watchmen for British superheroes. That said the premise itself isn't really the problem. The central concept is that all the heroes were real, and have been hidden away in a prison in Scotland by the government, while the daughter of the deceased Eric Dolman and a Scouse comic fan named Danny try to break them out. Moreover, this plot more or less works. 

Comic Review - Stormwatch Volume 4: A Finer World

This, for me, is probably the low point of Ellis' Stormwatch. The basic problem is that Ellis is clearly bored of writing the book. On the one hand, fair play, if you're bored you're bored. On the other, why keep writing it? It also doesn't make for a spectacular SW collection. Both of the stories contained within do have their merits, don't get me wrong, it's just that if you've got here on the back of the tight SW characterisation of the previous three books, you're going to be disappointed by this one.

Comic Review - Stormwatch Volume 3: Change or Die

Just a warning, I've tried to steer clear of spoilers for these reviews, but "Change or Die" isn't a set of stories that can be discussed without them, so read on with that proviso.

Comic Review - Stormwatch Volume 2: Lightning Strikes

The second volume of Warren Ellis' excellent Stormwatch run contains arguably the weakest set of stories from the first volume. This is relative, of course, and it's still good stuff. The first three episodes focus almost entirely on single characters.

Comic Review - Stormwatch Volume 1: Force of Nature

This is really where Warren Ellis the mainstream visionary got started. While his Excalibur run undoubtedly showed his skill for humanising and revitalising characters, the freedom given by Wildstorm allowed him to remould a whole series in the space of an issue. When Ellis arrived, Stormwatch was pretty much a dying book. It was never one of Image's biggest hitters in the early days and rapidly became one of those books no-one cared about. The series was hampered by having to keep in line with the 'Images of Tomorrow' gimmick put in place early in the run, and then by a ludicrous number of new characters thrown at the book by desperate writers.