I’m living the Marvel Zombie dream right now (all of the monthlies I buy are Marvel at this point, and I’m always reading Essentials) but I would not exactly direct someone to pick up this comic to sell them on reading Marvel Comics. I like it a lot, but it’s not going to win over a reluctant reader. And I’m still waiting for that moment where I give a toss about the teen heroes.

The new Spider-Man may do the trick. but I’m seriously done trying to turn people onto reading something they are resistant to. Everyone is free to have their own opinion, after all and there are plenty of comics to read out there.

Check out the scene when the kids discover the closet full of LMDs, one of them has a cockpit.
(see the scene here: http://platypusrobot.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-is-nick-fury-hiding.html for a quick and easy reference)

Nick Fury in this book is some kind of tiny alien, I guarantee it!

“So we’re dumped into a story in media res as four agents we’ve just met are raiding some secret base (yup, the same way that every Image book began) and get caught in a clash between two other armies. Which two armies? We never find out. What the war about? They don’t say.”

Firstly, one of the agents says “There are Hydra agents everywhere!”. We are then told from Sentry’s dialogue and the caption boxes that the other group is HAMMER, and then they tell us exactly what HAMMER is and what Hydra is.

“What was the objective of our heroes’ mission? Nothing, just “recon”. ”

It was to see if HAMMER showed up. Fury says this near the end.

“We learn nothing about our heroes but their codenames and their real names, which we get from captions. We can’t tell what their personalities are, or their relationships, or even their powers!”

It’s an ongoing, we have plenty of time for that. Plus we saw Druid using magic powers, Stonewall playing the strong guy, Hellfire using the flaming chain and Quake pushing people away with her using her powers. The only one of the group to not visibly use their powers was the super speedster.

“The one good bit of dialogue was between Fury and a twelve year old playing video games on his couch. His kid? Maybe. Fury calls him a “twelve year old diety,” but it’s unclear if that’s supposed to be sarcastic or very serious. You say that the concept of the book is that these are the kids of obscure superheroes, but you’d never discover the concept from reading the book itself.”

It’s perfectly clear to me. The kid himself calls himself Phobos god of fear, Fury then in a very serious dialogue tells Daisy to keep an eye on him because he is a god and the last thing he wants is an apocalyptic meltdown from an adolescent diety. Didn’t read as very sarcastic to me.

Personally I’m loving the book, from all of the various angles.

I mean, it can’t compare to the “Nobody fucking won!” scene in Fury or him going apeshit on one of the Generals in Mother Russia, but as far as the Marvel Universe goes, this is the best stuff that’s been done with him in a long long time.

Sigh.

I gave up on Marvel a long time ago and every time I try a book again I’m reminded why.

This is the first issue of a new series, so you’d think it might want to explain what’s going on in the series, but no. They even devote a separate text page at the beginning to explaining the set up, which is a great idea, but, alas, it contains nothing but a macho manifesto and no information.

So we’re dumped into a story in media res as four agents we’ve just met are raiding some secret base (yup, the same way that every Image book began) and get caught in a clash between two other armies. Which two armies? We never find out. What the war about? They don’t say. What was the objective of our heroes’ mission? Nothing, just “recon”. We learn nothing about our heroes but their codenames and their real names, which we get from captions. We can’t tell what their personalities are, or their relationships, or even their powers! Our heroes then re-convene and they talk and talk and talk for the rest of the book.

The one good bit of dialogue was between Fury and a twelve year old playing video games on his couch. His kid? Maybe. Fury calls him a “twelve year old diety,” but it’s unclear if that’s supposed to be sarcastic or very serious. You say that the concept of the book is that these are the kids of obscure superheroes, but you’d never discover the concept from reading the book itself.

The crazy thing is that they burn through all that dialogue without establishing any plot OR character. The whole trick with dialogue is usually to achieve a balance of essential plot information with affecting character moments. Yet this book, which is wall-to-wall dialogue, doesn’t give us ANY essential plot information OR affecting character moments. Instead, all that that talk falls into one of two categories: bad-ass posturing and ominous hints. Sigh.

I know, I know, if I don’t like current Marvel comics, I shouldn’t read them, but it’s really frustrating, but because I spend a lot of time reading and re-reading Essentials by the truck load and I can’t help but wonder what these characters are up to today. It’s so painful to me to confirm over and over again that comics basically never recovered from the Liefeld era. This comic had a lot more in common with “Youngblood #1″ than it did with the Marvel comics of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Is that “taking lead” as in assuming command, or “taking lead” as in being shot at?

Or will either do?

Has Hickman done any interviews on this ?