Showing posts with label stuart immonen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stuart immonen. Show all posts

Monday, October 15, 2018

Marvel Legacy #1

I bought this sometime this past summer. I think it was a special discount deal at a comic shop somewhere.

Title: Marvel Legacy
Issue: 1
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: November 2017
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Esad Ribic, Steve McNiven, Chris Samnee, Russell Dauterman, Alex Maleev, Ed McGuiness, Stuart Immonen, Wade Von Grawbadger, Peppe Larraz, Jim Cheung, Daniel Acuna, Greg Land, Jay Leisten, Mike Deodato Jr., David Marquez
Colorist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: VC's Cory Petit
Cover: Joe Quesada
Editor:Tom Brevoort, Alanna Smith

This is the introductory special for Marvel's Legacy crossover event/soft reboot. The direction that it's heading in seems to be aimed at bringing some classic Marvel heroes who have been in the background (or "dead in the Marvel Universe") back into the major storylines.

The story opens one million years in Earth's past, and features a kind of Pleistocene superhero crossover between some of the Marvel Universe's best known immortal beings. It was cute, but perhaps played a bit too much for laughs as they tried to get a bunch of personalities across quickly.

Shifting to modern times, the book then goes into prologue mode for a whole bunch of different Legacy plotlines. There isn't much in the way of a common thread. There is a big cosmic threat inbound, and another one awakening on Earth. And several different villains are on quests to seek out sources of power and other mysterious McGuffins.

It was nice to get a quick look at Ironheart and Jane Foster Thor. I hadn't had a chance to read their books and they both seem like a lot of fun.

But the whole thing was terribly disjointed, failing to give more than a few characters any real chance to capture the reader's attention. By the time I was done, I had no idea what this  crossover was about or why it was happening (other than to sell books with lenticular covers), and I can't name a single title in Marvel Legacy that I am interested in reading as a result of having read this.

Rating: 4/10

Thursday, September 20, 2018

The Amazing Spider-Man #800

Another comics I picked up at Merrymac Games and Comics this past summer.

Title: The Amazing Spider-Man
Issue: 800
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: July 2018
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Nick Bradshaw, Humberto Ramos, Victor Olazaba, Guiseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger, Marcos Martin
Colorist: Edgar Delgado, Java Tartaglia, Marte Gracia, Muntsa Vicente
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Cover: Humberto Ramos, Edgar Delgado
Editor:Kathleen Wisneski, Nick Lowe, Devin Lewis

Did I mention that I love collecting these big round-number issues? So here we have Amazing Spider-Man #800. It's interesting to contrast this with Action Comics #1000 (I reviewed it here). For Action Comics, DC went with a mostly-out-of-continuity tribute anthology, celebrating Superman and the idea of inspiration, with only a short final segment as a tease of actual future in-continuity action.

Marvel takes the opposite approach here. This is a single story concluding a major story arc, with big impacts on storyline continuity, including the death of a major character who has been there for most of those 800 issues.

The scenario has Spidey up against what could be his ultimate nemesis: The Red Goblin. That would be the Green Goblin attached to the Carnage symbiote.

Of course, given the momentous occasion, this story is absolutely loaded with nostalgia. There are a bunch of appearances by classic members of Peter Parker's supporting cast, not to mention tribute scenes that evoke some of the most emotional moments of past stories, particularly from Peter's past clashes with Normal Osborne.

This was a pretty good story with a lot of twists and action. There were some moments where it just felt like it had too many moving parts, but the finish came down to Spider-Man vs. (Red) Goblin like it needed to.

The throwback sequences were fun to spot, but they also had the unfortunate effect of reminding me that Spider-Man has had some truly awesome, emotional moments, and this story, while good, never really reaches the level of those classics.

This was satisfying, and it felt important, but at times it was trying too hard to look backward and trying too hard to be all things in a single issue.

Rating: 6/10