When I'm not inadvertently lying about Wally Wood creating Captain Britain I read comics and then I write some poorly judged words. Yeah, salesmanship! So, yeah, not a great week for comics, ey? Still, before I was utterly crushed by depression at the various items of unpalatable truth the Internet was souring my eyes with I wrote some words.

Trying to be a bit quicker so this is rough as a badger's backside. If it doesn't make anyone physically ill I'll try this again and thus be a bit more frequent. Everything in moderation, as my Dad used to say! Except boooshhhe (hic!), he'd add about three hours later.

Yes, it is all mainstream tights and fights crap this time. But I've plenty of other stuff to share, it just takes a bit more thought and time to digest than this stuff.

(Dear me: Shut up and just let it go! Sheesh!)

WOLVERINE #12

By Renato Guedes/Jose Wilson Magalhaes(a), Jason Aaron(w), Matthew Wilson(c) and VC’s Cory Petit (l)(Marvel, £3.99)

“Wolverine’s Revenge!” Part 3

Wolverine’s enemies gather around a TV to watch their hated enemy carve his way through a series of remarkably daft enemies. This has been happening for three straight issues now.

Another exciting issue of Wolverine: The Myth of Sisyphus! I think we get it now, Marvel Architect Jason Aaron. I think the point has been well and truly made. I’d go so far, if you’ll pardon my presumption at speaking on behalf of the entire readership of Wolverine, as saying that we’d pretty much got the point with the first issue, the one that was exactly the same as the two subsequent issues. And while we’re all here can I humbly request a moratorium on naff villains commenting on the fact that they are naff as though this self aware self deprecation somehow magically negates their naffness. “I’m ToeTeeth, I have teeth in my …pretty lame, huh. Let’s you me fight!” It was cute a couple of times but it’s just grating now. A bit like me? I can read your mind!

I mean it’s grating in this comic because this is the third straight issue of it but its also grating because it’s pretty rife throughout Marvel comics as a whole. I just want to nip this one in the bud before it becomes as prevalent as Spider-Man telling women his spider-sense is “tingling!” (Haw! It’s funny because he means his penis! He’s telling the woman she is making his penis chubby with blood! Now she’s compelled to imagine his swollen and lightly moistened bulb trapped between his clammy skin and his taut uniform! With great power must come great sexpesting!)

Still, at least no one can complain that Jason Aaron hasn’t created any new characters. They are all rubbish mind you (but they know that - so it’s okay!) but they are all yours Marvel. Go make a movie about this bunch of sad sacks! But. But the bit where the guy makes the hobo dress up as Wolverine and then beats him to death was pretty funny. It would have been even funnier if he gave the hobo $3.99 first and his last word was EH!

(Wolverine was created by Len Wein and John Romita Snr. His first appearance was drawn by Herb Trimpe (Trim-PEY!))

CAPTAIN AMERICA #619

(Marvel, $3.99)

By Chris Samnee/Mitch Brettweiser/Butch Guice/Stefano Guadiano(a), Ed Brubaker(w), Bettie Bretweiser(c) and VC’s Joe Caramagna(l).

“GULAG” Part 4

Will Steve Rogers’ stop dithering long enough to rescue Bucky from his very Russian Hell? Or will salvation come in a shapelier guise? Surprised? You won’t be!

I don’t know, I just don’t know. It’s okay. There’s plenty of craft here. People are big on craft aren’t they? Apparently craft cures all ills. Lots of craft here. Hits the beats, does the job. You can’t complain if it’s got the craft, I’m told. It plods along and then stops right on the mark. Art wise Chris Samnee makes everyone else look pallid in comparison no matter how many tricks they nick off Steranko. In the Not Chris Samnee bits Clark Gable turns up as the warden. Clark Gable is dead so it’s okay to steal his face it seems. These are the times we live in. When you die people take your face. Your face? Turned out you were just keeping it warm. You read CAPTAIN AMERICA #619 and it has craft so it is okay but you wish at some point it had had some life in it. If it had life in it perhaps it could wear its own face.

Oh, wait; there is one brief spike on the flatline of interest. It comes in the very final caption. This is quite clearly the result of someone coming back into the room after steaming up the John, only to find that in his absence the Totally Autonomous and Independent Marvel Architect Editorial Hive Mind has just picked Bucky, the very character he has just finished setting up a long term plot for, to be the victim of The Quarterly Death Sales Spike Lottery. Welcome to Groupthink, Marvel Architect Ed Brubaker. Welcome to Hell.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #619 has got Chris Samnee so it could never have been less than OKAY!

(CAPTAIN AMERICA was created by Joe Simon and JACK KIRBY.)

CAPTAIN AMERICA #1

(Marvel, $3.99)

By Steve McNiven/Mark Morales(a), Ed Brubaker(w), Justin Ponsor(c) and VC’s Joe Caramagna(l)

“American Dreamers” Part 1

Like a teenager on a Saturday night Captain America’s about to find out that sometimes dipping your wick can lead to violent retribution! Yes, once again The Past has returned to haunt him! While we can’t reveal our mystery villain let’s just say we almost called this one “Finding Zemo”!

After CAPTAIN AMERICA #619 comes CAPTAIN AMERICA #1 because as Mr. Jeff Lester says, “F**** numbers!” Got a potty mouth, that guy, but he’s kind to animals so it all evens out. Yes, obviously, it’s a new number one to take advantage of all the movie goers who tumble through the doors of every LCS in the land when a super-movie is parped out. Any minute now…(tumbleweed rolls across your screen)…While we’re waiting then I’ll just say that this is eerily like you might expect CAPTAIN AMERICA #620 to have been, in that it is exactly like every other Captain America story by Marvel Architect Ed Brubaker. Something happened in The Past and now Captain America must deal with the consequences in The Now!

Whenever I read a Captain America comic by Marvel Architect Ed Brubaker I find it handy to compare it to that issue where Bucky cried because he hadn’t had any Birthday cakes while he was a brainwashed Russian Assassin (CA#23.75, “…All The Cakes That Are My Life!”). This is better than that one. But then that one was Godawful. Christ, that comic. Despite the wealth of craft I’m expected to care about what’s happening without being given any reason to other than if I don’t I’ve just wasted $3.99 (or 5 shillings and 6 pence). I mean that’s a pretty powerful stimulus but I’d prefer a creative one. I did like the way that the whole revenge thing could have been avoided if Peggy Carter had been less of a round heels. Men, Oy, such children they are! Oh, this has craft and…yes, it has craft. It’s certainly got craft. Craft, it’s got. Well done on the craft end of things, everybody.

Steve McNiven draws it. I hear people like Steve McNiven. He has craft too. He’s very popular; I’m guessing this is because Travis Charest fans need something to read while they are waiting for more Travis Charest things to read. I enjoyed the attention the colourist paid to Nick Fury’s face lines and seeing tiny wee Red Skull doing his Donkey Kong dance always cheers me up. I also enjoyed Steve McNiven’s attempts to vary his page layouts. By which I mean I enjoyed the fact that he had attempted to do so rather than I enjoyed the final results. Steve McNiven’s okay, he’s fine. He’s no Chris Samnee but, y’know, maybe one day. This was perfectly decent but at $3.99 I’d like a bit more than OKAY!

(CAPTAIN AMERICA was still created by Joe Simon and Jack KIRBY.)

(Everybody okay? Everyone make it out to the other side?)

Have a nice weekend y'all but remember - everything's nicer with COMICS!

Comics, comics, comics! I'm dancin' as fast as I can!

CAPTAIN AMERICA #1: Well, the McNiven art is pretty, and Brubaker's story zips along just fine from WW2 to today (probably a smart move for audiences walking out of the WW2-set Cap film), but I have to say that this issue didn't work on the balance for me. Part of it is the "Wait, when is this happening in continuity" aspect -- Steve is Cap again, but not even a mention of ol' Buck... and, especially that graveyard fakeout means this is happening at least "three months" "from now" (Post FEAR ITSELF), but the other part is the TWO different (if related) continuity implants of the issue -- Jimmy Jankovicz ("Jimmy Jupiter"), and the other guy, who I *think* was named "Codename: Bravo"... though maybe he's JUST named "Bravo", since what moron would have "codename" before his name? It's hard to say, really, either way -- neither of whom is really properly introduced or explaining their motivations in any significant way.

Take Jimmy J first -- there's a "bum, bah bah!" beat of "I think Jimmy Jankovitz just woke up!", without explaining who he is, or why he is asleep, or, more importantly for a serialization, WHY I SHOULD CARE if he's asleep or awake or even in existence. Jimmy is apparently "our ticket right into the belly of the beast" of some secret french base, despite looking like a nine year old American boy, but then we cut away to JJ being an old man, and nothing else happens with that thread other than him being a McGuffin what gets kidnapped.

Then there's the man who is codenamed as Codename: Bravo (seriously, I can just see... "Ah, what was his codename again?" "He is codename: Codename: Bravo!") who SEEMS to hate Cap because Peggy Carter wouldn't kiss him back in '44, and whom it is also implied somehow is a "man out of time" (jeez, how many of those are running around the Marvel U?), but who, despite saying that he wants to destroy Captain America, takes a shot at... Dum Dum Dugan instead? Allllright, nothing like an incompetent act to get your ideological villain off on the right foot.

There's also a fight that seems to take place on a freeway (rather than a surface street), where a grenade casually goes off, surely killing a civilian (or 12), and no one comments on it for even one second. Ah, what the hell, they're French, it's OK!

I don't know, maybe this will make more sense when we have the entire TP collection, but, at this point, I'm not especially compelled to even pick up #2...

Sadly, this was just modestly OK.

DEFENDERS FROM MARVEL VAULT #1:Most of the "from the vault" books seem to "just" be left over inventory, but this one, as explained in the text page was plotted by Fabien Nicieza a decade back, and drawn back then (by Mark Bagley), but they lost the plot and script in the intervening years, so Kurt Busiek stepped in to try and figure out a new story. That's pretty stunningly "Marvel Method", in a lot of ways, and the resulting comic is far more coherent than you could ever hope that it might be. I enjoyed it in a "goofy fun" kind of way, and give it a big strong OK.

GREEN LANTERN #67: I don't expect a lot out of crossover thingies, but it IS nice when they end up in such a way that mixes up the status quo significantly for a little while. I don't have any expectation that this will stick for more than a few months, and it certainly makes that hastily inserted end-credit sequence in the GL film make a smidge more sense, maybe, but it WAS a genuinely "hoo boy!" moment which made my blackened and jaded heart swell for a moment, so that, all by itself, makes me give it a VERY GOOD. I also liked the half-beat insinuation that there's something really freaky about the Indigo lanterns. The only thing I will say is that the more they try to fill in Sinestro's backstory (between the film, and that direct-to-DVD animated one, and much of this arc), the less sense it makes that he was ever "Sinestro" in the first place, y'know?

ULTIMATE COMICS FALLOUT #1: How is this going to be a six issue mini, I don't get it? More than half of this issue was just various reaction shots of supporting cast members, few/none of which seemed like they needed another page at all? It was "touching", I guess, but as "1 of 6", it was pretty dang EH.

X-MEN SCHISM #1: I dunno, I like Jason Aaron very much, but I don't think he nailed the right "tone" of an X-book here at all? There was kinda too much comedy on one hand, and not enough "weight" on the other. Liiiike... "ooh, Sentinels are scary!", then both Cyke and Wolvie are shown casually taking entire groups out with AOE attacks? Also? Kinda no "schism" on display here at all. Much like Cap, I'm wondering what my motivation to come back for #2 might be -- it isn't on the page. Eh.

That's me -- what did YOU think?

-B