COMICS: Wed. 11/10/04

Some quick notes on the comics I've read so far:

Challengers of the Unknown: Decent enough wrap-up. Although making Jan Boulton a man is kind of out of left field, and not really necessary -- that's your final commentary on Ann Coulter? She's mannish? Weak. And did I miss it: how did the moon base blow up? And did it kill the Hegemony or not? Well, obviously it didn't kill them, but were we supposed to think it killed them? Either I missed something (very likely) or that was very poorly presented. Also, the similar-sounding stilted dialogue of every character began wearing on me. Hmm, maybe it wasn't a decent enough wrap-up. Were there another series, I think I'd wait for the trades before deciding to get it or not.

Plastic Man: Dammit, I've gotta start looking more closely at the covers before buying these things. Scott Morse is no Kyle Baker. This was a really awful issue, filled with incessant obnoxious punning reminiscent of the Batman & Robin movie. Stupid fill-in issues!

Avengers: Finale: I liked the very ending, with the crowd at the memorial; extremely sappy, but effective. But the whole "best memories" section was lame. Every other character picked a "memory" he or she wasn't present for. Is it because they enjoyed so much hearing the stories from the Avengers who were there, as one character claimed? Or do you think it was because Bendis wanted to mention the landmark storylines in Avengers history, but he didn't have enough current members who were in those storylines to share their recollections, so he had to cheat and put those recollections in the mouths of other characters? I wonder. And that was a quick turn-around for Captain Britain: "I'll never forgive Wanda! Here's a toast to Wanda!"

Iron Man: This was a beautiful book. The artwork is really just amazingly gorgeous. I liked the confrontation between Tony Stark and the documentarian; a lot of great back-and-forth in that scene, with Tony sneaking in the final dig, pointing out the sheer futility of the filmmaker's career. I like that Tony is being forced to confront the destruction he's created with his inventions. Some nice character moments, too, especially the page with Tony looking at himself in the mirror. And I've never seen the wonder of flight expressed so well on a comics page. The wordless image of Iron Man arcing above the clouds was perfect. The villain looks interesting, too, but that may only be because of the artwork. As is the Marvel tradition, though, nothing of consequence really happens; the first issue is always warm-up, padding out the page count for the trade. But that's a minor fault. I gave this book a try just for the hell of it, and it's definitely hooked me.