Event Vent – Siege
Thor? 'Aye, present.' Captain America? 'Present, sir' Iron Man? 'Ffffbbbbbbtt!'
Siege was less of an event and more of a mean to an ends.
Stuff in the Marvel universe has gotten incredibly wacky. Murders get political power because they shoot a gun. Super hero teams stop saving lives turn into rival street gangs. Anyways, the guns at Marvel, the same ones who got grumpy about readers thinking their changes were stupid, decided their changes were stupid. So things are going back to that “Classic” age of Marvel which is a very insulting form of marketing to comic book fans but OH WELL.
Regardless, I'm not here to talk about marketing and the use of shiny fonts to make modern comic books seem like they're from the Golden Age. I'm here to talk about SIEGE.
There weren't many surprises to come out of this event. The biggest one I can think of is giving Captain America the defacto “Top Cop” position that was made up to explain what Nick Fury does after he was fired. Did I say Captain America? I meant Steve Rogers. Marvel is actually letting Bucky continue in his role as Captain America. I must say, I like this. Though, I want Bucky to stop having adventures which force the readers to remember he's Bucky. Stop coming up with excuses for him to be seen in the Bucky costume. Let to dude BE Captain America a little, will ya Brubacker?
Other changes include Norman Osborn, the Hood, and most of the Hood's men being sent to prison. Norman Osborn's reveal of wearing goblin face paint underneath his Iron Patriot armor during Siege was fun but I felt like he could have done some more heroics before being condemned. Dark Avengers may be the best comic I ever read by Brian Michael Bendis, mostly because of his portrayal of Osborn. In Dark Avengers Osborn was competent at managing a super team, keeping the Sentry from going bonkers, and keeping the country safe. Not to mention his conviction in doing what he thought was best for the country. Even if his methods were evil, his intentions were good. This made him very interesting. Siege's attack on Asgard seemed to come out of nowhere with little foreseeable payoff for Osborn. This made the event right away feel very patched together.
Speaking of Asgard, that place is GONE. Sentry punched that floating island in the butt so hard it crumpled. It made for a nice scene, after all no Marvel event book is complete without something crumbling as people watch in disbelief, but throws the Thor series into a loop. The removal of Asgard over Middle America is the last step in taking away everything which made J. Michael Straczynski's work on the title so much fun. Oh well. Why should comics be fun anyway?
This is what happens when you open potato chip bags up to quickly.
As a whole, Siege felt more like a list of things which happened than a story. This is probably because of its shorter-than-average four issue length. There wasn't much time for development and emotional weight. Still, this was supposed to be the event that brought all the good guys back together after years of being pissed off at each other for having different political opinions. I guess they bonded over their shared passions for punching things.
When I hear about Siege being the event “seven years in the making”. I can't help but imagine seven years of rubbish being brushed away by a large editorial broom.
What We Learned From This Event:
- Whoever looks best after the last fight gets to be in control of the government.
- The Sentry doesn't work as a character in the Marvel Univer-- oh we already knew that.
Event Vent – Blackest Night, Necrosha X
The earth's bounties also include fist bumps. Just be sure to plant two for ever one you use.
Welp, two comic events finished up this week. Blackest Night, an epic, company-wide event which multiple titles have been building towards for years and will now have large lasting effects on the universe. Necrosha X, an excuse for a lot of bloody fights and Cypher to come back from the dead.
Let's talk about the first one!
Blackest Night is over but far from done with multiple heroes and villains now back from the dead. A lot of this I'm OK with and since the heroes defeated Nekron, the dude who made all those wonderful resurrections us comic book readers have been groaning about for the past decade, according to writer Geoff Johns dead now means dead. Nobody will be coming back (except for Batman) from the grave anymore.
Hopefully Grant Morrison will let us know what this new rule means for the Lazarus pits of RaZ al Ghul. Especially, since he just wrote two issue of Batman and Robin where Batwoman died and came back to life. Haaah, I'm just foolin'. Morrison is going to ignore all this Blackest Night stuff and keep writing the Batman stories he wants to. As he should.
There is actually rhyme and reason to all this gobbledygook.
I thought it was a little lame that Johns took the wind out of Sinestro's sails by removing his White Lantern powers and gave it to all the resurrected super heroes for a the battle's big push. I love a good, villain-selfishly-saving-the-day plot and thought after issue 7 that was what I was going to get from Sinestro. He's too cool of a character to be done with so hopefully Johns has plans for him in the future.
Anyway! Necrosha X time! This event was always more of a X-Force story which spilled into the other X-books. So they deserved the stage to themselves for the big final fight against Selene. The lasting effects of the event seem to be almost entirely focused on X-Force as well. Besides the resurrection of Doug Ramsey (AKA Cypher) and his immediate recruitment into New Mutants, we got almost everyone quitting or being fired from X-Force. The team is down to Wolverine, Domino, and the now heroic Vanisher. Since they're going to be involved with the now occurring X-Men: Second Coming event, and since their team is down to only three members, could it be possible Cable will be joining the team he created all those years ago?
Yeah prob'ly.
Technological zombies. This is the future Apple wants, and you sheeple are just giving it to them.
Blackest Night, and Necrosha X embraced the opposing philosophies of comic book events. One, was micromanaged expertly at an editorial level and took place in every iota of the company's books. It had a complicated plot of characters and abilities which all fit together snugly like the gears of a watch. The other was small in scope but delivered plenty of action and drama without mucking with anyone else's monthly book too much. It's final battle involved a magic knife. To stab with.
One's impressive because of its accomplishments, the other because of how polite it was.
What We Learned From These Events:
- Geoff Johns can't write a word without it being important to several future story lines.
- You can solve almost any problem with blades, slashing, and stabbin'.
- Everybody loves to complain about how much everyone else loves zombies.
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