What a week for comics with some good releases, the opening of Iron Man and Free Comics Book Day on Saturday.  I was able to pick up a lot of free books to check out and some other goodies on top of my normal purchases.  All of the staff of the shop I go to were on hand and it was great to chat with them (I go to this store because the staff are normal folks that aren’t the stereotypical comic geek).

On a side note I was filmed a couple of months ago for something (still not sure what) about comic books and my collecting.  I should have a copy of it next week and will likely post it up on here (as long as it’s not too embarrasing).

Monthly Series

Avengers: The Initiative #12 - the fall out from the KIA story as a hearing is done and the first recruits graduate.

Black Summer #6 - what I thought was going to be an interesting political tale by Warren Ellis turns into a non-stop gun fight.  I’m still hoping it comes around to it’s original potential.

DC Universe #0 - an interesting comic that acts a jumping on point for the various DC stories that are upcoming.  Really, it’s a 50 cent teaser.

Ex Machina #36 - Mayor Hundred must decide if he wants to speak before the Republican convention to be held in NYC.

New Avengers #40 - a great background story of the Skrull infiltration.  There’s some good teasers as to some of the super heroes that may or may not be Skrulls.

New Warriors #11 - the New Warriors head into the field for a fight.

The Order #10 - the end of the series.  A good series that ended with a little let down.  It’ll be interesting to see how the team is used in the future.

Thor: Ages of Thunder - an interesting look at the early years of Thor.

X-Men: Legacy # 210 - it’s Professor X vs. Exodus.

Graphic Novels

Fables: Storybook Love

The Invincible Iron Man: Extremis

Free Stuff

Comics:

Atomic Robo - read good reviews and looking forward to checking this series out.

Broken Trinity: Prelude - Top Cow’s new series

EC Comics Sampler - a great throw back to the golden era of comics.

Geekiga - indie series sampler.

Hellboy - love the first movie, and….

Hellboy: The Golden Army - hopefully it doesn’t spoil this summer’s movie.

Ignatz - preview of the upcoming indie series.

Maintenance - cover looked interesting.

Neotopia - also looked interesting.

Superman Allstar #1 - read some good reviews of the series and figured it’d be cool to check out.

Transformers Animated - saw the debut of the cartoon and wanted to vomit.

X-Men - free X-Men book, nuff said.  I wonder if it shows off the new team when they reform.

Clix - a great game by Wizkids that I recommend you check out

Batman

Halo Action Clix - starter pack

Iron Man

Posters

2 nice Iron Man movie posters

After seeing the movie Friday evening I knew it’d do well over the weekend, but I didn’t guess it’d do this well. Projections at BoxOfficeMojo have the 3 1/2 day take for Iron Man to be a little over $104 million. Not too shabby for the first film financed by Marvel (as opposed to a movie like Spiderman that was done by Sony).

I thought the movie was excellent and the casting perfect. Robert Downey Jr. was Tony Stark and when reading any Iron Man comics I’ll be hearing his voice for the character. Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes and Gwenyth Paltrow as Pepper Potts both had roles much meatier than I expected creating an ensemble feel even though the movie clearly revolved around Robert Downey Jr. and rested on his shoulders.

The plot was also a departure just enough from the comic books that it was updated but still familiar. Weaving in current events like the war in Afghanistan and corporate malfeasance, Iron Man ironically is the first successful movie about the current political climate. Jeff Bridge’s Obadiah Stane could of been ripped directly from the board of Haliburton. Who’d think the head of a corporation would make a decent villain in a comic book movie? It definitely works though with some great twists.

But really the brilliance of this movie is it’s focus on Tony Stark the man and not Tony Stark as Iron Man who doesn’t even show up until close to 50 minutes into the movie. Instead the movie reflects on who Tony Stark is, really the arrogant, jack ass, playboy that you want to hang out with and his transformation after captivity.

There’s just enough extras for the comic geeks to tease for those in the know as to what a sequel might bring. To me the top comic movies (in no particular order) are Batman Begins, Spiderman, and Superman II. Iron Man ranks right up there with these comic classics, and with the announcement of the sequels release in May 2010, I ‘m already in line clutching my ticket.

Oh yeah, stay through the credits…..

With comic book movies starting to open up the entertainment coverage focuses more on that forgotten form of story telling.  CNN covers one of the artistic innovators, Jack Kirby.

It’s a decent article giving a nice background as to who he was and what he did.  You can read the full article at http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/05/02/jack.kirby/index.html

Of course I have my ticket already purchased and counting down the hours until I get to see what Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. have in store, but the early reviews are very positive.

Entertainment Weekly’s take can be found here, http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20196644,00.html

CNN can be found here, http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/01/review.ironman/index.html

And currently at Rotten Tomatoes it is the best reviewed movie so far of 2008 and best reviewed comic movie of all time, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/iron_man/

My review will be up this weekend, and I’m doing my best in not getting my hopes and expectations too high.

A good week in comics. A bunch of good issues and lots to cover. This week we’ll see posts looking at Ed Brubaker’s work on Captain America as well as the political alternative reality game to promote the upcoming movie the Dark Knight.

Monthly Series

Avengers: The Initiative #11 - part 3 of the KIA story as he rampages through those that wronged him.

Captain America #37 - brilliant story telling by Ed Brubaker focuses on the new Captain America’s impact on those close to Steve Rogers.

Captain Marvel #5 - wrapping up the mini-series exploring the return of Captain Marvel.

DMZ #30 - Roth must decide if he backs Delgado’s run for office.

Iron Man #28 - Iron Man vs. the Mandarin.

X-Factor #30 - X-Factor takes on Arcade and his backer.

X-Men: Divided We Stand - a series of short stories looking at some of the fall out of Messiah Complex.

Graphic Novels

Fables: Animal Farm

Y The Last Man Volume 7

As I previously stated my issue with reading DC comics was that it was set apart from real world events, unlike the Marvel Universe where such events are addressed.  In a recent interview with IGN this issue is slightly touched upon writer Geoff Johns.

IGN Comics: Let’s talk about the new characters you introduced in this arc. How did you come up with characters like Amazing Man, Lightning, Lance, and so forth? Was that something you and Alex both came up with, or did you always have them in your head.

Johns: Well with Amazing Man, my wife is from New Orleans, and I have a lot of family back there. When 9/11 happened, there were a lot of comics referencing it, but with Katrina, not so much. And I felt that a hero should have risen out of that. So that’s where Amazing Man came from. And I really like the idea that Amazing Man would have that legacy that tied back to Civil Rights. I think that’s an important thing.

IGN Comics: What was the idea behind linking Lance to FDR?

Johns: The whole idea was to introduce more reality based heroes, so dealing with things like Katrina and a soldier who is related to FDR and is out in Afghanistan is just a touch of reality. I wanted people to be uneasy with them. Because sometimes when DC books deal with reality, people get uncomfortable with them. And I wanted this new crop to make people think that something is wrong here. Because things in the JSA aren’t as smooth as they should be.

You can catch the interview in it’s entirety here.

This week was a rather light one:

Monthly Series

Fantastic Four #556 - a robot is on the loose and all that stands between it and destruction is the FF.

Wolverine #64 - Wolverine continues to hunt Mystique in the Middle East.

Young Avengers Presents #3 - exploring the team members of the Young Avengers.

Graphic Novels

Captain America Omnibus - covering issues 1 through 25 of Ed Brubaker’s brilliant series.  So good I read the entire book in one day.

Recently in the American Prospect, Ezra Klein wrote a blog post entitled “A Superman Approach to Foreign Policy” where he describes current American foreign policy in relation to Superman, Captain America, and Jack Bauer. While I understand the point Ezra is making, his understanding of comic book characters comes off as limited, and simplistic ignoring the very rich history both Superman and Captain America have. And “facts” cited are often inaccurate. So first let me set the facts straight:

“Superman and Captain America were superheroes of an odd sort: tremendously powerful beings whose primary struggle was often to follow the self-imposed rules and strictures that lent their power a moral legitimacy.”

Fact: While Superman may be tremendously powerful, Captain America is very much human with extra speed and strength given by the super soldier serum to him. And while I agree both characters follow self-imposed rules, these have lead to questionable power and legitimacy, but more on that later.

“Neither allowed themselves to kill, and both sought to work within the law.”

Well, Captain America has killed, and the fact is Superman is famously attacking a gang on the cover of Action Comics #1, pretty sure that counts as vigilante justice and working outside the law.

“Given their strength, either could have sought world domination, and even if they didn’t, they could have been viewed with deep suspicion and even hatred by those who were convinced that they one day would seek world domination.”

#1 Captain America doesn’t have that type of strength. #2 Superman did try to impose his moral authority on the world in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace by ridding the world of nuclear weapons and the comic Superman for All Seasons. Also in Frank Millar’s brilliant Batman: the Dark Knight Returns, Superman is the arm of a fascist United States government imposing it’s will on the world.

“Indeed, soon enough, both were forming communities of like-minded super beings (The Justice League for Superman, the Avengers for Captain America) and generally operating much like, well, the nation that birthed them.”

Captain America didn’t form the Avengers, case closed on that part of the argument. They were put together by the very Halliburton like, end justifies the means Iron Man.

“If Superman and Captain America were the emblems of the national mood directly after World War II, Bauer expressed the national anxieties uncovered by 9-11.”

Well the issue here is that both Captain America and Superman were created before World War II. They reflected the Great Depression and unease of immigrants and the populace as a whole. Superman is the immigrant. Shipped off like Moses to our world from a dying planet and being adopted by a mid-west couple. Captain America was a great example of ra-ra flag waving. He was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby who were repulsed by the growing power of the Nazi’s in the lead up to World War II. His first appearance is in Captain America #1 which debuted in 1940, a year before Pearl Harbor. In this issue he is already knee deep fighting Nazi’s something the United States had yet to do. Much like throughout the years Marvel’s Universe and characters were often ahead of the times when it came to international issues or domestic policy. Captain America was a call to action against oppression and intolerance much like the character Jack Bauer is a reaction to the current political climate. Those early Captain America stories showed rather racist depictions of Germans and later Japanese much like Muslims may be depicted unfairly on the television show 24.

The latest layers of the Captain America mythos is what’s truly amazing and what Ezra clearly misses. In a recent origins series it’s revealed that Steve Rogers was not in fact the first Captain America. In truth the super soldier program that created him had a Tuskegee like past leaving many African American men crippled in their later years. His shining beacon of democracy was tainted by the sins of his creation. As mentioned above Captain America entered World War II far before the United States did in the real world.

But this isn’t the last time that he would be a part of a offensive defense of democracy. In the recent mini-series Secret War Captain America was part of a secret operation to overthrow a democratically elected government who was secretly funding and plotting against a terrorist attack on the United States. But what’s most interesting was his turn as a anti-United States resistance fighter in Civil War. In standing up against a Patriot Act like legislation Captain America leads a band of heroes against government regulation. While standing up for the liberty he represents he in turn becomes an enemy of the state and terrorist.

Captain America is America, both sides of the same coin. He represents the interventionist, the patriotic, the benevolent, the aggressive, the diplomatic, the tainted past, liberty, freedom, democracy, a real reflection upon the nation and it’s people. The question is what Ezra proposes in the end, “Do we want the foreign policy of Jack Bauer and John Yoo, or of Clark Kent and George Marshall?” The fact is we have been living the Captain America Approach to Foreign Policy since our founding.

Last week Marvel comics launch it’s 8 month epic series Secret Invasion. The political subtext leading up to this 3 years in the making event goes further than the “Colbert 08″ t-shirt snuck into one of the panels in issue number 1.

Secret Invasion is the continuation of a story started 3 years ago involving the invasion of Earth and replacement of some of Marvel’s most powerful heroes by alien shape shifters call Skrulls. This feeling of sleeper cells amongst us was no accident. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the series writer Brian Michael Bendis said:

The Skrulls were invented back in the day when Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the Cold War were a big part of the [Marvel] universe. And we’re kind of back in that: The subtext of this story is not knowing if you can trust your friends or family. Years after 9/11, we go on a plane and start scanning the crowd…we can’t help it.

As Bendis describes above the original story of the Skrulls focused on Cold War hysteria, this new story updates it for the post 9/11 era, just replace Skrull for Al-Qaeda and you see where I’m going with this. Following the events of Marvel’s previous event Civil War, covered here, as well as the limited series Secret War, dealing with super power terrorism, Secret Invasion leaves the Earth’s protectors wondering who they can trust. Much like Civil War’s dealing with restrictions on liberty and freedom, Secret Invasion focuses on the paranoia of the unknown. Not knowing if you’re neighbor or friend is really a terrorist preparing to strike. The first issue saw numerous sleeper agents activated resulting in a global orchestrated terrorist strike, and calling into question various actions by some major characters over the past 3 years (ugh, I’m going to have to go back, re-read, and dissect).

The series takes on extra meaning with the recent news of convictions of a Chinese sleeper agent who had been the United States for two decades. An interesting time frame since (spoiler) the final panel of issue 1 reveals many of Marvel’s super heroes returning in their late 70’s/early 80’s uniforms. Weird coincidence, of course they could just be Skrulls as well.

Now this is just the first issue and judging by it, there’ll be tons to dissect over the next 8 months (at least). Bendis will make sure of that.

Monthly Series

Cable #2 - continuing from Messiah Complex, Cable is on the run with the last mutant born.

Kick-Ass #2 - what if superheroes existed in the real world?

Logan #2 - exploring Wolverine’s past in a little town called Hiroshima during World War II.

Secret Invasion #1 - Marvel’s summer event, the world has been infiltrated by sleeper cells of Skrulls.

The Twelve # 4 - frozen during World War II, twelve superheroes attempt to adjust to the modern world.

Young X-Men #1 - the last generation of X-Men are formed.

Graphic Novels

Secret War - with the threat of a terrorist act looming, a group of heroes is banded together to overthrow a foreign power

Y The Last Man Standing: Volume 6 - continuing the brilliant series of the last man in a woman controlled world after a mysterious illness kills all the other men