It’s been a good couple weeks in comics and I thought I’d talk about a few of the more interesting issues. A couple of awesome Ed Brubaker books have hit that deserve some mention so we’ll start with those.

Secret Avengers #1
First on the docket is the brand new (and much hyped) Secret Avengers #1. While I haven’t been keeping real close tabs on the whole Secret Invasion or it’s Siege-based aftermath, I have noticed that the Avengers sure have been getting some love from Marvel as of late. With a new movie in the works, the team being the centerpiece of both the Civil War and Secret Invasion story lines, and now a bunch of new books, it seems that the Avengers are once again the team of choice at Marvel.

The most interesting thing of this convoluted mess of a universe shake up is how Ed Brubaker has managed to make part of it cool by working in a few of his own storylines. When he killed off Steve Rogers in 2005, we all wondered how he was going to be brought back. While we all knew it was going to happen we can at least thank the comic gods that he held off a good 4 years before bringing him back. While the method in which Steve Rogers was returned to the Marvel Universe was typically cheesy and far-fetched, what I can’t complain about is how they’ve positioned him in the post-Siege world. Deciding to leave the shield and Captain America persona in the hands of his old parter Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers is simply being himself and leading the charge of rebuilding the mess that has been left in the wake of recent Bendis inspired events.

Enter Secret Avengers. The premise of this book has Steve Rogers leading a team of covert heroes that only band together when needed on a mission. The idea is to stay off the grid, in the shadows and take care of business in a more clandestine and old school manner. This type of team really draws from the old days when Steve Rogers ran the Invaders and super heroes did secret government work. I’ve always thought he idea of a small team turning the tide of war in the background was always a cool idea and one that is very “Marvel-esque”. It’s also a premise that Brubaker has explored numerous times in his Captain America books and more recently in the Marvels Project mini-series. To have him create a brand new team with a covert and old school emphasis is a breath of fresh air for the Avengers canon. With pencils by Mike Deodato, this first issue is a very strong start to the series and I can’t wait to see where it goes in the future.
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Sadly, it’s been awhile since any sort of comic thing graced this site and that’s a damn shame. I’m not sure exactly why the Comics/Manga category has been such a wasteland, as we’re reading them all the time. I suspect it has to do with the fact that we’ve been busy with other things.

It time to remedy the situation and I know of no better way than to talk about the latest storyline being crafted by the great and mighty pen of Ed Brubaker in the most recent issues of Captain America. We’ve already said a ton about our admiration and respect for Brubaker’s work. We are all big fans of what he’s brought to the table as far as Captain America goes as well. In all honesty, this may be the greatest run that Cap has ever seen and may ever see. This particular storyline does a great job of demonstrating why that is.

The greatest thrill, for me, in the current run of Captain America is the effortless way that Brubaker has taken the over-the-top aspects of Cap lore and brought them into modern times. All this without making them seem too “out-there” or cheesy. No small feat. Brubaker is once again weaving the legendary Captain America characters into the fabric of our modern day events in his latest storyline called “Two Americas”. In it, Brubaker makes the bold choice of taking on one of the most interesting and vexing stories in our news day; the Tea Party movement.

One of the more interesting characters that Brubaker has resurrected over the years is a forgotten villain simply called 1950′s Cap or Bad Cap. Years after the original Captain America (aka Steve Rodgers) was trapped in ice at the tail end of World War II, a school teacher in the 1950′s underwent plastic surgery and mimicked the Super-Soldier syrum that created the original Cap. While the procedure did create an exact likeness of Steve Rodgers, the process made the new Cap insane. Of course, when Steve Rodgers retuned, the Bad Cap was quickly put down and presumed dead. Thanks to Brubaker’s use of him during the Death of Captain America storyline, Bad Cap is alive and a fully fleshed out antagonist, ready to be used. It is indeed he who is causing all the trouble in this latest story.

Following the events of the Captain America: Reborn storyline, James “Bucky” Barnes continues to wield the costume and shield of Captain America. Word is sent that Bad Cap has resurfaced and become disenchanted with the current state of America. As a result, he has become a leader for a homegrown militia group called the Watchdogs. Rallying members of the Tea Party movement (or Marvels version of it at any rate), Bad Cap creates an army hell bent on sending a message fueled by anger. Of course the message comes attached to a series of devastating bombs that are meant to go off at key government facilities. As Bucky attempts to infiltrate the Watchdog group, he is discovered by Bad Cap and is forced to don his old Bucky costume and work as Bad Caps “sidekick”.

The story is well paced, the characters are, once again, used to great effect and the series of four comics takes what could be horribly cheesy and infuses it with a good mix of drama and action. With another round of absolutely stunning art by Luke Ross, this storyline is both relevant to current day events and another engaging use of the Captain America characters. Brubaker does it once again and I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It’s also not too late check this book out. Two Americas would be a great story to jump in on if you’ve never checked out the series.

SPOILERS…..obviously.

Walking Dead #60

Written by: Robert Kirkman

Art by: Charlie Adlard

The BIG 6-0. 60 is most notably the time in your life when you start to lose your hearing, and your eyes start getting worse, along with your driving skills, and you go hobble your way into your huge, boat sized Cadillac and break off the odometer at 25 in a 45 mph zone while heading to your local Walgreens and buy some of those huge, wrap around glasses that look like some kind of virtual reality visor. Yeah, its those years when retirement homes scare you, along with all that new fangled technology, and don’t even talk about those young punks with their “raps” and “skateboards”. But you know what isn’t getting old? The Walking Dead.

60 issues in, Robert Kirkman hopes to bring back the original antagonist of the series: zombies. While most of the series has been about the fact that the zombies aren’t the worst thing roaming the land, issue 60 tries to convince us that they are still a contender.

Last issue, we finally caught a glimpse of the “herd” of zombies heading after our intrepid heroes. Rick & Co. could defend against a group of zombies with little to no effort, but a herd comprises of thousands of zombies. Not a walk in the park.

So in this issue, we witness our car-less heroes running from the herd, trying desperately to get back to their loved ones in time to warn them of the incoming danger. While not the most illuminating issue of the series, this issue does help emphasize the immediacy of the undead flock.

I have always said that the issues that deal with the more humanizing aspects of the story are my favorites. Issues where the characters are just sitting around trying to gather some shred of hope while being surrounded and confronted by acts of horrific violence and sanity breaking situations. This issue still brings that to the table. One character in particular gets this in spades.

So all in all, this issue doesn’t reveal a whole lot, but it does hint at the herd arc coming to an end, but not before a little preview at the end of the book. With preview pages with phrases like “”The dead do not stalk” and an accompanying picture of shadowy figures hiding in the trees right above some of the main cast.

Yeah, I don’t really need to tell you about the art and the writing because it is just so good. It’s just a given with this series.
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I missed a comic book weekly review so I’m gonna cram two weeks of reviews into one post. So bear with me.

Wolverine #71

Written by: Mark Millar

Art by: Steve McNiven

I don’t want to jinx this book, but I gotta say that every issue of Millar/McNiven’s “Old Man Logan” arc has been outstanding. I’m hard pressed to find anything that I didn’t like in each issue. If you happen to be not reading this either because you hate Wolverine or don’t know about it, you really should be.

So last ish, we are left with a shot of the geezer-y duos next challenge, a T-Rex with the powers of Venom chasing after them through the desert wasteland. Take that concept out of context and you would laugh and tear this issue up in your hands, but for some odd reason, Millar and McNiven make this work. Awesomely.

So back to the giant Venom-y T=Rex. It’s chasing Wolverine and Hawkeye through the barren desert towards their ultimate goal: reaching a place called New Babylon. Even in the ridiculously cool Spider-mobile, the T-Rex is closing in on them. But just when it seems like the curtains are falling on our adventurers, a familiar face shows up in one of the coolest cameos in this storyline and stops the T-Rex dead in its tracks. The softly spoken savior whisks the team down into a secret hideout that is home to some of Wolverine’s past friends, most namely Emma Frost. This series has always seemed to pride itself on showing us future versions of characters that aren’t really there for anything but nifty cameos. Which brings me to my next point: I LOVE THEM! This issue has one of the best cameos and it just solidfies this series as a really cool interpretation of the Marvel Universe’s future. Much like the city of Hammer Falls in a earlier issue that featured a city based around the location of where fallen Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, fell to Earth. In my opinion, this newest “cameo” trumps that one. It’s so great, that McNiven used two pages to show it.

So by now, you should realize from my tone that the current storyline in Wolverine is worth reading. If single issues aren’t available to you, I’d say that you need to mark down the date that the trade is released. So far, barring some unforseen disaster in the last issue, Wolverine “Old Man Logan” is worth your hard earned penny, even in this shitty, crumbling economy. (more…)

Being that I am an unabashed comic book geek, one of my favorite comic book writers of all time is Ed Brubaker. His comic book works include Captain America, Criminal, Daredevil and his newest series, Incognito. So when I heard that he is helming the script for a new webisode, I signed up immediately. Well, Monday was the beginning of this new series called Angel of Death. Starring Zoe Bell, whom you may know from Death Proof ( A movie that I still vocally spout hatred for, but still admire it’s existence in a world of unoriginality), as the main character, Eve. Eve is an assassin. An assassin with no qualms about killing anyone in her way. The show is peppered with geek film stars such as Lucy Lawless (Xena: The Warrior Princess, Battlestar Galactica), Ted Raimi (Spider-man 1-3, Evil Dead, Army of Darkness) , and Doug Jones (Hellboy).

So, now here is your chance to join in on the show. Everyday, a new episode will be posted on Crackle.com.

Here’s the first episode:

So far, it’s very stylish and best of all, right to the point. Here’s to the rest of the show!

Wolverine #70
Written by: Mark Millar
Art by: Steve McNiven

SPOILERS!!!!!
Continuing in the “Old Man Logan” storyline, Wolverine finally reveals what happened in the past that made him give up fighting or “popping” his claws: himself.

Yep, in the past he was the reason the bad guys won. Being cleverly tricked by a certain Mysterio-us villain, Wolverine unwittingly killed his teammates, giving the upperhand to the villains of the world. After realizing his own berserker-y ways, he exiled himself from the world. Vowing to never hurt anyone again.

Some cool scenes in this book are not only the vicious and extremely bloody (How is this not a Marvel MAX series?) fight scenes, but the conversation between Hawkeye and Logan about what happened in the past. Millar’s writing really conveys that Logan is truly sorry and, in ways, suicidal, about what he has done. Once again, this story arc is proving to be one of Wolverine’s best…evar…

McNiven’s art stands out again. It is cinematic and detailed and all around really, really purty. Fight scenes are fluid and gorgeously brutal. He really has a visual idea of how this broken down Wolverine and his world look.

Millar and McNiven ought to team up much more after this.
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Last week I mentioned that I received an extra comic or two in my bag after a weekly run to my local comic shop. One of those extra comics was Captain America #42 and I commented on how much the series had changed for the better under Ed Brubakers writing hand. In the comment section below the post, our good friend Tyler Durden mentioned that I should really read the earlier stories and that an Omnibus had been put out that cataloged the first 25 issues of the Brubaker Captain America run. While I’m a big comic book fan, the idea of an omnibus seemed like a pricey endeavor and a difficult one to justify. Perusal of Amazon.com confirmed my suspicions with a rather hefty $75.00 price tag.

This last weekend John, Moe and I attended FallCon 2008, a local comic book convention held here in St. Paul, MN. While checking out the various booths, my good friends happened to find the Captain America Omnibus hanging out under a 30% off sign. And you just can’t pass up a deal like that, can you? What I found was one of the greatest collections of comics I’ve read in a long, long time. In one night, I had consumed the entire book and I am simply floored by what Brubaker has done with one of Marvel’s most iconic characters.
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