The big world-changing,
ground-breaking, soul-shaking (yadda, yadda, blah, blah, insert
more standard hype here, etc...) event that has been building over at
the House of Ideas is finally here!Marvel NOW
officially launched last week with the first of the new wave of
titles - Uncanny Avengers and Red She-Hulk.
Today our own dynamic(-ish) duo of
Mayank and Akshay take us through them both to see whether these
measured up to all the hype!
Red She-Hulk #1
Script : Jeff Parker
Art : Carlo Pugalayan & Wellington Alves (pencils), Val Staples (colours)
Mayank says:
The second release under the “Marvel Now” banner for last week. The focus of Hulk shifts from father to daughter, from Red Hulk (RULK) to Red She Hulk (Betty Ross), while Rulk moves to the new team of Thunderbolts (along with Elektra and Punisher.. man that’s gonna rock!). Jeff parker continues to play around with the concepts he introduced and I gotta say man, I am loving this book. This title isn’t going to change your life, it’s not going to make you think or try to prove its relevance by using real world scenarios or create pseudo-reasons for a hero vs hero fight... but this is the most fun I had reading a comic book in quite some time.
This issue is Red She hulk going “SMASH”. It’s the most comic booky comic out there at the moment and if you enjoy such books, boy are you going to have fun. The story goes like this : Red She Hulk sees, Red She hulk doesn’t like, Red She Hulk smashes. Be it tanks, walls, other genetically advanced adversaries or potential rapists. Reading this book I was reminded of the banner tune of Cops... sing with me folks: “Bad boys , bad boys.. What’cha gonna do.. what’cha gonna do when “She” comes for you!”. To top it off, we have guest appearances by Cap and Machine Man (my fav since Warren Ellis’s “Nextwave”)
Besides providing a fun romp, Parker infuses enough material in his story to embroil it into moral grey areas and the ending is not something that I imagine can we wiped away very easily. Art is top notch , no complaints, except for the Cap depiction. For some reason, the helmet wearing Cap looks awkward to me.
In the end I had fun and want to know where does Betty go from here.
8 / 10
Akshay says:
There is no secret that for a HUGE number of fans across the globe (myself included), the character of the Red Hulk (a.k.a “Rulk”) was a huge irritation and a poorly handled introduction. He invited much hatred and then came Red She-Hulk and the fan anger was palpable! They both went through some of the worst Marvel stories and events when they first appeared and we all could barely wait to see them done with so that we could return to the better days of Hulk-based stories like those lovingly crafted for us by Greg Pak (Planet Hulk, Incredible Herc).
But then Jeff Parker came along. He took this reviled character, this strange Red Hulk avatar of General “Thunderbolt” Ross and was given his own book in which he not only gave him character, he actually made me like him! Damn you Parker. Damn you.
And now, like a child being sent off to school to play with the other kids, Rulk is going off to join the new Thunderbolts alongside Elektra, Punisher and Deadpool (a book I'm DYING to read by the way!) and our new child is here to be nurtured and hopefully given a chance to become a character we might actually want to read about.
Now for those of you who've been reading Matt Fraction's excellent and under-rated Defenders title, Betty Ross, a.k.a. Red-Shulky, has had some time to shine there as well and all in all has not done too badly, I've actually found her to be a potentially interesting character. But now she's in Parkers playhouse (sounds creepy no?) and I have to admit that I'm both relieved and happy that this first outing seems to have some strong legs under it.
Mostly the issue is a serious beat-em-up, action-packed Hulk-a-rama where Betty gets to really cut loose. Army types, super-soldiers, criminal rapists, she “Hulk Smash”'s her way through everything before her and she's clearly on a mission here. What that mission really is, well that I think will be the interesting mystery of this first story outing with the big lady in Red, but from the look of the book and the way the story has been crafted – balancing an interesting story, characters and full-tilt action – I really want to know where this is going!
Plus a cameo by Captain America himself (wearing the Cap movie style helmet for some reason...) and Machine Man was a welcome touch. With both of them (MM in particular) clearly being a part of whats to come, there is a lot to look forward to in issues ahead. The next cover teases a showdown with Machine Man, who has been a really good supporting character in recent years and actually played quite well with this books previous star – Betty's father, the Red Hulk – should make for a great addition to the book if he sticks around and potentially an interesting dynamic with the emotional and charged up Red She-Hulk.
The art gave me no reason to complain and the team did a bang-up job (literally) with all the many action sequences and they clearly like to draw our heroine and do it well.
Overall, a very good first shot and hands down one of the most simply fun super-hero books on the market at this moment.
Akshays Rating : 8 / 10
Uncanny Avengers #1
Script : Rick
Remender
Art : John
Cassaday (art), Laura Martin (colours)
Mayank says:
This one is probably the linchpin of
Marvel Now and spins off directly from Avengers vs X-men.
In the aftermath of the battle in the pages of AvX, Captain America
wants to put together a joint Avengers and X-Men team, hence the name
“Uncanny Avengers”.
But before you go and say “Another”
Avengers title - the rationale behind creating this team is strong,
which is to put up a united face in front of the increasingly wary
world in light of the mutant “Phoenix 5's” actions and put
the Avengers brand name behind mutant kind. For a first issue,
surprisingly lot of things happen here : Cap meets Havok, Thor fights
Avalanche, Rogue fights Scarlet Witch , someone gets killed, someone
gets stabbed and Red Skull returns. It all leads to the final page
shocker which is going to change the dynamics of this Marvel NOW
world, especially for Mutants. Make no mistake, this is at the moment
a very mutant-centric book with avengers action, which is a good
thing.
Remender goes through some first issue
tropes but manage to deliver quite a lot of setup within one issue .
I don’t even need to mention the art because as we all know Cassidy
is just freakin' awesome. I can’t wait this to be collected in an
OHC or an Omnibus to look at that gorgeous art oversized.
Overall a good start. I will be back
next month.
Mayanks Rating : 8 / 10
Akshay says:
He's back baby!!
I'm referring of course to the big
villain reveal in this comic – be warned dear readers, some
spoilers are unavoidable here.
When I first heard about this comic and
saw the title, I could feel a tightening and a flood of words I can't
share here popped into my mind. Really Marvel? This is what you came
up with? But then I saw that Rick “Fear Agent/Uncanny
X-Force/FrankenCastle” Remender was on point with
John “Planetary/Astonishing X-Men”
Cassady on art duties and suddenly I wasn't so angry anymore. If
anyone could take the mind-numbingly pointless, waaaay over-the-top,
too long for its own good and bloated mess that was AvX
and create something worth reading from the wreckage left after that
slug-fest, it was these guys. And I was right.
Taking a good direction by showing Cap
and other Avengers doing something many of us have long wondered “why
not?!”, i.e., shaking hands with the X-Men and bringing them
officially into the hero ranks is a nice change of pace and one thats
been handled really well here. No one starts off with the big
announcements and fan-fare and photo-ops to showcase this new team.
There is angst and some bad blood and a lot of issues, but here we
lay the groundwork for what will become (hopefully) the next big
super-team for the Marvel Universe. There is still a lot of anger and
violence ahead with Avalanche being kind of lobotomised by the
mystery big-bad (don't worry, I'll reveal the name only at the end so
you can read till there!) and let loose on an unsuspecting populace –
where he then fights Thor. Yeah. That happens. And we've got Scarlet
Witch back in the mainstream after all the weirdness with her
character these past few years and the happy news (for me at least)
that Havok (a.k.a Alex Summers) will be in this title so now he can
be gone from X-Factor, my favourite X-book for the past
few years!
Cassaday's artwork is impeccable as
always, few people can create pages like him and his character
designs and the emotion he brings is excellent. As always he shows
his knack for being able to do an equally great job with heavy action
and dynamic panels as well as more slow and quiet bits, something I
don't think every artist is capable of managing. A big bonus is also
the colouring by Martin that really complements Johns panels very
well.
Overall, this is still a book finding
its feet but it does this baby-step exceedingly well – especially
given the scale and genuinely, potentially game-changing path its on.
I give the folks at Marvel a lot of credit for making such a change,
it shows they are not afraid to build and evolve their universe and
let them grow organically and not stick obsessively to the familiar
*cough!* DC!!*cough!!*, something
that could be a bold and amazing choice or a dangerous one. Either
way, it's off to a great start and I will definitely be around for
whats next.
AND
the big reveal at the end of the villain-du-jour for the opening arc
– THE RED SKULL! - is not only back with a bang, but that last
panel literally left my jaw on the ground. Seriously, I dislocated
it. By three feet. But I'm better now.
Akshays
Rating : 9.5 / 10
------------------------------------------------
Mayank Khurana
A Comic enthusiast (total geek) and reads everything from western to Indian to Manga to Franco-Belgium comics, Owner and Contributor for this site.
Since he lives in India, sourcing foreign comics has always been a problem but he still manages even it means taking part in an infinite civil war of crisis. His dream combines two of his biggest passions, Comics and Travel:-To go on a “comic trek” from one major comic publishing country to another and meet other comic fans out there and bask in all the geeky glory.
Akshay Dhar
A writer when life permits, a music and nature lover, attempted humourist, arm-chair philosopher and random road traveller… a strangely hopeful cynic first and foremost from all accounts. Slacker, nerd, scribbler, Wayfarer and day-dreamer - somehow ended up as Editor here at CA so miraculous that anything gets out on time, shows the skill and efficiency of the writers!
Once a young geek-in-the-making who migrated and "matured" from comics to literature and more esoteric reading and thought, eventually found his way back to the graphic fold a few years back. Loves to let his mind wander and at times it takes forever to find its way home. Loves all comics so long as they are not just pretty pictures - but will make exceptions for masters like Geof Darrow and J.H.Williams III.
No comments:
Post a Comment