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05/23/2004: new Marvel comics I got this week...
Somehow less intimidating than tackling the huge DC pile...
Amazing Spider-Man #507 (written by J. Michael Straczynski, pencils by John Romita Jr., inks by Scott Hanna)
I'm not sure about this storyline. I like it as a story. It keeps me interested, the spider invasion this issue certainly was creepy, I like how JMS writes Spidey's dialog, and there are other good lines too (J.J. Jameson: "Look lady-- if there where ten million ants crawling up West 7th, you can bet your diploma I'd be trying to get my hands on Ant-Man for a confirm-or-deny..."). I like that Ezekiel turned out to be a bad guy. What I'm less sure about is the reinterpretation of Spider-Man's origins. On one hand I think it's interesting to see how Peter deals with this, with the fact that his origins aren't purely scientific (well comic book scientific anyway), but appear to be mystical, and he's suddenly contacted by some archetypal spider manifestation (well, not quite that suddenly, the build-up for this has been going on all through JMS' run), who can link spiders together in a collective consciousness to talk to him, and claims to have chosen him.
OTOH it's a fairly dramatic shift in the nature of his origins, and I'm not sure I like its implications. I am not that fond of the whole "chosen one" thing. Well, actually, I like it okay in some contexts, just not as a one-size-fits-all thing for heroic origins. I like that some heroes just become heroes because they got their powers randomly, and happen to be good people, who in the end want to do the right thing. It makes Spidey less attractive to me if he's "chosen" by some mystical spider entity. I don't want meddling higher powers everywhere in my fiction, predestining stuff. I don't want Peter to be the spider equivalent to Buffy, with one Spider-Something in each generation.
Daredevil #60 (written by Brian Michael Bendis, art by Alex Maleev)
There isn't a lot of artists who can pull it off that I really enjoy looking at a fight scene of Daredevil, Spider-Man, Iron Fist and and Luke Cage versus the Yakuza for more than twelve out of twenty-two pages. Luckily Alex Maleev is among them. Other than that, I'm not sure I have really coherent comments. My reaction is still pretty much what it has been throughout this storyline that wore Matt down, i.e. "Matt = woobie!!! squee!"
I felt bad for Matt when Milla broke up with him at the end. For her too, because I actually liked her character. I was suspicious when it turned out they had married, because it's really not much like Matt's usual style in relationships, so it's not surprising that he now wonders how much the whole mess his life had become contributed to his decision to marry her. Though probably in the long term it's at least better for Milla not to have a relationship with him, and I don't just mean because of the considerable risk to become the victim of some whacko with or without tights. I mean, while Matt is definitely charming, and I like him a lot, he's not the kind of person I would wish on someone for a longterm relationship.
But we also get some lighter bits, like this hilarious dialog of superhero gossip and banter after their fight, take a look here.
Excalibur #1 (written by Chris Claremont, pencils by Aaron Lopresti, inks by Greg Adams)
That Commando!Xavier looked so odd to me probably says a lot about just how unfamiliar I'm with X-Men comics. I mostly picked this up because the premise of Professor X and Magneto rebuilding Genosha together appealed to my inner slasher. This issue was mostly exposition, which wasn't bad for me, unfamiliar as I am with the X titles and their characters, but it didn't really hook me on the series either. And Xavier and Magneto only met at the end of the issue to shake hands, so we didn't see a lot of them working together, yet. It was better than Claremont's recent Uncanny X-Men issue, though.
