THE BASICS
A look at how "fear itself" is affecting those outside of Marvel's A-list roster.
MY COMPLIMENTS TO THE CHEF
- The Speedball story was surprisingly great. Still grieved by his involvement in the Stamford incident during Civil War, but now through the "make penance by inflicting pain upon myself" stage, Speedball's moved on to the "make penance by actually doing something to help out" stage. His attempts to help Stamford in any way he can feel genuine and really made me like the character. But, naturally, if you're involved in the deaths of some 600 people, the path to forgiveness isn't going to be easy, and that's shown well here in both a tense and sad scene towards the end of part 1 of his story. It's the highlight of the book and has me looking forward to seeing what comes next.
FEEL THE STING OF MY DISCONTENT!
- Aside from Speedball's story, not much else in this book is worth reading. Jimmy Woo's lacks the same heart that made Speedball's so good. None of the characters come across as likable and the writing is sub-par. The story really doesn't seem to be going anywhere interesting either.
- "A Moment With J. Jonah Jameson", despite featuring a character I'm very fond of, is largely unnecessary. Despite only being a page long, it's boring and doesn't shed any light on the event it's dealing with. Anyone who knows even the slightest bit about the character already knows how he feels about the riot in Manhattan and anyone who doesn't know anything about him is likely going to get all kinds of wrong ideas from the story.
- I'm still not convinced that mixing super heroes with the kind of real world problems this series is focusing on is working. I'm supposed to believe that because there's a financial crisis and riots and general unrest across the country that people all of a sudden think they don't need super heroes? That the existence of problems in the world negates the usefulness of super powered individuals who desire to protect people? I can understand what's trying to be said, that we can't rely on someone else to fix our problems and that we have to stand on our own two feet, but that just doesn't work in the Marvel Universe and it dampens the message. You want to get rid of super heroes? You want to stand on your own? Let me know how that goes next time the Skrulls invade or Galactus gets hungry.
WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE
Despite all my complaints, the Speedball story alone almost makes picking this comic up worth it, but I can't wholeheartedly recommend a comic that's only good for half its duration.
