Review: Siege #1

A few nights ago, I wrote an entry about New Year’s resolutions, and my decision to finally give them a try. In that same entry, I resolved to update my blog a lot more often – something I’ve pulled off rather well as of late, considering my past track record. Of course, this entails me constantly looking for new things to write. Seeing as how I’ve reignited my passion for comics after a few years’ dormancy, it only seems natural that I give writing comic reviews a shot.

(Sorta-long aside: in that very same entry, Paolo pointed out a rather embarrassing oversight on my part – I credited Foreigner with a Survivor song. As much as I’d like to sulk about my mistake, especially since MY FATHER HAS BEEN MAKING ME LISTEN TO THE SONG EVER SINCE I WAS A KID AND IT’S BEEN A PART OF MY SOUL SINCE GOD KNOWS WHEN SO I NEVER SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN IT WRONG IN THE FIRST PLACE, I’ll suck it up, blame it on my current bout of insomnia, and repay Paolo’s call by plugging GeekFight, which he hosts. It is, by far, the most fun Trivia Night series I’ve attended, and the next one’s on this coming Monday, January 11, at Last Home, near Robinson’s Pioneer. Also, this coming Monday will serve as Paolo’s de facto birthday party, so it’s bound to be dripping with awesome.)

Anyhoots, I figured I’d kick off the year’s reviews with an event that started the moment Brian Michael Bendis pretty much took over the Marvel Universe – Siege. To be precise, I’ll be reviewing Siege #1, written by the infamous bald scribe and illustrated by Olivier Coipel.


Siege is hyped up to be culmination of all the Bendis-helmed major crossover events, making it a project that was at least seven years in the making (the event has its roots in Avengers Disassembled, which ran in the late parts of 2004). It’s this fact alone that has me a little disappointed in the series from the get-go. As of now, Siege’s main series is scheduled to consist of just four issues, which is an extremely short payoff for something Marvel’s been trying to make you drool over for the past year or so. This theme seems to carry over into the series’ debut issue, as one-third of the main story has already been released via previews and teaser comics. Six of the 23 story pages have already seen print, and the rest of the 38-page comic (discounting ads) consists of Joe Quesada’s obligatory primer on the event, supplementary material on Siege, and a preview for Fall of the Hulks. In terms of page count alone, Siege #1’s new content fails to live up to the insane hype machine that’s been running since BEFORE the event was announced.

That said, the content does show that Siege has the potential to be an awesome event. People tend to hate on Bendis a lot, but you can’t argue with the man’s ability to create plots that mirror American society today without really being too preachy. Siege is no different. The whole idea behind the crossover is that Norman Osborn’s attempts to “purify” America under his image have reached insane heights. He believes that the realm of Asgard (the home of the Norse gods which for reasons too long to explain now floats over Oklahoma) is a threat to his rise to power, and so he crafts a plot that paints Asgard as a foreign threat to the American way of life, one that needs to be removed from American territory immediately. And so he wages war. On a city of fucking GODS.

The previously-released pages provide the most relevant plot points of the issue, and parallel the events that led to a past Bendis crossover, Civil War. While many fans on the net cry foul at this supposed lack of originality, I see it as bloody brilliant. If Osborn’s goal is to gain support for his assault on Asgard, what better way to do it than to manufacture an incident that so closely mirrored what ignited public outrage against the superhero community as a whole? We all know how society is prone to knee-jerk reactions when it comes to history potentially repeating itself, and Bendis was all too eager to point out how this tendency can be manipulated by people in power.

The rest of the issue lays the foundation for the many side-plots that arise from Osborn’s insane agenda – Victoria Hand’s growing doubt, Ares’ wavering loyalty to Osborn, the Dark Avengers’ motivation for engaging in this suicide mission despite their diminishing trust in Osborn, the White House’s indignation at Osborn’s course of action, and Loki’s cunning manipulation of the events that transpire. You just know that Bendis is setting Stormin’ Norman up to fail, and yet, in the pages that follow, you can’t help but think that the megalomaniac will come out on top. The final panel presents a glimmer of hope, however, in a manner that seems almost poetic when Civil War is taken into consideration.

Olivier Coipel does a decent job of handling the issue’s artistic duties. I never really followed the guy (the last I’ve seen of his work was House of M, another Bendis collaboration), so I can’t really provide a solid critique of the artist in general. From what he’s done in the first issue of Siege, though, we can see that he’s more than capable of making Bendis’ story flow visually. The information in the story is so condensed that it’s better suited for a 32-page spread, but Coipel manages to make everything feel just right despite the lack of space. His visual style is a fine match for the story’s tone, as the whole shebang comes off as one of those epic action movies. Think Black Hawk Down as compared to Rush Hour, and you’ll see what I mean.

I do have one teeny-tiny nitpick, however. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Ivan Reis’ fantastic work on Blackest Night, but Coipel’s last panel didn’t seem to give off the impact it should have. It was potentially one of the series’ most defining moments, but while the intention was clear, the execution seemed lackluster.

All in all, if the mega-crazy-super-duper-hyper-hype is disregarded, Siege #1 feels like an excellent kick-off to the final part of Bendis’ nearly decade-long saga. The man has done an impeccable job of returning the Avengers to relevance and defining Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor as the foundations of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. I never really cared for these characters before, but now I find myself clamoring for their long-anticipated reunion.

Read on >

Stay Down, Steve Rogers

Zombies are cool. There’s nothing the walking dead can’t add any spice to. Boring movie? Toss a few zombies in for laughs and gore galore! Tired of watching grass grow? Break out a copy of Plants vs. Zombies and defend your Lawn of the Dead! Feel like having a team-building activity? Try surviving Left 4 Dead’s zombie apocalypse in multiplayer. Heck, even things like haikus and literary classics become a lot more fun when you inject a little Romero into them.

It’s a fantastic thing, then, that we live an age where mainstream comics have learned the value of zombification. You don’t need to resort to lesser-known titles (to the mainstream, at least) like The Walking Dead and Wormwood, Gentleman Corpse to get your daily dose of death. Marvel’s been whipping out Marvel Zombies books left and right, while DC’s making our favorite form of worm food the main focus of this year’s major company-wide crossover event, The Blackest Night (which is fucking AWESOME!!!). Yessiree, it’s a great time to rise from the grave.

Except for you, Steve Rogers.

I absolutely detest the fact that Marvel has decided to bring Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, back to life in the Captain America: Reborn event. Sure, I suppose it’s inevitable with such an iconic character, but seriously – why can’t he just stay dead? Out of all the superhero deaths I’ve read, his meant the most. Superman died fighting Doomsday, a creature without rhyme or reason. The Flash, Jean Grey, and a host of other heroes died in an effort to save the Earth/universe/all of existence. Hell, we’ve had heroes die to cancer.

But Steve Rogers? His death had much more purpose than being a glorified act of fictional martyrdom. His death came about as a repercussion of Marvel’s Civil War, an examination of the shitstorm that’s bound to happen when egotistical superpowers believe that their actions are for the good of the entire world.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a crash course: A superhero adventure went awry and ended up in a massive explosion that killed over 600 innocent civilians. Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, became head of pretty much the world’s most powerful security agency. Working hand in hand with the US government, he helped enforce the Superhuman Registration Act, a method for the government to regulate and police the activities of all superhumans by mandating that they register their secret identities.

More than a few superheroes balked at this idea. This was, after all, a gigantic violation of their rights. Stark, however, was adamant about enforcing the Act, and rallied pro-Registration heroes to his side. He then began to pursue and imprison the superhumans who were fighting for their right to ensure the safety of their loved ones.

Needless to say, this caused a lot of infighting among the superhero community. The act was heavily debated, to the point that the whole thing was an enormous gray area. Still, lines were drawn, and a superhero civil war broke out. On the pro-Registration side was Tony Stark. On the anti-Registration side, none other than Marvel’s very own sentinel of liberty – Captain America, the World War II hero who was a living, breathing representation of the country that now wanted to deprive him of his rights. One plot twist after another soon followed, and the battle was eventually taken to the streets.

The fighting had caused heavy damage to the city, and it didn’t take long for Steve Rogers to realize that innocent lives were being endangered. Being the Boy Scout that he was, he called for a ceasefire and turned himself in. He gave himself up because he knew that all this squabbling was going to end up killing innocents.

And so Steve Rogers was brought to trial. As he was leaving the courthouse, he was shot by a sniper and was killed in the chaos that quickly ensued.

His death never resolved anything, fittingly enough. In a rare moment of comic realism, the two factions never got together and gave each other hugs. They never kissed and made up. All his passing gave the world was a brief reprieve from its own selfish clusterfucks, a moment of silence for the only hero who chose to act like one throughout this entire ordeal.

The events of Civil War drew many comparisons to today’s superpowers and their self-proclaimed duty to police the world. They wage wars over political ideals, never backing down because of their fervent beliefs of what’s right for the world. Yet, in the wake of these superior forces, innocents are dying. Is policing the world really worth destroying it? Steve Rogers said a soft, solemn “No,” and he paid for it with his life.

Steve Rogers died because he believed there had to be a better way of resolving things. To the very end, he was making a statement: that he, a super-soldier, a human being genetically modified to be an instrument of war, saw beyond the political ideologies that ran rampant in a messed-up world and realized that it wasn’t worth it; not when it’s destroying everything they sought to protect in the first place.

And now Marvel wants to ruin all that by bringing him back to life? Give a (fictional) man his piece, will ya? We all know that when he comes back to life, the death will be a footnote to his existence. It’s happened with EVERYONE. I mean, who cares that Superman ever died these days? Who? No one; and the same will happen with good old Mr. Rogers. Sigh.

End tree-hugging hippie fanboy rant here. Thank you.

Read on >

Selling Ted Out

Why is it that when something enters mainstream consciousness, it suddenly seem to become a lot less cool?

I remember when Neil Gaiman’s Sandman was a beautifully-kept secret of the Geekdom Illuminati, a wonderful piece of visual prose that had existed below the common fanboy’s radar for decades. Suddenly, with the release of the book’s collected volumes, everyone and his cousin was reading about Dream and the rest of the Endless. In fact, when Gaiman came to visit a few years ago for a local event, he was quite literally swarmed by legions of his readers.

Now a few who had been reading the series before it erupted into the mainstream reacted in different ways. Some were suddenly cooler than they actually were, just for having read the book before the rest of us did. Others violently protested against the Sandman’s sudden boom in popularity, wishing that the book stayed a secret known only to the purest of comic book geeks. Whichever side you belonged to, if you were one of those who were early readers of the series, I’m guessing you couldn’t help but feel that the series lost a bit of its allure when its sales increased astronomically.

There’s a little bit of romanticism behind knowing of something that others don’t. It’s like a secret tropical paradise – it’s more precious when less people know about it. The more people know about your heavenly beach getaway, the more will come to visit. The more people that come to visit, the more businesses come to capitalize on its popularity. As it becomes more and more commercialized, even more people come to party in the summer months. The place gets loud and raucous and dirty, and your favorite beach, while still a premium spot for tourists, becomes a lot cheaper (I’m looking at you, Boracay). In the end, it all boils down to one scenario – the more people who know about it, the more people will spoil it.

Now I’m not saying that the same will follow for Gaiman’s work. You have to admit, however, that you now can’t go to a local bookstore without seeing his name. Comic book snobs (especially those who make it a point to refer to the books as “graphic novels”, which really is just a snootier term for what they are) shudder at the thought of your regular old Juan de la Cruz perusing the shelves and picking up a copy of Neverwhere just because it has “Dat Gay-mahn Guy’s” name on it. They call Coraline’s cinematic release a crime against nature, because of the addition of a character new to the beloved source material.

But I ask, what the hell is so bad about that? What’s wrong with more people appreciating what you do? I’m not entirely sure, but from my experience, there are about two reasons why aficionados dislike their goods entering the mainstream.

One is that they may envision the secret beach scenario I illustrated above. They fear the emergence of *gasp* Sandman charms for Crocs or *gasp again* Delirium popping up in an episode of Hannah Montana or *be still my raging heart* some other disgustingly mass-marketed product.

Another is that they run out of self-perceived “coolness”. With Sandman out in the mainstream, the comic snobs can’t scoff at the common fan’s fascination with colorful spandex and explosions. They can’t ridicule people for enjoying comic books’ equivalent of Michael Bay movies when everyone else is reading the works of Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison and Frank Miller, among other fantastic writers. They lose the ability to say “Psssh. You read X-men? If you want to read real comics… excuse me, Graphic Novels, you should read what I read.” It seems as though knowing about something that others don’t is a status symbol, a step up in the hierarchy of coolness.

Honestly, I’ve felt this way before, but I’ve always consoled myself in the very fact that more people are reading the stuff. So what if crappy adaptations take liberties with the source material (I still hate X-men Origins: Wolverine, by the way)? So what if your hyper-trendy next-door neighbor buys a few trade paperbacks of the Sandman solely because “everybody’s reading it”? I think it’s good that everybody’s reading it, because that means their tastes are improving, and if the taste of the mainstream as a whole improves, so does the quality of work the major corporations choose to publish. Your little snobby secrets are helping make everything better.

It’s because of this that I want to sell Ted the Bug out.

Ted is a character in one of my favorite titles, Bone. Drawn and written by the extremely talented Jeff Smith, Bone tells the story of three cousins and their adventures in a valley of fascinating people and creatures. The tale begins with Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone being driven out of their hometown following a disastrous event involving Phoney’s ambitions and some bad prunes. Lost in the wilderness and desperate for water, they chance upon a crudely-drawn map before being separated by a swarm of locusts. Fone Bone is able to hold onto the map and finds his way to the valley, where he meets Ted, the possum kids, a cigar-smoking dragon, a pair of stupid, stupid rat creatures, and Thorn, a young farm girl living with her grandmother.

Despite its simple, almost cartoon-ish start, the story develops into an epic journey, with an ages-old battle that extends into the dream-world and an unbelievable discovery about Thorn’s past. Jeff Smith masterfully melds the animated whimsy of early Disney cartoons with Tolkien-esque fantasy in his storytelling, while his art explodes with dynamism and expressiveness in every panel. The tale is full of wonder, charm, terror and humor, and is, in my opinion, a classic for all ages. The art and storytelling is simple enough to be read as a bedtime story, but the themes, plot and dialogue can be appreciated by any age group. It’s hard to find a story that can capture the emotions behind love’s regret and the corrupting influence of power in such a quaint, well-done package.

The critics agree, too. The winner of 10 (TEN!!!) Eisner awards and 11 (ELEVEN!!!) Harvey Awards, Bone was named one of Time Magazine’s Ten Greatest Graphic Novels. Scholastic acquired the rights to publish Bone in 2004, and just finished publishing the last volume in January 2009. What’s great about the Scholastic editions, and what sets them apart from Smith’s independent Cartoon Books label's editions, is that the series has been colored by award-winning colorist Steve Hamaker.

I realize I’m gushing about a comic book, but I really do want more people to read it. It’s a fantastic piece for all ages, and if I can get even just one person who chances upon this little bit of binary code on the vast universe that is the Internet, I’ll be happy.

I’m also writing this because Lauren gave me the most awesome gift for my birthday: The Art of Bone. I really love seeing Jeff Smith’s work in progress, and he’s been one of my biggest inspirations in the field of comics. To think that he’d been drawing these characters since his early childhood, and was able to develop them into a wonderful work of modern visual literature is just amazing to me, and I can only hope to achieve what he's accomplished with his dreams.

I am being such a fanboy right now it’s not even funny. But really, if you do so happen to read this post, read Bone as well. You’re going to love it.

Read on >