Review: We open this comic up at the very end of the Siege storyline, with Thor, Capt. Rogers and Iron Man looking over the ruins of Asgard. Cap and Iron Man get into an argument as Cap puts the screws to Tony(in what was actually a kind of funny, if childish scene), before Thor gets agitated that instead of assisting him and Asgard, his two oldest comrades are more interested in acting like unruly children. Thor gets through to the two men, and once everybody calms down, Thor takes Cap and IM to the underbelly of Asgard and shows the fractured portal to the other seven realms(Asgard and Earth being the other two), telling the two heroes that something needed to be done to make sure nobody from Earth snuck into the other realms, and vice-versa. Before the heroes can come up with a course of action, the fractured portal erupts, and sucks Cap, IM and Thor in. IM finds himself alone in an empty field, and decides to tinker with his armor so he can see where he was. While tinkering a large shadow appears behind Tony... From there we head to Cap, who after realizing he was no longer on Earth due to the unusual sky, finds a village and enters what seems to be a tavern full of trolls. Cap apologizes for disturbing the trolls(because he's awesome), before telling the trolls that he was lost, and that he was an ally of Lord Thor. Upon hearing that, all of the trolls decide to attack and eat Cap, but that's a mistake, as Cap beats down dozens of weapon wielding trolls(because he's awesome!). Upon trouncing every troll around him, Cap takes a sword, some chain mail armor, a shield and some arrows and leaves the tavern to continue trying to figure out where he was. Finally, Thor arrives in the realm of Vanaheim(which rhymes with Anaheim), but finds none of its citizens. After some wandering around, Thor is blasted from behind by some strong magic, and turns around to see the Enchantress(with some minions)telling Thor that his days were now numbered, ending this issue.
What I Thought: What the hell!?! This was the BEST BENDIS written comic I've read in quite some time! None of his usual painful dialogue was included, and the dialogue that was here made perfect sense, and showed that BENDIS does seem to have some grasp of Avengers history(which is something I honestly didn't think he had)... I mean, wow! The story was great and engaging, Alan Davis's artwork was exactly what you'd expect from a comic book legend, and the dialogue was excellent(which I can't mention enough!). Iron Man's scene was good, Cap's scene was fantastic, and Thor's scene was great... I really couldn't ask for anything more. One thing though... Spider-Man, Luke Cage and Wolverine didn't show up in this comic, which goes a long way in proving my point that those three characters bring out the absolute worst in BENDIS. If this keeps up, BENDIS will revert back to Bendis, because I'll have no reason to get on his case anymore.
Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.
Those poor stupid trolls never stood a chance!
Oh, how I love Alan Davis...and hell, even Bendis when he's actually trying! (Do you think maybe he has split personalities? One is named Bendis, and the other is named BENDIS!)
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I'm glad I finally know a little in the way of what this series is about now, and I'm very much looking forward to reading it at some point.
"Oh, how I love Alan Davis" You and me both Marc. He's def a comic book legend, hands down. As for BENDIS, I now honstly think if he was kept away from Spider-Man, Wolvie and Luke Cage he'd be a MUCH better writer. Those characters seem to be like his crutches or something... Whenever he feels like spouting off some bad dialogue, Spidey or the other two guys pop up!
ReplyDeleteI'm very much looking forward to the next issue! :-)
As a fellow Alan Davis fan, there's a really cool book about him you may want to check out someday. It's called Modern Masters Vol. 1: Alan Davis, and it's a book-length interview with him covering his entire career and with tons of Davis's pencil art, including a lot never before published.
ReplyDeleteThere are other books in the Modern Masters series too, covering tons of other great artists like George Pérez and John Romita Jr. They're like $10 apiece and most of them are on Amazon or mycomicshop.com.
Well, I added Red Son to my CB shop shopping cart last night(I found the trade for under $10), so after I finish commenting tonight I'll go and see if I can find out more about this Modern Masters series... I do enjoy reading behind the scenes type books about the comic industry.
ReplyDeleteThis is staring to get worrying - BENDIS to Bendis and Geoff Johns to GEOFF JOHNS AND SAINT BARRY. It's all a bit, well, Bizzaro...
ReplyDeleteOh, and Marc - I'm not a huge fan of Perez. Sure, he can do massive crowd scenes, and not compromise, but I'm just not a fan of his art style, so it's a bit ehhh really...
ReplyDeleteAnd when anyone says Alan Davis (Davies) I jus think of this guy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Davies
Yeah man, it's like the world is upside down now!!! All of the things I thought were unchangeable in comic books has gone all topsy-turvy! MADNESS!
ReplyDeleteIDK Nagash, after JLA/Avengers, I'm a big fan of George Perez. He's one of the few artists I can pick out.
Are you sure you aren't in Arkham?
ReplyDeleteSee, I can spot him a mile away - I think it's the way he does chests etc. They jus look like fake muscle suits ta me...
Well, if I was, that would probably explain A LOT! :D
ReplyDeleteEh, you could be right Nagash. I'm not really artistic enough to talk about Perez in great detail. I just remember really liking his work from that Avengers/JLA mini.