COMICS: Dave's Marvel Rant: Iron Fist, Avengers
Dave Van Domelen
Dave's Marvel Rant:
Iron Fist #1 (of 3) "An Imaginary Story, A Hoax, A Dream"
Avengers v3 #6 "Out Of Control"
Spoilers....
Iron Fist "In The Fold": As I read, every page brought new pain.
Mis-characterized characters. Gratuitous deaths. Bad cliches. Continuity
holes you could float the SHIELD Helicarrier through. Forced dialogue. It's
not so much actively bad as it's aggressively mediocre and blah. Jurgens
tries very hard to not write Iron Fist, it seems.
Now, because some readers get annoyed by reviews which just say "This is
so bad" and stop there, here's a page-by-page litany.
p1 - Sidewinder is talking like a thug. He's supposed to be a fairly
classy guy, who managed to build his own criminal empire at one point. He
does not call women "honey."
p2 - SHIELD uses consistently fatal defense systems? And Death Sting's
boytoy has only said two words and already he's annoying. And, so that Guice
shares some of the blame, those do NOT look like SHIELD agents at ALL.
p3 - Nothing too bad, but Sidewinder usually doesn't leave such a messy
trail.
p4 - Hold on. The Scorpio Key is in the hands of Scorpio of the new
Zodiac over in Alpha Flight. Okay, I now Jurgens mainly works at DC, but
that's no excuse for someone not pointing this continuity bit out. And, of
course, I seriously object to Sidewinder (even an out-of-character one) being
skeletonized to kick off such a lame book.
p5 - Splash page. Innocent.
p6 - Iron Fist was NOT NOT NOT trained as a ninja. He was trained as a
warrior monk. Yes, he has infiltration skills, but he comes from a Chinese
tradition, not Japanese. Also, for some odd reason, Guice pulled away the
white lenses from Fist's mask.
p7 - Cheap joke. Danny would not claim to be an exotic dancer to get
his costume through customs.
p8 - Another cheap joke, sticking Danny on the plane between a couple of
stereotypes.
p9-10 - Flashback #24236 of Danny's origin. At least I didn't notice
any important details changed.
p11 - Introduces a new annoying character.
p12 - Another cheap joke, out of character behavior by Danny.
p13 - Annoying character returns. Guice's art makes it look like Danny
is shot.
p14 - Seems annoying character is along for the long haul. Also, Danny
supposedly reconciled with Joy Meachum some time back, he should not be this
"haunted" by her.
p15 - Danny should NOT be so paranoid about Joy.
p16 - No new problems, but the annoying character continues to annoy.
p17 - Since when does Danny think of attackers as "prey?"
p18 - Not a bad page, although the second person narration is a bit
turgid.
p19 - How are the middle panels supposed to flow? The dialogue doesn't
really make sense in any order.
p20 - So-so page.
p21 - Rather pointless use of the Iron Fist power.
p22 - He's STILL paranoid about Joy? Gah. Fist's mask lenses
mysteriously reappear and disappear. And it's not just close versus far
shots, they appear in a close shot and vanish in a middle shot.
Unfortunately, since this is a 3 issue mini, I had to order the whole
thing sight-unseen. So I suppose I will continue to get it, if only to warn
others not to. This book blows.
Avengers "Earth's Mightiest Frauds?": After a piece of haggis like Iron
Fist, I may have trouble being even-handed for a bit, so apologies if I
nitpick this one or seem less enthused. Hopefully I'll recover enough by the
time I do my Capsules to be fair there.
Anyway, very short form plot: After Cap deals with simmering tempers,
everyone heads up to Project Pegasus to see if the Squadron Supreme was being
controlled. After poking around Pegasus, they're attacked by the returning
Squadron, who fare better this time out, but then the Pegasus director turns
out to be the Corruptor in disguise, and is revealed by Hawkeye and Warbird
just after Wanda uses a Hex to break his mind control. He goes down like a
sack of bricks, Avengers are cleared, Squadron is a bit bitter, and
Mr. Champion is revealed as being behind it all (as predicted by a clever
Usenetter).
Yes, that was the very short form. Perez pencils this, remember? Which
means Busiek can cram in a LOT more plot and story. Warbird approaches and
hits emotional meltdown, while Clint's rebellious streak is calmed by Cap
knowing the right things to say. Wanda continues to doubt her relationships
with the men in her life...Vision remains distant, and she starts to feel
like she's using Simon.
About my only substantive complaint is that there was one bit of story
left out. It feels like there was a missing scene with Warbird scanning the
Corruptor and pulling Hawkeye aside...we go from Carol having the "?" thought
bubble in panel 2 of the page to Hawkeye taking aim in panel 5, with neither
character visible in panels 3-4. Seemed a bit "pulled out of the backside"
to me.
Dave Van Domelen, "But remember -- this started because you let
yourselves get mind-controlled -- for what -- the *third* time? The FOURTH?"
- Captain America, being a little bitter at Hyperion