Black Panther and Punisher War Journal

First, I want to say that everybody's crazy about Matt Fraction's Invincible Iron Man, which I frankly was somewhat unimpressed by. Why have I never heard anybody talk about his Punisher War Journal run? Perhaps because it started during Civil War, the event that got me into comics, I've always been curious about War Journal, but just recently got the chance to read the first 19 issues. This is Punisher for super-hero fans. I'm not a huge Punisher fan. I've read bits and pieces of Punisher Max and a few of his mini-series. It seams like every time I've read it, he's infiltrating some sort of gang with lots and lots of convoluted characters who I could care less about. War Journal brings him into the mainstream Marvel Universe, fighting super-villains and being a bad-ass. That is what The Punisher should be.

As for Civil War, it's an epic event that I've spent the past few days re-reading. At this point, I'm about two thirds of the way through the event, reading all the tie-ins that I bought way back when. I'm generally pretty happy with the event thus far.

The one exception is Black Panther's tie-ins, which read like something I'd expect from a Tyler Perry movie. I mean, Rhodey is a strong black character, probably one of the strongest in the Marvel Universe. He shows up and pretty much immediately accuses a white character of being racist. Given what the guy said to him, it wasn't entirely out of character, but that scene added little to the story and, like much of the rest of the comic, leaned far too heavily on the race of the character.

My real issue with Black Panther, aside from the fact that it seams like every one of his stories that I read is poorly written, is that he's so defined by his race that it gives the authors an excuse to not develop him as a character. The Falcon, Patriot, War Machine, and a handful of others are characters who happen to be black, but also have personalities and compelling back-stories. Even Luke Cage, who is certainly defined by his race, can be compelling because of his attitude and the situations he tends to get himself into.

I haven't read much Black Panther, because the first few stories I read were so bad. It is possible that I just read the bad stuff, and like all characters, I'm sure it depends greatly on the writer. If anybody reads this and is a fan of Black Panther, please let me know if there are any runs on the title that are worth checking out.

I just bought a long box

So when I was telling people about my 2011 project to re-read all of my comics, one person jokingly said that he would spend 2011 trying to read all the comics that he'd bought and not read. I laughed, then I got a good deal on a long box of books. It looks like I'm going to spend the beginning of this year reading those books.

One series that I just read and really enjoyed was Great Lakes Avengers "Misassembled." It's written by Dan Slott, so it must be good. Essentially, the GLA is a team of z-list heroes in the mid-west with weird powers. One member has the ability to add as much fat to her body as she wishes and can get rid of it by making herself throw up. Another member is a reluctant immortal (seen it 1,000 before!) who is constantly trying to kill himself. And of course, there is Squirel Girl who throws nuts at people and talks to squirels. This book pulls off the over-the-top Deadpool style humor without feeling forced like many of the Deadpool titles out these days.

I've also been reading some classic What If issues. I've always liked the nature of What If books, because of the way they so often end in the apocalypse or utopia. However, I did figure out why it is no longer a regular title. These days, if someone thinks of a What If, they just make it regular continuity. I mean, there are actually books titled "What if Spiderman hadn't married Mary Jane?" and "What if The Punisher became Captain America?" In addition, there are plenty of "What if so and so had lived?" or "What if so and so had died?" Overall, though, I like the way What If books are almost always self-contained stories. They prove that any story can be told in 22 pages or less. Stan Lee would tell you that any story can be told in 1 page, but I don't quite buy that.

That's all I've got for now...

More on the Clone Saga

This will probably be a relatively short entry. Basically, I've been trying to finish up the Spider-Man Clone Saga this week. I'm about two or three story arcs from the end, and am starting to realize why so many people hated this story. Read through as a whole, especially if you skip some of the weaker stories, it created some cool characters and told some fun stories. I love Ben Reilly as a character, but forcing myself to read absolutely everything back to back like this makes me sick of how long every reveal takes and some of these stories make no sense and are just bad. The Return of Kaine and Web of Carnage story arcs both had potential. They both featured some cool characters coming after Ben, but Return of Kaine had Kaine involved in some kind of stupid gladiator-type thing, and Web of Carnage was simply poorly written. Even some of the art was unbearable in these two arcs.

Anyway, hopefully soon I'll be able to close that 3/4 box of clone saga books and start reading stuff that I bought when I first started collecting. Civil War here we come!(I hope.)

Spider-Man: Redemption and the Clone Saga in General

So it's officially January 1st and time to really start reading. Last night before I went to sleep, I read Spider-Man: Redemption. This mini-series was the sequel to Spider-Man: The Lost Years. It starred Ben Reilly, Kaine, and Janine, Ben's love interest. There was a lot of internal monologue, and like most of the clone saga, I'd have hated to read it one issue at a time. That being said, it was a solid 4 issue story.

I'm sure that I'll touch more on this in future entries, but unlike most people, I kind of like the Clone Saga. It did go on too long, and was a bit convoluted at times, but it created some very interesting characters like Kaine and Ben Reilly. I've really liked that in the past year or two Marvel has finally used these characters. It would be really cool if they figured out a way to bring Ben back, but I'm not holding my breath.

Anyway, I'm tired, hung over, and have a lot more reading to do today, so I'll see you next time.