Continuing on my reading of the Starlinverse, the crossover Annihilation:Quest books, as I'm such a sucker for space opera. I'm still not sure how I feel about the last Quasar issue, with Moondragon becoming a true dragon, so I've not put my snark filter on and ripped the issue to shreds. I'm withholding judgement on that one.This one, Nova 7, I have to say that I'm going after. First off, Granov's covers get a thumbs up, they've been decent promotional posters. I think that I'm a little put out that Chen needs two inkers to get everything to come together each issue. Are they that far behind the deadline? Is Scott Hanna simply too slow? I will say that I'm surprised at the story arc here. What is a little odd is the separation of the series that we're following: Nova, Star Lord, Quasar and the interminable Wraith. I was really hoping for some overlap on the stories to keep our interest as we jumped from book to book in the publishing schedule.
I liked the idea of a kree Nova, but Abnett and lanning had it in for her after only two issues. So we're stuck again with Richard Ryder, who has been a sap since Sal Buscema was delineating him in the 1970's. And worse, we've had to deal with three issues of Gamora, deadliest waxer in the galaxy, to judge by her costume.
I mean, must we? I thought that we'd moved beyond this. Its inspired an entire server full of internet snark over costumes like this, and, besides, Gamora used to have the kick-ass fur on her collar. If you were her, would you possibly ditch the fur? Space is very cold, and we wouldn't want to excite the fanboys now, would we?Drax the Destroyer makes another appearance, and this time shows up infected with the technovirus, which makes no sense whatsoever. We're going to get into another of those, "did you actually do your homework?" scenarios by the end of the issue. After all, Drax is a Golem, pure and simple. Soul of Heather's father, trapped in dirt and formed by the god Chronos. The prior issue had him getting a beat down by Nova, which is already somewhat questionable, but they've decided to make Nova a major cosmic badass so OK. But there is no way that Drax should get infected with a technovirus. If anything, he shjould be more immune than Super Skrull, who is clearly fighting the virus over in the Wraith book. Finally, at the end of the issue, Drax puts on a space suit to go chase Nova, which is clear idiocy. Drax has never needed a space suit in his life.
And yes, these are fanboy points, but if you're going to play with the toys, you've got to respect some of the continuity as well. The Starlinverse wasn't built in a day, you know.
Final points: Nova has taken a couple twists that you wouldn't have seen at the first issue, which is good. Star Lord is great fun and far, far, far too short a run. It should be running for 7 or 8 issues to really give us the epic that team deserves. Wraith is boring and stupid. Ronin tortures the Wraith for two days to get him to talk, the Wraith finally laughs at him and says, "I live for pain." and then proceeds to conveniently tell the Accuser everything he needs to know. Quasar is a good quest book, also one that should be about 8 issues long, as 4 simply doesn't give you that good ol' "Marvel-epic from the 70's when the writers would smoke a spliff and go off on yet another tangent for an issue" feel.
And this could use it that feel. In fact, it would totally set if apart if it actually had that. Lets not overlook the value of being different.
Coming up next: an entire generation of children have been born in between Cho's Avengers #3 and #4. We talk to many of those children as they graduate college and see what they think of the Ultron epic that wouldn't end.
5 comments:
You know, that costume, and several just like it from Image archives that I've seen over the past weeks, pretty much conclusively prove my theory that these artists don't know what real women look like naked.
I mean, there's the Surgically Removed Nipples thing, which Sequential Tart spoofed, but then there's also the apparent unawareness of how, um, cameltoe works and why it happens, mechanically speaking.
Because there's no way you could have something like that, so narrow in the crotch, and not have a frontal wedgie with it.
I think they really must think we women are shaped like a Barbie Doll down there, with nothing but three little holes (this last may in fact be overly optimistic on my part) - I can see I'm either going to have to draw some pretty explicit pictures, or find a copy of a medical textbook to scan and post...
This was actually the comment taht I had in art school when looking at the gods of the painting world: the Da Vincis and the like. Did they not have lovers and wives in the real world to look at? I mean we all know about comic artists, but still... Da Vinci was a big deal. He should have been able to get laid, not to mention talking the Renaissance version of Sophia Loren to pose for him.
Gamora was at her sexiest with small boobs, a fur collar and a knife sharp enough to kill the Magus. Now THERE was a woman.
Agreed about Gamora - I haven't much liked the portrayal of her in this revivification of the "Starlinverse" (even Starlin didn't do much with the character in the 70s). Interestingly, I saw a drawing from the late 60s or early 70s, by someone whose name I can't remember, reprinted in one of the issues of Following Cerebus that just HAS to be the inspiration for Gamora. At some point I'll get around to digging it up and scanning it... I'd like to post it along with one of Starlin's 70s Gamora illustrations, the PornoGamora in Nova, and a photo of a model in an outfit that's pretty close to what PornoGamora wears... just to show the descent into absurdity.
I'd love to see the drawing from the '60's that you found. Everyone has to draw their inspiration from somewhere after all. I just love finding it out.
The "starlinverse" is pretty much 45% kirby, 45% starlin and about 10% everyone else that ever tried to make sense of the cosmic thing. I guess that claremont gets about half a percent for the Shiar galaxy, but still.... Starlin brought up the universal protector thing, revived Him into something special, was one of the few who out Kirbyied Kirby with Thanos; a much more engaging and dangerous villan than Darksied when handled right. There will be 4th world haters at my door anytime now, but I simply prefer Thanos as the big bad, even though Darksied is great as well.
Yeah, the Starlin stuff was great - I was very young (under 10, I think), and didn't see a whole lot of it, but loved what I saw (some Capt. Marvel, Adam Warlock). His later revisiting of Warlock (who was always coolest in his own milieu, light-years away from any goofy superheroes, IMO) wasn't so great, but I had to read them anyway.
I think Thanos, when done right, is one of the best comic characters out there - much more interesting than Warlock (who's so underdeveloped he barely counts as a character), actually.
I'll try to dig up the Gamora source image this weekend, time allowing. Regardless, I'll let you know when I've got it online.
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