Avengers Movie Review: A Thoughtful Fangasm (SPOILERS)

When I saw the Avengers movie yesterday, I thought there were two film's competing for the (hypothetical) audience's attention, and while I enjoyed one, I could've done without the other. The first film is a thoughtful character piece which takes a look at the costs of military expansion and the theory of deterrence's validity. It's immediately established that Fury would never have unleashed Loki and his Chitau'ri allies on Earth were he not fiddling with the Tesseract as a means to make weapons. He claims that he was looking at a source of clean energy, but as is so often the case with the military industrial complex, the beneficial uses of the new technology just end up as the agreeable wrapping paper trying to hide the jingoistic core. He assembles the Avengers to clean up the mess he effectively caused, and when they find out what he's really been up to, he justifies it by blaming them for bringing superhuman menaces to Earth and claiming a need for self-defense. Self-defense is perfectly valid, but it's hard to believe that Fury and SHIELD would just stop at deterrence. This is an organization wire-tapping every electronic device around the globe, confiscating/stockpiling the weapons of the worst criminals in history, and sending their highly skilled agents to capture or kill people at will. If anything, it confirms Loki's idea that people want to be ruled-- that they would rather feel safe with Big Brother watching over them, than know any true freedom. Which works up to the point when it doesn't, when you end up with neither due to an invasion. The best review I've found of the Avengers is Something Awful's, which eloquently (if critically) expresses this problem. However, I disagree with the author's belief that the Avengers is a justification of the US brand of imperialism. If anything, it's advocating the ability of individuals over byzantine political systems. The Avengers are all unique, skilled, yet damaged individuals. They may have been collected by Fury, but when they form a team, they do so on their own terms. And after they defeat the enemies, they go their separate ways, but will still come together if needed for another crisis. The Avengers don't represent America or any other nation; they represent people who can and will save lives. The only will they follow is the will of Coulson, after he proved too good for our sinful planet. The other film, on the other hand, is exactly what I feared the Avengers would be; a sensationalistic fangasm, a film that exists with no purpose beyond putting a bunch of big stars in the same room. For the most part, the Avengers avoids this due to mixing thoughtful and sympathetic character scenes with the big set pieces. However, we all know which one gets asses in seats. So unfortunately, the latter half of the movie is one long, repetitive fight. Which would be fine if it were shorter, but when you keep the action at that high level for so long, it stops being so intense. The Chitau'ri have no personality beyond being Mooks for the Avengers to slaughter (I assume they don't have families, right?), and their design doesn't even go beyond most CG aliens. When the Chitau'ri ship appeared, the big metal snake reminded me of Shockwave's craft in Transformers 3. Any time I'm comparing something to a Michael Bay movie, that's not a good sign, though at least this movie has substance beyond the prolonged final battle and at least keeps its goddamned camera steady. My fear was that this would be the end of the super hero movie's unique qualities; once they get to the crossovers, they become the same recycled garbage that so often characterizes the comics. The superhero is no longer special, but a face in a crowd of hundreds of others, with the act of putting on a costume being just another profession in that universe (albeit one that looks ridiculous to most in our universe). The Avengers doesn't go that far, as it thankfully keeps to a smaller cast and features a well-written story on top of all the requisite explosions. Still, can the next Avengers movies keep that self-contained? Or will we inevitably see "Avengers V: Secret Infinity Siege " and " Avengers VI: Coulson Reborn"? My general perspective with Marvel media (or any big franchise divorced from its original creators, for that matter) is to assume it's going to be bad and be surprised when it isn't. But with the Avengers, at least, I was surprised. Highly Recommended.

The Jeph Loeb Drinking Game

Note: Do not try this at home. This Avengers: X-Sanction preview alone will get you completely plastered.

--When a fight scene erupts for no clear reason other than to have a fight scene, take a shot. (Avengers vs. Lethal Legion)

--When a bunch of heroes or villains are assembled in an "iconic" arrangement, take a shot. (The Avengers are Marvel's Big Five-- Wolverine, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk by way of the Red Hulk-- joined by the Falcon, presumably as a token. The Lethal Legion are veteran Avengers foes Living Laser, Grim Reaper, Whirlwind, and Radioactive Man. The latter of which hasn't been a conventional super-villain in a long time, instead acting as a loyal soldier for China).

--When a character makes a quip with the same amount of wit as a schoolyard taunt, take a shot. (Spider-Man: "Why is there never a jailbreak on nice, pleasant, warm nights in New York?" Wolverine: "Why is it you never shut up?")

--When a character goes into heavy-handed, mopey first-person caption narration, take a shot. (Cable's internal monologue about being a soldier).

--When the conflicts are revealed to be the acts of an ubermensch villain manipulating events with far more capability than they should be able to have, take a shot. (Not seen here, but with Loeb's history of using villains like Hush, Romulus, Ultimate Doctor Doom, The Intelligencia, and others, there's often a mastermind with unconvincingly extreme mastery).

--When a character is brought back to an "iconic" state in a way that defies everything previously established, take a shot. (This series is about bringing Cable back from the dead. Even though his absence wasn't exactly derailing the Marvel Universe.)

Now excuse me as I go into the ER for alcohol poisoning.

The Limp Arrow Awards For Worst Comics Of 2010

Originally I had entitled these end-of-year rant posts the "Humperdoozie ", after the inbred descendant of Christ from Preacher. However, I realized that might come across as though I equate crappy comics with developmental disabilities, and I don't want that. So I've changed the award name to something more specific and less offensive-- except to people who can't get it up because of nanite arm stump infection. Fortunately, none of them are coming forward any time soon.

Here's the best way I can express my opinion about the year's comics-- 2010 was the year when I stopped identifying myself as a superhero comic fan. I'd enjoyed a lot of the stuff from 2009, and I still enjoyed some things in 2010. But this was the year where I finally emancipated myself from specific allegiances, because I'd found other interests that filled the void. I've found franchise superhero comics largely an Ouroburos that somehow kept finding more of its tail upon which to nosh, and I don't know if it was just getting fed up with the directions of comics, or focusing my attention on other mediums that told the kinds of stories I actually wanted to see.

But let's put it this way...you know how Mark Millar wrote his own afterword for Superior #1, saying about how comics fans needed new superhero characters to replace the tired constructs of the Golden and Silver Ages? Well, I found my new hero. His name is Solid Snake. :P

Anyway, onwards with the awards...

Worst Story Resolution: X-Men: Second Coming. After dragging the DeciMation out for five years, Marvel resolves it via living deus ex machina Hope Summers, whose Phoenix powers revive the mutant race with....five new mutants. That's equal to the amount of mutants killed in the crossover, significantly less than the amount of mutants killed since the DeciMation, and not even remotely worth the moral compromises Cyclops made in the name of chasing a messiah child without any evidence to support his faith. Yet now Cyclops is the hero, and everyone loves him, even though he's treated every mutant he wasn't sleeping with (re: every mutant except Emma and maybe Wolverine ) as expendable. Seeing Scott awarded the Medal of Honor by Captain America was especially jarring, since Cap wouldn't have stood for the shit Scott did, even in a wartime situation.

Worst New Direction: JMS' Superman. Walking through small towns trying to find the real America was corny when Green Lantern and Green Arrow did it in the 70's. But at least they were open to learning from their experience. Superman's just ditching his responsibilities to the entire world so he can slum it with mere mortals and feel better about himself. At best he's a politician going on a campaign trail to win his constituents' favor, and at worst he's an anthropologist fascinated by the behavior of us chimpanzees. Neither seems like a good use of his talents, and it's an especially jarring waste of a year's worth of comics.

Worst Move For Diversity Of Representation: DC Comics killing off the Ryan Choi Atom. Was Ray Palmer such an original and compelling personality that he had to return to the role at the cost of the new guy's life? What made him so much more " iconic " in that minor role, that he would have his competition eliminated by divine intervention...oh, wait, he's a white Silver Age character. And Ryan's a Chinese-American from the current generation. That explains it, and it's hardly the only example of the classic white guys taking back roles from their more diverse counterparts. At least in this case, people who enjoyed the All-New Atom comic/don't enjoy DC's current direction got a karmic bone by seeing the villain who killed Ryan sentenced to death by Snoo-Snoo.

Worst Comic About A Junkie Ex-Sideckick Who Cradles A Dead Cat During A Heroin Hallucination After Being Unable To Get It Up With The Supervillain Babymama Of His Dead Daughter Due To A Nanobot Infection In His Arm Stump: Rise of Arsenal. Okay, it didn't have too much competiton, but still, you can't make that shit up. At least, you couldn't until a professional writer DID.

Worst Trend: Identity Sub-Franchising. The Incredible Hulk has become The Incredible Hulks, with every character of his supporting cast now being a similar gamma-powered monster. Batman has become Batman Inc., franchising his identity built through a lifetime of suffering out to anyone who passes the job interview. Wolverine's gone from a solo X-Men spin-off to his own franchise, with a team book of is own and books for his clone daughter and evil son. There are two Captain Americas, a family of Flashes, and a Lantern Corps of every color. Has everyonejust given up on the idea that being a superhero can be inherently special? Or is it just

Limp Arrow 2010 Lifetime Unachievement Award: Mark Millar. See the above comment, except that his " new " concepts are a book about comic book fanboys playing at being heroes, a book about a Batman rip-off acting like a Joker rip-off, and a book about a Shazam rip-off. If you don't want to do the same old thing as everyone else, don't do the same old thing as everyone else! Filing off the serial numbers and adding a lot of swearing and "timely" pop culture references isn't good enough.

Red Hulk Volumes 1-3 Review: Gar for Rulk

The Concept: A new Hulk has emerged, one who is red-skinned, brutally intelligent, cheerfully merciless, and just as tough as his predecessor ( if not tougher ). Little is known about him, but he utterly hates the original Hulk and will stop at nothing to get revenge. If you thought that Bruce Banner's life was just one endless conga line of tragedy and degradation, this confirms it.

The Authors: Jeph Loeb ( writer ), Ed McGuiness ( main penciller ), Dexter Vines ( main inker ), with guest art by Arthur Adams, Frank Cho, and seasoned Hulk veteran Herb Trimpe.

The Assessment: The internet has recently spawned the word " gar ", which describes a character of such overwhelming masculinity that even the most culturally respectable of heterosexual men fall for them, a giggling schoolgirl by contrast. Urban Dictionary gives us a better definition, and the Red Hulk gives us a good example.

" Rulk " ( as he's more commonly called ) is gar incarnate. Every act he makes is a feat of ridiculously over-the-top masculinity. In his very first appearance, he kills the original Abomination with a handgun sized proportionally to massive Hulk hands. And that's just the start of his frenzy of hilarious beatdowns upon hero and villain alike. When he fights the Silver Surfer in an alternate universe, he drains the guy of his cosmic power, breaks his neck Steven Seagal-style, and flies away on his surfboard. And when the omniscient cosmic being known as the Watcher is drawn to observe Rulk's actions, Rulk punches the guy out to spare us his hypocritical speech about never interfering with the events around him.

If that paragraph has not convinced you that this makes for an entertaining story, there's nothing else I can say.

Characteristic to contemporary comics written by Jeph Loeb, the plot to Red Hulk is either thin or outright absent. If the rule of drama contradicts the rule of cool, the rule of cool wins. Why does Thor appear to battle Rulk? So Rulk can pull him into outer space and beat the shit out of him with his own magic hammer. Why does She-Hulk form a new " Lady Liberators " of superheroines to take down Rulk, when a unisex team would do just as well? So we can get Rulk battling a bunch of women in colorful tights ( though to Loeb's credit, this is not played for T&A, but as an opportunity for uncommonly-seen superheroine girl talk ). And why is there a story arc where cosmic gamesmasters reunite the original Hulk's old team of misfits, the Defenders? So Rulk can form his own team of villains, predictably called the Offenders. There's an ongoing plot about where the Rulk comes from and the larger gamma-science conspiracy behind him, but that's just window dressing for seeing a big red jerk beat up guys in tights while offering goofy banter.

There's little to nothing in the way of intellectual stimulation here. Fortunately, the series compensates in many other realms. It's got very funny dialogue, especially when the Green Hulk appears to offer his third-person sentence-fragment wisdom; you feel like the various Marvel guest stars are subconsciously aware of the absurdity this story has, and are acting accordingly. It has slapstick violence to the point of resembling an old Tom and Jerry cartoon, in an era where most superhero comics favor horror-movie levels of blood and guts. And it's got the perfect art; Ed McGuiness already skews entertainingly towards the cartoony, and the adventures of irradiated steroid freaks fit right into that category. Guest artists in Volume 2 Adams and Cho also get the memo to go as ridiculous as they can.

There's not much in the way of drama to Rulk-- which isn't to say that there aren't poignant moments ( the Green Hulk especially is portrayed in a sympathetic light, since while he's not much for brain power, he is treated as a genuinely good-hearted monster ), but that it's used as an inverse of comic relief ( since this is such a ridiculous story to begin with ). But if you want something that's silly-- and that's something that everyone needs sometimes--you can hardly do better. And for the heterosexual males who enjoy the Rulk's escapades-- he proves that male sexuality is a moving target, and that's okay.

Strongly recommended if you're reading with a sense of irony, mildly recommended if you're not.