This week kicks off Marvel’s new Big Event comic the Age of Ultron…but it’s kind of a slow build so far. We’ll have to see if it picks up in the second issue, which comes out next week. Talk about accelerated shipping. Beyond the big stuff, we’ve got a good collection of quality comics. I think I liked every single issue I read this week, everything from the important titles like Avengers and All-New X-Men down to the smaller stuff like Green Arrow and Winter Soldier. Though now that I think about it, I need to buy more independent titles. Seriously, can anyone recommend any good comics that aren’t Marvel or DC?

But until then, I’m going to stick with the big guns, and it actually surprises me to say that Comic Book of the Week goes to Avengers #7! Where did that come from? I have really had it in for this series since issue #1, but Jonathan Hickman really knocked it out of the park this week. He actually made me interested in the New Universe.

They look just as surprised as I am

Let’s hope he can finally write a solid superhero story.

Comic Reviews: Age of Ultron #1, All-New X-Men #8, Avengers #7, Green Arrow #18, Green Lantern #18, Superior Spider-Man #5, Winter Soldier #16.

Age of Ultron #1

Age of Ultron #1
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Bryan Hitch

Is it just me, or has this Big Event been really low key? I realize Age of Ultron is not as media-friendly as last year’s Avengers vs. X-Men, but I just feel like Marvel are putting this out to make sure they have a summer event, because those sell. It doesn’t help that Age of Ultron is in a weird position of not knowing whether it’s supposed to be taking place in the regular Marvel Universe or if it’s some kind of Age of Apocalypse-like alternate universe thing. I know there will be a lot of tie-in comics, but I’m fairly certain that most comics are just going to go about their normal routine. And I think that’s a good idea. Marvel NOW! is still too fresh and just too good to ruin with a story like this. Still, maybe Age of Ultron will be exciting.

The comic begins with Ultron having already taken over New York City, with a big mothership-type base parked right on top of the whole thing. The city is in ruins, the streets are empty and everyone still alive is living in total fear. In the ruins we find Hawkeye, who storms into the townhouse headquarters of an armed gang, led by Hammerhead and the Owl, of all people. Hawkeye is there to free Spider-Man, and together they escape – though not before some Ultron drones show up to take everybody into custody. Hawkeye and Spidey sneak down into the sewers to reunite with the rest of the remaining superheroes, though nobody is particularly happy that Hawkeye showed his face in public like that. Everyone is living scared. The crew includes Luke Cage, She-Hulk, Emma Frost, Wolverine and a few others. Hawkeye isn’t happy with how they’re treating him – he did rescue Spider-Man, after all. He also isn’t happy that they don’t seem to have a plan for how to proceed. But Iron Man tells Hawkeye that Captain America is working on it…but then we see Cap hunched over in a corner with his head hanging forlornly between his knees. He’s a sad Cap.

Comic Rating: 4/5: Good.

The first issue of Age of Ultron was actually kind of underwhelming. I get what Bendis is going for, deciding to just throw us straight into the mess, but it only raises questions that don’t seem all that interesting to answer. How did the city get this way? Well I imagine Ultron stormed in, took out a bunch of heroes and now all that’s left is this ragtag group hiding in the sewers and the armed gangs that still live in the city. There, that’s probably the entire backstory. Now the rest of the story is probably going to be about those heroes rallying to save the world. So I guess that’s something. I just can’t get too worked up over that premise. I’ve never cared for Ultron, I don’t care about most of the stars and I just spent yesterday ranting about how Captain America is an asshole, so I don’t find that cliffhanger all that compelling.

But Bendis is a great writer and Hitch is one of my favorite comic book artists of all-time. So I have more than enough faith that the two of them will pull off something great! I’m definitely going to keep reading, though I don’t think Bendis is very good at these big events. He’s great at the big ideas and the dialogue, but the event as a whole? I dunno. If Age of Ultron is anything like House of M, Siege or Secret Invasion, it’s just going to be issue after issue of scenery-setting and pointless subplots before the Avengers all gather together for the climax and somebody shouts “Avengers Assemble!”

Also, was anyone else distracted by the idea that Spider-Man in this issue is supposed to be Doctor Octopus, from Superior Spider-Man? Bendis has been plotting out this story for years, so I’m pretty sure he expected Peter Parker to be in this role. But promotional material keeps pointing out that it’s Doc Ock still living in Peter’s body. That really kind of depressed me when it was revealed that Hawkeye’s big action sequence was all about rescuing Spider-Man. It robbed the moment of a lot of Bendis’ intended impact since it’s just Doc Ock and not the real Spider-Man.

All-New X-Men #8

All-New X-Men #8
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Stuart Immonen

This is shaping up to be a pretty interesting comic, and I have no idea where it’s going. I’m not even sure if Bendis is going to feature any story-to-story battles with super-villains or the usual comic book stories. I think this is just going to be one long saga about the young X-Men coming to the present day and dealing with whatever they’ve found. And I really think I’m on board with that. I don’t need super-villain fights and superhero action to keep me entertained. Bendis is doing a marvelous job keeping these young X-Men and their problems entertaining enough. It helps that this series comes out as often as it does. If we only got one issue a month and it was August before we were this far along, this series would be a total dud.

This issue is spent with young Angel meeting his modern day counterpart and becoming totally freaked out by what has happened to him. Who wouldn’t be? Back in the pages of Uncanny X-Force, Archangel was taken over by his evil Apocalypse programming, and he very nearly destroyed the entire world. X-Force had to kill him in the end, however, his body lived on, having been given a new life with a new personality/soul. He’s essentially a new character in Angel’s body, and he’s very excited to meet a young version of his old self. It’s…a little complicated. But the two go flying and fight some HYDRA goons (who come out of nowhere), then they meet the Avengers in a brief scene. This clues Captain America onto what Beast has done, but Cap and Beast mostly talk offpanel.

In the end, young Angel is so freaked out by the future that he breaks into Beast’s lab to try and use the time machine to go home. The others don’t have any luck in calming him down, so young Jean Grey simply strolls in and uses her newfound telepathy to turn Angel into a calm, happy person. Young Beast points out that she shouldn’t use her telepathy to mess with people’s heads like that, but Jean Grey just brushes off his concerns and tells them all that she is in total control.

Comic Rating: 4/5: Good.

Has Jean Grey ever been so chilling? I definitely did not see that coming! And it just gets me more excited for this series! Bendis has clearly put a lot of thought into all of the young X-Men and what roles they would play. I was worried that Angel would get the short straw and not have much to do, but Bendis is using him to great effect as the lone dissenter of the group. And I never would have seen this coming for Jean Grey! I thought Bendis’ idea to give her telepathy was just a story element he wanted to use, but it looks like he has major plans for how the early onset of telepathy is actually reshaping Jean as a character. That is fascinating stuff. The fight scene against HYDRA was fine (and very, very well drawn), and the scene with the Avengers was too short, but Bendis absolutely nailed all of the emotions and personalities of the young X-Men (as well as a few of the older X-Men. The Kitty/Iceman scene was fun).

Avengers #7

Avengers #7
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Dustin Weaver

Wowzers, I think Hickman might actually turn the New Universe into a worthwhile, viable concept. Color me surprised. For those of you who don’t know, the New Universe was an attempt by Marvel in the 80s to create a new universe of superheroes. It was completely disconnected from the regular Marvel Universe, with new heroes, new villains and new adventures – but it failed miserably. Marvel tried to reinvent the idea a few years ago with newuniversal, but that also failed. Well it looks like Hickman is back at it again, only this time he’s revamping the whole concept and weaving the New Universe into the regular Marvel Universe. And after this issue, color me very intrigued.

The main idea behind the New Universe was that all of their superheroes — Starbrand, Nightmask, Justice, Spitefire, etc. — received their powers from the mysterious and cosmic White Event. One day, the sky flashes a blinding white, and all of a sudden a bunch of regular people have super powers. Hickman revamps the concept so that the White Event is actually a universal defense mechanism. Whenever a universe is threatened, the Powers That Be launch the White Event, creating the same group of superheroes in each universe to act as a possible defense…or perhaps as harbingers of the end, I wasn’t entirely sure which. But now something is attacking the Powers That Be, destroying universes across the multiverse, and this triggers the White Event in the regular Marvel Universe. But because of the attack, the machine is broken, and this is the last ever White Event.

Down on Earth, the Avengers witness the White Event, which transforms Nihilo’s humanoid into the new Nightmask. He quickly tells the Avengers what’s happening, giving them a run down of the whole White Event concept. Interspersed with his explanation, we’re introduced to several possible hero candidates at a local college: there’s the young couple in love, the bully jock, the chic geek, and the science nerd. But as we know, the machine is broken. And when the Avengers arrive at the college to investigate, they discover that the immense power of the Starbrand didn’t go to any of those likely candidates. Instead, it has been given to nebbish dweeb, a nobody who has spent his entire life being ignored by romantics, jocks, geeks and nerds.

Comic Rating: 4/5: Good!

To his credit, Hickman makes this feel like an epic event, even though the trope of giving ultimate power to a loser has been around forever. Wasn’t that the entire point of the Alpha character over in Dan Slott’s Amazing Spider-Man? At least here Hickman is going for a dramatic take on the tale. And count me on board. It has been a weird, disjointed journey to reach this point, but I think this comic is finally picking up the right kind of steam. This was a very clever, very cool revamp of the New Universe concept. The story blends classic comic continuity with new, modern ideas to produce what will hopefully be a real Avengers epic. Hickman could have done a better job of getting us to this point, but I suppose all writers are allowed their eccentricities. Although now I have a weird fear that the next issue isn’t going to be about this new Starbrand at all, but will instead tell a completely unrelated origin story of Manifold.

Green Arrow #18

Green Arrow #18
Writer: Jeff Lemire
Artist: Andrea Sorrentino

This has got to be a great time to be a fan of Green Arrow. I mean, the character has his own successful television show! How did that happen? Green freakin’ Arrow! They couldn’t make a Wonder Woman show work. They haven’t made a Wonder Woman or Flash movie. But Green Arrow has his own TV show. And it’s good! Not just that, but now Green Arrow’s got a pretty good comic book series too. I can’t say if the first 16 issues of Green Arrow were any good. I read maybe the first two or three, and they were terrible. I can only imagine it got worse. So DC put one of their best writers on the series and the new direction has been cool so far.

Green Arrow’s world is crumbling down around him thanks to a dark archer named Komodo. Oliver Queen is bankrupt, his friends are dead, his headquarters has been destroyed and he’s been framed for the murder of his old business partner. Steve Trevor and the JLA are helping to keep the cops off his back for now, but there’s only so much they can do. So Ollie hooks up with a hacker that he long ago fired from Q-Core, and with his help, he sneaks back into Queen Industries to find the secret war room of his old business partner. Ollie begins to learn that his father, his business partner and the dark archer worked together on the island where Ollie was marooned. However, before he can learn too much, Komodo has managed to learn that Ollie broke into the room and now the police have surrounded the building!

Comic Rating: 4/5: Good!

This is a very good story, and I didn’t even scratch the surface of a half dozen other subplots. There’s so much going on, and Lemire is introducing so many interesting characters, that I’m definitely glad I decided to give this series another try. Like I said in my last review, the series is very much like Marvel’s Hawkeye, and that’s a good thing. Hawkeye is great, and Green Arrow can only benefit from being more like Hawkeye. Lemire is doing a great job of getting into Ollie’s head as well as building up the mystery of the island. The series doesn’t really have anything to do with the TV show Arrow, and both have very different premises, but if you’re eager to read a good Green Arrow comic series, now is the time.

Green Lantern #18

Green Lantern #18
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy

It’s the beginning of the end for Geoff Johns’ legendary run on Green Lantern, and as a result, the focus of the series is going to shift back to Hal Jordan and Sinestro, though Simon Baz seems to be along for the ride. I’m both intrigued and disappointed by these events. On the one hand, Simon Baz is a breath of fresh air to Green Lantern, and I really want to see Johns explore the character further. On the other hand, the conflict between Hal and Sinestro has been a driving force of this series for years, and it’s one of Johns’ biggest strengths. I look forward to seeing what he’ll do with the grand finale.

Baz arrives in the Land of the Dead, where he finds Hal Jordan and Sinestro. The two bicker about their ring, which Simon now wears. Hal wants to give the new guy a chance, but Sinestro just wants his ring back so he can get out of there and stop the First Lantern. B’dig and the other Guardians manage to defeat Black Hand, then use his Black Ring as a conduit to reach into the Land of the Dead to pull Simon free. There’s another struggle over the Green Ring, resulting in both Simon and Sinestro being pulled back to the Land of the Living, and Black Hand being transferred to the Land of the Dead. In a desperate move, Hal grabs Black Hand’s ring and wonders if he’s willing to kill himself if it means escaping back into the Land of the Living.

Comic Rating: 4/5: Good.

This was a strong issue bothered by some murky art. There’s a dark, shadowy painted style to the Land of the Dead, and at times it was really hard to understand who was speaking or what was happening. That was just the nature of the art. It didn’t help that we’d get the occasional bright, colorful page interspersed in all the darkness. The differing art styles were really jarring when placed up against one another. Sinestro also seems to have reverted to an earlier, jerkier personality. And Simon is really nerfed in favor of Hal. Simon quickly subverts to Hal being in charge and willfully offers to stay in the Land of the freakin’ Dead if it means Hal can escape and go save the world. Still, it’s a strong Hal issue, with a very haunting cliffhanger.

Spider-Man #5

Superior Spider-Man #5
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli

Oooooh, so that’s why Dan Slott brought Massacre back. It makes perfect sense now. I was disappointed by the choice of villain Slott used in the last issue, and I felt the series was drifting away from the elements that will make Doc Ock’s story compelling. Fortunately, Slott ups the ante big time, giving us some new directions for both Otto Parker and Octo-Spidey. It’s good to see that Slott isn’t going to hold back too much when it comes to his new take on Spider-Man. And as much as I want Peter Parker to come back, I kind of wish his ghost would go away for awhile and let the new Octo-Spidey shine.

Octo-Spidey hooks up with Uatu Jackson from Horizon Labs to use the boy’s facial recognition software in his spider-bots. That way, all of the bots he has around the city will be looking for Massacre. While waiting for the murderer to pop up, Otto pays a visit to the cute girl who offered him tutoring help in science class. The girl turns out to be a little person, and they have a wonderful dinner and a very flirty tutoring session. It was quite cute. After dinner, the spider-bots spot Massacre heading into Grand Central Station. Octo-Spidey informs the police before heading there himself, easily defeating Massacre. He’s unable to save everybody from being killed, however, so Otto picks up a gun and shoots Massacre dead. At least I think so. We see the gun to Massacre’s head, we see the blast, but the comic cuts away to a different scene entirely without actually showing Massacre’s dead body. Looks like we’ll have to wait until next issue to see if Octo-Spidey actually killed Massacre, or if he just pretended to in order to set up Massacre’s financiers.

Comic Rating: 4/5: Good!

I really, really hope that Doc Ock shot and killed Massacre. If Slott really wants to push his story, then he needs to definitely go that extra mile. Doc Ock needs to do things that Peter Parker would never dream of doing. People always ask why Batman doesn’t just kill the Joker. But a much more interesting question is what’s stopping someone else from killing the Joker? I would love it if Slott explored that idea, especially since everybody was in favor of Spider-Man killing Massacre; the cops, the mayor, all of the other civilians standing around. Otto is a hero for putting down that murdering madman, even if it goes against Peter Parker’s code of heroism. That would be a fascinating angle to explore, both in how ghost Peter Parker deals with this turn of events, and how he deals with this new killer reputation once he’s back in his own body.

The rest of the issue was fun too. That date with the science tutor was positively adorable, and I hope Slott has a lot more fun planned for that cute tutor. Seeing Doc Ock in a proper love story should be a lot of fun now that he’s not trying to sleep with people who think he’s Peter Parker.

Winter Soldier #16

Winter Soldier #16
Writer: Jason Latour
Artist: Nic Klein

Jason Latour is definitely giving it the old college try with this comic. But he’s not an A-list creator, like Ed Brubacker, and the Winter Soldier is far from an A-list character, so I don’t see a good future for this title. I don’t even know if I’m going to stick with it. My own interest in Bucky as a protagonist has waned. It’s a very solid book about Bucky being a badass spy, Latour has a nice handle on the grim, gritty and action-packed set pieces of a spy comic, but is that enough to sustain an ongoing series without Brubacker? We shall see.

Bucky still has ex-deep cover agent Robards in tow, but he’s not quite sure what to do with the man. He’s also not ready to come clean and tell Robards that he’s the one who killed Robard’s wife while he was brainwashed by the Russians. So instead, Bucky decides to lead Robards on a roundabout journey to find his wife’s killer by targeting an old Russian commander named Father Hammer, who ran an island for child soldiers called the Orphange. Bucky sneaks onto the Orphanage and finds that all of the kid cadets have gone native, and he has to fight one of their wild instructors, a guy with a big metal mouth. Bucky wins and the kids tell him that Father Hammer is long since dead, killed by the Electric Ghost. In flashback, we learn that the Electric Ghost was a girl named Tesla, and the Winter Soldier killed her parents and abducted her into the KGB.

Comic Rating: 4/5: Good.

I’ll admit that I was a little confused as to the actual plot of this series. I don’t think I understand why Bucky and Robards are going on a mission. I think Robards wants to find the man who killed his wife/handler…which is Bucky. But Bucky is too chicken to tell the man the truth, so instead Bucky has set up a wild goose chase that he himself is going to follow? What exactly is Bucky looking for? Why not just hand Robards over to Nick Fury and let Fury tell him that the Winter Soldier killed his wife. It’s ugly, but this is an ugly world. But I think Latour is trying to draw out that reveal, but that doesn’t make any sense considering these easier options. Still, I like his idea for the Electric Ghost. She should be a cool villain.

The comics I review in my Hench-Sized reviews are just the usual comics I pick up from my local shop any given week, along with a few impulse buys I might try on a whim. So if there are any comics or series you’d like me to review each week, let me know in the comments!