Front Lines - Mini-Reviews (Week of Feb 24) and "Archie" Pilot

All-New All-Different Avengers #6 by Mark Waid and Mahmud Asrar

Summary: A time displaced Kang attacks the All-New All-Different Avengers.  He reveals there was a glitch in the timestream stranding him in this time.  He recruited villains like Equinox, Cyclops, Radioactive Man, and has taken over the Vision’s programming in order to create a new Kang Dynasty in our time.

Nova has gone to Jersey City to find Ms Marvel after both of them were thrown off the team because of Vision’s manipulations. They realize Vision is the enemy and head back to the team.

Captain America and Thor have been stranded in the future.  Captain America finds out that Thor is really a cancer-stricken Jane Foster.  Cap decides they need to reunite Thor with her hammer.  They are attacked by Equinox drones, but they make it to the hammer still sitting where it was left in the present.

Back in the present, Kang is absorbing energy from the hammer.  Iron Man manages to face Vision to reboot.  The Avengers also find out that Mr. Gryphon has been Kang all alone. The Avengers attack Kang, including Cap and Thor who have returned to the present time.  Kang tries to fight back, but Thor picks up the hammer still in this time, weaponizing a paradox.”  Using two hammers, they are able to finish Kang off.  Thor drops the second hammer back where it was sitting so she will be able to recover it in the future.  Vision asks the others for forgiveness.  Later, Cap goes with Jane to her next cancer treatment.

Mike Maillaro: It’s taken a little while for this book to find it’s footing, but I think it’s sort of getting there.  I liked the character moments here, especially between Cap and Thor.  And Kang has been one of my favorite Avengers villains for a long time now.  Or maybe no time at all.  It’s hard to tell with Kang.  

I thought Kang’s plan was actually mostly sensible for a change.  I thought it was pretty creative that the Avengers figured out that the best way to defeat Equinox was to figure out which was the oldest one and defeat him, which took out the rest of the future Equinoxes.  And Thor with two Mjolnirs was a little insane, but looked cool.  I do have concerns about them just leaving Mjolnir on the ground for just any worthy fool to come along and pick it up.  That won’t come back and bite the Avengers in the ass...

Score: 4/5

Batman and Robin Eternal #21 by James Tynion IV, Scott Snyder, and Tony Daniel

Summary: Several years ago, Harper Row’s mom was killed by Mother.  Batman decides to stay in Europe to finish mopping up her operations.  He sends Robin back to protect Gotham (with some help from Superman).  Batman heads to a hotel in Eastern Europe.  The woman who runs it knows Mother’s backstory.  Mother grew up in the country of Gardevia, basically a crime haven. The Russians decide to take it over.  The girl poisoned a soldier, which made the Russians decide to take out the whole bordertown she lived in, including her parents.  The girl is stabbed seven times, but she does not feel pain anymore.  She kills all the soldiers and leaves to start a new life.   Bruce thanks the hotel owner for the story.  He leaves.  Mother arrives and kills the woman.

Bruce considers taking in Harper and her brother, but he believes that would just prove Mother was right all along.  He does confront Harper’s dad, a criminal, and tells him he needs to step up and take care of his family.  If he fails, he will find Batman waiting for him.  Batman tells the Batcomputer to purge all traces of the kids Mother had targeted.

Mike: Flashbacks have been a pretty heavy part of Batman and Robin Eternal, but this was the first issue that was completely in flashback.  I actually thought it worked real well with Batman exploring Mother’s back story.  We are starting to run out of issues here.  I am actually very concerned that Mother will be another “one-shot” Batman villain.  Too often over the last several years, I’ve seen potentially awesome Batman villains show up never to be seen again.  I am hoping Mother doesn’t fall on that list.  

Score: 4.5/5

Justice League 3001 #9 by Keith Giffen, JM DeMatteis, and Scott Kolins

Summary: On the planet Naltor, Lady Styx has succeeded into bringing Eclipso back to life, using the body of Terrance Magnus.  She wants Eclipso to destroy the Justice League, including his sister Teri, now the Flash.

Batgirl, Flash, and Wonder Woman arrive at Cadmusworld hoping to find information that will help them fight back against Lady Styx.  The planet is pretty much wiped out.  The heroes are attacked by Scullions.  Flash wants to run, but Diana wants to fight back...even though these Scullions were powerful enough to kill most of the Justice League.  Flash uses her speed to figure out the Scullions weakness, they are all one shared consciousness.  The heroes head back to Takton-Galtos to see how they can use this knowledge against their enemies.

Supergirl, Fire, and Ice are also looking for clues on how to stop Styx.  They head to the planet Bodhi, which she has already conquered.  They find it to be a wasteland too.  They are attacked by giant buglike creatures.

Eclipso gathers Lady Styx’s forces, who now call themselves the Legion of Death.

Adventures of Superman’s Ex-Girlfriend Lois Lane, and Ariel Masters, Genius at Large, by Giffen, DeMatteis, and Colleen Doran

Summary: In this backup story, Lois is looking at a propaganda video which declares the Justice League to be enemies of freedom.  She hopes to learn more about Lady Styx.  Ariel thinks it off that Lois would want to fight against Lady Styx considering Lois helped kill the Justice League back in our time.  Lois blames Superman for ruining her life.  She’s glad she killed him, and when she was resurrected by Cadmus, she wanted to do it again.  But Lady Styx took that from her. Ariel and Lois decide to work together to take out Lady Styx.

Mike: Justice League 3001 continues to be one of my favorite books, and I’m pretty bummed out that it won’t be part of DC Rebirth.  But instead of getting pouty and drop this book, I am just going to enjoy what we have left.   The Legion of Death is awesome.  Take the Legion characters and put a real dark spin on this.  This is a very different version of the 31st Century.  And now it makes me really want to see this creative team do a new Legion book.  SOMEONE MAKE THAT HAPPEN FOR ME!

Score: 4.5/5

Justice League #48 by Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok

Summary: Anti-Monitor has been killing universes looking to free himself from the anti-life equation.  The Crime Syndicate tell the Justice League that they can help find and stop Anti-Monitor.  They need Luthor’s Kryptonite to restore Ultraman’s powers.  The Justice League aren’t sure they should trust the Crime Syndicate, but the Crime Syndicate seems determined to get revenge against Anti-Monitor for destroying their reality.  Wonder Woman gets them to agree to return Cyborg’s consciousness to his body.  She also tries to get them to release Jessica from the Power Ring’s influence, but the ring is too powerful.  The Crime Syndicate doesn’t believe that can be reversed.  Wonder Woman reluctantly hands over the Kryptonite.

They locate Anti-Monitor destroying Gotham City.  The Justice League and Crime Syndicate arrive.  Anti-Monitor orders Batman to get out of his Mobiu chair.  Hal calls the Green Lantern Corps to help fight back against Anti-Monitor.  Superwoman and Wonder Woman attack Anti-Monitor.  He is able to defeat them.  Superman and Ultraman join in the fight. Meanwhile, Grail appears and takes Steve Trevor.  Anti-Monitor destroys Ultraman.

A boom tube appears, and Luthor arrives leading an army of parademons.  Superwoman realizes she is about to give birth.  

Mike: Maybe Darkseid War has stretched out a little too long, but I really love all the huge changes we’ve seen in the status quo.  I have no idea where this fits in DC continuity, and I suspect most of the changes will never be heard of again once this story is over, but I’ve still enjoyed it a lot.  I really did not expect to see Ultraman get killed so easily since so much of this issue was about him getting his power back.   And then Luthor shows up in the end, completely throwing the entire table out of whack.  Great issue!

Score: 3.5/5

Strayer #2 by Justin Jordan and Juan Gedeon

Summary: A powerful being called the Emergent has summoned his human lieutenant Sysad.  An Archemancer has been found.  They believed that they were all dead.  High Arbiter Kruegen must be brought out of retirement to kill this new threat.  

Meanwhile, Strayer and Mala are hunting a creature called a Slep.  Mala uses magic to stun it.  Three men with crossbows surround Strayer and Mala.  It turns out they have a caravan.  Strayer offers to hire them to take him and Mala to Laland.

Mala is not happy about traveling this way.  And the caravaners seems reluctant to take her on as a passenger.  Suddenly, the caravan comes under attack by men with bow and arrows.  Strayer joins the battle. One of the archers says they aren’t after the caravan, they are after a massive creature called a Kashas.

Mike: I hadn’t really been following Aftershock, but my colleagues here said I should check them out.  They know how much I love comics that break outside of the “superhero” mold.  Strayer actually reminded me a bit of some of the titles Crossgen put out.  I did think that the first two issues may have been a little too frantic, with a lot of action and not enough characterization, but I still think this book has a lot of potential.  If nothing else, it’s a great hybrid of fantasy and sci-fi, and I’ve been a sucker for those kinds of stories since I first read Piers Anthony’s Apprentice Adept series.  Score: 3.5/5

Street Fighter X GI Joe #1 by Aubrey Sitterson and Emilio Laiso

Summary: M. Bison and Destro are doing a World Warrior tournament sponsored by MARS Industries. The qualifying rounds are over, and we’re down to the final 16 competitors.  

Snake Eyes def. Crimson Viper (who was working for Baroness).  

Rufus def. Baroness.  We find out that the prize here is a powerful weapon that is powered by one on one combar.  Baroness flirts with Destroy and is invited to sit with him on the dias.

Hakan def. Roadblock.  Roadblock loves the smell of Hakan’s oil and tells him he wants to use it in his kitchen.

Jynx def. Ryu.  We find out that Jynx had trained with Ryu.  They seem to be working together, although a powerful rage threatens to overcome Ryu. He warns he to be careful after she defeats him.

M Bison says everything is working according to plan, and the weapon will be ready by the time he steps into the ring.

Mike: Maybe I am a Street Fighter snob, but I actually cringed when I saw on the credits page that this book starred C. Viper, Rufus, and Hakan.  Ryu and M. Bison were the only Street Fighter characters I cared about here.  Thankfully, the GI Joe side had Snake Eyes, Baroness, Roadblock, Jynx, and Destro.  That sort of helped.

This book was fine for what it was, but the text piece at the end of the book showed me that the creative team didn’t really get GI Joe at all.  “What do GI Joe fans want more than anything else?  Combat!”  Uhm.  No.  I have read GI Joe comics for 15 years, and have literally read every GI Joe comic ever read.  The best GI Joe comics are character pieces after the costs of war.  This wasn’t a comic book, it was a kind of silly video game.  This just felt like a huge oversimplification of the GI Joe franchise for me, and made me feel like this was a terrible creative team to do this book.

Maybe I am just taking this too seriously...

Matt Graham: The Capcom picks in this issue were absurd. As an avid SF player, I can only assume they wanted the new blood out of the way so later issues can focus on the classics. It was made worse when the end of the issue discussed the prior rounds we didn’t see and I found I missed out on Sakura, Blanka, Ken, Guile (GUILE?! In a GI Joe crossover, you skip Guile?!), and Chun-Li, among others.

The GI Joe choices were more high tiered while still and characters I wanted to see. In fact, I didn’t even expect to see Jinx or Croc Master, but there they were. And Jinx fought Ryu. And they know each other from a shared Arashikage clan history. The trade for that is I missed out on Cover Girl, Shipwreck, Storm Shadow, and Firefly.

The title is using the classic Island Tournament set up from Enter the Dragon and taken to the extreme by Mortal Kombat, but I’m not sure it’s an excuse for a sloppy in medias res. The fight scenes were well done, yet there was no reason to care while the narrative was drop fed every few pages.

And yet, still a more fleshed out story mode than Street Fighter V. No, too easy.

Next issue promises Guile vs. Gung Ho, Chun-Li vs. Dan, Storm Shadow vs. Croc Master, and Cammy vs M. Bison, so I will continue to follow it. Maybe Snake Eyes and Ryu were meant to carry this issue for the fans.

Score: 3/5

Riverdale Pilot Discussion

Bleeding Cool News got access to the script for the Riverdale pilot and posted these reviews, which resulted in a lengthy discussion over Facebook for the three of us

Graham Scherl - Apparently they really want a slutty gay dude with an awful home life. CW Kevin is GenX Sara with man parts.

Mike - I have a hard time believing it's real, since Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa tends to do decent work.  Though he does writer Afterlife with Archie which would fit this in tone well...

Graham - he isn't part of a writers room on Afterlife

Mike: True.

Graham - I'm more worried about the other stuff, Kevin being an over the top stereotype is....well, are we getting drunk lesbian Betty and Veronica? Because that would sell the show to me

Matt - Why is it not decent work? Since the publisher’s relaunch they’ve gone for this teen drama vibe. Before that, Archie as a whole has been on the cutting edge of addressing the broader realities of the world into its traditionally whitebread Riverdale.

Graham - To a degree it just feels like CW is trying to use the Archie name to push a show that they'd normally struggle to get past eight episodes out of

Matt - The show wanting to take this direction isn’t surprising. I can see how it’d be disappointing to some. A friend I shared this news with opined he'd rather the show be lighthearted and funny and not like what the article describes because that’s what he likes about Archie. The direction they chose isn’t surprising given the books, though. This has all been trending towards it.

And why is the guy slutty? The article didn’t say that, it said he was active.

Graham - it said he trolls grindr for dudes and then settles for gay porn rather than go to truck stops, admittedly, slutty would be going to the truck stops, but if his first appearance is him on grindr, it creates an impression

Matt - If Kevin’s parents being cruel about his sexuality upsets anyone, they should be concerned over real people who treat their kids like shit. Being concerned over TV characters is like when white people say they experienced racism.  I as having a conversation about this and the new Patsy Walker comic with two acquaintances. Both gay, which was a factor in the chat.

It ended up with them asking me "What about gay characters who aren’t stereotypes, bears, or twinks. What about a gay character who isn't obviously gay or a show that doesn't draw attention to the character that's gay for that reason.

And not a straight acting gay. Just a gay character where the fact that they're gay isn't the focus. Or even a plot point. Or even them making Scott Pilgrim chibi heart face at hot guys (Patsy Walker aka Hellcat).”  Then the woman told me (half-joking) to tell straight people to stop being upset for them if this is how they address it. Moral: interesting how people take things even when others are trying to be an ally or broaden the world.

Mike - On phone so can't respond to all of this,  but the best gay character ever is Captain Raymond Holt from Brooklyn 9 9.

Matt - Back to Archie, based on the little I’ve read with Kevin, it seems they do indeed want to do what Grey says regarding the network pushing a show with a brand. CW safe topical things, yet with an edge.

Is that really the Archie brand? I think the books have been trying to figure that out lately.

Maybe they’ll do a plot about how Riverdale only has two black people and of course one plays bass. (South Park joke regarding Valerie of the Pussycats).

Graham  - it's a slightly more extreme version of what happened at DC when they tried to relaunch Green Arrow with the New 52 in the vein of the show (a few months before it came out), but then completely missed the tone and wound up flopping

“You're black, Token, of course you play bass!"

Matt - Yeah, Raymond Holt is a good example.

Mike - I agree that there needs to be a better effort of diversifying minority characters.  Like it was said above, all gay people don't act the same.  BUT, I do think there can be some overcorrecting too.  There are people who are gay who are about as stereotypical as you can imagine (and some who aren’t).  I saw someone go apeshit on Facebook because X-Files had a Muslim terrorist.  Hey, like it or not, they do exist.

Graham - oh come on, how can someone get mad over that? it wasn't an episode where every muslim person on earth turned into a terrorist

Mike - Agreed.

I do think there is a lot of room to make Archie a little more meaty.  And Waid has done a pretty good job with it.  But I do think that Archie does have a certain innocent charm that if you are going to get too far away from, you might as well just make it something new.  I mean does the Archie name have that much value these days?

Matt - Thats how I feel. About Archie. The Josie and the Pussycats movie 16 years ago was a good way to modernize but still keep original spirit of the comic.

Mike - I think my gut reaction was negative, because they first thing I saw was cursing, rainbow parties, Grinder, and implied lesbian action for Betty and Veronica.

I am like "TOO MUCH!"

Matt -  It’s not like there's a shortage of content like that, either. I'd just stick with my late night Degrassi reruns.

Mike - I also thought that it was odd since this was a CW show.  They are edgy, but not that extreme.  Seemed like something better suited for HBO or Cinemax.

Matt - I wonder if they want to straddle that line between HBO and what cable can do.

Mike - Yeah, that is what I am thinking too.  Or maybe they expected a lot to get cut out, so they went as over the top as possible to get closer to what they want.

Matt - This is a very real problem where a lot of creatives who have little to no respect or knowledge for franchises try to turn them into things they aren’t.

I can’t remember the franchise, but there was a new show coming out that’s a police procedural and the source material had nothing to do with that.

Mike - Oh definitely.  We see that in licensed material all the time.  By the way, I am totally taking this and working it into the column.

Lucifer sort of comes close to that label

Matt - And my wife's reaction was "Really, you have all that and you just make it yet another cop show?"

Maybe it was Lucifer. I think it was. I hadn’t paid it any mind and she looked it up realized it was supposed to be based on the comic.

Graham - For years CW has been viewed, in industry, as "almost network". They don't have the draw of CBS, ABC, Fox, or NBC, but they also don't have the freedom of AMC or FX, so, as a network, they've spent the last several years taking gambles and trying to create a different sort of fanbase for their network

hence their love of picking up comic related stuff

hence 100 actually getting made

Matt - On the flip side, the audiences.

I saw people bitching about Agent Carter all last year , “Oh boy because we needed more Marvel Superheroes." Trying to be too cool and fatigued and outhip the hip.

Now name one more 40s sci-fi spy drama.

Then those audiences go back to keeping CSI: Scottsdale going. Or Bones. I mean Castle. I mean Lucifer.

Graham: They needed an identity, and they settled on that 18-34 any gender demographic, and then they go with what is proven sales for that demo superheroes, violence, sex, reality without being reality tv

Agent Carter, for as good as it is, was doomed the second it went on ABC

ABC, CBS, and Fox live by the hard ratings nothing else

NBC has a lower threshold because they're terrible

Community died because it became too expensive to produce given the low ratings, while Simpsons is going nowhere since it still pulls in ratings other networks would kill for

Matt - I remember when NBC was king

Graham - They were not at all prepared for Friends to end. They let Will and Grace and ER completely fall apart right at the same time, and then couldn't find anything workable to fill the other spots on the calendar, and then 30 Rock mocked it for many glorious years

Matt - To back Mike's point about Archie's brand, and your demographics talk, I am surprised that Archie has trended this way. I would have thought you'd try to get a new and younger audience and invest in the future. As good as the relaunch and Afterlife are, it seems like its just going to people already on the scene. And they tend to be our age.

Graham - that's the thing, at this point, even with Sacasa there, it's more Network than Archie sure, they brought in one of the comic writers to work on the pilot, but the Network decides the tone and the beats

it's no different at all than editorial at the big two, you have an idea you like, but you're doing the one they give you

Matt - And like Patsy Walker - which I like a lot now by issue 3 - it’s hard to make that all ages anyone play when you gun for questionable content. You have to know even today that showing a spotlight on some things can break your audience.

Graham - you have one openly gay character and you lose kids from conservative families who are offended at the pushing of the gay agenda

Matt - Sure. I can appreciate authenticity if you're happy to leave crowds like that behind. Do what your story demands. Just expect the cons.

Does Archie still have classic Archie?

Does DC still do Johnny DC or whatever it was?

Graham - yes to both

well, I think Archie does, I know they still print classic stuff, but I'm not sure if i'ts new classic archie or classic classic archie

but DC still does its kids line, which is how Scooby Doo met Superman a few months ago

Mike - As far as I know, it's classic classic archie they just reprint.

By the way, Scooby-Doo Shazam looks awesome in may

Matt - Just making sure they haven’t forgotten the gateway books. Archie was always good for that. It was clean and accessible. Grab a digest or two at the checkout and start the path to comics.