Axiom’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

By Sam Christopher

First up this week, Avengers/Invaders #7, a book that has gone from being one of my favorites to a second-rater in the span of the last couple issues. Whereas at first it was very interesting to see the 1940s era Invaders’ reactions to the world of today, it now seems the twists and turns in the story are just an excuse to turn what should have been a slam-bang, action-packed six issue series into a ho-hum, occasionally good 12 ish run. But we’re just over halfway through so maybe Krueger and Ross can save it. The sad part here is that I didn’t see who the controller of the LMDs was, and it was so obvious. I actually had the idea we might find the Kree Supreme Intelligence behind it all, maybe tying the series—however tangentially—to the Secret Invasion. This is a little more pedestrian, though still workable. I’ll be very pleased, though, if we don’t see any more robot vampires: first, I thought androids and vamps were enemies (Vincent Price Presents #1), and, second, what do they drink, motor oil?

The Fantastic Four starred in a pair of my comics this week, FF #562 and the FF: Cosmic-Sized Special. The former has the Funeral of the Invisible Woman, and the hint that the next big villain is going be Doctor Doom’s… master. Yes, Doom is in a prison—although he assures Reed he’ll be getting out soon enough due to his friends in high places (whatever)—and taunts Richards with the innuendo that Doom’s master will be coming soon and “he has such plans for humankind. An appetite for death that chills even my black heart”. Ummmm… yeah, man, whatever. Sorry, but unless we find that they’ve locked up a Doom-bot, I’m not looking forward to the next story. On the plus side, our ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing does something unexpected but nice. The CS Special consists of an original story and a reprint. The original, “Hothouse”, is pretty typical family fare for this group. It is very well done, written by longtime master scribe Cary Bates and drawn by Bing Cansino. Reed and Ben visit another dimension and bring back a mind-altering plant that affects the whole family, leaving it to the least-likely heroes to save the day. The reprint, “The Eyes have It” from FF #237, is typical John Byrne of the era—great art, average story, barely adequate script. Nice to revisit the pre-Nova Frankie Raye.

Other comics:

Final Crisis: Secret Files - A re-telling and expansion of Libra’s story. Not a bad story, but kinda dumb, really. After Libra absorbed all that power how did Darkseid bring him to heel? And if Darkseid could do that, why would he need him? The sketches of other characters at the end were cool.

Green Lantern #36 – Red is for Rage, Yellow for Fear, and now we find that Blue is for Hope. I admit I was none too sanguine about all these colors for rings at first but I’m starting to like the story. One thing, though: Red is my favorite color. Can’t it ever have a good connotation? First the Pah-Wraiths (how can I go against the Emissary?) and now this. Tsk, tsk. (And then someone told me the reason the Pah-Wraiths were really red—I just hope this isn’t the same thing.)

Incredible Hercules #124 – I like the Love and War storyline but essentially all it is is an angry version of Wonder Woman trying to gain control of a magic version of the Cosmic Cube in order to create a Women’s Lib version of Earth. The Atlas-Hercules-Namora battle was great.

Justice League of America #28 – Donner vs. Wonder Woman! Blitzen vs. Flash! And wait’ll you see what Superman and Icon do! Oh, and Hawkman returns to the JLA Satellite with a dire warning of some sort about someone… trying to… destroy… Earth or something.

Justice Society of America #22 – The final chap of “One World Under Gog” is really more about the redemption and future of Superman from Earth-22 and the aftermath of Gog’s stay on Earth than the battle to rid the world of him. I must say, for someone so powerful it didn’t seem to take much. Excellent ish, though.

Superman #683 – For a penultimate chapter, this didn’t really seem to take us anywhere. Allura was shown to be insane, but we already knew that. The heroes surrounding the city are resolute in their aim to protect Earth, but we already knew that. This storyline does seem like the stepping stone to another so maybe that’s why it doesn’t seem very impressive here. There just seems to be a lot of loose threads they’re not going to have time to tie up in the remaining space, that’s all.