Marvel NOW! Review: Iron Man #1-2 and Deadpool #1-2

Iron Man #1-2 by Kieron Gillen, Greg Land, and Jay Leisten

Maya Hansen was forced to recreate Extremis for AIM but she managed to escape and get a warning out to Tony Stark. Knowing how dangerous the technology is, he sets out to destroy it. Fortunately, Tony has a new suit of armor and a traveling armory that customizes his armor at will.

Good: It’s Tony doing what he does best – overpowering the competition with his brains and his technology. The dialogue is good and I like when he finds a way to destroy Extremis in issue #2, robbing the bad guys of a prolonged fight. Although I did like the way the bad guys used their own armor to enhance their martial arts abilities.

Bad: I don’t know Tony’s relationship with Maya Hansen but her death didn’t do much to Tony. Will anyone miss her? And Iron Man going after people who are using his technology is a recycled plot but could be fresh for people who haven’t been reading Iron Man off and on for about 25 years.

Deadpool #1-2 by Gerry Duggan, Brian Posehn, and Tony Moore

Someone is resurrecting dead presidents so they can get the country back on track but the resurrected presidents want to return the country to its former glory by killing all of the living. SHIELD can’t risk another embarrassing photo of Captain America accidentally decapitating a president so they turn someone the public already views as a scumbag: Deadpool. But Deadpool isn’t subtle and he leaves a trail of destruction wherever he goes.

Good: The premise is really pretty clever and the adventure is fun, funny, and action packed. The stuff in the zoo is the best – it’s hilarious.

Bad: I’m not a big Deadpool fan but the adventure is tailor made for him so no complaints here.

5 Underrated Scenes in The Avengers

I saw the movie for the 5^th time yesterday. Now that the movie has been out for 7 weeks and people have talked about all of the great scenes in depth, I thought I would chime in with 5 scenes that either no one has talked about or haven’t talked about what I saw in those same scenes. This article is FULL OF SPOILERS if you haven’t seen it yet. And if you haven’t…the Hulk hates you.

1) Maria Hill vs. Clint Barton & Loki

This is one of the first action sequences in the film. Maria Hill has just been informed that Clint is rogue and the chase begins. We get to see Maria Hill shoot at and chase the bad guy through a tunnel as it falls apart around her. We already knew that Fury and Coulson were bad asses so Whedon gives the audience an introduction by showing us what she can do. Since the script calls for her to be around the main team often, this scene helps establish that she’s every bit as brave as Thor and is willing to sacrifice everything for duty like Captain America.

2) Thor vs. Loki

All of the scenes between these two were good. Thor kept searching for the good man he once knew, happy that he was still alive but angry he was threatening Earth. There was that great scene when they have their reunion and another during the final battle. The story did a fantastic job of continuing that relationship. The scenes between the two of them were intense and heartfelt and made Thor feel more human and believable next to his teammates who also spent some of the film dealing with their own emotional issues (the story did a great job of using all their emotional baggage). It was also a nice touch having Coulson send Jane Foster away because she’s one of the only reasons that Thor would have come back and wouldn’t have made sense if he didn’t want to look in on her.

3) Natasha Romanoff / Bruce Banner relationship

The most surprising bond forms between these two characters. She’s seemingly indifferent toward most character with the obvious exception of Clint. When they first meet, Natasha has enlisted the aid of a small child to lure Bruce out to a shack on the edge of the city. When Bruce asks if they start spies that young, Natasha tells him that she started that young. It’s a moment of uncharacteristic vulnerability that’s revisited during the final battle.

When Bruce arrives he looks around and says all of the destruction looks horrible and Natasha replies, “I’ve seen worse.” Bruce replies with a sincere, “I’m sorry.” For whatever reason, Natasha trusts Bruce and through her tough exterior, Bruce seems to be the only one who can see when she’s being vulnerable.

4) “That man is playing Galaga.”

Any scene with Robert Downey Jr. is guaranteed to be interesting but on his first trip to the helicarrier’s bridge he busts someone playing video games on company time, describes Fury having to turn to see monitors as “exhausting,” tells Hill that he became an expert on nuclear astrophysics last night, and plants a virus that hacks SHIELD’s computer systems.

It’s a great scene because once it seems like no one is looking anymore, the crewmember goes back to playing Galaga. Even in a flying aircraft carrier full of superheroes, a job is still a job and there will always be some slacker playing Galaga.

5) “Suit up.”

Joss sprinkles a lot of subtle things in the scenes that let you know Cap is in charge.

For example, Clint Barton has spent the movie under Loki’s control and has just aided in assaulting the helicarrier which got good men killed (mainly Coulson) and allowed Loki to escape. When Cap discovers where Loki is going to strike, he finds Natasha and asks if she knows how to fly a quinjet. Clint emerges and tells him that he can fly it.

Instead of having a long debate about whether or not he can be trusted, Cap looks at Natasha and she nods. It’s an unspoken question, ‘can we trust him,’ and an unspoken answer, ‘yes.’ Satisfied with Natasha’s judgment, Cap asks if has a uniform then tells him to suit up.

Cap has always been good at knowing who to trust and this scene is a good example of Cap being decisive. Cap is also very quick to put Bruce at ease in their first meeting. Cap talks about his being the man to find the tesseract and Bruce asks if that’s the only thing he’s heard about him. Cap knows what he’s referring to (Bruce being The Hulk) but tells him it’s the only thing he cares about.

Quick Reviews

Here are a bunch of quick reviews on some titles I’ve picked up over the last few months. None of the following issues are books I normally pick up (though I’ll be collecting Scarlet, X-23, and Asset from here on).


Scarlet #1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev

Brian Michael Bendis is one of my favorite writers and while I don’t like every title he’s done, this book is especially well done. I hadn’t heard anything about the title and by the time I spotted the second printing, the first two issues had already sold out.

Scarlet breaks the fourth wall by talking directly to the reader, telling her story. Most first issues struggle to keep my interest while they introduce a character (or a few) and try to give me the origin, an adventure, and a mission for the main character (or characters). This issue gave me a person who I got to know quickly, an origin, and a mission.

I sum Scarlet up this way – she is the female Punisher. Losing someone close to you and looking for revenge isn’t a new idea but Bendis’ breaking of the fourth wall and his ability to tell character-driven stories sets this title apart. I can’t wait to read the second issue (if I can find it).

Batgirl #14 by Bryan Q. Miller, Lee Garbett, and Trevor Scott

Batgirl and Supergirl team up to take on 24 Draculas set free from a 3-D film by a science experiment gone wrong. I like the fact that Stephanie and Kara (Batgirl and Supergirl) know each other away from their super-hero alter-egos and hang out.

This is a fun one-issue team-up story. It’s nice see Stephanie interacting with characters outside the Bat-family. Hopefully the writers will mix her in with other characters outside Gotham in the future.

Wolverine: Weapon X #16 by Jason Aaron, Davide Gianfelice, and Dave McCaig

This issue deals with the aftermath of Nightcrawler’s death during the events of ‘Second Coming.’ Kurt requests Logan do one last thing for him in his will. While Logan is busy fulfilling Kurt’s request, the readers are treated to conversations the two have had before and throughout their friendship.

I bought the issue because I’m a big fan of the Logan/Kurt friendship. I go back to the Chris Claremont & John Byrne days so I have a great affection for that configuration of X-Men. But I admit that I haven’t been a big X-Men fan in years. I did get and read ‘Second Coming’ because I’m a huge New Mutants fan. When Nightcrawler died, I thought what all X-Men fans thought, “I wonder how long he’ll stay dead?”

Despite all that, it was a great story and a terrific way to end the series.

Batman #703 by Fabian Nicieza and Cliff Richards

I picked this one up because it’s the first issue after Grant Morrison’s run so I wanted to see if a new writer could bring this title back to life for me. During the course of this issue, Damian learns something unexpected about his father while Dick sees the similarities between his time as Robin and Damian’s.

If I knew that Bruce wasn’t coming back in the next month or two I might have been more involved or moved by the story (I think bringing Bruce back so soon takes away from the impact of his ‘death’). It was an okay read but I won’t be back until Bruce is back and things are back to normal.

Iron Man: Kiss and Kill – Iron Widow by Joe Ahearne and Brian Ching / Glitch by Karl Kesel and Eric Nguyen

Judging by the cover, this was a story featuring Iron Man, Wolverine, and Black Widow teaming up. Instead, it was two stories – one with Black Widow and one with Wolverine. Both were boring. It’s been months since this first came out so I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you sooner.

Amazing Spider-Man #640-641 by Joe Quesada, Paolo Rivera, Danny Miki, and Richard Isanove

These two issues occur during the ‘One More Day’ story arc when Aunt May is in the hospital but the world is looking to find and arrest Peter.

I bought these two because I thought I’d heard that the Peter/Mary Jane split that happened in ‘One More Day’ would be undone and I wanted to read about that. What I got instead was a retcon of the original ending where Peter and Mary Jane originally made a deal with Mephisto. In this, Peter goes to Dr. Strange and Dr. Strange is able to convince Reed Richards and Tony Stark to try and erase everyone’s memories like they did with The Sentry.

In this version, Peter and MJ are the only two who now remember that he’s Spider-Man. So for those of you who were actually enjoying the last year’s worth of stuff will be unhappy to know that none of that stuff ever happened now. Also, the way to take the sting out of a crappy storyline (Clone War?) is to ignore it ever happened and put out good stories not retcon old ones. Still, this does solve the ‘how will they get back together’ thing.

Ultimate Spider-Man is still the only Spidey title worth reading (it’s one of my favorite titles).

Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man #1 by Paul Tobin, Matteo Lolli, and Christian Dalla Vecchia

I’m not sure if this title is a continuation of the old title or a true #1 because the story starts with our hero aggressively going after a crime boss and Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker have already dated and broken up. Every so often I picked up issues of the old title because they were quick, one-issue stories that were fun. This title isn’t fun. Gwen is narrating about wanting to interview Spider-Man for an unnecessary amount of pages (plural). I didn’t get a good introduction to Sophia, Peter’s girlfriend, so no opinion there. I won’t be picking up issue 2.

Pilot Season: Asset by Filip Sablik, David Marquez, and William Farmer

Asset is the story of “Madeline” (probably not her real name) who is an assassin who manipulates other people into killing her target. In this issue she convinces a guy she’s dating that she’s being abused by her ex-boyfriend so he kills the ex. “Madeline” uses dating sites to find the perfect asset to manipulate.

The story is good and the idea of using dating sites to find people to use as assassins is unique. I’m definitely voting for this title as I’d like to see where it’s going.

X-23 #1 by Marjorie Liu and Will Conrad

X-23 is an interesting character when she’s starred in her own mini-series’. This is the first issue of what may be another interesting series starring X-23. There’s a lot of great stuff with her and Storm discussing Nightcrawler, Emma and Cyclops discussing the impact of putting X-23 on the X-Force squad, and the New X-Men’s reaction to seeing her again. But by the end of the issue, X-23 has relocated from Utopia to a mutant halfway house. What’s her job? We’ll probably find out in issue #2 but the series is off to a great start.

But is this a great jumping-on point for readers? After the main story, Logan narrates X-23’s story from her first appearance to that first issue so that readers are all caught up.