MONDOmagazine

Decent cover, at least. Who doesn't like crying blood? Am I right James Bond fans?

Miles’ Book

The Authority #3
Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Art by Simon Coleby
Wildstorm, 2008

Maybe I’m just tired from the rage I felt from reading last week’s random book, but this issue didn’t effect me. I read it and nothing made me angry or glad or curious enough to read another issue of The Authority. I can’t even rip on the art because it’s solid.

From my limited understanding of the Wildstorm universe — which only exists because I love Planetary and Sleeper more than chocolate cake — The Authority is basically the Justice Leauge plus extreme storylines. Like, I think I heard that at some point The Authority overthrew their government. That sounds cool.

Since then it seems that some sort of apocalypse has happened, and the undead are ruling “Unlondon.” Or something like that. If I’m right, that also sounds pretty cool.

But I don’t know if I’m right. There’s no exposition or recap page to explain who these characters are, their relationships to each other, or even the setting. Not a lot happens either, so I couldn’t dig into the world. You’d think that by the third issue, you’d have some high drama going on, but instead it’s mostly set-up for something that will happen in a few issues.

It’ll probably read better in trade and after you’ve read all the other volumes of The Authority.

I'm waiting for Venom: Feelin' Fine, where he and Power Pack go on trip to the zoo. So innocent.

Isaac’s Book

Venom: Dark Origin #3 (of 5)
Written by Zeb Wells
Pencilled by Angel Medina
Inked by Scott Hanna
Colours by Matt Milla
Marvel Comics, 2008

Most people are familiar with the basics of Venom’s origin, thanks to the movie, TV show, and comics that have tread this well-worn ground. Anyone who fits into a fan of movies/TV/comics will be familiar with Eddie Brock, disgraced journalist, who traveled to a church and proclaimed his hatred of Spider-Man just before getting the symbiote suit and becoming Venom.

It’s not a great story, particularly considering how little progression has been made for the character over the years. He’s popular because he’s a big, strong, Killee McSpider-Guy: he has all the cool Spider poses, without any of the moral restraint that Peter Parker faces.

Has anyone really done a story yet examining Spider-Man and Venom as the mirrored reflections they really are? Spider-Man takes responsibility for everything, while Venom takes no responsibility, blaming all of his problems on others.

Whether that story has been done or not, it certainly isn’t the story to be found within the covers of this book. What we’re given here is a decompressed telling of Venom’s origin from the point of contact between Brock and the suit, until the realization of the true identity of Spider-Man. The psychic give and take between Brock and the symbiote during their first encounters is certainly be fertile ground for storytelling (as just about anything can be with the right touch); however, the whole of the book is pretty much wasted on pretty pictures of the suit taking over, communicating nothing — with one exception.

That exception is the two-page spread detailing a battle during the Secret War: the chaos, action, and history it evokes is unbelievable. When I turned the page to find this staring back, it totally blew me away.

The following page has the story of Spider-Man getting and eventually rejecting the symbiote, but it’s not a very effective series of images. If they could’ve matched the quality of the previous splash page, even if it meant dedicating another two pages to a single picture, then this comic would have been worth the price of admission right there.

Skipping ahead in the book, I see there is another two page splash, but it’s just one of Venom looking all cool and stringy — his trademark.

This comic is about the pretty pictures, and that’s about it. Maybe the first two issues of the miniseries had some cool revelation concerning Brock’s naïve grasp at fame with the Sin-Eater story, and maybe the next issues will have some fun behind-the-scenes stuff following Brock and his plotting his tortuous attacks on Spider-Man, but this was an unnecessary issue.

You could just go read Amazing Spider-Man #300 for some original Venom fun. Not that I know where you can go read a copy of that book. I can’t do everything for you.

You can keep Sage, Mr. Claremont. But can we have Psylocke back?

James’ Book

New Exiles #12
Written by Chris Claremont
Art by Paco Diaz Luque, Norberto Fernandez & Wilfredo Quintana
Marvel Comics, 2008

So, I was supposed to review Meat Cake #17 this week, which Miles figured was probably porn. But, due to what I can only imagine is a print run of, oh, let’s say, five issues, my store didn’t have any copies. So, instead of reviewing something that brings joy to everyone, I’m going to the other end of the spectrum with New Exiles.

A lot has been said about the fact that Chris Claremont doesn’t live up to the standards he set for him self a few decades ago. I disagree with that sentiment rather strongly, though. It’s not that Claremont has declined: it’s that he’s stayed the same, while the industry has gone on without him. His dialogue is stilted and expository, and he sticks to antiquated conventions.

Exiles was a pretty fun book when it started. The thing that always excited was the potential to combine a million different What If? scenarios into one book, and then have them fight each other. But now, it just seems like Marvel gave Claremont the book so he couldn’t screw with the mainstream continuity too much. He’s got his pet characters to play with (Here they’re Sage and Psylocke along with alternate versions of Kitty Pryde, Sabertooth and Rogue), and his primary means of exploiting the myriad alternate universes he has at his disposal is to make characters you don’t normally expect to be evil totally evil.

The art is hopelessly generic and glossy. I generally try to find one thing I liked, or at least found interesting, but there’s nothing here. It’s a completely serviceable job, but it’s in no way interesting or compelling.

With this book, Marvel just seems to be keeping one of its old legends happy out of service to his great, old stuff. And that’s fine. But at least when John Bryne went crazy in his old age and started rebooting stuff left and right it was interesting. This stuff is just boring, and that’s inexcusable.