Here Comes the "Reign" Again

Continuing with the "Dark Reign" storyline that Marvel Comics has basically spread throughout all of their series, I've picked up a few of the series that focus on the individuals within Norman Osborn's "Dark Avengers." You know the ones: they vaguely resemble and dress up like actual Marvel superheroes, so everyone thinks that they're the real deal, despite the obvious differences (like swearing, maiming, killing, destroying property) and the fact that the real superheroes are...actually still doing their thing. Anyway, once you suspend your disbelief at this ridiculous notion, there are some pretty decent stories going on...and some rather horrible ones.

The GOOD:
The Wolverine series has become a playground for "Dark Wolverine" instead of the normal, lovable (?), fuzzy, one-of-a-kind Wolverine. Dark Wolverine (blecch! I can't stand the "Dark" titles in every name and/or group) is actually Wolverine's son. Wolverine was apparently married long ago to a Japanese woman (but not the famous Mariko from his first limited series back in the 1980s) and had a child that he thought long since dead. Daken (Dark Wolverine) is all grown up now and sports a mohawk and tattoos underneath his mask and costume. He has similar mutant powers to Wolverine, plus a unique pheromone manipulation ability, which I find very intriguing. It's something unique that I haven't seen in comic books before. He is also struggling with his own identity, and between good and evil. Lastly, Daken seems pretty comfortable in his sexuality...whatever it may be. He made a couple of joking sexual innuendos to "Sinister Spider-Man" and The Thing to f**k with their heads, using his pheromone ability. For all of these reasons, he is a very interesting character and not just the child of a superhero with the same abilities. I hope Wolverine gets his own series back and Daken goes on to new adventures in his own series. I'd definitely invest my reading time in finding out more about him.

The BAD:
In the tradition of the new "Dark" Hawkeye limited series comes Sinister Spider-Man. Why "sinister" instead of "dark" like everyone else? Other than for alliteration purposes, who knows!? Anywho, this new Sinister Spider-Man posing as Spider-Man is actually...Venom. I know, I know. It's pretty hard to believe considering he's actually wearing the black and white Venom symbiote costume while posing as Spider-Man. It would be like me walking into work wearing a rubber Obama mask, toting myself as our President. Deceptive, right?

Apparently there have been some changes to Venom over the years. He's no longer Eddie Brock. He's now Mac Gargan, formerly the Scorpion. This in itself is kind of sad, because I always liked the idea of the Scorpion as a villain. Maybe another one is in the works. But I digress...

I read Sinister Spider-Man and all I can say is {YAWN}. It's a four-issue limited series by writer Brian Reed and artist Chris Bachalo. Reed says, "the whole Marvel Universe thinks Spider-Man is living in Avengers Tower, when it's really Mac Gargan, who has a long history as a sociopath." Venom...er, Sinister Spider-Man...er, "Spider-Man" is a womanizer, a killer, and an all-around a-hole. He's the male equivalent of a Black Widow spider. He bites the heads off the women he f**ks. And it's all on the news. So, you can see why people would naturally believe him to be the real Spider-Man. Especially with the real Spider-Man out there swinging around in his red and blue tights. After the first issue, I didn't want to read the rest (and had wished I hadn't already purchased them), but I did anyway. The story of Sinister Spider-Man felt rushed and randomly thrown together, unlike Dark Wolverine or Dark Reign: Hawkeye (previously reviewed), just to sell comics.

The UGLY:

The artwork on Sinister Spider-Man. With all the talented, unused artists out there looking for employment, why settle for mediocre?

Dork Reign

In case you're unaware, Marvel Comics has this ongoing theme/story running called "Dark Reign" throughout most of their comic books: Norman Osborn (formerly the Green Goblin) has a government job running the agency called H.A.M.M.E.R., which replaced S.H.I.E.L.D. As the director of this new "law-enforcing" agency, Osborn creates his own Avengers and X-Men team, made up of villains posing as superheroes. And nobody notices.

I know, I know. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking WTF? And you'd be right.

Maybe I'm not on the same trippy substance as the current Marvel writers and executives, but seriously...WTF? From the few different series and issues I've read or browsed, I just have to wonder how it is that not a single person has questioned that the "heroes" look a little different than their counterparts...and are killing people. Case in point: the new "Spider-Man" looks like Venom. And IS Venom. The new "Hawkeye" sticks a pen in the eye of a "fan" asking for his autograph. Norman Osborn is a hybrid of Iron Man and Captain America called Iron Patriot, but I guess people just see him as Iron Man or Captain America, depending on who they want to see? Kinda like one of those Magic Eye puzzles? But wait...doesn't everyone know that Norman Osborn is/was the Green Goblin? And everyone is...okay with all this? I feel like I'm in the middle of an I Love Lucy episode where Lucy is trying to deceive Ricky by wearing a fake mustache and...it works! He has no idea who she is!

Anyway, onto one single (but long) story of the thoroughly confusing (and dull) Dark Reign storyline: the Dark X-Men / Dark Avengers crossover "Utopia," which runs through a series of one-shots and the Dark Avengers and Uncanny X-Men series. I read most of the storyline, avoiding the Dark Avengers series since I don't currently collect or read them. However, after reading the first one-shot about "Utopia," I was regretting purchasing the rest, including Uncanny X-Men, which I regularly buy. Again...WTF? There was no coherent thought process throughout and I didn't care about anyone or anything I read. To top it off, the Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia #1 one-shot was drawn by Marc Silvestri, an artist who became big in the 1990s when the women of the X-Men became a lot more bustier, a lot more Asian, and the stories took second (or third) place to all of this. Is it any wonder that's when I stopped reading comics after 15 years of nonstop dedication? Ugh.

I forced myself through all of the issues of "Utopia" I had purchased...and I still have no idea what happened. And, honestly, don't really care to know. All Marvel needs to know is that it's time to drop the lame Dark Reign storylines throughout its titles before it begins to lose readers. DC is currently doing a "MARVELous" job with their "Blackest Night" storyline. It's one of their best ever. Why is Marvel trying to compete with the poorly assembled Dark Reign? Forget Dark X-Men, Dark Avengers, Dark Wolverine, Dark This, Dark That. If I ever hear the word "dark" again, it'll be too soon. There's such a thing as overkill, Marvel.

You had me at "hello."

I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to come right out and say it. {Deep breath} I got a little teary reading Adventure Comics #2. There, I said it. I cried. Maybe it's from the cold meds I'm on, but more than likely, it was from reading the sweet reunion between Conner Kent (aka Superboy) and Cassie Sandsmark (aka Wonder Girl) after, you know, Conner died for a couple of years and then came back to life. Geoff Johns did a beautiful job writing a fantastic, quiet story that was all about character development and not about good vs. evil.

When it was announced that DC Comics was revamping its old series, Adventure Comics, that ended in 1983 after 503 issues, I was excited to learn that Conner was coming back from the dead (yea!) and would be the star. However, I was SO worried that because Conner now had his own comic book series with Adventure Comics (and living in Smallville, KS) and so much time had elapsed that there wouldn't be room in his life for Cassie (who stars in the Teen Titans comic book and lives in San Francisco, CA). By the end of the story in Adventure Comics #2, though, all was right with the world. These two belong together. It's not too often that relationships are done very well in the comic book universe, but the chemistry between these two has always been very strong, and I'm very pleased to see that DC Comics is recognizing that.

So, thank you DC Comics and Geoff Johns. Not since the story "Chalk Drawings" about a young girl's suicide back in Wonder Woman #46 (1990) have my eyes welled up with tears.