Hey U Guys caught up with the actor at the Critics Circle Awards in London. After chatting up all Jones has on his plate right now, they asked the big question. You can check it out around the 3:50 mark, but Jones said he will be coming back to Captain America. He seemed very happy about it which is always a good sign. Of course at this stage there are no details on whether it will be in flashbacks or we’ll be seeing his robotic form that was teased in The First Avenger. Whenever more info hits we’ll have it for you. What do you think about Jones’ return? Do you hope he’s more than a scientist this time around?

Cody "The Thorverine" Ferrell, Toby Jones Set To Play Arnim Zola Again In Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Avenging Spider-Man

Kelly Sue DeConnick (the writer of Captain Marvel) writes this issue, and she writes it perfectly.  The reader gets an understanding of how she is going to write Carol Danvers, and why we will want to read her book.  Carol is a strong person, who isn’t afraid to think instead of punch.  She has always been like this, but somehow this got lost in Brian Reed’s ongoing.  Maybe it had to due with the Dark Reign storyline and Moonstone taking over.  But DeConnick seems to be embracing this, and going even further with it.  Carol seems to be a person who, instead of trying to find what she is best at, is just going along for the ride that is life.  She seems more optimistic and in command of her life.  Long time fans of Carol Danvers will love the way DeConnick writes her.

The story itself is interesting.  It revolves around an “Occupy Wall St.” protester (or something along those lines) stealing money.  The interaction between Spider-Man and Danvers is hysterical, and shows how well these characters work together.  DeConnick has said these two won’t be getting back together, so don’t look for that in the new book.  Spider-Man is funny, but never self referential.  Robyn Hood seems more of a plot point than an actual villain, but DeConnick makes the most of her.  She puts a “y” in Robyn Hood, because there is no “y” in “freedom.”  Yeah, it’s that cheesy.  But the controversial topic about budget cuts and things like that are handled well.  DeConnick ups the ante by the end of the issue, which is good considering readers will want more of this team by the end of the issue.  Boston is used heavily, but not used as well as it could have been.  Not a big deal, but something someone like me, who is from Boston, looks for.

The Dodsons, Terry and Rachel, pencil a great issue.  Their work on Defenders was good, but it seemed rushed in some spots.  Avenging Spider-Man #9 doesn’t seem rushed, and one of their better issues in the past year.  Carol’s new costume looks great, and doesn’t seem cheesy (which it does in some of the promotional materials).  The Dodsons have always penciled Spider-Man well, and that continues here.  Every character, even when they are only specks on the panel, have great expressions that grasp the reader.  There is a double page spread that doesn’t move, but is broken up into smaller panels.  It gives the page a sense of movement, and the Dodsons pull it off in a great way.  The Dodsons seems to be a team who needs plenty of time to pencil an issue.  With Marvel NOW! starting up in a few months, maybe one of those books could be bimonthly, which would give them plenty of time to pencil each issue.

Avenging Spider-Man is a book that needs to have a constant creative team.  I long for the days when Zeb Wells wrote this book.  The team up genre is one that can be fun, but constantly changing up the creative team is going to create a sense of unevenness.  Unless Zeb Wells is going to be on one of the Marvel NOW! books, I’d really love for him to come back.  He is one of the best Spider-Man writers right now, and deserves to be writing the character more regularly.

Avenging Spider-Man #9 gets 4/5.

MrComicBook, Avenging Spider-Man #9 Review

Before Watchmen Minutemen

Darwyn Cooke’s script was very wordy in #1.  It didn’t break the issue, but it was a problem.  Cooke tones it down this issue, and knows when to turn off Hollis Mason’s narration.  It’s at this point that Cooke adds a little levity into the proceedings.  It’s welcomed, considering how dark this issue gets.  Cooke slowly delves into the dark nature of the crew, and how they borderline didn’t care about saving people at times.  The child pornography ring is a saddening plot point, and Cooke hits the reader that much harder by having The Unseen Playmate from “Children’s Garden of Verses” in these scenes.  It fills the reader with terror, almost shouting at the boy on the page to run away.  A lot happens in the issue, but Minutemen #2 never feels cramped or rushed.  Cooke balances all the story lines well, giving each their own time to shine.  Not one character is left out of the spotlight.  On writing alone, Minutemen continues to be the best of the bunch.  Thankfully it’s one of the longer series.

Cooke develops one of the long standing mysteries of Watchmen: the relationship between Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice.  Alan Moore stated that they were both homosexuals, that they were in a relationship, and Hooded Justice abused Metropolis.  It’s one thing to say Hooded Justice was abusive, but showing it, and making the reader see it, makes it hit a lot harder.  Cooke juxtaposes Metropolis and the rest of the crew finding the child pornographers, which makes the reader saddened at how quickly these optimistic heroes have fallen.  Some can assume what the ending means, but I won’t spoil that here.  It’s a sad ending, that ruins any good mood you might have been in before.  Cooke expertly goes into the past without compromising the history.  It’s still the biggest worry for Watchmen fans, and Minutemen continues to cure that fear.

Cooke sticks to the nine panel pages more than the previous issue.  But he still makes the pages his own, having one big panel broken up into three smaller panels.  It sometimes gives a group of panels a sense of motion, which is what Cooke seems to be going for here.  His Silver Age style of penciling continues to fit the atmosphere of the time that Cooke is writing about.  Even when Sally is sad or upset, she still has the look of a 40′s pin up girl.  Characters are expressive, even when in the background.  Phil Noto colors the issue beautifully.  He compliments Cooke’s pencils and inks perfectly.  Some of the pages look a tad rushed, but it’s hard to tell if it’s the penciling or inking that made the pages look this way. There were few color smudges on the final page, so this very well could be caused by the printer.

Before Watchmen Minutemen #2 gets 4/5.

Now that six parts of the Crimson Corsair back up have be released, it’s enough to finally read and review.  After reading six parts in a row, it’s an insanely fun read.  Len Wein’s writing is great, making the narrations of Gordon McClachlan never seem over done.  Most of the dialogue on these two page stories is from McClachlan, which could get boring, but never does.  John Higgins’ art has also been good, but not great.  Considering that Wein and Higgins have to pack a lot into a couple of pages, it’s not surprising that Higgins’ art is going to feel cramped on some pages.  Especially in the first few parts, where Wein is setting up the entire thing, it’s hard to comprehend what is going on.  This just further proves that this shouldn’t have been a two page back up, and it’s own miniseries.  It could have had more room to breathe and bring life to what is becoming a great story.

MrComicBook, Before Watchmen Minutemen #2 Review

We are featuring his review here at Comic Book Therapy and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Make sure you leave your comments below.

Essential Iron Fist Volume 1 collects the first four years’ worth of Marvel comics starring the character, who debuted in 1974 during a martial arts craze. The series is mainly known for some of the earliest work by writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne. This book is part of the Marvel Essentials series, which republishes hundreds of pages of comic books in black and white, a great cost savings for comic book fans!

The Long, Strange Journey of Iron Fist

A 1970s Comic Book Character Revisited

Essential Iron Fist collects Marvel Premiere issues 15-25; Iron Fist 1-15; Marvel Team-Up 63-64; and Power Man & Iron Fist 48-50. Iron Fist debuted in Marvel Premiere 15. After issue 25 he graduated to his own comic, which lasted 15 issues. The Marvel Team-Up stories tied up some story lines after the character’s own comic was canceled. Then Iron Fist was injected into another comic that wasn’t selling well, Power Man, to give it a lift. As you may be able to tell from the list Iron Fist was not a huge success story of the 1970s.

Even so, I liked Iron Fist at the time. The stories had some freshness, and John Byrne’s art was very cool. I decided to write this lens to highlight some of the reasons I think any comic book fan would enjoy this collection, which really is a good way to experience the character. The image here is of Iron Fist and Power Man, off the back cover of Essential Iron Fist Volume 1.

Chris Claremont and Misty Knight

The X-Men Writer At His Best

Agent Burgos, FAN REVIEW: Essential Iron Fist Volume 1

"Avengers vs X-Men" #4 was the highest selling comic in May

With AvX in full swing, there was no doubt in anyones mind that they were going to be ruling the May charts.  But no one thought by this big a lead.  Look at the bottom of this article to see how everything worked out.

As you can see Avengers vs X-Men ruled the top ten.  DC owns the rest of the top ten.  It’s not complete surprising, and it follows the trend of the last few months.  What seems to be, and not a good thing, is how the DC books have been selling the past few months.  See, DC books never seem to just hit the middle.  They sell a ton, or they sell nothing.  Batman sells over 130,000 issues, but there are some like Voodoo (which was cancelled) that sold 13,000 issues.  Nothing ever seems to land in the middle of “selling ok.”  Fans complain that by September, about a quarter of DC’s books will be related to Batman, but all the books sell, even the atrocious Batman: The Dark Knight.  If you don’t want as many Batman related books, DON’T BUY THEM.  Most Marvel books sell ok, but they sell enough to make a profit.  Even the lesser sellers seem to stay consistent in their numbers.  Spider-Man books haven’t sold this well in a long time.  You have Amazing at 25 and 26, Venom twice in the top 100, Scarlet Spider at 81, and Avenging Spider-Man at 61.

While Avengers vs X-Men hasn’t received the best response from critics (#5 review is here), it’s selling like crazy.  Marvel will no doubt continue with the trend of a big event every year.  Fans need to stop complaining about how “bad books sell.”  Well don’t buy them.  Fans buy the book then complain. You need to make a statement with your wallet.  If you don’t like the book, don’t buy it.  Hopefully enough people will realize that the book is bad and won’t be around anymore.  But if it’s selling, SOMEONE has to be enjoying the book.  Keep that in mind.

DC can’t be happy that quite a few of their books are barely selling at all.  I know that having all these different “waves” keeps the lineup fresh, but I don’t see any of these new books, besides Talon, making that big an impact on the top 100.  The same could be said for a few of the Marvel books coming out.  Hawkeye will sell ok, probably around how much Daredevil sells each month.  But Gambit, which I’m looking forward too, has an uphill battle.  Marvel has done a decent job of late of putting good artists and writers on a book, ones with a genuine vision for the character, instead of just slapping a writer and artist on a book.  Bottom line, it’s hard to sell a book anymore unless it has a big name character attached to it.  Captain Marvel is the only wild card in the upcoming month.  It’s got some great talent attached to it, and a character who had one of the longer runs for a female character in history.  It could go either way.  With summer over, which seems to be a big time to launch new books, it’s going to be an interesting fall.

With DC releasing the first volume of a lot of their books, it’s no surprise that they are taking up a good chunk of the TPB market.  Also no surprise, The Walking Dead is peppered throughout the list.  Look to see these start to rise again as October comes closer.  The biggest surprise to me was how fast Kick-Ass 2 made it up the list.  The sequel to Mark Millar and John Romita JR’s acclaimed series wasn’t received well by critics, and I know a lot of people who flat out hated it.  Spider-Man: Season One is the only Season One title near the top of the list.  Marvel must be happy with how that sold.

The following chart is for market share

The following chart is for single issues

The following chart is for top trades

1,269

MrComicBook, Analysis of May’s Comic Sales

Spoiler Warning

Ridley Scott hasn’t been timid about saying Prometheus has the same DNA as Alien.  The plot takes place about thirty years before the seminal 1979 sci-fi/horror film, but shares a lot of similarities.  You have a rag tag group of people who aren’t sure what they are getting into.  The couple of stereotypes who are destined to die.  And an evil corporation who wants to use whatever they find as a weapon.  That’s damn similar to Alien.  But once the movie starts to get going, the similarities end.  Prometheus is more of a psychological thriller than horror or action/adventure.  The audience never is sure what is attacking the crew. The plot uses some good metaphors about humans and how they always kill themselves.  The characters are developed well enough, with the aforementioned stereotypical crew members not receiving much.  While they could have been explored more, the audience does care for them when the, pardon my expression, sucker hits the face.

One of the flaws of Prometheus is that the audience knows the movie ties into Alien before they walk into the theater.  When the final act starts, I kept thinking to myself, “…..so when will this start tying into Alien?”  Damon Lindelof, the screenwriter, is one of the best sci-fi writers of this generation, but he has a bitch of a time with delivering on what he sets up.  The entire movie is set up for a big ending, but the movie feels pidgin-held on tying into Alien.  Since it takes place well before Alien, why did he feel the need to tie it in so much?  Couldn’t we have seen a couple of hints of what was to come, but have the big tie-in come in the sequel?  Don’t think for a second the ending isn’t entertaining, and when everything starts to tie-in, it’s hard to not get a little fanboy excited about hearing the all-to-familiar siren start to go off.  And while the marketing department needed to let everyone know that the movie is a prequel, the ending would have worked better if the audience DIDN’T know that the movie tied into Alien.  My mouth would have dropped at the ending, but instead I kind of expected it to happen.  It’s a double edged sword.  The general movie going audience wouldn’t see this movie if they didn’t know it tied into Alien, but once the movie ends, they wish they didn’t know. A good amount of questions are raised about the mythology of this universe, with only a few of them answered.  Prometheus does prove that the Alien franchise still has plenty of life left.

Lindelof and Jon Spaihts, the other screenwriter, write a good script.  As said before, characters are well developed, but could have used more.  The dialogue never goes into cliche territory, even when the stereotypical characters are in the spotlight.  The production value is rather high, as you have seen in the trailers.  The sets look great, with many of them giving subtle nods to Alien.  Most of the ship Prometheus has an design similar to the Nostromo.

The acting is one of the high points of Prometheus.  Noomi Rapace is great as the lead, as we can really feel the terror of what she has discovered sweeping over her.  There is one very brutal birthing scene that made me squirm in my seat (and I laugh at the Saw movies).  She handles it masterfully, and it adds to the uneasiness the the audience is feeling the entire time.  Charlize Theron is somewhat bland, but also somewhat interesting as the head of the ship.  The same goes for Idris Elba as the captain of the ship.  These two are the characters that needed more development, considering how much their characters are in the movie.  Guy Pearce is unrecognizable as the head of Weyland Corporation.  The rest of the cast is good, but most are there as cannon fodder or for comic relief.  They might as well be wearing red shirts at the beginning.

But Michael Fassbender steals the show as David.  Is there anything this guy isn’t brilliant in?  His role as an android who is borderline human is beautifully done.  One scene in particular, has one crew member insulting him and saying he has no soul.  Fassbender keeps the same expression on his face, but does these two slight eye twitches that show how hurt he is by the comments.  And throughout the film, it’s easy to think that Fassbender is a robot, by the hard movements and manner of speaking.  They never go into hammy territory, with these robot movements being every so slight.  It makes the audience question if he is actually a robot or just a human playing the part.

Prometheus is a very entertaining movie that sadly has to deal with some bad marketing choices.  It’s one to see a couple of times, and own on Blu-Ray.

Prometheus gets 4/5.

MrComicBook, Prometheus Review