Johanna Draper Carlson talks about a barrier to fully enjoying Young Avengers:

“Every time I was starting to see potential in Young Avengers #1, a character would say something that reminded me that it was a spinoff of the mess that was Avengers Disassembled.”

I didn’t have as strong a reaction in this case, but man, can I sympathize with the problem. New Avengers was working pretty well for me until the third issue where writer Brian Bendis felt the need to look over his shoulder. If NA hadn’t tried so strenuously to justify its place in the Avengers legacy (yes, I know that’s a melodramatic overstatement of a publishing history that includes Dr. Druid), it could have coasted along quite well as a reasonably entertaining team book. Instead, the creative team had to draw the reader’s gaze to the rubbish that serves as the book’s foundation. They’d do a lot better, I think, to focus on the “New” and let the “Avengers” sort itself out over time.

Because, seriously, there aren’t that many people who would put forward the argument that Avengers Disassembled was any good. When the editor’s best defense is that it could have been much worse, it’s clearly time to look forward as much as possible.

Young Avengers escapes this a bit, to my way of thinking. Given what seems to be the nature of the story and where it’s headed, it needs an obvious starting point. In spite of putting Disassembled in that slot, it establishes its own tone. It’s got lightness and energy to it that even allow Jessica Jones (Marvel’s new go-to Misery Chick) to stop sobbing and do something.

I’m very curious about Dan Slott’s Great Lakes Avengers, due in April. Slott has certainly demonstrated his ability to fold unsavory and contradictory bits of Marvel lore into an entertaining story. And if there was ever a story that lent itself to a good satirical drubbing, it’s Disassembled. (For the record, I don’t think this counts.) But, cover aside, the characters have plenty of satirical potential on their own. We’ll see.

Bad, bloated stories happen. Publishers plan spin-off and follow-up titles based on bad, bloated stories before it’s fully apparent just how bad and bloated they are. But, seriously, it’s time to step away from Disassembled as a thematic touchstone. Because it sucked, and it left a bad taste in a lot of readers’ mouths. Leave it lie.

It’s been a difficult time, this whole Quesadarama affair. So let me just express my gratitude to Fanboy Rampage for reading that whole quagmire so I don’t have to. Bonus points for comment makers like Matthew Craig for gems like this in response to a particularly self-congratulatory Mighty Marvel Moment:

“I’m sure that making every new character a teenage cybergoth prostitute clone of another hero doesn’t count as ‘creative.'”

Exactly.

Comments may contain spoilers.

Captain America 3 is a bit more reflective than the previous two issues, though there’s still plenty of forward motion in the plot. Cap, Agent 13 (Sharon Carter), and a group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents track bombs in London and Paris while searching for leads on the Cosmic Cube. It’s solid super-hero/espionage stuff, but the centerpiece of the issue is a quieter exchange between Cap and Sharon set in Paris. Writer Ed Brubaker finds nice ways to base Cap’s tendency to speechify in terms of character. The character is much less of a shiny icon than he has been in the past, and his musings are more personal. Art by Steve Epting on the contemporary sequences and Michael Lark on flashbacks to Cap’s World War II career are distinct but consistent, and both do fine work. This is really solid stuff.

District X is losing me. In #10, Bishop and Ortega track Winston Hobbes, an extremely alienated and angry mutant, before he can find the parents who abandoned him. They also try and defuse a conflict between the latest batch of sewer-dwelling mutants and the government officials who want to drive them above ground. Writer David Hine doesn’t get much mileage out of either story, though he tries to add a level of ambiguity to the sewer dwellers and their leader, Melek. I can’t quite get behind the direction Hine is taking with Ortega, either, as his downward spiral seems abrupt and insufficiently motivated. The character made a strong impression in the first arc as a decent, grounded cop doing his best in bizarre circumstances. Now, one arc later, he’s running through the cop-on-the-edge checklist with blinding speed. The book has put a lot on its plate, and it doesn’t seem to have a very solid idea of what to do with it.

A new story arc begins in Fables 34, as Jack of Tales heads off to Hollywood with a truck full of Fabletown loot and a scheme. Writer Bill Willingham almost keeps Jack in the background, using various movie-industry players to narrate the story. This is pretty effective, as I’ve always thought Jack was kind of dull, and Willingham creates a fairly vivid supporting cast. Out of the Fabletown setting, Jack seems more confident and focused, though what readers see of his scheme so far isn’t particularly surprising. Jack, under the alias “Mister Trick,” is using his loot to fund an ego-driven trilogy of blockbuster films about himself. Still, this is Jack, so one can reasonably expect everything to go horribly wrong in the arc’s conclusion next issue. I can see the logic in using a different artist (David Hahn in this case) for the arc, as it’s a significant departure in terms of setting and style. Hahn does a nice job with the shallow-pond Hollywood culture, but Willingham’s script doesn’t give him much to work with beyond talking heads. I can’t help but miss Mark Buckingham and Steve Leialoha, though.

Gotham Central 28 starts a new arc that launches out of Detective Montoya’s old neighborhood. Beat cops rescue two teen-agers from the abandoned hideout of a super-villain; one of the officers is badly injured and strangely changed by the experience. It’s not bad by any means, but writer Greg Rucka is giving in to his tendency to make everything about Montoya. She inserts herself in the case for a variety of reasons, and her fellow cops seem to recede as a result. I like Montoya and the way Rucka portrays her, but I also like the book best when it makes balanced use of its ensemble cast. There are nice moments for some of the other squad members, but it’s still Montoya’s world. Art by Stefano Gaudiano is very much in the vein of Michael Lark, and that’s certainly a good thing. If anything, Gaudiano seems to lend a bit more detail to facial expressions than Lark, which is a nice fit for Gotham Central’s character-based noir.

Nothing against Tom Fowler, artist for Green Arrow 47, but now that artist Phil Hester has left the book, there doesn’t seem to be much reason for me to keep picking it up. Writer Judd Winick does competent work with the ever-growing legion of archers, but the absence of Hester’s distinctive visuals highlights how average the stories are.

Winick devotes Outsiders 20 to the relationship between Indigo and Shift. After an incident of coitus interruptus, they plan for a night on the town. This is sidetracked by another interruption from Z-grade Flash villain Shrapnel. It’s hard to figure out precisely what Winick has on his mind in this issue. I’m sure there’s something I’m supposed to find shocking or thematically resonant about Indigo’s actions, but the construction and pacing of her fight with Shrapnel is muddled. Shrapnel, never even close to a marquee villain, shows up for no readily apparent reason, readers don’t learn anything particularly defining about him, and the big reveal at the end makes the previous events seem like even more of an empty plot device. I liked the early sequence between Jade and Starfire, though.

I like the work of writer Brian K. Vaughan, and Stuart Immonen is one of my favorite artists, so why don’t I like Ultimate X-Men? “The Most Dangerous Game” continues in #56, welding Longshot, Spiral and Mojo onto insidiously anti-mutant nation Genosha. It makes for a story arc that’s at once cluttered and kind of boring, in my opinion. As one team of X-Men tries to figure out whether Longshot is guilty of the murder that consigned him to Mojo’s deadly reality show, another group sneaks in the back door to try and rescue the lucky mutant. The pacing seems odd; plenty of character bits and action sequences are strung together without much connection, biding time until the cliffhanger. I would love to know what a reader who’s totally unfamiliar with these concepts (Longshot and company and Genosha) thinks of this story; maybe it works better through fresh eyes. Knowing what I do about them, I felt like I was spending too much energy trying to figure out the logic of fusing them.

Young Avengers 1 arrives under the weight of some fairly mixed expectations. With a frankly bizarre marketing roll-out that only seemed to gel at the end, one could be excused for having no idea what the point is. The book itself is perfectly entertaining, though. Writer Allan Heinberg does a fine job with some staples of the Marvel Universe. J. Jonah Jameson is a suitably gruff old bastard; Captain America is an impeccably stand-up guy; and Jessica Jones is much more like the character I liked initially than the Mary Sue she seems to be becoming. Heinberg also makes a strong start with the title characters; they’re a nice blend of enthusiasm and inexperience, unsure of precisely what they’re doing but with just enough adolescent hubris to keep them from caring. Awful names aside (Iron Lad? Hulkling?), there are some fun dynamics to their interactions, and Heinberg wisely seems to have made the distinction that they’re fans of super-heroes rather than super-hero comics. The twist at the end isn’t particularly Earth-shattering for anyone unfamiliar with Avengers history, but it’s promising enough. I’ll be sticking around, as Henberg and artist Jim Cheung have made a very solid beginning.

The Newsarama Hostage Crisis continues, with Day 3 of the Quesada/Bendis interview. Fanboy Rampage does a fine job pulling out some of the choicer nuggets, but Quesada expressing his concern that writers were tailoring their stories to please fans on the Internet made my jaw drop. Who are these writers?! Name them!!

Cleansing the palate, moving along. Viz has the full text of its Shojo Beat announcement up at its home page. The more I hear about the titles included in this anthology (like this preview of NANA from Christopher Butcher), the more eager I am for this book to show up.

Johanna Draper Carlson loves Alton Brown, and I have to agree. Good Eats has long been one of my favorite Food Network offerings. He’s kind of the Bill Nye, the Science Guy of the culinary arts. Must look for his cookbook the next time I’m at the bookstore.

I’ve been memed! Ed at The Low Road wants to know if I’ve got the music in me and, if so, precisely what that music might be. On one hand, I don’t listen to that much music, so this is kind of a struggle. On the other, I’ve been dying to use this entry title since I first encountered Ed. So, here we go:

1. Total amount of music files on my computer.
Um… none. I just don’t download it.

2. The last CD you bought was:
“Let’s Hear It For The ’70s.” But I got it for my partner. He likes to listen to dance mixes at the gym.

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
“Broadway Baby” from “Elaine Stritch At Liberty.” Yes, I’m just that gay.

4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.
“The Price I Pay” by Billy Bragg
“Destination: Anywhere” from “The Commitments” soundtrack
“For Now” from the “Avenue Q” soundtrack
“Walking on Broken Glass” by Annie Lenox
“Never Can Say Goodbye” by the Communards

5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?
I’ll just let it flow free, I think.

Found via Thought Balloons, Viz has announced the six titles that will kick off Shojo Beat. And one of them is by Yu Watase! Squeeeee!

Ahem… seriously, it looks like a good mix of titles, from romance with robots to period mystery to coming-of-age soap opera to historical samurai action.

Update: Just got a press release from Viz with descriptions of the six titles. Quoted text below:

KAZE HIKARU by Taeko WatanabeKaze
Hikaru is a story set in nineteenth-century Japan that’s packed with action, drama, comedy, historical fiction, and—of course—a little romance. Kamiya Seizaburou is a young girl determined to avenge her murdered father and brother. To do so, she disguises herself as a man and joins the Shinsengumi, a group of swordsmen who her brother greatly admired and who supported the shogun government during the turbulent Bakumatsu Revolution. Amidst learning how to fight and fighting to keep her identity safe, she falls for Okita Sôji (an actual historic figure), one of the most charismatic members of the Shinsengumi. Kaze Hikaru has been called the shôjo equivalent to the immensely popular title RUROUNI KENSHIN—the setting, some aspects of the storyline, and even some of the historical personages are the same.

ABSOLUTE BOYFRIEND by Yuu Watase
Absolute Boyfriend shows us what happens when iRobot gets Orlando Bloom’s good looks. Riiko Izawa’s idea of the perfect boyfriend is someone cute, stylish, smart, and nice. He’s a great cook and all-around athlete. And he always wins a fistfight. Too bad Riiko has zero luck with boys. She’s a gawky high school student and has never even been kissed, let alone been anyone’s girlfriend! Her plots to attract the opposite sex never work—and the aloof boy next door, Soshi, is constantly teasing her about her lousy love life.But when Riiko ends up helping out a mysterious salesman, he agrees to grant her wish for a boyfriend (for a three-day trial, anyway) in return! As it turns out, the gorgeous guy pictured on the sales website is part of a Nightly Lover series—an artificial being programmed to love his owner completely and absolutely. One kiss from Riiko is all he needs to come alive…

CRIMSON HERO by Mitsuba Takanashi
Crimson Hero takes volleyball and bends it like Beckham in a story that pits family obligation against the love of the game. All that matters to 15-year-old Nobara Sumiyoshi is volleyball; she’s an awesome player with big-time ambitions. Nobara doesn’t care that she’s not feminine and pretty like her younger sister, Souka, but unfortunately her family does. As the eldest daughter, she’s expected to work at her family’s ryotei, an old-fashioned Japanese restaurant where she’ll have to dress in traditional clothes and makeup and accommodate the patrons’ every whim. No thanks!Nobara knows exactly what she wants—now she has to figure out how to get it. She enters Crimson Field High School, known for its top-notch volleyball team, but her mother is willing to stoop to dirty tricks to keep Nobara off the court. With assistance from her feisty Aunt Momoko, who’s got some helpful connections at Crimson Field, Nobara decides to start playing offense.

NANA by Ai Yazawa
Nana takes us to Tokyo to follow the tumultuous lives of two young women who have very different dreams. Nana Komatsu has endured an unending string of boyfriend troubles. Moving to Tokyo, she’s hoping to take control of her life and put those messy misadventures behind her. She’s looking for love, and she’s hoping to find it in the big city. Enter Nana Osaki. Confident and focused, she kicks down the doors to Tokyo’s underground punk scene. Beautiful, charismatic, and tough as nails, this Nana wants to be a rock star, and she’s not going to let anything get in her way.The two Nanas soon meet, and their new lives step into high gear: love blooms, tempers flare, and egos clash. The world of Nana is a thundering ball of excitement sparked by sex, music, fashion, gossip, and all-night parties.

GODCHILD by Kaori Yuki
Deep in the heart of nineteenth-century London, a young man named Cain emerges from the shadowy cobblestone streets. Forced to become an Earl upon the untimely death of his father, Cain assumes the role of head of the Hargreves, an aristocratic family with a dark past that seems to unfold one scandalous revelation at a time.Lost, lonely and disenchanted with his fate, Cain develops an obsession with lethal poisons and an uncanny ability to solve the mysterious murders that seem to follow him wherever he goes.With the aid of Riff, his faithful manservant who has a background in medicine, and Oscar, his long-time friend, Cain wades through his tormented life and struggles to find the truth behind his father’s mysterious death and alleged involvement with a sinister secret society.

BABY & ME by Marimo Ragawa
Baby & Me is a moving story about a boy who is forced to grow up quickly and who, through sacrifice, shows us the true meaning of love. Takuya Enoki isn’t your average 11-year-old Japanese elementary student. The tragic death of his mother puts him in the difficult position of taking care of his 2-year-old brother while their father works long hours. Takuya must devote all of his free time to becoming his brother’s guardian. Cooking, cleaning, sewing, and scolding become an integral part of the young boy’s life—responsibilities usually reserved for adults. Baby & Me follows Takuya and his brother through their unique new life together, filled with trials and tribulations, humor, and adventure.

Wow, a lot of books I dropped recently come out this week. Ah, well.

As has been noted, Ed Brubaker has signed an exclusive contract with Marvel. That’s sad news for fans of DC’s Gotham Central, which hits #28 on Wednesday. Still, Greg Rucka is a fine writer, and I hope the book continues. If Rucka is looking for a replacement writing partner, I hope he gives Gail Simone some thought. She’s no slouch at character-based writing with elements of noir, and I think she would give a different kind of energy to the book that’s still consistent with what Brubaker and Rucka have established. I wasn’t crazy about the art in the last arc, and I’ll certainly miss Michael Lark’s work, but I’m confident that they can find someone who’s a good fit.

For a look at Brubaker’s work at Marvel, why not give Captain America 3 a try? I have almost zero interest in Cap as a solo character, but I liked the first two issues, in no small part because Steve Epting is one of my favorite artists.

Grant Morrison’s Vimanarama arrives, the third of his current string of Vertigo mini-series. And this is solicitation copy: “East meets West with a burst of color, song and cosmic violence in Grant Morrison’s latest: VIMANARAMA!” I wasn’t as wild about Seaguy as everyone else seemed to be, though I lurved We3. I’m looking forward to this book.

And that seems to be about it. Nope. Nothing more on the list. Nu-uh.

(Psst! Over here! I’m David’s subconscious, and he’s too ashamed to admit it, but he’s really, really excited about Young Avengers! I know! How geeky is that? The other day, I saw him look up the first-season DVD of The O.C. on Netflix, too! He’s never watched it before, but thinks Peter Gallagher is really hot, and that Adam Brody is totally cute. He’s got some weird aversion to Mischa Barton, though, which is why he’s passed on it. And he totally resents The O.C. for stealing Brody away from Gilmore Girls. But he’s caving!)

Heard via Pata’s Irresponsible Pictures and The Comics Reporter, Viz will be launching a new anthology and graphic novel line, Shojo Beat, in June of 2005. It’s about a third of the way down in a “girls like comics” feature in the Feb. 3 Los Angeles Times, which is odd, since it seems like the best possible evidence that girls like comics. I’d quote something from the article, but it’s nothing you haven’t read before, and it isn’t even written as well as what you’ve already read. I’d link to it, but I found it through LexisNexis, because I don’t feel like registering at the Los Angeles Times.

James at Reading Along has a review of CLAMP’s Legal Drug, and his opinion matches my own:

“The characterization and story has to be something extra to overcome my apathy towards that genre of story, and this didn’t because it all seemed very surface level.”

I read CLAMP’s xxxHOLiC over the weekend, and I rather liked it. I mention this because the Legal Drug boys popped by, along with an apparent who’s who from CLAMP’s other titles. This didn’t bother me a bit while I was reading xxxHOLiC itself, but it sure did clutter the hell out of the background notes at the digest’s end. Usually I really like the cultural notes that Del Rey throws in at the end of their volumes, but I would say this volume was about 50% useful and interesting information and 50% commercials for other CLAMP titles. And that? Bugged.

Brian at Comics Should Be Good has been blogging up a storm over the past few days. I was particularly interested in his discussion of the slipperly slope from style to shtick and his thoughts on authors who can be one-theme ponies.

And there’s a new edition of Flipped up at Comic World News.

Unless I miss my guess, lots of people will probably link to Tom Spurgeon’s collection of “Thoughts on the Year Thus Far” at The Comics Reporter. And they should, because it’s excellent, which should come as no surprise to anyone who visits TCR.

In his introduction, Tom talks about the state of on-line comics journalism:

“I’m an on-line reader, too. I’m just like everybody else in that I value being informed in a timely manner. My hope is that occasionally we can take a second look at some news stories, and try to come at them from a different angle, making news as well as breaking it.”

And that, to me, encapsulates why TCR is so essential, because that’s what Tom does every day. He looks at the breaking news in potent and thoughtful ways, and he covers an absolutely startling range of issues. He draws connections and poses important questions.

In fact, it’s almost… suspicious that Tom can do this so well. Hence, I have developed a handful of theories:

1. “Tom Spurgeon” is actually an advanced and powerful super-computer that has developed artificial intelligence and a discerning eye for the comics medium.
2. “Tom Spurgeon” is actually collaboration of Tom 1.0 and a group of meticulously created clones, because surely a single person couldn’t be responsible for a site so comprehensive.
3. Tom Spurgeon just kicks ass.

While I know that the third theory is the most likely, I don’t think we can discount the first and second as possibilities.

Update: From the Depressing Coincidences Desk, Newsarama has handed over the editorial keys to Joe Quesada for a week. The first scoop arrives in part one of a five-part Q&A with Brian Bendis: Quesada and Bendis — BFF! I demand equal time for Larry Young.

I’ve blogged before about my growing distaste for seeing movies in actual movie theatres, but it’s taken me forever to give Netflix a try. The first batch that arrived consisted of movies we were vaguely interested in seeing but not enough to subject ourselves to the companionship our fellow citizens.

Alien Vs. Predator was hardly worth the time to watch, much less to talk about. Um… except for that.

We saw The Bourne Identity in the theatre and liked it. I saw lots of reviews saying that The Bourne Supremacy was better than TBI, but I disagree. I thought it was too mired in intelligence agency politics, though Joan Allen is always a welcome presence in any cast. There’s something fundamentally wrong with a sequel that gives you less Franka Potente and more Julia Stiles than its predecessor. The chase sequences probably would have worked better on a big screen than on our TV, where they just seemed kind of long.

The rental we enjoyed the most was Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. How is it that someone getting beamed with a dodgeball never stopped being funny? I can’t quite figure that out, and maybe it’s just me. It fell apart at the end, but this kind of movies (whether presented seriously or in a satirical vein) almost always does. And, sure, it had plenty of really tacky bits, but they didn’t bother me that much, mostly because the whole movie had this very pleasantly casual vibe to it. I thought Justin Long was adorable, and I was thrilled to see Missi Pyle, a favorite from Galaxy Quest. Best of all, though, was Christine Taylor, who I think is really underrated as a comic actress. (She’s Ben Stiller’s wife and played Marcia perfectly in the two Brady Bunch movies.) While she does the “pretty, sensible girl surrounded by goofballs” thing about as well as anyone, she also seems to have no shame in pursuit of a laugh. It’s always nice to see her in a movie, and she’s such a great fit with Stiller’s comic sensibility.

So, all in all, seeing movies without having to deal with other people? I like it. Will it probably lead to me watching movies that I would have never seen otherwise and probably weren’t worth the time? Hell, it already has, but the minimization of effort and expense almost offset the fact that I’m contributing to my own mental deterioration. (Like that’s ever been a deterrent.)