Hello friends and readers! We’ll try to take your mind off….everything….with a packed week of reviews as Dan Grote hits up the debut U.S.Agent #1, Jude Jones continues his look at all things Miles in Miles Morales: Spider-Man #20, Justin Partridge brings us closer to life incarnate with Avengers #38, Pierce Lightning looks once more at Last Rites with Amazing Spider-Man #51.LR, and finally Tony Thornley gives us a rare (for us at least) look into a galaxy far far away with Star Wars #8!
U.S.Agent #1
Written by: Priest
Art by: Georges Jeanty
Inked by: Karl Story
Colors by: Matt Milla
Letters by: VC’s Joe Sabino
In the mid-to-late 1980s, John Walker was a Captain America for Reagan Republicans, a blond action hero from the Deep South intended to be a conservative mirror to Steve Rogers with a dose of John McClane, John Rambo and John Kimble.*
*Yeah, yeah, “Kindergarten Cop” didn’t come out till 1990, but I needed a Schwarzenegger.
The John Walker of 2020, as portrayed by Priest and Georges Jeanty in this comic, is more of a South Park Republican – punching in all directions and blaming the audience for any offense they may take.
Walker is still a stooge for the government, but as an independent contractor, he’s taking far less glamorous jobs, technically doesn’t have his old codename and uses below-grade knockoff shields that break on a dime. When we meet him in the story, he’s throwing pizza delivery guys into a basement waiting for one he believes is coming to kill his client.
A blond superhero, fallen on hard times, disrespected by his community, making questionable life choices gets five issues to find his way to a big-damn-hero moment.
At its most basic, “U.S.Agent” has the ability to do for Walker what “Astonishing X-Men” did for Havok.
Here’s the thing, though. John Walker is not a himbo. He’s not that handsome dummy you can’t help but root for. He’s a narc. He’s Cap at his worst dialed up to 11. So this ain’t gonna end well.
That’s not a spoiler. The opening scene – a flash-forward – shows the people of a small town in West Virginia blaming Walker for its destruction. Well, him and his new friend Morrie Watanabe, a 60-year-old pizza delivery man who bests Walker in hand-to-hand combat and spends the plane ride to West Virginia trading barbs about Walker being a redneck racist and Morrie not being Chinese.
THEY’RE TOTAL OPPOSITES! HOW ARE THEY GONNA GET ALONG?!
Their teaming up – which really doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense that I can find – carries shades of Priest’s most notable odd-couple pairing, Valiant’s Quantum & Woody.
But that’s not the comedic work I started off referencing.
The comic opens with a Nine Panel Grid™ of West Virginians talking to camera about how Walker destroyed their town – the latest calamity to befall the hamlet of Ephraim after environmental regulations shut the coal mine and an Amazon-stand-in company sited a distribution center in the town without giving back to the community. The dialogue is heavy on dialectic phoneticisms that would make Chris Claremont say, “Dat’s a bit much, chere.”
Are we meant to mock these blue-collar folk as simpleton rubes? Are we meant to be mad at the government that regulated their primary source of income to death? Or the global conglomerate that took their land without so much as a thank you?
Well, this ain’t Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Captain America,” so we’re not gonna truck with any of that. Instead we’re gonna jump-cut to a couple bored government agents who put Walker on a job just to mess with perennial Marvel government operative Val Cooper.
In a GamesRadar interview, Priest likens Walker to comedian Dave Chappelle, which feels like projecting:
“Dave Chapelle is going to be Dave Chapelle. He is going to offend somebody. But, ironically, the people in his audience seem to accept that; that’s the social contract when you go to see Dave. If you’re thin-skinned, if you take a comedian seriously, you really should find other entertainment for the evening.”
He goes on to say, “I’d love to write an ‘adult swim’ U.S. Agent, a book where John can be more fully be John. But even the stuff writers did in the ’80s and ’90s simply won’t fly anymore.”
TL;DR: pEopLe aRe ToO oFFenDeD tHeSe DaYs.
Look, if anyone deserves to take the piss out of all comers, it’s Priest. The man has a 40-plus-year track record of being dicked up and down by the Big Two. But he keeps coming back, and he keeps looking for challenging projects. And there are few bigger challenges than writing a right-wing hero sympathetically in 2020. He’s earned the benefit of the doubt, but the TV judge in me says, “You better be going somewhere with this, counselor.”
Anyway, Jeanty, who charmed us on Leah Williams’ “Age of X-Man: X-Tremists,” and the rest of the art team do a good job. There’s a fun bit during Walker’s fight with Morrie where Morrie flips Walker through a wall and letterer Sabino flips Walker’s word balloon upside down to match. We also get some great, big honkin’ sound effects (one of which Morrie accuses of being racist, so, shrug emoji).
One final note of miscellany: Kudos to Marvel for its commitment to recycling. The name of the fake Amazon company Virago previously belonged to a Namor villain and a character from one of the mid-’90s Bishop miniseries.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #20
Written by: Saladin Ahmed
Art by: Wayne Faucher & Marcelo Ferreira (penciler)
Colors by: David Curiel
Letters by: VC’s Cory Petit
So.
I’m not going to talk about Miles, and how he feels so much like he’s along for the ride in his own comic. How neutered he feels; how indecisive and dependent he is on others to let him act. I’m not even going to talk about his underwhelming dialogue.
Nope.
Nor will I talk about the goblins: how they are the most paint-by-numbers bad guys in comic history, right up to the point where they tell you their nefarious plan right before they fight you.
I’m not even going to focus on Captain America’s new role as chauffeur and a babysitter to Miles’ classmates, and how this whole subplot feels forced and disconnected.
Nah, let’s focus on Miles’ dad, Mr. Davis, because I have LOTS of questions (but not including why Miles is named Morales, not Davis; I kept my mom’s name too).
He’s a cop. I know cops. Cops can’t take out reams of bad guys with in thier bare hands and a post-partum partner. Not normal cops at least. Turns out he’s not a normal one; He’s SHIELD. And not just anyone on SHIELD; someone who Cap knew. We know SHIELD has a history of being, uh, less than upright and forthright about its activities. So I wonder aloud if Miles’ dad, given his still intact fighting prowess and connections, is as benevolent a figure as his son and we’ve been led to believe.
Let’s also talk about examining Miles’ relationship with his Uncle Aaron, The Prowler (underrated name btw). More than anyone outside of Peter Parker, *he* seems like Miles’ most natural, effective and present mentor. I love how he operates in this moral grey space, and how it gives Miles empathy towards those he deals with: after all, if Uncle Aaron is a “bad guy” who isn’t a bad person, what does that mean about other “bad guys?”
There are a lot of good seeds planted here: the real nature of Miles’ dad, the continued growth of Uncle Aaron, and the condition of the (apparently still kicking) Ultimate universe that keeps getting teased.
Unfortunately, I don’t know if I trust the writing to fully reap these sowed seeds sufficiently. I have a feeling the most salacious of the seeds will stay in the ground, and we’ll yield yet another banal but well intended arc. The pacing and action here was very paint-by-numbers, including escaping from the bad guys only to find even more bad guys, having a team of friendly heroes meet you by happenstance, and facing off with the big bad (the “other” Miles Morales) on the last page of the comic. Breezy and predictable. Maybe sufficient! But ultimately not very compelling.
But at least it looks good.
Avengers #38
Written by: Jason Aaron
Art by: Ed McGuinness and Mark Morales
Colors by: Jason Keith
Lettered by: VC’s Cory Petit
“The Avengers vs. The Devil Across the Whole of Time” is an idea I SHOULD be super into, right?
But somehow even that home run idea fails to come alive in Avengers #38.
Marvel’s A-list team as of late has had a pretty rough go of it. They are on the tail end of a Moon-sized ass kicking by Marc Spector. Complicating matters further is the newly resurrected Phoenix Force, which seems to be…nesting on Avengers Mountain, the Baby Starbrand still bouncing from super-sitter to super-sitter, and the elevation of Mephisto to Current A-List Avengers Baddie, who APPARENTLY has been somehow directly responsible for…every incarnation of the Avengers from the BC flashbacks we’ve been seeing until a FLASH-FORWARD delivered here of them “millions of years in the future” facing a Living Planet who is DOOM.
It is…a lot. And SOME of it actually works. Jason Aaron finds a bit more of that ol’ Ghost Rider grit here and delivers some pretty gnarly supernatural horror based around Mephisto’s germination through time, anchoring himself to Earth-616 through some poor sap on the Oregon Trail at a crossroads and then leaving “maggots” of his essense throughout time. They all then subtly influence events like Thanos’ interest in Earth, the Hulk’s first Mighty-sized freakout, and even Big Blue Daddy =[/\]=’s post-island killing expansionism, forming a cycle of “Avengers vs. A Monster” throughout time. I mean, that’s pretty freaking fun, right?
And I did also so enjoy Tony Stark, Blade, and Thor realizing just HOW boned they really could be as well. It gives Aaron’s already Steve Gerber-As-Hell Avengers run a new scale that reads very appropriately for an Avengers book. Which is even then wonderfully translated into the visuals by Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales, and Jason Keith, all of whom make every page feel big and splashy. Particularly enjoyable is the trio’s take on Black Panther offering Moon Knight a spot on the team to “make them stronger” (which again, PRETTY fun idea, Jason!). It’s a big, hilariously out of place splash page, as it’s not action based at all and just two dudes talkin’, but it’s the kind of goofy I can behind.
It’s just…none of it has REALLY gelled for me, and I think that can be laid at the way Aaron has been eeking out the narrative surrounding this big “layered” take he opened his Avengers run on. We are bouncing back and forth between the past, present, and future, sometimes for whole issues even and then when we have scenes centered around our “core” roster, we really don’t have much to hang on to. None of the characterizations particularly stand out, aside from Blade and Dr. Strange occasionally, and they still don’t really have a unified “team” feel even thirty issues into the run. Hell, Aaron’s own X work and the God of Thunder at least had standout co-stars and fun pairings. His Avengers still, even stocked with fave cult characters and personal faves of my OWN like Kung-Fu Idiot Danny Rand, Jen Walters, and Robbie Reyes, just don’t feel like the “iconic” team they should feel like.
The God Butcher worked because he not only invested us in Thor (and his co-stars), but he had a direction (or at least a more solid layout) of the temporalities in play. Here we are just kinda shown stuff out of context, character beats and team dynamics included, and then we just have to hope that it pays out or gets explained a few issues later. It is really frustrating issue-to-issue, but I’m sure it reads like gangbusters in a trade. #38 even is PRETTY expository! We get a clear sense of how much of a headstart Mephisto has on our heroes which is rendered through their dialogue with one another now that they have a truer sense of the threat, more interplay between Blade and Thor as the team’s “killers” (a super fun dynamic Aaron has found in this title that I appreciate), and further texture on the stuff surrounding the Phoenix Force’s new nest and the Baby Starbrand’s place in all of this. But it STILL doesn’t feel like enough to really play toward the “bigger picture”.
In short, I appreciate Avengers #38’s reach, but I wish it would really reign in its grasp as a monthly comic.
Amazing Spider-Man #51.LR
Written by: Nick Spencer & Matthew Rosenberg
Art by: Federico Vicentini
Colors by: Marcio Menyz
Lettered by: VC’s Ariana Maher
Some comics make you extremely aware of the neverending chess game that is episodic storytelling and Amazing Spider-Man #51.LR is entirely that comic. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m writing this after staying up all night watching election coverage or not, but on some level I appreciate the inevitability of Nick Spencer and Matthew Rosenberg’s plotting this issue. On some level, a Spider-Man comic always has to be a Spider-Man comic in much the same way that a country built on racism and white supremacy will always continue to be a country built on racism and white supremacy. But I digress.
“Last Rites” continues here and the writing team is just getting ready for their eventual gambit, moving characters into strategic positions that will pay off somewhere down the line. Doctor Strange confronts Black Cat about stealing the Hand of Vishanti and she volunteers to help him save Spidey. MJ is back in town and runs into an old “friend.” The Spider-Demon-People terrorize the city while Sin Eater decides on his next target.
It’s a remarkably tight issue even if it is a little dull. You can make the case for every scene here even if the attacks on the city by the Spider-Demon-People do run a little long. They are the only bits of spider-action in the entire issue so their inclusion is understandable.
But this issue feels about as bland as a communion wafer. Sure, you can make a case for these scenes, but am I particularly enthralled by them? No, but given the choice between no Spider-Man comics and this Spider-Man comic, I guess I would choose this. It’s not the best Spider-Man comic and it isn’t even my first choice of Spider-Man comic but I mean, at least it is a Spider-Man comic. There’s no denying that.
I was pleasantly surprised by Federico Vicentini’s artwork, though. While his shot selection isn’t always the most coherent (there are a lot of artists that struggle with portraying quick action moments), his character renderings are pleasing and his layouts make the book generally easy to read. He doesn’t have quite the level of exaggeration to his linework that an Humberto Ramos or Giuseppe Camuncoli have but you can see that DNA in his work. I’m curious to see more work from him as this doesn’t feel like an artist who has completely nailed down his style but once he does, watch out. (Not unlike R.B. Silva on Superboy or Yannick Paquette on Ultimate X-Men – the talent is there but it hasn’t fully matured yet.)
I feel like I didn’t say a lot about this book but it’s kind of indicative of Spencer’s run in general. It’s always running in place. There’s no particular urgency to get anywhere or say anything meaningful about the characters involved and this issue is no exception.
Star Wars #8
Written by: Charles Soule
Art by: Ramon Rosanas (though it was credited on the title page to Jan Bazaldua)
Colors by: Rachelle Rosenberg
Lettered by: Clayton Cowles
In the half decade that Marvel’s had the Star Wars license back, the line has lost its prestige a bit. The line is not in the heyday of Aaron & Cassaday, Gillen & Larocca, Soule & Maleev… but maybe it should be if this issue is any indication.
I’ll be real- the first arc of this volume lost me quick. Don’t know what it was- maybe the COVID-19 fueled delays, maybe burnout from the last volume- but I lost interest. However here, we get a Star Wars story that’s as exciting and tense for me as the best parts of Rogue One and the original trilogy. One of the biggest factors is the introduction of Leia’s first ever nemesis- Tarkin’s mentee Commander Zahra.
This villain is a classic Star Wars mold. She’s cold, ruthless and evil. But Soule gives her a few traits that are remarkably interesting. She’s cunning, intelligent, and has a lot to prove. This is a character who isn’t perfect- in fact, she’s a major screw-up trying to redeem herself. In all, she’s Leia’s total opposite, and that makes her fascinating.
I feel like Soule might be building up plotlines to reach and then continue after Return of the Jedi. If that’s the case, then Zahra is the perfect antagonist for those sorts of stories.
Also, Rosanas’s art rules (as noted above the issue is credited to Bazaldua but it’s definitely Rosanas). He captures the chaos of a space battle and the brutality of Zahra’s boarding party both incredibly well. And it culminates in a tense standoff between Leia and Zahra that should be considered one of the best moments in Marvel’s Star Wars canon.
If you’re like me and gave up on this volume recently, stop, turn back and around and pick up the newest issue. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
A proud New Orleanian living in the District of Columbia, Jude Jones is a professional thinker, amateur photographer, burgeoning runner and lover of Black culture, love and life. Magneto and Cyclops (and Killmonger) were right. Learn more about Jude at SaintJudeJones.com.
Justin Partridge has loved comics all his life. He hasn't quite gotten them to love him back just yet. But that hasn't stopped him from trying as he has been writing about them now for a little over a decade. With bylines at Newsarama, Shelfdust, PanelXPanel, and more, Justin has been doing the work and putting in the time! Comics have yet to return his calls. Usually he can be found on Twitter screaming about Doctor Who.
Pierce Lightning is a longtime comics journalist and critic, singer for a band called Power Trash, and staving off the crushing heel of capitalism with every fiber of their comic book loving being.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
