Stack Attack #1

Welcome to Stack Attack!  In the past on Geekscape, we’ve been fortunate enough to have thorough and thoughtful comic-book commentary from our resident Martin Scherer.   If you are into an educated, well thought out look into various comic topics then Martin is your man.  You’ll find none of that here.  What you will get (other than a nose bleed) is raw  and unapologetic fanboy zeal.

Each week, I intend to read through my comics for the week and choose the best as well as the worst and provide a brief review and commentary on each.  I also hope to touch on some various topics as they come up but they will surface fairly spontaneously.  I always buy my comics on Wednesday so I hope to have this out by Thursday evening.  Also, be forewarned that there will be spoilers.  So why don’t we start this party right. On to the books…..

Best:  Final Crisis: Rogue’s Revenge #2
Geoff Johns gets the pick for best book this week.  This should come as no surprise to those of you that know me from the forums.  Geoff Johns has this uncanny knack for taking any sad, lame, crippled, worthless property and turn it into something great -nay- beautiful.  If only we could harness this power outside of creative fiction?

In the meantime, this book is taking us on the romp of our good friends The Rogues (the main group of Flash’s enemies) as they seek redemption for being duped into murdering Bart Allen.  It appears that the Rogue’s have been replaced by a new, younger group of villains all bearing similar mantles to the original crew.  They give the Rogue’s an ultimatum: Join Libra’s society or they will kill Captain Cold’s father.  This is typically the point in a story where our hero would say something noble like “I’ll never join you!” or “Do what you want to me, just leave my Pa outta this!”  However, this is the Rogue’s we’re dealing with.  Captain Cold informs the New Rogues that they are going to find and kill their young counterparts and then Captain Cold will personally dispose of his father.  And that’s exactly what they do.  These once hokey Flash pin cushions are slowly growing into the pantheon of the Jokers and Bullseyes.

Worst: Mighty Avengers #17
On the other side of the fence, we have Marvel’s top-dog Bendis bringing us not only Mighty Avengers but also New Avengers.  Those of you following Secret Invasion and it’s calvacade of tie-ins are probably aware that both Mighty and New Avengers have been hijacked as platforms for backup storytelling for Secret Invasion.  These backup stories have mostly come in flashbacks explaining how different seeds from Secret Invasion were originally sewn.  This was a fantastic idea 5 months ago.  Since then, we’ve been flashing back to the most mundane and pointless parts of Secret Invasion ad naseum.  We get it Brian.  Shit’s been going on behind the scenes.  ENOUGH.  We have imaginations, just let us use them.  Both Avengers titles this week take place months before the Invasion.  Mighty really wins the no-prize this week for showing us the least interesting portion of the entire story.

We open up with Skrull Hank Pym at a coffee shop enjoying some coffee where he is joined by Dum Dum Dugan (also a Skrull at this point).  PymSkrull tries to convince DuganSkrull that the invasion will be a failure.  Dugan tries to quell him by reminding him that he is “sharing a mind with Hank Pym”.  This escalates into a fight that leads outside and ends with a dead PymSkrull, which is promptly replaced by another PymSkrull.  I can only fathom the point of this book is to hint that some of the minds the skrulls are using are starting to conflict with the skrull minds.  Does this really need to be a fucking entire issue?  While I feel that Secret Invasion is starting to gear up I’m growing really weary of all this explanation.