The Marvel(ous) part of the Weekend
Apr. 26th, 2010 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseSo as I mentioned HPB, that means I have some comic books to review. I seem to pick these things up with accidental themes, though this set was perhaps more obvious. This time, it was villains. This is a particular favorite subject of mine, because way back in the 90s, I answered a Marvel survey in one of the many X-Titles Shawn and I were reading during college that asked what superheroes we thought should get their own series. I suggested Magneto.
Thus, even though it meant breaking from my usual stable of writers, I simply had to pick up Greg Pak’s (June 2009):
X-Men: Magneto. “Testament” (2 of 5)
X-Men: Magneto. “Testament” (3 of 5)
And, then, since I was on a villainous theme, as I said, I got Ed Brubaker’s (2006):
Books of Doom (1 of 6)
Books of Doom (3 of 6)
Books of Doom (4 of 6)
After reading these, I decided that the first ingredient to being a Marvel supervillain is to be born into a historically persecuted people -- Magneto being a German Jew, and Victor Von Doom who is gypsy/Romany.
After that, I don’t really know what it’s going to take to be one of the two ultimate bad a$$ bad guy (though apparently deals with dark demons help significantly), as I didn’t get very far along in the stories. Between them, I’ll tell you, I’m more interested in Magneto. I’ve always been a Doom fan, but he’s MUCH tougher to sympathize with. I dunno, maybe it’s the whole speaking of himself in the third person thing and lines like, “Where before, though my heart was not filled with pity for the mass of humankind… now I found I looked at them as nothing more than gnats fluttering in my way.” (Books of Doom, 4 of 6)
When I was a kid, the one Marvel novel I read was the origin story of Doom, which at the time, I enjoyed tremendously. When I like him, he’s written as a sort of stand in for Lucifer: proud and arrogant and secretly kind of sexy. As I may have confessed before, I like the Doom who isn’t scarred by the college explosion at all, but merely so vain that he hides his face because he considers a tiny scar a horrible disfigurement. This goes with my whole “evil should be beautiful and seductive” theme. I like it in my Satan, and I like it with Doom.
Plus, on a completely superficial note, I think Doom has some of the best hair in the Marvel Universe. It’s always been that awesome auburn color, and wavy in just the right way. (Worst hair: Daredevil. Bad color, bad cut. Yeah, I know he’s blind, but his hair stylist isn’t!) And, while there’s one sexy scene in 3 that shows Doom’s hair off the way I like it, Brubaker couldn’t make me like Doom --which is fairly amazing when you consider he made me like Bucky.
The only scene I really sort of appreciated was when the KGB approached him to try to get him to work for the Soviets – which instantly spurred “What if?” in my head. As a child of the Cold War, I occasionally have a nostalgic yen for Migs and Red Stars and the great, mysterious enemy that the Soviets once represented. I found out on MySpace that Brubaker and I were born in the same month of the same year, so maybe it’s a generational thing.
Meanwhile, the Magneto books are developing a very sympathetic character. I mean it’s hard not to feel pathos about Magneto’s early days, even if all you know is that he grew up as a Jew in WWII and his latent mutant powers saved him from being shot to death when his family was lined up by a Nazi firing squad. The person Pak develops in the few issues I found is someone breaking under the pressure of being constrained by having to not fight back against the evil oppressors in order to save his family from repercussions -- even though, in the end, they die anyway. You can kind of get how Magneto might end up a roiling mess of “f-you, oppressors of any sort! Watch me rip the iron from your blood!”
Pak, of course, has a bit more wiggle room with Magneto’s character because, despite being the founder of the “Brotherhood of *EVIL* Mutants,” Magneto has also semi-successfully played for our team on and off. Magneto’s main conflict has always to do with a basic activist question: whether you should have justice at any cost, or whether you should play by the rules and change attitudes towards race/gayness/other civil rights issue, er, I mean, “mutants” incrementally. When Marvel writes him well, this issue isn’t as simple as it may appear, and thus his status as super_villain_ isn’t as black and white, as say Dr. Doom’s .
When we were out at Barnes & Noble on Saturday, I unsuccessfully combed the graphic novel sections in both used and new for the rest of the “Testament” series. I may have to break down and make my way over to Dreamhaven and see if they have it. I’d really like to see what happens to Magneto in this miniseries. Looks like, if I have to, I can still get it on Amazon in its collected format.
I also found several Captain America issues that catch me (sort of) up to date on that title, but they may deserve a post all their own.
Thus, even though it meant breaking from my usual stable of writers, I simply had to pick up Greg Pak’s (June 2009):
X-Men: Magneto. “Testament” (2 of 5)
X-Men: Magneto. “Testament” (3 of 5)
And, then, since I was on a villainous theme, as I said, I got Ed Brubaker’s (2006):
Books of Doom (1 of 6)
Books of Doom (3 of 6)
Books of Doom (4 of 6)
After reading these, I decided that the first ingredient to being a Marvel supervillain is to be born into a historically persecuted people -- Magneto being a German Jew, and Victor Von Doom who is gypsy/Romany.
After that, I don’t really know what it’s going to take to be one of the two ultimate bad a$$ bad guy (though apparently deals with dark demons help significantly), as I didn’t get very far along in the stories. Between them, I’ll tell you, I’m more interested in Magneto. I’ve always been a Doom fan, but he’s MUCH tougher to sympathize with. I dunno, maybe it’s the whole speaking of himself in the third person thing and lines like, “Where before, though my heart was not filled with pity for the mass of humankind… now I found I looked at them as nothing more than gnats fluttering in my way.” (Books of Doom, 4 of 6)
When I was a kid, the one Marvel novel I read was the origin story of Doom, which at the time, I enjoyed tremendously. When I like him, he’s written as a sort of stand in for Lucifer: proud and arrogant and secretly kind of sexy. As I may have confessed before, I like the Doom who isn’t scarred by the college explosion at all, but merely so vain that he hides his face because he considers a tiny scar a horrible disfigurement. This goes with my whole “evil should be beautiful and seductive” theme. I like it in my Satan, and I like it with Doom.
Plus, on a completely superficial note, I think Doom has some of the best hair in the Marvel Universe. It’s always been that awesome auburn color, and wavy in just the right way. (Worst hair: Daredevil. Bad color, bad cut. Yeah, I know he’s blind, but his hair stylist isn’t!) And, while there’s one sexy scene in 3 that shows Doom’s hair off the way I like it, Brubaker couldn’t make me like Doom --which is fairly amazing when you consider he made me like Bucky.
The only scene I really sort of appreciated was when the KGB approached him to try to get him to work for the Soviets – which instantly spurred “What if?” in my head. As a child of the Cold War, I occasionally have a nostalgic yen for Migs and Red Stars and the great, mysterious enemy that the Soviets once represented. I found out on MySpace that Brubaker and I were born in the same month of the same year, so maybe it’s a generational thing.
Meanwhile, the Magneto books are developing a very sympathetic character. I mean it’s hard not to feel pathos about Magneto’s early days, even if all you know is that he grew up as a Jew in WWII and his latent mutant powers saved him from being shot to death when his family was lined up by a Nazi firing squad. The person Pak develops in the few issues I found is someone breaking under the pressure of being constrained by having to not fight back against the evil oppressors in order to save his family from repercussions -- even though, in the end, they die anyway. You can kind of get how Magneto might end up a roiling mess of “f-you, oppressors of any sort! Watch me rip the iron from your blood!”
Pak, of course, has a bit more wiggle room with Magneto’s character because, despite being the founder of the “Brotherhood of *EVIL* Mutants,” Magneto has also semi-successfully played for our team on and off. Magneto’s main conflict has always to do with a basic activist question: whether you should have justice at any cost, or whether you should play by the rules and change attitudes towards race/gayness/other civil rights issue, er, I mean, “mutants” incrementally. When Marvel writes him well, this issue isn’t as simple as it may appear, and thus his status as super_villain_ isn’t as black and white, as say Dr. Doom’s .
When we were out at Barnes & Noble on Saturday, I unsuccessfully combed the graphic novel sections in both used and new for the rest of the “Testament” series. I may have to break down and make my way over to Dreamhaven and see if they have it. I’d really like to see what happens to Magneto in this miniseries. Looks like, if I have to, I can still get it on Amazon in its collected format.
I also found several Captain America issues that catch me (sort of) up to date on that title, but they may deserve a post all their own.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-26 07:16 pm (UTC)