Front Lines - Mini-Reviews (Week of March 30)

X-Men ‘92 #1 by Chris Sims, Chad Bowers, and Alti Firmansyah

Summary: Xavier has announced that the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters would be accepting new students to be trained by the X-Men.  Many of them came from Cassandra Nova’s facility.  The school is pretty chaotic with students rollerblading in the halls and a new overpowered Danger Room.  Beast is teaching the students X-Men 101 when Maverick bursts through the window screaming “X-Men!  They’re coming for you!” He manages to add “It’s all a game” and passes out.

At that point, the People’s Protectorate arrive at the school. Ursa Major, Omega Red, Darkstar, Vostak, and Red Guardian.  They say a fugitive mercenary has stolen secrets from the Russian government, and they are here to get it back.  The X-Men decide to fight instead of turning over Maverick.  Maverick shables out and gets their handler to agree to give him 24 hours.  He’s got information that is more vital than anything he stole.  The Handler agrees and the People’s Protectorate retreat.

Maverick tells the X-Men that someone found out about a long-lost Soviet super-weapon.  A super soldier who has been in hibernation since World War 2 called Alpha Red.  Andreas and Andrea Von Strucker have bought Alpha Red from Russians looking to make a quick buck.  Maverick had been hired by the Von Struckers to confirm Alpha Red’s existence.  They then tried to wipe him out once he knew too much.  He heard the Von Struckers talking about killing the X-Men to score points in some kind of mysterious game.  He also reveals that Alpha Red is already here.  We see Alpha Red stalking Jubilee and Chamber who are out on a date.

Mike Maillaro: This was actually much better than the Secret Wars version of X-Men ‘92.  I have always liked the idea of the Upstarts competition, though nothing ever came from it in the original continuity.  This issue felt more like an homage and not a parody, which was definitely a step in the right direction.  It still would never land on my all-time favorite comic list, but I have to give it credit for being a huge improvement.  I will admit, I picked up this book with the intention of continuing to complain about it, but it turned out to be a palatable surprise. 

Matt Graham: I was worried when you said the original issue was a parody. It does read like the old animated series tie-in comics, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s very direct and pure in its intent.

Mike: Yeah, in the mini-series it really felt like they were trying to do too much at once, and the whole series suffered as a result.  This comic had more pages, and they seemed willing to give the characters and storylines a little more breathing room.  It definitely helps for me that they were using characters I have a lot more interest in than a Cassandra Nova cloned by Apocalypse who was inhabited by the Shadow King.  

Matt: I like that it is my era of the X-Universe. Maverick, Gen X, Omega Red, and a Bishop who needs that bad ass harmonica riff whenever he appears on screen.

Batman and Robin Eternal #26 by Various

Summary: We start with a flashback to Harper’s childhood.  Mom worked long hours.  Dad was basically an basically absentee criminal.  She did her best to take care of things, and it was a struggle.  Her mother encouraged her that she could be whatever she wanted in life.

In present time, Harper stands over Cassandra considering whether she should kill her.  Grayson tries to convince Harper that they won.  But Mother says all the Robins had managed to do was delay the plan for a short time.  They don’t have the resources to keep stopping her attacks; Mother continues to toy and convince Harper to kill Cassandra.  Harper reveals that she would never hurt Cassandra.  All she was doing was mapping out electrical infrastructure of Mother’s base to find out the weak point.  She throws the knife and disrupts all the power.  Mother tries to fix it, but Harper attacks her.

Mother tries to shoot Harper, but Cassandra pushes her out of the way, taking a bullet in the shoulder.  Mother is about to try and launch another round of satellite attacks but Azrael has been wrecking the base the whole time.  Mother calls her Orphans to attack, but Midnighter and their allies all arrive to back up Grayson, Harper, and Cassandra.  Harper helps Cassie up, and Spoiler arrives to help them… with a massive gun.

Grayson confronts Mother.  She is armed with energy swords.  The other Robins arrive to back him up.  Mother does the whole villain rant about how broken the world is and how she was the only one who could fix it.  Grayson takes her down.  She tries to use an active volcano below the base to destroy all traces of her and her plan.  Red Robin tries to get Grayson to run, but Grayson insists that they have to bring her to justice.  She tries to walk away, Cassandra arrives. The Robins are concerned she will kill Mother, but Cassandra vows never to kill again.  Mother insists they won’t be able to hold her. “My children will come for me.”  David Cain stabs her through the heart.  Grayson tries to convince Cain to turn her over to them, but Cain grabs her, apologizes to Cassandra, and leaps into the volcano with Mother.  The Robins and their allies manage to escape with the Orphans as the base collapses.

A month later, Harper is visiting her mom’s grave.  Batman arrives.  She tells him that he shoukd have told her about what happened to her mother.  Harper isn’t sure what she wants to do with her life.  Batman tells her that Bluebird is always welcome in Gotham.  She says “like you ever had a choice in the matter.” Harper leaves and Cassandra appears from the shadows.  Batman tells her that she should follow her own path too.  Cassandra says no.  She wants to help. She is calling herself Orphan now.  

Later, The Robins are talking to Batman.  Batman has always feared that he was too much like Mother.  The Robins disagree.  There is a bank heist nearby. Batman leaps to the rescue...with all the Robins.

Mike: It’s odd.  Part of me has always felt that Batman with a team makes no sense.  But, I have always loved the Bat family.  Even Damian has grown on me lately.  Batman and Robin Eternal expanded the family by introducing Azrael and Cassandra to the mix and expanded Harper and Spoiler’s roles.  I really enjoyed this series beginning to end.  I hope that in DC Rebirth, they continue to utilize this terrific cast.

Grey Scherl: I’m really hoping that Detective Comics winds up spinning out of this for pretty much every reason you just mentioned.

Captain America: Sam Wilson #7 (Avengers Standoff) by Nick Spencer, Daniel Acuna, Angel Unzueta, and Matt Yackey

Summary: Sam Wilson has come to Pleasant Hill following up on Rick Jones telling him SHIELD was manipulating reality with Cosmic Cube Fragments.  He finds Winter Soldier is also there.  The town has gone crazy with villains running amuck.  Sam and Bucky decide to track down Steve Rogers.  They end up rescuing a school teacher from some villains, only to discover she’s a plainclothes SHIELD agent and able to take care of herself.  She tells them that Zemo has Director Hill and Rogers held hostage at town hall.  She also mentions that there is a weapon at the Pleasant Hill Museum which can help turn the tide. Sam and Bucky go to deactivate the museum’s security, fighting several villains along the way.  Kobik appears to them telling them “He’s in danger.”

We find out that Maria Hill and Rogers survived Nitro’s attempt to kill them though Hill was badly injured.  Rogers got Hill medical help, assisted by a mysterious priest (who is later revealed to be Red Skull).  Rogers goes to find Kobik, tracking her to a bowling alley.  Kobik is upset that things aren’t working right.  She wants things to go back to how they used to be. That is when Crossbones attacks, beating Rogers close to death.   Zemo wants him alive, but Crossbones knows Rogers is too dangerous to keep alive.  Rogers thinks about this legacy.  He hopes Sam knows he still considers him a friend even if they have had disagreements. He also hopes Bucky knows how grateful he was for when Bucky took over as Captain America.  Rogers hears Kobik saying he doesn’t have to die.  She can make him a hero again.  He is revitalized back to young, healthy, super soldier.  He easily takes down Crossbones.  Bucky and Falcon arrive seeing Rogers back to normal.

Presentation by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday

Summary: Back in World War 2, Army PR flaks are worried that the shield is not a good symbol for Cap.  They think it makes us look weak.  They want him to start using a giant Amerigun.  Cap insists that a shield is the right message.  American is a knight protecting those in need, and knights need shields.

Catch Me if You Can by Tim Sale

Summary: Cap is determined to rescue his old footlocker from a HYDRA base.  We find out that in the footlocker is a signed baseball that his father had left him. It took a while, but it’s finally back safe where it belongs.

Pas De Deux by Greg Rucka and Mike Perkins

Summary: Natasha insists on Cap joining her for a night at the ballet.  Cap resists, but he goes along.  They are looking for Latverian assassins who have come to kill the prima ballerina, who defected.  While Natasha searches for the assassins, Cap finds himself fascinated by the ballerina’s dance moves.  They easily take the assassins down, and Cap realizes that many of Natasha’s fighting skills come from her dance background.  He ends up with a whole new appreciation of ballet.

Matt: I knew this twist was coming the moment I knew what the plot device was. It isn’t an unwelcome usage of the device, even if we all knew it was coming (more on that below). 

This issue felt like the first real movement since the initial issue of Standoff, but it does make those tie-ins the past few weeks even more sloppy than they already were. We now have three Maria Hills by my count: The injured one here, the one in Uncanny, and the evil fighter pilot in All-New Avengers. More Cosmic Cube trickery? Has Kobik split her into aspects of herself? An aggressive morally compromised soldier in All-New, the responsible authority figure in Uncanny, and this regretful soft and injured Hill.

What about the Wrecker? He was the whole focus of Uncanny Avengers with an escaped Hill in tow, but this issue we see him get his ass handed to him. That’s why he ran away. Perhaps he even realized who the priest was and wanted to get the hell out of Pleasant Hill.

How about that priest? A nice mystery while it lasted for a few pages with a nice reveal that satisfied yet led to deeper mystery. Is Zemo not even in control here?

The focus on Zemo, Red Skull, and Crossbones reinforced how much of a Captain America story this is. We already know he’s coming back thanks to Marvel’s ridiculous solicitations and marketing system. The story and this issue in particular highlight what the Captain America identity and shield mean to the men taking up the mantle, and it’s very much a story of Steve Rogers once again coming into conflict with an authority that he disagrees with. The great thing about Captain America is he doesn’t follow blindly and he has his own morals and critical thinking that he applies to any situation. It’s a good motivator to get him into prime fighting condition and suit back up.

That said, it doesn’t work as a bigger crossover so far. The tie-ins feel forced in and the last three weeks haven’t moved the story at all.

This issue was good, though, and serves as further proof Nick Spencer should have been left to his own story.

Mike: Before I talk about the story at hand, I want to talk about the presentation here.  Typically with these anniversary issues we get reprints or a lot of backup stories by “newer” talent.  I was real surprised by the creative teams on these back up stories.  They were all short, and I am not sure they really added anything to the value of picking up this issue, but I still enjoyed them quite a bit.  I could argue that I am not really sure they belonged in an issue of SAM WILSON: Captain America.  It seemed like they could have had at least one back up story that featured Sam Wilson.  Especially since after the opening of the main story, Sam basically vanishes until arriving just at the end to find out that Steve Rogers had already saved himself.

We have talked about this in past columns, but Avengers Standoff seems to be a mess from an editorial standpoint.  Like you said, we now have three Maria Hills running around, not to mention story threads that seem to have gotten lost.  I genuinely forgot that Nitro supposedly blew up Stever Rogers and Maria Hill, since it hadn’t been referenced in any of the issues since it happened.  I have no idea if the villains are confined to Pleasant Hill or not.  Some issues suggest yes, but we’ve seen Wrecker and other villains running from Pleasant Hill too.  For such a short and relatively confined storyline, I am not sure how come Marvel can’t keep better track of what’s going on where.

The comic itself was good.  Yeah, Steve Rogers being turned back to normal was something that we basically all saw coming, but it still worked well in the context of this comic.  This was by far the best issue of Avengers Standoff since the Pleasant Hill specials that started us off.  Nick Spencer seems to be the only writer who has a good handle on this story.  

Matt: The backups just reinforce that this is an event to showcase how Steve is and always will be The Captain America. I liked the Widow ballet story best since it afforded some nice insight into both Steve and Natasha.

Are they going to run Steve and Sam in their titles?

Grey: All I know about Cap going forward is that Sam keeps his book and the shield, and Steve gets a new book with a new shield, and Spencer is writing all of it.

Mike: Which is definitely the best part of this news to me.  Spencer can pretty much make me buy any book.  

Rick and Morty #12 by Tom Fowler and CJ Cannon

Summary: Rick’s son-in-law Jerry is determined to modify Rick’s perfect toast maker.  He sees this as an important act of defiance against his father-in-law. His wife and daughter (Summer) encourage Jerry to ask Rick for help.  Jerry reluctantly agrees.  He goes into Rick’s lab. He finds Rick’s severed head attached to several wires.  Jerry’s son Morty also seems to be missing.  There is a loud explosion outside.  Summer is trying to use one of Rick’s devices to open a portal to try and find Morty.  Her mom stops her as the portal explodes.  They believe Rick and Morty to both be dead.  Jerry blames his wife for allowing Morty to get so close to Rick in the first place.  The wife blames Jerry for not being a good father and forcing Morty to look for a father figure in Rick.  It is getting real tense.  Summer manages to cool things off some.

Meanwhile, Rick and Morty are inside the head.  It is a head of an alternate reality Rick who was trying to stop an alien invasion.  Rick and Morty are running from heavily armed soldiers inside Alternate Rick’s memories looking for a way to stop the alien armada.  Outside, Jerry has turned off the life support for the head, which is making things start to collapse inside.  Things are looking bleak.  Rick says there is only one option left.  We see that Morty’s severed head is also at the house, in the fridge and attached to a battery.

Mike: Since these fine gentlemen are willing to follow me down any rabbit hole I take them, when they suggest a comic for this column, I give it a read and include it, no questions asked. Grey said he loved this show and comic, so I said, "Let's give it a shot!"  I will preface this review by saying I have never seen an episode of Rick + Morty, and I don’t know all that much about the show. I read this comic without any context or expectations.

One things I will give them a ton of credit for is that they made the comic very accessible for new readers.  Pretty much by the end of the first two pages, I had a strong sense of who everyone was and how everything fit together.  And that is no easy feat when your story involves alternate realities and some real powerful dramatic moments.  

The dramatic moments were surprisingly powerful and real.  Jerry and his wife’s fight was actually a little painful to read, even without a lot of context to it.  And the emotion of seeing the family burying Rick and Morty hit hard.  You have to give the creative team a lot of credit to be able to pull off that kind of emotion even on a new reader who didn’t come in with any real deep connection to these characters.

The story itself was a lot of fun.  I love alternate reality stories.  I was reminded a little of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Time’s Arrow, which starts with Data’s severed head.  But the characters running through the head looking for memories to help them fight an alien invasion was a pretty fresh take on the story.  I don’t know if I would be a regular reader here, but I am definitely picking up issue 13 to find out how this cliffhanger is resolved.

Grey: I love this show, and I love this book, and you REALLY need to sit back and watch the first two seasons.

Some of the best moments in the show have come up from situations like this; Rick and Morty missing and everybody else having to pull together...or Rick and Morty watching interdimensional cable while Jerry, Beth, and Summer try and see if the grass is greener in other worlds. Actually, that episode even had a callback when Summer goes to sit on the graves of her actual Rick and Morty.

That would make a LOT more sense if you watched the show.

Family episodes/issues are pretty different from the regular Rick and Morty combos; and every beat was touched on here. Jerry’s more or less impotence and constant need to try and reaffirm that he’s better than Rick (he’s not), Beth’s commitment to her family despite her loathing of Jerry (they stay together for the kids, pretty much no other reason), and Summer being the angsty and over emotional teenager that is far better adjusted than either of her parents.

And, I mean, them jumping to conclusions and having the funeral is pretty much the most in character thing ever. For as exposed as they have been to Rick and Morty’s adventures, none of them have learned to put enough faith in Rick to give him an hour or two to see if he’s actually dead.

But hey, Abradolf Lincler showed up for the funeral, and that’s just awesome.