Captain Marvel #17

Comic books have always been about New York City. Whether Superman's Metropolis, Batman's Gotham or the actual city as portrayed by Marvel -- home to the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building, the Avenger's mansion abutting Central Park and Peter Parker's place of employment (J. Jonah Jameson's Daily Bugle) -- modern-day comic books, since the medium's inception in 1930s New York City, have acted as a introduction to and a primer for life in the cultural capital of the United States.

As a boy growing up during the 1970s, reading The Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, it was clear to me that there was a center, a platform for all human action, and that was New York City. I knew I had to get there. (And I did get there, and lived there for five years at an appropriate time of life, my early to middle twenties.)

A fundamental aspect -- I'm tempted to say the fundamental aspect -- of situating superhero comic books in New York City is one of scale. It is all about the size of the buildings, the long canyons of commercial high-rise architecture, and the puniness of Homo sapiens in such an environment. To dramatize a situation where the hero can soar above all this, can swing freely among and tread effortlessly up and and down the skyscrapers, is the essence of super.

To see what I mean, check out the two Silver Age covers from the great John Romita, Sr. The first, with help from Frank Giacoia, is from Daredevil #16, May 1966; the second, a favorite of mine, is from Amazing Spider-Man #48, May 1967:

Captain Marvel #17, the concluding issue in the 7th volume of that title, with a publication date of January 2014, is amazing because it taps back into this essence of the superhero: it is set in New York City, and it pays homage to the grandeur of the metropolis' architecture -- it almost has a George Reeves Adventures of Superman quality.

The issues of volume 7 of Captain Marvel where writer Kelly Sue DeConnick works with standout artist Filipe Andrade are exceptional.

Andrade departs after #12 and the title clunks along in service of the Thanos Infinity Star Warsesque crossover event, but he returns to spectacular effect in #17.

As you can see from the scans of nine interior pages below, Andrade is one of the best. The cover page is by the incomparable Joe Quinones.

The Defenders #10

Recently I read all the issues of The Defenders, Vol. 4, which kicked off at the end of 2011 and then was cancelled at the beginning of 2013 with issue #12. Matt Fraction authored the comic book throughout its run, and I'm sorry to say that for the most part -- and by this I mean something like three out of every four issues -- were tired, distracted, emotionless loops around the superhero comic carousel. Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of Matt Fraction. I loyally read his Hawkeye, Vol. 4, a brilliant, refreshing, cutting-edge book. And I said before on this page that his Invincible Iron Man will go down in the history books as synonymous with the period of hope and change (it turned out to be delusional) that Obama's 2008 campaign and first years in the White House ushered in. But what I have also noticed is that Fraction is willing to pimp himself out to the point of overextension. His work then tends to the overly sarcastic and thin. I'm thinking here of his run on The Mighty Thor.

The Defenders when it first appeared in the early 1970s was unique in spotlighting a team of outcasts. This was Marvel's answer to the recently spawned "One Nation Underground." The social upheaval of the late 1960s might have been checkmated politically by Nixonland, the "Silent Majority," but at the end of the day in the United States you still had an enormous counter culture, a massified bohemia that had its own newspapers, grocery stores, film and music -- and those tastes were coming to dominate the mainstream majority.

Roy Thomas, like so much that he did for Marvel in the early '70s, was just being a shrewd businessman when he stuck a Greenwich Village beatnik (Doctor Strange), with a Gamma-powered Frankstein monster (Hulk), a cosmically-juiced master of the spaceways (Silver Surfer) and last but not least, Marvel's founding anti-hero, the underwater Tecumseh, Namor the Sub-Mariner. This was a group that could speak to the Hippies.

Below you'll find five scans from Fraction's The Defenders #10. The cover, by Joe Quinones, is a wonderful homage to the early Bronze Age. The four stunning interior pages are by Jamie McKelvie with Mike Norton; Jordie Bellaire provides the color. The final page pictures Red She-Hulk wiping out a crow.

Dark Avengers #189

The new Dark Avengers title, written by Jeff Parker with pencils by Neil Edwards and inks by Terry Pallot, is, I'm sad to say, weak. It is unfortunate because I like Jeff Parker's writing; his run on Red Hulk was exceptional, as was his work on Thunderbolts with artists Kev Walker and Declan Shalvey. The storyline in the current Dark Avengers is a time-travel narrative set in a future where warring superheroes have divided New York City into various turfs. It is convoluted and feels exhausted. It is also unfortunate because the original Dark Avengers title, written by Brian Bendis with art by Mike Deodato, was the premiere Marvel comic book for the first year and a half of the Obama administration; it corresponds with the Dark Reign and Siege Marvel crossover events and Congressional Affordable Care Act battles and the rise of the Tea Party.

Below are five scans from Dark Avengers #189. The cover art is by Joe Quinones, a play on the famous Alfred Eisenstaedt photo of a sailor kissing a woman in Times Square on V-J Day. In Quinones' subversive cover, Toxic Doxie is the one doing the kissing, bending the sailor's back and cradling his head. The four interior pages by Neil Edwards showcase Skaar, Son of Hulk, pounding an alternate universe Mr. Fantastic into rubble: