Thunderbolts #17

Yesterday, sometime before 5 PM, as I was lying on my mattress on the floor reading and listening to music, dinner cooking on the stove, I heard a loud bang out my open window. It sounded like it came from up the block as Capitol Hill rises to its crest on 15th Avenue East. Then the music stopped playing.

A power outage, the exact cause apparently was a downed distribution wire, doesn't happen very often here. For the rest of a mild August evening I read and enjoyed the quiet. The absence of electricity was pleasant. The light was ample and the temperature was just right. Usually on a Saturday night I would stream a movie. Being away from the computer screen was a plus.

I read a stack of back issues of Thunderbolts. It was an unexpected treat. I particularly enjoyed the Infinity crossover. Written by Charles Soule with art by one of my favorites, Jefte Palo (whose work on Incredible Hulk and Taskmaster was inspired), issues 15 through 18 were far superior to anything found in Infinity or The Avengers, the primary titles that tell the story of a Star Wars-like invasion of Earth by the evil Titan Thanos.

In the Thunderbolts-Infinity crossover, Red Hulk, Red Leader and the death angel Mercy do battle in midtown Manhattan with Thanos' invasion fleet, while Punisher, Elektra and Venom mop up a confederacy of criminals who are riding out the alien attack in a fortress-like hideaway in the South Bronx. Meanwhile, Deadpool is off on his own, making his way uptown in search of a hot slice or two, mixing it up here and there with the space invaders. I laughed out loud while reading these four issues.

Below you will find a scan of the beautiful cover to Thunderbolts #17, which is by Julian Totino Tedesco, as well as seven interior pages.

Infinity #6

Recently another blockbuster Marvel Comics crossover event came to an end. Infinity was a sprawling (spanning a dozen different titles) and ambitious (I think too much so) saga of inter-galactic creation, destruction and warfare between superheroes and supervillains. Penned principally by Jonathan Hickman, it factored in Thanos, the mad Titan butcher, in a way that never seemed organic to the main narrative (which was interesting and had do do with the Builders, the primary originators of the universe).

Hickman introduces new characters, both heroes and villains, along the way; Thane, son of Thanos, for instance, whose special powers are unleashed with the detonation of a Terrigen Bomb by Black Bolt and who will likely figure in the present Marvel blockbuster crossover event, Inhumanity. You see, one crossover event gives way to another.

The point of these crossover events is to make money for the parent corporation. The reader is sent on a spending spree in a largely vain attempt to keep abreast of the narrative, scattered as it is over many different comic books. A feeling of immersion in or presence with the story is almost never achieved. The feeling is rather always one of deferral or difference. But in this I guess you could say, in true Derridean fashion, that Marvel is treating its readers to the essence of writing.

Below are ten scans from Infinity #6 covering the climactic final battle between the Avengers -- Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Thor -- and Thanos. But it is Thanos' son Thane that ends up conquering the evil Titan, freezing him in a cube of "living death" that conjures up images of Thanos' demise in his original appearance in  the Captain Marvel of the Watergate-era 1970s. Jim Cheung is the penciler.

Infinity #3

Last weekend I dipped into Marvel's current crossover blockbuster event, Infinity.

Part of the Marvel NOW! re-branding that coincided with the conclusion of the Avengers vs. X-Men Phoenix war, Infinity, stretched as it is over several different titles with tie-ins in various books, is turgid, opaque, unsatisfying.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of writer Jonathan Hickman. And the art by Jerome Opeña, Dustin Weaver and Jim Cheung has been topnotch. It is just that I am exhausted with the blockbuster crossover events and the crass commercialism behind them. For instance, Age of Ultron supposedly feeds into the Infinity storyline, but I wouldn't know that because I threw in the towel on that blockbuster crossover event before the final issue. I have all the Age of Ultron issues here in the studio. I read the first five issues. I just have no desire to take the time to finish off the title.

The plot architecture of Infinity is a classic Western. Cavalry exits fort in pursuit of Indians. Marauders attack and capture defenseless fort. While most superheroes are in outer space engaged in Star Warsesque battles with the Builders, creators of the universe who have decided that the Earth must go, the baleful Thanos, in order to claim the remaining Infinity Gem, decides to stage a sneak attack on our seemingly defenseless blue-green planet.

Below are scans of the three pages that conclude Infinity #3. Black Bolt goes aurally ballistic on Thanos. The art is by Jerome Opeña and Dustin Weaver; colors, Justin Ponsor:

Thanos Rising #2

Thanos Rising is obviously part of a larger Marvel Entertainment, LLC scheme, a teaser for which appeared at the end of The Avengers (2012) movie:

It seems that Marvel Studios is going to bring a number of spaced-based blockbuster movies to the big screen. Several comic books have been launched in service of this -- Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thanos Rising; the Iron Man title has been given over to it as well.

The best of the bunch is Thanos Rising. Jason Aaron is the writer. I think he's doing the best work at Marvel now. The art, by Simone Bianchi, is fantastic; it captures the spaced-out Esalen '70s which is the world that birthed Thanos out of Jim Starlin's fecund brain.

Thanos Rising tells the story of how Thanos, growing up in the Utopia of Titan, one of Saturn's moons, got to be as demented as he is. In the first two issues that I've read so far the adolescent Thanos is a proto-Hannibal Lecter. You can see what I mean by taking a look below at the three scans from Thanos Rising #2:

Fiscal Cliff Not a Debt Crisis But a Political Crisis

Based on a reading of today's paper I think it's clear that there will be no deal on the fiscal cliff.  Not only have the Republicans failed to identify the loopholes they will close in order to raise the $800 billion in revenue that Boehner has agreed to but they refuse to identify which spending cuts they want to make.  As put in an unsigned editorial in the New York Times:

None of these brave budget-cutters want to go on television and say, cut the F.B.I. Or cut the Border Patrol. Or cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But that’s exactly what they’re doing by insisting on slashing discretionary spending. Republicans are so afraid of this reality that they won’t even detail their demands for cuts to the White House in the fiscal-cliff talks, instead waiting for President Obama to go first so they won’t be stuck with the blame. 

Both Paul Krugman's column and the front page story by Jonathan Weisman and Jackie Calmes point to months of bitter "trench warfare" to come.  This from the Weisman and Calmes:

If no deal is reached, Republicans are increasingly talking about a more hostile outcome in which the House passes legislation that extends tax cuts for the middle class, sets relatively low tax rates on dividends, capital gains and inherited estates, and cancels the across-the-board defense cuts, but leaves in place across-the-board domestic cuts. Then House Republicans would engage in what Mr. Boehner, in a private meeting last week, called “trench warfare,” a running battle with the president on spending, first as the government approaches its statutory borrowing limit early next year, then in late March, when a stopgap government spending bill runs out. But such legislation might not be able to pass the Senate, leaving the country no closer to a resolution. 

Get ready for more brinkmanship and the resulting market somersaults, first when we run up againt the debt ceiling next month and then in March when the continuing resolution that keeps the government running expires.

In Krugman's column one finds a refreshing, unvarnished assessment.  The fiscal cliff is not a debt crisis it's a political crisis brought on by a political party that is at a dead end ideologically.

It’s a dangerous situation. The G.O.P. is lost and rudderless, bitter and angry, but it still controls the House and, therefore, retains the ability to do a lot of harm, as it lashes out in the death throes of the conservative dream.

And it's a party that still has enough juice to pass right-to-work legislation in a historically strong union state like Michigan; it's a party that is insulated by rigorous gerrymandering; and it is a party that, like the Marvel comics super villain Thanos, worships death.  Because what else can supporting the Pentagon at the expense of all other discretionary spending not to mention Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security mean?  It's best not to try to placate such a party, as Obama did in the summer 2011 debt ceiling negotiations.  Let's go off the cliff and meet the death worshippers head on.