I'm back to talk about Epics.
Rom: The Original Marvel Years vol. 1
For a long time, Rom was one of those Marvel characters that existed purely in internet message boards as a test of one's nerd knowledge. A test I failed, by the way. Even as a Marvel kid from the 90s and the hundreds of hours I spent going through the long bins at comic stores growing up, I had no fucking idea who Rom was until last year when Marvel completed the licensing deal with Hasbro to republish his stuff. And yet, now reading his book, I am starting to realize just how prevalent he was. He introduced Marvel to the dire wraiths, a faction of evil space aliens who would eventually appear in other titles including the Incredible Hulk, Avengers and the Uncanny X-Men.
The first volume of Rom is a mixed bag. The first half of the volume contain stories which are all essentially the same: the dire wraiths, disguised as humans, cause some trouble in a small west virginian town. Rom shows up, blows them all away, and gets called a murderer before wandering off to do it all again in the next issue. At around the halfway point, the town realizes that Rom isn't actually murdering humans, but evil aliens, and they all then become his friends.
The second half of the book is basically a tokusatsu story featuring Rom fighting the weird alien of the month. The second half is definitely better than the first, but its all bog-standard comic book fluff. Nothing exceptional, nothing worth getting excited about.
Rating: 5/10
Avengers West Coast vol. 1 - "How the West was Won"
Holy shit this is garbage. Avengers West Coast vol. 1 contains the four issue mini-series plus the first ten or so issues of the regular series.
The Good:
Hawkeye and Mockingbird make a great couple. They have good chemistry and Hawkeye's desire to prove his team's mettle is compelling.
The Bad:
Every other Avenger.
-Wonder Man starts off fine, but then his brother shows up and Wonder Man has some kind of internal conflict about stealing money and going to jail, but although he went to jail, everybody thought his brother did it, but the Vision is also his brother but better than him and... its all so fucking convoluted and retarded.
-Tigra. Tigra fucks half the Avengers because she's becoming more cat-like and she's insecure because she thinks she can't cut it as an Avenger, so they take her to the cat island to fix her cat problem. However, the cat people want to remove any trace of the human from Tigra so she'll become fully cat like and... goddamn this is stupid.
-Ant-Man doesn't want to be a hero, but joins the team to be their Jarvis, but then Ultron shows up, calls him "daddy," and he has an existential crisis over an evil robot.
-Iron Man. Starts off as Rodey who has a decent arc of trying to live up to Tony's example, but then Tony just takes over (with no explanation) and has no personality.
The Villains.
One of the good thing about the Avengers--the real Avengers--is that they are able to turn even shit-tier villains into world-ending threats. The villains in this book are world-ending threats, but are so fucking poorly written that they all appear worthless and incompetent. Even Ultron is a fucking buffoon in this comic. A complete waste of good villains.
The Writing.
As I described when I talked about the team, the writing in this comic is shit. Every character has too much pathos, and the pathos is all retarded. Tigra is insecure because she has no powers. Makes sense. Great. But she's also becoming more cat like and fucking everything that moves, and is mad about that. Its too much. PICK A FUCKING LANE.
Same with the villains. The villains here are all super powerful, but written so stupidly that they come across like jokes.
Nothing works in these issues.
The Art.
Terrible. No dynamism whatsoever.
This is easily the worst Epic Collection I've read.
Rating 2/10.
Danny Ketch Ghost Rider vol. 1 - "Vengeance Reborn"
The mainline issues of Ghost Rider: good art, coherent story, classic 90s action.
The Marvel Comics Present issues: okay art, incoherent story, garbage action.
I really enjoyed this volume. Danny Ketch makes a good Ghost Rider. Its 90s schlock, but I mean that in the best way possible. Just skip the Marvel Comics Presents stuff.
Rating: 9/10
