Air Quotes of Evil

Today, we're back with issue #3 of Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur. It's the last of the three issues in the Timely Comics edition, which featured the materials coming out post-Secret Wars," and collectively known as the All-New, All-Different" era, and collected the first three issues of the new publication line. In most cases, I have to wonder if that left readers unsatisfied, since the modern model for comic book storytelling puts an emphasis on pacing for collected editions, and making each arc feel like its own discrete story, often with somewhat of a resulting lack of cohesion from arc to arc. However, by the end of this issue, it will become apparent that this won't be a worry for our characters.
collected in my "Timely Comics" edition, so in a small way I feel like this is, at least for me, a close on the first chapter (or with hope, just the prologue) of this book. The "Timely Comics" editions were published a few months into the post

Let's Recap: Super-genius 9-year-old Lunella Lafayette has been reluctantly bonding with the time-displaced Devil Dinosaur while also fearing that he might eat her. DD has been reluctant to let her go home because he doesn't want to let the Nightstone/Kree Omni-Wave Projector out of his sight and Lunella is just as stubborn about leaving it behind. Meanwhile, the evil cavemen of the Killer Folk have picked up some rudimentary English  and robbed some clothes off some unsuspecting subway riders and NYC police. Lunella finally convinces DD to let her leave, Nightstone in hand, but she isn't out of Big Red's sight for a minute before she is jumped by the Killer Folk.

Before I get into the issue, let's take a moment to appreciate this cover. Remember last time, how I went on at length about the waning usage of sound effects words in comics and how they exist as a visual element in the storytelling? Well, as of this issue, I am convinced that Montclare and Reeder are making an active effort to rehabilitate the onomatopoeia in comics. I love that not only do we have Devil Dinosaur's "roar" in big yellow and pink bubble letters, but that they physically interact with the page like an actual roar would, literally being the physical force of the roar nearly blowing Lunella over. It's also a fun visualization of their dynamic, which is an ideal "show, don't tell" moment for the cover.

The inherent dangers of the self driving car.

Picking up right where left last issue, with the Nightstone in hand and Lunella apprehended, the Killer Folk are still worried about the big honking dinosaur that followed them into the future, but one of them has thrown caution to the wind, jumping up and down until he gets a car thrown on top of him. I'm going to assumed Devil Dinosaur threw that with his massive jaws because, well, T-Rex arms.

Before you get too worried that one of our protagonists just offed someone (I don't know why this is a concern, considering he's a freaking dinosaur), don't worry. They just rolled the car off him. It has a huge dent in it, but the guy seems okay. I know the Rule of Cool should probably negate logic in this instance, but I have to wonder if cavemen in the Marvel Universe are supposed to be OP. They're about the size of a modern 10-year-old child. Granted, these are warriors and average civilians in the subway could be taken unawares. Being able to get the jump on trained police officers, who have guns, tasers, mace, and a night stick is a bit more implausible, but still within the realm of possibility. Being able to walk away from having a car thrown on top of you is really where I ought to draw the line.

The car didn't even knock off his hat, let alone hurt him. 

Of course, where there is a car crashing down from above, a T-Rex can't be far behind (add that to sentences that I don't think I would have ever said), and what ensues is a positively fun "hot potato" fight sequence, of who's got the Nightstone. It ventures on positively Rube Goldbergian territory, with Lunella using a spring loaded device in her back pack to pounce on one caveman, and later one big swing of Devil Dinosaur's tail launches another caveman into the air to snatch the macguffin back from Lunella.

Ultimately, however, the Killer Folk escape with the Nightstone, and Lunella is none too pleased. And she blames Devil Dinosaur completely. I think it's an understatement to say she didn't handle it well. I'm still at a loss for why she comes across so unpleasantly in these sorts of moments because she's a nine -year-old and children are awful or if this utter deficit of basic empathy is a singularly defining character trait for her.

I appreciate the fact that they've definitely made an effort to establish this prickly temper part of her personality. It does a great job of demonstrating that she's not just a girl who is misunderstood. For as much crap as people give her, she does have some blatant personality flaws. She's got some growing up to do.

Once she has finally made her way back to the Lafayette household, her parents replay the news story about the incident in her school yard. They are none to please with what happened to her today, despite the fact that she got home in time for supper without so much as a scraped knee. Parents, amirite? They're solution to their daughter getting kidnapped by giant red T-Rexes is to forbid her from doing extra curricular science projects. Yeah, attempting to limit your child's intellectual growth-- that'll teach her not to get attacked by cavemen.

Where to begin...?

On the one hand, I'm puzzled that they honestly treat this like something she had any control over. Granted, she's little miss science, but from what we've seen of her practical applications, they mostly take the form of gadgets: sneakers with button activated roller skates, remote control snitches, and the aforementioned backpack. Blaming her for bringing a dinosaur into the present and that is ran off with her in its mouth seems like a quantum leap in her ostensible capabilities... as well as victim blaming.

On the second hand,  A DINOSAUR FROM THE DAWN OF TIME RAN OFF WITH THEIR DAUGHTER TODAY. Please take a moment to note the lack of relief at her safe return. Yeah, I'm starting to see where little miss personality gets it from.

Air quotes are the new
resting bitch face.

On the third hand (don't try to limit me to your wacky 2-handed system), is there something wrong with this family that they need to watch all their media through a wee little phone screen? I mean other than the fact that this book is aimed at millennials and millennials love them some smartphones, it doesn't make any sense. when a tv screen (just about all of which have the option of rewinding in realtime, nowadays), or even a tablet would be more pragmatic for a whole family to watch at the dinner table (which, being New York, I assume doubles as the living room). I mean, no wonder Lunella is already wearing (presumably thick) glasses if her parents are making her watch a 2"x 4" screen across the table every time something is amiss.

The next day at school, her teacher continues to demonstrate some pretty dubious efforts to relate to special and/or gifted children. She has had exactly two scenes in this series thus far and both have been defined by being condescending and abrasive towards Lunella. Okay, teachers aren't prone to appreciating a student who doesn't pay attention in class. However, the fact that she keeps singling Lunella out with a fair sense of intentionality belies some personal issues that probably ought to be addressed in counselling.

Those quotation fingers are the proverbial cherry on this insult sundae. This woman seems to make a point of taking every opportunity to infantilize Lunella. Is this this petty self-esteem issues at work or something more sinister?

Actually, these guys are a lot more personable.

The art makes her use of quotation fingers feel so labored and intentionally belittling that I'm starting to get that vibe you'd get when watching episodes of Pokemon. Whenever Jesse and James are in incredibly transparent disguises that Clark Kent would think are too obvious, but it's their shitty human interaction skills that give them away. What if she is from some clandestine shady organization that is aware of Lunella's potential and they're trying to discourage her from making a scientific breakthrough that will put her organization out of business? Okay, ridiculous headcanons aside, maybe she's just a crappy teacher.

Something tells me this woman only got a teaching degree to pay the bills as a backup until she got hired by a scientific research firm, but has been stuck in front of a classroom longer than she cares to acknowledge, the chances that she is going to make tenure are looking bleaker every day, and so now she's basically in a "fuck it" state of mind and is using her relative power to troll the only person in the room smarter than her.

Asking to be excused, Lunella goes to the girl's lavatory, where she is reminded that her peers are pretty much just as awful. Even without the relative authority of an educator, they manage to be toxic towards her by leveraging their communal social clout over her.

The girls in the bathroom are doing something involving a lit match and a roll of newspaper. Are they lighting a joint? Making a stink bomb? I find it odd that they're using match sticks when you can get a Bic lighter at any convenience store. It makes me think that this is something that would be illicit of an elementary school student and thus really out of my frame of knowledge.

Well, that's one way to get them to laugh with and not at you.
... Or maybe the other way around?

The girl holding the lit match drops and completely forgets about it when upon teasing Lunella for getting to go around with a dinosaur for a day, she roars at them like a dinosaur. And as odd a reaction as that is, it's only fitting that they get a laugh out of it. Honestly though, I'm disturbed by what these girls view as mockery material. Getting taken away by a carnivorous dinosaur and living to tell the tale should elicit only two responses: sympathy or wonder. However, considering this is a world in which superhero battles regularly cause your GPS to reroute your commute, Norse gods and mutants can disrupt weather forecasts, and a giant purple-clad alien periodically tries to eat the Earth, perhaps getting carried off by a T-Rex is about on par with getting caught throwing up a kiddie ride at an amusement park in the Marvel Universe.

Of course, this is no concern to Lunella (or is it? nothing about her inner monologue would imply that she even cares about engaging with her peers-- and yet she makes the attempt. Hm...). Instead she goes into one of the stalls and climbs into an air vent... with the lit match visible right next to toilet paper strewn on the floor.

Lunella comes out in her secret lab beneath the school. It tells you something in a story with cavemen and dinosaurs, and the looming fear of a cloud that turns you into a super-powered being, that this is what finally breaks this books already tenuous suspension of disbelief.

Can we just file this under "kids' clubhouse wish fulfillment?"

Not only does she have a secret lab in the (sub)basement of her elementary school filled with equipment that she couldn't have possibly snuck down there without someone noticing (how a 90 lb soaking wet girl managed to get it down there is also up for question, but I'm sure the creators will say she used a hover boards or some sort of comic book science), and that she even managed to hide a freaking T-Rex in there. Devil Dinosaur could not have possibly managed the height clearance needed to get into the main doors, let alone getting down into the basement. Back when I was in school, I think I might have gotten away with sneaking something ridiculous into the school, if I so chose, but contemporary schools are Fort Knox compared to what my generation grew up with, in terms of security.

But in its defense, reality is no excuse for fiction. This is a comic, an urban fantasy. And hoo boy is this place a fantasy. If I were a fourth grader, I would be over the moon to have a secret hangout like this.

Lunella is rambling on to her mute conversation companion, reiterating her objectives and concerns about her Inhuman genetics, and she manages to be both grating and endearing at the same time. Like most kids, she manages to balance being endearing and a horrible id monster.

Devil Dinosaur is distracted by a distinct smell, however. Up in the school, for some questionable reason, Montclare and Reeder chose to confuse me by cutting to a panel back in the class room where Lunella's teacher, who looks like a flat out mad scientist (more evidence to support my "she's secretly a villian" theory) as she shows the students a lit Bunsen burner. It feels like a proposed false lead that even the creators didn't feel like pursuing after one panel.

That is the face of an evil schemer. 

Instead, we head back to the bathroom where the lit match has set the bathroom ablaze. I've concluded that the only thing worse than this school's teaching staff is its safety procedures. Any accredited school conducts regular fire drills at least once per month, and each and every class room should include its own instructions for both a primary and alternate path for a safe egress. Unless that bathroom has a consciousness that targeted and surrounded the science class room, there is no reason why jumping out of a third story window. And even if this is part of their fire safety plan, it probably includes a rollup rope ladder.

"Squawk! It's a living"

Of course, now I find myself comparing this situation to the Triangle Factory Fire. And I need to stop that now before I allow a comparison of public schools to pre-union sweat shop conditions to dominate the rest of this entry.

Lunella comes up through a sewer manhole cover that she should not be able to lift by any stretch of the imagination and she tries to assess the situation until her new friend bursts onto the scene, literally bursting up through the street, causing a lot of property damage, as any self-respecting time-displaced dinosaur is wont to do. Lunella gets him to use his head back and tail to act as an emergency slide to get her classmates to safety.

This kid gets it. 

Now, before I even had a chance to reflect on what wonderful cartoon logic her solution is, one of her classmates does it for me by making a reference to The Flintstones, which subsequently gives me hope that kids really do watch classic cartoons.

Just when all is said and done, the class rescued, and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaurs are the heroes of the day, instead of a cheers and thanks, we are treated to a cameo from a character who confuses our favorite red-hued theropod for a bad guy. Because it wouldn't be a Marvel crossover unless the heroes fight first and bond later. Enter: Amadeus Cho, the Totally Awesome Hulk. Of course, Lunella being Lunella, she instantly assumes he's an idiot. Okay, as horrible as she is as a child, imagine how well prepared she's going to be for deflecting unwanted advances when she gets into her teen years.

Aw yeah! Next Issue: Me fangirling over Amadeus Cho.

This book is ridiculous and it charms the pants off me. I've said different variations on that for the past three issues, and I'm worried I'm starting to sound like a broken record.

For the next few weeks, I'm going to be doing something a little different. After all, we have officially arrived both at my favorite time of the year as well as my least favorite part of my country's four-year election cycle. I've got some ideas on how to tackle both these, but you'll have to wait and see...

Attack of the Fifty Foot Onomatopoeia

This might just be my inner 10-year-old, but everything about T-Rexes is amazing. [Sidenote: I turned 10 in the Summer of 1993 when Jurrassic Park first premiered, so I felt that way quite actively at the time.] I'm back in Marvel territory covering issue #2 of Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaurs, and readers trust me when I tell you this book is a delight.

Brief recap on Devil Dinosaur. He's from a prehistoric world called the Valley of Flame, which, depending on the era of publication, is either the past of the main timeline, an alternate reality, or a faraway planet. He's a mutant T-Rex with red skin, augmented size, strength, and intelligence, and fiery red eyes that actually look pretty amazing.

Brief Recap on Moon Girl. Lunella Lafayette is a hyper-intelligent 9-year-old girl living in Manhattan. She has trouble connecting with her parents or with anyone at school, but the latter is mitigated by the fact that she has been applying and re-applying to the various schools for super geniuses in the Marvel Universe. Her other important goal in life is to find a way to get rid of or nullify the effects of the Terrigen cloud out of concern for her well-being.

Last issue, while using her newly-invented Kree detector, Lunella found a strange glowing orb she determined to be a Kree Omni-Wave Projector, which created a portal in the middle of the school yard when her gym teacher decided to be an ass. Meanwhile, in the Valley of Flame, Devil Dinosaur and his caveboy constant companion Moon Boy battle the evil tribe of cavemen, the Killer Folk, and manage to capture their mystical totem, the Nightstone in the process. Quelle coincidence! It is a dead ringer for Lunella's Omni-Wave Projector! The Killer Folk manage to beat him within an inch of his life trying to get it back before it vanishes only to be replaced by the other side of the portal opened in present day Manhattan. The Killer Folk head into it in search after their Nightstone, and Devil Dinosaur enters in hot pursuit after Moon Boy asks to be avenged with his presumably dying words. Arriving in Lunella's schoolyard, Devil Dinosaur chases the Killer Folk and they flee to the subway. Devil Dinosaur managed to sniff out Lunella's plot relevance and takes her by the backpack as he wanders out into the streets of New York.

And now you're caught up. For a fairly simple story, there is already a lot of weird minutiae involved. Just wait and see if we ever find out this thing's history because the Omni-Wave Projector goes back deep. For now however, let's see where Devil Dinosaur was headed...

Lunella, rightfully, question whether or not this is really happening as DD stomps his way through the crowded streets of Manhattan. I have to admit I'm impressed that in her panic she has held on tight to her Kree Omni-Wave Projector (hereafter: KOWP). I'm a little confused because the first couple panels of the issue depict things from Lunella's line of vision and you can clearly make out two sets of fingers  on either side of her glasses. How the hell did she manage to cling tight to that thing? My guess is that she has a low level anti-gravity device built into her swatch watch.

This peaceful, if whiny, trek through the city comes to a grinding halt however when he is assaulted by sound effects! Sound effects with police officers attached! It's actually pretty wonderful how much the use of sound effects plays out as a visual component of the storytelling in this sequence. The use of onomatopoeia  has fallen out of popularity in the past couple decades as comics have skewed more towards dour realism, but the way they interact with the panel can range anywhere from madcap to unsettling.

Fortunately, this is an all ages story, so we get mainly wacky hijinks sound effects as DD crunches the hood of one car under his foot and his tail sends another crashing into a fire hydrant. With the car sirens running, guns shooting, water gushing, and every one of DD's own movements causing a rumble all their own, it becomes a cacophony of  noises that even drown out the word balloons. Since DD is functionally a mute character, it's a great way of demonstrating his POV.

As someone with attention deficit, this entire page speaks to me.

I know that in the past couple years, police departments across the US have been under deep scrutiny because of various very legitimate claims of abuse of power, particularly toward the African American community, but in a such a fun and apolitical book like this, I can't help but believe that these police officers shooting at Devil Dinosaur when he has a young girl of color dangling from his incisors was not intended as social commentary, particularly because the officers are black and latina, respectively. Instead, I'm arriving at the conclusion that this book functions heavily on the notion that adults are useless and/or incompetent. Five minutes in Lunella's POV makes that painfully apparent.

To get his attention, Lunella has to grab a remote control golden snitch out of her bag. Again, she is keeping that KOWP from falling from superior thigh strength or something. And no, I wasn't exaggerating. It pretty much is a golden snitch. It's a little, golden flying insect. And the remote control looks like  Good thing she guessed that theropods aren't color blind because the shiny thing makes all the other sensory stimuli vanish. Congratulations, Lunella. You have mastered the art of the dangling carrot technique.

Again, her inner monologue shows a bit of a disconnect from the action at hand, albeit less so than last issue's instance. She's analyzing the scientific problem, yes, but the immediacy of being suspended in the air with only a dinosaur's tooth separating her from a long fall seems to be helping her stay grounded in what needs to be done in the moment. Of course, summing it up as "I have to get rid of the big, red lamebrain," does not help endear me toward her.

That;s using your head, DD.

However, the impromptu planning session goes flies out the door when the KOWP slips out of her arms and she reaches to save it in a big swooping gesture, only to completely forget about the remote control. It falls to the ground with a "drop" sound effect. The snitch dies in the air and DD seems to regain his focus, as though the snitch had a hypnotic effect on him. And he is did not wake up on the right side of the bed because he lets out a roar (without dropping the girl hanging, so acknowledge the skills) and goes on a combination rampage/battering ram session as he plows his way through street lights, cars, mailboxes, and buildings, using his big old noggin.

Meanwhile, the Killer Folk are down in the NYC Subway-- at Yancy Street Station, to be precise. Again, that's another continuity gem ridden in the rough of this story which neither of our protagonists are at all aware of and won't get paid off until next time, so I won't spoil the surprise just yet. From the shadows, Thorn-Teeth, Gurf, Rachacha, Tharg, and Thok (your guess is as good as mine which one is which) observe the world they now find themselves in: the language, the clothes, the exchange of money for goods and services, etc.

Then we are treated to a page-long argument, but whereas last issue their language was translated for the reader's benefit, now we sit through a page of the writer's made up language accompanied by some wild gesticulations. It's like when an idiot finds themselves confronted with someone who doesn't speak English so they start shouting all their words, saying them slowly and making huge motions, as though one could break the language barrier by sheer force of will. I seem to remember Jackie Chan's character in Shanghai Noon attempting this relentlessly with a tribe of Native Americans. Their solution was peyote. No, it didn't solve the language gap, but at least he shut up.

The more he gestures, the less we understand.

You get the impression that none of the Killer Folk who made it through the portal represent their traditional leadership, and now there is a bit of a struggle for command as they try to settle course of action to take. They do all commit to a plan and launch an assault on the unsuspecting commuters and we hear them uttering a few words of English.

I think the intent in the writing is that we are supposed to be shocked that a bunch of Homo Habiles are already picking up modern speech in what could have only been an hour or two at most, but I'm honestly kind of shocked that in the cultural melting pot that is Manhattan Island, they miraculously managed to only overhear anglophones. English makes up only 51% of the languages spoken in New York, so the fact that we don't have a weird mashup of English, Chinese, Hindi, and Russian seems like a longshot granted by the nature of the medium.

They got swagger. 

Improbable foreign language immersion aside, the next thing we see, it's night and the Killer Folk come up from out of the subway, now bedizened in contemporary apparel, albeit not always worn appropriately. One of them has a necktie around his neck while another is wearing a wrist watch around his bicep. It's worth applauding the fact that the artist resisted the temptation to put the one female member of the contingent in gender specific clothes. After all, it's likely that these guys aren't even all that high up in their world's food chain, so I suspect the concept of a socially constructed gender binary and its relation to apparel is a bit beyond their understanding. Of course, the fact that the token girl is wearing a purse for a hat should make that perfectly clear in far fewer words.

Meanwhile, under a bridge (it's where all the cool mutant T-Rexes hang out these days), Lunella and Devil Dinosaur seem to be squabbling over the KOWP. Lunella seems to have pieced together that DD has near human sentience because she's actually talking to him rationally. Neither one of them is holding the KOWP and it seems to be the crux of their fighting. She just wants to go home, but he is not letting the KOWP out of his sight.

Sad DD is the most huggable DD.

Now, I know I'm going to be saying this a lot in my coverage of this title, but Devil Dinosaur's expressions are adorable. Yes, the giant carnivore is cuter than the little girl. The one panel that particularly hit home was when Lunella accuses him of not knowing what it's like to have a family to go home to when we the reader know that DD lost the only family he's ever had minutes before arriving in our world. His eyes go from their usual fiery appearance to small and low as he looks down at her and grumbles "Rr-roo..." And my heart just goes out to this poor soul. I suppose it's only fair to acknowledge that I kind of hate humanity with a vengeance right now (I keep reminding myself that the election season is almost over), so I'll invariably relate to the plight of a sad animal over a human being in a heartbeat.

Of course, Lunella has her motivations as well. She explains that she needs it to somehow prevent the Terrigen cloud hovering in the atmosphere from eventually infecting and transforming her. Apparently, she has somehow deduced that she has the Inhuman gene.

I don't know which subsequent question this raises to be more interested in. Is the existence of the Inhumans now so common knowledge to the general populace that they now have access to self-administered tests to detect their Inhuman heritage? Am I right in understanding that neither of her parents tested positive for the gene? It's already a recessive gene to begin with so I'm starting to wonder why. Of course, we could later discover that they aren't her birth parents, but this wouldn't be the first instance of the family member of a newly activated Inhuman not being Inhuman too, such as Ms Marvel's brother Aamir, whose body rejected it either because he's a latent mutant or he prayed it away/has denial issues.

"Dumb dog, why are you following me?
I ain't got a crumb, dog. How about letting me be?"

Devil Dinosaur does finally let her go with the KOWP in hand unimpeded. He does try following her, but it's adorable how she treats him like a dog she found, telling him "No! Stay!" Of course, being a dutiful T-Rex, he looks pretty dejected that his new friend his giving him the brush off. I think it's only fair to acknowledge that Lunella is kind of awful, but in ways that feel very much in keeping with being a nine-year-old and a child genius. She is so used to thinking she is always the smartest person in the room that she is frequently (unintentionally) belittling to those around her, but we are only on issue #2 on what I hope will be a very long run, so this is a good place to start and give her room to grow as a person. Despite her pronounced lack of people skills, she does have the wherewithal to thank him for not eating her.

Of course, she's not out of his line of vision before we hear her shouting and getting cut off mid-sentence. Concerned, Devil Dinosaur searches high and low for her, including under a truck under a dumpster, and up in the moon. Okay, You know how I said he has quasi-human intelligence? Maybe it's mitigated by the fact that people are getting stupider these days. His IQ must adjust to the median human intelligence whenever he's transported to the modern day. Yes, that's just head canon to explain his hunting prowess. He's a goddamn T-Rex for crying out loud, the girl isn't going to be under a dumpster. Of course, the more I think about the part with the moon, that was probably a moment of Devil Dinosaur remembering another friend he lost just recently and having a moment of quiet reflection.

Not to far away, we see what has befallen Lunella as she is in the clutches of the Killer Folk, who have procured an even better grasp on the English language, as well as some police equipment, having recently gotten the jump on some of New York's finest. Okay, I can understand a couple of cops being no match for a T-Rex, but a bunch of cavemen about the size of 3rd-grader? Wow, even for a world full of super beings, these cops fail to measure up.

This book continues to be a charming romp of a book. While there are no actual "deal breaker" problems with it, I do feel it's only fair to acknowledge that it does some acrobatics in order to achieve some of its ends, primarily the Killer Folk learning English in an afternoon, but otherwise this book has components that I think of as classic Marvel. One of our leads is effectively a misunderstood monster with a heart of gold and the other is a super genius as out of step in the modern day as the dinosaur is. Throwing them together and allowing for that push and pull between them brings something to the table that feels both timeless and fresh and I'm very much enjoying where this title is going. 

A Whirling Vortex of T-Rex!!

So who knew when I sat down to read a series about a little girl genius and a giant red T-Rex that I'd be squeeing over the dinosaur? Today we're looking into one of Marvel's newest offerings from the past year, Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur. Written by Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder, it has Natacha Bustos as the artist and Tamra Bonvillain on colors.

There isn't too much essential continuity you need to know, but this is a surprisingly storied character. He is a rare example of characters created by Jack Kirby who isn't tied into the cosmic or straightforward superhero end of the Marvel Universe. In case the name didn't give it away, he's a dinosaur, but due to some plotty stuff in his origin which is a story for another time, he's actually a mutant dinosaur.

No, really, his being a mutant is actually a specific plot point in the Fallen Angels mini series, so despite whatever latter day retcons Marvel will assert to assert that he's actually an Inhuman or whatever, we know the truth.

But yeah, unlike your average T-Rex in the Mavel Universe, instead of being green, he's fiery red. Additionally, he's endowed with heightened intelligence (human or higher) as well as superior strength. Yeah, those flimsy little T-Rex arms are actually pretty mighty.

He comes from a place called the Valley of Flame, a prehistoric world which, depending on the era of publication and who is writing is either in Earth's prehistoric past, is in an alternate reality where dinosaurs are still alive, or is on another planet. Marvel currently stands by the multiversal designation of Earth-78411. This despite the fact that Marvel laid its Multiverse to rest last year. Way to commit to your decisions, guys.

The only other people of the Valley of Flame relevant to our discussion are the primitive race of men (homo habilis, according to the wiki) who are divided into two different clans: the Small Folk and the Killer Folk. Take a wild guess which tribe you should be rooting for. Devil Dinosaur's lifelong companion and fellow mutant Moon Boy is a member of the Small Folk and most all their appearances prior to this series were in tandem.

Okay, that's enough backstory: on with the show.

Our story begins with a quote from Dr. Gregory Stock, “humanity is leaving its childhood and moving into its adolescence as its powers infuse into realms hitherto beyond our reach.” Every issue starts with a passage like this from a luminary of the scientific community. I'm not sure how well they all relate to the book's human protagonist, but in this case it is markedly fitting. Presumably having such a young protagonist means that we are embarking on a child's version of the hero's journey, which places a heavy emphasis on the transition to maturity, learning to put the greater good above selfish desires, and "putting away childish things."

Meet Lunella Lafayette of Lower East Side Manhattan. She is a nine-year-old girl genius whose bedroom is wall to wall science. A solar system mobile hangs above her, while posters of Neil Degrassi Tyson and the Moon are hung on her walls. Models of molecular compounds are scattered on the floor and whereas most kids get nagged in the morning to wake up before school, we find Lunella hiding under the covers as she doing science. What is she cobbling together? Why does she feel compelled to hide head to toe under the covers with a flashlight cradled in the small of her neck as she performs presumably delicate mechanical construction? Not a clue, but odds are I wouldn't understand what that thing does without a flowchart.

Sadly, it seems Lunella has applied to quite a few of Marvel's supergenius schools, but has a cork board full of rejection letters. I'm assuming she stamped the huge red "rejected" marks on them herself. They're pretty uniform and I have a hard time believing educators would be that nasty to a nine-year-old.

Lunella's mother is calling from outside the bedroom for her to get moving and ready for school, but Lunella is a lot more interested in working on her device. She asserts that it is the key to solving the biggest problem, maybe even the city. However, Mother Lafayette has her daughter's number and mentions that the schools she has been applying to probably check attendance. And it is hilarious to see just how her eyes widen in terror as she speeds through getting dressed for school and out the door and taps a button on her tennis shoes transforming them into roller skates, helping her beat the clock.

Deployable roller skates? Meh. Next
time try rocket powered roller skates.

And this is our first full view of Lunella's character design. She's African-American and wears her hair, in one big frizzy floof of a ponytail (which defies logic, considering it's more wavy than curly when it's down). She wears  round purple glasses, a t-shirt with the moon on it, khaki shorts, and knee socks, and shorts. I won't lie, I think her design could do with a few more inches on those shorts. I ought to also include her backpack in that description, as any self respecting geeky little kid probably has quite a number of essentials in their backpacks that they cannot do without.

I think she is a little leggy for a nine-year-old. I think an inch further in that direction, I would have been worried that they're trying to sexualize a 9-year-old, but they manage to dodge that by emphasizing her sheer awkward body language as she rushes to school. Seriously, Lunella. You have two free hands and you are a literal genius. Why is that sandwich bag in your mouth?

Lunella arrives just as the bell rings, but her teacher is pretty mean-spirited to her anyway. Yeah, I have a hard time buying how venomously her teacher speaks. Even if a teacher is at her wits end trying to relate to a student, this is not how a teacher would communicate with a gifted-but-problematic student. This is how overly protective parents think a teacher would act. Or, considering we are deep in Lunella's POV, this is how a student with a superiority complex perceives her teachers.

Either this girl is hearing what she wants to hear instead of the spoken
word or this teacher is on the verge of a new career path.

Still, Lunella isn't exactly a prize herself. She may be a child prodigy, but she's still a nine-year-old and has a lot of growing up to do. She actively disengages in the class room, again to her teacher's chagrin, preferring to work on a design for a Kree detector. When the teacher, who calls her "Little Miss Know-It-All" (again, this is how helicopter parents think teachers treat their special little snowflakes), calls on her to answer the question of the theory of evolution, Lunella only begrudgingly responds and instead of answering the question asked, she delivers a small diatribe about why calling it a theory is inaccurate. Of course, she's the only one reveling in her intellectual superiority. The kids all laugh at and taunt her, calling her "Moon Girl."

That night, at the dinner table, her parents try to reach out to her, encouraging her to engage more with her classmates. Make friends. A friend. Then there's this little moment that I'm certain had to be deliberate. As her parents are trying to reach her verbally, her mother extends her hand and we see a panel of her hand not quite reaching her daughter's. It is just a moment of hesitation before she takes it in the next panel, but it makes me wonder whether there is a reason why we see that moment of their hands not connecting yet.

Suddenly, I realize that there might be grounds for an Aspergers reading of Lunella. She's hyper intellectual, avoids eye contact, lacks an ability to pick up on social cues, generally behaves unsympathetically to others, and now this little moment hints at an aversion to physical contact. Of course, this might just be me projecting and could totally be unintentional, but I'm kind of interested in having a protagonist with an Austism Spectrum Disorder, especially if it is eventually made textual and not just left up to the reader to interpret. Granted, I watched the Girl Meets World episode, "I Am Farkle" earlier this week, so perhaps this issue is just floating around my head lately.

Sometimes, having a gifted child isn't exactly a gift.

But she really doesn't see the point in her parents' plea for socialization. She doesn't expect to be at the school much longer and she has much more important objectives in mind, which takes us to later that night.

Almost assuredly past curfew, Lunella is out using her newly minted Kree detector. Her narration hints at the urgency of her project, saying that if she doesn't suss out her problem soon, she won't be human anymore. Juxtaposed against her tablet showing an article on the Kree and a news paper article about the Terrigen Mist and we start to get a clearer picture that she is worried about potentially being afflicted with Terrigenesis. Goddammit. I was really hoping to avoid dealing with the Inhumans after that abysmal Uncanny Avengers arc. Don't get me wrong, I love Ms. Marvel, but the Inhumans really need to get their proverbial peanut butter out of the rest of Marvel's chocolate.

While probably not what she was looking for, she does manage to find something of note in the form of a strange glowing orb with a criss-crossed pair of metallic rims orbiting it that emits a "kree-kree" sound. I'm not certain if it is a Kree artifact, but at least she detected a "kree."

Ladies and gentlemen:
The Main Event!

Ages ago, according to the narration (so we're ignoring the wiki's multiversal designation), we find ourselves in the  Valley of Flame, where the Killer Folk seem to be in possession of  the same glowing do-dad Lunella has found. They call it the Nightstone and they seem to worship it, intending to make sacrifices to it in order to "slake the Nightstone's bloodthirst." Yeah, wondering now what this thing is going to do to Lunella after prolonged exposure...

The Killer Folks' ritual sacrifices are put on hold when who should break up their holy rite but freaking Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy! Yeah, those blood sacrifices? The Killer Folk outsourced them and have a slew of Moon Boy's people lined up for the slaughter. While DD stomps his way through their foes, Moon Boy gets his hands on the Nightstone and intends to take it and bury it where the Killer Folk can't find it. But before he can make a getaway, he finds himself set upon by a bunch of Killer Folk who don't take kindly to Small Folk getting their fingerprints on their murder bauble.

Elsewhen, in the equally inhospitable realm of contemporary elementary school gym class, Lunella has abjured from the dog eat dog world in favor of marveling at her new discovery, which she has not-quite-subtly hid in her backpack. Remember how her homeroom teacher was kinda horrible to her? Well, her gym teacher is a whole lot worse. Not only is he vile to her, publicly shaming her for not joining in the game, but he violates her right to privacy by reaching into her bag and pulling out her "omni-wave projector." Not only does he infringe upon her privacy, but he shows no sense of remorse as he spins the strange device on his fingers, like a basketball, no doubt showing off to a bunch of 4th graders in the hopes of them not realizing he's a loser who has to pick on 9-year-olds to compensate for his own insecurities.

I'll go out on a limb as guess he has a small penis.

Again, I can't help but notice a disconnect within Lunella that might allude to a neuro-behavior disorder. Instead of getting upset about this clear infraction from her teacher, her inner monologue is fixated upon riddling out what exactly she has and what it might be used for. Considering I have a condition in which hyperfocus is certainly a part of the equation and happen to know it's also a symptom of Asperger's, it definitely caught my attention. It isn't until her teacher's actions have "comic book science" implications that we see her reacting to him.

Being both a bit of a bully and a show off, he spins her discovery on his finger like it were a basketball. However, this has some adverse effects as it causes a whirling green vortex to manifest. Nice going, jockstrap.

Back in the jungle primeval, the Killer Folk have Moon Boy surrounded, and he clutches the Nightstone with all his might as they beat him within an inch of his life. However, by the time they've finished with him, what a coinkidink, the Nightstone has vanished and there is another swirling green vortex, which they enter in the hopes of finding their precious totem. Of course, being chased into it by Devil Dinosaur was only a kicker in terms of reasons to enter a mysterious portal.

DD finds Moon Boy on the jungle floor, speaking with a quivering voice. Fairly certain that he is going to die, he beseeches his trans-species lifemate to avenge him, pointing up to the moon as he refers to himself in the third person. It is in this scene that we find what I expect will be the first of many panels (I read the first three issues at once as part of Marvel's Timely line, so I've been able to connect the dots a bit) that will make you look at Devil Dinosaur and say "aaaaaawwwww." His expression as Moon Boy says (presumably) his final words are as tender as any sad puppy's face,

Lunella manages to get her "omni-wave projector" to stop spinning, but is pretty shocked, as are her teacher and classmates, when she is almost jumped by a bunch of Australopithecines. Then she is even more surprised when a giant red mothafucking T-REX with fiery eyes rampages through the portal! There was a time when even I thought one Sharknado was laughable, then each sequel further chipped away my hope for humanity. But one film about a vortex filled with T-Rexes would totally reverse my esteem in the world we live in.

Devil Dinosaur chases the five of them down, tearing through the high chainlink fence of the schoolyard only for the Killer Folk to find refuge down a New York subway, where Devil Dinosaur is far too large to reach. Also, I think he might be a little tangled up in the remnants of the fence. Either that, or due to prior visitations to our time/reality/planet, he has learned only to cross the street at a crosswalk.

Look at those eyes. They'd be wet with tears if they weren't all fiery.

Lunella is apparently not down with his roaring because she yells at him to stop. Smart kid. A real genius. She's maybe 60 pounds soaking wet and she just caught the attention to, as far as she knows, a dangerous prehistoric apex predator (yes, I know paleontologists argue that T-Rex was a scavenger, but fuck that noise). He leans in and sniffs at her while she begs him not to kill her. He acquiesces and instead takes her by the backpack with his teeth and stomps away into the busy streets of Manhattan. Did he sniff something of importance from her? Do Marvel's child geniuses secrete a special pheromone that is catnip to theropods? Or did he make an immediate associate between her and Moon Boy from the moon on her shirt? Wait, didn't she wear that shirt yesterday? Is she like Doug Funnie and has an entire wardrobe of the same outfit? We need answers, Marvel!

And this probably isn't even the oddest think to happen that day in
Marvel's Manhattan.

So, this is exactly what I want out of a non-superhero book in a lot of ways. It has one of my favorite Marvel standards: a child genius who actually acts like a kid. Okay, she isn't exactly a ball of sunshine, but considering kids can be horrible, I think it works. She has a lot in common with Damian Wayne, who is one of my favorite current DC characters for exactly that reason. She's too intelligent to click with her age group, but she lacks the emotional maturity (read: humility) to have a place at the grown up table, either. I also like that despite the fact that her co-lead is a freaking mutant T-Rex, her problems seem smaller in scope than the average current stories I end up reading. This isn't a life or death story with impossibly high, Earth shattering stakes. It's wacky adventure with one very old character and one very new character, both of whom do not fit into the standard comic book protagonist mold. And I cannot wait to continue reading it.

Next Week: Grab a bowl of popcorn and fire up your dvd/bluray player as I take a look at the infamously, comically abysmal final season of X-Men The Animated Series. Bad animation fashion show, here we come!

I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed

So, now that Crisis on Infinite Earths is out of the way, I suppose I'm probably morally obligated to finish up this arc of Uncanny Avengers, right? Sigh. I guess I brought this upon myself.

Well, the cover is a pretty fun switch up of a classic X-Men attack. I appreciate that it's on prominent display here. Despite Uncanny Avengers being the "Avengers/X-Men mashup" series, it has gradually reduced the presence of X-Members so that Rogue is only on this team to justify it. Despite long ties to the X-Books, Deadpool isn't an X-Man, let alone a mutant, and Cable is better known for being a solo hero or leading very fringe X-teams than he's known for being an X-Man proper, so seeing Rogue and Deadpool take on Colossus and Wolverine's respective roles for a Fastball special is a pleasure to see. Also, kudos to Stegman for playing to his strengths-- not a close-up of an unmasked face in sight.

A brief sidenote: Apparently, Marvel packages this arc into a trade under the name "Future Lost." Quite honestly, I think it was a grievous error on their part and I will continue referring to it as "Plant Apocalypse" and will accept no substitute.

If you'll remember the latter half of last issue, just after Quicksilver ran off to get an antidote to Human Torch, who is slumming with an MIT think tank, the Shredded Man used his toxins to KO most of the team except for Synapse, who is immune, and Cable, who took his vitamins. Cable sticks around to inoculate the rest of the team and sent Synapse out to confront the villain solo only to discover that he is in fact her own grandfather.

This issue starts off reminding us of last issue's newly revealed familial relationship between our rookie and our villain by cutting back to the prologue from the first issue of the arc. This is unnecessary. Marvel has been employing a recap page across the line for years. It's just the latter half of the scene where Shredded Man wakes up, but this time we see that it was Synapse in the other terrigen chrysalis. It really is a little pointless to the narrative. We learn absolutely nothing new about the characters in this scene nor does it help progress the narrative already in progress. They do cut to yet another chrysalis in the household and establish that there is yet another Inhuman in the family. Perhaps you could argue that this scene sets up story elements for a later arc, maybe, but I'd be quick to shoot that defense down. There is no drive, no dramatic question to this scene that the plot hook, which ought to be handled with a bit of subtlety feels more like a Hidden Pictures game in Highlights for Kids after someone already has circled the fish in the tree.

I am going to be so surprised when that brick the writers threw at us finally lands.

Duggan, do you mind if I call you Duggan? Good. Duggan, I know you're far more used to writing for Deadpool, and perhaps that explains why you've embraced this "sledgehammer to the head" approach to long game storytelling, but might I advise you remember that as a storyteller in a serialized format, as a dramatist, you need a far more deft hand in the writing stage. Make a scene that is utterly essential to the narrative before trying to be clever.

Okay, for a story that is just so "meh," I've already had a rant and we're only on page one. That doesn't bode well...

We transition to the present, where Synapse tries to hearken to her grandfather's better nature, but he doesn't see eye to eye. Apparently, that's enough to get Synapse from being very blubbery to being action girl because she's tired of people yelling at her today. She takes a swing at Shredded Man, but we cut away before we see if she manages to land the punch.

Yelling is all it takes to break the ties that bond.

Elsewhere, Cable has the rest of the team up and running again. Rogue and Deadpool perform a fastball special. Say whatever else you want about this comic, but you cannot say they failed to deliver what the cover promised us. Of course, this should be a big finisher attack, but it's being used to kill one of the many, many plant monsters that it feels more ostentatious than effective. Points for the nostalgia factor.

Oddball Special: Patent pending.

Deadpool calls out to Quicksilver, presumably they're on an intercom or Quicksilver is omniscient, and asks if the speedster can swing by his armory for some ammo. Instead, Quicksilver materializes with a guns as well as a local shop owner in tow. Apparently, in that nanosecond Quicksilver had time for a conversation with a gun-owner who is not a speedster, in which he insisted on coming along, then ferry the gun shop owner over to the battlefield. Ignoring the fact that this puts a civilian at gross risk when clearly there was the far more viable option of going to Deadpool's armory like he asked, it is also is an example of the writers not telling a story in which the mechanics of their heroes make any sense. Granted, this is a superhero comic in a shared universe with 60+ years of history. Inconsistencies are bound to happen. But there is a difference between inconsistencies in power levels and baseline humans being able to able to apparently mimic their abilities for no reason.

A Plant Apocalypse is not enough to deter fanboys.

Oh, wait. There is a reason. The guy is a Deadpool fan. I'm a little annoyed that Duggan felt the need to break the physical laws of its characters in order to support a... you know, I'm not even entirely certain that I'd call it a joke, but Duggan sure seems to think so. It's probably fair to point out that Duggan is one of the two current regular writers on Deadpool's eponymous book, so perhaps he got a little confused about which book he was working on.

Back at MIT, Quicksilver has returned to see about the cure that Johnny Storm's think tank has been cooking up and again I find myself asking why is Johnny Storm there? I'll give him props for having the idea to outsource the science portion of Marvel superheroism, but what purpose does he serve staying there? He has fire powers! Anybody who has played the starter battle of any Pokemon game can tell you that grass types are weak to fire. Either he is A. a world class slacker, B. an idiot, or C. the writers need a reason for this story to last the length of an average trade paperback.

Stand aside Emma. Pietro is the
OG Jerk Hero.

I will give Johnny Storm this, however: as Quicksilver speeds away, he gives a quick little monologue that gives me all the feels about our resident speedypants. Quicksilver is one of my favorites because he falls into one of my favorite paradigms: the jerk hero. He's smug, he doesn't play well with others, he's had a few turns as a reluctant and/or conflicted villain, but he has a lot of heart, is fiercely protective of his loved ones and tries to do what he thinks is right... even if that means convincing his sister into overwriting reality. Okay, nobody's perfect.


I am only now noticing how Stegman draws Pietro's super speed and honestly, it doesn't look quite right. I think he was aiming for a creative new approach to motion lines, but the actual result creates the impression that he has sprung tentacles from his back. It's not a dealbreaker, but it is certainly a bird that wasn't meant to fly.

Back in Boston, Cable suddenly gets a psychic vision of Synapse snapping her grandfather's neck. Oh, yeah. Two volumes of X-Force ago, Cable mysteriously gained a new ability in the form of precognition. About four years of publication later, I still don't know what is causing these insights, so I'll continue to assume it was the plot convenience fairy. Anyway, Cable's time traveler insight into the future lets him know that his precognitive insight in the future is bad, so he rushes off to stop Synapse from committing grand-patricide.

Before Synapse can snap her grandfather's plant neck (which I'm fairly certain wouldn't have killed him with his far more arboreal physiology), Cable leaps forth and knocks her away, warning that killing Shredded Man will ensure that the crisis doesn't end. As he breaks up them up, he overhears the part of the conversation that they are in fact related.

A strategically calculated dick move?
Why you are Scott Summers kid, after all!

Cable confronts our villain himself. Apparently, Shredded Man has read the villain's handbook because he expects Cable to announce that his plan will fail. However, since Cable is here specifically because his plan succeeded, he instead describes his process for developing a cure. In the process, he formed a sister strain of the original virus that removes the immunity to Inhumans. Shredded Man says he's prepared to die, but instead Cable shoots Synapse.

Um, I'm not the world's biggest fan of Cable by any stretch of the imagination, but that is coldblooded. He hears them mention they're related, asks for clarification to make sure he hadn't misheard (which actually detracts from the badassitude of this scene), then two minutes later, he shoots one of his comrades-in-arms point blank. You're a sick bastard, Dayspring!

Synapse twitches about on the floor as her grandfather's pestilence courses through her body. Still she manages to sputter out a patented guilt trip. And this is what causes her grandfather to realize he in fact still has the milk of (in)human kindness coursing through his planty veins. It's like the ending of Care Bears movie. He relents and all his plant apocalypse vanishes away. Yes, our crisis is wrapped up that neatly. It's about on par with breaking a spell with true love's kiss. The terrain completely returns to normal and Synapse (and presumably all his other victims) are cured.

Funny. Guerrero doesn't sound like a Jewish family name.

Synapse reaches out to her grandfather, offering to help him find a cure for what he has become, but he declares that when he "wiped the slate clean," he undid all that he had done, including his own body, which dissembles itself in front of her, saying he can make more. So, what that tells me is that it probably wasn't even the genuine article they were facing. He was just some plant golem. That feels so less impressive when it isn't a Doombot.

"You captured their stunt doubles!"

So that was our big climax, everybody. Such as it is. Oh, yeah. I know you hardly noticed it as this story didn't peak so much as it consistently fizzled from about the halfway point onwards. It's hard to tell when the tension is rising when all you have to decipher is a steady stream of "mehhhhhhhhhh."

Now, I'm all for an emotional climax as opposed to a big, punchy kick-kick battle, but this is not earned. Our creative team waits until the final page of the penultimate installation of the story to reveal a familial relationship between our antagonist and our team rookie, neither of whom, I might have had enough characterization done in order to make us feel invested in this revelation. All we really know is the former is a genocidal maniac and the latter feels very cagey about being on a team of superheroes. That's all we know going into this revelation.

I can't even care what this means for them as people, let alone what this means for the story. And yet Duggan hinges the end of the narrative on this.

Mind you, this could have worked. There were three issues leading up to this revelation. Three issues in which we could have taken a few minutes here or there in which to get into Synapse's head or even have another character ask her something personal. She was even on a date with one of her teammates, for crying out loud. But no. The creative team concluded that any time spent setting their characters up so that this wouldn't have felt like a forced plot twist was better served by killing Quicksilver only to bring him back immediately at the start of the next issue and giving Cable not one but two painfully drawn out introductions. This issue could have have a strong emotional impact on its own, but the creative team sabotaged itself by making the two middle chapters of their narrative extremely unfocused, with the third issue being mostly a waste. It takes the wind out the sails of  what honestly could have been a decent conclusion.

Well, let's wrap up this narrative.

As the team gathers around what was once the Shredded Man (or his plant golem), Synapse asks Cable to keep her secret, but doesn't know if he can. But he tries. Keep in mind, Cable isn't terrible by nature. He's just occupationally terrible.

Good guy Cable: he shoots you in the face but keeps your secrets.

Later, we cut to the rooftop where Captain Rogers has landed the helicopter on their base of operations. A helicopter? Yeah, it's kind of weird that the Avengers are flying around in anything besides a quinjet, but I think Iron Man lost his vast wealth over the eight month gap, so I guess that means a helicopter is their way of downsizing.

Rogers is once again refusing to accept Deadpool's letter of resignation, presumably because he's running out of team members with ongoing solo titles and he needs some way of keeping circulation of this book up with the the other three (minimum) Avengers titles.

Cable and Captain Rogers have a grizzled staring contest
and the rest of the world shudders in terror.

Synapse approaches him, looking pretty sheepish, asking to talk to him about something. Rogers kind of charmingly shoots her down, saying he doesn't have time to coddle her and Deadpool. Yeah, old Cap doesn't have the time for handholding that he'd normally have. Oh, well.

Rogers recruits Cable by telling him that the Unity Squad's secret mission is to find Red Skull and retrieve Xavier's brain. They stare at each other in a panel in which Stegman perfects his talent for making grizzled elderly men look horrifying.

The final splash of their story gives you the impression that this was a "getting the band together" story. You see the whole lineup together albeit, for some reason most of the team seems to be headed towards the rooftop door, but Johnny and Pietro have assumed lifeless stock poses. Again, Stegman should be drawing action figures for a living. Also, this wasn't a "getting the band together" story. This was a "getting Cable to front our shitty band" story. On top of that, two of the team members were markedly absentee throughout the entire story. Rogers and Johnny have not been through this adventure. They weren't part of this supposed story about them coming together as a team. They just fill up the ranks. You could argue that at least Johnny was contributing, even if it was a misuse of his talents, but all Steve Rogers, Mister huge shredded octogenarian, did in this story was drive the freaking chopper.

Is it just me or do they all look embarrassed to be here...
...except Deadpool?

So did he just melt off Ultron's face to
prove a point?

Epilogue. Yes, this monumental epic warranted an epilogue. In the far reaches of space, a crew of a space vessel that all look like they are dressed like locomotive engineers have just been rescued... from something. By whom is revealed as their airlock opens and we see the telltale lights of Ultron's faceplate. As their savior steps inside the headpiece melts away to reveal Hank Pym. Yeah, I thought he was dead. Guess not. I'm a little surprised though. Usually A-Listers have the self-respect to wait at least two years to come back from the great beyond. And I'm guessing he's made a version of Ultron (or retrofitted a previous version of Ultron) to be be a space suit.
I am just shaking my head. Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea of fusing these disparate parts of the Marvel Universe that don't exactly work together. As much as I hated the Remender run for making everyone overly dark and uncharacteristically confrontational with one another, at least I felt like the characters were in the hands of someone who had a grasp on what he wanted to do with them. I feel like Duggan and Stegman were handed this assignment a week before the deadline and were told to do whatever. And that's the only word I use to describe how I feel about this arc: whatever. It isn't incredible, nor is it utterly loathsome. It's filler. Make me love you or make me hate you, but make me feel nothing and that's how you fail as a form of art/storytelling.

Next week, I'm taking a trip on the cinematic way-back machine as I watch one of the most important superhero-inspired films of this or any other generation, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3.