Oh Those Milestone Comics

If you are not aware, I am a big fan of Marvel comics.  At one point in the 90s I was picking up just about everything they put out. Over the years I have had to cut back and at times actually take a break from them when money was tight. Right now I am actively picking up some of the new stuff. Several Marvel titles have hit big milestones recently, and I have picked up three of them. I am going to talk about them and one recent wedding issue.

We’ll start with Thor. With issue 700 they started a major storyline titled The Death of Thor that ran through issue 705 with a follow up in issue 706, which was the last for that run of the series.

Several years ago Jane Foster, one time Thor love interest, became the new Thor. It was a huge deal to have a female Thor in the game. Yet there was  twist.  Jane had cancer and the magic of Thor’s hammer was actually making the cancer worst, seeing the chemotherapy as a danger to her and the cancer as her body.

The Death of Thor wraps up Jane’s storyline in well done, powerful manner that is fulfilling. You have real resolutions to various plots threads. You have changes that are going to be lasting, with impacts that will leave an impression on the Marvel universe.  This real is storytelling. When you pick up a comic, this is the kind of ride you want.

And despite the feeling that the title gives away too much, there are surprises and twists to the story.

Next I will talk about Iron Man 600. I am at full loss as to what they were thinking here. My guess is they were hoping for something huge, but just were clueless about how to pull it off.

It was a confusing hodgepodge of what I guess we’ll call a story. I got the impression that nothing was thought out and they just threw everything in there to try and finish up the various plots. I think they must have written themselves into some corners and figured issue 600 would be the place to reset it all.  The problem is there were no real connections between much of what was going.  They jumped around with no good reasoning as to how they went for point A to point B. The characters just showed up and did their stuff.

It also bothered me that in order to bring back two characters from the dead, they introduced a way to make all character immortal.  I get upset enough as it is with how they keep bringing characters back from the dead after making it way clear the character is actually dead (Captain America, Wolverine, Aunt May). I feel it makes the whole concept of death in the comics trivial. With the new technology, they are not even trying to. Death has become even more meaningless it the Marvel universe. It is insulting the way they want to treat the death of their characters.

The same week Iron Man 600 came out, Spider-Man 800 (Now Marvel longest series) came out. This was a true milestone issue that got the respect deserved of Marvel top hero.

We get to see many of those who are part of Spider-Man’s life get caught up in the madness that is the Red Goblin, basically the Green Goblin empowered with the Carnage Symbiote. We get to see so many heroes do truly heroic things, as well as one villain, in attempts to stop Norman Osbourne’s madness. We get surprise after surprise, with some well-done nods to classic stories. This really was a milestone issue on many levels.

And not everyone makes it out alive.  It is a death I hope Tony Stark stays away from. It was a well written, heroic sacrifice that should not be undone.  I so hope future writers show respect and do not resurrect this character. A powerful, meaningful death is good story telling and even if they leave him dead for a few years, the moment he is resurrected makes it meaningless.

This was followed up by issue 801, which was actually a  perfect end to this run of Spider-Man (I’m not going to go into how Marvel does its numbering now.  It can be a little confusing). We start with a  simple one page summary of Spidey’s origin, that starts with ‘You know the story’. Then we get to see a brief encounter with Spidey in his early days and a time jump to the present, where we have a normal man who summarizes just how heroic Spider-man is, and all the worlds he has saved. (Serious, it is worth reading to see what that actually means). It was a lighter, one-shot story, that reminds us why Spider-Man is a great hero. It was a pallet cleanser to get us ready for what will hopefully be some big stories once the new run starts up.

So I will end with talking about X-Men Gold Issue 30. I’ve not been doing much keeping up with the X-Men lately, as for me they have taken them is such an odd direction that goes against what they were and what made them worth reading.  However, I picked up this issue because it is a wedding issue.

After nearly 40 years (Like ten in comic time), Kitty Pryde and Peter Rasputin are ready to tie the knot. This issue had jokes in it that only work with comic book characters. When you have the newly resurrected Jean Grey, questioning her teenage self from a different timeline about drinking and the teenage self-trying to point out that their adult daughter from yet another timeline, is also drinking as way to justify it… Yeah that kind of thing only works in a comic book universe. The few issue I have picked up recently of X-Men seemed to have that kind of humor and it really works. I love that they are poking fun at just how absurd their universe is at times.

And this is not your normal wedding issue. There are some interesting twists that make this stand out from other wedding issues.

I still have no plans to start picking up X-Men, but I did enjoy this issue.

It was bit a mixed bag here, with two milestones and a wedding issue I can highly recommend and one milestone that was best avoided. Regretfully not every Marvel comic is going to be well done.  I have had my disappointments with them in the past, but for the most part I am still a huge fan of Marvel and am looking forward to seeing where they go from here.