It seems like every April I begin my organization of my comics. Maybe it is my version of spring cleaning or because my parents host Easter, but it always makes me look around my room and it’s incredible amount of comic books. I love comics. I started reading them when I was 15 and have fallen in love with the medium. There is something about the way the images flow with the words that has captured my attention. Now, it just seems like a bit much though.
I take the same photo almost every year of the comics yet to be sorted and stacked and it gets more and more of a tight quarters each year.
One thing I am hoping to get better at this year is writing about comics. I think I have a pretty good vision of what a good comic is and where stories sometimes falter. The hardest part of criticism is to not come across whiny or like a troublemaker but to actually appreciate the art and show where it could improve. Maybe sometimes that is impossible, but I’m hoping to do that.
Other times, it seems like there is nothing to write and that the minute I finish reading it, it just disappears from my head. The All-New Invaders by James Robinson and Steve Pugh is one of those books. I just finished the second issue and read the first one just a couple of days ago. I have a general memory of the story and I remember a very clean looking book, but nothing stood out. I don’t fault the creators because I think they both did admirable jobs on the story, but I wonder if I’m just burnt out by the piles and piles of superhero fare that I have read in the past 17 years. How many times can I read a story about a former team coming back together because of a forgotten mystery? Maybe it’s a sign that I’m moving past superhero comics right now.
Sometimes, I just want action. I don’t like action movies, but a fight in a comic always entertains me. I try to read into the choreography of the scene and see how the artist is using the space and what is being portrayed on the page. The best page in All-New Invaders #2 is right in the middle of the book when the big Kree woman is fighting Cap, Bucky, and the Original Human Torch.
Spring Cleaning Break – All-New Invaders #2 Mini-Review
You have a set of framing panels between Tanalth and Jim Hammond that looks like a Super Nintendo fighting game opening screen. You have Tanalth holding the hammer towards the reading with a spare Bucky-shot hitting her thigh. On the other side, you have Hammond just standing. She is ready for a fight and he has trepidation. The way her panel bleeds onto his page shows this dilemma. And right in the middle is all of the action that takes place while Hammond decides to “Burn”, which is what happens on the next page. It’s all set-up for their fight as Cap and Bucky are just brutalized. It’s a really well-crafted page in the middle of the book. It is probably the best colored portion of the book as well. The earlier and darker parts were a bit muddied and then the sky just takes over in the last half. As with anything there can be a few qualms, like what is happening to Bucky’s face in the bottom panel of the middle of the pages. But overall, this is why I read superhero comics.
So, even when I get a bit down and think there isn’t much left and that maybe this spring cleaning will involved an end to some comic purchases, I grab a book and I remember the love. Spring cleaning isn’t all that happens in the spring: it’s a time of rebirth of why you like things and people fall in love with others and ideas and life.
