Yo! Welcome to Variant Covers, where I babble about the comic books coming out every week, and other fanboy opining. This week is all about the motherfuckin’ Heroic Age. Yeah, word. If you haven’t been paying attention, after last week’s culmination of Siege, Marvel is all about hearkening back to the glory days and shit. The entire gang is back together. Thor, Steve Rogers, and Tony Stark have put their shit inside just in time to have a righteous Memorial Day BBQ. There’s going to be mead, robots, and Steve Rogers not being cool with all the low-cut tops that the chicks are wearing. Oh Steve Rogers, you know you like them boobies.

Enter the Heroic Age #1
No new status quo, era, or event is complete these days without some bullshit one-off that kicks off the new beginnings or whatever. Unfortunately for Marvel readers, the Heroic Age doesn’t bring an age where you don’t have to purchase bullshit titles to know that the fuck is going on. The promo for this comic reads “THE HEROIC AGE STARTS HERE”, and I’m all like, yeah, it starts here, but what the fuck else is going on in it? Wait for it: a bunch of like three-page stories by various writers and artists.

The crisis in this comic book? Your wallet getting fucked for $4. Stay away.

If you’re looking for something to kick off your entrance into the Heroic Age, you’re better off checking out Avengers #1. Ever since Bendis snapped apart Avengers back in 2003, there hasn’t been an adjectiveless Avengers title for you to follow. There’s been a shitload of other ones though: Dark Avengers, New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Young Avengers, Erotic Avengers (featuring She-Hulk), but there hasn’t been the old school title. Shit’s droppin’ this week, and it’s probably your best bet for surveying the new Marvel Universe.

I know I’m being hyperbolic when I pretend there’s like, totally, a huge seismic shift.

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I have to say, now that Siege has ended, and Marvel has completed some enormous, sprawling, seven-year storyline, I have to take a step back and applaud the effort. Listen, I admit I’m a Marvel fanboy. No, I don’t troll forums and write stuff like BATMAN SUXX FUK YOU KID. And for better or worse, I’m terminally gay for Clark Kent. But as a whole, I enjoy the Marvel Universe more. I just do.

So take it with a grain of salt when I state that the entire arc of storylines from Avengers: Disassembled to the Heroic Age is impressive as fuck. For the Universe to ride one narrative for so long, to commit to such a trajectory is quite a feat. Sure, in the end they’ve reverted back to a more simplified universe. No Registration Act, Steve Rogers is back, et cetera. Comic books always return to their status quo. Jean Grey always comes back. But the fact that they took this story through so many twists and turns before finally pulling the trigger and restoring Marvel to Happy Land?

I dig it.

It’s something that DC did similarly with their Brightest Day storyline, and I appreciate their effort as well. However, as I said, I’m a Marvel fanboy. And for whatever mediocrity some of the Marvel events have been through the past couple of years, I’ve preferred them to the DC ones. I mean, Infinite Crisis was decent, but even a Grant Morrison fanboy like myself can’t defend Final Crisis, let alone figure out what the fuck it meant.

Everyone is going happy and shining brightly and being heroic and shit.

I just prefer the Marvel way.

Like I said, I get a boner for mutants.

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[Variant Covers is a column every Tuesday that breaks down the various titles coming out that week in the world where The Sentry can rip dudes in half even though he’s totally emo.]

Siege #3

The sun is finally shining, spring is arriving, and I’m excited for the next issue of Siege. Yeah man, I’ve been drinking the Siege Kool-Aid since the first issue. It’s such a refreshing spectacle. For starters, it’s short as fuck. This isn’t some prolonged storyline running over eight-issues and nineteen spin-offs. It’s four issues. Four. As well, there ain’t much going on besides people slugging the shit out of one another. Oh sure there’s minor developments and some inspirational speeches by Steve Rogers and others.

But for the most part? Just demigods swinging hateful knuckles at one another.

Last month, the fucking Sentry ripped Ares in half. It was one of the more memorable splash pages in recent memory. Guts and blood and rage vomited across two gorgeously drawn panels. Righteous. The Sentry is more than a blatant Superman rip-off, the dude is a schizophrenic mess with the powers of a God. He’s like Old Testament God, when Our Lord and Savior was totally emo and was like “Thou ain’t listening to me and shit, eat a flood!” They probably hang out.

So this month I’m begging for the throwdown between Thor and Mr. Bobby Reynolds. Listen, I had misgivings about Sentry being able to rip the God of War in half, but so help me if he’s able to take out the God of Thunder. That’s ludicrous. The first time I digested The Sentry splitting Ares like a shitty pizza, I was like, no way. One dude is a God, the other is just some byronic douchebag. So yeah, Marvel. I know you want to pump up The Sentry, but Mjolnir and The Mighty Viking better reign supreme.

Choker #2

The debut issue of Choker was a vulgar, insane, bloody detective story set in some depressingly shitty dystopian future. It should go without saying that I fucking loved it. The first issue laid the groundwork comfortably within the confines of familiar noir tropes. You have the beaten detective taking on a job promising some sort of salvation, that you just know is going to end poorly. What makes it so enjoyable is the odd world that Ben McCool and Ben Templesmith have envisioned. It’s dark as fuck, there’s lots of swearing, and apparently there’s vampires. Or something. The first issue set the stage, and I’m curious to see where they’re going this week with it.

I can’t recommend the title enough, if only because it’s a welcome alternative to my steady diet of capes and tights. Ian, you say, read some totally alternative indie comic book about a dude talking to his goldfish! Now that’s literature in graphic novel form!

No thanks.

I like my titles to be placed firmly in the fantastical, whether it be with mutants, or detectives up to their arms in shit in some dark future. I mean Jesus Christ, this title is set in Shotgun City. Am I simpleton? ‘Cause this shit seems awesome to me.

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[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

The theme for this week’s Images & Words is blood and thunder. This is the phrase that I couldn’t stop thinking of as I read the second issue of Siege, the limited series that sees Norman Osborn and his cronies trying to trash Thor’s crib. Built upon the premise of gods and superheroes duking it out, the expectation is that Siege would be an action-packed fanboy wet dream.

So far, the expectations are being met. And then some.

Picking up where the first issue left off, Siege #2 takes the reader right into the middle of the battle for Asgard. As was to be expected, Ares (yes, the god of bloodlust exists in the Marvel Universe) realizes that Norman Osborn’s been playing him for a damn fool! Jumping ship, Ares has himself a slugfest with the Sentry.  And it’s this slugfest  that ends up stealing the show.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will say this – the fight ends with a fatality. Actually, it’s a two-page dismemberment, with entrails and blood and bodily fluids flying all over the damn place.

Yeah, it really is the artistic team of Coipel/Morales/Martin (pencils/inks/colors) that makes this comic especially worthwhile. Bendis’ scripting isn’t bad (in fact, it’s quite good) but the stunning visuals are what elevate the book. In addition to the aforementioned gorefest, even the more mundane sequences are sexy. Coipel’s pencils give Captain America a youthful sensibility which really shines through during his conversation with Steve Rogers.

Hell, the team even manages to make a snoozer of a meeting (between…well, some of Earth’s mightiest heroes) worthy being framed and hung poster-style.

I’m not going to waste time with one of my exhausting complaints about comics-events – but only because Siege is genuinely enjoyable. I think the series is pushing the Marvel universe in an interesting direction, and is doing so with guns and gods and explosions and all that other good shit. I’m sold.

[variant covers is a column every tuesday that breaks down the various titles coming out that week in the world of telekinesis and titty shots]

Siege #1
Marvel isn’t wasting any time this year. They’re straight-up kicking off the first publishing week of 2010 by rocketing straight into their magnum opus, Siege. In a staggering bout of dumb-assery, Norman Osborn has decide it is time to throw down with the lords of Asgard. I’m not sure what sort of excessive hubris you have to be packing to decide you want to fuck with the Gods, but apparently the voices in Osborn’s head have it. So Obsorn, and his douchebag brigade of cronies, the DARK AVENGERS are going to stomp right into Asgard and I assume, ultimately get tore the fuck up.

I’m sold.

At its simplest, Siege is an excuse for Marvel to have Osborn battle a bunch of deities, which seems to result in the fractured core Avengers getting back together and putting a stink on the Green Goblin’s face. It’s been such a long time since Stark and Rogers and Mr. Thor got together to lay thunder and shield and repulsor ray on a common enemy. Ever since Civil War, they’ve been spread out across a multitude of realms. Steve Rogers is straight trippin’ balls after getting shot into the plot of Slaughterhouse-5, Tony Stark has reduced himself to a vegetable, and Thor? I’m not really sure what he’s been up to.

Marvel is branding it as the culmination of seven years of plotline, and I’m ready for it baby. If I had to live another year with Norman Osborn running pretty much everything, I was going to rip out asshair and fashion a stankbeard. I’m hoping that Steve Rogers, fully minted in his body again, is like, you fucking guys let Norman Obsorn weasel his way into power? Talk about dropping the fucking ball! But seriously though. From the moment the Avengers all disassembled, into Civil War, into the death of Steve Rogers, into the most Secret of Invasions, into Dark Reign, it’s been one goddamn nightmare after another for the Marvel Universe. And not only that, but the complexity and burdersome nature of intertwining every title into some sort of endless, fatiguing Super Event has left me wistfully thinking of simpler days.

It’s Brian Marvel Bendis and the gorgeous art of Olivier Coipel throwing an epic showdown in Asgard, that is promising to strip down and simplify the Marvel Universe. I’m sold.

There’s nothing really else coming out in the Marvelverse that catches my eye this week. See, I refrained from saying “nothing else that is awesome coming out”, showing my wonderful growth as a human being and open minded comic book reader. However, Marvel last week did tease this gorgeous piece of Spider-Man artwork by Pasqual Ferry. Something serious is going down with Peter Parker this year! Go fucking figure! There’s always something big going on with him. Ever since that douche traded his marriage and memories of Mary Jane to Mephisto in exchange for saving Aunt May’s decaying, disgusting, propped-up-by-pills-and-preservatives-ass, I’d been down on the Emo Arachnid. Who makes that trade? May has like three good years left, and she’s wasting them by marrying the father of J. Jonah Jameson. Good work dude, your spider-ears have to hear the groans of old Aunt May backing that ass up for the father of the guy who absolutely hates you.

Orc Stain #1

Listen. I’m a geek who plays World of Warcraft, secretly wishes he was Gimli and listens to shit like Amon Amarth. Anything called Orc Stain is going to gain my attention. I feel like I have to champion it misguidedly on principle alone. It’s about an orc (duh) named Stain who has begun to see the cracks in orc existence and the endless wars they fight. It seems like social commentary to me, featuring an orc. Now I’m really sold. It’s by writer James Stokoe, and while I don’t know him because I’m ignorant and uneducated, better people may have read his work Wonton Soup, whose premise is that one of the galaxies best chefs leaves behind galactic acclaim to become a space trucker. Bizarre. And cool.

Superman World of New Krypton #11

I have no idea what’s going on in the world of Superman. I also have no idea why this title isn’t tying into Blackest Night. Was there some sort of break-down in office memos? I mean, you need to slap the Blackest Night title on that shit! Sells more copies! Black Lanterns are canvassing the entire cosmos, but they can’t roll up onto New Krypton? Wicked weird, yo. I’m just kidding. I’m glad they’re doing their own thing, and they haven’t been assimilated into the monolith event.

All I know is that Clark Kent has been framed for murder, and there’s some sort of conspiracy between Kryptonian guilds. I didn’t make that up, apparently New Krypton has been taken over by guilds, maybe because they play too much Warcraft and they’re like, we’re fucking superheroes, let’s form a guild. They sound so cool.

But seriously, who would ever believe Kal-El is a murderer? If the dude had some balls he would have punched the dumb head off of Lex Luthor eons ago. Dude definitely isn’t into Bentham and his utilitarian ethics. How many lives could you have saved, Clark, if you just mustered up one skull crush? Yeah, stand on your moral high ground. I’m sure there’s some mother whose child had their head stepped on by Metallo who probably disagrees with you and your high horse.

Just sayin’.