SPIDER-MAN: BLUE

"MY FUNNY VALENTINE" | "LET'S FALL IN LOVE" | "ANYTHING GOES"
"AUTUMN IN NEW YORK" | "IF I HAD YOU" | "ALL OF ME"
By Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale
With Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Wes Abbott / Steve Buccellato
Comicraft's JG Roshell / Bronwyn Taggart / Nanci Dakesian / Joe Quesada / Bill Jemas
Dedicated to Stan Lee & Steve Ditko & John Romita, web-heads all!

It's hard for me to choose a favorite between DAREDEVIL: YELLOW and SPIDER-MAN: BLUE. Both are tremendous pieces of work, perhaps the finest retellings of these characters' earlier periods than anything else I've ever read. But in the end, BLUE edges out YELLOW by a slight margin, simply because it stars Spider-Man, my all-time favorite superhero character.

And it's not just any Spider-Man we're following here, either. This is the web-slinger as I love him best, as I was introduced to him via reprints of the Stan Lee/John Romita comics. This is Peter Parker, in college, rooming with Harry Osborn. He's moved past the formative high school years and become, in my opinion, the most iconic version of the character. There are those who prefer Spider-Man in high school. There are those who prefer him married, or as a single adult. But for me, there is absolutely no better status quo for the wall-crawler than as an undergraduate at Empire State University, and there is no better run of Spider-Man issues than roughly AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #40 - 100.

So it's no surprise that I love BLUE so much. It begins during AMAZING issue 40, immediately after the wall-crawler's most influential artist, John Romita, came onto the title (apologies to you Ditko-fans out there -- I like the guy, and I fully acknowledge that without him we would not have Spider-Man or most of his best enemies -- but taking that for granted, I much prefer the style Romita brought to the characters and the stories).

THE NEW TEEN TITANS #11 & #12 AND BEST OF DC (BLUE RIBBON DIGEST) #18

"WHEN TITANS CLASH" | "CLASH OF THE TITANS"
Co-Creators: Marv Wolfman & George Pérez | Inker: Romeo Tanghal
Letterers: John Costanza (#11) & Ben Oda (#12)
Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: The Titans travel to Paradise Island, home of the Amazons, in hopes that their "Purple Ray" might save Changeling's life. While Wonder Girl, Starfire, and Raven remain with Changeling, Robin, Cyborg, and Kid Flash depart to search for Changeling's long-missing stepfather, Steve Dayton.

Meanwhile, in the underworld realm of Tartarus, the elder god (or titan) Hyperion awakens and returns to Earth over Paradise Island. Wonder Girl heads out to intercept Hyperion, but he enthralls her and brings her back to Tartarus so he can free his fellow titans, all of whom have been imprisoned with him for 30,000 years, courtesy of Zeus and the second generation of Olympian gods.

Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons, leads a war party into Tartarus, accompanied by Starfire and Raven, to recover Wonder Girl. But Hyperion succeeds in releasing his brethren and when the Amazons arrive, Wonder Girl announces that she's joined the titans. She departs with Hyperion and the others. Then, a mysterious figure appears to aid Hippolyte.

My Thoughts: The hits just keep coming. This is yet another excellent issue, and it doesn't even suffer from any of the logical inconsistencies that have plagued recent installments. I had hopes since issue 7, but now I think it's safe to declare with certainty that THE NEW TEEN TITANS has hit its stride. The characters are consistent, the stories are engrossing, and the continuity and sub-plots are strong enough to hold a reader's interest from issue to issue.

THE NEW TEEN TITANS #9 & #10

"LIKE PUPPETS ON A STRING!" | "PROMETHIUM: UNBOUND"
Co-Creators: Marv Wolfman & George Pérez | Inker: Romeo Tanghal
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Working for the H.I.V.E., the villainous Puppet Master has been systematically murdering board members of Dayton Industries, the company run by Changeling's stepfather, using toys to carry out the hits. When an attempt is made on his own life, Changeling calls Robin for some detective assistance. Robin learns that the deceased board members were also part of Dayton's Promethium committee, working on a project to produce infinite renewable energy.

Elsewhere, the remaining Teen Titans are going about their daily lives when, one by one, they fall under the thrall of the Puppet Master. Only Raven is unaffected, and she goes for help from Robin and Changeling. But Puppet Master sends his controlled Titans to finish off the Promethium committee and kill Robin and Changeling, bringing all the Titans together in one location. Kid Flash frees himself from Puppet Master's control and together with Robin, Changeling, and Raven, manages to restore the rest of the team as well.

The Titans locate Puppet Master's hideout and battle his toys while the villain escapes. In the aftermath, the H.I.V.E. orders Puppet Master executed, while elsewhere, Deathstroke the Terminator breaks into a Dayton facility and steals the plans for Project: Promethium.

THE ROAD TO ONSLAUGHT

A love letter to the X-Men of the mid-nineties.

A few weeks back, in my review of WOLVERINE AND GAMBIT: VICTIMS, I noted that "...VICTIMS takes me back to high school and the year between 'Age of Apocalypse' and 'Onslaught', one of my favorite points in X-Men history." This bold statement elicited a comment from reader wwk5d, who said: "Interesting. That is probably one of my least favorite points."

I get this a lot, and I've seen the sentiment expressed often from many quarters. But it's just not the case for me. And don't get me wrong; I'm certain nostalgia plays a huge role in my opinion here. So much so that I'm going to ask you to bear with me as a provide a little backstory to hopefully explain where I'm coming from when I describe my affection for this era.

Although I had dabbled in the X-Men dating back to the Claremont/Lee X-MEN 1-3, I didn't become a regular X-reader until age fourteen with 1993's X-MEN #20, the issue whose cover teased the dramatic return of someone wearing a billowing purple cape. It wasn't Magneto, as readers were meant to believe, but Psylocke's former body possessed of a different character's consciousness (it's a long, long, long, long story -- and, perhaps tellingly as it pertains to the rest of this post, I was positively enraptured at that time by the mystery of Psylocke and her "twin", Revanche). In any case, the bait-and-switch tactic worked beautifully on me and from that issue forward I continued to pick up Fabian Nicieza's X-MEN every month.

DAREDEVIL: YELLOW

"THE CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON" | "THE MEASURE OF A MAN" | "STEPPING INTO THE RING"
"NEVER LEAD WITH YOUR LEFT" | "AGAINST THE ROPES" | "THE FINAL BELL"
Storytellers: Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale | Colors: Matt Hollingsworth
Lettering: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Wes Abbott
Editors: Bronwyn Taggart & Stuart Moore | Man Without Fear: Joe Quesada
President: Bill Jemas
Dedicated to Stan Lee & Bill Everett & Wally Wood, prizefighters all!

The term "bittersweet, timeless classic" gets thrown around a lot these days, but in the case of DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, no description is more apt. This is a wonderful story from Loeb and Sale, told via a framing sequence set in then-modern continuity, as Matt "Daredevil" Murdock struggles to cope with the recent death of his longtime girlfriend, Karen Page. At the urging of his friend, Foggy Nelson, Matt writes a series of letters to Karen in which he describes the earliest days of their relationship.

Unlike HULK: GRAY, which structured (or, in terms of publication chronology, will structure) its entire six-part story to fit within the first issue of the Hulk's original series, covering less than 24 hours' time and therefore making up a great deal of material, DAREDEVIL: YELLOW threads its tale through the first four issues of the classic DAREDEVIL series, covering what seem to be the first few months of Daredevil's career and drawing heavily upon the original stories by Stan Lee, Bill Everett, and Joe Orlando, resulting in a much more satisfying read.

The story begins as Matt and Foggy near the end of law school. Matt's father, "Battlin'" Jack Murdock, a boxer, is killed by an agent named the Fixer when he refuses to throw a fight. Matt, blinded at an early age by exposure to a radioactive isotope which exponentially heightened all his remaining senses, dons a yellow-and-brown costume crafted from his father's gear and, calling himself Daredevil, goes for revenge upon the Fixer. The agent dies of a heart attack, however, robbing Daredevil of the chance to see justice done.

THE NEW TEEN TITANS #8

"A DAY IN THE LIVES..."
Co-Creators: Marv Wolfman & George Pérez | Embellisher: Romeo Tanghal
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Starfire meets Wonder Girl, in her civilian guise as photographer Donna Troy, for lunch at Donna's advertising agency. There, Starfire is recruited to become a model. Meanwhile, Robin departs Titans' Tower, having recently rejoined the circus, and promises Raven he will be back for the next Titans' meeting in a week.

Once Robin is gone, Raven considers attending Manhattan University and sends her astral form to check the school out. But the University is being held by a group of revolutionaries, and Raven is forced into action to take them out and defuse their bombs. She succeeds, but her astral form is away from her body for too long and is hurled into another dimension. With all the skill and tenacity she can muster, Raven escapes and returns to her mortal body.

Elsewhere, Changeling is visiting Cyborg when he receives a call from his currently missing stepfather's business manager, who informs him that two members of his stepfather's board of directors have been murdered. Changeling leaves to investigate.

Cyborg departs as well, paying a visit to his old girlfriend, Marcy, who he hasn't seen since before his accident. She asks him to leave, her parents having forbidden her from associating with him. As he wanders through Central Park, Cyborg bumps into a group of children with prosthetic limbs, out for physical therapy. Cyborg joins the kids' baseball game.

THE NEW TEEN TITANS #6 & #7

"LAST KILL!" | "ASSAULT ON TITANS' TOWER"
Co-Creators: Marv Wolfman & George Pérez
Inkers: Pablo Marcos (issue 6) & Romeo Tanghal (issue 7)
Colorists: Jerry Serpe (issue 6) & John Drake (issue 7)
Letterer: John Costanza | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Trigon returns to his dimension with Raven. Upon their arrival, Trigon executes a young girl for calling him a monster, then destroys a world with which he is at war.

Meanwhile, the Titans convince Raven's mother, Arella, to lead them to Trigon's dimension. There, the group goes in search of Raven but finds Trigon instead. He easily defeats the Titans, but Arella escapes and rescues Raven. While Trigon fights Arella, Raven frees the Titans. The entire group then combines their powers to defeat Trigon, banishing him to a nether-realm between dimensions. But Arella sacrifices herself to live forever in that realm as well, keeping Trigon trapped there.

My Thoughts: As can be gleaned from the above synopsis, this is another issue featuring characters getting shuffled around in all different directions for little real purpose. Maybe I harp on this too much, but it's just such a weird storytelling mechanism that I feel it's worth noting.

Otherwise, this is a decent conclusion to the Trigon saga, complete with an X-MEN-esque denouement which features all the Titans (save Changeling, who is involved in his own side skirmish) combining their powers to stop Trigon. Arella's fate is easy to predict, given the big to-do made of her leaving Azarath, but it nonetheless adds some nice emotional impact to the finale.