Jack Kirby’s O.M.A.C. Omnibus

For someone who considers himself a serious comics fan, I’ve never taken the time to really and truly educate myself about the industry’s past.  I know a little about the 80s and 90s, but anything prior to that hasn’t really interested me even though I’ve read about the greatness of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and the like.  Last night, all that changed.

Thank you, Chris Sims, for introducing me to the world of O.M.A.C., the One Man Army Corps.  My life is as complete as it’s going to get (until my daughter arrives in the next few weeks).  I now want to shell out the cash for the rest of the Kirby collection, so my wife might not be as happy as I am about this turn of events.

Simply put, this comic is freaking crazy.  Corporate nobody/drone Buddy Blank gets turned into OMAC, the One Man Army Corps, right before Blank is about to be killed for seeing something he wasn’t supposed to.  How does this happen, you might be wondering?

Brother Eye, the world’s most sophiscated computer/satellite, uses electronic hormone surgery, via a superpowered beam of energy, to transform the zero into the hero.  That’s right: a sentient satellite shoots a beam of energy from space, through each floor of a building, into Buddy so that he gains mass, strength, a new costume, and a Roman Centurion helmet for a head.  The result is this (click to embiggen):

 Wait.  I’ve gotten ahead of myself.  You can’t really get a good look at OMAC in all that ass-kickery.  Take a moment and marvel at the glorious chaos that is OMAC barreling his way through ten soldiers, why don’t you?  I particularly like the guy trying desparately to hold onto his foot.  You think he might have received a boot to the head later?

Here’s a better picture (lovingly borrowed from Chris Sims’ website since I don’t have a scanner).

Blue long sleeve shirt, yellow gloves, orange tights, funky eye logo on his chest, TV remote for a belt buckle, yellow dog collar…it’s the perfect outfit, when you think about it.  This page is from issue 2, in which Mr. Big rents out an entire city so all of his best friends can have a party.  Because, in The World That’s Coming, that’s just how Big rolls, fool.

Of course, he really rented out the whole freaking city and threw the party to cover up his true goal: destroy OMAC and any who help him.

I could go on and mention Dr. Skuba, the mad scientist who wants to hold the world’s water hostage or talk about gangsters paying good money to have a computer transplant their brains into younger bodies, but I feel I’ve filled my Awesome Quota for the day.  I can’t recommended this highly entertaining trip to the 70s enough.

Quick notes on the omnibus:

1. It’s printed on godawful newsprint paper, and I still haven’t gotten over how angry this made me.  When you sell a hardcover for $25, it needs to be worth every penny.  DC sells $25 collections of other books, and I’ve yet to run into the same problem.  It’s vexing.
2. The story ends on a cliffhanger.  Kirby got through 8 issues before Marvel lured him back into the fold, and DC didn’t hire anyone to complete the series because it wasn’t a best selling title.  The unresolved ending didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the book, though.

 

Aqua Lung! er, Leung!

OK, so that joke’s out of the way, right? Right.

Aqua Leung is the first in a planned series of graphic novels by Mark Andrew Smith and Paul Maybury. Yes, it has a pretty horrible name. Luckily, the name is the worst thing about it.

(But honestly, the boy is born underwater and his mom names him Aqua. That is simply ridiculous. I look forward to naming my next child “Earth” or “Oxygen” or “Atmosphere.”)

The story focuses on Aqua/Adam Leung, a young boy who was sent by his Atlantean parents to live on land because it was too dangerous for him to remain with his soon-to-be-deposed/murdered royal family. Take one part Superman (being sent away from home before something bad happens), add one part Batman (parents killed (2 sets of them!) = motivation), mix in some Hercules (Aqua must complete a series of tasks/labors to reclaim his throne), add a dash of Lord of the Rings (two huge armies fighting it out, the action only stopping to focus on a few important characters), a pinch of The Empire Strikes Back (Aqua enters a cave to confront himself), and top it off with a whole lotta Aquaman (natch) and you’ve got yourself a book.

If this doesn’t sound all that original, there’s probably a reason for that. While I’m sure Smith is the first person to throw all those tropes into one blender and hit frappe, the fact remains that there aren’t a lot of new ideas here.

It doesn’t help that the characters are pretty standard fantasy types and not particularly interesting on top of that. I didn’t really like Aqua very much; partly because he seems like a brat and partly because we don’t spend enough time getting to know him before he’s thrust back into the underseas action. The only time I cared about a character was when Smith spends a little bit of time giving us some insight into his life only to kill him later on *cough* Joss Whedon move *cough*.

Artist Paul Maybury’s work is a cross between Michael Avon Oeming and Bryan Lee O’Malley, but only if those two dudes got together and actually had a child. What would the result of such love that dare not speak its name look like? Probably an artist who channels both of them but still hasn’t quite mastered sequential art. There are moments where I did a double take because the work on the page was so pretty, but there were too many times where the action simply wasn’t clear. All I really ask for from an artist is easy to follow storytelling, and Maybury isn’t always up to that task.

Too often panels were muddied with scribbles that were meant to convey detail but only served up confusion. Important moments were frequently left to the reader to figure out for themselves, so I was forced to read dialogue and caption boxes over and over as I squinted at the pages. There’s real promise here, and I say so because I compared Maybury to two artists I like, but unless the art becomes a lot clearer the second time around I most likely won’t be back for volume 3.

So I guess my final thoughts on this book could be summed up thusly: Ehh….it’s on the disappointing side of OK. So much so that I’m not sure I’ll pick up volume 2.

While I can’t be sure that this book will succeed, I hope it does. If only to validate my feelings that graphic novels aren’t killing comics.

Quick Hit reviews, part the second

 Amazing Spider-Man #563

I didn’t much care for Bob Gale’s first few issues of the Spider-relaunch, but it’s this issue cemented my dislike of his stuff.  The plot is interesting enough (bookie who takes bets on super-fights gets in trouble) but it’s Gale’s Spider-Man who I’ve found I can’t stand.  He’s a just a jerk for the majority of the story, and that’s not the Webhead I grew up with.  Threatening to destroy a bar after the bar owner/bartender just saved you from a big brawl is just classless.  I know old people are annoying, but Spidey is just plain mean to the bookie’s father and the result is off-putting.  I could talk more about the narrative’s unrealized potential, but I’ve spent too much time on this issue already.  Oh, and Mike Mckone’s art is usually nice to look at, but he seems to have lost a step since his days on Exiles.

Wolverine #66

The Civil War team is back together!  Wait….Civil War sucked and shipped late.  So…woo hoo?

I’m being prematurely snarky, of course, since there’s really nothing wrong with this issue (aside from the horribly stilted faux frontier dialect).  The “Old Man Logan” story is off to a nice start, though I’m concerned that the glacial pacing of this chapter could signal boredom ahead.  Sure, I want to know all about this bleak future world that pacifist Logan lives in, but I’m not sure I have the patience to get there (at least until the trade hits stands).  Mark Millar’s last foray into Wolverine’s world was made of testosterone and awesome, so I’m cautiously optimistic.  I can’t say anything about Steve McNiven’s work that hasn’t already been said.  It’s pretty and wonderful and detailed and I’m sure the man craps rainbows.

Punisher #58

I make no secret of my love for Garth Ennis’ take on the Punisher, and I’m not about to go back on that now.  Ennis moves the story along nicely here as Frank stares down a team of Delta commandoes and almost gets away when things go pear shaped.  Goran Parlov is probably the perfect artist to match Ennis’ tone, and it’ll be his style that I most associate with Ennis’ epic run when it ends in 2 months.  The main reason I bring this up is to point out that this story is quite obviously padded so it can last 6 issues.  There are 4 or 5 pages in the middle of this book dedicated to “reprinting” pictures from a fake book about Vietnam.  We get snapshots of helicopters and the Valley Forge firebase and Frank Castle loading a machine gun so we don’t forget he was there and none of it does a damn thing to advance the plot or give us insight into anything.  Drove me nuts, those pages did.

Quick Hit reviews

I’m going to limit myself to one paragraph for each of these:

Ex Machina #37

This book publishes so sporadically I completely forgot what was going on in it. That’s a shame, too, because it’s a damn fine read as an obsessed fan from the Mayor’s days as a superhero tries to ruin the Republican Convention using the city as her canvas. Usually I’ll find some part of a book like this tedious (be it the rote superheroics or the backroom political drama), but that’s never been the case here thanks to Brian K. Vaughn’s talent. Tony Harris’ art is just plain pretty. I love the book, but the schedule stops me from embracing it completely.

Angel: After the Fall #9

The art on this book just plain sucks. Usually I can look past that because I’m more of a story/dialogue guy and the art is just icing on the cake, but I just can’t overlook or forgive the eye-raping perpetrated here. I’m not going to waste my time looking up who drew this mess, but I can’t think of a single issue that’s had art that I would classify as passable (except for the John Byrne drawn short story a few issues ago). Aside from that, this series brings new definition to the term “uneven.” It started strong, but that past few story-driven issues (as opposed to the 3 issues devoted to catching up with characters not named Angel) have wasted the goodwill generated there. What could and should have been as good as Buffy Season 8 has turned into a jumbled, confusing, awkward mess.

Guardians of the Galaxy #2

This comic features a talking raccoon whose best friend is a miniature tree god. At one point said raccoon straps a fish bowl style space helmet on his head and uses large firearms to blow overgrown tapeworms to Kingdom Come. In space. Why do you hate fun, people not reading this comic? Why?

Justice League of America #22

Like everyone else, I had high hopes when Dwayne McDuffie took over this title. Like everyone else, I’ve been so let down by it that disappointed seems to weak a word. Most blame this on DC editorial so I will too, especially when we’re treated to glimpses of what could have been. Moments like Black Canary’s smackdown of Vixen and McDuffie’s use of inner monologues from different characters show us how good this could be if the big events written by others would just stay out of his way. Ed Benes is still trying to figure out how to draw a woman’s rear end in every panel, but he’s toned it down so that the focus is now on his relatively solid work and not his spine-wrenching anatomy.

I’m killing comics (Part 1 in a series)

By the end of this series, I’ll be wishing we used profanity here at Our Daily Read.  Mark my words.

Months ago, I switched to reading a great many comics in trade paperback (TPB) form in order to save some money. When you can get a 6-issue storyline for $15 instead of $18, you’d be a fool not to do that, right? Throw in Amazon.com’s discount, and that $18 can now be had for between ten and eleven dollars. Nifty, no?

Well, not according to more than a few online voices.  They point to the flagging sales of monthly issues and the declining profit margins of comic companies (or at least the publishing arm of Marvel Entertainment and Time Warner, DC’s parent company) and wring their hands over a future without our beloved monthlies.  Sometime soon, they surmise, it will no longer be profitable to sell monthlies and the industry will either stop publishing comics altogether (doubtful at best) or the companies will have to adapt and publish semi-regular graphic novels featuring our heroes.

The former will never happen, even if only because Marvel and DC need to protect their copyrights. And what exactly is wrong with option 2? Let’s explore all sides of this argument before coming to the inevitable conclusion that the rise of graphic novels (be they hardcover collections, TPBs, or original comic book stories in long form) isn’t the end of the world.  I’m hoping to read the ongoing discourse and add to the discussion here, but I have a feeling I might end up reiterating what others have said.

(Oh, and I’m fully aware a lot of people hate calling TPBs graphic novels.  I get that a graphic novel is an original story that didn’t appear in single issues and a TPB is a collection of monthly issues reprinted.  I don’t care.  Bother someone else with your neuroses.)

1. Comic authors today write their stories so they’ll be collected in the more lucrative (because these usually stay in print for a long, long time and therefore provide a constant trickle of income) TPB format.  Most seemingly have no idea how to tell a story in 2 or 3 issues.  Warren Ellis, an author whose work I quite like, is the most high profile example of this.

In Ultimate Nightmare (the first miniseries in the Ultimate Galactus trilogy) the X-Men and the Ultimates a drawn to an old military base. There Ultimate Vision tells them to prepare for the coming of Galactus. This takes five issues, partly because issue 2 focuses on the two teams taking the drastic, heart wrenching, oh-no-I-can’t-believe-they’re-actually-going-to-do-it step of walking through a goddamn door.

In Thunderbolts 120, it takes Norman Osborn 5 or 6 pages to take an elevator down to the basement and put on his old Green Goblin costume.

In newuniversal: Shockfront #2, a new character talks non-stop for 2 pages, filling up the panels with word balloons that I wanted to skip, for no other reason than to let us know she believes she’s living in some kind of alternate reality.

Caveats: Like I said, I enjoy the man’s work.  He actually has shown he can write shorter stories as evidenced by Red, Tokyo Storm Warning, and a few other three-issue minis he’s produced.  Of course, the two I mentioned were collected in a single volume.

I should also mention that every single one of Garth Ennis’s arcs on the mature readers Punisher comic has been told in 5 or 6 parts.  My love for this series has not stopped me from noticing that each story was, at the very, very least, one issue too long.  Bad guys do bad stuff.  The Punisher finds out about it.  He hunts them down and kills them.  The end.  This takes 6 issues?  Every time?

This problem goes beyond comics, of course, and speaks to our need as people to have a resolution in sight.  We need to know that the story we’re reading has an endpoint and that the author isn’t flying by the seat of his or her pants (I’m looking at you, 24 writers).  The days of long story arcs that last years have been replaced with stories whose titles end with “Part 1 of 6.” 

That authors then feel the need to make sure their stories last the full 6 issues is simply a case of them bowing to the demands of their readership.  Straying outside of the tried and true 6 (or 5 or 4) issue arc brings attention and criticism. 

I’m thinking of Brian Michael Bendis’ Daredevil in particular here.  He told what amounted to a 2 year story and, even though a lot of people liked his run on the book (myself included), he was often dinged for his glacial pacing and story arcs that felt incomplete.  I felt that way myself while reading the single issues, and I have no doubt that if I sat down with all 13 volumes of Bendis’ Daredevil I’d come away with an increased appreciation of a story I already liked.  Why is this?

Because I think thes author meant for that to be the case.  He wants you to read the story like a novel (i.e. without month-long breaks between chapters) so you can see the big picture without forgetting important details because of the forced hiatus.  And I don’t think he’s alone.

Of course, I can’t speak for any writer but myself and I’m not putting words in his blah, blah, blah.

So after almost 900 words where are we?  Trade paperbacks have been a good, nay, great thing for the comics industry.  They allow readers to get through a whole story in one sitting and reap the benefits that this entails (better comprehension and retention of the story, increased appreciation of writer/artist skill).  They’ve allowed comics to carve out bigger shelves in mainstream book stores.  They’ve provided a forum for the re-printing of older material (like the works of Jack Kirby).  And they’ve given new readers a better starting point than the flimsy monthly issue.

I’ll let you tell me why I’m right or wrong. 

B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground

Can we all agree that B.P.R.D. is the best book Dark Horse publishes? There’s no debate anymore, right? It’s clearly better than its parent, Hellboy, and having read Dark Horse’s Conan and Rex Mundi, I feel as though I can speak with some authority on the subject.

For the uninitiated, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense hunts down and fights occult threats to humanity. Their story is published as a series of miniseries rather than in an ongoing, consecutively numbered fashion. B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground is the eighth book to hit stories, and sadly it’s also the weakest. 

Rather than focus on one larger plot/threat and fill in the gaps with subplots, this volume is basically a collection of subplots. What’s going on with Liz Sherman? How is Johann Kraus adapting to having a real body again? What’s going on with Ben Daimio? What does Abe Sapien hope to accomplish with the captured Wendigo? How does the 3,000-year-old lady from volume 7 figure into all of this?

Unfortunately, we get answers to only two of those questions, and even then there’s no real sense of closure. The book ends mysteriously, adding to this reader’s frustration.

 A couple of other things that hurt my enjoyment:

• I read this in trades and the authors don’t offer much in the way of a recap for people like me who have waited over six months between stories.
• Amazon has tried three times to send me this book, and all three copies have been unacceptably damaged.
• The next volume will be about the agency’s adventures in 1946, so it’ll be awhile before we get back to the present day and that badass cliffhanger.
• I read this volume in about 30 minutes, so there’s not a lot of meat on its bones.

Authors Mike Mignola and John Arcudi usually give us stories in this book that have far reaching, end-of-the-world type consequences (see the phenomenal sixth volume, The Universal Machine), so a change of pace series was to be expected. What I didn’t expect was the sense of danger and urgency to be almost completely gone from this story.  This is a book with no real status quo, where change (and not the illusion of change) actually happens. For the first time, though, the tension normally associated with reading a book like that was missing.

Because we don’t know what’s happened to Daimio until after it happens, I wasn’t all that concerned with him. Once the dangerous, feral Wendigo escapes, none of the redshirts seem all that concerned. One of them mentions being careful because “that thing is out there,” but that’s about it. Daimio and the Wendigo both get out of the compound, but no one sees fit to hunt them down because it’s snowing outside.

Guy Davis is another artist I flip flop on. At times I’ve stared at one of his pages for a good three or four minutes because it was so damn good. Other times, I’ve squinted at a panel for five minutes trying to figure out what I was looking at. His rougher style works for the beasties he has to draw, but not so well for the talking heads scenes thanks to his usually ugly-ass people. This volume is 75% talking, so you can guess how this turned out.

I’m sure I’m coming across as too negative here, because there was quite a bit too like. Johann adjusting to his new body (eating, drinking, fornicating, and fighting with it) was good for some laughs. We finally got answers regarding the shady Daimio, and it was good to see more of the inner workings of B.P.R.D. headquarters. The team doesn’t leave their Colorado base and this adds a claustrophobic feel to the proceedings, especially when the situation becomes dangerous.

Of course, I would still recommend this book to anyone looking for a comic that doesn’t feature spandex and capes. I suppose we can chalk my disappointment up to being spoiled by quality of the seven previous volumes. Really, the creators only have themselves to blame.

Booster Gold: 52 Pick-Up

There’s pretty much no way I could care less about Booster Gold. A loser from the future steals a supersuit and a ring that lets him fly, kidnaps the robot that tried to stop him, and comes back in time to make money as a corporate sponsored superhero. I get that this is a neat idea, but no thanks. I’ve had my fill of unlikable “good guys” recently (I’m looking at you, Iron Man (and I m mean comic book Iron Man; movie Iron Man was made of all things awesome)).

So when the new Booster Gold series started getting rave reviews, I took notice. When I thought about it, I remembered liking the Booster bits in 52, and since this new ongoing series spun out of that title I decided to give it a try.

Simply put, Booster Gold: 52 Pick-Up was the most fun I’ve had reading comics this year.

The premise: time traveler Rip Hunter (thankfully not his real name) has found several anomalies in the timestream. These anomalies occur around important events in history that effect the DC Universe in big ways, so Rip decides to do something about it. He recruits Booster Gold to help him, thanks to the instrumental role our hero played in saving the multiverse at the end of 52. There’s a catch however: if anyone (the bad guys causing these irregularities) found out Booster was helping Rip, they’d kill Booster in his crib. Rip avoids that fate by never telling anyone his real name and going by his ridiculously over the top pseudonym. So Booster, a man obsessed with being famous and thought well of, must sacrifice his heart’s desire for the greater good.

Writers Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz wisely ignore all that crap that people hate about time travel, and instead focus on telling fun, meaningful stories. There is no talk of time paradoxes or the space/time continuum or anything that will make your head hurt. Instead, Booster meets up with a before-he-went-bad Sinestro, a hard-drinking Jonah Hex, and other heroes any fan of the DC Universe will recognize. There’s more to this volume, of course, but this isn’t a summary now, is it?

The real gem of this collection is the story focusing on Booster’s repeated attempts to stop the Joker from crippling Barbara Gordon. Over and over again, our hero tries to stop this pivotal event in DC history, and over and over again he fails. It’s not every day that comic readers are lucky enough to witness the moment the characters we read about truly become heroes and earn the title of “superhero” so readily thrust upon them. After each attempt, an increasingly beaten up Booster demands to be sent back only to fail again. Each time he must witness the bullet ripping through the former Batgirl’s spine, and this only serves to strengthen his resolve.

Only when Rip tells him that this moment can’t be changed, that Rip was sending him there to teach our hero a lesson, does Booster concede defeat. His way of conceding is to smack the pretentious, holier-than-thou jackass around a bit, of course, and it’s here where I think Booster is acting for us readers. God I’m starting to hate that guy.

In a nice bit of continuity, Dan Jurgens, the man responsible for creating Booster Gold back in the 1980s, handles the art chores. I’ve gone back and forth on his art in the past, but his work shines in this collection. It’s perfectly suited to the stories being told, as evidenced by Jurgens’ ability to render just about anything Johns and Katz ask of him. From Wild West saloon to amorphous time streams, Jurgens handles himself with aplomb.

The only negative aspect of this series I can think of is its heavy reliance of recent DC continuity. Someone who skipped 52 will have no idea what’s going on at times, and certainly won’t get some of the more subtle jokes. I’d love to recommend this book to Southpaw, for instance, but he’s been on sabbatical from comics for a few years and I can’t in good conscience tell him to drop $25 on a collection he won’t be able to fully enjoy.

People like me, nerds/geeks who read too many comics, will love this book about a loser who becomes the greatest hero nobody’s ever heard of.

Sub-Mariner: Revolution

 

 Are there still people out there who care about Namor, the Sub-Mariner?  I’d have thought no, but apparently I’d have been wrong.  Namor has been lying fallow for years now, popping up here and there to act rashly and bitch about the surface world mucking up the oceans.  For a character with a rich history, (fighting alongside Captain American in World War II, fighting the Fantastic Four, trying to steal Sue Richards away from her husband) he’s been handled pretty poorly over the past decade or so.  This is in part surprising because he’s got wings on his ankles, and the ladies love a man with cute little ankle wings.

 

Then along came Sub-Mariner: Revolution, and it didn’t suck. 

 I know, right?  No one was more surprised than me that it was actually good.  In the story, a terrorist cell of Atlanteans carries out attacks on the United States.  The powers that be send Iron Man and his cronies to tell Namor to cut it out, even though he isn’t involved.  Misunderstandings and stubbornness ensue, with Namor acting like the monarch he is and deciding to take matters into his own hands.  He hunts down the cell and dispatches them in his own particular idiom.  While he’s taking care of business the U.S. lurks just outside Atlantis, ready to blow it to hell.  Oh, and some rebel Atlanteans want to stage a coup and kick our half-human, half-Atlantean hero off the throne. 

 

Authors Matt Cherniss and Peter Johnson have crafted a tale that doesn’t so much rely on the super aspects of the story, and the work is stronger for it.  There’s a “ripped from the headlines” feel that I appreciated, even when I was shaking my head at some of the more graphic violence.  Terrorist attacks on U.S. soil are no longer fantastical, and Cherniss and Johnson take advantage of that.  The United States acting as world police and demanding other countries adapt to our way of thinking has been a reality for decades now, so it’s not a stretch to see Tony Stark, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., serve as the mouthpiece for a concerned administration.

 

I expected the scenes in Atlantis to drag, and was pleasantly surprised when those expectations weren’t met.  The climactic fight scene between Namor and the cell was a sight to behold, and so praise needs to be heaped on artist Phil Briones.  This was my first exposure to his work, and I’ll be on the lookout for his name from now on.  Too often comic fans obsess about how detailed the art in a book is or how lifelike the characters are and therefore neglect strong, competent work.  Briones lays his action scenes out well, tells a great story through body language and facial expressions, and never confuses the reader with muddy (though sometimes hurried) looking work.  I hope to see him on a higher profile book in the future.

 

The only real complaint I have has to do with the violence.  Now, I loves me some fighting, but Sub-Mariner: Revolution falls prey to the Geoff Johns-led Dismemberment Movement too prevalent in today’s comics landscape.  Allow me to illustrate:  Namor fights Venom in the series, which isn’t as ridiculously out of place as it sounds since Venom is now part of the governments’ “Keep them superfolks in line!” task force.  During the fight, Venom rips off two of Namor’s best assets: those cute little ankle wings.  Blood spurting ensues.  In retaliation, Namor rips Venom’s tongue out of his head.  More blood, with some gurgling thrown in for good measure.  Oh, and later Namor impales a bad guy on Seattle’s Space Needle.  So, you know, there’s that.

 

Of course, neither ankle nor tongue maiming is mentioned in any of the other books these characters appear in, so I could put on my Continuity Police badge if I wanted, but that’s beside the point.  I like that Namor is rendered weaker and must struggle in other fights, but couldn’t Venom broken a bone or something?  I don’t need to see more body parts flung around in my comics, thank you very much.

 

In any case we’re left with, miracle of miracles, a Sub-Mariner story that’s well plotted, well written, and well drawn.  While this does feel a little drawn out or decompressed (Really guys?  A fight with Wolverine?  Really?), the creators provide us with a clever story and an ending I didn’t see coming.  Unfortunately, the promise of that final issue has yet to be realized or even mentioned in other books, but I chalk that up to Marvel caring more about BIG SUMMER EVENTS! and less about making sure interesting threads in their universe are explored.  Let’s hope Cherniss and Johnson have something to do with the Sub-Mariner movie that IMDB lists as being released in 2010 (and that the underappreciated David Boreanaz actually lands the title role as rumored).