"Spider-Man/Deadpool: Road Trip"

 

                The following is a review of the graphic novel “Spider-Man/Deadpool: Road Trip” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

                Years ago, scientists Richard and Mary Parker discovered Master Matrix, an android, and it led to the creation of Project Doppelganger for the government agency S.H.I.E.L.D., superpowered Life Model Decoys. In the future, the world was overrun by LMDs, particularly those of Deadpool. Wade Wilson/Deadpool in the future swapped bodies with his past self to prevent this dark future from coming to be. In the present, Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Bobbi Moorse/Mockingbird, Cindy Moon/Silk, Paige Guthrie/Husk, Clay Quartermain, and psychic advanced sharks Bruce and Deborah had been overwhelmed by the Project Doppelganger LMDs, who had used the supervillain Dmitri Smerdyakov/Chameleon to lead them to Master Matrix. Master Matrix, who had been kept dormant for years by S.H.I.E.L.D. was revived. Master Matrix transformed all the LMDs into Deadpool, and Spider-Man, Old Man Deadpool, and their allies fought the LMDs, but Master Matrix and the LMDs teleported away. Spider-Man discovered a file on Project Doppelganger revealing that his parents were behind Master Matrix and Project Doppelganger. In the future, Old Man Parker, Deadpool, and the Fantastic Four (Valeria Richards, Reed Grimm, Vision and H.E.R.B.I.E.) fought the Deadpool LMDs and Master Matrix and lost, so Valeria sent Old Man Parker and Deadpool back in time to the present. In the present, Hellcow, a member of Deadpool’s crew, had secretly been reporting to the Chameleon. Chameleon stole a Galactus robot, intent on destroying Master Matrix. Spider-Man, Old Man Deadpool, Old Man Parker, and Deadpool teamed up to find Master Matrix, and Chameleon discovered them at the gravestones of Richard and Mary Parker. Master Matrix fused the Project Doppelganger LMDs into one giant robot to fight Chameleon’s Galactus robot. Both robots were destroyed by Deadpool’s commandeered S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier the USS Deadpool, and Old Man Parker and Old Man Deadpool disappeared, their future now erased. Spider-Man and Deadpool appealed to Master Matrix and agreed to take responsibility for him and show him he could be something besides a weapon.

                Spider-Man and Deadpool attempted to train Master Matrix, but their parenting styles were vastly different. Mockingbird insisted to Spider-Man that Master Matrix had to stay in their S.H.I.EL.D. safe house and gave Spider-Man a tool that would permanently shut down Master Matrix. Spider-Man and Deadpool teamed up to fight the Wrecking Crew, who were using stolen magical artifacts. Master Matrix disobeyed Spider-Man’s instructions and joined the fight, and as the Wrecking Crew escaped, Spider-Man, Deadpool and Master Matrix were teleported to the Savage Land. Spider-Man gave Master Matrix the tool that could disable Master Matrix. Spider-Man, Deadpool and Master Matrix discovered the Wrecking Crew were in the Savage Land to steal a special alloy called Vibranium-B. Spider-Man and Deadpool left Master Matrix behind while they went to fight the Wrecking Crew, and Master Matrix destroyed the tool that could destroy him. Spider-Man and Deadpool were joined in their fight by the Warriors Three (Hildegard, Fandral and Hogun), who were after the Asgardian artifact the Wrecking Crew had stolen and were using to teleport. Master Matrix decided to return to his “home” in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Area 14 and suggested for Spider-Man and Deadpool to take a road trip to strengthen their bond.

                While on their road trip, Deadpool explained to Spider-Man that they were in a comic book, and that Deadpool enjoyed talking to the readers. Spider-Man accepted this as one of Deadpool’s eccentricities. They woke up one morning and were attacked by an army of giant bugs from the Negative Zone called the Ghlteyks. They were joined in their fight by Bug, a Kaliklak adventurer. They followed the Ghlteyks into a tunnel, and Bug decided to try to learn more about them, leaving Spider-Man and Deadpool to travel further into the tunnel. Spider-Man and Deadpool were attacked and teleported into the Negative Zone. They came across an Eternal named Ransak, who was on a rampage, and Ransak attacked Spider-Man and Deadpool. Spider-Man and Deadpool were defeated and retreated. They ran into Jannor and Koly, two members of Negative Force, the police of the Negative Zone. Spider-Man, Deadpool, Jannor and Koly fought Ransak, and Jannor electrocuted Ransak, which temporarily brought him back to his senses. Before he was overwhelmed by his rage again, Ransak gave Spider-Man a device with a button, telling Spider-Man it was the only thing that could stop Ransak. The fight was joined by Blastaar, Lord of the Negative Zone, who had been using the Ghlteyks to stabilize a portal between the Negative Zone and Earth so Blastaar and his army could invade and conquer Earth. Karkas, another Eternal, also joined the fight, summoned by the device, to save his friend Ransak. Blastaar used a rage inciting machine to sway Ransak, Deadpool, and Koly to his side, and they fought Spider-Man, Karkas, and Jannor. During their fight, Spider-Man electrocuted Deadpool, breaking Blastaar’s sway over Deadpool, but Blastaar had then also converter Jannor and Karkas. After their fight, Spider-Man and Deadpool were returned to Earth, only to discover Earth was in ruins. Deadpool also discovered he was no longer able to break the fourth wall and communicate with the readers. Spider-Man and Deadpool were reunited with Silk and Deborah and fought a giant mutated Mole Man and his army the Moloids. Silk told Spider-Man and Deadpool about the Manipulator, who had killed many heroes and had been harvesting others. Spider-Man revealed to Deadpool that he was really Peter Parker. Silk brought Spider-Man and Deadpool to her Underground, James Howlett/Wolverine, Eugene Judd/Puck, and Crystar/Spirit of Vengeance, and they planned to be harvested so they could free the other heroes. During their fight with the Manipulator, Puck and Deadpool were destroyed, and Spider-Man, Silk and Deborah were harvested. Deadpool found himself transported to Gutter Space, the place between the panels, with Gwenpool, another hero who frequently breaks the fourth wall. Gwenpool drew Deadpool into the Harvesting Zone, where he freed Spider-Man and an army of other superheroes. Deadpool deduced that the reason he could no longer break the fourth wall was because the Manipulator himself was the fourth wall. The heroes teamed up to fight the Manipulator to once again break the fourth wall and discover the truth about the Manipulator and their entire existence.

                Okay, now that we’ve got the synopsis out of the way, let’s get to the Tim Cubbin part of this review. We’re going to start where we always start, and that is with my own personal opinions on the book. Let me begin by saying that I didn’t find this book to be extremely enjoyable. My main problems with this book were that some of the storylines were slightly confusing. The first storyline in the book involved time travel, and it did get a little wonky, particularly that originally Deadpool and Old Man Deadpool switched places, then later were both existing in the same place at the same time. And “Road Trip” and “The Manipulator” centered around “Infinite House of Civil Yet Secret Crisis War Invasion,” an “event” that actually really didn’t exist and was just made up as a joke, full of references that were never explained because these issues don’t actually exist. This joke just didn’t really work in my opinion. I found that the character development of Master Matrix just didn’t make sense, how he went from just being pure evil to being completely rational and then compliant to Spider-Man and Deadpool, and I felt like the ending of “My Two Dads” with Master Matrix just deciding to shut himself away seemed uncharacteristic from where he was at the start of the book. And the series finale was contained in this volume, and I found myself underwhelmed and dissatisfied with the conclusion and really didn’t feel it was resolved properly. I also didn’t find the humor to be all that funny, I didn’t really have any “laugh out loud” moments while reading this, maybe a few smiles and scoffs, but no significant sound escaped my lips. I will say, though, that I thought that the artwork in this graphic novel was actually extremely high quality. That was, actually, one of the things I actually liked about this collection. But if we’re looking at the story here, I just didn’t find it very appealing. As far as the title goes, I feel like “Road Trip” was actually a perfect title for this book. This was a seven-issue story arc, the longest in this volume, and also fits with the rest of the content of this book as well, so this was actually an adequate and appropriate title for this book.

                Next up on our schedule is to discuss accessibility. I’ve done the explanation of this over six dozen times at this point, but I’m compelled to do it again every time I do a new post because I always have new readers every time I do a post and they’ve never been to this blog before or read one of my reviews before and have no idea what I mean when I say “we’re going to discuss accessibility,” so, yeah, I’m doing it again, so if you already know the drill, just deal with it again so I can explain this to the newbs. Anyway, when I say if this book is accessible, what I’m actually saying is if this is a book that anyone, even a person who has never heard of Spider-Man or Deadpool before, can find this book on a shelf and be intrigued enough by the title that they decide to by this book and read this book and understand everything they’ve read without outside context. I will tell you that this book has an exceptionally low accessibility factor. Right off the bat, this is Vol. 3, and I will tell you that Vol. 2 (which has already been released) ended with “To Be Continued…” on the bottom of the last panel, and this book picks up exactly where that book left off, so if you haven’t read “Spider-Man/Deadpool: ‘Til Death Do Us…” you will have no idea what is going on at the start of this book. Also, this book ties in to an “event” that doesn’t even actually exist, so the referenced storylines cannot be found anywhere you look. If you’ve never read a Marvel Comic book before, this is definitely not the right place for you to start.

                Next up on our tour is the numeric score, one of the most crucial parts of one of my reviews. I can’t say as it’s the most important part of my review, everything in my review can be considered important to any of my readers, so who’s to say what the most important part of one of my reviews is, but the numeric score is still really important. Anyway, my system is very simple. I score on a scale of one through ten. One is the lowest score I can give, which means that every copy of this book should be taken, destroyed, and this book should never be republished. Ten means that this book is solid gold and sheer perfection and that every copy should be bought off the shelves because it deserves to be in every Spider-Man or Deadpool fan’s collection and it should need to be republished multiple times so new copies can make their way into readers’ homes. I will tell you that I’m not leaning exactly towards the flaming hot pile of trash score of a one, it did have some factors about it that saves it from total annihilation, but it definitely is nowhere near getting a ten either. My regular readers know this already, but I have a special blender in my head made specifically for making scores for these reviews. So, I take all the contents of the book when I write these reviews, the story, the art, the title, and all my own personal likes and dislikes, and I dump them into my metaphorical blender. In this case, we have an unsatisfying and confusing story, excellent art, and an appropriate title, as well as a lot of dislikes. Then I press the mix button on my blender. I leave it on until this book is completely mixed. Then I take my review cup and pour the mix in, look at my score, and what do I see? I see… a three! This was an unsatisfactory effort and not very enjoyable to consume, so I had to give a low score, but I still do feel like there were a few good things about it. The biggest thing that saved this book was the art. If this book had terrible art, I would likely have given it a two. I didn’t feel like it was so abysmal as to deserve a one, but I still feel like this was just not at all a well-written graphic novel.

                Next up on the agenda is the recommendation segment. This segment comes in two parts. The first part is if I myself personally recommend this book to you, my reader, or if I talk to any friends about this book, will I tell them to read it? The second part of the recommendation section is regardless of if I give this book the personal Tim Cubbin recommendation or not, who do I think would be the best audience for reading this book. Now, you can probably guess at this point my response to the first question, but I do have to confirm it for you in exact words because sometimes my opinions can be a little misleading. As to the question of if I recommend this book to anyone reading this or listening to my words, the answer is no, I do not recommend this book to you at all. However, if you are a diehard fan of both Spider-Man and Deadpool and still want to read this book anyway, I will say that as long as you’ve read “Spider-Man/Deadpool: ‘Til Death Do Us…” in Modern Era Epic Collection format, this book is something you should consider. If you like team-up comics, this book is a team-up of great characters, you might somehow find enjoyment in this book. And if you like comics with humor, you might enjoy this book as there are a lot of attempts at comedy contained within these pages.

            Well, I think we’re at the point where I’m about ready to wrap everything up. So first off, if you’re still reading this at this point, thank you, you are THE BEST! I post on this blog on a very frequent basis. I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection that is released as soon as I can following its release and post up a review if possible. I’ve done over six dozen other reviews, if you liked this one, feel free to check out “Spider-Man/Deadpool: Isn’t it Bromantic?” or “Spider-Man/Deadpool: ‘Til Death Do Us…” and any of the other over 170 posts on timcubbin.blogspot.com. I’m done over six dozen other reviews like this one, as well as other types of reviews, and short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there’s plenty of other content here to check out as well. Feel free to keep checking back for more, you can expect my next review of “The Amazing Spider-Man: Big Time” within the next eight weeks. I’ve been doing this blog for five years now and will keep doing this until I can no longer see, my hands no longer work, or I’m dead, so expect me to keep this up for quite a while. That’s all for now, but until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Spider-Man No More"

 

                The following is a review of the graphic novel “Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Spider-Man No More” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

                Months before Peter Parker was shot and killed, grade-schooler Miles Morales was about to start a new chapter in his life at a new school—when he was suddenly bitten by a stolen, genetically altered spider that gave him incredible arachnid-like powers.

                Washington was decimated. The government was a mess. The Southwest was in chaos. States were seceding from the union. America was falling apart. Steve Rogers/Captain America and Tony Stark/Iron Man met to discuss the existence of a new Spider-Man. Captain America blamed himself for Peter Parker’s death since Peter was young and untrained and wanted to shut Miles down, but Iron Man tried to convince him otherwise, until the news broke that Spider-Man was accused of murdering Aaron Davis/Prowler. Miles’ father Jefferson Davis broke the news that Spider-Man murdered Miles’ uncle to Miles. Miles’ best friend Ganke Lee tried to convince Miles he did nothing wrong. Miles received a phone call from May Parker, Peter Parker’s aunt, asking to meet with him. On the way to the meeting, Miles fought a robber called Batroc the Leaper and his crew, and though Miles was able to defeat them, the police on the scene tried to arrest Miles and Miles had to flee from the crime scene. At Miles’ meeting with May and Gwen Stacy, Captain America arrived to tell Miles if Miles went into action as Spider-Man again, Captain America would call Miles’ parents. Captain America was called off to fight the Rhino at the Lincoln Tunnel. May gave Miles Peter’s web shooters and encouraged Miles to do what he felt was the right thing to do. Miles assisted Captain America in defeating the Rhino, and Captain America agreed that Miles needed training.

                Miles was questioned by New York Police Department homicide detective Maria Hill about the death of Miles’ uncle. Miles pretended to know nothing about it and Hill informed Miles Aaron’s death might not have been Miles’ fault. Due to the outbreak of war in America, Miles’ school Brooklyn Visions Academy was closed until such time as the city felt it was safe for the school to open again, and the students were sent home. Miles hitched a ride to the Triskelion, base of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Ultimates, and asked Captain America if Miles could join the Ultimates. Jefferson was on his way home when he was stopped at a S.H.I.E.L.D. blockade. He got into an argument with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and was detained in a S.H.I.E.L.D. van. Captain America told Miles to go home, when a Quincarrier hijacked by Gorgon and a squad of Hydra agents attacked the Triskelion. Miles assisted in taking down the Hydra squad, and Captain America, impressed by Miles, invited him to join the Ultimates, an invite Miles accepted. Captain America was elected as the president of the United States of America. The Ultimates fought Hydra outside Casper, Wyoming. Miles was assigned to team up with Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman. The S.H.I.E.L.D. van Jefferson was in was stopped by Hydra agents. Jefferson was freed and took down the Hydra agents. Miles was separated from the fight and had to contend with a Giant Woman Hydra agent, then was found by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and brought home.

                Daily Bugle reporter Betty Brant was investigating the death of the Prowler and made a connection between Prowler and Spider-Man. Betty went to Aaron’s apartment and found the dead spider that gave Miles his powers. She brought the spider to current Roxxon Industries scientist and former Osborn Industries scientist Doctor Conrad Marcus, who had worked on the Oz project. Marcus confirmed to Betty that this spider could, in fact, have created the new Spider-Man. Betty mistakenly concluded that Jefferson was the new Spider-Man. Betty brought this news to Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson, but Jameson refused to publish it. Betty was going to bring the news to another source, but she didn’t live long enough for that to happen.

                Miles ran out of web fluid. He and Ganke tried to figure out how to crack the formula Peter Parker left behind for Miles. Maria Hill interviewed Jameson about Betty’s death, and Jameson lied, saying Betty never revealed to Jameson who the new Spider-Man was. Reporters came to Miles’ apartment to interview Jefferson about his heroic actions against Hydra, but Jefferson did not want to comment. He went to the reports to ask how they found where he lived when a new Venom symbiote host arrived, looking for Spider-Man and believing Spider-Man to be Jefferson. Miles fought the monster. The monster, seeing both Spider-Man and Jefferson in the same place at the same time was confused, and after a brief fight with Miles, the monster retreated, but during the fight, Jefferson was severely injured. Jefferson was rushed to the hospital. Miles’ mother Rio Morales went with Jefferson but told Miles to stay behind. News of the Venom attack made the news, and Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker’s girlfriend Mary Jane Watson rushed to aid Miles. Gwen and Mary Jane told Miles what they knew about symbiotes and the potential reason why Venom might be looking for Miles. Maria Hill arrived at Miles’ apartment, aware Miles was Spider-Man and tried to spur him into action. Venom attacked the hospital, looking for Jefferson. Miles made it to the hospital and fought Venom. Rio came to Miles’ aid. Miles was able to defeat Venom, but at a terrible cost. Following a devastating loss, Miles decided to be Spider-Man no more.

                One year later, Miles had a girlfriend named Katie Bishop. Spider-Woman tried to convince Miles to be Spider-Man again, but Miles refused. While at a Chinese restaurant, Miles ran into Gwen, who was working as a waitress. Suddenly, the restaurant was caught in a fight between Lori Baumgartner/Bombshell and the team of Ty Johnson/Cloak and Tandy Bowen/Dagger. Ty and Tandy had been student council presidents of their high schools. They were on their way to their senior prom when their limo was in an accident. Doctors Layla Miller, Nathaniel Essex, Samuel Sterns, and Arnim Zola III, the Roxxon Brain Trust, procured Ty and Tandy, had Ty and Tandy pronounced dead, and injected Ty and Tandy with Dark Matter. Ty and Tandy revived with new powers and became Cloak and Dagger. Lori’s mother Lana Baumgartner had been arrested and transferred to Roxxon for experimentation in lieu of going to prison. Lana was pregnant when she was experimented on, and Lori was born with powers as well, and when she grew older, she became Bombshell. Ganke was mad at Miles for witnessing a superhuman fight and not getting involved. Spider-Woman came to Miles again and explained her connection to Peter Parker in an attempt to convince Miles to be Spider-Man again. Spider-Woman wanted to team up with Bombshell, Cloak, and Dagger to take down Roxxon. Despite being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and despite S.H.I.E.L.D. and Roxxon having business connections, Spider-Woman did not trust the company. Roxxon hired Anthony Masters/Taskmaster to bring Roxxon’s experiments back to the company. Miles then had to decide if he wanted to once again take on the great responsibility that came with his great power and be Spider-Man again.

                Okay, so we’ve got the synopsis out of the way, now let’s get to my personal part of this review. As usual, we’re going to start with my own opinions on this book. I will start by saying that I found the stories in this book to be highly enjoyable. First off, the fractured America storylines in Divided We Fall and United We Stand are extremely relevant in this day and age thirteen years later. But this blog does not discuss politics, so I will go no further than just saying that. I will say I felt like there was a contradiction between this volume of “Miles Morales: Spider-Man” and the previous volume. It seems like the “Spider-Men” storyline from “Hero in Training” was ignored in “Spider-Man No More” since in this volume, Miles met Aunt May and Gwen Stacy for the first time and received Peter’s web shooters, while in the previous volume, Miles also met Aunt May and Gwen and did not have the web shooters, so I’m confused about the timing/existence of the storyline. That said, I loved Gwen’s reaction to Captain America trying to shut Miles down. I also liked Miles’ self-monologue complaint about the lameness of his villains, particularly Batroc the Leaper. I liked the choice to make Maria Hill an NYPD homicide detective; Hill is a character I’ve loved to hate for almost twenty years now. Seeing her in a different role and actually helping Miles was refreshing. I liked Jefferson’s conflict with being a hero and not wanting to be one, it mirrors Miles’ conflict from the previous volume. I don’t quite get how Captain America got to be elected president of the United States, I read the story thirteen years ago in “Ultimate Comics Ultimates,” but I honestly don’t remember all the details. I loved Jameson’s rationalization for not wanting to out the new Spider-Man, not wanting to ruin a man’s life, I’m glad he learned something from the death of Peter Parker. I did not like this portrayal of Betty Brant, I found it completely uncharacteristic of any other depiction of her, I did not enjoy seeing her as a money-hungry, opportunistic… (word I’m not going to use since this is a G-rated blog). I found the Venom War storyline to be the best story in the book. It was written with so much emotion, and the ending was just heartbreaking. I enjoyed the Spider-Man No More storyline, it’s something that every Spider-Man goes through, and I thought Miles’ was a good one, particularly that he lasted for a year. I loved how even though Peter Parker was dead, Brian Michael Bendis still found use for Aunt May, Gwen, and Mary Jane Watson. I don’t know why Bendis picked to use Layla Miller as part of the Roxxon Brain Trust, since in the main Marvel Universe, Layla was not a doctor, the same as making Miles’ girlfriend Katie Bishop, who in other universes is Hawkeye, the choices to use those names seemed really random. I enjoyed the evil corporation plot with Roxxon, I know that’s a little bit of a cliché, but Bendis still managed to make this entertaining. I enjoyed watching Miles’ growth and maturation over the course of this book, both as a teenager and as a superhero, I thought the progression was brilliantly written. Unfortunately, I found some conflict with the artwork in this graphic novel. All of these artists just had a way of drawing faces that just didn’t appeal to me when they were close up, but their action scenes were all spot on. I especially did not like the Venom design. I thought it just looked horrible. As for the choice in title, I felt like it was an appropriate pick. Honestly, the best choices were “Divided We Fall,” “United We Stand,” “Venom War,” or “Spider-Man No More,” and the only two titles that would truly sell would be “Venom War” or “Spider-Man No More,” the latter of which, in my opinion, taking up enough of the book to be a more proper representation of the entirety of the book itself, although “United We Stand” would, in my opinion, be an adequate representation of the content of the book as well. But overall, I enjoyed reading the book, but I just wish I could have had art I appreciated more.

                Next up, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I’ve explained this over six dozen times before, and I know I’ll be doing this dozens more times over the course of this blog, but once again, there are people reading this post now who have never read a Tim Cubbin review before and are wondering what the heck I mean by accessibility. So when I use the word “accessibility” in this blog, I’m saying how easy it would be for someone who has never heard of Miles Morales before or knows nothing about Marvel Comics or otherwise has no prior knowledge of what they’re about to read to go to their local bookstore or library or favorite shopping site and pick up this book, and then read it and understand everything they’ve read. This book has two accessibility issues. The first is that this is Vol. 2 and it picks up exactly where Vol. 1 left off and continues a story that’s already begun and not having read the previous volume is extremely detrimental to understanding the content of this particular volume. The second issue is that Divided We Fall and United We Stand were event storylines in “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man,” “Ultimate Comics X-Men,” and “Ultimate Comics Ultimates” and the rest of the event, especially “Ultimate Comics Ultimates,” contains more details to the story that this book doesn’t have and leaves a great deal of confusion to those who haven’t read the other series. Heck, thirteen years later, even I practically need a refresher. So, I will say if you are new to Marvel Comics, this is not a good starting point for you. Even if you’ve seen the “Spider-Verse” films or played the video games, they are nothing like this comic series and it’s essential to read the first twelve issues of “Ultimate Comics Spider-Man” (2011) before reading this graphic novel.

                Okay, I’ve been going on for a very long time at this point, I think we’re ready to get to my numeric score now. Now, for those of you who have never read one of my reviews before, my scoring scale is extremely simple. I score on a scale of exact integers between one through ten. If I score a book as a one, that means it is a flaming hot pile of trash and that every single copy of this graphic novel should be taken out of sales, thrown on a pile, and set on fire, then never be reprinted again. If, on the other hand, I give a book a score of a ten (which honestly doesn’t happen very often), then that means this book is sheer perfection, and every copy should be bought and read again and again and demand should be so high that this book needs to be reprinted every year. Now, I’m a very hard critic, I don’t just give out tens for no reason. To get a ten, the book has to exceed expectations. The story has to be gripping, exciting, interesting, intriguing, and engaging, hold my interest from start to finish, make me not want to put the book down, be full of surprises, and make me wish the book had more when I get to the end, and the art has to be consistently appealing, if not blow me away, and make me want to look at each panel for longer than needed just to appreciate the artwork. On the other hand, I’m not fond of giving out low scores either unless I feel like the book honestly deserves it. I very rarely give ones, I can count the amount of times I’ve done that so far on one hand. Well, you can probably guess that this book doesn’t exactly hit either pole, and if you made that guess, you’d be absolutely right. So, let’s talk about what score I’m actually going to give this graphic novel. As my regular readers know, I have a metaphorical blender for making review scores. So I’m going to take this entire book, the story I found to be highly enjoyable, the fact that I do have some complaints about certain details, the art that I wasn’t a total fan of, and the title that I thought fit the book well, and I’m going to dump it into my blender. Next, I’m going to hit mix and keep it going until this book is completely blended. Then I’m going to pour it out into my cup and look at the score, and it is… a seven. I honestly did enjoy this book and feel like it deserves a good score, but there were a few faults, and I have to gripe about the art, so the point deductions are, in my opinion, fair, and this score is, again, in my opinion, fair. Had this book perhaps had different artists, this could have gotten an eight. I also had to take a strike at the score for the contradiction between the two volumes due to the “Spider-Men” story in the previous volume as I feel like the lack of continuity made the stories rather confusing and I’m not sure if/when this story was even supposed to take place. Otherwise, I felt this was a commendable effort and an enjoyable read and I had a blast consuming this graphic novel.

                New up on our agenda shall be my recommendation. I always do this segment in two parts, answering two questions. The first question is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to anyone reading this review or to anyone else I talk to such as friends or family interested in comic books? The second question is, regardless of the answer to question one, who do I think would be the best audience? You can probably already guess the answer, but I’ll say it for you anyway. The answer is yes, I would recommend this book to anyone reading this review who is now interested in reading this book based on what they have just read. I tried to keep the spoilers to a minimum in order to give you a reason to actually want to read the book to find out how it ends. As for who I think the best audience is, I’d say it’s most appealing to people who are fans of Miles Morales, or to those who are fans of the work of Brian Michael Bendis, but if you want to read this volume, I’d recommend reading “Hero in Training” in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format first.

                Okay, I think we’re getting to the point where we’re ready to just about wrap things up. Before we part ways, there are a few things I would like to say first. Firstly, I have been doing this blog for almost five years now. At this point, I have now done over 170 posts. Over five dozen of them have been reviews of Epic Collections, and I have done other book reviews and events reviews as well. If you liked this review and want more Miles Morales content, feel free to search for “Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Hero in Training.” I’ve also written other kinds of content on this blog, such as short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials. Feel free to keep browsing timcubbin.blogspot.com for more posts, there’s plenty to see. I can tell you that I post on a very frequent basis, usually at least once a month. I am a die-hard Marvel fan and purchase every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection that is released as soon as I can after they are released and if possible, put up a review. There are a few Modern Era Epic Collections I have yet to review, maybe one day those will be remedied. You can expect to see my next post within the next four weeks, it will be “Spider-Man/Deadpool: Road Trip” so if you are interested, keep an eye out for that. And that’s really all I have to say for now, so until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Star Wars: Kanan: The Last Padawan"

 

                The following is a review of the graphic novel “Star Wars: Kanan: The Last Padawan” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

                Caleb Dume was a young boy when he was taken by the Jedi Order to prepare for his Initiate Trials on Coruscant. Jedi Master General Depa Billaba was injured in a fight with the Separatist Droid General Grievous and spent six months in a coma. She also lost ninety percent of the squad she was leading during that fight. She had just awoken and was welcomed back on the Jedi High Council. Caleb passed his Initiate Trials. He was eager to be chosen as a Padawan and fight in the Clone Wars, despite being extremely young. He was often called “kid,” a word that angered him. Gossip spread among the Jedi younglings about Billaba’s capabilities as a Jedi General. Caleb went to Billaba to discuss this with her. While they were talking, Rackham Sear, under the orders of Grievous, attacked the Jedi Temple of Coruscant. Caleb confronted Sear, and though Caleb survived the battle, Sear did not. After seeing Caleb in action, Billaba asked Caleb to be her Padawan. Caleb accepted Billaba’s offer. Caleb and Billaba, along with the Clones Commander Grey, Captain Styles, Sergeant Soot, Corporal Big-Mouth, Lieutenant Remo, Corporal Mixx, Corporal Kaylon, and several green Clone Troopers were shipped out to the planet Kardoa to fight in the Clone Wars. During Caleb’s first fight, he was shot by Droids and was rescued by a Clone Trooper who earned the name Stance. After his recovery, Caleb, Billaba and their unit were sent to the planet Mygeeto. They were attacked by Droids and were assisted by a Mandalorian named Fenn Rau. Stance was killed by Coburn Sear, Rackham Sear’s brother, and Caleb fought to avenge his friend. Billaba also had another showdown with General Grievous, but the Droid General managed to escape. Caleb, Billaba and their unit received their next orders to head to the planet Kaller.

                The planet Kaller was being disputed over by the Republic and the Separatists. After a battle between Billaba’s Unit and a unit of Droids, Separatist General Kleeve had his forces withdraw from Kaller. Caleb with displeased with the disrespect that Kaller’s Governor Gamut Key showed towards Billaba. The night after the battle, Commander Grey and the rest of the Clone Troopers received Order Sixty-Six from Emperor Palpatine, instructing the Clone Troopers to eliminate the Jedi. Billaba was able to help Caleb escape, but she herself was unable to. Caleb went into hiding in Plateau City and struggled to survive. He was discovered by a Kalleran named Janus Kasmir who provided him with food, clothes, and shelter for a night on his ship the Kasmiri. Caleb received a ping on the Jedi Emergency Signal. Believing it to be a summons to Coruscant, Caleb asked Kasmir to fly him there, but Kasmir refused. As Clone Troopers were about to search the Kasmiri for Caleb, Caleb stole the ship to fly to Coruscant himself. Along the way, he received a message from Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi warning any surviving Jedi to avoid Coruscant and avoid detection. Caleb returned in the Kasmiri to Kaller and went back to Kasmir, who turned Caleb away. Caleb remained in hiding on Kaller until one night he saw Kasmir being on the bad side of a negotiation with a thug named Tapusk and jumped in to help. Though initially angered, Kasmir recruited Caleb to help Kasmir steal a valuable shipment of IG-RM Droids. During their heist, they were caught by Gamut Key. Kasmir then turned on Caleb and sold Caleb out as a Jedi and allowed Caleb to be arrested so Kasmir could avoid arrest. Gamut Key contacted Commander Grey, who then planned to return to Kaller to execute Caleb. Before the Clones could arrive, Kasmir busted Caleb out of jail. Caleb and Kasmir then formed a partnership and Caleb became a smuggler. Caleb and Kasmir ran heists from planet to planet with the Clones always just a step behind. Kasmir arranged a trade for a ship. The contact was supposedly named “Jondo,” but it turned out to be a cover for General Kleeve. Kasmir was caught by Commander Grey. Caleb talked Kleeve into giving Caleb the ship, but before Caleb could escape, Caleb was caught by the Clones. Caleb managed to escape with the help of Kasmir and Kleeve, but Caleb ended their partnership, took the ship which he named the Escape, flew off on his own, and renamed himself Kanan Jarrus.

                Fourteen years later, Kanan and the crew of the Ghost, Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, Zeb Orrelios, Ezra Bridger, and Chopper went on a supply run to Kaller. Kanan claimed to have never been to Kaller. When the crew arrived, the contents of the crates they were supposed to be picking up were empty. They were caught by Gamut Key, who did not recognize Kanan. Gamut Key’s droids inspected the Ghost, then allowed them to go. The Ghost Crew split up to try to find the supplies, and Kanan went out on his own, hoping to avoid recognition. Kanan interrogated the locals and expected the theft of the supplies to be Janus Kasmir. Kanan found the thief, but to his surprise, it was not Kasmir. Though Kanan was able to take down the thief and his crew, Kanan was stabbed in the back.

                Kanan was put in a Bacta Tank in a Medcenter on Kaller to recover from his wound. The thief was able to lead the Imperial Stormtroopers to the Rebels’ location in the Medcenter. Though they fought, they were captured. All looked hopeless until Kanan woke up, busted out of the tank, and took down the Stormtroopers. Upon recovery, Kanan received a message from his old friend Morfizo of Moraga. Kanan, Ezra, and Gamut Key flew to Moraga to answer it, only to find from his wife Morfizia that Morfizo had been taken by the Empire to Lahn after joining a Rebel Cell. Kanan told Morfizia he would rescue Morfizo and that Gamut Key could set up Morfizo and his family on Kaller under new identities. Kanan and Ezra flew to Moraga in the Escape to rescue Morfizo. Kanan and Ezra separated, and Kanan was confronted by Vice Admiral Sloane, an old enemy of Kanan’s who was obsessed with learning Kanan’s history and could find nothing past Kanan arriving on Moraga. The two had a showdown, and Kanan escaped. Ezra returned to Kanan after being assisted by a random guy off the street.

                Okay, we’ve got the synopsis out of the way, now it’s time for my own personal input about this graphic novel. We’re going to start with my own personal feelings about this book. First off, I’m going to say that “Star Wars: Rebels” is actually my favorite “Star Wars” animated series, and Kanan Jarrus was my favorite character in this series, so when I first read the announcement that Marvel was releasing the “Kanan” series in a Modern Era Epic Collection, I was super excited. Reading the origin story of my favorite character from the show was something I was really looking forward to. And I will tell you, I was not disappointed. I thought this book was fantastic. I thought the stories were brilliantly written. The depiction of Caleb going from a child who romanticized the Clone Wars to actually fighting in them and realizing exactly what war was firsthand was written spot on. His cockiness getting himself shot on his first mission showed how immature he was, but over the course of the book, watching him struggling to survive on Kaller after Order Sixty-Six and falling in with Janus Kasmir, the reader can see his maturation from an idealistic child into someone practical. Viewing his partnership becoming a friendship with Kasmir was fascinating, just watching the rollercoaster ride they took together, and the payoff at the end of the book was perfect. I was also a huge fan of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” so this felt like I was kind of consuming a little bit of that while I was perusing through this book. General Grievous was one of my favorite adversaries from “The Clone Wars,” so I enjoyed reading a story with him. I enjoyed viewing all the bonds Caleb Dume made on his journey. I loved his hatred of being called “kid,” I actually know what that’s like, I hate when people call me “Timmy,” a nickname that comes up way too often in my life, so I identified with that. I enjoyed watching Caleb becoming Kanan Jarrus, I found his evolution to be interesting. And I loved the “Rebels” segments, they were enjoyable bits thrown in that made the story a little more entertaining. I will say that “Star Wars: The Bad Batch” deviated from Caleb’s escape scene slightly when they released the show on Disney+ several years later, so there was a little bit of a contradiction there, having already seen one version of this, but I actually found this version to be the superior one. I liked the structure of the book. I wrote this review chronologically, but in actuality, this book was written with the story of Caleb’s survival story after Order Sixty-Six being first and the story of Caleb’s first mission being second, with the “Rebels” stories being interspersed throughout the graphic novel. I thought this arrangement was actually perfect storytelling and worked better than if they had published it the way I narrated it, as it made the revelations more surprising. And since we’re talking about a graphic novel, of course we have to address the art. I found the artwork in this book to be excellent. It was consistently pleasing to me, and this book had three artists. Often a graphic novel having multiple artists runs a risk of displeasing me, there’s a chance one or more of the artists just might not appeal to me, sometimes even having just one artist can be a visual nightmare to me, but the three artists in this book had amazing art styles and I loved all of their work throughout the entire graphic novel. And as for the title, I absolutely loved it. I thought it was a prefect representation of the character and the book as a whole and completely adequate. All-in-all, I thought this book was spectacular and I enjoyed every second of reading it.

                Next up we’re going to talk about accessibility. To my regular readers who have been to this blog before, I know, I know, I’ve been over this at least six dozen times at this point, but I’m afraid that some people just went on X and searched for #StarWars or one of my other hashtags and found this review and my blog for the first time and have no idea what I mean when I say the word “accessibility,” so once again, I am compelled to explain myself. So my usage of the word “accessibility” is to explain if someone who knows nothing about “Star Wars” can pick up this book off the shelf of their local bookstore or library or friend or family member’s house and read this book and understand everything in this book despite having no prior knowledge on the subject. So, to answer the question on if this book is accessible, my answer is yes. I feel like a person who knows nothing about “Star Wars” can read this book without any problems understanding it. This felt perfectly standalone to me, and it didn’t feel like it required outside knowledge to understand this book. Of course, if you know “The Clone Wars” and “Rebels,” then you’ll have no problem understanding this book at all as this is a story inspired by both series, but I don’t feel like this is essential to reading this book. It felt completely self-explanatory in my opinion.

                Okay, now that I’ve been going on for a while, I feel like it’s finally time to get to the reason we’re extremely interested in: my numeric score. I’d say it’s the main reason we’re here, but some of you may just be here to know about the story itself rather than hear my opinion, but my opinion is very essential to this post as well, and I’m sure you’re interested in knowing exactly how good I thought this book was. So, when I do reviews, I score on a scale of one to ten, on exact integers. One is my lowest score, and that means that this is one of the worst things I have ever read in my entire life and that every copy of this book should be taken off the shelves and destroyed, then never reprinted. If, however, I give the book a ten, that’s obviously my best score, and that means that this is one of the best things I have ever read in my entire life and every copy should be bought off the shelves and be in the possession of anyone with an interest in “Star Wars.” Now a ten is reserved for a book that is perfection, and that is a score I very rarely give out since I have a very strict definition of perfection. So, at this point, you’re probably now very piqued in knowing if I considered this particular book to be perfection. So, let’s take a quick tally of what this book has going for it: I loved the stories; I thought the artwork was spectacular; I thought the structure was brilliant; I thought the title was spot on. So yes, these are all very promising factors. And yet, somehow, I don’t think this book is perfection. I can’t quite put my finger exactly on what it is, but for some reason, I just can’t bring myself to give this book a ten. However, I do feel that this book was still excellent, and it was very close to perfection, so I think that scoring this book at a nine is appropriate. I really would love to give this book a ten, but there’s just something holding me back from doing that, and as much as I hate that, when I score a book, I have to go with what my heart says, and my heart says that this book isn’t perfect, so therefore I am compelled to give this book a score of a ten.

                Next up on our to-do list is my recommendation. Now this comes in two parts. The first part is if I give this book the Tim Cubbin seal of approval and would tell you, my readers, or anyone I feel like talking to about this book, if it’s worth reading. The second part is, regardless of if it gets my personal recommendation or not, to whom do I think this book should be read by? Now, I’m sure the first part is pretty obvious, but I still have to say it anyway. Yes, I do personally recommend this book. If you are reading this review and are interested in reading this book based solely on what I’ve been typing for the past four hours and you’ve been reading for the past however many minutes it’s taking you to read this, I say you should go to your local bookstore, library, favorite retailer, online store, or find a friend or family member with this book and get your hands on it and read it as soon as you possibly can. I thought this book was incredible and I feel like you should be reading it. To be more precise on who should be reading this, I think that anyone who is a fan of “Star Wars: Rebels” should make every effort to obtain a copy of this book, this is the perfect companion to the series. If you’re just a “Star Wars” fan in general, this is still an excellent read for you and would be a great way to interest you in “Rebels.” If you’ve never seen “Rebels” but have seen “The Clone Wars,” this is a great addition to the storyline. And, of course, if you like the character Kanan Jarrus, you have no reason not to read this, this is an intriguing origin story and should be totally welcome to your collection.

                Okay, I think we’re getting close to being done. I do have a few things to say before I go. First of all, I’ve been doing this blog for almost five years now and have now done 170 posts. There is plenty of content on this blog, including short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, as well as over six dozen other reviews like this one, so keep checking timcubbin.blogspot.com for more posts, I’m sure you’ll find something else you’ll like. If you want more “Star Wars” reviews, you can search for “Star Wars: Skywalker Strikes,” “Star Wars: Darth Vader: Shadows and Secrets,” and “Star Wars: Yoda’s Secret War,” I think you might find those interesting if you have the time. My next “Star Wars” post will be “Star Wars: Darth Vader: Vader Down,” that should be uploaded by December 2025, so keep an eye out for that if you are reading this review before that date, and if that date has already passed, feel free to search for that one as well. I can tell you that I post on a very frequent basis. I am a die-hard Marvel fan and every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection that is published finds its way into my possession shortly after its release, and I try to post a review of it as soon as I possibly can after reading it. I have written a review of almost every Modern Era Epic Collection with the exception of four volumes, three of which I obtained when I was settling into my new life and didn’t have a laptop and one that I read but didn’t get the chance to review right away and by the time I could sit down and write a review, my knowledge of the book was too inadequate to write a proper review, so I skipped it at the time, but there’s a good chance that one will come up again, but the first three are discontinued series and the chance of me rereading them is not as likely as that, but never say never. I will keep doing this blog for as long as I can, so there’s a good prospect of that being a long time from today’s date. I have another Modern Era Epic Collection already in my possession, “Miles Morales: Spider-Man: Spider-Man No More,” you can expect a review of that coming up in the next eight days, so if you’re interested in that, keep checking for it. I guess that’s really all that needs to be said for now, so I’m going to log off with just a few more words: Tim Cubbin… out!

"Thor: The World Eaters"

 

                The following is a review of the graphic novel “Thor: The World Eaters” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

                The weather on Earth began to go crazy. Thor, despite being able to control the storms, was not able to calm the abnormal weather. The heads of Luna Inc. came to Tony Stark/Iron Man about Luna City venture, a colony on the moon, interested in seeing if he and his company had ever tried to weaponize the weather. Tony’s company had once made a machine to do just that and realized that Luna Inc. had stolen it. Thor turned to Iron Man for assistance in the weather peril, and Tony told Thor about the weapon, and Thor and Iron Man flew to the moon to stop Luna Inc.’s lunar venture from being a threat to Earth.

                Asgard was having a feast to celebrate Thursebolt, a yearly celebration of Thor. The villainous Grey Gargoyle tricked Thor into a battle and touched Thor, turning Thor into stone, then Grey Gargoyle disguised himself as a Rock Giant and brought the petrified Thor to Asgard, hoping to break into Asgard’s Chamber of Treasures so he could steal the Apple of Idunn, a magic fruit that bestows immortality upon whoever eats it. Grey Gargoyle’s power only lasts for an hour, and Thor returned to flesh and blood and had to stop Grey Gargoyle from achieving his evil goal.

                Doctor Eric Solvang, a quantum cosmologist, had been studying the multiverse and concluded that since Asgard and Midgard/Earth now shared the same Realm, cosmological balance meant that something was coming that would destroy everything. Solvang came to Volstagg with his theory. Uthana Thoth and the forces of Ano-Athox assaulted Alfheim. Doctor Jane Foster relocated to Broxton Oklahoma to work in the local Medical Office alongside Doctor Donald Blake/Thor. Heimdall foresaw the death of the Asgardians. Kelda was still mourning the loss of her lover Bill. Volstagg brought Solvang to Thor in the ruins of Asgard, but Thor refused to hear him. Thor missed his brother Loki, who was slain in the Siege of Asgard, and found his spirit was inhabiting a street urchin in Paris, France calling himself Serrure. Thor flew to France to find the boy. Solvang contacted Tony Stark, hoping Stark could explain Solvang’s theory to the Asgardians. Iron Man flew to Asgard to talk to King Balder, who told Iron Man that they were already aware of the threat. Solvang turned to Jane, hoping her prior relationship with Thor could grant him another audience with the Asgardians. Thoth’s forces continued through the World Tree into Nidavellir. Thor restored Loki in Serrure’s child body. The survivors of Thoth’s blitz came to King Balder, but Balder told them there was nothing he could do for them. Thor was able to return his father Odin from his death exile. Thoth’s forces arrived on Earth and Odin and Thor led the Asgardians into battle against Thoth and his army to save the World Tree.

                Pastor Mike began to get the folks of Broxton, Oklahoma riled up against the Asgardians, blaming them for all the death and destruction that befell their town ever since the gods arrived. Thor and Sif traveled into Yggdrasil, the World Tree, to obtain a seed Odin called the Worldheart. During their mission, Thor sustained an unusual wound. Sif and Thor agreed to train the Brigade of Realms to defend the Nine Worlds from all threats. Loki attempted to join, and their first training session was a failure. Odin revealed to Heimdall that the Worldheart wasn’t a seed, but rather an egg. Galactus, Devourour of Worlds, was drawn to the presence of the Worldheart and his herald the Silver Surfer came to Asgard asking Odin for the egg. Odin refused to grant Galactus his demand, and Thor and Silver Surfer fought until Odin called for their conflict to cease. The egg could permanently end Galactus’ hunger, but it could also birth the next world tree for when the end times came. While the Asgardians began to plan for war against Galactus, Volstagg began to plan for war against the residents of Broxton, Oklahoma. Loki stole a lock of Sif’s hair to bring to the Weird Sisters so he could learn the key to saving Thor’s life. Odin and Galactus battled each other with their minds, while the Asgardians battled the Silver Surfer externally. Loki then had to take action to save the Earth from Galactus’ wrath, and the Silver Surfer made a deal with Galactus.

                Okay, so we’ve got the synopsis out of the way, now we’re going to go over the Tim Cubbin part of this review. We’re going to start off with my personal feelings about this book. The last volume in this series was “Thor: The Siege of Asgard” which got the lowest score I have ever given on a review, so I was hoping that this volume would be better than the previous. I can fortunately confirm that I found it to be significantly better, but I still wasn’t completely in love with this book. So, let’s do a breakdown of the stories and I’ll talk about my opinions. So, the “Fair Weather” story has appeared on this blog before in “Iron Man: Stark Disassembled” and I enjoyed it. It was nice finally seeing Thor and Iron Man putting their differences aside after “Civil War” where Iron Man made a Thor clone that went horribly wrong. The Thursebolt issue was actually my favorite story in this book, despite it only being one issue. While compact, I still found it entertaining, the celebration of Thor, and Thor’s solution for beating the Grey Gargoyle was entertaining. As far as the titular storyline, I enjoyed the character of Eric Solvang, and I found it entertaining. I liked the revival of Loki and the return of Odin. I will say that I feel like it felt a little too reliant on action sequences and had some minimalizations of storylines because of this, and the story did feel a little weak due to this, but I was able to have a fun time reading it. “The Galactus Seed” storyline was also enjoyable to me, I found much to like in it. What I enjoyed the most were the side stories, especially Volstagg’s war with the citizens of Broxton, I thought that was hilarious, and Kid Loki had some entertaining moments. Again, there was a lot of action which detracted from telling a more complex story, but what was there was entertaining. As far as the artwork goes, as this is a graphic novel, I will say that I was slightly divided with my opinions of the work. John Romita Jr., Mark Brooks, Olivier Coipel, and Khoi Pham were all artists who were visually appealing to me, but Pasqual Ferry and Salvador Larroca are artists who failed to impress my visual pallet. My longtime readers may recall my longstanding issues with Larroca as he has come up on this blog on several occasions in the past, each time not in a good way. Again, I must express my displeasure in the issue he illustrated. As far as the title goes, I don’t fully understand why the army from Ano-Athox were called the “World Eaters,” I felt the title was more appropriate coming from Galactus being a world eater, but I can honestly find little fault with the editor’s choice in the title as “The World Eaters” was the longest story arc in the book and the inclusion of the Galactus story.

                Next on the docket of things to discuss is accessibility. Now, I have been over this at least six dozen times at this point, and as tiring as it is, I have to do it again because I know that some of you have never read one of my reviews before and don’t know what I mean when I use the word “accessibility” in reference to this book, so if you know what I’m about to say, I’m sorry but just bear with me for a little while. So my usage of this word is to describe if this is a book that anyone, even a person who has never heard of Thor before, can take this book off the shelf of their local bookstore or library or borrow from a friend or relative, and read this book and understand every event in the story as written without having any prior knowledge of the character or his storylines. Let’s begin with the fact that this book is listed as Vol. 3. Yes, this book picks up from where the previous volume left off. However, this book does feature a new creative team, so the accessibility factor is increased there. I didn’t feel like reading this book requires having read the previous two volumes simply due to that fact. However, having knowledge of Marvel prior to reading this book does help. That said, if you are new to Marvel and are looking for a good starting point, well, I can’t exactly attest to this as being “good” per se, but I would say this is a point that a beginner can jump on with. Quite often when you have a new creative team on an ongoing series, it’s usually a point where a newbie can pick up on, even more so than an issue being marketed as #1 in the series as if it has a creative team that has already contributed to the characters, sometimes it continues their work. This actually happens to be the case in this book as we have a “Thor” story written by Matt Fraction followed by “The Mighty Thor” #1 also written by Fraction that directly continues his work and reading the two stories separately, reading “The Galactus Seed” without reading “The World Eaters” first would leave a tremendous amount of story unexplained. Anyway, this book features no tie-in issues to any events, and there are no issues of any other series deviating from Thor contained in this collection, so that leaves no cause for confusion, so in my own personal opinion, I feel like this book has a decently good accessibility factor to new readers.

                Okay, time to get on with the main event of every review, and one of the most crucial parts of my reviews: the numeric score. I’d say it’s the most important part of the review, but that can be debatable, depending on what your opinion of reading a review is. Some people may actually feel like my overview of the synopsis is actually the real highlight of my review. It’s actually the most time-consuming part of my review, to be honest with you. But it’s important to know exactly just how good I feel like this book is when reading one of my reviews. So let me explain my scoring system before we go any further. So, it’s actually extremely simple: the scoring goes on exact integers of one through ten. If I give the book a one, that’s my worst score, and that means that this book is a pile of trash that should be burned out of existence. If I give the book a ten, which, in any of my reviews, is extremely unlikely, this book is sheer perfection and should be in every comic book reader’s collection and reread on a frequent basis. Now, this book in particular does not fall exactly on either extreme. However, it does not lean towards the higher pole. I found plenty in this book to enjoy, some of the stories were entertaining, there was some incredible art, but there was also too much reliance on action that detracted from actual storytelling and there was a lot of artwork that did not give me favor. So what I’m going to do now is take my metaphorical blender that I use for mixing review ratings, and I’m going to throw this book into it, everything about it, including the story and the art, then I’m going to hit mix and blend this book until it’s completely liquid, then I’m going to grab my cup that I reserve for taking my review mixes in, and I’m going to pour my review juice into it, then I’m going to look at this score, and it’s… a four! I’ll say it was below average in quality, but it still had enough of a level of quality to not be considered a completely foul blend.

                Next up is my recommendation segment. Now in this segment, I do a couple of things. The first is that I will tell you if I give my own personal recommendation of this book. The second thing I do is tell you that regardless of the fact if I would personally recommend this book or not, who do I think should be reading this book? As to the first matter of business, I honestly don’t give a personal recommendation of this book. While I found it enjoyable enough to read, I didn’t find it enough of a good time that I would tell you, my readers, or else anyone in person to go out and spend the time or money on consuming this book. I just can’t, in good faith, say that if you are reading this review that you should go out and put the effort in obtaining and going through this book. However, if you want to completely ignore me or pretend I don’t exist, or else are just going to read this review and suggest this book to a friend, I’d say that if you are a true fan of Thor comics or the character from the movies, shows, or video games, this is a book that might pique your interest. And if you are a fan of mythology and want a modern and unique take on Norse mythology, this book has a lot to offer you.

                Well, I think we’re at the point where I’m going to start to wrap up. But before we go, there are a few things I have to say first. As some of you may know, I have been doing this blog for five years now and have compiled over 160 posts in that time. I have written over six dozen book reviews just like this one at this point and have also done other reviews of books outside of Marvel, but yes, Marvel Modern Era Epic Collections and Ultimate Epic Collections reviews are my main focus at the moment. If you enjoyed this review, feel free to also check out “Thor: Reborn from Ragnarok” and “Thor: The Siege of Asgard” for more Thor content. I’ve also written short stories, poetry, articles, essays, and editorials, so there is other kind of content on this blog as well. I post on a very frequent basis, I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after they are released, and I just received two more, so if you liked this post, check back on timcubbin.blogspot.com in the next four days after this review is posted, there should be another review posted by then. Feel free to drop a comment, like, share, retweet, do whatever you can to reach out to me or spread the good word, I’d love to hear from you if you have any opinions, you are welcome to share. Everything I post on this blog is my own personal opinion, I know you as a human being may have your own opinion as well that vastly differs from mine, and if you’d like to disagree with me, please let me know, or if you have anything to say, don’t hesitate to do so, any and all opinions are welcome here. You can also leave me questions if you have any or tell me if you have any requests for what you’d like to see on this blog in the future, I am always happy to take requests. No one has taken this opportunity yet, and I really welcome anyone to do so because I’d love to know what you, my readers, think of my work so I can improve on this blog in the future and make it more of what you would like to it to be. My next review is going to be “Star Wars: Kanan: The Last Padawan” in case you wanted to know so you’re aware of what to be looking up for in the future. And I guess that’s really all I have to say for now, so until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Young Avengers: Dark Reign"

                The following is a review of the graphic novel “Young Avengers: Dark Reign” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

                The Young Avengers are a group of teenagers united by the Avengers Failsafe Program, a protocol designed to assemble the next wave of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. The team consists of Eli Bradley/Patriot, Billy Kaplan/Wiccan, Teddy Altman/Hulkling, Kate Bishop/Hawkeye, Cassie Lang/Stature, Tommy Shepherd/Speed, and Vision. After the destruction of Stamford, Connecticut in a televised superhuman battle, the Superhuman Registration Act was passed, that required anyone possessing paranormal abilities to register with the government, divulge their true identities to the authorities and submit to training and sanctioning in the manner of federal agents. Anyone with superpowers who refuses to register is now considered a criminal. Some heroes, led by Tony Stark/Iron Man, see this as a reasonable request. Steve Rogers/Captain America leads an underground movement in resistance to the Act. The Young Avengers were recruited to Cap’s team. In California, there was another team of superhuman teenagers, the Runaways, who had discovered their parents were a group of supervillains known as the Pride and had stolen weapons and resources from their parents, then ran away from home, and eventually went on to defeat their parents, who chose not to take a side in the superhero Civil War and instead tried to fly under the radar. Their team consists of Nico Minoru, Chase Stein, Molly Hayes, Victor Mancha, Karolina Dean, Xavin and Old Lace. While at a Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles, the Runaways witnessed a fight between the supervillain Flag Smasher and a group of government Cape Killers and stepped in to defeat Flag Smasher, but were then forced to flee from the Cape Killers, and during their escape, Victor was badly injured. The battle made the news all the way in New York on a station the Young Avengers were monitoring. Vision received a painful feedback watching Victor’s injury. The Young Avengers decided they wanted to help, and asked Captain America if they could go to L.A., but Cap told them no. The Young Avengers went behind Cap’s back and stole a Quinjet to fly to L.A. Molly, who had been upset by Chase and had gone outside the Runaways’ hideout, encountered the Young Avengers. Molly had a misunderstanding with the Young Avengers and attacked them, but Molly was defeated. The Young Avengers brought Molly back to the Runaways’ hideout, where Vision and Victor had an adverse reaction to being in proximity to each other. Meanwhile, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Maria Hill visited the Supervillain prison the Cube, where she asked the Warden for an asset to find the Runaways. The Warden offered the Kree super-soldier Noh-Varr/Mavel Boy, who specialized in tracking, particularly since one of the members of the Runaways, Xavin, was a Skrull. The Young Avengers and the Runaways had a fight until Patriot and Nico were able to talk and the Runaways realized they were all on the same side. They discovered that because both Vision and Victor were built by the android Ultron, the two had a connection. Noh-Varr found the two teenage teams and attacked them. During the fight, Vision’s arm was detached in Noh-Varr’s chest, and Xavin, Karolina, Wiccan and Hulkling were captured during Noh-Varr’s extraction and brought to the Cube, where the Warden performed experiments on Hulkling, interested in his mixture of Kree/Skrull DNA. The two teenage superhero teams had to team up to infiltrate the Cube and rescue their abducted teammates.

Following the Civil War, which Iron Man’s team won, Captain America surrendered and was assassinated. Iron Man was promoted to Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Stature decided to register and join Iron Man’s Fifty-State Initiative and submitted to training at Camp Hammond, while the rest of the Young Avengers continued on fighting crime without Stature, despite their outlaw status. Patriot witnessed Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier leaving his grandparents’ home, and curious to find out what the conversation was about, enlisted Wiccan and Hawkeye to help track him down. Patriot, Hawkeye, and Winter Soldier had a team-up against Advanced Idea Mechanics, then Winter Soldier told Patriot about the legacy of the superhero name “Patriot.” Hulkling found out his father, Mar-Vell/Captain Marvel, had returned from the dead and decided to meet with him and tell Captain Marvel about their familial relationship. Wiccan and Speed went looking for the woman they believed to be their mother Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, who had disappeared following the House of M. In Cresskill, New Jersey, they encountered the villain Master Pandemonium, who gave them the answers they sought. Vision, who was still trying to sort out having the brainwave patterns of both the android Avenger Vision and the Young Avenger Nathaniel Richards/the future Kang the Conqueror, sought out Stature, whom Nathaniel had feelings for when he was a human. While Vision and Stature talked, they were attacked by A.I.M. and had to team up to defeat the villains, and the two were left to sort out their feelings. Cassie was in a battle against the supervillain the Growing Man. Though she defeated him, her stepfather Blake was injured and hospitalized, fighting for his life. Cassie felt horrible guilt, and the Young Avengers had to support her through it. Hawkeye and Patriot went on a non-date, which was interrupted by Clint Barton/Ronin, the former Hawkeye. He challenged her and won, taking back both his name and his bow. Kate and Speed decided to break into the Secret Avengers’ hideout so Kate could steal Clint’s bow back.

The Skrulls initiated a Secret Invasion of Earth, which a group of Skrull religious fanatics believed belonged to them due to a prophecy after the loss of the Skrull homeworld. Skrull Commander Chrell had been tasked with killing the Skrull Prince, Dorrek VIII, A.K.A. Theodore Altman/Hulkling. The Runaways were in New York with their new member Klara, whom they had rescued from the year 1907, when the Skrulls attacked Manhattan. Xavin turned against his/her team and knocked the Runaways out. Nico and Victor woke up and were able to escape with their unconscious teammates. The Young Avengers and the Fifty-State Initiative kids also fought the Skrulls. Xavin decided to try to help Hulkling escape from the Skrulls sent to kill Hulkling, despite having been trained to kill Hulkling. Wiccan and Speed joined up with Xavin and Hulkling. They were attacked by Skrull agent X’iv but managed to escape. The Runaways revived and saw the Young Avengers were in trouble. X’iv captured Speed and Wiccan, and Chrell captured the Runaways, but they were able to break free. The two teenage teams had to join forces again to protect Hulking and survive the Skrull Secret Invasion.

                Earth’s superhumans were able to defeat the Skrulls, and former supervillain Norman Osborn shot and killed the Skrull Queen, but Tony Stark was blamed for failing to stop the infiltration and Osborn was selected to replace Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. became H.A.M.M.E.R. and Osborn became Iron Patriot and the leader of the “Dark Avengers.” A new team of young vigilantes, Enchantress, Executioner, Melter, Big Zero, Egghead and Coat of Arms were going around New York City, fighting crime and calling themselves the Young Avengers. Their methods of fighting crime were extreme. They had a base in the Invisible Manor in Central Park. The real Young Avengers, using Wiccan’s magic, found the imposters, and the two teams fought. Team leaders Patriot and Melter began to talk, and Enchantress ended the fight. Patriot told the imposters if they wanted to be Young Avengers, they had to earn the name and they would watch them and see if they deserved to be called “Young Avengers.” Executioner was getting advice from his mother, who, unbeknownst to him, was actually the supervillain Princess Python. Executioner also figured out Hawkeye’s secret identity of Kate Bishop and tried to use this information to force his way onto the team. The Young Avengers staged a fight and had Kate Bishop with Executioner in public and Vision impersonated Hawkeye so as to cast doubt on Kate’s secret identity. The Young Avengers decided to accept Coat of Arms and Enchantress onto their team on a provisional basis, while the rest of the other team had to take a new name. Melter did not take this well and contacted Norman Osborn. Osborn immediately planned to take advantage of the youths. Hawkeye informed Executioner his mother was a supervillain, and he put her out of his life permanently. Vision received a download from Egghead, revealing Enchantress’ connection with Norse Goddess/supervillain Loki, and Enchantress was thrown off the Young Avengers. In revenge, the youths teamed up with Osborn’s Dark Avengers and fought with the Young Avengers in a battle to decide just what makes one worthy of the name “Avenger.”

                Osborn, intent of invading the city of Asgard floating over Broxton, Oklahoma, fabricated a tragedy reminiscent of the explosion that ignited the superhero Civil War. Blaming the Asgardian, Osborn began a mad Siege of their city that resulted in its fall and destruction. Patriot and Hawkeye were buried under rubble, while Wiccan, Speed and Hulkling were left to battle the Wrecking Crew.

                Okay, so now that we have an overview of the plotlines handled, let’s get on to my personal part of this review. So, the first thing we’re going to discuss is my personal feelings about this book. What I’m going to start with is that I genuinely loved this book. I thought it was fantastic. I found the stories to be exciting, fun, well-written, engaging, and interesting. I enjoyed reading all of them. I will say going in I was a little skeptical. I was predicting this to be an editorial nightmare. What I mean by this is the content. At the times of the original publication, between 2006-2010, there were no ongoing Young Avengers series, so this volume is made up entirely of four limited series and a one-shot. This book also crosses through four events, Civil War, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, and Siege. I was expecting a total mess as Epic Collections focus on characters rather than events, so this only includes the Young Avengers issues of these four events. For the most part, the stories were self-contained. They generally fit into the events but were mostly their own separate stories that were self-explanatory and didn’t usually require mastery-level knowledge of the events to understand the stories contained in this book. The one exception is Siege, which continues from the starting point of Siege and leaves off with “Continued in Siege.” Having been out of touch with the comics during the times after Civil War, most of this was new content for me. I have read Secret Invasion, but I have not totally mastered the storyline. However, I found this book to be relatively navigable, despite jumping between events and not having a linear storyline. I just felt like not having read Siege was truly detrimental to my enjoyment of this book, but it wasn’t too much of a hurt. But I’m getting totally ahead of myself here. Let’s talk about what I liked. I thought their team-ups with the Runaways were great, the two teams were compatible and worked together well, their conflicts and dynamics and their resolution together were absolutely perfect. Both teams having Skrull team members made for an excellent pairing between the two teams, and Vision and Victor both being the “children” of Ultron made for a great connection. As some of you know, Civil War is one of my favorite comic storylines, so watching the teenage heroes trying to make it through the War was entertaining for me. I think my favorite series in this book was “Young Avengers Presents,” it was an opportunity to examine each character individually and I found it to be fascinating to read. Dark Reign was interesting as well, seeing a new team parallel to the Young Avengers was enjoyable, comparable to Dark Avengers, which I have previously read and enjoyed, so reading the “Young Masters” storyline was entertaining. Siege was the one part I had a slight problem with as I felt like it really didn’t do much in the way of a story. It essentially was a filler, and that’s what it felt like, and that was detrimental to my enjoyment of this book. It was just a way to put the Young Avengers into Siege, and it really didn’t feel necessary. It was mostly Patriot and Hawkeye trapped in rubble, which really isn’t entertaining, and even Wiccan, Speed and Hulkling battling the Wrecking Crew felt dull. It was my least favorite story in the book. But I guess that’s all you can expect out of a one-shot. I think the character I enjoyed reading the most in this book was Stature. She was very complex and conflicted. I liked watching her change from the Young Avengers to the Fifty-State Initiative back to the Young Avengers. I especially enjoyed her “Young Avengers Presents” issue where she was dealing with the guilt of almost killing her stepfather. I loved the depth of character development that she went through, and I felt she was the character to watch in this graphic novel. The romances also enhanced the storylines as well, particularly Patriot and Hawkeye’s will-they-won’t-they? Vision’s conflict and trying to identify as Jonas was also interesting to read, and his relationship with Stature made for an interesting issue. I also liked the theme of family, both biological and as a team, I found the emotional depth between the characters to be very moving. I feel like this book had great writers, and it sure had a lot of them, but I feel like all of them did an exceptional job working with the stories they got. What truly surprised me about this book was the art. This book has a plethora of artists, and I feel like every single one of them actually drew visually appealing artwork. As many of my previous readers know, sometimes books with one artist meet my dismay, but a book with nine different artists seems likely that there would be an artist I would take umbrage with. Alas, every artist in this book impressed me. I found all the art to be brilliant. I think the last thing I would like to talk about is the title. Modern Era Epic Collections have to use titles that will sell. Unfortunately for me, sometimes that feels like a misnomer, and I really do not like that. So, the editors of this book went with “Dark Reign.” This book was comprised of four limited series and one one-shot and carried through four events. The longest series in this book was “Young Avengers Presents” which was six issues, each one being standalone. The longest storyline in this book was “Dark Reign” which lasted for five issues. So, I am compelled to believe that “Dark Reign” is an appropriate title for this book. New Avengers has already taken “Civil War” and plans to take “Secret Invasion” anyway, so there really isn’t a better title that they can choose for this book without causing a redundancy, and I do not believe Marvel wishes to cause that, so this title works. Even Dark Avengers was given the title “Osborn’s Reign,” so the title wasn’t used before. All-in-all, I thought this book was superlative and an excellent effort by the writers and artists at Marvel from the time periods. Despite not having an ongoing series and no linearity and spanning over the course of five years, this book still worked and was extremely cohesive. It was entertaining and had it all: action, drama, humor, and romance, pretty much everything you could ask for in a comic book. Yes, there was the one flaw of Siege, but I feel like the rest of the book mostly made up for that, and I thought this book was great.

                Next up on our agenda, we’re going to talk about accessibility. Now, I know I’ve been over this over six dozen times at this point, but I know that I always have new readers every time I make a post, so I have to explain myself each and every time, so here we go. Some of my new readers may not get what I mean when I use the word “accessibility.” So, allow me to explain myself yet again. When I say “accessibility,” I mean is this a book that a person who has never heard of the Young Avengers before can pick up, read this book, and understand what they’ve read. I feel like this book borders on the line of being extremely inaccessible and having a slight sense of accessibility at the same time. I already explained the fact that this book crosses over into four events. Now, if you’ve never read a Marvel comic book before in your entire life, I will tell you not to read this book. Yes, it does feature blurbs that partially explain the story, but it’s just not enough for someone who has no experience with the Marvel Universe to understand. I don’t care if you’ve seen every Marvel movie, cartoon, and television series, and played every Marvel video game, it’s just not going to be enough to prepare you to read this book. However, the stories are all standalone from the event with the exception of Siege, so they touch on the event without actually following the main story of the event, rather just feeling like another Young Avengers story than part of an event, with the exception of Siege, so there is the possibility of being able to understand this book. That said, I feel like this book requires extensive background knowledge of Marvel to completely be understood, and even I didn’t fully understand Siege, especially since it ends with “Continued in Siege,” so you’re not even getting a complete story in this book. This book is definitely not for Marvel beginners, it should not be the first book you pick up if you’re trying to get into Marvel Comics.

                Okay, I’ve been blathering on for a very long time at this point, I feel like we’re at the junction of when I should move on with this review and just get to the moment we’ve all been waiting for when we started with this review, and that would be my numeric score of this graphic novel. My scoring system is extremely simple. I score on a scale of one through ten. One is the score I reserve for horrible pieces of trash books that should be removed from the shelves, and have every copy be destroyed, and then never have that book be reprinted again. Ten is a score that means this book is perfection and every copy should be bought off the shelves, read multiple times, and be reprinted every year because more people need to buy this book. Both one and ten are my rarest scores. Very rarely do I find a book to be so bad that it should be considered a one, I can usually find something in a book to boost the score to a two or a three. Likewise, ten is reserved for perfection, and a book very rarely meets my standards of perfection. Usually when I write a review, the best score a book can usually hope for is a nine, I’m usually going to automatically deduct one point for some reason. I essentially score on how good the narrations of the graphic novel are. I usually deduct points for factors such as disliking art, as this is a graphic novel after all, and that has to be taken into account when reviewing this book, as well as grievances with stories, and title misnomers. Now, this book had a relatively good selection of narratives, but there was one issue I did find a flaw with. As it was, I don’t feel that this book was perfection. But the art was astonishing, so I have no reason to deduct points for that, that even boosts the score. And I have no problem with the title. So, I’m taking everything about this book into consideration to do my score. I’m taking the entirety of this book, story, art, and title, throwing them all into my metaphorical blender that I save for mixing book review smoothies in. I’m going to turn it on now and blend it until the mixture is completely liquid. Then I’m going to grab a nice cup, empty my blender into the cup and I’m going to look at this score. And when I look at this score, it’s… an eight! That’s actually an exceptionally good score. I found very few problems with my enjoyment while reading this book. I generally found this to be a delightful read and visually stunning. The efforts of the writers and artists were excellent, and I feel like they did an extremely commendable job working with what they had to work with in the Marvel Universe at the time they were producing the issues contained in this graphic novel.

                Wow, I’ve been going on a long time, you’re probably getting really bored with me, so I think it’s time to move on to the final topic we have to discuss in one of my Tim Cubbin reviews, and that would be the recommendation. Now, when I do the recommendation segment of my review, I always answer two questions. The first question is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to anyone who I tell about this book? The second question is, regardless of the answer of question number one, who would I recommend this book to, or who would I say is the target audience, or who should be reading this book? So, I think the answer to the first question is probably relatively obvious, but I have to officially answer it anyway. Yes, this book gets my personal recommendation. Now, moving on to question number two, I feel like the perfect audiences for this graphic novel would be youths or LGBTQIA+ individuals. This book has characters that represent these identities, and I feel like reading this book if you fall into one of both of those categories would be extremely empowering as you can easily find characters in this graphic novel that you can identify with. Of course this book also has characters from other Marvel media that’s out there, if you’re a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and know characters such as Kate Bishop/Hawkeye from “Hawkeye,” or Billy Kaplan/Wiccan from “Agatha All Along,” or Cassie Lang from “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” or Eli Bradley from “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, ”or Vision from “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” or if you watched “Runaways” on Hulu, you’ll find characters in this book you’ll enjoy reading the exploits of. If you’ve ever read any comics of “Young Avengers” before and had any level of enjoyment in them, this book is definitely for you. If you’re a fan of any of the events in this book, Civil War, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, or Siege, I would absolutely recommend picking up this book and giving it a read as it expands those stories. And if you’re just a diehard Marvel fan like me, I’d tell you to add this book to your collection as well, I feel this book would be a welcome addition.

                Well, I’d say we’re up to the point where I’ll begin signing off. There’s still a few more things I have to say before I log off. First off, I’ve been doing this blog for almost five years now and have done over 160 posts. I’ve done over six dozen book reviews just like this one, so if you liked this one, feel free to check out more of timcubbin.blogspot.com for more, even look up “Young Avengers: Not What You Think” if you want more Young Avengers content. I’ve also written short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there’s plenty of other types of content for you to see here too. I post on a very frequent basis, I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after their release and if possible, throw up a review on this blog just for all of you guys to check out. At the moment, I just got a new book about an hour ago, so you can expect to see a review of that within the next two weeks, this I actually a Vol. 3, so I have to reread Vols. 1 and 2 first, then read the new collection, then I need to find a day when I’m free to sit down and write a review for you guys, so that might not be for a little bit, but it should definitely be sometime during the following week from my posting of this review, so keep checking out timcubbin.blogspot.com until it’s ready. I’m going to keep posting on this blog for as long as I can, so that’s going to be until I go blind, lose control of my hands, or pass away, so expect this blog to keep going on for quite some time, as I’m still only thirty-seven and still have plenty of life left in me. If you think this looks extremely professional, it’s because I have a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in journalism but due to life circumstances have been unable to pursue it as an actual career, but I keep this blog going anyway just to honor my years of sacrifice in college. So, I guess that’s really all there is to be said at this point. I’ll be back soon, but until then, Tim Cubbin… out!