Agents of A.T.L.A.S. Vs. X-Men and the Avengers

A premier edition hardback collecting a pair of crossovers starring the Agents of A.T.L.A.S..

A little background information first- The Agents of ATLAS are a group of superheroes who first operated in the 1950s. (Originally, they were a Roy Thomas and Donald Glut concept floated around in the pages of What If... #9 (June, 1978). The group of heroes became official members of the Marvel universe after Marvel editor Mark Paniccia stumbled across the classic issue and inspired Jeff Parker to bring the group into the present day. 

After the events of the first Secret Invasion, the dastardly Norman Osborn negotiated his way into becoming the head of Earth's intelligence community. Not trusting the sometime Green Goblin, super spy Jimmy Woo took the place of the Chinese crime lord Yellow Claw's criminal underworld. With the help of the simian Gorilla Man, telepathic Marvel Boy, Atlantean Namora and the super-powerful robot M-11, Jimmy Woo keeps tabs on Osborn while transforming the criminal elements he's inherited into a force of good. 

X-Men Vs. Agents of ATLAS opens with teammate Venus being kidnapped by a centaur. With the X-Men having just fled their San Francisco area base, thanks to Osborn declaring the mutant enemies of humanity (once again), Woo hopes to borrow the X-Men's Cerebra device to find the missing agent. The unauthorized use of Cerebra sets off a warning alarm and the X-Men return to their abandoned base to investigate. 

In typical Marvel fashion, when the two teams meet, it's a battle royale. Nobody talks. They always start with fisticuffs. Only, there is a slight twist to this battle as members of both teams seem to have a history of fighting each other previously. Yet nobody can actually recall having done so before. 

Then in Avengers Vs. Atlas, the agents respond to a time anomaly in the heart of New York City. Jimmy Woo's team discovers Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the midst of an epic battle with a gigantic entity that seems to be about 1 second out of sync with time. Thanks to Wolverine being a member of the Avengers and having been in the previous story, Logan prevents a typical first meeting melee. That is until the temporal entity engulfs the modern day Avengers and replaces them with the original line-up! 

Now it's Jimmy Woo's Agents of ATLAS against Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Giant Man and the Wasp. And now the battle begins before a chance of introductions. Remember that the Hulk was one of the original Avengers? Hopefully, he won't show up, right?

I absolutely hated the X-Men story. It had too many characters. There was too much back story that one needed to know in order to enjoy the plot. And while I enjoyed the elements of the original X-Men and their first encounter of the Agents, things got really confusing. And honestly, it didn't feel like some of those feelings of deja vu ever truly got resolved. Plus, this story was a two-parter and it felt like writer Jeff Parker was trying to shove an extra large helping of stuffing into a medium sized turkey. And the opening segment was a giant sized Thanksgiving feast of disappointment. 

At least the artwork was exquisite. Carlo Pagulayan illustrated the modern story and his depictions especially of the female characters was alluring. The flashback segments were by Chris Samnee. Those segments evoked the nostalgic feel of the late, great Darwyn Cooke.

The Avengers story was a 4-parter. I loved the first 3 issues. I had a better understanding of the story. I'll admit that reading the X-Men crossover helped a lot with that. The element of time travel and having lots of surprises pop up was great. The ending was really meta. There's a lot of quantum physics involved. And while I understand that the characters got to point B from point A, I have no idea how the Avengers arrive at that point. And I read that segment at least thrice!

The Avengers tale almost salvaged this entire edition. I was just about ready to keep this book as part of my collection. Yet that complex ending was just way too over my head. I'd rather my limited shelf space be devoted to something else. So I'll trade this in hopes of purchasing some else more permanent for my collection.

Oh! And isn't that like the worst cover to a book that you've ever seen in your life? There were so many other great regular and variant covers used in these comics. Why did they choose that monstrosity from Humberto Ramos? It looks like they dislocated Cap's jaw or something!

Rating: 4 out of 10 stars.

Daredevil, Volume 4: The Autobiography of Matt Murdock

 You would think that life is going quite well for Matt Murdock. Foggy Nelson's cancer seems to be getting under control. Matt's got a great new girlfriend and law firm in San Francisco. Plus, he's got a multi-million dollar book deal in the works and a new Daredevil persona.

   But Matt Murdock is the Charlie Brown of Marvel Universe! With his new persona comes the fact that everyone and their brother knows that the blind lawyer and the Man Without Fear are one in the same. Thus Foggy, his new girl, even his clients are all targets thanks in no small part to a multi-media surveillance system run by the Shroud.

   So in order to protect his friends, Murdock decides to make a deal with the devil himself- the Kingpin! But what can the lawyer offer the man who seemingly has everything? Why, the death of Matt Murdock, of course!

   The Autobiography of Matt Murdock signals the end of the epic run of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee, whose art is exceptional and his vintage style, I think, makes him the next Darwyn Cooke. Waid, whose been the driving force behind the Man Without Fear for about 4 years now, made a very depressing character fun again. Waid added heart and humor to the character. But there was more than enough zaniness in the Waid run like run ins with zombies, stuntmen, and even Stilt-Man! Plus, Waid's Daredevil was full of awesome courtroom drama. It was like a comic book version of Law & Order with the Order part being represented by a costumed vigilante.

   The first couple of chapters fit this formula quite real and they were great reads with one bothersome fly in the ointment: the Shroud. I hate the Shroud. I've thought him to be a D-list character since he first popped up in the pages of Spider-Woman all the way back in the late 70s. He's a total Batman AND Daredevil copycat if there ever was one. But, the Shroud's place in this story, while an annoyance, still carried a whimsical theme to the book.

   Once the Kingpin rears his big fat ugly head, the tone of the book got much more serious and to me, a lot less enjoyable. I long to read a collected version of Frank Miller's run on Daredevil. Yet, I have a feeling based on how I like a more light-hearted Hero of Hell's Kitchen, I probably will not enjoy it as much as I think I would.

   A good read that could've been better but still Worth Consuming in the end.

   Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Daredevil, Volume 3: The Daredevil You Know (Marvel NOW!)

   

   Matt Murdock agrees to defend an aged stunt driver in a copyright infringement case. Age and injury have caused the former thrill seeker to give up the rights to his original stage name, 'The Stuntman', to a pharmaceutical company. In turn, the corporation has hired out a young upstart that has taken to taunting his namesake.

     The attacks become so merciless, that the old man takes his own life unable to withstand the pressure of the looming court battle. This enrages Murdock to challenge the new Stuntman in order to restore his client's good name. But should the hero lose in a race across the Golden Gate Bridge, it will mean that he too must forfeit his right to the title of 'The Man Without Fear.'

     Speaking of the title- that's also what Murdock and his ghost writer Foggy Nelson is calling his autobiography. Making his deadline isn't going to be easy with a slew of baddies, mishaps, and betrayals will get in Daredevils way. All this leads to what is probably the worst Daredevil costume variant of all-time and in the superhero forging a deal with a most unexpected devil.

       Volume 3 is the penultimate Marvel NOW! collection by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee before the events of 2015's Secret Wars that will reboot not just the Daredevil franchise but the entire Marvel Universe. This was yet another fantastic offering by Waid and Samnee and it's Daredevil at his best.

     Things have been going pretty well for Matt Murdock lately. Yet, it can be said that Daredevil is at his best when he is at his lowest. And by the end of this volume, things are going to get so low, he may just have to sell his soul to his own personal devil if he's ever going to get another chance to make things right again.

    Worth Consuming but I wasn't such a big fan of the first story arc involving the Stuntman as I was in the rest of the comics reprinted in this edition.

    Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Daredevil Volume 2: West Coast Scenario (Marvel NOW!)

   

   Mark Waid continues his epically fun run of the Man Without Fear in this volume that doubles as a tie-in to the 'Original Sin' storyline. In that miniseries, a character called the Orb has caused superheroes to relive their deepest darkest secrets. With Daredevil, he has visions of his beloved father abusing him and his mother, Maggie. Seeking answers, Daredevil learns that his mother has been arrested and extradited to Wakanda without due process. In order to save her, Daredevil will have to call in some favors at SHIELD and pull a few shrewd  legal eagle maneuvers that borderline as an international incident. 

   But before all that, celebrate Daredevil's 50th Anniversary with a special issue that looks at two potential futures and a rather forgettable moment in Matt Murdock's history. The first story takes place in the distant future of San Francisco in which something has caused most of it's residents to lose their vision. Speak about the blind leading the blind... Then in a prose story, a possible wife of Murdock's writes her last will and testament along with some of her personal history with the hero, to her unborn child. It's a chilling story that leaves the reader breathless at the very end. Lastly, while Murdock and Nelson are closing their practice, Reed Richards uncovers the last will and testament of Matt's twin brother Mike. It's a goofy tale taken from a rather goofy time in the life of Daredevil as a way to throw Foggy and Karen Page of the scent that Matt Murdock is really a superhero.

    Then wrapping up this volume is a story involving a villain named the Purple Man. I'm not familiar with this guy, but he's super strong, nigh invulnerable, has wicked mind control powers- oh did I mention he's purple. He just may be my new favorite Daredevil villain. I really would like to find more tales starring this super creepy baddie!

    A lot happens in this volume but Mark Waid and his artist in residence, Chris Samnee, did another marvelous job chronicling another chapter of the Daredevil family. (Okay- the Mike Murdock story was corny, but it ended on a high note.) Secrets are revealed, mysteries finally solved, and a lot of kick-butt action and thrills is had by all players. Another triumph of dynamic writing and cutting-edge art- both of which are lightyears ahead of their time

     Worth Consuming

    Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Daredevil, Volume 1: Devil At Bay (2014 Marvel NOW!)

   Daredevil is back with an all-new series, an all-new city, and an all-new law partner. After being disbarred in New York, Matt Murdock must move back to San Francisco if he has any hope of getting to practice law again. Though Murdock has lived in the city by the bay before, he's having a tough time adjusting to the landscape. If only San Francisco had more skyscrapers...

    Sadly, Foggy Nelson couldn't make the trip West. But it wasn't because of the cancer he battled in the previous volume. Always wanting to be the hero, Nelson finally got the chance to save the day but it cost him his life. Or did it? This is a comic book of course.

   Though Daredevil has gone through quite a few changes, one thing that stayed the same is the creative force of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee. Waid continues to write the adventures of the 'Man Without Fear' with heart, humor, and hubris. Samnee still has the pop art style that I'm a huge fan of and it's lovingly embellished once again by the great Javier Rodriguez.

   There's also a flashback story set during Murdock's move to California. It's also written by Waid and it's not a bad tale. However, the art is not by Chris Samnee and there's just something missing in the formula. It's probably why it's my least favorite offering in this volume. Otherwise, this is a near-flawless collection of new Daredevil comics.

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.