Stephanie Kay
Oct 13, 2007, 11:00 pm
<a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/marvel/1206/BEYOND006_col.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/previews/marvel/1206/BEYOND006_colt.jpg" hspace=10 align=left alt="Beyond #6"></a>Reviewer: Mike Sangregorio, darquehex@aol.com
Story Title: The Observer Effect
You think I brought you here to play with you? I brought you here because I fear you. You’re doused with radioactivity that should kill you. Or you’re the product of a googolplex-to-one genetic coding error that should have resulted in stillbirth, but instead of dying you thrive.
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Penciler: Scott Kolins
Colorist: Paul Mounts
Letters: Dave Lanphear
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor in Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published by: Marvel Comics (http://www.marvel.com)
With great power, comes a great spoiler warning. Don’t read ahead if you still intend to read this issue or “trade it.”
This month sees the end of one of the few remaining offbeat miniseries in mainstream comics, as Beyond! comes to a close. A few months ago I reviewed the first issue of this series and hailed it as a welcome breath of fresh air, almost Nextwave-ian in its originality. Some of that I still maintain, but after reading the entire story, it’s for different reasons.
As it turns out, this trial by fire, while indeed taking place on a new Battleworld, was not the work of the Beyonder but rather the obscure Stan Lee and Jack Kirby creation known as Stranger. Trading in a faceless seemingly omnipotent prescience for a crusty old white guy isn’t exactly what I would call a win, but still, the creators try to make it seem like one.
In addition to this lackluster reveal, at least one character gets a noticeable change to his entry in the Marvel Handbook. After all, we can’t have one of these grand cosmic continuity messes without a forcibly important death, now can we?
My bitterness is the result of a self fulfilling prophecy that I postulated in the aforementioned review. I had said that Greg “Gravity” Willis seemed to be a predetermined D-lister with his place in stories such as this and the Marvel Team-Up “League of Losers,” neither of which seem to have garnered much buzz amidst the current Civil War landscape. Now, well…now he’s dead.
Beyond! has flirted with a few novel points of character development, including Firebird and Dr. Pym maybe hooking up and the new akward-buddy-comedy-team of the Hood and Al Kraven. While I amy be alone in saying I’d actually buy that book (come on Kirkman, you know you want to...), neither of them would actually be recognizable alongside any of the more contemporary Marvel mainstays. In the end, nothing has been settled, but nothing seems to matter. The exception is that Deathlok, a character that writer Dwayne McDuffie has a fond history with, has now been returned to his home and without his powers, with his life all well and good.
The issue reads like a “how to write a cosmic odyssey comic book” with everything from ancient beings of supposedly unimaginable power explaining themselves to Hank Pym, splash pages and references to other equally by-the-book stories. Oh and a planet blows up. Thanks, Hank, for pissing off the mustached man with all the glowing power. Now Gravity has to “hold the planet together” long enough for everyone to conveniently make it back to the strange device that brought them there.
Come on, Dwayne, is that all you have for us? This issue features an epilogue, of sorts, where all the characters we have been introduced to, except for Spider-Man who it turns out was a Space Phantom (or “The” Space Phantom, as I dunno if McDuffie actually read Avengers Forever) getting together at Gravity’s funeral. Knowing what we do about post-Civil War projects such as Thunderbolts and Silent War, it may be difficult to take most of what we see seriously. I found it hard not to fault the lack of undeveloped potential here.
The entire series read like an origin story. These characters have, for the most part both in and out of continuity, been the subject of almost nothing but ridicule. Now they have finally found a purpose and, it would seem, some kinship amongst each other. These are characters that people are not going to miss and whose stories are not exactly set in stone. Here was a chance to really form a new team or at least to take them on a new journey, which seemed as if it would be quite enjoyable from the one liners zipping around in the middle issues of the series.
Simply put, I think the series faltered under its own inflated sense of grandeur.
Instead of offbeat fun we get questions. If your one of the many, many cosmic characters of the Marvel Universe, what do you think of when you hear about Earth? This tiny little planet has been the cause of more universal disturbances than any of the so called galactic empires that are running around. Forget all the great catastrophes of the Kree-Skrull War, where does the Phoenix show up most often? Where did Galactus fall? Where is there a Celestial being held captive under the Bay City Area (for those of you reading Eternals)?
All of this is true because creators need to create a sense of urgency and they always tried to ground their stories in their world. As often as I like to think that the creators working on X-Men are Skrulls, they're probably not. This is a rather bland reason to use what appears to be unlimited power to create an entire planet, capture people from across the vastness of space and watch them fight. Kind of seems a little voyeuristic to me. Speaking of which, the Watcher shows up! He passively influences the Stranger into sending the Earthlings home. Or something. He’s very, very bald.
This little bout of Mortal Kombat only ends because Pym tricks the big baddie into thinking he killed his friends. Which he did by shrinking them. Can make a planet, but can’t see that Micro Machine size Venom? You’re a winner, Stranger, that you are. In addition to that, Deathlok told the others about how he dug graves for aliens such as Skrulls and Brood. Again, not usually native to big bad Earth. Maybe McDuffie was making the story up from script to script. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me.
The final straw comes on the last page, which features Gravity’s headstone and reads that “his story is far from over.” Clearly there is more going on here than the creators got around to telling us, but then again that’ll happen when you spend most of your time pilfering both Secret Wars and Maximum Security for plot points. How exactly did they talk Scot t Kolins into doing this again?
Anyway, my final review (of this series) comes from a mixture of the good one-liners, eye-catching art and potential that seemed so close and is now just out of reach. Even if Gravity does come back, he’ll lack the down to Earth appeal that grounded him in both our world and the Marvel U. He can’t go back to NYU and be a part time superhero after the Inhumans have “promised anything that they may need” to his parents and his girlfriend was consoled by the Hood.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/venfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/venfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/venfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/vennone.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/vennone.jpg
Buy Beyond! from X-WORLD and SAVE! ( http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopexd.asp?id=19974)
Story Title: The Observer Effect
You think I brought you here to play with you? I brought you here because I fear you. You’re doused with radioactivity that should kill you. Or you’re the product of a googolplex-to-one genetic coding error that should have resulted in stillbirth, but instead of dying you thrive.
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Penciler: Scott Kolins
Colorist: Paul Mounts
Letters: Dave Lanphear
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor in Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Published by: Marvel Comics (http://www.marvel.com)
With great power, comes a great spoiler warning. Don’t read ahead if you still intend to read this issue or “trade it.”
This month sees the end of one of the few remaining offbeat miniseries in mainstream comics, as Beyond! comes to a close. A few months ago I reviewed the first issue of this series and hailed it as a welcome breath of fresh air, almost Nextwave-ian in its originality. Some of that I still maintain, but after reading the entire story, it’s for different reasons.
As it turns out, this trial by fire, while indeed taking place on a new Battleworld, was not the work of the Beyonder but rather the obscure Stan Lee and Jack Kirby creation known as Stranger. Trading in a faceless seemingly omnipotent prescience for a crusty old white guy isn’t exactly what I would call a win, but still, the creators try to make it seem like one.
In addition to this lackluster reveal, at least one character gets a noticeable change to his entry in the Marvel Handbook. After all, we can’t have one of these grand cosmic continuity messes without a forcibly important death, now can we?
My bitterness is the result of a self fulfilling prophecy that I postulated in the aforementioned review. I had said that Greg “Gravity” Willis seemed to be a predetermined D-lister with his place in stories such as this and the Marvel Team-Up “League of Losers,” neither of which seem to have garnered much buzz amidst the current Civil War landscape. Now, well…now he’s dead.
Beyond! has flirted with a few novel points of character development, including Firebird and Dr. Pym maybe hooking up and the new akward-buddy-comedy-team of the Hood and Al Kraven. While I amy be alone in saying I’d actually buy that book (come on Kirkman, you know you want to...), neither of them would actually be recognizable alongside any of the more contemporary Marvel mainstays. In the end, nothing has been settled, but nothing seems to matter. The exception is that Deathlok, a character that writer Dwayne McDuffie has a fond history with, has now been returned to his home and without his powers, with his life all well and good.
The issue reads like a “how to write a cosmic odyssey comic book” with everything from ancient beings of supposedly unimaginable power explaining themselves to Hank Pym, splash pages and references to other equally by-the-book stories. Oh and a planet blows up. Thanks, Hank, for pissing off the mustached man with all the glowing power. Now Gravity has to “hold the planet together” long enough for everyone to conveniently make it back to the strange device that brought them there.
Come on, Dwayne, is that all you have for us? This issue features an epilogue, of sorts, where all the characters we have been introduced to, except for Spider-Man who it turns out was a Space Phantom (or “The” Space Phantom, as I dunno if McDuffie actually read Avengers Forever) getting together at Gravity’s funeral. Knowing what we do about post-Civil War projects such as Thunderbolts and Silent War, it may be difficult to take most of what we see seriously. I found it hard not to fault the lack of undeveloped potential here.
The entire series read like an origin story. These characters have, for the most part both in and out of continuity, been the subject of almost nothing but ridicule. Now they have finally found a purpose and, it would seem, some kinship amongst each other. These are characters that people are not going to miss and whose stories are not exactly set in stone. Here was a chance to really form a new team or at least to take them on a new journey, which seemed as if it would be quite enjoyable from the one liners zipping around in the middle issues of the series.
Simply put, I think the series faltered under its own inflated sense of grandeur.
Instead of offbeat fun we get questions. If your one of the many, many cosmic characters of the Marvel Universe, what do you think of when you hear about Earth? This tiny little planet has been the cause of more universal disturbances than any of the so called galactic empires that are running around. Forget all the great catastrophes of the Kree-Skrull War, where does the Phoenix show up most often? Where did Galactus fall? Where is there a Celestial being held captive under the Bay City Area (for those of you reading Eternals)?
All of this is true because creators need to create a sense of urgency and they always tried to ground their stories in their world. As often as I like to think that the creators working on X-Men are Skrulls, they're probably not. This is a rather bland reason to use what appears to be unlimited power to create an entire planet, capture people from across the vastness of space and watch them fight. Kind of seems a little voyeuristic to me. Speaking of which, the Watcher shows up! He passively influences the Stranger into sending the Earthlings home. Or something. He’s very, very bald.
This little bout of Mortal Kombat only ends because Pym tricks the big baddie into thinking he killed his friends. Which he did by shrinking them. Can make a planet, but can’t see that Micro Machine size Venom? You’re a winner, Stranger, that you are. In addition to that, Deathlok told the others about how he dug graves for aliens such as Skrulls and Brood. Again, not usually native to big bad Earth. Maybe McDuffie was making the story up from script to script. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me.
The final straw comes on the last page, which features Gravity’s headstone and reads that “his story is far from over.” Clearly there is more going on here than the creators got around to telling us, but then again that’ll happen when you spend most of your time pilfering both Secret Wars and Maximum Security for plot points. How exactly did they talk Scot t Kolins into doing this again?
Anyway, my final review (of this series) comes from a mixture of the good one-liners, eye-catching art and potential that seemed so close and is now just out of reach. Even if Gravity does come back, he’ll lack the down to Earth appeal that grounded him in both our world and the Marvel U. He can’t go back to NYU and be a part time superhero after the Inhumans have “promised anything that they may need” to his parents and his girlfriend was consoled by the Hood.
OVERALL:
http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/venfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/venfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/venfull.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/vennone.jpg http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/reviews/vennone.jpg
Buy Beyond! from X-WORLD and SAVE! ( http://x-worldcomics.com/yourvirtualstore/shopexd.asp?id=19974)