"Goblin Up the Profits"

Hobgoblin #1 and #2

Published by Marvel Comics

Written by Kevin Shinick

Art by Javier Rodriguez and Alvaro Lopez

Who doesn't love a good villain story? If the current fever over DC's Suicide Squad trailer is any indication, I'm not alone in enjoying the occasional excursion to the wrong side of the tracks and letting the baddies tell their side of the story once in a while. Marvel's Axis event from a couple years back looked to not only tip the scales in favor of villainy, but reverse the poles, casting long time heroes as menaces and vice versa. The Axis event isn't of much import to today's back issue dive, except that Hobgoblin is a tie-in that has roots in the event, but I want to bring it up just because 2013/2014 was apparently the year the baddies took control of our hearts and minds. Just across the way at DC comics, the Forever Evil event was also raging on, mind you.

The "inversion" event in Axis serves as the catalyst for Hobgoblin. As to how the inversion thingamajig actually works, I'm not sure. Axis and Uncanny Avengers passed me by at the time. All I knew going into Hobgoblin issue one was that Roderick Kingsley had taken to leasing out superhero identities instead of villains and Phil Urich was living underground and calling himself the Goblin King.

The Goblin saga in the Spider-Man sub-division of the Marvel Universe has taken some interesting turns over the last couple of years, most of which I wasn't privy to firsthand. As far as I can tell, the Goblins are now a gang and the Osborns aren't even in the picture. I could be wrong about this, or not up to date, as I haven't been a regular Spider-Man reader in quite some time. Hobgoblin #1 and #2 were impulse buys, with Javier Rodriguez's simple-but-attention-grabbing covers doing more to sell me the book than any actual interest in catching up with the ol' Spidey soap opera.

The story Shinick tells here, about Roderick Kingsley cashing in on the disenfranchised by promising to reinvent themselves as superheroes, feels like a concept from The Venture Brothers. Kingsley is portrayed as a total shill, never missing an opportunity to plug his latest self-help book or stadium-filling seminar. The satire isn't subtle, or even completely original, but the humor is sharp and makes the story worth pursuing. Personally, I feel the most important aspect of a comic is its entertainment value, and Hobgoblin has that in spades.

Opposing Kingsley is the villainous self-proclaimed "heir" to the Goblin legacy, Phil Urich. Urich is scorched that Kingsley is using the once-feared Goblin name to perform half-baked super heroics and sell books (of which he is not getting a cut, I presume). Caught between them is the amnesiac Goblin Queen, found wandering the streets by Kingsley's recruiters and "rebranded" as superheroine Queen Cat. The King wants his Queen and many quips and fisticuffs commence.

There's an Axis banner at the top of each cover to Hobgoblin, branding it a "tie-in" and perhaps causing many fans to pass by, but they missed out. Ironic that a comic about brand management is hurt by the very same thing. I can't think of any other Kevin Shinick comics off the top of my head, so he's a new writer to me and I'd be interested to read some of his other stuff. The style and humor of this comic lives on in Chip Zdarsky's Howard the Duck and is reminiscent of Peter Milligan's X-Statix, if you need another comparison.

Thanks for reading! Pester me at @ChrisBComics if erection lasts more than four hours.

An Unlikely Legend

First off, a disclaimer: I'm going to spoil the heck out of the premiere episode of Legends of Tomorrow, so if you haven't seen it yet, BE WARNED. With that said, let's talk television.
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The latest in DC's ever-expanding television universe, Legends of Tomorrow is the story of Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill), a rogue time traveler on a mission to stop the immortal Vandal Savage (Casper Crump) from shaping world events so that he ends up ruling the world sometime in the 22nd century. To this end, he assembles a team of heroes and villains from our relative present to back him up.

Joining him on this mission is The Atom (Brandon Routh), who is tech billionaire and genius inventor Ray Palmer by day and a size-changing crimefighter by night. Dr. Palmer, as well as the rest of the cast, comes to us courtesy of DC's other two CW shows, Arrow and The Flash. previously on Arrow, Palmer had been thought dead after being kidnapped by baddie Damian Darhk. Ray rejoined the world of the living after being rescued by Team Arrow, but he is still haunted by the notion that his "death" seemed to have little impact on the world. Whether it's his ego, or a genuine desire to do good in the world, Ray sees Rip Hunter's offer as an opporitunity to create a legacy.

I should mention here that Rip Hunter cons the heroes into joining him by promising they are considered "legends" in the future. In fact, Rip plucks these particular characters out of the time stream because they actually have NO impact on the timeline and are therefore disposable. This twist comes later in the show, and Dr. Palmer is hit the hardest by it.

Filling the role of obligitory badass hand-to-hand fighter is Sarah Lance, the White Canary, (Caity Lotz) who joins up for no other reason than she's become redundant in the world of Arrow. Okay, maybe that's a tad cruel. What I mean to say is, she's a warrior without an opponent, a soldier without a mission, and a pop tart without a toaster. I'm sure there will be more to say about her as the series continues, but for now all we need to know is that she likes to dance uninterrupted and fancies the ladies. I'm probably not doing this character justice. Let's move on.

Also along for the ride are Hawkman and Hawkgirl, played by Falk Hentschel and Ciara Renee. We learned the story of their reincarnation cycle and eternal struggle with Vandal Savage in the last Flash/Arrow crossover. They have a bone to pick with Savage, since he keeps killing them over and over throughout the ages. 207 times or so, actually. When the heroes travel back in time to 1975, they seek out a college professor who is the only living (at that time) authority on Vandal Savage. The professor turns out to be the son of a past version of Hawkgirl. Little twists like this with these two reincarnated characters make this show very exciting for me. The idea of past lives has always attracted me to the Hawk characters and I'm glad the writers are embracing it.

That's one thing I noticed about this show: everything tumbles into place exceptionally well. None of the characters seem out of place and what I once feared was going to be a poor man's Justice League has the potential to be something more interesting than the League ever was. At the root of this show is a very promising storytelling engine. But let's get back to the team . . .

One of the more interesting characters in DC's stable of heroes is without a doubt, Firestorm, the Nuclear Man. Firestorm is a hero that results from the merging of two separate beings: Aging Professor Martin Stein (Victor Garber) and the youthful Jefferson "Jax" Jackson (Franz Drameh). Professor Stein is genuinely excited by Rip's offer, as a chance to experience actual time travel is the wet dream of any physicist, I'd imagine. Jefferson doesn't want any part of it, but is roofied by Stein and shanghai'd along. To which I wonder--why does Professor Stein have roofies on-hand in his office? #problematic

Just kidding. That part was funny. If you don't think about it too hard.

Rounding out Rip Hunter's task force are the criminal duo of Captain Cold and Heatwave, regulars from The Flash. Their code names are self-explanatory. Prison Break stars Wentworth Miller and Domic Purcell reunite and, in my opinion, steal the show. Being the "bad boys" of the team, they bring much-needed levity to what could easily devolve into a tropey melodrama. They join up bedazzled by the possibility of stealing priceless artifacts from history. How long the more heroic members of the team will tolerate them remains to be seen. The inclusion of these two characters had me cocking my head to the side when the show was first announced, but now I understand what they bring to the table. Captain Cold is going to be everyone's favorite character soon, mark my words.

But let's jump back to Rip Hunter for a sec. Aside from the reveal of why he chose the heroes and villains he did, there is a second reveal that really drives the series and presents a slew of possible antagonists other than Vandal Savage for the team to deal with. At the beginning of the episode, we see Rip pleading with the other Time Lords . . . I mean Time Masters, to give him a Waverider (Time Machine) and let him deal with Savage once and for all. The episode continues with the audience assuming Rip was granted the ship by the Time Masters only to discover later that he was denied and stole the ship. We learn that Rip has a personal vendetta against Savage. Savage murdered his wife and child.

Nothing says "superheroes" like dead family members, at least if my memory of twenty-plus years of reading comic books serves.

The one weak area in the show that I can see is the villain. Vandal Savage is pretty arch, giving a weaksauce Christoph Waltz-like performance as the big bad. It's not too offensive, and Savage does some across as a genuine threat, but I worry that he won't be able to carry an entire series. It reminds me of the Purple Man in Jessica Jones. He starts out as a terrifying baddie, but as the episodes wear on he runs out of steam and the show suffers for it. Hopefully, the crew at DCTV have more surprise villains to drop on us.

Lastly, there's one critical element to this show that immediately made it a "must watch" for me--My wife liked it. She hasn't responded to Arrow or The Flash in a positive way, but this show had the right mix of humor, romance, and sci-fi to hold her attention. When you can enjoy this stuff with the people you love, I can forget about a corny villain or a predictable plot.

Good on ya, TV people. I'll be back every Thursday. And will probably write about it too! As always, thanks for reading and you can direct your slings and arrows of outrageous folly to @ChrisBComics on Twitter.

Image Credit: Jordon Nuttall/TheCW

The Old School Gives Way

Avengers Vol. 3 #37

Written by Kurt Busiek

Art by Steve Epting and Al Vey

It's amazing what a difference a few years can make. Just look at Marvel comics. A scant few years ago, a concept like The Avengers played second fiddle to 90's juggernauts like Spider-Man and the X-Men. It wasn't until the rise of Marvel's current cinematic universe that characters like Thor, Captain America, and even Iron Man would get any kind of reaction from the casual fan, much less a positive one.

Seriously, do you remember Tony Stark being nearly as cool as he is now pre-Robert Downey Jr.? Of course you don't. It took a great director and killer performance to bring that character to life in a way that a mainstream audience can digest and appreciate. The material and potential were always there, but it needed a kick in the pants in terms of presentation.

I also feel there's a point in the comics where the Avengers needed a kick in the pants. Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar would do the kicking in this scenario, however. Back in the late nineties, The Avengers was a quality comic book for sure, with Kurt Busiek writing and the living legend George Perez on art duties, but with indy books like The Authority and Powers deconstructing super-powered characters in new and interesting ways, the classic super-heroics in Avengers may have seemed stale by comparison. Busiek and Perez had a storied three year run that would've been more at home a few years prior I think, harkening back to the Roger Stern era with the constantly shifting team roster, rogues gallery of classic big bads, and the kind of storytelling bombast Stan Lee and Jack Kirby built the Marvel house on.

Despite being a favorite run of many O.G. Avengers fans, Busiek and Perez's run was not to last. Busiek himself would continue on the title as the writer for a stretch, which is where today's back issue dive springs from. And stepping up to the plate on art, with the unenviable task of having to follow George Perez, is Steve Epting.

Epting was an Avengers vet already, although his work here is leagues beyond the material he produced for the original Avengers series during the (shudder) Bob Harras run. The work here seems simpler and cleaner, perhaps the result of Al Vey's inks. Vey worked with Perez during his tenure on the book, and most likely wanted to maintain a certain visual continuity, even with a new artist jumping on. Epting is also far from done with the Marvel stable at this point in his career. Most recently, you may have seen his work in Ed Brubaker's Captain America and Winter Soldier runs. And don't forget about their image series Velvet!

Issue #37 is the conclusion of a skirmish between the Avengers and the terrifying, stories-tall Bloodwraith, as he rages across the ruins of Slorenia, a fictional third world country ravaged by Ultron in a previous arc, the classic "Ultron Unlimited". Meanwhile, a separate team of Avengers must deal with the villains Pagan and Lord Templar back in NYC. Newbie member Triathalon is on display here; secretly an agent planted by the Scientologists . . . . I mean, the Triune Understanding. With Wanda's chaos magick, Avengers Team A is able to trap the Bloodwraith within the war torn country while Avengers Team B is usurped by Triathalon. The new hero succeeds where his peers have failed, much to the chagrin of the Avengers and the crows that has gathered to watch them in action. All the while, the Triune Understanding looks on and schemes.

This particular issue is a bit of a jumble. There are many characters flying around doing things and a lesser writer would resort to simplifying the action so as not to let characterization suffer. Busiek doesn't so this; instead he's able to distill a character's personality within whatever little bit of "screen time" they're given.

I can't necessarily recommend Avengers #37 as a single issue. Not unless you want to trek further back and read the Busiek run in its entirety (or at least as far back as the Ultron Unlimited story). It is an example of an Avengers book in what I like to think of as the twilight of "classic" marvel. Joe Quesada's Marvel Knights imprint and rise to power during this time would eventually influence the entire line, and the shift to "writing for the trade" would become the go-to method of producing monthly comics. I still find the cover very striking though; it always jumps out at me when I see it in longboxes.

Thanks for reading and follow me on Twitter @ChrisBComics!