Bob Layton

Boy, was this a slog. I could appreciate the kitsch for only so long. I was reminded of the quote from John Waters: "Good bad taste is celebrating something without thinking you're better than it... Bad bad taste is condescending, making fun of others." Unfortunately, Jim Shooter's reckless, overwritten mess of a script inspires the latter.

I could see recommending Secret Wars for its historical value, and for the fact that Dr. Doom has got to be one of the ripest villains for popular show more revision. He is far and away the most interesting character in this (and other) stories. The camp can be rich, as in this morsel - the Wasp in book 6:

"Oh, no! I broke a nail! I don't even have an emery board and I'm thirty-seven trillion miles from my manicurist and it's her day off anyway!"

Moments like these are just too rare to make the book entertaining. No, mostly it's just boring, which is the worst thing a comic can be. show less

Boy, was this a slog. I could appreciate the kitsch for only so long. I was reminded of the quote from John Waters: "Good bad taste is celebrating something without thinking you're better than it... Bad bad taste is condescending, making fun of others." Unfortunately, Jim Shooter's reckless, overwritten mess of a script inspires the latter.

I could see recommending Secret Wars for its historical value, and for the fact that Dr. Doom has got to be one of the ripest villains for popular show more revision. He is far and away the most interesting character in this (and other) stories. The camp can be rich, as in this morsel - the Wasp in book 6:

"Oh, no! I broke a nail! I don't even have an emery board and I'm thirty-seven trillion miles from my manicurist and it's her day off anyway!"

Moments like these are just too rare to make the book entertaining. No, mostly it's just boring, which is the worst thing a comic can be. show less

This came out when I first started reading comics and so I have a lot of affection for it. Sadly, I'm afraid it's not very good. The art is solid, but the writing is a little painful, as is the dialogue. The premise is wafer thin and the characters are often written drastically differently then they are normally. There are many contrivances and painful coincidences. The early issues, where the book just keeps throwing characters at each other is fun, but even that breaks down as the final show more few issues are just cosmic musings. show less

Iron Man has evolved a lot over the past few years, and for the better, in my opinion. (As an interesting character, I mean - not necessarily, like, morally.) This storyline consequently comes across even more old-school than it was, although David Michelinie was yer quintessential Marvel hack. But all the stuff that makes this kind of not work - "They stole my technology? They used it for . . . . EVIL?!" - weirdly also kind of makes it work, in that you can ignore the cheesines, distill it show more down to bare facts, and add that nugget to your "Iron Man history" tumbler - although I choose to imagine it occurring a lot earlier than it did - early seventies? Iron Man's first step toward sophistication? Maybe if he hadn't been hitting the bottle so hard he would have noticed that they were stealing his tech? Works for me. So I guess now there's two registers in which to evaluate superhero comics (and, incidentally, soap operas): 1. Is this awesome? 2. Is it consequential? Does it develop the character, ir is it essentially without meaning? This book has more of 2 than 1. show less