Late for the Party: Endangered Species and HoM Avengers
September 4th, 2008 by Gavok | Tags: agent x, avengers, beast, dark beast, house of m, luke cage, Marvel comics, moon knight, tigra, x-menAs I’ve mentioned before, I tend to buy more than I can read. I have mountains of books lying around for forever that I just can’t find the time to finish off. Who knows when I’ll be able to crack open Essential Frankenstein’s Monster? Finally, I was able to make some time for myself to get to reading.
First I read X-Men: Endangered Species. I had that one lying around for a while and I really needed to read through it just so I could segue myself into Messiah Complex. Complex was pretty rad, no doubt. Endangered Species was different, though.
hermanos told me how he and just about everyone else considered it to be a dull flop of a story. I disagree. Everyone has been looking at it the wrong way. I figured it out, see. Endangered Species isn’t truly about Beast and Dark Beast trying to rekindle the mutant population through every possible means until giving up. No, not at all.
Endangered Species is a comic book retelling of Super Mario Brothers. God, it’s so obvious.
You have this hero whose main ability is to jump around a lot. He goes on a quest with his palette-swapped companion to break into a series of fortresses in different far-off lands. As they search for answers, they gain hope in their findings, only to be told over and over and over again…
Soon, after Player 2 had run out of lives and reached Game Over, Player 1 finds the Princess. He finds her and it’s completely anti-climactic. Yep. Immediately after, our hero finds himself back where he started. Just like the game.
Deep, man. Deep.
The other thing I read was House of M: Avengers. Christos Gage’s better-late-than-never approach at Luke Cage’s life in Wanda’s retcon reality is a fun one. Personally, I’ve always wanted to see a story about Cage and Fist going up against the Kingpin. Thunderbird makes a fun opponent for Cage to deal with. Not only that, but that Cage vs. Taskmaster scene was badass as hell.
Which reminds me, did anyone complain that Gage hates women because he killed off Tigra?
There are three things I found kind of funny with the miniseries. First off, the Agent X situation. I’m sure most, if not all of you have no idea what I’m referencing.
See that guy in the middle? Judging from his ethnicity, his color scheme, goggles and the X across his chest, it’s assumed that this guy is Nijo alias Alex Hayden alias Agent X. It makes sense, since without Deadpool existing within the House of M universe, Nijo wouldn’t have become the goofy scar-faced bald guy. Plus it fits in with his honorable criminal status from before his transformation.
I thought that was a pretty cool Easter egg. Bendis didn’t call attention to him or anything, but it was there. I was curious to what Gage would do with the character. Would he mention him as Nijo? Would he forget to include him? Would he write him as an alternate version of a completely different character?
As it turns out, Gage just decided to play it safe. Nijo’s in the mini, all right, but he’s relegated to just being there. He doesn’t say anything, do anything or even show up in group fights. He’s just background dressing. I guess he didn’t have the time or effort to pick up his phone and ask, “Hey, Brian? What’s the deal with the Asian dude?”
That’s a minor thing. Something weird that caught my eye comes from the final issue. Cage releases a bunch of sapian criminals from prison. He tells them that despite their differences, they have to band together and fight Thunderbird’s Brotherhood or it’s over for all of them.
This leads to a cool two-page spread of human vs. mutants. Hawkeye and Gladiator team up against the Blob. Moon Knight puts the boots to Avalanche. Cage and Thunderbird slug it out.
In the middle of this is Iron Fist and Elektra fighting each other. Hey, that makes for a cool fight any other day, but THEY’RE ON THE SAME TEAM! What’s the deal with that? Did they decide that they had the numbers advantage and lent Elektra to the mutants to keep things fair?
Lastly, there’s the costume change sequence. Since Bendis had everyone in more down-to-earth threads in the original miniseries, there had to be a bridge. Cage had been busting everyone’s chops about their gaudy costumes from the beginning and towards the end, when getting ready for the final battle, they started stripping off their tights and changed into less dramatic outfits.
It’s Moon Knight’s choice of attire that gets my attention. Well, Black Cat removing her clothes gets my attention too, but that’s not my point.
“The moon gives me extra strength… but it also gives me a nasty nosebleed.”
That’s enough for now. Join me tomorrow as I complain about Venom: Dark Origin like a whiny fanboy. It’ll be fun.
Besides, I need to do something to keep me from writing a review for Marvel Apes #1. I might as well just wait for all four issues to be out before lambasting it. Damn you, Marvel. Damn you all to Hell.
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“Which reminds me, did anyone complain that Gage hates women because he killed off Tigra?”
I heard somebody complain that Bendis hates women because Gage killed off Tigra. Hurray for inunformed bitching!
hey, that’s pretty cool, how Fists’ sweatsuite matches his superhero garb.
Honestly, the thing that stuck in my craw about Tigra’s death was that she took a bullet for Luke Cage. Luke Cage, the guy with bulletproof skin. It was specially designed to pierce his unbreakable skin, but how did she know and, more importantly, how come it doesn’t go further than her chest?
@HitTheTargets:
Wow I never noticed that, perhaps going through her slowed it down enough to NOT pierce Luke, that it did hit him after but they just didnt need to show it bouncing off.