Comics Fondle

I read some bad reviews of Dan Slott’s Avengers: The Initiative and didn’t believe them. I’ve never read anything bad from Slott before… but Initiative is awful. It’s if Fox News did one hours shows… oh, wait, I guess they do (“24”), so it’s kind of a mix of “American Idol,” “24,” and something else awful.Besides the stupid characters–which are most of them–there’s also the downright awful ones. These aren’t good human beings–they’re garbage and there’s no point in reading an “American Idol” filled with neo-con garbage. It’s actually not propaganda, just because it’s not competently written enough. Besides all of Slott’s characters either being stupid, bad, or evil (and these are established characters… like Hank Pym), his whole concept is poorly handled. It’s a super-hero training camp–ostensibly run by the Avengers–but it’s really a military operation. For that aspect, Slott basically lifts from Full Metal Jacket. It might just be me, but constantly berating and abusing a bunch of walking h-bombs–I mean, if Slott doesn’t have one of them go insane and kill a bunch of innocent people for fun, he’s being dishonest to the situation he’s established.

I’d like to say–since I just got done posting a glowing review of Slott’s She-Hulk–something nice about The Initiative, but there’s really nothing. It’s a dumb idea, incompetently executed. Even when Slott makes an honest observation–a teenage girl feeling awkward around a goddess–he undercuts it with the lame, ensemble feel of the book. It’s amateurish, not something I expect from Slott, who’s usually very sure of himself.

I actually forgot to preorder this one, so I picked it up off the racks at my shop today. I should have taken that forgetfulness as karma coming through for me… you know how Mozart’s supposed to make you smarter for a short period of time, the composition stimulating brain cells or whatnot? I’m pretty sure The Initiative has made me stupider, but luckily, not enough I’ll buy the second issue.

F

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