JulianPerez
08-23-2009, 09:15 PM
I picked up the Essential because I figured it'd be great fun. The Thing is my favorite Marvel character of all time, one of the few truly unique creations in all of comics: I love his humor and dialogue, and also his moody self-pity. Plus, Gerber was involved, and he'd never steer me wrong, right?
I've never seen a comic so obstinate in using bad villains, to the point where it almost verges on the sadistic. God, I wish I was joking: Kurrgo from Planet X shows up in the first comic, a harbinger of things to come. Not to mention Master Man (remember him?) and the Living Eraser (Oh God...).
There was one bit in Howard the Duck this made me think of: any good comics fan worth their salt can list the villains in the first 25 issues of Fantastic Four by memory.
The Badoon show up, but they're a faceless mob and no personalities emerge. It's actually something of a relief when cool villains like the Puppet Master and Seth, God of Death show up.
There's very little of the pathos that makes the Thing so interesting and sympathetic and a little sad. For many of the stories either the Thing or the Guest-Star is awkwardly shoehorned in as an afterthought.
I love continuity as much as the next guy, but the comic also seemed determined to answer questions no one asked: what happened to the nega-bands inside Tomazooma the Living Totem?
I've never seen a comic so obstinate in using bad villains, to the point where it almost verges on the sadistic. God, I wish I was joking: Kurrgo from Planet X shows up in the first comic, a harbinger of things to come. Not to mention Master Man (remember him?) and the Living Eraser (Oh God...).
There was one bit in Howard the Duck this made me think of: any good comics fan worth their salt can list the villains in the first 25 issues of Fantastic Four by memory.
The Badoon show up, but they're a faceless mob and no personalities emerge. It's actually something of a relief when cool villains like the Puppet Master and Seth, God of Death show up.
There's very little of the pathos that makes the Thing so interesting and sympathetic and a little sad. For many of the stories either the Thing or the Guest-Star is awkwardly shoehorned in as an afterthought.
I love continuity as much as the next guy, but the comic also seemed determined to answer questions no one asked: what happened to the nega-bands inside Tomazooma the Living Totem?