Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Strange Adventures #5 - DC


Jim Starlin is a master story-teller. And, he's weaving one of his masterpiece cosmic odysseys in this book. By the way . . this time he writes and draws it. All of the characters are in play . . they're just all in different places right now. Synnar's Aberrant Six seem to be coming together faster and faster now. Strange, Comet, Eye and Prince Gavyn make up the majority of the group. Hawkman is supposed to be a member to, but it appears that his presence will be replaced by that of Bizarro's. Although the only people that seem to be aware of that, right now are Deacon Dark and Lady Styx. And, although the Weird is also on the list . . he's having a whole bunch of problems because it seems that his and Synnar's essences got mixed up during their recent resurrection. The Weird has become omnipotent, but he doesn't know what to do with that power and it seems to be warping his perspective of reality. He's been devouring whole star-systems, and right now he's attacking his friends. Synarr, in the form of the Weird, is trying to get his group together so that they can eliminate the Weird and he can get his powers back. Right now the Weird is blocking him from doing that. He claims that the Weird threatens the entire universe, but he only wants to get his powers back so that he can challenge the supreme being . . God! Or, a God. I'm not sure which. With this issue the story doesn't progress much, other than Adam and Comet being sucked into the Weird's psyche when Comet reaches out to try to communicate with him. Hopefully now they can figure out what's wrong with the Weird, and why he seems to be acting so whacked-out. Whatever the case, I think the reason this book is so important is because through it, and a couple other mini-series by Jim over the last year or two, this part of the universe is eventually going to be defined by what's happened here. Part of what I think is so brilliant about all of this is that Jim started everything quite a while ago. It was 1988 when he wrote the Weird's mini-series. And it was 1998 when he created Hardcore Station, in it's own mini-series. Now we're sitting here . . 20 years later, and it's all coming together. What other writer do you know of that has that kind of foresight and vision? I can't wait to see how this all comes out.

2 comments:

  1. What did you think of "Death of the New gods?"

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  2. I thought it was great. I remember I first read them with issue #12, I believe. It was the early 80's and they had just been brought back. So of course I had to find the original Jack Kirby issues. Basically, the guy created a masterpiece. I know some people out there probably don't agree with their 'deaths', but . . I thought it was a natural evolution of the story. Having read the Forever People, and Mister Miracle, and the 2 or 3 series that kept them relevant in the 90's, sooner or later the 5th World was going to have to come about. And, without the 'King' around to finish the tale, I thought Jim Starlin was the obvious choice.

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