The Pull List (12-17-08): Wait, I'm getting Sentry and Supergirl now?

Man! A minute ago it was 11 a.m. and now it's more than five hours later! Damn this "getting work done" (not that I blog from work ... because that would be wrong). I don't know where the time goes, but I do know it's time for the list!

Getting ...

Age of the Sentry #4 (of 6): In spite of my hatred for this character, it only took one issue to make me fall in love with this ode to Silver Age silliness. Nifty, appropriately cartoony art and breezy writing make this one of the most fun books currently on the stands and leaves me feeling like that guy from the Hotels[dot]com commercial: Aagh, it's working! They got me!

Cthulhu Tales #9: Fun fact: If a book has "Cthulhu" in the title, there's an 86 percent chance I'm going to want to buy it. It doesn't hurt that this series is fairly well-done as far as anthologies go; some stories wind up being duds here and there, but the quality stuff is consistent enough to make it worth picking up.

Fall Of Cthulhu: Godwar #4: Along with Cthulhu Tales, this horror comic is consistently good, and writer Michael Alan Nelson is bringing together all the pieces he's put in place for a story that's become suddenly tense and menacing. It's a fine homage to Lovecraft while remaining neatly original.

Manhunter #37: A new storyline begins with this issue — too bad the series ends with the next one.

Supergirl #36: Generally speaking, I try to avoid getting sucked into all the crossover, here's-your-checklist-complete-with-index, "event" books ... but an interesting story that's establishing a new status quo for the Superman family has grabbed me. I credit the coordination between writers Geoff Johns, James Robinson and Sterling Gates for producing separate chapters that read as one cohesive story.


Maybe ...

DCU Holiday Special 2008

Thor God-Sized #1

Wormwood Gentleman Corpse: Down The Pub (one-shot)


Trading up ...
(Titles I either am, or will be, picking up in trade)

Conan the Cimmerian #6

Ex Machina #40

Fables #79


Recommended ...

Vagabond Vol 2 (VIZBIG Edition)

Welcome To Dingburg: A Zippy Collection

Review: Learning to love The Age of the Sentry

I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong.

I don't like it, but I can do it. And in the case of The Age of the Sentry — in particular issue #3, which was released this week — I have to admit that my long-standing disdain for the character has been broken. The Age of the Sentry is just ... well, really good.

With writing by personal favorite Jeff Parker, a second story by Paul Tobin, and art from both Nick Dragotta and Colleen Coover, Age of the Sentry is, in a word, charming. And it's the best kind of charm, managing to avoid being cloying or precious and instead treating readers to light-hearted adventure that isn't dumbed down. It's nice to see some writers and artists know you can be silly without being stupid, and that keeping things straightforward doesn't mean sacrificing story.

Meant as a look at the hero's early adventures, the stories in Age of the Sentry are love letters to the Golden and Silver ages of comics, with unapologetic nods to the past of both Marvel and DC. By keeping things playful, the creative teams touch on these elements without being weighed down by them; a deep knowledge of continuity is definitely not needed to enjoy the book. The scripts — covering everything from a hillbilly powerhouse, a shotgun wedding for the Sentry, wonderfully ridiculous use of superpowers, and a lovelorn Manoo getting dating advice from Millie the Model — are a pleasure to read, and reminded me of how much I love the pure fun that's unique to comics.

It's easy to tell that the creators are having fun, too. Dialogue is a perfect echo of the period in comics it's trying to evoke, but with a subtle wink at the hyperbole that was typical of the time. Scenarios are wacky in the best sense of the word, and it all just shows a lot of heart.

The styles of artists Dragotta and Coover are very different, but they share a quality of being simple without being simplistic, and both are well-suited to the stories they're telling. Coover's art, in particular, is just freakin' adorable, and both artists helped draw me in. Add to all this the little in-jokes and asides like the recurring "E.E." initials, the "Design submitted by ..." caption boxes in the Millie story, and too many others to do justice to here, and you've got a comic that will appeal to anyone with a soul.

Considering my history with the Sentry, I can't believe I'm saying this — wholeheartedly, at that — but The Age of the Sentry is a comic you shouldn't miss. Get it.

Why I hate The Sentry

As a character, The Sentry just doesn’t work.

First, he’s anchored down by being an obvious knock-off a certain other super-powered ubermensch. That’d be fine on the face of it (it’s not as if it hasn’t been done to death already), but here’s the problem — he's in the Marvel Universe.

Without getting into the whole discussion of the differences between the Marvel and DC universes, lets just stick to the fact that DC is filled with heroes with nearly god-like powers, while Marvel is filled with heroes that are more (for lack of a better word) human.

Which works for DC because it’s all leavened with a healthy helping of silly – the edge is taken off the “real-world” implications of having a bunch of super-powered yahoos tearing ass around the city fighting bad guys when there’s also, y’know, a secret society of talking gorillas or something.

But that’s never been what Marvel’s about. Marvel’s about heroes the reader can relate to, usually through characters who aren’t so powerful they don’t get the crap kicked out of them on a regular basis (seriously, it’s amazing there aren’t a bunch of punch-drunk heroes wandering around Manhattan), and who have some sort of angsty back-story that gives them a reliable Achilles’ Heel to tap into. If DC is a hyper, piñata-smacking kid at a birthday party, Marvel is the two or three emo teens slouching around in the corner.

Don’t get me wrong – I love both universes, despite their flaws. But I think this is part of what is essentially wrong with The Sentry; he’s been shoe-horned into his Universe. He was OK in the original stand-alone story, a kind of What If? that was interesting in its bloated, heavy-handed, self-satisfied kind of way. But then Marvel tried to force the character down the throats of its readers, and not only that, it was seasoned with the idea that The Sentry is in some way essential to the MU.

And he’s not.

Add to that the fact Marvel probably went too far in giving Sentry its patented Feet of Clay brand cement shoes (the better to weigh your character down!), and you’ve got an almost all-powerful schizophrenic agoraphobic, a collection of neuroses with the power of a million exploding suns. A superhero who never. Does. Anything.

And readers, on whatever level, recognize that.

Nobody is invested in The Sentry, no matter how much Marvel wants to pretend otherwise. Nobody cares about his place in the Marvel Universe, because he really doesn’t have one at all. And due to how forced the character is on nearly every level, almost nobody likes The Sentry.

Including me.

So, what do you think of The Sentry?

Panel from World War Hulk #5