 |
| It just would be the crossing without needless ass shots. |
It's time again for that special kind
of pain known as The Crossing. When we left off Tony Stark was
responsible for several murders, the wasp was suffering from
bankruptcy, a new member of Force Works had appeared from outta
nowhere, and fashion sense was at an all time low. What else could
possibly go wrong? Let's find out.
Iron Man #320
I never knew that Stark had his own
medical center/loony bin nor that he used it to stash away
ex-girlfriends yet that is exactly where the story picks up. Some
fine ass blonde breaks free of the place and runs off into the dark
and stormy night on her way to find Tony. As she jumps and flips off
the building we're treated to this informative bit of writing that
states “Nothing but the fragile orchids of her own garden hurt in
the fall.” The fuck? Did she pull her vagina during those
acrobatics?
Moving on to a sunny morning in L.A.
Iron Man spends his hours putting a stop to a variety of crimes in
some rather odd ways. Best example being when he stops a drug dealer
from selling to private school kids by straight up crushing her hand!
This art is just so very 90's. Of course no one would notice a woman
selling drugs in broad daylight to 6 year olds with adult hands.
After crippling the woman, Tony has a press conference to open a
park. He's having a full day.
 |
| I guess that's one way to stop a crime. |
Then there's a brief aside to some
random guys in Vietnam who discover that a special temple has
disappeared and that the priests of pama may be damned. Make any
sense to you? Me neither.
Back at the office, Tony has a quick
collab with his assistant Bethany, and shows off the advantadge of
being the guy who makes up the dress code. After a lil sexual
harassment he goes down to his basement to talk with what is
apparently a homosexual robot. Had to look this guy up online.
Machinesmith was some tech savvy villain who transfers his
consciousness to a robot after death. Of course this robot looks just
like he did as a person and it seems like he's got a mad crush on the
Vision. Tony claims he just has him around for tech talk but I'm not
buying it.
 |
| It's good to be the boss. |
The remainder of the issue consists of
Tony whining, blacking out to visions of a blonde girl, waking up in
his kitchen, and going outside for a good cry. So far, these Iron Man
issues are the worst part of the crossing which doesn't come as a
huge surprise since their written by Terry Kavinough. Long time
visitors may remember him as the man responsible for the first comic
I ever owned and a piss poor writer.
Avengers #391
Back in Avengers land, Swordsman goes
out for a late night walk and bumps into Tuc the fortune teller and
some old bald monk who commands him to “got to where the heroes
gather and ask who morns for Agaphaur?” I've already finished
reading this tome and I don't think he ever got around to sharing
that info. Good job, swordy. This is interrupted by another visit to
the wasps lawyers who've discovered which rat bastard is
responsible for her financial troubles. Do we get to share in this
knowledge? Nope. That's knowledge for another day but it does give us
another exaggerated close up of Janet's reaction face.
 |
| I still don't understand the reason for any of this subplot. |
Back at the Mansion, the others are
finally catching on to the multiple homicides that happened during
yesterdays party. Before they can come to any conclusions, another
slaughter takes place.
Don't let the art fool you into
thinking this new threat is imposing. He's actually a lil blue dwarf
that came outta the magic door in the basement (what's with this
story and basements anyway?). He wastes Gilgamesh which seems like
overkill since his cellular degradation was supposed to kill him in
just a few hours anyway. He then proceeds to kick the teams
collective ass before running back to his magical doorway for a
glowly escape.
Licking their wounds, the Avengers pack
up and abandon the mansion as some mystery woman laughs. Also of note
is how Luna repeatedly says “bad man” when Stark's on the comm
room monitor and does anyone take a hint? Not a one. Seriously; her
and Rachel Carpenter have already got this mystery in the bag while
their parents stand around drooling. Oh crap, next up is another Iron
Man issue.
Iron Man #321
A great deal of this issue revolves
around Tony and Hank Pym trying their best “science” on that
magic dwarf spawning door. Nothing makes a dent in the thing so Tony
takes a time-out to chat with a rather vascular looking Hercules.
 |
| You might want to get that checked out, Herc. |
Gotta note the bit where the narrator
mentions Pym's difficulty in shrinking back down to normal size. It
seems like they wanted to return to the era when he was stuck as a
permanent giant but this is never mentioned again for the entire
crossover. It's one of many instances where this event starts
something without actually going anywhere with it.
Stark eventually gets the brilliant
idea to rebuild the surveillance cam footage from the night of the
party and discovers...well they don't show it but since we already
know who did it, big whoop. Then he has another black out, waking to
find that Hank has been smacked down like a bitch. Then the crazy
ex-grilfriend shows up resulting in the most hilariously dramatic
panel so far.
 |
| hahahahah! I can't, oh I just can't! |
She chases him around the mansion for a
bit until right as she's about to kill him, Madam Masque shows up
with a taser. Hank wakes up to discover the mansion is empty. That's
it.
Force Works #17
Oh thank god it's Force Works. These
are the highest quality issues this event has to offer so it's almost
refreshing to read one. We open in Vietnam where a kid named Kim is
flying kites with his friends until a monk appears from nowhere,
slams into the kid and they both vanish. And boy do I mean vanish.
Kim's friends don't ever remember his existence anymore. Kim's got
some assholes for friends.
Way back in California, Iron Man (so
much for his disappearance) is showing the new girl he brought in to
the Force Works crew. Suzi Endo made her own tech suit and is
honestly a more effective hero and dresser than most of the other
characters in the story so far. She's not the only surprise Stark has
for the team though as he shows them the aforementioned surveillance
footage which shows Hawkeye killing the nanny. A small fight later
and U.S. Agent is on the hunt for his old buddy, who he finds (in
costume mind you) at a pool hall. Just love that these guys do
everyday stuff in their uniforms. Where's the issue where they go to
get groceries in full battle gear? Anyway; turns out Iron Man and
Suzi, oh excuse me, Cybermancer (oh, that name) followed Agent. They
knock out Hawkeye and head back to base.
Back at the base, Rachel is witness to
Moonraker having some kinda good old fashioned freakout. Turns out no
one believes that she's never seen the guy before. Why do none of
these people listen to their fucking kids? Upon returning with the
unconscious Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch kicks Iron Man off the team and
they all go to check on Moonraker, who's noticed that Vietnam is
gone. No one else remembers such a place ever existing. Astute Marvel
fans might think that the Vietnam connection could in some way alter
Iron Mans past since that's where his origin took place. Maybe that
has something to do with why it's gone. And who knows what kind of
changes ripple through society without the Vietnam war being a thing,
I mean just think of a sad world without Rambo movies. Well forget
all that cause the writers never thought to cover any of those angles
or the fact that if Vietnam didn't exist than there's a strong chance
Iron Man wouldn't either.
Most of the team flies off to
investigate, leaving Agent and Cybermancer to watch the prisoner, and
Iron Man just goes off to continue being a bitch. Oh and Vietnam?
It's a crazy portal full of shadow birds or something.
War Machine #20
At last, the final series of the
crossover comes in. And this one is actually nice enough to fill us
in on recent developments. Turns out James Rhodes had recently lost
his classic Armor and decided to take a trip to Canada. While there
he found and bonded with an alien suit called Eidolan Warware. Marvel
was obviously trying to give ol Rohdy the Venom treatment. If alien
costumes can spice up one comic, why not another? What they didn't
take into consideration is that while the original Venom symbiotic
was pretty cool looking, this thing is....wow.....just take a look.
 |
| Behold the great technoturtle! |
Now if that design weren't bad enough
the art team isn't doing it any favors. The War Machine issues are
the recipients of the worst art in this collection. Just check out
this bit from a side story about some lady friends.
 |
| Sexy? |
So Rhodes is taking a drive with a
mystery woman who knows thing about his warware when they come across
a giant guy named Wulfgang who's going through some super roid rage.
This gives Jim a cheap opportunity to show off the new suit and fill
in a few pages. Afterward the lady runs off and our hero gets dragged
into the story at large when U.S. Agent fills him in on recent
events. Rhodes take the surveillance tape for analysis which shows
that it's so high quality, only 3 or 4 people could have faked it.
One of those people is of course, Tony Stark.
Agent and War Machine decide to take
Hawkeye someplace he'll be safe. This involves beating Cybermancer
out of her wits and snatching a jet. With that; everything is in
place for this story to truly go off the rails. Don't dare miss the
next entry folks cause this thing really does make the jump from
stupid to full on travesty. See ya soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment