Interesting analysis, but the same could be said o...

2007-08-30T17:38:17.768-03:00

Interesting analysis, but the same could be said of any writer. Bendis routinely mischaracterizes characters in his Avengers titles. Millar is guilty of it throughout all of Civil War with Tony, Reed and Cap. Johns, to some people, has made a joke of Green Lantern's numerous retcons. All of them and more could be guilty of the same things you are complaining about here.

I will concede Deathcry, as I know little about her outside this series, but Mantis was a train wreck of a character. When a character's supposed history encompasses multiple comic publishers like Mantis' does, there is very little to complain about when she is reinterpreted by another creator. Steve Englehart made a complete mess out of Mantis through his attempts to canonize his works with the renamed versions of the character at DC and Eclipse.

The version in Starlord maintains her martial artist background and comes off as everything being insignificant to her, as befits a literal interpretation of the definitions of a character known as the Celestial Madonna. No where has the character been treated as garbage or dragged through the mud. Starlord has joked about the concept of a Celestial Madonna in narrative, but that is how he has been characterized. I also may be mistaken, but I cannot recall her referring to herself as the Celestial Madonna. I believe it was just alluding to the backstory of the character with Starlord's narrative.

Kurt Busiek should be the brunt of any anger regarding this character from his bastardization of Avengers' lore in Avengers Forever.

I am sorry you did not appreciate the story as much as I did. I am usually quite critical of books I dislike, but I think you are far harsher a critic than I . Some mischaracterization of Z-List characters does not come off as "artless" or appear to be the workings of a computer to me. Maybe if I was as familiar with the characters as you appear to be, I might feel similar.

STARLORD #2 is valuable, in that it’s a current ex...

2007-08-30T11:51:26.341-03:00

STARLORD #2 is valuable, in that it’s a current example of a writer doing a story involving characters he knows very little about. If you read interviews of Giffen (Wizard Universe and IGN are two examples), you’ll find that his knowledge of Mantis seems to be limited to her appearances in the ‘70s AVENGERS, and his knowledge of Deathcry consists, apparently, of nothing more than her identity as a Shi’ar female.

Since Giffen’s intention is to do humor, he treats Mantis’s (former) identity as the Madonna as a joke, and gives Deathcry a generic Shi’ar trait exaggerated to the point of absurdity. If he’d known Mantis as a character, he’d know that the “Madonna” label is outdated; if he’d known Deathcry, he’d have realized that her role as an Avenger (during Harras’s run on AVENGERS) would make the personality he gave her ridiculous.

So, STARLORD #2 is an excellent example of hackwork written by a willing hack. That doesn’t make Giffen a bad person, morally or ethically, but writing characters without knowing anything about them, and doing it for the money, isn’t something to be proud of. Such an artless story might as well have been produced by a computer.

Steven R. Stahl

Comments on The Weekly Crisis - Comic Book Review Blog: Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews for 08/22/07

Interesting analysis, but the same could be said o...

STARLORD #2 is valuable, in that it’s a current ex...