I must confess I like the big crossovers. It's a guilty pleasure I indulge only occasionally, because I'd much rather curl up with a handful of trade paperbacks than wait the months and years it takes the major comics industry to shamble through a story arc. I realize it's the folks who buy the weeklies who keep the whole thing going, but I'm not going to bend over backwards to support the medium while those who are actually creating the stuff act like it's still the golden age.
Maybe it all made sense way back in the day when it was just Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and a Gutenberg, but this is the post Al Gore era, and we've got some fairly sophisticated technology that is not really being utilized by Marvel and the others.
Come on, guys. Haven't you heard of webcomics? It's embarrassing to watch your multi-million dollar operations struggle to match the output of one dude in a basement with Adobe Creative Suite and a stolen wireless signal.
I didn't grow up with a favorite series or publisher. It was later in life, reading DC's Kingdom Come and its fat, inbred cousins on the Marvel side -- Earth X, Paradise X, and Universe X -- that I was introduced to the world of the ludicrously complicated serialized comic book universe. While the former sparked very little interest, for some reason Marvel's complex milieu was weirdly compelling, and I set out to explore further. I think one should be awarded a master's degree in the Marvel Universe if you manage to complete the X Series and have any idea what the hell happened. I didn't want to see all that research go to waste.
Obviously I didn't read everything, but I ended up taking in all the crossovers and most of the major stories involving the X-Men between Grant Morrison's New X-Men (which began in 2001) and the more recent Secret Invasion (which ended January of this year). After mentioning that last one, I feel I have to revise the statement I made earlier.
I like the idea of big crossovers.
The reason I prefer Marvel is that DC's characters are almost all loners. Most of them acquired their powers through accident or determination, and most of them are just different versions of the tired old superhero double life meme. Now, I wasn't around when X-Men began, so it could have been different before, but Marvel's characters are more likely to be part of a community of some kind. They don't observe the world from orbit, thinking important thoughts and punching monsters, they're part of the world. They influence society and society influences them.
In theory, the Marvel universe is well-suited for crossover stories. Indeed, some very entertaining titles were spawned in this current crossover-heavy era. House of M was good, but I feel obligated to state that I probably enjoy alternate universe stories and the X-Men series more than average. Brian Michael Bendis even went so far as to retcon crossovers into Marvel's history with New Avengers Illuminati. In this limited series, it is revealed that the leaders of various superhuman communities had been meeting in secret for decades, pulling the strings behind the scenes. I recommend it highly.
It's clear that Bendis has quite an affinity for crime, conspiracy, and mystery storytelling because he's been setting up -- or at least has convinced everyone that he has -- the Secret Invasion plot since 2004's Secret War at least. He sends Nick Fury underground and hints that something is rotten, at any rate.
I enjoyed Civil War for the most part. I especially admired the willingness it showed to introduce a world-shattering event and not simply reset everything after it was over. However, you can start to see problems with the crossover-reliant system. While the big-budget limited series is typically put together by a talented writer with above-average art and they're given authority to play with the entire setting, it starts to strain under the weight of Marvel's bloated continuity.
Not only is the central storyline burdened with at least nodding to each and every title and character, but all those other little stories get steamrolled at the same time. I've read a few of the sideline titles that were released during Civil War and you can almost hear the conversation between Joe Quesada and the less important writers in which they're instructed to change the backdrop of their comics for six months.
Don't get me started on World War Hulk.
One shining beacon of awesome in this mess takes place directly prior to the events of Secret Invasion, and that is the New Avengers series written by Bendis and penciled by Leinil Francis Yu. This one is still ongoing, but I'm talking specifically about the period between the two crossovers. After the civil war ends, a secret Avengers group is formed by the few remaining heroes who are still willing to resist registration. Led by Luke Cage, they are all traditionally loners. They don't trust each other, but they have no one left to rely upon. Bendis expertly captures the tension and isolation they experience, and Yu's pencils are unique -- gritty and stylized without descending into Chris Bachalo-esque undecipherable madness.
Last year all the drama, the conspiracies, the role-reversals, and mysteries culminated in Secret Invasion -- an infuriating cop-out that not only sucked as a stand-alone, but went back in time to inject stupid into the good stuff that happened before.
As it turns out, the interesting conflicts and power dynamics of the last decade or se were not the result of Marvel trying to add some depth to their world and characters, but were engineered by the shape-shifting Skrulls, now re-worked as religious space zealots.
What gives, Marvel? Did you go back on your stupid pills? I was interested for a while there. I thought maybe you wanted to, I don't know, actually explore the consequences of a world full of super-beings rather than just invent monsters and punch them while destroying a few blocks of Manhattan month after month after month?
I'll try to be brief. After the events of Civil War, Tony Stark is made director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He also helps to establish a nationwide superhero police force with a team in every state and a brand new all-registered Avengers in charge. While Luke Cage's Secret Avengers are in Japan fighting The Hand, they kill Electra. To their surprise, she was a Skrull agent. It turns out they had been operating in secret for some time to destabilize Earth's defenses -- especially the super-powered variety-- by infiltrating and compromising S.H.I.E.L.D., the Fifty State Initiative and basically everything else.
Over the course of the series, half the major characters are revealed as Skrulls and betray the others. Both Avengers teams are sidelined in the Savage Land when the invasion begins, and the second-stringers are easily overrun by armies of Skrulls outfitted with the stolen powers of Earth's heroes. (un)Fortunately, the Avengers get back into the game and save the day with the help of a new Captain Marvel, a new Captain America, a resurfaced Nick Fury, and a resurrected Thor.
Sadly, it was all a big, flashy reset button. This is exactly why I was hesitant to read the long-running, big name comics for so long. The stakes are set so low, it's impossible to take anything seriously. It's the same old bait-and-switch routine of the old Batman TV series. At the end of every other episode, Batman would be in some kind of deadly trap from which he would easily escape the following week. Bendis was just working the long con.
Look at the House of M series. The Scarlet Witch, completely insane and fresh from murdering her husband and half of her teammates, changes the entire world into one created by the hopes and dreams of her family and friends. Magneto rules a rather peaceful and progressive world in which mutants are dominant and humans are dying out. It was a fresh take on the old eyepatch-wearing, obviously terrible alternate universe theme which I enjoyed immensely.
Civil War was good because it put the characters into a moral quandary the likes of which is seldom seen in mainstream comics. The conflict over registration forced the characters to reflect upon their perceived roles in the power structure. We got to see which characters would stick to their convictions even if it meant sacrificing friends, family, and reputation.
Aside from a rather half-hearted attempt to discuss religious extremism, Secret Invasion does not go farther than "aliens bad, humans good" in the philosophy department. The previous crossovers were interesting because they subverted my expectations, but by Secret Invasion the Marvel universe got scared and ran back into the warm, comforting embrace of its half-century-old conventions.
It's possible I've set the bar too high. I let a few outliers adjust my expectations for a medium that is renowned for pulling this kind of crap year after boring, unimaginative year. I guess the real issue is whether it was worth all the effort. I read through a lot of garbage to discover the titles I actually liked. In the end I suppose it was worthwhile, but for the next ten years' worth of material, I think I'll let someone else do the heavy lifting. Any takers?
Showing posts with label superhero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superhero. Show all posts
Watchmen
There is a screenwriter. He or she is serving overpriced and under-portioned food to fat, wealthy, guffawing executives smoking cigars and their shrill trophy wives. He or she smiles and even flirts a little to make a better tip even though it feels dirty and dishonest. The screenwriter finally reaches home, exhausted and stinking from the day's toil, decides not join the other servers at the local bar, and not to collapse on the dirty mattress that serves as the studio apartment's only seating. No, the screenwriter sits down in front of an outdated laptop and writes the next chapter of an epic science fiction film that will never be made. It has love, betrayal, robots, the end of the world, and a candid look at the human condition. Few will ever even read it.
Apparently, we need to revisit Watchmen instead.
I suppose it was inevitable. The massive surge of film adaptations of comic classics had to crest with Watchmen. Despite the very obvious timing and pacing issues involved in said adaptation, despite the danger of fallout for despoiling a loved and respected and seminal work of art, it is too great a prize. I knew someone would take a stab at it.
And stab they did. You see, unlike Spider-Man or X-Men or one of the many other graphic titles which became films, Watchmen is a short, contained story. There is no allowance for narrative dysfunction resulting from the need to boil decades of serial down into two hours of film. Its makers are responsible for every omission, every unnecessary line, every stumble. Granted, there is more nuance in a single page of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's original comic than in the entire run of, say, The Punisher, but they knew what they were getting into. It's no excuse.
Much of the film is a straightforward, panel-by-panel interpretation of Watchmen the comic's central characters. However, many of the subplots were cut, leaving only a few glimpses of the characters involved as a wink-and-nudge to the fans in the audience. Given the fact that the climactic ending of the comic relied heavily on this material, it had to be changed to fit the far thinner movie version. I understand that the Marooned story is going to be released as a separate animated feature titled Tales of the Black Freighter. I suppose it's for the best as it wouldn't have worked as part of he full feature anyway. It ties in through another axed subplot with another set of characters. The source material is straining within the confines of its medium.
To be fair, the artistic work is very good. Although Nite Owl II and Ozymandius look a little latter-day Batman, the aesthetic is hardly out of character for either of them, and it's an honest modern interpretation of the comic heroes they represent. Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan, on the other hand, were designed quite well. I may relinquish some nerd cred when I say this, but it was very fulfilling to see the two of them on screen.
The sets and camera work deserve some praise as well. It's obvious that the original comic served as a storyboard whenever possible, and the artists who translated it to film did so with honesty and grace. Some of the segments were so beautifully rendered that it's a real shame they felt they were unable to stand on their own.
The film's hideous soundtrack booms in periodically during these scenes to remind you you're not actually having a good time watching Hollywood kidnap and murder another artistic masterpiece. It's a gaudy assortment of period pop music and a few other highly recognizable numbers (yes, I like Philip Glass as well, but can we give that song a rest, please?). It's boisterous and inconsistent. It does not heighten the emotional impact of the scenes in question, it distracts from each and every one of them. This is doubly embarrassing when you consider that most of the songs on the soundtrack are excellent. It is an insult, not just to the movie-goers they seem to think are easily distracted by shiny things, and not just to the musical artists being taken advantage of, but to the film's own art and direction by making the viewer cringe with disgust rather than be awed.
Awed by the visuals, at least. Thematically, the film utterly fails to fill the shoes of the original. Watchmen was obviously adapted by someone who read and enjoyed the comic, but assumed no one else got it. All those messy supporting characters and confusing subplots were trimmed. Where the comic was a diverse tapestry combining the stories and perspectives of many characters, the film is interested in only a few threads.
Even when it gets it right, the movie version doesn't even trust us to interpret what we see on our own. The dialogue is re-written in several places to dumb down and explain the emotions and motivations of the characters despite the fact that the imagery (usually taken directly from the comic) has already done so far more eloquently.
Take Dan Dreiberg's dream sequence, a scene I did not expect to see at all. In the comic, Moore and Gibbons trusted that their readers would understand what it meant. Apparently, the filmmakers felt this was too complex a metaphor for their audience and inserted some disjointed lines into the following scene to explain it.
This occurs repeatedly throughout the film. Now, I don't exactly have a lot of faith in the movie going public myself, but if you're going to go through all the trouble of adapting Watchmen into a film, why in the world would you cater to the unwashed simpletons who either never read it or didn't get it? The fans will hate you and the uninitiated probably weren't going to enjoy themselves anyway. It's as if half of those involved were interested in an honest translation of our beloved comic and the other half thought it was just a little too cerebral and wanted to broaden the audience. The result is a mess. Watchmen the comic is a dense piece of art, there is no question. There are layers to it that a single reading cannot penetrate, but at least it trusts you enough to figure it out for yourself.
It is perhaps unfair for the Watchmen film to shoulder all the blame for this phenomenon. It's a systemic disease in all aspects of our artistic culture. We don't create anything anymore. We just take the old ideas, dress them up in new black costumes and send them out there to bring back more money. All the capital, talent and effort are devoted to simplifying and remaking the classics when we are responsible for creating the new classics.
The next time something you love is turned into a film, don't go. If you absolutely must see it, download one of those screener leaks. Every time you pay them not to do any creative work, you decrease the value of creative work as a whole and our screenwriter has to spend another night waiting tables instead of giving us the rocking space opera we deserve.
Apparently, we need to revisit Watchmen instead.
I suppose it was inevitable. The massive surge of film adaptations of comic classics had to crest with Watchmen. Despite the very obvious timing and pacing issues involved in said adaptation, despite the danger of fallout for despoiling a loved and respected and seminal work of art, it is too great a prize. I knew someone would take a stab at it.
And stab they did. You see, unlike Spider-Man or X-Men or one of the many other graphic titles which became films, Watchmen is a short, contained story. There is no allowance for narrative dysfunction resulting from the need to boil decades of serial down into two hours of film. Its makers are responsible for every omission, every unnecessary line, every stumble. Granted, there is more nuance in a single page of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's original comic than in the entire run of, say, The Punisher, but they knew what they were getting into. It's no excuse.
Much of the film is a straightforward, panel-by-panel interpretation of Watchmen the comic's central characters. However, many of the subplots were cut, leaving only a few glimpses of the characters involved as a wink-and-nudge to the fans in the audience. Given the fact that the climactic ending of the comic relied heavily on this material, it had to be changed to fit the far thinner movie version. I understand that the Marooned story is going to be released as a separate animated feature titled Tales of the Black Freighter. I suppose it's for the best as it wouldn't have worked as part of he full feature anyway. It ties in through another axed subplot with another set of characters. The source material is straining within the confines of its medium.
To be fair, the artistic work is very good. Although Nite Owl II and Ozymandius look a little latter-day Batman, the aesthetic is hardly out of character for either of them, and it's an honest modern interpretation of the comic heroes they represent. Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan, on the other hand, were designed quite well. I may relinquish some nerd cred when I say this, but it was very fulfilling to see the two of them on screen.
The sets and camera work deserve some praise as well. It's obvious that the original comic served as a storyboard whenever possible, and the artists who translated it to film did so with honesty and grace. Some of the segments were so beautifully rendered that it's a real shame they felt they were unable to stand on their own.
The film's hideous soundtrack booms in periodically during these scenes to remind you you're not actually having a good time watching Hollywood kidnap and murder another artistic masterpiece. It's a gaudy assortment of period pop music and a few other highly recognizable numbers (yes, I like Philip Glass as well, but can we give that song a rest, please?). It's boisterous and inconsistent. It does not heighten the emotional impact of the scenes in question, it distracts from each and every one of them. This is doubly embarrassing when you consider that most of the songs on the soundtrack are excellent. It is an insult, not just to the movie-goers they seem to think are easily distracted by shiny things, and not just to the musical artists being taken advantage of, but to the film's own art and direction by making the viewer cringe with disgust rather than be awed.
Awed by the visuals, at least. Thematically, the film utterly fails to fill the shoes of the original. Watchmen was obviously adapted by someone who read and enjoyed the comic, but assumed no one else got it. All those messy supporting characters and confusing subplots were trimmed. Where the comic was a diverse tapestry combining the stories and perspectives of many characters, the film is interested in only a few threads.
Even when it gets it right, the movie version doesn't even trust us to interpret what we see on our own. The dialogue is re-written in several places to dumb down and explain the emotions and motivations of the characters despite the fact that the imagery (usually taken directly from the comic) has already done so far more eloquently.
Take Dan Dreiberg's dream sequence, a scene I did not expect to see at all. In the comic, Moore and Gibbons trusted that their readers would understand what it meant. Apparently, the filmmakers felt this was too complex a metaphor for their audience and inserted some disjointed lines into the following scene to explain it.
This occurs repeatedly throughout the film. Now, I don't exactly have a lot of faith in the movie going public myself, but if you're going to go through all the trouble of adapting Watchmen into a film, why in the world would you cater to the unwashed simpletons who either never read it or didn't get it? The fans will hate you and the uninitiated probably weren't going to enjoy themselves anyway. It's as if half of those involved were interested in an honest translation of our beloved comic and the other half thought it was just a little too cerebral and wanted to broaden the audience. The result is a mess. Watchmen the comic is a dense piece of art, there is no question. There are layers to it that a single reading cannot penetrate, but at least it trusts you enough to figure it out for yourself.
It is perhaps unfair for the Watchmen film to shoulder all the blame for this phenomenon. It's a systemic disease in all aspects of our artistic culture. We don't create anything anymore. We just take the old ideas, dress them up in new black costumes and send them out there to bring back more money. All the capital, talent and effort are devoted to simplifying and remaking the classics when we are responsible for creating the new classics.
The next time something you love is turned into a film, don't go. If you absolutely must see it, download one of those screener leaks. Every time you pay them not to do any creative work, you decrease the value of creative work as a whole and our screenwriter has to spend another night waiting tables instead of giving us the rocking space opera we deserve.
The Twelve
If you're a fellow nerd (and I don't know why you would be here otherwise, unless it's just to reaffirm your mainstream aesthetics by having a chuckle at the dork before you put on your polo shirt and go back to your dull, gray life), you know that it's a special science fiction geek who likes Babylon 5. I never really understood the reasoning behind this. It's okay to like Star Wars in most circles and you can occasionally get away with Star Trek (contingent upon the series, of course), but Babylon 5 is for losers. I always felt it was to be lauded for its realistic, multi-faceted depictions of both characters and alien species. I also appreciated how concise it was. The five-season story resisted the artificial lengthening and fluff often found in serials of all kinds. Sure it was a little over-the-top sometimes, but come on! Have you even watched The Next Generation?
Sorry, I'm getting off-topic.
In the midst of my often arduous, only occasionally rewarding quest to catch up on the major events of the Marvel universe since the House of M (because I'm a sucker for alternate timelines), a little series called The Twelve was brought to my attention. It's the currently ongoing twelve-issue story of twelve (12) golden age heroes and vigilantes cryogenically frozen by Nazi scientists in the final days of the war in Germany, lost in the shuffle and thawed in the present day. It sounded pretty safe, but then I found out it's penned by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. Not only am I a fan of his work, but I wanted to review a comic series and I was completely unprepared to write the Marvel universe retrospective I'm planning.
After all, I thought, there is no way it can be worse than World War Hulk.
I have to say I'm glad to be reviewing just the first volume, issues one through six, because I can refuse to finish it and pretend that the second half is an opus which completely subverts my expectations and the series rises like a phoenix from the stale, derivative ashes the first half crumbled into after I read it. I can pretend that I don't have to go back and re-watch Babylon 5 just to make sure I really did enjoy myself the first time.
It's the Captain America story. Although technically resurrected in the sixties, taking Marvel's rolling timeline into account, he could have been revived in the mid nineties, putting his inconsistent time-influenced culture shock somewhere between "What, no jetpacks?" and "What is this... iPod?" However, Marvel was happy to milk Steve Rogers' quaint, simpler time background throughout the relatively recent Civil War, and in The Ultimates, Mark Millar saw fit to cover the postmodern, information age reawakening story (albeit with his usual ham-fisted macho tough-guy characterization). The point is, I think it's safe to say that it's been done before, I dare say to death.
The Twelve begins by flashing back to 1945 Berlin. If you're not familiar with the history of Marvel comics, this means a whole load of ridiculous heroes and guys in masks and what-have-you are ending World War II by punching Nazis and firing guns at something outside the panel. The premise is that many of the failed and one-shot comic heroes from Marvel's early incarnations fought in the war. Twelve of them who were assumed killed in action or fallen off the planet or whatever were actually trapped and frozen by Nazi scientists who wanted to study their powers later. The scientists never returned to the bunker, however, and the twelve remained hidden until unearthed by a construction project in 2008.
How compelling. It's the story of gifted individuals trying to find their way in a world they do not belong to. The problem is that it's the premise for most comic books since the golden age--no, scratch that, it's a staple of a a large portion of fantastic or magical or not-exactly-realistic storytelling of any kind. Only this time, it's cluttered and has terrible pacing.
The recovered heroes represent most of the different types of characters found in Marvel's sprawling continuity. Five of them are just vigilantes without powers (most of whom dress like The Spirit) and tend to be moody detectives. One is a remote-controlled robot, but since the guy who piloted it died in the 40's, it has yet to do anything. I imagine it became self-aware or something to that effect. The only woman in the group has mysterious, dark magic powers and is obviously delighted to discover the goth/industrial scene (I wish I was joking). The tank is an outsider who claims to hail from a hidden underground society Namor-style. You have your scientist who accidentally gives himself powers and uses them to fight crime, your scientist who is accidentally given powers by another scientist (who is evil) and uses them to fight crime, and the artificial "perfect man" created by a scientist who goes off to fight crime after his creator dies. The only character I found interesting was the final lost hero, Master Mind Excello. He is exceptionally strong, but his primary powers are his excellent senses. This guy is so perceptive he can catch glimpses of the future. He's like Laplace's demon with Attention Deficit Disorder.
Perhaps it's unfair to judge The Twelve so harshly having read only half of it thus far. After all, upon awakening, Master Mind Excello found the modern world too loud to focus but you know he's going to find some way to get around that and do something crazy. Maybe it'll be enough to make the series worthwhile.
Realistically, I doubt I'll enjoy the second half very much. I feel like The Twelve bit off way more than it could chew because by issue six, the series is starting to choke on it. So far it's just a collection of watered-down versions of the displaced hero story I mentioned before. It seems each issue is going to focus on one or two of the characters while simultaneously moving the whole thing forward. What we have is a series of anecdotes which are neither particularly interesting or new. The only good thing is that we have the assurance (through a flash-forward) that the most insufferable one of the lot gets to eat a murder sandwich sometime before it ends.
I can't imagine a satisfactory way for this series to continue that doesn't involve the immediate deaths of half of these schmucks. It's too much for a twelve part series, and to be honest, I don't like most of the characters enough to recommend extending it to fix this problem.
I've always held up Babylon 5 as an example of successful pacing in serialized fiction. Stories end. However, there is financial incentive to keep serials like comics or television shows going indefinitely. Babylon 5 didn't suffer from this because it was exactly as long as it was intended to be. I admire the attempt to tell a succinct tale in the Marvel universe, but I don't have much faith in The Twelve to deliver before the deadline.
Before I go, I have a special message for Joe Quesada. If he survives The Twelve, I am available to write the continuing adventures of Master Mind Excello.
Just saying.
Sorry, I'm getting off-topic.
In the midst of my often arduous, only occasionally rewarding quest to catch up on the major events of the Marvel universe since the House of M (because I'm a sucker for alternate timelines), a little series called The Twelve was brought to my attention. It's the currently ongoing twelve-issue story of twelve (12) golden age heroes and vigilantes cryogenically frozen by Nazi scientists in the final days of the war in Germany, lost in the shuffle and thawed in the present day. It sounded pretty safe, but then I found out it's penned by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. Not only am I a fan of his work, but I wanted to review a comic series and I was completely unprepared to write the Marvel universe retrospective I'm planning.
After all, I thought, there is no way it can be worse than World War Hulk.
I have to say I'm glad to be reviewing just the first volume, issues one through six, because I can refuse to finish it and pretend that the second half is an opus which completely subverts my expectations and the series rises like a phoenix from the stale, derivative ashes the first half crumbled into after I read it. I can pretend that I don't have to go back and re-watch Babylon 5 just to make sure I really did enjoy myself the first time.
It's the Captain America story. Although technically resurrected in the sixties, taking Marvel's rolling timeline into account, he could have been revived in the mid nineties, putting his inconsistent time-influenced culture shock somewhere between "What, no jetpacks?" and "What is this... iPod?" However, Marvel was happy to milk Steve Rogers' quaint, simpler time background throughout the relatively recent Civil War, and in The Ultimates, Mark Millar saw fit to cover the postmodern, information age reawakening story (albeit with his usual ham-fisted macho tough-guy characterization). The point is, I think it's safe to say that it's been done before, I dare say to death.
The Twelve begins by flashing back to 1945 Berlin. If you're not familiar with the history of Marvel comics, this means a whole load of ridiculous heroes and guys in masks and what-have-you are ending World War II by punching Nazis and firing guns at something outside the panel. The premise is that many of the failed and one-shot comic heroes from Marvel's early incarnations fought in the war. Twelve of them who were assumed killed in action or fallen off the planet or whatever were actually trapped and frozen by Nazi scientists who wanted to study their powers later. The scientists never returned to the bunker, however, and the twelve remained hidden until unearthed by a construction project in 2008.
How compelling. It's the story of gifted individuals trying to find their way in a world they do not belong to. The problem is that it's the premise for most comic books since the golden age--no, scratch that, it's a staple of a a large portion of fantastic or magical or not-exactly-realistic storytelling of any kind. Only this time, it's cluttered and has terrible pacing.
The recovered heroes represent most of the different types of characters found in Marvel's sprawling continuity. Five of them are just vigilantes without powers (most of whom dress like The Spirit) and tend to be moody detectives. One is a remote-controlled robot, but since the guy who piloted it died in the 40's, it has yet to do anything. I imagine it became self-aware or something to that effect. The only woman in the group has mysterious, dark magic powers and is obviously delighted to discover the goth/industrial scene (I wish I was joking). The tank is an outsider who claims to hail from a hidden underground society Namor-style. You have your scientist who accidentally gives himself powers and uses them to fight crime, your scientist who is accidentally given powers by another scientist (who is evil) and uses them to fight crime, and the artificial "perfect man" created by a scientist who goes off to fight crime after his creator dies. The only character I found interesting was the final lost hero, Master Mind Excello. He is exceptionally strong, but his primary powers are his excellent senses. This guy is so perceptive he can catch glimpses of the future. He's like Laplace's demon with Attention Deficit Disorder.
Perhaps it's unfair to judge The Twelve so harshly having read only half of it thus far. After all, upon awakening, Master Mind Excello found the modern world too loud to focus but you know he's going to find some way to get around that and do something crazy. Maybe it'll be enough to make the series worthwhile.
Realistically, I doubt I'll enjoy the second half very much. I feel like The Twelve bit off way more than it could chew because by issue six, the series is starting to choke on it. So far it's just a collection of watered-down versions of the displaced hero story I mentioned before. It seems each issue is going to focus on one or two of the characters while simultaneously moving the whole thing forward. What we have is a series of anecdotes which are neither particularly interesting or new. The only good thing is that we have the assurance (through a flash-forward) that the most insufferable one of the lot gets to eat a murder sandwich sometime before it ends.
I can't imagine a satisfactory way for this series to continue that doesn't involve the immediate deaths of half of these schmucks. It's too much for a twelve part series, and to be honest, I don't like most of the characters enough to recommend extending it to fix this problem.
I've always held up Babylon 5 as an example of successful pacing in serialized fiction. Stories end. However, there is financial incentive to keep serials like comics or television shows going indefinitely. Babylon 5 didn't suffer from this because it was exactly as long as it was intended to be. I admire the attempt to tell a succinct tale in the Marvel universe, but I don't have much faith in The Twelve to deliver before the deadline.
Before I go, I have a special message for Joe Quesada. If he survives The Twelve, I am available to write the continuing adventures of Master Mind Excello.
Just saying.
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