1 out of 5

Oof, what a slog.

As noted on almost every anthology review I’ve done, it’s accepted that – exceptions aside (*cough* 2000 AD) – books of this nature are going to be mixed bags.  The Marvel and DC versions of them are even more mixed… or, uh, less, I suppose, skewing toward bad, because you’re dealing with characters with a boat-load of history, so it’s hard for the tail to break free of “random adventure starring so-and-so” format – meaning the star is really just a guest-star in a tale that could feature anyone.  Serializing stories helps, but 60 something issues in and I’m pretty sure every single one had Wolverine on the cover and as the main feature, regardless of the fact that a lot of the characters have had monthly to weekly appearances for literal decades, the ‘side story’ and also-rans nature of MCP meant that things were very frequently gonna feel a little staid: you were either a shrug-worthy Wolvie story or a rarity trying his derndest to nab the spotlight.  Again, barring some exceptions.  Which this run was not, and twas, indeed, the staidest of the staid.

First to Gerber’s run: not knowing how these things are contracted, Gerber got a chance to close up shop on Poison, a character he’d created in his Web of Spider-Man Annual.   It’s not that Gerb hadn’t created some to several lost causes in his career, but it’s rare that he put so much time in to something that just felt so uninteresting.  But as linked to in my update to that Annual, the roots of the character’s creation – strictly to make a point about something – suggest why it never got off the ground.  These were always the weakest parts of Steve’s comics, in my opinion, when it was straight satire without heart.  Perhaps thinking that he could develop the character further, or at least, perhaps, keep that flame burning in case he wanted to use Poison’s son, Carlos – whom he keeps mentioning may have inherited some powers – at a later point, Steve tries to develop the Innocence Avenger angle, maybe drumming up some then-current or past relationship woes, and with the initial weirdness of another powered being who talks to his mop, driplets of Gerber charm are kicking around, mixed with the emotional darkness that seeped into Foolkiller, or even Void Indigo (which maybe shares topical similarities with Poison, but with the freedom Eclipse allowed was a much more interesting concept).  But it just… never… goes anywhere.  The hero is poorly defined, and just seems to float and absorb punches, and her focus on one particular person over another feels too random.  She feels like she doesn’t even matter in the context of her own story.  Cindy Martin’s art has gotten much more confident, though, with big and bold panels that make things, at least, easy to read.  The flub of switching hands that a badguy loses from one week to another is sort of unforgivable though.  Perhaps the most uninvolving strip of Gerb’s I’ve read, struggling for a couple weeks for purpose and then just rattling through the rest to the end.

Elsewhere we get the end of a cheesy Wolvie / Mimic / Hulk tale, a two-part pointless Madripoor bit, and the start of a Wolvie / Ghost Rider crossover with expressive art by Mark Texeira but a Howard Mackie script that’s as cheesy as most Howard Mackie scripts.  (Sorry, Howard Mackie: you were not my favorite Spider-Man writer.)  Richard Howell has a fun premise for a Scarlet Witch bit where she gets trapped in her own past, in the body of an ancestor, but like the publications under Howell’s Claypool Comics, fun ideas start to drag when they’re weighed down by exxxxcessive narration.  After that is the start of a Fantastic Four story about an alien entity; it’s standard MCP fare and does its job.  The rest are one-shots of varying quality of various heroes.

But nothing in these issues – nothing – breaks above the surface, and while I was floating at a two-star for a while, I realized how little I was enjoying reading these books and had to factor that in.  If I can at least be entertained by story or art, regardless of whether it’s something brand spanking new or not, that’s worthwhile.  But you get like 1/4 of a book of Okay, and the rest ain’t great.  That’s a failing grade.