Wednesday, April 11, 2012

PC POST #37: The Omega Effect: Part 1 Review

By @Neil4LOST

Avenging Spider-Man #6

WRITERS: Greg Rucka & Mark Waid
ARTIST: Marco Checchetto
COLOR ARTIST: Matt Hollingsworth
LETTERS: VC’s Joe Caramagna
COVER: McNiven, Morales & Gracia
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Ellie Pyle
EDITOR: Stephen Wacker
EDITOR IN CHIEF: Axel Alonso
CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER: Joe Quesada
PUBLISHER: Dan Buckley
EXEC. PRODUCER: Alan Fine

Release Date: April 11th, 2012
Published monthly by Marvel Worldwide, INC.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS:
Price – $3.99
(32 Pages, single-issue, color)

INTRODUCTION: (From page 1)

Daredevil recently came into possession of The Omega Drive which is full of information about A.I.M., Hydra, Black Spectre, Agence Byzantine, and the Secret Empire. Now everyone wants it, including the Punisher.

WRITING:

Marvel decided to come out guns blazing with their decision to pair up two of the hottest writers in the business right now in Greg Rucka (The Punisher) and Mark Waid (Daredevil). It is obvious from the get go of the book that this was a set up issue to allow readers who may not have been following the Daredevil series to be able to jump right in and get the whole jist of what the Omega Effect crossover is about and who the major players of the crossover are. (Spider-Man, Daredevil and Punisher) Personally I feel that this could be somewhat frustrating for Avenging Spider-Man fans as Spider-Man seems to be the one character in this issue that seems to solely serve the purpose of moving Daredevils story along. Granted, Rucka and Waid do a great job of bringing Spider-Man’s character a sense of humor that so many writers have gotten wrong in the past. Handling such a difficult task of bringing these characters together however was done very well by Rucka and Waid.

Rating – “B+”

ARTWORK:

Marco Checchetto does an amazing job at managing to keep the action intense without causing too much confusion. There is a lot going on in this first installment of the crossover and is amazing at how well he draws all four major characters together with their interactions. Checchetto’s accurately draws Spider-Man, Daredevil, Punisher and Cole-Alves so that continuity between their respective titles are not lost in the crossover. This is actually an important issue for me as I have seen way to many times where artists have been involved in crossovers where their take doesn’t feel like the characters that people had seen from their respective individual titles. Checchetto also keeps the dark and moody feel from the Punisher series and brings it over into this issue. It felt like it added a darker tone on the story which I was hoping for in the first place with this event. So in terms of artwork, I feel that the tone has been set perfectly by Checchetto.

Rating – “A”

STORYTELLING:

Waid has been investing heavily over the past five issues of Daredevil in building up the Omega Drive storyline and the conflict with the five mega-crime organizations. They are attempting to get the drive back before all its information is leaked to the public. Daredevil set a deadline for these organizations to act in trying to take the device back.

Rucka and Waid bring the crossover to life by pulling in Dr. Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four. Richards reaches out to Spider-Man to begin investigating what Daredevil is up to with the device and that begins the crossover of Spider-Man and Daredevil in the story. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem very clear as to why Punisher and Rachel Cole-Alves are involved other than the fact that they believe that this drive has information…that if they could get their hands on would be extremely valuable in their fight against crime.

There is a large amount of setup in this issue that lays the framework for the battle that Spider-Man, Daredevil, Punisher and Cole-Alves will go through to expose the data on this drive. It is a very intriguing story that has me wondering just how it will all work out. Will Punisher and Cole-Alves have to betray the trust of Spider-Man and Daredevil before it is all over to really get what they are looking for? Right now however, Punisher and Cole-Alves are going along for the ride to find out how it will all turn out.

There are two very interesting aspects to part 1 of the crossover that stuck out to me in particular. The first is that there was an obvious focus of attention by Rucka and Waid to establish Rachel Cole-Alves as a central character involved in the crossover. She is not just a side character in the story. Spider-Man even takes the time over several pages of the issue to try to come up with a new name for this girl that is fighting beside of Frank Castle. He starts it off by calling her Punisher’s new partner but then moves on to names like…Punisherette, Punishinni, Punishella. It really feels like there is a focus of establishing a new character in the Marvel Universe in Rachel Cole-Alves really becoming a new female Punisher character. I really dig the idea but I am terrified about a name to be honest. The second thing that stood out to me was the fact that Frank Castle is really letting Daredevil and Spidey run the show with this attack on the five mega-crime organizations. This felt a little off in regards to the character that Rucka has established so far in his current Punisher series. I know it is early and so I will give the benefit of the doubt moving forward.


Rating – “B+”

CHARACTER REPRESENTATION:

All four of the major characters in this crossover minus Frank Castle seemed to be spot on and well represented by Rucka and Waid. Spidey is his normal cocky and loose-lipped self that cracks a one liner every other sentence, Daredevil is his cautious but confident man with no fear and Rachel Cole-Alves is her overly aggressive I want to kill something self. Punisher however, seems to be talking way too much in this issue and has the least aggressive stance. I was hoping that Frank was going to push Spidey and Daredevil over the edge in this crossover. Maybe that will still happen before the end?

Rating – “B”




ENTERTAINMENT VALUE:

If you cant get excited about this kind of crossover that puts the characters from three of the hottest books from the comic book store shelves than nothing will. This crossover has a ton of history behind it and a lot of the line. It really feels even bigger than the Avengers vs. X-Men title that just started. It has ninja’s, guns, devils and spiders…what else could you possibly want right?

Rating – “A”

OVERAL RATING OF ISSUE:  “A”

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