Steve EnglehartCritiques

It takes a bit for this series to rise above a basic "ride the kung fu wave" that it was started under, but the reader can really feel the story begin to kick into gear once artist Paul Gulacy signs on, then almost immediately after, writer Doug Moench comes aboard.

Gulacy, as a comic artist, definitely has his growing pains in the first few issues, but almost immediately, this goes from a standard Marvel comic in the 70s to something far deeper and far more cinematic.

Pains are taken with the supporting characters and, with each issue from the 20s on, the book overall gets better and better. Yes, there are the silly, dumb issues, but overall, this was one of the shining examples of what could be done on a series with the right team in place.

Family

In Secret Empire, Captain America finds himself framed for murder and shunned by mainstream America as a criminal organisation known as the Secret Empire seeks to destroy his reputation. His journey to redeem his good name sees him team up with the X-Men, and leads him to a very unexpected final battle in the White House. Disgusted by what he finds, he ditches his patriotic uniform and starts going by Nomad. Beard and all.

This comic explores the tension between duty and dissent, and shows a conflicted Captain America, torn between his patriotic devotion and his own principles. Additionally, It's interesting how this comic reflects the era in which it was created. In 1974, America was gripped by the Watergate scandal, as President Richard Nixon was accused of criminal acts involving breaking-and-entering and a subsequent cover-up. With all the scandals going on in the Trump administration, this comic still remains relevant and a classic although it does read often like a product of its time and place (and has one too many Fooms! and Pows! to describe actions for my 21st taste).

Mostly horrible, borderline nonsensical mess.

But ... the end is good, so there's a second star awarded. If the events of this important part of Thanos' story were actually depicted in a compelling or interesting way, there might've been another one.

Crítica | Batman, Superman e Monstro do Pântano (1975 – 1995)
http://www.planocritico.com/critica-batman-superman-e-monstro-do-pantano-1975-19...

3,0

3,0

2,0

3,5

Ah, the early 1970s, when you could buy a comic book for 20 cents, and it would take you fifteen or twenty minutes to read...fifty years later, they're $5-6, and they take about four minutes to read.

I enjoyed sliding back into these. Yes, they had to play fast and loose with the adaptations, and each was necessarily truncated. And don't even get me started on Doc's attire basically being white pants and a far-too-small vest that essentially left him naked from the waist up. 70s comics, am I right?

But for all that, the love of the characters shines through here, and these are a lot of fun to read, fifty years later.

Sadly this was older comics(which I rarely like)Not well written, and all kinds of disjointed, just to repacket it on the Avengers bandwagon. Glad I didn't have to pay for it.

After watching WandaVision I found myself wondering just what differences there were between the show and the comics that inspired it and so this is where I chose to begin. I didn't realize going into it (and I should have based on the title) that it was going to span an entire year's worth of holidays/significant events. (They even cover tax season which I found very amusing.) If like me you have never read any of the Marvel comics at all then this is a really interesting (and very confusing) place to begin. For one thing, there's a whole host of characters that I had never heard of and the assumption is that as a reader you're very familiar with all of them (luckily they do tell you which issues to go back and read for more info). So a lot of the backstory was unknown to me and at times this was a hindrance to my understanding but I got the hang of it after a while and found myself thinking of these two characters in a very different light from the cinematic universe. For one thing, Scarlet Witch is a mutant and a witch in this series while the Vision has recently discovered that while he's a synthetic being at his core he's a human. The central idea of this volume is that Vision and the Scarlet Witch have decided that they want a different kind of life but this proves rather harder in practice than in theory to accomplish.

Overall, it was a pretty fun series. It's definitely a product of its time so there are for sure some outdated concepts and references. The art was *chef's kiss* and the sass gave me LIFE.

PS Pietro is the worst. I have no idea if he has a redemption arc later on down the line but ugh I couldn't stand him.½

A resounding 'meh' all around. The story itself wasn't terribly original, the Falcon/Black Panther subplot seemed tacked on and inconsequential, Thor sounded hammier than usual, and some of these super villains were so D-list it hurt. Also, if Cap could stop leading Peggy around and just TELL HER he's seeing Sharon, that would be great. But there was some good action scenes, X-Men cameos which are always cool, and the Cap & Falcon partnership was on point. Plus, we get yet ANOTHER retelling of Cap's origins, as if we didn't have a hundred of them already. Yay, Marvel canon! You can't pick just one!

By coincidence when i received this book free as part of Goodreads First Read program, i was already reading some old Marvel Comics (The Defenders) Mr Englehart had written for. That and the blurb on the back made me excited to read 'The Long Man'. In the end i enjoyed it but it was a bit rough at points. Some days i just couldn't pick it up.
My first peeve was the vagueness of the mechanics behind the magical abilities of the hero. The hero, Max August, seems flat. All we have to identify with him is his yearning for his dead wife and his alchemical abilities. By the end of the book neither seem real.
Instead of depth to the plot and characters, Mr Englehart throws a large variety of information at us: exotic locales, spiritualism, the Mayan calender, astronomy and badly explained gnosticism. It wasn't till i started treating 'The Long Man' as a picture-free comic book, and not as an occult action novel, that i started to enjoy it and then the reading was smooth sailing through till the good guys triumphed.
I'm still debating on whether to hand this book to my fiance's 15-yo son. There is no overt passages describing sex acts, but sex and torture are definitely here. PG-13, not R, rating.
All in all, once i took 'The Long Man' for what it is, it was a good lazy weekend read. I will continue to enjoy Mr Englehart's writing for Marvel and might look for other works by him but i really can't say i will ever return to the 'Max August' series.

The plot of this is well-constructed. The underlying ideas were obviously thought out in some depth, and do not feel at all half-assed as I've come to expect from novels with similar themes. The pacing is decent. The characters are sympathetic (when Englehart wants them to be sympathetic). It was a very easy read that kept pulling me along toward the conclusion.

The dialog is corny, and not in a good way. The character motivations can be a little hard to swallow. The descriptions are a touch too involved.

In the end, I felt like I would have been justified just ignoring it rather than picking up a copy to read -- and, if it hadn't been a gift as part of a yearly book exchange with my second family, I would have passed it by based on the back cover text. It wasn't hard to pick up and keep reading, but it wasn't hard to put down either.

I borrowed this one from the public library. The book is a compilation from the 1970s, and it reflects the issues and sensibilities of the time. The Watergate scandal has just happened, and that event, combined with the Secret Empire, drive Captain America to disillusion.

I found the comic interesting to read because of all the references to its time. The Falcon is a hero of Harlem, an African American, and he reflects the concerns of the time. Captain America, the man out of time, faces the reality that the America he knows is changing, and not for the better it seems. In the end, after defeating the conquest plans of the Secret Empire, the Captain makes a fateful decision. Overall, the comic has a fast pace and a good story.

The book features appearances by the Black Panther, and the X-Men, in an early appearance; in other words, way before the X-Men were cool.

Another one I got from the local public library.

See my short note on it:

[http://gypsylibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/12/short-notes-on-graphic-novels-8.html]

The promise of great stories eludes me. I wanted so much more, spoiled by more recent comics, wanting back stories, glorious beginnings, and splendiferous space and alternate realities. What I got was strained stories that were rarely brilliant in idea, and never in how it was pulled off. It was very hard to get through the old art, as well.

(Waits patiently until a fanboy froths at the mouth at me).

When it's good, it's very good. When it's bad, as most of the early stuff is, it's really bad. I cannot believe I got through it all. I found myself rewriting it all in my head as I plowed through them, paraphrasing much, and drawing out others. It was hardly worth the effort, especially since so much of the work had been done for me in more recent attempts.

The joke is on me, though, because I'm planning on continuing the tales to get to the tantalizing glimpses of those old epic tales I had missed.

More of the same.

I had fond memories of this DC Comics mini-series from 1988, but oh boy it hasn’t aged well. The basic premise of the hidden ‘manhunters’ trying to stop the next evolution of heroes is a pretty solid one, but the execution falls short. Too many rambling plot lines, many familiar heroes seemingly off character, new characters with stereotyped nationality traits, and a narrative that has huge holes in it as many of the major events happened in cross-over issues not included in this collection. I should have left this one on the shelf and stuck with my memories.

Shang-Chi is the son of Fu Manchu, the criminal mastermind created by Sax Rohmer. Indoctrinated from birth into his father's twisted world view, he suffers a crisis of faith after completing his first assassination, rejects his father's teachings and falls in with a group of British agents actively thwarting Fu Manchu's grabs for world domination. Naturally, Fu Manchu wants Shang-Chi dead for his betrayal.

Back in the day I was more interested in the more "super" heroes than down to earth characters like this, but Doug Moench has always been one of my favorite comics writers so I thought I'd give this a try. While I don't regret it, I do have some misgivings. Sometimes it takes a series a while to find its groove and so it was with this one. I'm actually a little surprised that it lasted so long but I suppose martial arts being a popular fad in the west at the time gave it a boost. The stories are very formulaic for a good chunk of this volume and generally fall into one of two categories: the heroes get a tip-off that Fu Manchu is about to get his hands on some deadly technology or other, and they set out to stop him; or Shang-Chi is minding his own business in New York (for example trying to find a decent Chinese restaurant) when he is assaulted by Fu Manchu's assassins. At the end of the story, Fu Manchu always makes a miraculous escape. It probably was less noticeable back when you had a month between issues, but reading them in a collected volume makes it painfully obvious. The art is also pretty mediocre for most of the book, though there a few guest-shots (most notably John Buscema) that shine.

Then, about two-thirds of the way in, the book takes a self-proclaimed "exciting new direction" and it's not hype. We get multi-part stories that don't involve Fu Manchu at all. The characters start to become more developed and less stock. And Paul Gulacy's art improves dramatically. The characters' faces have more, well, character and look less like generic comic book faces with different hairstyles put on. The last third or so of the book looks great. I'm not sure if I'm going to buy all the volumes of this series, but the late change in styles in this volume is promising.

Extremely contrived crossover that spanned the Avengers and Defenders titles in 1973. Dormammu, looking for a loophole by which he can invade Earth (he had promised Doctor Strange that he wouldn't), tricks the Defenders into retrieving for him parts of a magical artifact. Sensing duplicity, his erstwhile ally Loki tells the Avengers that the Defenders are a threat to the planet...and they believe him! (Loki, of course, is well-known as the god of lies and mischief; it was his trickery that brought the Avengers together in the first place, and Thor had just defeated him in battle before this story began.) Several ill-conceived battles ensue. The writing might be acceptable for very young readers but is otherwise embarrassing, and even Sal Buscema's art is not as good as it usually is. Two stars for a vague sense of nostalgia.

An enjoyable retro retreat to the 1970s, this series has plenty of action and raises plenty of issues we still debate today: fake news, attacking those who seek to maintain public order, the strengths and weaknesses of the judicial process are all here, plus some raw cynicism about the country that Cap usually aims to defeat. There are also some unintentionally hilarious comic-book tropes in here, e.g. bad guys capturing good guys but not killing them, characters wearing their costumes while not on duty, and a plot to steal a gizmo that, we learn, could have simply been lifted by a guy who works where it's stored. But these go against the spirit of the thing.

There are a few story lines going on in this TPB. The Joker wants to run for governor. His slogan is vote for him or he'll kill you.

The Scarecrow is also running around planting fear capsules willy nilly and trying to scare Batman to death or something. Two-Face is also in this TPB, he has a clone made of himself and they have a little bit of a story with Batman.

Then there's Silver St. Cloud. She's back as the fiancee of the other man rnning for Governor, Evan. But, she knows Bruce Wayne's secret and so she and Bruce re-enter each others orbit and things get complicated.

With every TPB that I read with with Silver St. Cloud in it I get to like her more and more. (Although no one will ever be as right for Bruce/Batman as Catwoman/Selina is in my mind.)

Steve Englehart’s “The Long Man” is a part two of a trilogy but you would not know it, as the author quickly gets the reader up to speed in the first few chapters.

Other reviewers have complained that the book moves slow as the characters begin to lecture to each other but I disagree that this is a necessary negative. I think it’s helpful that we know and understand why Max August is who he is – a Timeless alchemist, recent disciple of Agrippa, a man who is a few centuries old – both Agrippa and Max’s wife Val murdered by a female demon who wants to control the world. Pretty evil stuff.

Max sets a trap for an unknown organization that wants to take over the Western Hemisphere via a small country in South America. He uses Pam, a biologist who has accidentally discovered a cure for a poison that turns people into Zombies (or “Zombi” as Englehart likes to spell it). However, he fall s in love with her and it turns out he can’t survive without her.

She plays the foil where she has the same questions we have – why is Max immortal, what does he believe in, how does the universe work in his doubtful mythology? And why is he searching for his now dead wife Val every Halloween night?

The book has some political commentary – bought senators and ambassadors, women who use sex for their own political ends, and an organization, the “Necklace” whose only job in life is to subjugate the Earth for the demon Alexsandra, who is a former lover of Max August. Complex, perhaps too much so, but interesting.

Bottom Line: I met Steve Englehart when he autographed this book for me, but regardless I let the book stand on its own merits. If you know Dr. Strange from the Marvel Comics and James Bond films, then your young adult may enjoy a good read. The book always has some action and suspense, mystery and exploration of mysticism and cultures that maintains interest. Recommended.