An uneven must for fanboys.
In this 23-issue collection produced by a variety of creators (with multimedia material available via app), two of Marvel Comics’ premier superhero teams wrestle for control of a young mutant messiah linked to the infernal Phoenix Force.
As the Avengers track the fiery approach of a nigh-omnipotent cosmic entity known as the Phoenix, they’re surprised to find a matching energy signature already here on Earth, in the X-Men’s island base of Utopia. Years ago, the Phoenix had possessed, corrupted and led to the death of founding X-Men Jean Grey. But feeling he’s matured since his wife’s fatal genocidal turn, Cyclops now plans to harness the Phoenix and restore mutantkind, which had recently been decimated by gone-mad Avenger the Scarlet Witch. The fulcrum of Cyclops’ plan is new pupil Hope Summers, a powerful young mutant with the ability to channel the Phoenix Force. When the Avengers arrive en masse at Utopia, insisting on protective custody for Hope, Cyclops refuses, and the fists, shields, lightning bolts, adamantium claws, repulsor rays and optic blasts fly. The book paints the entire story in broad, workmanlike strokes in 12 straight issues of Avengers vs. X-Men, then punches in texture with six straight issues of AvX:Vs, a series of one-on-one-battle vignettes that roughly follow the main arc’s chronology, featuring standout “How We Roll,” which winningly parodies the whole affair. Ordering the collection by story, not series, would have allowed for a more organic appreciation, as Marvel treads similar ground of morally ambiguous conflict in Civil War (2006). AvX does take an appealing twist, with a handful of X-Men reborn as the Phoenix Five, who rule as benevolent global tyrants. But the Phoenix always goes dark, and the finale marks the apotheosis of Cyclops’ recent trajectory from his stiff and bland original incarnation to flawed and fragile in Morrison’s 2001 New X-Men and, now, to villain, à la Green Lantern in Emerald Twilight (1996). Artist Olivier Copiel, who illustrates a third of the Avengers vs. X-Men issues, stuns with his sleek redesigns of the Phoenix Five X-Men, particularly the avian Cyclops’ Robocop-like visor. The digital material available via Marvel’s Augmented Reality app offer some insider looks, with video creator interviews and animated step-by-step recreations of panels, but it seems underutilized in terms of dynamically connecting the story to the decades of Marvel cannon.
An uneven must for fanboys.Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6317-6
Page Count: 568
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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