Customer Reviews

G.L.A. Vol. 1: Misassembled (Great Lakes Avengers) (v. 1)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This TPB is awesome! One of the funniest titles (on purpose) that I have read in a long time. Author Dan Slott knows exactly how to stage a joke (his shot at DC's Identity Crisis was perfectly timed) and he is clearly familiar with the Marvel Universe (come on when was the last time you saw Paladin or Captain Ultra in a comic book?)!

The 4-issue premise centers around D- Level characters: Mr. Immortal, Door-Man, Flat-Man, Big Bertha, Dinah Saur, Grasshopper, and Squirrel Girl (with her sidekick Monkey Joe) and their battle to save the universe from total extinction simply because a villain realizes that whenever a plan is hatched in New York too many heroes are around to stop it...so he moves to Wisconsin.

The jokes come at a rocket-fire pace and yet through it all I still felt like I was reading an actual hero adventure that had some gravity to it. Did I mention a team member dies in all 4 chapters (one of them 5.7 seconds after officially joining the team)? Artist Paul Pelletier puts together a solid layout reminiscent of John Byrne in his hayday (Byrne was the original creator of most of these characters).

I cannot imagine a comicbook fan who wouldn't get enjoyment out of this book. It does for Marvel what "Formerly Known as the Justice League" did for DC. Check it out...but beware Leather Boy!!!!

Monkey Joe...we hardly knew ya!

SEQUEL! HOUSE OF IDEAS I DEMAND A SEQUEL!

This is, hands down, the funniest Marvel story I've seen. If you like comic books even a little, and can appreciate a few jokes at their expense, this is a must-read. My only complaint about it is that the G.L.A. mini was only four issues long. This is definitely something that needs to be an ongoing series. Fortunately for G.L.A. fans though, and if you aren't one yet you will be after reading Misassembled, they also threw in the original appearance of the G.L.A. as well as the first and only previous appearance of Squirrel Girl. They're not as great as the main story, but they do prove that it was possible to write funny comics upwards of twenty years ago, and hey, six issues for the price of four. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Dan Slott is generally an excellent writer, in my opinion. His She-Hulk and his Spiderman/Human Torch books are beloved by many, from the AintItCool guys to Joe Average comic book reader. This book, like its title wannabe superhero team, had a lot to live up to.

It is not a bad book. Dan Slott is pretty incredible at pulling obscure and lame Marvel superheroes out of the archives and making them cool. I honestly wish that Squirrel Girl would help me out in Central Park some day. Mr. Immortal is pretty weird, I'm not sure I like him, but he's got my favorite line in this book ("I'm Homo Supreme!")

Still, this book is not She-Hulk, and it is not Spiderman/Human-Torch. I came away from it entertained, sure, but those other books are masterpieces that blend comedy and drama and character development in the grand dramedy tradition of Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Rescue Me. Those are tv shows, not comic books, but that is what makes Dan Slott unique. I expected a little more. This whole [m/d]isassembled saga was fairly disappointing, and I guess even Dan Slott was tainted a bit by this.

- Physics professor, to his assistant: "Can you believe it, Jenson? Reed Richards! Mr. Fantastic came to me for help!"
- Assistant: "Dude, that was Flatman. From the GLA."
- Physics professor: "Aw *@#%."

No respect for the GLA. That's the recurring theme. The Great Lakes Avengers (but not officially sanctioned by the real Avengers), composed of misfits and losers with superhuman abilities, go around haplessly seeking a smidgen of street cred. But Wisconsin, their home base and the home of cheese, doesn't attract much supervillainy. But when the real Avengers get disassembled, GLA team leader Mr. Immortal perks up, thinking that this is finally the GLA's chance to make noise. But he's wrong.

As he demonstrates in AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE (see Avengers: The Initiative, Vol. 1: Basic Training), comic book writer Dan Slott, when it's called for, can deliver serious and complex story arcs. Something he doesn't do here. Slott built his rep on well-crafted lighthearted tales (for cripe's sake, he started out on the Ren & Stimpy comics); humor will always be a calling card of his. And in GLA: MISASSEMBLED we see an unleased Dan Slott, resulting in a very funny mini-series. And, putting pictures to Slott's words, artist Paul Pelletier demonstrates his solid if unspectacular craftsmanship.

The Great Lakes Avengers are so pathetic and so discounted by the superhero community that they can out-substitute the Legion of Substitute Heroes. Their leader is unkillable, yeah, but he always gets killed mere moments into a fight. Their team vehicle is the Quin-Jetta. An all-time low for the GLA is when they go to New York on a recruitment drive and get turned down a lot. They even stoop to trying to enlist little Katie Power of Power Pack ("...What if we got your parents' permission?").

There's embarassment on all fronts, though. The GLA being a canonical fixture in the Marvel Universe means that credible supervillains like Maelstrom, Batroc's Brigade, and even Dr. Doom must hang their heads in shameful, shameful shame, all having been on the receiving end of GLA whuppins.

More of Dan Slott being tongue-in-cheeked: Each issue of the mini-series features a death of a GLA member and opens with a P.S.A. from Squirrel Girl, who tends to break the fourth wall. Squirrel Girl happens to be my favorite Great Lakes Avenger, and she's actually pretty resourceful in a fight, although most of her resources comprise of help from her squirrel friends and her sacks of nuts. But she's managed to take down Dr. Doom, MODOK, Thanos, Terrax, and Deadpool (twice). I snicker at how Deadpool considers her a "power" in the Marvel Universe.

So, closer to parody than the conventional superhero book, and, yet, Slott makes his characters three-dimensional enough (yes, even Flat Man) that the story manages to surmount the slapstick elements. Slott invests depth into Flat Man, the GLA's deputy leader, and Big Bertha, whose civilian identity is Wisconsin's top supermodel and who only stays in Milwaukee out of loyalty to her team. Mr. Immortal, it turns out, is a character of operatic tragedy. Projected to live forever, immune to lasting harm, Mr. Immortal has seen many of his loved ones die and taken away by a Grim Reaper type known as Death Urge, a being who nevertheless counts himself as Mr. Immortal's staunch buddy. Oh, and Death Urge is on skis. Mr. Immortal's coping mechanism consists of booze and many attempts of suicide. Which is why Squirrel Girl does those P.S.A.s at the start of each issue.

GLA: MISASSEMBLED collects the 2005 4-issued mini-series, West Coast Avengers #46 (the GLA's debut, with art by John Byrne), and MARVEL SUPERHEROES #8 (Squirrel Girl's debut as she and Iron Man go up against Dr. Doom, with art by Steve Ditko). This trade's cover reprints the cover to the GLA mini-series, which spoofed the New Avengers #1 cover.

For fans with a yen for more GLA, these cats are featured in the one-shot issues GLX-MAS SPECIAL and DEADPOOL/GLI SUMMER FUN SPECTACULAR, in which they officially become Wisconsin's Initiative super-team. They also drop in for THE THING's last issue (see The Thing: Idol of Millions (Fantastic Four)), where they change their team name a gazillion times.

While I doubt the GLA can carry their own ongoing series, I don't think we've seen the last of these likable no-hopers, not as long as Dan Slott is around. For my money, GLA: MISASSEMBLED is one of the funnier trades out there, and worth a rating of three and a half stars.

The Great Lakes Avengers is one of those super-teams that you just gotta love, or at least laugh at: a crew of well-intentioned misfits who try a bit too hard to make the big leagues. Actually, the powers exhibited by the team are pretty cool, but those powers are always overshadowed by the team's lack of ability. Mr. Immortal, Flatman, Big Bertha, Doorman, and Dinah Soar... a great group of characters. I initially passed on this title a couple of weeks ago, namely because I didn't know it had been released. I finally picked it up this past weekend on a sales clerk's recommendation, particularly after cracking the cover and seeing how favorably the art compared to John Byrne's work on the team's first appearance in West Coast Avengers #46.

This book collects GLA: Misassembled # 1 - 4, which finds the team in some dire straits. So dire, in fact, that Mr. Immortal starts the story off by killing himself... unsuccessfully, of course. But that shows you just how bad things have become for the team. And they get worse, as more team members, or even heroes slightly associated with the team, kick the bucket for real (trust me, this book is full of death). This is all due to the machinations of Maelstrom, a B-level villain who has found a way to... well, do what villains always do, destroying the world, or something like that, it's really not the point of the story. What IS the point is how the GLA slowly develops into a team that is even more likeable, though still not one on which you'd want to bet money.

As I mentioned earlier, the artwork, by Paul Pelletier, is very good, reminiscent of a more stylized version of John Byrne. The real star, of course, is writer Dan Slott, who provides a cohesive and very funny story. There are some truly great comedic moments in this book which made me laugh out loud (my review title refers to one of them). Even the aforementioned large body count is given a light touch, which you'll just have to see to appreciate.

Also included in this collection is West Coast Avengers #46 (the team's first appearance) and Marvel Superheroes #8, the first appearance of new GLA recruit Squirrel Girl. So, for those of you who have fond memories of the GLA in West Coast Avengers, or even DeMatteis and Maguire's dysfunctional Justice League, check this out. It's definitely worth it.

It's great to finally find a book with some humor in it. It pokes fun at all of the deaths in comics today with a 2x4. If you enjoyed the JLI (bwa ha ha league) then this might be something to pick up.

Great comic, very funny. If you need a comic that is funny and a good read you should check this one out. Funny characters and situations they get into.

Dan Slott is one of the most underrated writers in mainstream comics today. Perhaps best known for his run on the surprisingly good She-Hulk, Slott does Marvel's version of Formerly Known as the Justice League with G.L.A.: Misassembled; a mini-series taking place during the disassembling of the Avengers. A bunch of D-league superheroes (maybe even lower), known as the Great Lakes Avengers tries to become the real deal with the real Avengers gone, but as they soon find out, that's easier said than done. Especially when an old Avengers villain comes out of the woodwork with a plan that could destroy, well, everything. What really makes G.L.A. so good is Slott's hilarious dialogue and story that not only pokes fun at the superhero genre, but comic books in general. Not to mention the not so subtle jab at Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis mini-series for DC; G.L.A. features many memorably inefficient heroes (including leader Mr. Immortal, as well as an obese, bulemic heroine by night and supermodel by day). What G.L.A. really does the best though is remind us in this doom and gloom age of comics is that they can still do the one thing they were meant to do in the first place: be a fun escape. Paul Pelletier (Exiles) provides solid art to boot. The only real downside is that G.L.A. is short, too short. That aside, there's some extra issues thrown in here, including John Byrne's issue of West Coast Avengers which introduces the heroes featured here. All in all, though it doesn't get a 5-star rating, G.L.A. is still worth picking up, and is one of the more fun comics to come out in quite some time.