BATTLE SCARS #6 (OF 6)
Review by: comicBOOKchris
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Art by Scot Eaton & Andrew Hennessy
Colors by Paul Mounts
Letters by Joe Sabino
Cover by Carlo Pagulayan, Jason Paz, & Guru-eFX
Size: 0 pages
Price: 2.99
This review contains spoilers, click here to read
I watched an episode of South Park recently called "1%", which was a great episode from last season that focused primarily on the psychosis of Eric Cartman (always the best episodes). Two of the seemingly unrelated storylines of the episode involved both characters trying to convince Cartman to grow up and Cartman investigating the murder of all of his stuffed animal friends. As it turns out, however, we learn that Cartman was the one responsible for the murders of his stuffed animals vis a vis one of his other dolls, Polly Prissypants. Basically, Cartman was pretending that Polly Prissypants was murdering his animals in extreme torture porn ways in order to grow up and get rid of his stuffed animals. He couldn't have done it in a typical way, like bringing his animals to Goodwill or something...he had to go all Eric Cartman and think of the most convoluted and dramatic way to do the simplest thing. I bring this up because that's exactly how I feel Marvel went about introducing Sam Jackson as Nick Fury to the mainstream Marvel universe.
Don't get me wrong: I totally get why Marvel would want to do this. I even support the decision, to a certain degree. Sam Jackson as Nick Fury is gaining a lot of traction with mainstream audiences, and so the top brass wanted Nick Fury to reflect this in more than just the Ultimate universe. I even like the whole father-son legacy potential that was set up here between Marcus Johnson and Fury. The execution of the transition, however, felt more soap opera-y than it really needed to be. It's relieved here that the Infinity Formula that has been keeping Nick Fury ticking for years has been drained out of him, and that he'll probably be kicking the bucket sometime soon. Marcus, however, wants to follow in his dad's footsteps and becomes a SHIELD agent. So far, so good. Fast forward a few weeks, and Marcus has shaved his head, grew himself a goatee, and uses an eye patch to cover his injured eye...and surprise surprise, he looks like a similar Hollywood actor who hates motherfucking snakes on motherfucking planes. Well ok, fair enough...the whole point of this is to establish familiarity, so mission accomplished. But HANG ON. It turns out that Marcus Johnson wasn't his original name, but NICK FURY JR was! And so from here on out, everyone refers to Marcus as Nick Fury. Yeah...ok, I honestly was willing to buy all of this until I saw that. I mean, everything else is quite relatable. A son who wants to follow in his great dad's footsteps? Sure, that's cool. An estranged mixed race son meeting with a normally absentee Nick Fury? It makes sense, and plays into Fury's character. But that secret original name...it's not quite a deal breaker, but MAN is it so unnecessarily corny. Just a little detail that turned this into a bit of a parody of All My Children. I mean, they were there! The light was at the end of the tunnel! They introduced a character who looked like Sam Jackson, had strong ties to Nick Fury, and did it in a decent enough way. All they needed to do was say that he was taking up the name "Nick Fury" and they would have been home free! But no, they had to go with "His name was Nick Fury all along!" I don't know why that aspect bothers me more than anything else...it's just that it's a tiny tiny detail that really changed my perspective of this. But whatever.
The fact that this mini was the genesis of the introduction of Sam Jackson Nick Fury really overshadows pretty much everything else about this mini. I mean, the art was great, as I was always a fan of Scot Eaton since his run on X-Men Legacy. I also have to give it up to Yost, Bunn and Fraction for getting 99.9999999% of the way there in seamlessly introducing this editorially mandated character into the fold. I just think that this phenomena of one medium influencing the other is more interesting than the product that it spawned in this case. Battle Scars was a serviceable mini that I wouldn't steer people away from, but I find it interesting that because Sam Jackson is getting so known for playing Fury , that the comics side of Marvel is on the road to phasing out the old character model for Fury. It's not the first time that something like this has happened in entertainment, but it's probably the biggest case.
Story: 3 - Good
Art: 4 - Very Good
Art: 4 - Very Good
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