Guiding Light

Publisher
Marvel
Writer
Jim McCann
Artist
Alex Chung, UDON
Country of origin
Japan
Length
8 pages
Year
2006

Guiding Light/MARVEL 8 Page Comic

By David Rasmussen
23rd Dec 06

Hey, everyone, think MARVEL was shilling this out abit too aggressively for something that was so bad?
Several of it’s flipbooks had it alone, and I won’t even attempt to find out what non-flipbook titles had this crossover in it because, well, it’s not worth it from what I’ve seen of the smathering of samples I’ve taken for this review. But, to recap…

Besides Marvel Tales #17 featuring Amazing Spider-Man/Runaways it also appeared in Marvel Heroes #18 which featured New Avengers (ironic since this is a New Avengers crossover) and Young Avengers (also ironic since this one features a Guiding Light poster within), Marvel Adventures #18 featuring Marvel Adventures Spider-Man and Fantastic Four and Marvel Select #18 featuring the last chapter of X-Men Deadly Genesis and New X-Men Academy X… phew! Of course I do remember there was other titles as well butttt… let’s not ponder them as it’s not like there’s anything to get overtly excited over when it comes to all this titles. And I won’t get my hands on those titles anyway so why bother thinking about them, they’re a non-issue in this review in anycase as my earlier thoughts about this 8 page event was totally offbase… in that I thought it’d actually be more involved than I thought it would be. My bad.

From the two I looked at (Marvel Tales #17 and Marvel Select #18) and one more for reference (Marvel Adventures #18) I came to one unsatisfying conclusion concerning the whole Guiding Light fiasco… actually more than one conclusion as you are about to see. But first… the 8 page crossover is just that, 8 pages long. Heck, my pitched storyline to this independent anthology super hero title about lesbian super heroines has more pages to date submitted than THAT! Damn! Talk about a lacking “Crossover”.
But I suppose it’s just as well since it shortened the suffering by readers greatly. Didn’t at all deliver what the ads on The Guiding Light promised, but whatever.

Hey ladies and gentlemen! Want to know who gets the blame for this crossover BESIDES Quesada? Me too! But just in case you’re going to blame the talent behind this comic (and how petty if we’re going to start making a comic book naughty list and checking it twice this Christmas season for (bleep)tascular crossovers and bad comic non-events) you can send all remarks to the following people… whether or not it’s in this order is up to you.

Writer - Jim McCann
Artwork - UDON (Why UDON? Why?!?)
Pencils by Alex Chung
Inks by M3TH (?)
Colors by Rob Ruffolo
Lettering by V.C.’s Joe Caramagna
Editor - Nicole Boose
Sales V.P. - David Gabriel
UDON Editor - Erik Ko
Publisher - Dan Buckley
And finally… Joe Quesada as Joe Quesada, Editor in Chief.

Cry bitter tears, folks, things can only get worst from here.

Apparently nobody at MARVEL learned the simple fact you and I both know from the video gaming industry. If they did, mind you, we’d never had been stuck with such “games” like X-Men : New Dimension, X-Men : The Official Game (of X-Men Last Stand), Fantastic Four (the Official Game of Fantastic Four the Movie), and MARVEL : Rise of the Imperfects. MARVEL can only belt out Spider-Man movie games, X-Men Legends and the recently fun MARVEL Ultimate Alliance so many times a year, sometimes (bleep) must come along with fun games… oh, Ghost Rider the Official Game is probably coming soon, another thing to cry bitter tears over.

Let’s stick this to two basic lessons.
Lesson One : Movies turned into video games are (bleep)y about 8 out of 10 times (and that’s being generous for the 2 Spider-Man movie games that rocked). (No, X-Men Legends, Ultimate Spider-Man and Incredible Hulk : Ultimate Destruction don’t count because they’re not movie based games. Remember how (bleep)y Hulk the Official Movie game was? I do.)
Lesson Two : Video games that are corporate crossovers are a mistake, especially if they are crossovers that make ZERO sense whatsoever. See NRA Varmint Hunter and the recently released Carnival Cruise Lines Tycoon for more info on that in action (both for the PC).

Thus put it together and a badly translated soap opera to comic that is more corporate crossover between the mismatched MARVEL brand and Procter and Gamble brands big guns is nothing but bad news.
The episode, the “origin” lacked any real MARVEL presence other than badly conceived “Easter Eggs” and a lackluster story that insulted more than entertained scored a 1 out of 5 from me, and from this lacking 8 pager I see nothing good to come in the score again… wait, you saw the score already… ok, no secret then, this is getting ANOTHER 1 out of 5. Sucks for Quesada, yes, now find out why.

You don’t need a recap of the episode that leads to this disaster, do you? No? Didn’t think so.
But to recap anyway, mostly to kill time, it’s Halloween and viewers are locked and loaded watching the crisis revolving around the character that everyone has their eye on… who, sadly, is NOT Harley (aka the Guiding Light) but Reva (p.s. Guiding Light people, I take back the few nice things I said about you handling the whole Reva thing… you’re back to loser status in my book after that stunt post MARVEL‘s crossover event). Too bad, though, Reva would make a terrible super hero. She made a terrible clone, a terrible period romantic piece leading lady in a tired plot recycled from a 101 Harlequin Romance novels, and a terrible mother (she ended up with the spokesperson for Apple’s Mac as a son after all) so she’d make a terrible super hero.

Anyway where was I… oh, right, Halloween. Harley’s making costumes, worrying about making a baby with her hubby the occasional painkiller addict, and then there’s her family problems. So after she’s waterbombed and soaked with, yes, water, she decides to grab the halloween lights by the electrical cords and fries herself to death… not. She wakes up with electrical powers that make her fast, make her charge things with the power or electricity (e-lec-tricity) and then she can fly, and whatever… is this even legitimate super hero powers?

Oh, then her dad Buzz (creator of the Buzz Burger) channels the dead spirit of everyone’s favorite Uncle Ben, Harley makes a costume on her home sewing machine ala Catwoman (Batman Returns), and then runs around town dressed like a stripper… how endearing. Things stop being endearing once she dresses up in her hero costume because out come the acidically painful cliches and everything falls apart from there. In the end she flings herself into this large body of water after she finds out water shorts out her powers, and becomes all normal… (bleep)! What a bunch of (bleep)! Even Xenosaga had an easier to swallow story than this one (and lord knows you can choke a horse on the story in Xenosaga!)

The promised Easter Eggs in the episode suck (nothing special to communicate back to your X Mansion about), the story sucked, everything sucked. Need I say more? No. And yet I did, mostly because I wish Quesada and company actually took the damn Crossover event more seriously dammit!
Just one, just one, I’d like to see an event like this that is actually written, conceived, crafted and fused into a project that is WORTHY of the source material that it is being birthed from. MARVEL owed you better, far better by far, and what they gave you in this “event” to attract “new readers” to the MARVEL Universe was more insult than sales pitch. Nobody should become fan(atics) of the MARVEL brand after that, oh no.

Now if you think they’d at least craft the comic version of it better than the TV version then… well sadly Quesada has no intention of sparing you dear readers in this venue either as it seems the thing cooking in the oven two weeks from the time of this story isn’t the only turkey being overdone in the town of Springfield (speaking of which that’s what they should have done with this story, stuck it in an oven and turned the gas on high if only to spare us from this piece of (bleep).)

It’s nearly Thanksgiving as this short (bleep) starts and due to the accidential combination of soda and an electrical outlet (not the “let’s fry Harley” joke again) she regains her powers and the lights go out, blah. Meanwhile it looks like the New Avengers have suddenly been drawn to the city of Springfield because of Harley and, surprise surprise, bring their own villainy into town for a short meaningless battle over the Harley stripper… I mean the Guiding Light… bleah. Oh, and here comes a point that should have been done in the ACTUAL EPISODE! (Stupid ommission!)

Briefly during the eight pager Stark and Spaulding have it out like only rich people can (with Spaulding vowing vengeance against Stark for stealing government contracts out of his evil grasp) though, oddly enough, despite the fact it’s 2006 and it’s been quite sometime since Stark revealed he was Iron Man (I was still reading mainstream when Stark made that announcement as I remember it sometime back) it seems nobody remembers that, let alone Spaulding (Alan) who mistakes Stark for his “bodyguard“.
Missed opportunity without a doubt as Stark should have popped into Springfield and we would have had the Battle of the Rich People (Stark vs. Spaulding)… oh, and then we’d have Drunken Iron ManFist : Battle of the Drunken Avengers (Mr. Stark? Meet Billy. Billy? Meet Mr. Stark. Billy? Your old friend Mr. Jack Daniels at the bar. Mr. Stark? Your old friend Mr. Jack Daniels at the bar. Let the Iron Mayhem begin!)

Let’s see… while we’re talking about missed moments from the episode we could have had.
We have Buzz (Guiding Light) and he fought in a war I think, and we have Captain America who played kickball with Nazi vital organs in totally Call of Duty style (only without the guns)… reunion of the old fighting soldiers! Anyway Cap showing up would have made sense because (if someone paid attention to the Guiding Light universe at that moment) there was a Vet Hospital being completed and an appearance by the good Cap at it’s opening might have really pulled a tear jerker moment… Cap getting all inspirational and giving a stirring post 9-11 Fighting Spirit in the Name of Freedom and Liberty speech worthy of his finest comic issues ever seen… waahh!! It’s so damn moving and it never even happened!! Agghhh!! (No I’m not being sarcastic, I really would have loved to see a stirring Captain America moment. Really. I read Captain America in my mainstream days! I know a good Cap story when I read one!)

Wolverine? Meet social outcast slash feral rage-boy Jonathan. Jonathan? Meet social outcast slash lovable feral rage-man Wolverine. Two guys go out on the town, beat up punks and talk about the meaning of life… or just the meaning of relationships with women both attainable and unattainable (Wolverine should be a total expert on the whole unattainable love thing I tell you!)

The ruler of weirdest plot devices ever? Spider-Man? Meet Reva (she who was once cloned). Reva? Spider-Man, another person who was once cloned. You two share so much in common (more than you think past the whole cloning thing mind you!) Now get together and talk about your messed up lives, and then… you know… beat up people. Like Wolverine and Jonathan would, which is scary watching Reva beat people up… scary woman! Down! Down!

Thor… Thor… (blanks out)… uh… go stand in a corner and talk to yourself. (You’d have to go to ABC Daytime to find the meddlings of the supernatural and “gods”, but that’s another show)

Spider-Woman… (blanks out)… (cough cough)… better not say the first thing that comes to mind… (sighs)… my Editors won’t let me talk about Batwoman… they’ve… (cough)… seen my writing work on another site and… (cough)… that’s that about that… did I mention that anthology I submitted this work for that’s about… yeah… I’ll shut up now.

Long story long (because that’s what this is, a long story) this is 8 pages that represent 8 minutes of your life that you will never get back again if you read these 8 pages. A 1... Out of 5.

-- David Rasmussen 23rd Dec 06