Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: Red Zone Part 6: The Great Escape
Written by: Geoff Johns
Penciled by: Olivier Coipel
Inked by: Andy Lanning
Colored by: Chris Sotomayor
Lettered by: Comicraft
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Publisher: Marvel Comics
After six hellish months “The Red Zone” is finally over. The problems for this arc began immediately as it was obvious from the first installment that the story was being padded out for TPB release. It was purposely released monthly as opposed to biweekly (like the remainder of Geoff John’s run is going to be) in order to compensate for the chronic lateness of artist Olivier Coipel, who was totally unsuitable for this arc. Meanwhile Geoff Johns announces, as if by fate due to the rising discontent with the arc, goes and announces that he’s leaving Marvel high and dry and signing an exclusive deal with DC Comics, where he will be given a brand spanking new “Teen Titans” book to write. This effectively renders Geoff a literal lame duck and leaves the door for Chuck Austen to take over the book, a move that can only mean BAD things for everyone involved.
Side note 1: The new “Teen Titans” series is probably one of the worst pieces of garbage to currently be published by DC Comics. Seriously, why the hell did DC cancel BOTH “The Titans” and “Young Justice” (a book that had a devoted following, steady sales, and a writer who was more than happy to stay on the book for as long as DC would have him) in order to replace them with a new “Titans” book that, according to all of DC’s press people and PR people, was to very closely resemble the new Teen Titans cartoon then decide “NOPE! THE NEW TEEN TITANS BOOK WILL NOT RESEMBLE IN ANY WAY THE CARTOON!”? Why the hell is Superboy and an Aryan Nation reject that is the new Wonder Girl doing in the book? Impulse I can understand and tolerate because he’s an ex-Titan, fills the Kid Flash role on the team, and that his personality fits the cartoon’s hyperactive mindset, but why are the other two there? And why the hell aren’t Starfire, Cyborg, and Changli… I mean Beast Boy acting like their cartoon counterparts? I know they are mourning Donna Troy’s senseless death, but given DC’s big grandstanding statements about the new Teen Titans book matching the toon, couldn’t Geoff instead have made the three decide, in tribute to Donna’s spirit, to stop moping around like they have these last ten years and finally have fun?
Side note 2: I don’t care what anyone else says, Geoff’s big “franchise-altering” twist for Flash #200 in hindsight is ultra-ultra lame. Amnesia and History Erasing? Yeah, that’s original and everlasting. Ten bucks says that Geoff undoes this brain fart by the end of the year and the whole thing will be forgotten by everyone.
Anyway, Falcon and Black Panther beat the crap out of Red Skull and break his jaw off as the Red Zone is stopped. Vision gets repaired in-between panels, which thankfully spares us from having to see Wonderman show back up in order usurp all of the sympathy Vision would get for being injured again and to steal his ex from him and screw her right in front of him again. And Henry Peter Gyrich is fully redeemed for all past slights, like trying to kill all of Earth’s super-heroes with nano-technology, willfully shooting Storm and leaving her powerless for about four years, and tormenting the Avengers for years like an impotent, small-dick pencil pusher who is stuck in a dead-in job with no chance of advancement. I’m guess Geoff Johns is a huge Jim Shooter fan, as Shooter never got seemed to get over how his rivals at Marvel made Gyrich (who was based upon a close member of Shooter’s family) into evil incarnate as a means to spite Jim during his infamous tenure as EIC at Marvel.
The issue ends with the first of a series of pointless roster changes as Warbird leaves the team to go join the Department of Homeland Security, presumably to try and deflect attention to the treasonous actions of Bush and his underlings in his administration by hiring a pretty blonde girl and trotting her in front of the idiotic media. This is a rather pointless sequence because Carol’s departure means nothing in the long-run do to Geoff ditching the book like he has, as Chuck Austen has stated that he has his own roster plans for the book. Bush meanwhile gets yelled at by Captain America about hiding more weapons like the Red Zone virus and gives W the evil eye when he tells him that Bush best be shutting down any illegal bio-weapons labs in America right now. The story ends with Vision (repaired with no word mentioned as to how he got repaired and by who) and Scarlet Witch visiting the boy from the first chapter of the arc, giving closure to that particular subplot.