When I first started reading through the stack, I was pretty sure this was going to be another “meh” week. However, I came across one horrendous comic and one absolutely glorious comic. Excellent. 

Hey there, my lovely Odd Tale Readers. Sorry that I’ve been gone so long, I know it must have crushed all of you when you opened up the site and didn’t see one of my glorious reviews. Well, holidays and family be crazy and I was just incapable of doing much of anything at the time. But it’s January and outside of MLK day, I don’t really have any holidays to use as an excuse. Speaking of the holidays, did you all get what you wanted? Of course you didn’t! You all wanted more KCBC. Well, your January Santa is here to give you what you really wanted.

Let’s get right to it then, shall we? When I arrived back home, I had a stack of comics the size of the Sears Tower (that’s right, it’s the Sears Tower; the Willis Tower is never going to be a thing in my mind). So, I had a lot to read, but in order to be fair to my children (if people can call their pets their children, I can call my comics my children…I think), I’m just going to choose this week’s comics.

When I first started reading through the stack, I was pretty sure this was going to be another “meh” week. However, I came across one horrendous comic and one absolutely glorious comic. As much as it pains me, the day was saved by Marvel. It pains me so much that I’m actually going to think of it like this: The day was saved by The Invincible Iron Man.

Tony Stark has done it again! He has made a new suit (five issues back) and is being all kinds of awesome. So here’s what’s gone down in the past five issues. Tony’s original suit specs were put online by a high school kid and he realizes that he’s been shirking off his duties of being a genius, billionaire, philanthropist. So, he makes a to do list that handles all of that. Issue one, makes a new suit that is freaking awesome. This thing is every suit he’s had put into one suit that connects to his nervous system and all that cool shit. Throughout the next four issues, he has his AI, Friday, kick his ass in order to get him to do his philanthropy and stuff. As for the billionaire issue, I mean, he’s always going to be a billionaire but Parker Industries is sort of kicking Stark Tech’s ass. Not sure what he can do about that yet.

So now he has time to be a superhero. Well, good thing since Masque is going psycho…again. She’s going around, stealing all of this overpowered mystical crap. Well, there are only two people that are on Tony’s level in the equivalent mystical field: Victor Von Doom and Dr. Stephen Strange. Well, Tony gets both of their help. Freaking awesome, right? For one, Doom is trying to pull an Osborn/ Iron Patriot and be a good guy. Whether or not that’s for real or not is still up in the air but so far, he seems to be on point. The even cooler part is that The Awesome Facial Hair Bros are back together again! Stephen and Tony teaming up to take down mystical foes that sometimes use tech! Well, turns out Masque is possessed by a demon, and there are also super teched-out ninjas after her.

So, here’s what goes down: Stephen sends Tony to the location of some mystical object that Masque has. Tony gives Stephen an “Awesome Facial Hair Bros” high five. Tony shows up. He finds a recording of Masque making one of her crazy “we’re always going to be in love, Tony” speeches. Tony kicks ninja ass. Tony finds Doom. They track Masque to a night club which is owned by Mary Jane Watson. They blow up the club. Masque nearly kills Tony. Mary Jane Watson hits Masque over the head with a mic stand. Doom exorcises the demon out of Masque. Strange shows up and makes Tony’s day by telling him that they’re Awesome Facial Hair Bros. Tony finds MJ and offers her Pepper’s old job. MJ accepts. So, Tony sort of checks off that “beat Peter Parker” item on his to-do list. So, pretty awesome stuff.

You know what’s even more awesome than all of this? You know what’s even more awesome than mentioning how awesome facial hair is? During this whole series, Tony has been crushing hard on this genius woman. This woman points out that Tony has a reputation for being a terrible person. She gives him a hard reality check and he just melts for her. It’s like Tony has fallen in love with his long lost conscience.

So, yeah, coming in with the first 5/5 that I’ve ever given, Invincible Iron Man #5 totally gets the Key to the City. Since this is the first 5/5, this is going to be one bad ass key. It needs to put the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom to shame. I’m sure that Tony can display it on his armor somewhere.

Now that I’ve sufficiently stroked Tony Starks ego (still sounds wrong), it’s time to wail on someone with a crowbar. Before I do this, however, I need to reemphasize some things. I am someone who believes in absolute equality in the sense that no one is born better than anyone else. This pertains to the upcoming beating because I believe that men and women are absolutely equal. However, this does not mean that I expect society not to objectify people. Both sexes get objectified (yes, women get objectified more) and that’s not going to change any time soon, we need to get used to it. So, I say all of this because when I see one group saying how much better they are than the other, or throwing it in my face that they are or aren’t equal, it drives me fucking insane. This blood boiling insanity that I feel because of those in your face moments, is exactly why I’m ready and willing (although hesitant in fear of getting in trouble) to give Scarlet Witch #1 this week’s Beating with a Crowbar.

Okay, I think I’ve firmly established my reasonable defense, so I think I can get into this. The Scarlet Witch is the most powerful being in all of Marvel. I don’t care who has the Infinity Gauntlet. This woman created an entire universe where everyone (well, almost everyone) has super powers. Then, she gets pissed off and commits almost total genocide by whispering three words. She creates two children with the genes of her and a fucking android purely out of magic. Wanda Maximoff is a fucking goddess. End of story. If you disagree with me, good for you, but you’re wrong. So, the most powerful being of an entire comic book universe, one of the largest at that, is a woman. I don’t exactly hear about this fact when I hear people talking about objectification in comic books. Oh well, the point is that a woman is the most powerful being ever. Could it have been a man? Sure, why not?

Recently, a bunch of female characters have been receiving their own comic book series. This is pretty cool because a lot of these women are characters that I’m pretty interested in (in a pure story sense) and this lets me get to know them more. Obviously, Scarlet Witch has been given her own series. I was pretty freaking excited about this. Every incarnation of the character has been freaking awesome, especially the X-Men Evolution version (yeah, the show screwed up a lot but I was a kid and it was awesome). I was expecting to learn more about her relationship with her family; mainly her sons. I wanted to learn more about how she was post M-day because we really didn’t get a lot of her mental state after the fact. Did we get a little bit? Yeah, but still, I wanted a lot more. Yes, it was a bunch of years ago, but a new M-day is essentially happening right now. There must be some parallels being drawn in her head.

Since I’m saying what I was expecting and since I’m practicing my forehand with my crowbar, obviously I was pretty disappointed. So, what did we get instead? So far, the only relationship of hers that we know of is that she is friends (sort of) with the ghost of the woman that she killed, Agatha Harkness. Agatha is snarky Wanda is a little too serious, it’s your standard dysfunctional buddy cop relationship. If I wanted that, I would have watched TNT for another rerun marathon of whatever crime show they’re shoving down people’s throats that day.

At first, I was thinking that things could get better. However, a few pages in, Wanda starts explaining her power to the readers and I was already looking under my bed for my crowbar. She says that her power is magic and that magic is meant purely for women. Okay, she doesn’t straight up say that but when she says that her power is meant to be “feared by man” you can reread what she said and read between the lines.

Okay, Wanda’s powers are hard to explain but I made this article a week late simply for the sake of researching this in order to be sure that my anger is justified, so let me attempt to explain. Her powers have changed a bunch. However, the single consistency is that her magic is called chaos magic. Her powers have been amplified by alien energies, Morgen le Fay’s magic, but those are just secondary. In truth, she controls the entirety of magic from both the dimension of the Elder God of Chaos, Cthon, and also the power of Cthon himself. Now, throughout the history of Marvel, there is evidence that most magic that isn’t coming from personal spirit, comes from this realm. So that means almost every witch, wizard, sorceress, sorcerer, mage, and warlock (those are male witches, by the way) get their magic from this realm that Scarlet Witch pretty much has total control over. The fucking Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Stephen Strange, draws a lot of his power from this realm.

Then, they have the fucking audacity to say that this power is meant only for women. The fuck? Why? Why is this necessary to do? I cannot find any real sexist discrimination against Scarlet Witch that was a huge plot point (or any real minor moments, to be honest) for this to be justified. She is already the most powerful being in the universe, what need is there for her to then claim all of magic for women? For God’s sake, outside of Odin, no one cared that Thor is now Odinson and a woman now carries the title of Thor the Thunderer. So why must Scarlet Witch butcher us to death with the axe of feminism. Later on, we have Wanda making her way into a police station and is addressed by the stereotypical male officer as “sweetheart.” Look, I understand that a lot of men can be terrible people, that’s typically why most of my friends are women. However, this is not the 1920’s. No officer is going to throw you in a paddywagon and no officer is going to call you sweetheart, doll-face, or anything of the like. I know shit like this happens but it’s just unbelievably unlikely in today’s day and age.

Now, let me be clear (I’m hoping at least some of you read that in Obama’s voice because I know I did so when I typed it) about something here. I am in no way opposed to feminism. Feminism is a wonderful movement that strives for equality amongst the sexes. If I feel like too many people would disagree with me, I’d even say that I’m a feminist. However, I will not support lazy activism of any sort. I know that sounds terrible but you’ve stayed with me this far, you may as well stay a bit longer and allow me to explain. What Scarlet Witch #1 did was throw feminism in the reader’s face. It did so without subtlety, without tact, and without grace. Scarlet Witch #1 did what angry protesters have been doing since the birth of angry protest: it harmed the movement it was fighting for. When you scream in someone’s face about inequality, the person you’re screaming at isn’t thinking about how right you are. No, that person is thinking about how obnoxious you are and how they don’t think you deserve what you’re fighting for. If you’re going to represent an entire movement, let alone an entire gender, you better understand that this is the wrong way to go about things. If the book had presented the maters in a much gentler and subtler fashion, the message could have been received with open arms. I think back to the Journey into Mystery story about Young Loki defeating the Serpent. When describing what was happening to the Disir, Loki referred to them as witches to which the All-Mother said, “You can vilify an evil woman without language that exists only to vilify women.” It has been maybe three years since I’ve read that single bit of dialogue but because it was written so perfectly, because the entire story did not revolve around it, because it was subtle, graceful, and logical, I have remembered it word for word to this day. I truly hope that I have made my meaning clear to you all. This could have been a wonderful use of comics to strengthen the call for equality, but instead it weakened it without thought.

Over all, the story itself did little to hold my interest. I was hoping for much more from it. However, it did seem to relate a lot to all of the other strange mystical crap going on in the Marvel Universe, so I have to give it props for that. Initially, I was planning on giving this a 1/5 (if not for the crossover mysticism and the brief moments of humor, it’d have been a 0/5) but since this is a first issue, I’m going to give it a beating worthy of a 2/5 with hopes that it will learn from its mistakes.

To all the faithful Odd Tale readers, newcomers, and bored patrons of the internet, I hope you enjoyed this article. I hope you all have an awesome 2016.