Written by Joshua Hale Fialkov
Illustrated by Juan DoeFEAR ITSELF TIE-IN
Discover the history of Sun Wukong — Thief! Trickster! Hero! Great Sage, Equal of Heaven! — and witness as he takes his place at the forefront of Marvel’s ranks, the legendary Handsome Monkey King.
The enigmatic Monkey King jumps from the pages of Iron Man 2.0, swinging into his own one-shot that is just bananas.
Right? Because monkeys, you know?
Let’s get serious after the cut.
I think somewhere along I missed something. Perhaps some wires got crossed, or I’m just not a very good reader. It happens sometimes; I read so much, specifically so that I can talk about and review comics for this site that, on occasion, my memory is not perfect of things. The reason I say this is because, when I read Iron Man 2.0, I could’ve sworn that the eponymous Monkey King of this book was a cool and collected villianous martial arts master, one who is excessively narcissitc and greedy yet still relatively stoic and sinister. He was a character who flittered chaotically through the pages of the book, and one who left a good enough impression with me that I decided buying a one-shot about him and his origin would be worthwhile.
Either I bought the wrong book, or I read Iron Man 2.0’s Fear Itself arc completely wrong, because this character and that character are not the same character.
Fear Itself: The Monkey King covers the selfish origins of the eponymous Sun Wukong, once a ninja crime lord tricked and trapped into the Eighth City by a rival. The story is intercut between the Monkey King’s return to his empire and his origin, but the noticable thing about the story is that at no time does this actually seem to line up with the story of Fear Itself, outside of a reference to him breaking out of the Eighth City due to Fear Itself. The comic itself reads like some kind of weird alternate Deadpool story, with dick jokes and random (and entirely odd) chapter breaks as Wukong talks to himself, somewhat addresses the readers and basically talks about how cool he is for 22 pages.
Here is the tricky part of the book: as I mentioned earlier, the character introduced in Iron Man 2.0 doesn’t match up to the character here. Nick Spencer and Joshua Hale Fialkov are collaborating for a bit on an upcoming arc in Iron Man 2.0, so it stands to reason that Spencer would’ve entrusted Fialkov to flesh out a character that Spencer brought in the book simply to have another Iron Fist-type character at his disposal to give him a good reason to play with the Eighth City in an Iron Man book. Sun Wukong, the Handsome Monkey King, was a blank slate, but you could assume certain things about the character due to how Spencer wrote him. He was an extremely dangerous character, created in tone with Brubaker and Fraction’s run on Iron Fist, and now Fialkov has essentially reinvented him from the ground-up, making him a sassy bad boy akin to Daken and less so a character like Davos.
To illustrate my point, here is a visual component to the review. First, we have a scene from Iron Man 2.0, written by Nick Spencer and illustrated by Ariel Olivetti:
Now, take a look at a scene from Fear Itself: The Monkey King, by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Juan Doe:
Bit of a difference, no?
I suppose this isn’t neccesarily a bad thing? If we sort of relent to the notion that there wasn’t really a Monkey King before this issue, just a character named Monkey King who showed up and kicked some butt, then whatever, let Fialkov write whoever he wants. I can’t say I personally cared for this version of the character over Spencer’s brief use of him in his Fear Itself: Iron Man 2.0 storyline, though. I think Marvel has enough characters who laugh at dick jokes, and Marvel doesn’t need any more of that (seriously — one is more than enough, let alone one and a bevy of alt-reality versions of himself). Given this issue, I can’t say I care too much to read any further adventures of the Monkey King if this is who he “really is”. Fialkov is not a writer I am familiar with, but I can’t say I’m effectively impressed by his writing with this, certainly not enough to want to actively find more of his work. Given the buzz around him that has been circulating around the Multiversity offices and the internet as a whole, I really think I must have picked up the wrong book.
Continued belowThe art by Juan Doe is easily passable as well. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by artists like David Aja and Ariel Olivetti on Iron Fist titles, two top of the line illustrators, but trading their cool, sleek and moody illustrations for an artist that can’t draw consistent faces feels like a wasted opportunity for a one-shot. Monkey King as a whole is chaotic, and Juan Doe’s illustration matches that for better or for worse. Will Quintana’s colors certainly do their best to cover up what is otherwise good but uninspired art, but it doesn’t save the book visually. And given the book’s ethnic cast (i.e. non-white characters), the illustration never really feels that sensitive to foreign culture, offering up cartoonish and somewhat odd anime-influenced art instead.
If I want to read about a comic character who laughs at dick jokes, I can go read Deadpool in any number of titles. I don’t read Deadpool, though. If I wanted to read a comic about a cocky self-assured character who needs to consistently reaffirm how great he is, I’ll just read Daken: Dark Wolverine. I like reading Daken: Dark Wolverine. In fact, an issue of Daken came out this week, and it was easily quite better than this. With Monkey King, I was ready to root for a new character, yet nothing really came of my blind faith here. Then again, I suppose for my high-flying kung-fu adventures, at least there is Spider-Island: The Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu for another two issues.
To end, an anecdote: while discussing what books I was going to review this week, I mentioned to my girlfriend that I would be reviewing a title entitled The Monkey King. “Is it about an actual king of monkeys?” she asked. “I don’t think so, no.” “Oh. Well, then it probably won’t be that good.”
Final Verdict: 2.0 – …Heh. Rod.
