Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

As a former literature major, I'm pretty comfortable reading difficulty worded texts.  I can't say that it's my favorite narrative approach, but I understand, at times, that the story requires it to convey as certain sense of uncertainty.  The problem is that the story has to require it.  Otherwise, it feels intentionally obfuscating (and showy), where the author is using it to convey a sense of complication or mystery but instead simply leaves the reader bored and confused.  Kot does the latter here, and it's why I'm canceling the series.

In "Secret Avengers," I have a pretty good grasp where the story is going.  It might be a little hard to follow at times, but Kot is weaving a pretty clear narrative.  You can say definitely at the end of each issue what happened, even if it's unclear how it contributes to the overall story that he's telling.  That's not the case here.  I not only have no idea what happened in issue #1 or this one, but I also have no idea what story he's telling.  I tried, but I still don't see how we went from underwater drug-smugglers to doing...whatever it is that Bucky does here in Asgardia.  It's a shame that this series is going the way of "Red Hood and the Outlaws" for me, where I have to bail on a sidekick made good, but here we are.

* (one of five stars)

Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

As anyone reading this blog for a while knows, I have a sidekick fetish.  Characters like Dick Grayson and Bucky Barnes tend to be much more interesting to me than Steve Rogers or Bruce Wayne.  Moreover, Bucky near the top of my list of sidekicks, so, needless to say, I was excited to see him return to a monthly series.

Unfortunately, I won't be getting this one.  I've stuck with Ales Kot on "Secret Avengers," since I have some sort of sense of where he's going, even if the non-linear narrative occasionally frustrates me.  I really have no idea here, though.  This issue is just a jumble of images and words, fueled by Kot's obfuscatory dialogue and Rudy's indistinct art.  Kot never explains what threat the alien king or the drug smugglers posed to Earth.  If anything, it seems highly unlikely that a pacifist king or Atlantean stoners could pose any real threat.   Instead, they do little more than set up terrible one-liners like "Imperius Sex."  (I could really go my entire life without seeing that phrase in a comic again.)  Onto this confusion, Kot adds mysterious phrases, odd alien interludes, and Nick Fury.  I just can't.

This type of story might be someone's cup of tea, but it's not mine.  I can tell that it's not going to get "better," in the sense that I would like it more than I do now.  As such, I'm getting off the train here and I'll board again when Bucky inevitably returns to Earth.

* (one of five stars)