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We’re back for another edition of TPL and luckily 2010 has been on-time for every issue. Work hasn’t been too crazy, I haven’t had any graduate classes to take and with the smaller amount of books per week I’ve been able to read the books over the weekend and write them all up by Monday night while watching Heroes so this hasn’t even been close to being late. This week featured 20 total books, 1 each from Dynamite and Image, 5 from DC and the rest (13) from Marvel.
-Image-
-Mice Templar 2 #6- This was another fantastic issue that focuses on the relationship and history of Cassius and Llochloraine, as well as Karic being taken to the Maeve bats who predict that his destiny is to kill the snake king and bring its head to them, basically a deathtrap of a mission. Karic goes on this mission anyways and Cassius follows, though he didn’t have much of a choice considering that after his battle with the Scorpions he was kicked out of the village. There’s a really cool essay on the Maeve legend and women in general in combat. There’s just a great amount of mythology in here and the duo of Glass and Oeming are blending all these myths together and forming just a fantastic series. It’s a very smart series and even if you don’t read that much into the myth it’s just damn fun. 1/1.
-Dynamite-
-Project SuperPowers 2 #6- There has been a lot of plot development going on in these pages the last few issues but this issue was just balls to the wall action, with the Superpowers battling the Super Mysterymen, and the Kid Heroes rescuing them at the end, probably forming a very dangerous alliance. Meanwhile, the Superpowers split up and look for Zeus, only to find that Truth is dead and possibly that the flame inside of the Human Flame may in fact be alive. Speaking of alive, Llama revives Samson and one of the other dead, suggesting powers beyond anyone’s knowledge. This story keeps moving very well, with equal parts action and story-telling and the way that all the characters are made unique, which is no small feat considering how many characters there are, makes this a great book to pick up every month. 1/1.
-DC-
-Blackest Night: Flash #2- This is a cool tie-in, making reference to the fact that the Flash now has the blue ring. This story goes between the Flash fighting Firestorm and the other dead Flashes while the Rogue’s come into contact with the dead Rogue’s. Boomerang shows up at the end to have a reunion with his dead father. I like how the most recent BN tie-ins like this have featured characters who have donned the rings and this shows him using those rings and just goes more in depth than the BN tie-in. 1/1.
-Blackest Night: Phantom Stranger #42- We have another great issue reappearing and this was a very interesting one. Phantom Stranger battles Spectre and the Spectre basically just leaves during the fight promising big things. So the Phantom Stranger the Blue Devil team-up with Deadman to get the repossessed body of Boston Brand back and delivered to Nanda Parabat. This was good for what it was, a one-shot featuring zombies that all applies to Blackest Night and dead titles. It’s not necessary for you guys to read but it is too cool an idea from DC to pass up. 2/2.
-Blackest Night: Starman #81- Another dead character is revived (Starman) and wreaks havoc on his old hometown and only Shade, and his heart, is able to stop him. This was the first time that I felt my unfamiliarity with the character hurt my enjoyment of the book but again, it was one-shot with a complete story that didn’t suck and that’s enough for me. 3/3.
-Green Lantern Corps #44- Guy is totally possessed by the red ring of rage and not even Kyle can stop his rage. The Black Lanterns are swarming on Oa and they topple the power battery. Luckily Mogo is there and he literally sucks up everything on the planet, and drowns the black lanterns in a sea of green that goes down to his core, leaving the GLC alone and unharmed. We end with Kyle looking for Guy and Guy possessed with rage and not in the mood to talk. A great tie-in, with a rare appearance by Mogo (he’s one of my favorite Lanterns) that shows just how powerful he (it?) is. 4/4.
-Superman/Batman #68- This is billed as an Our Worlds At War Aftermath, which is cool, if I had ANY idea what the hell Our Worlds At War actually was. Well, the Kryptonian shuttle that was sent out from the ship that Superman found crash landed on a mountain and contained a shape-shifter who manages to steal the identity of the head of STAR Labs. Superman doesn’t realize this but the shape-shifter does and puts a hit out on Clark Kent, which fails. He’s not too happy and confronts the assassin at issue’s end. Like I said, I have no idea what this Our World’s At War stuff is, or where this takes place in continuity, but it’s actually an interesting story to start off and if you have a book with an interesting story and good art, it will always get a point on the plus side. 5/5.
-Marvel-
-Amazing Spider-Man #618- This is the Mysterio portion of the Gauntlet, although Mysterio isn’t really noticeable through most of the issue. Peter deals with May and Jameson and May visits the FEAST offices. She finds Mr. Negative killing a man in the midst of the heightening mob wars with the Maggia and he instills in her a big mean streak that she unleashes on Peter when she sees him again. Mysterio makes his presence felt by bringing back dead to really mess with the Maggia and even the father of Peter’s love interest, Carlie. This wasn’t a blow away issue, but the art of Marcos Martin makes this an easy recommendation. 1/1.
-Avengers vs. Atlas #1- I don’t know where in continuity this takes place, because it features the New Avengers teaming up with the current Agents to battle some sort of energy form that is making its appearance in Manhattan. Surprisingly, that weird energy signature sucks up the New Avengers and spits out the original Avengers! This could be interesting. The back-up of Namorita was just a character-driven tale of her stopping whale-hunters and destroying their ship and only giving them mercy when the whales request it. I love the AoA so anything with them is guaranteed a point. 2/2.
-Captain America #602- We start off with Bucky finally going after the 1950’s Cap who has been free to roam and has been assembling a grass roots movement to topple the government. Bucky manages to get into the movement due in part to the Falcon and a little scheme they played out. It was a good start to a new storyline. There’s a Nomad back-up that picks up where her mini-series left off and it features Nomad teaming up with Arana and battling some C-list villain as she investigates her brother’s death. It’s not a story that will set the world on fire but as a back-up it’s fine. 3/3.
-Dark Avengers #13- This is as close to an origin of the Sentry as we’ll get. His wife reveals that Bob Reynolds was just a junkie looking for a hit and ingested something that would give him the power of a thousand exploding suns. Soon Reynolds starts letting the darkness overtake him, the same darkness of biblical times. I’ll grant it this: the story is very interesting and the art of Deodato is amazing, but Sentry being a junkie? I don’t know. It takes away a bit of the mystique of the character for me. I’ll wait on final judgment, though. 4/4.
-Dark Wolverine #83- Let’s see, the Dark Avengers battle Asgardians and Daken continues his ultimate goal of undermining Norman. It’s been same old, same old for this book. That is, until Daken impales Norman and pops a claw in his face. That’s like WHAAAT? The ending was really awesome. 5/5.
-Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth #7- Deadpool takes the Zombie Deadpool head through the interdimensional portal and we take a wild ride through different worlds with different Deadpools. There is a military DP who is handsome, a lady Deapdool, and the Deadpool Kid (a Western character). All the different worlds are drawn by a different artist to really hammer home the fact that we’re in different universes and I’ll be damned to find a more entertaining book on the stands this week. 6/6.
-Hulk #19- The new Frightful Four attack the FF and really take it to them, and it is only the Red Hulk’s timely intervention that keeps the FF alive. What is the Red Hulk’s ulterior motive, though? There’s some great action here, the Trapster is here, too, but I can’t believe the Frightful Four would rout the FF the way they did. Fall of the Hulks is starting off with a bang and on a promising note. 7/7.
-Incredible Hercules #140- There’s plenty of action to go around in this book, too. This is like action week in the Marvel Universe! The god of Smiths is making female robots to battle Hercules and Cho, who trailed the robots and Athena into his lair. Their battle is interrupted when Continuum starts churning and re-writing the world. Zeus implores Hera to stop and she decides to stop the device. Typhon has other feelings and makes sure the world is re-written. With the breastplate of Aegis on him, he may be unstoppable. The Atlas back-up was cool, too, with the Agents fighting through different monsters only to have the real Aphrodite show up. Another kick-ass book this week. 8/8.
-Nova #33- Ok, so follow me here. The Sphinx is dying from temporal cancers thanks to his time-traveling so he asks a younger Sphinx to knock it off. He’s not having any of that which is why the Sphinx got these characters together to throw the balance of power in his favor. Of course, the other Sphinx has his own villains to counteract that. This would be cool if I didn’t read it in a recent issue of Hulk, or Red Hulk or whatever it was called. This is slightly different because it isn’t a mere game but it is really familiar. I’ll give Abnett & Lanning a free past because of how they write it and how it stays interesting with the characters used. 9/9.
-Realm of Kings: Inhumans #3- There’s a lot going on here. We’ll start with Triton and his crew in the Fault seemingly finding Black Bolt but it was really just an echo. The rest of the Inhumans are dealing with a Kree uprising that Crystal helps take care of. They soon realize that the person behind this whole thing was actually Maximus! I knew it! I was just waiting for him to make his heel turn and rise back as the ultimate enemy of the Inhumans! This is heading to a great conclusion. 10/10.
-Spider-Man: 1602 #4- This is another good issue from Marvel and they are on fire this week. Spider-Man tries rescuing Marion from Octavius but he’s captured and Pym takes his blood again. This time it’s to make a serum for him that makes him more powerful. Pym just wants his Jannette back. The 1602 versions of Green Goblin, The Lizard and now Doctor Octopus are really cool and this is the best 1602 has been since the original one. 11/11.
-Uncanny X-Men #520- We have two stories running here, the first finds Wolverine and Psylocke heading to New York to find the whereabouts of the last Predator (turns out Fantomex kills it) before they run into a place of the Gamemaster (I think that’s who it is) and some of his super-powered freaks. More on that next issue. Second, Magneto helps support Utopia with the aid of Namor but when he tells everyone he did this without their knowledge the reception he gets is lukewarm at best and Cyclops totally talks down to him. Why would you crap all over Magneto like that? I am not a fan of Greg Land but I can overlook the art right now because the story is quite strong. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop on Magneto. 12/12.
-Web of Spider-Man #4- We have a pretty uninspired “origin” of Mysterio (turns out the wall-crawling he was looking to copy from a film actually had demonic origins which is why Mysterio couldn’t get information on how to do it from the stunt coordinator. There was an equally unimpressive Hammerhead story. I wish they would just stick to an ORIGIN of these villains that first appeared in the early 60’s that current readers may not know, or at least update the origin so it is accessible to readers now. The only thing that carries this book is Spider-Girl and her battling of the Goblin Queen and making her clone turn back to the side of good makes me miss the Spider-Girl ongoing, but this is the closest we’ll get to it. This title had a lot of promise when it started and I do think it’s a good idea, but it needs to be retooled a bit in order for it to stay alive. Spider-Girl gets this book a point. 13/13.
-The Bottom Line- This was a fantastic week of comic book reading. Cutting out a lot of fat has made The-Pull-List that much more enjoyable. Image and Dynamite continue churning out books that rival anything that the big two are putting out, DC is rolling on very well with Blackest Night and so far Siege has delivered. I do express some qualms about titles like Web of Spider-Man which I will monitor in the coming months. Still, a great set of books, and a great week of reading.
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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