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Well, I’m back on time with these things thanks to school cooling off a bit and my general apathy towards schoolwork for grad school. I’ve also had time to bang out some graphic novel reviews and a whole bunch of other DVD and TV reviews. The best part is that tomorrow I will be off from work for about 10 days, and little vacations like that are always welcome! Anyway, this weeks sees a total of 21 comics spread out among Dynamite (1), DC (4) and Marvel (16).
Spoiler Alert
Marvel
-Agents of Atlas #3- The Agents continue their dual stories, with the story taking place in 1958 of Suwan (love interest to Jimmy) getting captured and brought to an alternate universe while we have the current team dealing with Osborn and Namora mourning her lost daughter. With time for this comic to develop, we have some awesome stories going on that I can’t wait to read. 1/1.
-Amazing Spider-Man #590- We see Spidey teaming up with the FF in the past, with his mask off, to visit a strange alternate world. When that world throws a distress call Reed’s way, Spider-Man is asked to go there to help. While there, Johnny starts wondering why he can’t remember who Spider-Man was. He then sees statues the people built for the FF and Spidey with that Spidey being unmasked! Johnny knows something is up and it pisses him off that he can’t remember who Spider-Man is. He gets Peter to take off the mask by making it too hot to wear and he’s shocked by what he sees. What did he see? Find out next issue. See, this dealt with Spidey’s unmasking perfectly, taking care of it in his own book and also finally answering questions of why people who knew him before BND don’t know him now. By the way, I predict he has a Question type face so no one can see who he is. 2/2.
-Astonishing Tales #3- Wolvie and Punisher deal with the Mutant Hunter who can now hunt specific DNA, and Frank’s is used as the initial test. Iron Man 2020 suits up to battle the battle ship wanting to take out his cruise ship. Mojo deals with Sam and Roberto making movies, and Spider-Woman is a PI in LA. This was a lot better than the previous two issues as the stories are finally making sense. Spider-Woman mentions a move to San Fran, where the X-Men are so I wonder if that will ever come about. If it leads into her solo title this could be a good idea for a series like this, a launching pad for people to maintain their own solo ongoings or mini’s. 3/3.
-Avengers/Invaders #9- This is getting quite awesome. The soldier brings the Cosmic Cube back to 1943 Europe to save his friends, only to get shot up and drop the cube. Who should find it but the Nazi’s and the Red Skull? Skull takes over the world and rebuilds it in the idealologies of the Third Reich. That’s the world our heroes return to, in a Nazi New York City. They plan to get their world back with the current heroes on the trip (Ms. Marvel, Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Man and Spider-Woman) dressing as characters from that time. 4/4.
-Black Panther #3- Panther is in limbo and Storm must go and save him. She must sacrifice something but what that is we don’t know. Maybe she’ll get her mom back if her marriage ends? Anyway, there’s another mystical force at work as Morlun is resurrected to cause havoc. T’Challa’s sister is on her Panther quest, too. This was an okay issue, it wasn’t a spectacular stand-out but it served its purpose. 5/5
-Cable #13- Deadpool tells that Stryfe actually took over Apocalypse to rule the world they are in. Bishop had a hand in doing that in the past, with the goal of Stryfe being able to kill Cable. Deadpool is funny here, telling how he was imprisoned for 800 years due to bad luck. X-Force, Cable and Deadpool are attacked at issue’s end by the army of Stryfe. This was a real fun issue and I love that Deadpool is included in this story.
6/6.
-Marvel 70th Anniversary: Captain America Comics #1- This is a really awesome story of Steve Rogers which is prequel to him becoming Cap. He was involved in saving the super-soldier serum before he knew what it was, killing two of the three Nazi’s that were chasing him. The third one ended up killing Erskine, ensuring Cap was the only Super-Soldier. I loved that writer James Robinson could find another wrinkle in the Cap mythos and Marcos Martin did an awesome job with the art, especially all the lush backgrounds. There’s a reprint of Captain America Comics #7 with Cap and Bucky stopping a plot to destroy a baseball team. The cover, with the Timely Logo and the classic Golden Age feel was awesome. 7/7.
-Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #2- Reed looks into alternate worlds and finds that all peaceful resolutions of the SHRA act dealt with Reed working alone. Meanwhile, Sue, Johnny and Ben are whipped through different times (pre-historic, English monarchies, and pirates) as a result of the power being cut. Franklin and Valeria are on the case to get them back! I think the Reed angle is a thought-provoking scenario and I would much rather have this in the MAIN title than the stuff that is in there now. 8/8.
-Deadpool #9- Deadpool asks out Black Widow but goes nowhere, the Thunderbolts go after DP who has help from Taskmaster (who is dressing up as DP) and it’s Taskmaster DP that is captured. All good fun from this title, as usual. 9/9.
-Invincible Iron Man #12- Iron Man battles Sub-Mariner and escapes with his life as Pepper is arrested for wearing her suit. Her suit has no weapons and is purely defensive. Maria Hill is captured by the Controller and Norman recruits help from the Hood to take out Iron Man. 10/10.
-New Avengers: The Reunion #2- I have to say I was really tough on this comic last month. Having read the Hawkeye mini-series I understand the importance of this Bobbi/Clint relationship. Anyway, Mockingbird and Hawkeye decide to team up to take out a biological bomb. They argue a bit at the end and Mockingbird reveals she always wanted a divorce and when Hawkeye heard she didn’t before she died, it was really a Skrull. Interesting and I like this a lot better than before. 11/11.
-New Mutants Saga #1- This was free so it means I grabbed it. It was a really comprehensive look at the early years of the New Mutants but kind of breezes over the Liefeld years. I guess they didn’t care about that part. For a freebie, this was really informative. 12/12.
-Secret Warriors #3- Fury meets with Contessa about their relationship as the Secret Warriors try to stop AIM, only to get badly defeated by Gorgon with Yo-Yo suffering a serious injury. Fury takes out his frustrations Daisy and relieving her of command. He calls in Dum-Dum for some help. This is quite the espionage series and is incredibly engrossing. 13/13.
-Universal War One: Revelations #1- This was the only Soleil imprint titles I picked up and I just loved the whole series. It is a fricken war in outer space that is smart, has great, flawed, characters Not only that, the writing is just incredible. Take this story, we have our characters who head to Earth, three days in the past while they are still locked up in prison in order to stop a rival group from opening their wormhole on Earth which would just destroy it. They get close and get to the device but fail to stop it from activating and Earth is destroyed. This was like a big Oh Shit moment and this book freaking rules. 14/14.
-War of Kings #2- The Shi’ar are happy with their recent actions and having Lilandra as prisoner. The Kree and Inhumans would not let this stand and plan their offensive. They take out some Shi’ar ships and this pisses Vulcan off. This is another great intergalactic battle and I really love the direction this is heading towards. 15/15.
-X-Men First Class Finals #3- I missed #2 which kind of sucks but this is a fun romp of the original X-Men fighting off a Magneto-esque being and Jean possibly being the culprit of it. Original X-Men rule, and so does this. 16/16.
DC
-Batman: Battle for the Cowl – Man-Bat #1- Man-Bat looks for his wife, who was contacted by Oracle. He finds her kidnapped by the Phosphorus Man and actually changes into Man-Bat on his own without the serum to save her. He leaves as Alfred muses that this is an interesting development. Will Man-Bat play a bigger role? Probably not but this was a fun comic to read. 1/1.
-Justice Society of America #25- The Flash with Mr. Batson frees Shazam the old Wizard who turns Black Adam and Isis into stone, then takes away the power of Billy Batson and Mary Marvel. They become regular kids again, as Billy looks for his father, and a new Black Adam shows up in shadows at issue’s end. I loved this conclusion to the Black Adam story, and a new one showing up is quite an exciting prospect. 2/2.
-Superman/Batman #57- I was pumped to see Abnett and Lanning on the cover but they didn’t write this, just provided the idea. The idea was to shrink Superman to atomic level where he is quickly aging and dying, and Batman shrinking down to save him. It’s Honey, I Shrunk The Kids meets Superman/Batman! 3/3.
-Trinity #44- The evil Trinity agree to team up with Despero and the evil syndicate to take out the good Trinity as lady Gorilla and the b-team make their escape. The second story features Lois and all calling out the Trinity, who basically blow them off in order to serve the greater good. I can’t believe there are only 8 issues left, with a big showdown coming between the good and evil. 4/4.
Dynamite
-Masquerade #2- Everytime I see this title I think of the Phantom of the Opera song. Anyway, she’s another stowaway of the whole Project Superheroes thing. She has no powers but is a good detective. Since coming back to recent times she has been spacing out with visions of the past that help her think. Black Terror makes an appearance in here. Interesting story thus far. 1/1.
Awards
-Book of the Week- Universal War: The Flood #1 was just a fantastic epic. I love the Abnett/Lanning intergalactic war stuff but this just takes it to a whole other level, with amazing characters and some really mind-blowing moments in here. This is a must-read.
-Disappointment of the Week- I got to say, there was a lot of good here this week, and I can’t pick out a single dud from the 21 here.
-Cover of the Week- Captain America Comics #1 by Marcos Martin is a great cover, from the Timely Logo to the Golden Age inspired Hitler image on there, to a beautiful image of Cap punching down some Nazi’s. Marcos already captures the feel of a great Silver Age artist in Ditko and I could easily see this as a Golden Age cover.
-The Bottom Line- This was just a fantastic week of comic book reading, one of the better ones I can remember in all this time doing TPL. There were no event comics but just a whole bunch of great titles that played into their respective storylines perfectly and were just really fun and enjoyable titles to read. Just an awesome week.
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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