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The summer is unfortunately winding down, and this is one of the last three TPL’s I will do while not in the confines of school/work. If I seem a little grouchy when rating the books, then you’ll know why. Anyway, only Marvel and DC are represented today, with 7 DC books and 17 Marvel books add up to a total of 24, a very doable total so I can finish reading them by the weekend and work on finishing the Iron Man Omnibus Hardcover, something I started way back in June! Let’s see how what this week holds, shall we?
Spoiler Alert
The Main Event
-Secret Invasion #5- We’re more than halfway through the Secret Invasion mini-series and you can expect things to pick up, and they do. Marvell is with the Thunderbolts, but they touch on it for just two pages, making us need to go buy Thunderbolts to see the rest. The Skrulls make a mass announcement on all media (using recognizable personalities including Oprah, Colbert, McCain, Obama, and Paris Hilton) that says they will take over Earth and there’s no hope. Agent Brand is on the Skrull ship and we see she speaks Skrull! She takes out some Skrulls and frees Mr. Fantastic, who says the Skrulls used his brain to start the Invasion. Hill destroys the Helicarrier she is on and duped the Skrulls by using a LMD. Reed shows up at the Savage land with a weapon that reveals all Skrulls, and the real heroes go wild on them, and Hawkeye is especially pissed when Mockingbird is revealed to be a Skrull. For what its worth, Tony is not a Skrull. Aside from the Thunderbolts thing, which is really something to move issue of that book, this is a concise mini-series with the other titles not really needed to enjoy the story. You don’t get the full scope of what’s going on but it is definitely sufficient. When it comes down to it, I ask myself, can I enjoy this without needing outside sources? In this case, I can, and in this case, you get all you need from this epic, and I like how this really starts the third act, the heroes striking back. 1/1.
-Final Crisis: Revelations #1- I was originally going to start this off by complaining about how many tie-ins Final Crisis has, but then I saw there were 4 Secret Invasion tie-ins this week and it would look extremely hypocritical. Although, when Final Crisis was first coming out I think DC said only this and Rogue’s Revenge would be the tie-ins, but it seems that DC went back on its word. That’s a rant for another day. This is called Final Crisis: Revelations, and if you know your New Testament, you’ll know that Revelations is the final book of the Bible, where all hell breaks loose, where evil is finally disposed, and the world ends. Will this hold the same thing for DC? We get the spiritual aspect right away, as Spectre is the star of this story. He unleashes vengeance on Dr. Light (is he dead now, for real?) as the human host, Crispus Allen, muses about the difference between justice, and vengeance. Crispus’ old partner, Renee Montoya, now the Question is dealing with the followers of the Crime Bible. Spectre tries to get Vengeance on Libra, and Libra surprisingly defeats Spectre with little effort. Crispus wants to be done but he has one more person to judge, Renee Montoya. This was a very good opener, with Spectre not being able to gain vengeance on the one we as readers want to see taken down, and instead being conflicted again with the friends of Allen who the Spectre wants judged. I like the Revelations aspect to it, and I am expecting in future issues Spectre trying to take down other villains, as well as Libra. 1/1.
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Girl #23- The X-Men dismiss May and her efforts to help Sara. Peter is really pissed that there’s a clone of his daughter in Norman’s lab and tells it to Benjy, which is overheard by Mary-Jane. May’s off to school and her social life is falling very quickly, as we learn that Gene was really behind the sabotage of her campaign months ago. May learns of her father meeting with Kaine and shows up as Peter is fighting mad. May goes back to school, sees Sarah is in trouble and tries to help, then goes to the roof and sees her clone! I don’t know how the fake May got the exact same clothes the real May is wearing, but its just the miracle of comics. This clone saga is much more well-done than any other before (including the debacle in 1995 and the Ultimate version). How deep does the Goblin Queen’s fingers lie in this plot? 2/2.
-Amazing Spider-Man #567- The Kraven saga ends with Spidey (in DD’s costume) getting Vermin to attack Kraven and saving the fake Spidey (Peter’s roommate Vin). The saga is over, Vin recovers in the hospital, Spider-Man (now Peter) shows up and basically says he’s sorry and this new Kraven is the daughter of the original Kraven. The parallels to Kraven’s Last Hunt were too much, does Vin ever question why Peter had a spider-costume or why for that matter Daredevil had a spider-shooter? Kraven was defeated pretty quickly and Vermin I assume just goes away. This leaves too many questions, and I thought it read as more of, “hey let’s do a current version of Kraven’s Last Hunt with a female,” than a novel introduction of a new character. Too much of a callback and it needed more originality. The fact she thought someone else was Spider-Man was good, but with the inclusion of Vermin you are just asking for it to be compared to a story far better. I consider it a disappointing ending. 2/3.
-Astonishing X-Men #26- The X-Men head to the spaceship graveyard, confront the modified human, and destroy the ship he was working on some sort of battery whose purposes we don’t know yet. He seems to kill himself at the end as Storm and Cyclops discuss the ethics of killing someone. I like the interplay between the X-Characters, keeping the family aspect going laid before it, and this annex that Subject X was talking about may lead to some sort of aliens trying to come through? ¾.
-Captain Britain and MI13 #4- This is the big blowoff between the Skrulls and MI-13. Captain Britain holds them off for a while as Faiza tries to cure Black Knight. She’s having trouble, and we look at the other members of MI-13, especially Pete Wisdom. The John Lennon Skrull takes a shot to the face and he’s dead? Luckily, the satanic being that Wisdom released comes back lays a smackdown on the Skrulls, and since Wisdom helped him, Wisdom will be helped. He gets one wish and has three simple words, “No More Skrulls.” Boom. Skrulls out of England, the satanic creature is on the loose and Wisdom must deal with him in the future, and Cap puts Excalibur back in the rock, where Faiza lifts it back out. I found myself enjoying this greatly, as it shows us a different Secret Invasion tale that isn’t so focused on the American heroes. We deal with the more magical aspect seen in Britain’s lore, and we have a new MI-13 team. Hopefully it can continue the legacy of Excalibur and continue telling these interesting stories and not fail after 14 issues or so like previous incarnations. 4/5.
-Daredevil Saga #1- This freebie basically documents what’s been happening in Daredevil, from a very brief recount of what Bendis did and more importantly Brubaker’s run on the title to date. It is a primer for the new jumping on point for fans at issue #111. It’s free. 5/6.
-Fantastic Four #559- Johnny’s on his way to a TV taping when he’s kidnapped by his villainous ex and the New Defenders. Sue is asked by Reed’s old love Alyssa Castle for help on their Nu-World project. The New Defenders kidnapped Johnny and Doom to help with their new mission, to reenergize Galactus. Now that’s cool, even though Galactus has come back in Annihilation and Surfer is still working for him, we’ll forget about that for a second and see where this goes. This was more expository than anything, with a lengthy sequence of Johnny getting kidnapped taking the bulk of the story, but the payoff was worth it. 6/7.
-GeNext #4- The Genexter’s look for No-Name, and boy are they surprised to see her talking to some Shockwave Riders! Once defeated, the new generation is kidnapped by an evil alternate version of the original X-Men. You know what, this title works. It carries on where X-Men: The End left off, we have five characters to follow and to see their relationships develop over this 5-issue mini-series has been enjoyable to read and watch. We get some old X-stories as back-ups, including a Mignola penciled Woof ‘R’ Eam parody (from What The--?! #2) and a manga-style Wolverine tale from the fourth issue of the previously mentioned series. Good back-ups, an interesting look at a possible (brighter) future of the X-Men, and you have $4.00 of an enjoyable comic. 7/8.
-Last Defenders, The #6- I looked at this a little differently after reading the Defenders Masterworks story, especially since now I know who Yandroth is. Basically, Yandroth shows Nighthawk who these Last Defenders will be, and its his destiny to form them. So he goes off with a new mission, and he will give up the helm of Nighthawk to the SHIELD agent he saved. I couldn’t really say it was a bad issue (the previous issues were bad) but this was a good conclusion, with an open ending for these rag-tag team of Defenders. I liked the ending. Poor execution overall in the series, but a good ending. 8/9.
-Punisher #60- This is Garth Ennis’ swan song and he ended with a bang, as we see why Colonel Howe wants to help Punisher. Punisher actually saved Howe in Vietnam and he allows Punisher to exact revenge on the crooked Army general. Backed with the great novelization of the fictional book, backed with the tumult we Americans are facing with this current war in Iraq, and the amazing storytelling Ennis crafted, this is the definitive Punisher story. Ennis has been building to this, and he really went out on top. I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to pick up the trade, it was that damn good. 9/10.
-Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe #1- This is a What If type tale penned by Ennis and originally released 13 years ago. It was actually a lot darker than I imagined. When Castle’s family is killed by the wanton acts of the X-Men, he goes mad and shoots Cyclops and Jubilee, leading to a trail of death and destruction (and backed by people affected by the heroes acts) that ends up with the death of all Marvel heroes and villains. The final bit at the end with Daredevil and Punisher is just great. Another Ennis masterpiece. 10/11.
-Secret Invasion: Inhumans #1- And now we get the Invasion tie-ins. We know Black Bolt was a Skrull and when Medusa finds out, she’s pissed. The shows the royal family (now led by Maximus) and distrust abounds. It seems Gorgon was a Skrull, too, as revealed at the end. Also, the Skrulls want to use Black Bolts scream to destroy something. This one makes sense, since Black Bolt’s reveal was one of the key turns at the start of SI, and seeing how the Inhumans react, while not necessary to enjoying the main mini-series, it is good tie-in. 11/12.
-Secret Invasion: Runaways & Young Avengers #2- This tie-in makes sense as well, since both teams have a Skrull in their midst. Hulkling is in the YA, and Xavin is on the Runaways. We see Xavin was the son of a prominent Skrull warrior, and is a Super-Skrull. He wants to save Teddy, but chides him for not making peace within the Skrull nation. The Runaways see the Young Avengers get destroyed on TV as Xavin’s father shows up to find (and kill) Xavin and Hulkling. I love the art of Miyazawa, and seeing the two teams together, again, in another relevant tie-in makes it a winner. 12/13.
-Secret Invasion: Thor #1- Beta-Ray Bill flies to Asgard and tells Thor that the Skrulls stole his Uru hammer and plan to wreak havoc with it. Loki plants seeds of mistrust within the Norse community, even though it should be impossible since Thor revived them all himself. This is where the tie-ins start stretching. Beta-Ray Bill? The Skrulls already have Black Bolt and his powerful voice, and are firmly invading Earth, do they need the uru hammer of a second-rate Thor? No, and we don’t need this. 12/14.
-Secret Invasion: X-Men #1- The Skrulls show up in San Francisco, where the X-Men are stationed, and we have a huge gaffe right away. Why are Cannonball, and Sunspot with the X-Men? They are in Young X-Men as enemies, and that hasn’t been resolved yet. So, either they rejoin the X-Men (ruining that story), or this is a serious mistake. So the X-Men fight Skrulls, Nightcrawler finds a mystic Skrull ball and is entranced by it (like Pippen was with the palantir in LOTR). Was this tie-in needed? No, it wasn’t, and like Thor it was just a way to get people who otherwise weren’t involved in their regular on-goings, caught up in the war. I can see it is a global war, but have it as a panel in the regular mini-series, and not needing what is 7 more comics to get the scope of SI. The issue was better than Thor, and I can’t knock the attempt of Carey/Nord, so it gets the point on the strength of the story itself. 13/15.
-Universal War One #2- This was one I picked up on a lark and its quickly turning into a sheer epic. This needs to be made into a movie, and now. Balti is dead and the rest of the Squadron is imprisoned. Kalish garners their release in negotiation and again they go through the mysterious wall, this time in full force. The Squadron sees their troops get destroyed and find that time moves slower the closer you are to the edge, making them sitting ducks. To Kalish’s surprise, he breaks through the wall and sees it isn’t a wall at all but more a cone, and it has a source. They attack the source and return home, but not before Amina crash lands. Her unconscious mind sees images of her father, who raped her, and she shoots her gun. She then realizes she shot her fellow teammate, Milorad. Book Two ends and we are set for a universal war in the third book. The modified bible quotes at the beginning give this an epic feel, and as I mentioned before, this needs to be made into a movie. 14/16.
-X-Men Origins: Jean Grey #1- The second Origins tale, the first being the entirely forgettable Colossus. This comic luckily redeems the title, as for the first time we get a cohesive Jean Grey story, from Xavier first meeting with her, and finally her arrival to the X-Men. The story really takes plots and elements of stories from previous X-Men comics so if you’re a big fan you probably know most of this stuff, but, Mayhew’s art (he usually only does covers) is just majestic and worth the price of admission alone. An easy point. 15/17.
DC
-Action Comics #868- I was down on the previous arc of Action but this one is really picking up, from Supergirl’s reaction to Cat’s implants, to her worrying about her cousin, who, I may add, is in the clutches of Brainiac. This Brainiac is more powerful than ones we’ve seen before, because ones we’ve seen before are not the real thing. Superman learns that Brainiac was responsible for the destruction of Krypton. What he does is he gets all the knowledge he can from planets and since he doesn’t want to share the knowledge, he destroys the planet. Thanks to Superman finding Brainiac, his next stop is Earth. I hope Superman has the Ultimate Nullifier to stop him. But really, this is building quite well to a real villain for Superman, and the world, of this monster who will destroy the planet, he’s done it before. Brainiac showed he can better Superman in hand to hand combat so the cards are really stacked against Superman, and Supergirl is definitely worried when the Brainiac ship shows up since she knows what happened to Krytpon. 2/2.
-Batman #679- Batman is still going crazy, pushed over the edge by a buzz word. Bruce thinks he made a change to it, allowing a new Batman, absent of the conscious of Bruce Wayne, to take over. Robin is definitely worried about this Club of Villains and puts in a call to the Lads of the Club of Heroes. Black Glove is now inside of the Batcave and has Gordon and Alfred prisoner. They have the Joker ready and this is all part of their plan, their ultimate destruction of Batman. I like how things are flying at you so fast it can be confusing, it’s like we are going through what Batman is going through. You really need to sit and read this, I mean read and read again, to get an appreciation for what Grant is doing here. We are witnessing the self-destruction of Wayne’s psyche and just how intertwined he and Batman are. 3/3.
-Batman Confidential #20- The seriousness of the last three DC comics is broken by the levity of this one, as Batman joins Batgirl and Catwoman to get back the book of Gordon and save the female slave of the Russian mob. The conversation with Batman and Batgirl about why she took the book, as well as Batgirl’s monologued reactions to everything makes this an easy, fun, issue to read. We have our villain behind the shadows introduced as Riddler, and Batgirl ends up going to Arkham and getting caught with all the crazed inmates who’ve just been released. It’s a light-hearted tale looking at one of Batgirl’s first missions and its been fun. 4/4.
-Green Arrow and Black Canary #11- The mystery of Connor’s death is revealed. A fake Ra’s hired this faux Assassins Guild to take out Green Arrow, but the sniper missed and hit Connor. To make up for the mistake they took Connor’s body and The Plastic Man, though they still don’t know why. One of the assassins says the fake Ra’s was a woman named Shado. I don’t know who she is, but I checked Wikipedia and she seems to be a long-time Green Arrow/Connor Hawke foe. I don’t have any problems with where this is headed, and it’s a good little mystery as to why Shado wanted Arrow dead. 5/5.
-Trinity #10- Swashbuckler and his friends steal more Trinity artifacts, including some of the clay that molded Wonder Woman, Superman is getting increasingly angrier and less in control of his emotions as Batman and Wonder Woman talk about how all their personalities combining, and how the Trinity aspect falls into this. Green Lantern (John Stewart) seems to be losing control of his powers and Superman takes on the evil Trinity of the Crime Syndicate at the end of the first tale. The Outsiders guard more artifacts in the second tale, and have a run-in with Swashbuckler and his mates. They steal the ship Superman saved to mark his appearance to us humans and Gangbuster makes the connection that they are taking things related to the Trinity. Oracle and the Outsiders try and plan their next step. Another great issue, and with almost all the artifacts stolen, we may soon see what things Morgaine has in store for the Trinity. 6/6.
-Wonder Woman #23- Wonder Woman easily defeats the demon then comes back and regains her soul from the Stalker. Thomas and Donna Troy have a chat about Diana, and it is a plot thread that I wasn’t really into. So Wonder Woman is whole at the end, and Thomas is accused of being a traitor (like Diana was accused of) at issues end. I liked the thought of a darker Wonder Woman, but it doesn’t look like it will be pursued here, as everything seems to be back to normal. I think we need to see a more evil Wonder Woman, a path she’s teased going down since killing Max Lord. I like Gail Simone, but I can’t keep getting this due to budget constraints. The last issue does go out on top, with the thought of an evil Wonder Woman and seeing her unleashed makes this a winner. 7/7.
Awards
-Book of the Week- Punisher #60 caps off the run of Ennis on Punisher, and he is, without a doubt, the best Punisher writer in his storied career. Sure there have been mini-series or small runs that have been great, but for a run of 60-issues on max and more on the Marvel Knights story, this is a great send-off.
-Disappointment of the Week- Secret Invasion Thor beats out Spider-Man as the most unneeded, disappointing issue. It is disappointing that we need this many tie-ins, and so far it hasn’t added anything to the Secret Invasion story.
-Cover of the Week- Batman #679 wins this week, narrowly beating out Mayhew on X-Men Origins. The cover just features Batman falling down through the sky of Gotham, and not only is it awesomely drawn by Alex Ross (who else), but its interesting to think about what the cover means. Is it just a pose of Batman, or does it represent his life, that he’s falling, hurtling out of control as RIP continues? Excellent cover.
-The Bottom Line- DC had a stellar week, backed by the Final Crisis tie-in. Speaking of tie-ins, Marvel’s 5 Secret Invasion books were just way too much. I know it’s their big event, but 5 titles in one week? Overkill! I know people will say if I don’t like than I shouldn’t buy it, but I say to them I don’t want to miss any key elements of the Secret Invasion storyline. I don’t at any point want to be lost with even a panel in the main event story. I guess I’m feeling the Secret Invasion pinch in my wallet already. Still, Marvel came through with a strong week, and the power of Universal War and Punisher #60 made this one of the best weeks of the summer in my opinion.
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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