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This is the final TPL of 2009. I can’t believe that this thing has been going on in the current incarnation since April of 2007. I was reading some of my earlier stuff and I was shocked at how verbose some of the reviews are. Of course, I was only picking up 11-12 comics a week so it made it easy to write a lot. Of course, with the lack of time I find these easier to get out on time. It’s time to start the final TPL of 2009! There were a bunch of books this week; 1 Vertigo title, 3 DC titles and 18 Marvel titles add up to 24 total comics. Of course, since I was on break I was able to finish reading these by Friday but because it was the Christmas break and time with family comes first I’m not actually writing this until today. Let’s get on with it!
Spoiler Alert
Vertigo
-Northlanders #22- The winter continues, the plague is on everyone’s mind and things don’t get any better when a death ship lands and tries to invade Hilda’s little town. Luckily the warriors hold them off but certainly this isn’t a good omen as the winter drags on. This is just a fantastic story with a great setting. It’s different from the usual Viking stuff we’ve had in these pages but it’s a welcome departure from just the senseless fighting and maybe my favorite of the chapters so far. 1/1.
DC
-Detective Comics #860- Kane’s origin ends with her donning the cowl and working with her father. There’s the final tag of Kane confronting her father about her sister still being alive (although now she’s dead because she was Alice). The Question wasn’t terribly interesting to me (it was all talking in a back-up issue). I like Kane but I can’t pick this up for $4.00 anymore. Especially since the Question has been essentially useless in these pages. This is the last issue of Detective I’ll be getting for the time being. 0/1.
-Blackest Night: JSA #1- Well, the event fatigue is starting for Blackest Night. The JSA have some of their past dead members rise, they attack the Brownhouse and citizens are killed. Whoopee. How’s this different from the JLA book? What is this going to offer other than having other D-list zombie characters resurrect. Really the only A-list people will resurrect in Green Lantern or the main mini-series and this is just cashing in on the BN banner. Not worth it, folks. 0/2.
-Green Lantern #49- Will it be an 0’fer for DC this week? Well, if you like John Stewart than this issue is for you. Here he battles the dead from the planet he apparently destroyed and they want revenge. He flies away but the whole freakin’ planet is chasing him! There’s a back-up Tales of the Lanterns with the first part of the origin of Nekron. This one I’m on the fence with but having two decent stories for only $3 is a good deal and the Stewart feature had enough action scenes and plot advancing to keep me happy. 1/3.
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Man #616- Spider-Man defeats Sandman with giant fans! Well, it’s better than using a vacuum I guess! I wasn’t crazy about this. It seemed like a 2-issue fill-in between bigger stories and Sandman wasn’t recreated in a way that Electro was. The ending with Keemia was fitting in today’s day and time and lent this story a bit of realism that I appreciate. 1/1.
-Captain America: Who Will Wield The Shield? #1- The best part of this issue is the apology that this came out before Cap: Reborn #6. Who’s idea was that? That’s why delays can be a pain in the ass. Obviously the Red Skull is defeated in Reborn #6 and now we have Rogers and Bucky alive and Bucky wants to give up the shield to Steve. They have a little team-up (and they take out Hyde), Steve tells Bucky he’s Cap now, Rogers gets a presidential pardon and a warning that something wicked this way comes. Aside from the delay mistake this was an awesome issue featuring the two Caps and I really feel things have come full circle since Steve’s death in Cap #25. 2/2.
-Criminal #3- Things pick up for Tracy. He’s accused of sleeping with his boss’ daughter (he’s really sleeping with his wife), he’s looking for the people murdering high-profile criminals and the FBI agent looking for him for deserting the military finds him. Yeah, definitely not a banner week for Lawless but a great noir-read for Criminal fans. 3/3.
-Dark Avengers: Ares #3- Ares’ SHADE troops decide to rejoin Ares and they all die and Ares has to see his men dead once everything is said and done. This had a very different conclusion than what I was expecting but considering it was Ares it was fitting. Ares is a great character and this is a definite buy for Ares fans. 4/4.
-DarkTower: Battle of Jericho Hill #2- This was a wild issue. There’s a lazer-shooting tank that the guys try to stop and they do take out some of the mutants. However, the mutants are still there terrorizing their living family. We’re in full on set-up mode and for a book adaptation that makes sense. I don’t know if this will surpass Fall of Gilead but I feel that Furth is really understanding the comic aspect of doing these books and they are reading a lot easier now than they did before. 5/5.
-Fall of the Hulks: Gamma #1- I opened this and saw that Romita Jr. drew it and I knew we were in good shape. Basically Thunderbolt Ross is dead, Red Hulk is blamed, we have his funeral and it turns out that Bruce is really teaming with Red Hulk and was behind Thunderbolt’s death. The art was fantastic, the Hulks are really coming together and Bruce being an evil manipulator is quite and interesting facet to the character. 6/6.
-Fantastic Four #574- Alan Hickman has really re-energized this book by keeping it focused on the family. Like this issue for instance, it’s really only Franklin’s birthday and everyone (including Spider-Man) is there to celebrate. The intrigue is added in when a future Franklin shows up and tells Valeria that, “The Future Must be Avoided at All Costs.” This is also the blurb above the FF logo and it’s a really nice touch to the cover. If you’ve been away from the book, now is a perfect time it pick it up again. 7/7.
-Guardians of the Galaxy #21- The thing that crept through the Fault takes on the Luminals and the Guardians until Moondragon basically houses it inside her stomach. Now the Luminals want to kill her for protecting it, the Guardians want to keep her safe and the zealots from the Universal Church of Truth worship it and kidnap Moondragon by issue’s end. There’s some great pacing here (although the art seemed to have slipped a bit) and things just keep going with the story and I love it. 8/8.
-Incredible Hercules #139- Wow, there’s just a lot of fighting here, Zeus is taken by Hera and they are on a one way elevator to Continuum’s wide release. It seems they are making a mirror world where the gods rule again and this world will be destroyed. Meanwhile, Delphyne turns Athena into stone and Thanatos is after her. The Agents of Atlas back-up sees the gang break into the building as an imp calls Aphrodite. Cho is turning into a viable lead character here and I am enjoying how this storyline and its use of the gods is going. 9/9.
-New Mutants #8- Necrosha X continues as the New Mutants deal with the Hellions, Magik lays a whoop-ass on them and Warlock reunites with a cured Doug Ramsay at the end. There was enough action to justify the price tag and Zeb Wells keeps this simple (New Mutants vs. Hellions, what else do you need?) and it’s a nice inclusion into the X-titles. 10/10.
-Secret Warriors #11- I officially stopped with this book. I just wasn’t following what was going on here and I was huge fan of this book. It seems like this blind dude can turn people to stone and Fury’s rebuilding SHIELD. This was snail-paced in terms of plot advancement and this is it for me with this book. 10/11.
-The Stand: Soul Survivors #3- There’s a lot of awesome in this book. Fran is pregnant and after sharing some lovin’ with Stu she tells him. She’s kept it secret and has avoided Harold and his advances. Of course, Harold witnesses this, reads her diary and is really jealous now. You can tell he will be doing a heel turn eventually. The way Soul Survivors has followed these individual journeys so far has been handled really well and it’s even better than American Nightmares. 11/12.
-Uncanny X-Men #518- Emma helps Scott seal off the Void inside his mind, ending that threat, as Magneto tries to find a way to keep Utopia afloat (he meets with Namor about this). Finally, Beast leaves the team. I usually complain about books moving too slowly but I somehow feel this is moving too quickly. I think it’s because Necrosha X is coming to the book. There’s been a lot going on the last three issues and you really need to take a breath after reading each issue! 12/13.
-What If? Astonishing X-Men #1- There are two different stories here. The first sees Emma taking over the mantle of Phoenix because of the threat of Ord and the manipulations of Cassandra Nova. Beast is killed and it is Kitty Pryde that takes out Emma’s hear that puts and end to her. Unfortunately, Kitty dies too. The use of Lockheed here was cool. The second story sees Ultron marry Danger, wipe out the world, and eventually the universe. It played into the Annihilation story, too, which was awesome. Both were radically different but tied in masterfully to the different stories they were related to. 13/14.
-What If? Spider-Man House of M #1- This one was a little ambitious. Basically Gwen comes back with Peter after House of M, the world goes haywire and Peter dies trying to save a falling Gwen. The second story is similar (Gwen comes back) and Peter tries juggling the two relationships. This story ends with Peter dead, too, having been taken over by the Goblin persona he used in the House of M. Both were really ambitious and both needed more room in order to reach its full scope. When I read it after AXM, it was huge step down. 13/15.
-Wolverine Origins #43- Wolvie is trained by Silver Samurai, Dagger is kidnapped by Hudson, Wolvie and Cloak save her (and Wolvie kills Hudson) and Ruby Red shows up? WTF is Ruby doing in this book? The art wasn’t too great here and Cloak and Dagger were shoe-horned in for no real reason and Ruby Red? Really? It’s like I can’t take this seriously anymore. 13/16.
-X-Men Forever #14- What I like about this title is that Claremont keeps a bunch of storylines moving much like he did in the original Uncanny days. The primary story sees Shadowcat turn on Cossack and return to normal. Magik is still all evil and she heads off. We have the start of a second story; Nightcrawler being summoned to Mississippi and Rogue tailing along, and what’s this with a Beast/Jean romance? This title keeps being a pleasant surprise. 14/17.
-X-Men Legacy #231- Blindfold follows her clues and intuition to Muir Island (along with Nightcrawler, Magneto, Rogue, Psylocke, Colossus and Husk) and this seemed to have been set up by Destiny and Proteus takes over the body of Blindfold. Proteus is an awesome villain and I can’t wait to see where this goes. 15/18.
The Bottom Line
DC throws out another bad week and that’s two bad weeks to end the year. That’s not a good sign! Northlanders continues being awesome and every book I’ve read of it has gotten a point. Marvel had another great week and there’s a lot to love with some Marvel titles heading into 2010. I think they are putting out too many books right now and both companies will start seeing those rebelling against all the damn event tie-ins but I don’t know if stories have ever been better across companies as they are now. There is no edition for next week because there are no titles coming out tomorrow. That should shore up some time do to the annual Best of Awards so look for that next week. Well, it’s been another great year here at TPL and I wish all of you readers a Happy New Year!
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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