|
|
 |
This was a very heavy week price wise for me. It wasn’t the amount of comics (I had a relatively easy week, 13 Marvels, 10 DC’s and 3 Wildstorms added up to 26) but I also picked up the Heroes Magazine #2, Hulk: The End Hardcover and a box of the Family Guy Star Wars Cards. I’ll try to review all this stuff by Tuesday but I don’t know if I could read all this in just 7 days!
Spoiler Alert
The Main Event
-Amazing Spider-Man #547- Peter performs CPR on JJJ, who suffered a heart attack due to Peter. Robbie takes over the paper and tells Peter they need a miracle, like a picture of Spider-Man. So he dons the suit again, with only one web-shooter (the other was stolen) and goes off. The criminal finds out what the web-shooter is for and starts using it when he mugs people. Spider-Man runs into Mr. Negative after tracking his spider-tracer and finds a mobster being used for some experiment. There’s a Swing-Shift reference (the FCBD Spidey book for this past year) and Peter finds out Mr. Negative is going to kill a bunch of mobsters at one of their meetings. Spider-Man goes to warn them but is attacked. Mr. Negative releases a deadly poison that Spidey succumbs to! Uh-Oh!!! Really good issue, and despite what OMD may have done to the Spidey mythos, BND has been really good. 1/1
-Incredible Hulk #113- Hercules tells Cho that they won’t attack SHIELD, they need to regroup first. Cho doesn’t like this news but he is working on something, he keeps the tracker on his laptop on knowing that Ares and all will show up and give them a ride. Ares talks about how Hercules died the first time, from Hydra blood, and he has some bullets filled with Hydra blood. Ares attacks Hercules which just pisses him off. Hercules now thinks that Cho is his old child friend, Iolaus. Let the fighting begin! 2/2
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Girl #15- We are introduced to a new character, Deadspot, a woman who has a power suit that makes her invisible, and makes her a deadly assassin. She gets her next hit, Spider-Girl, though we don’t know who put out the hit. Chesbro contacts Spider-Girl and tells her about the hit and we still don’t know if Black Tarantula set this whole thing up, and why. In other news, Mary-Jane starts her new job at Midtown, Gene is miserable without May, May tells Peter about Benjy’s new powers, and Hobgoblin does more scheming to take over the underworld. Overall, another great episode which a) tells a complete story and b) keeps a lot of other plot threads moving without sacrificing the story. This still is one of the best and most consistent Marvel titles on the shelves. 3/3
-Avengers Classic #8- This issue reprints Avengers #8, the first appearance of Kang. The story is pretty decent and we see who Kang really is (Rama-Tut). I always enjoyed this story and the Lee/Kirby story is spot-on. The back-up was alright, too. We see Rick Jones pursuing a woman, remembering the training Steve taught him but when he beats up a bigger guy who attacked him, the girl told him to beat it and he learns that sometimes no matter what you are still defeated. I don’t know if I’d give it a full point, but you know what, I will. 4/4.
-Iliad, The #2- This is the second issue of the adaptation of Homer’s poem and although I missed the first this issue still kicked a lot of ass. It’s everything you loved about movies like 300. The Achaens and Trojans are fighting over Helen of Troy, who defected from Sparta. This issue features a huge fight between the two armies and with Greek gods getting involved and story and intrigue galore, you got a real story on your hands. It’s always easy to give a point to a literary classic. 5/5.
-Immortal Iron Fist #12- We see some history on Wendall Rand and running from his destiny and having a conflict with Davos. Iron Fist, in the present, learns that the Thunderer is training women to lead a revolution. Davos gets beat up by The Prince of Orphans over his actions last issue. Cage, Coleen and Misty are captured by Hydra, and Iron Fist is asked to join the revolution at the end of the issue. Very interesting. 6/6
-Iron Man and Power Pack #3- The Puppet Master can now control armors and after testing it on Titanium Man (who is stopped by the Power Pack) he goes after the big one, a whole horde of Iron Man armors that are conveniently on display in a New York museum. Puppet Master takes control of them and of course the Power Pack are visiting the museum that day. They save Rhodey from the War Machine armor (IRONY!) and then Tony shows up. Tony has one problem with the armor though. He built them to be indestructable and it seems they can’t stop them! The Power Pack have been Marvel’s go to characters in terms of team-ups lately (Spider-Man, Hulk, X-Men, Avengers, FF over the past 2 years) and its providing a great series for the all ages groups that don’t feel like just a kids book. The story telling isn’t earth-shattering but every issue so far as been fun and that’s what comics are. 7/7
-Marvel Comics Presents #5- The first story introduced us to Vanguard for the first time. He seems to be a powerful guy, though we don’t know all the powers he has. He has a team of superpowered people, one of whom is the dead guy Dolan is investigating. The next mission for them is to kill Dolan, which Dominic Fortune is about to do. The second story features Killer Shrike trying to steal resources from the Svaage Land and Ka-Zar and friends stop them. Roxxon, who is funding Shrike, has a surprise, Ka-Zar’s brother. The Wrecking Crew break out of Canadian prison but Wrecker is pissed Thunderball led the team and beats him up. The final story sees USAgent trying to find out more about what’s going on with Weapon Omega and we see the men behind the scenes testing his power. It fails but there’s one consequence, it seems Weapon Omega has multiple personalities, 47 of them! The Ka-Zar story was really good, but the other three were really dull, so no points for this one. 7/8
-New Warriors #8- The guy who attacked from last issue is actually a longtime Night Thrasher foe named Midnight’s Fire. They fight with Silhouette watching until NT has an offer for MF to join the Warrior’s and fight against Stark. They reveal at issues end that Fire is working for some man in the shadows. There’s a scene of the rest of the warriors playing games and playing housewife with kids (whose are they?) running around. I guess they are trying to show the NW as a family of sorts, much in the way the X-Men were. The team worries that they are being seen as terrorists. This was better than the previous issues and things are being set up but I don’t think it has that special quality that will make it a successful ongoing. I don’t see this lasting 12 issues. Not a bad issue but I wouldn’t recommend it or anything. 7/9.
-Penance Relentless #4- Penance is on his way to Latveria to take Nitro by hook or by crook. The Fantastic Four, Tony Stark and Norman (who is staring at Sue’s chest, no joke) try to persuade Robbie to turn around but he won’t listen. He arrives at Latveria and Doom’s own ego issues a challenge to Robbie. If he can beat Doom one on one he will hand over the prisoner. If not, Robbie’s dead. So they battle and Robbie exposes a US satellite where if Doom uses any more power, their nuclear facility will be revealed. Doom admits defeat and we see Nitro going face to face with Robbie at the end of the issue. A very good mini-series. 8/10
-Picture of Dorian Gray #1- I actually picked this up last week for my friend but they gave me a copy this week. I never read the novel version and based on the comic, I am glad I never did. Basically a painter (Basil) is obsessed with a man he’s been painting named Dorian. Other people are obsessed with Dorian as well and Dorian starts looking for the attention and affection of an actress. I really don’t follow exactly what’s going on and the whole seems kind of weird. My friend (the English teacher) says it is pretty true to the novel so far which is definitely in Marvel’s favor. Still, I didn’t enjoy it and this gets a zero. 8/11.
-Wolverine Origins #21- Deadpool gets a new assignment, he must assassinate Wolverine. Honestly, this issue was one big fight scene between the two. You’ll get through this quickly as its more action than takling but let me tell you, this was probably the most fun issue you’ll read this week. Way really captures the character of Deadpool and his antics and thoughtless, mindless meandering makes this an easy winner. 9/12
-World War Hulk Aftersmash: Warbound #2- The Warbound band together with the humans to try and stop the Leader and the gamma monster threatening them. Kate Waynesboro helps Hiroim to create a hole in the gamma forcefield so that many of the innocents can leave but some big monster with many people attached attacks and the hatch is closed! There is a back-up story of Miek telling Kate that Hiriom broke a warbound oath before when he didn’t kill the emperor’s son, and he was the one who turned out to be the main villain in Planet Hulk. Very good stuff going on here. 10/13
DC
-Birds of Prey #114- Barbara is still really stressed after getting scolded by Superman, and she keeps looking high and low for any information on the black matter Tabby used last issue. Zinda runs into the Shark, who gives her a clue of some sort. I guess they have a history together which I am not aware of. Misfit gets the idea that Barbara doesn’t like her and she’s constantly making her do work, then sparring and Babs is just being mean to her (tough love?) To throw a wrench into things, Black Alice shows up wanting to join the team. Misfit narrated this episode and I wonder what her purpose is, and why Babs hates her so much. Good enough for a point. 1/1
-Booster Gold #6- Booster and the Blue Beetles, against Morrow’s wishes, go to save Blue Beetle from Max Lord. They end up showing up when Max confronts Ted and Booster ends up saving him! Blue Beetle is alive! The Beetles said they would not alter the time stream so everyone still thinks Blue Beetle is dead and everything continued as we know it. Of course, now Blue Beetle and Booster Gold are together again, cruising the timestream stopping threats to history. This series is 6 issues in and still hasn’t suffered a misstep. 2/2
-Catwoman #75- Catwoman wakes up in a strange world. She was sent away with all the criminals to the prison world as seen in Salvation Run. Catwoman scopes out the place and ends up joining Lex’ side. She and Cheetah (an old enemy) go down a hatch to see what’s down there and somehow are teleported away when they turned something on. Cheetah jumps into the portal, and Catwoman is caught in the blast and ends up in Gotham! It isn’t the same Gotham though because Batman is holding a gun to Selina’s head blaming her for the death of Black Mask! Oooh! What Earth is this now? 3/3
-Checkmate #22- The kick-ass Mademoiselle Marie two-parter ends with Marie rescuing the little girl of an old love as we see more of the history of this famed French freedom fighter. She shoots some terrorists point blank while being filmed and people what Checkmate to discipline her. So Sasha “disciplines” her by telling her she did a good job. This was an excellent way to debut a character’s back story and I wish they will do that with other characters we aren’t too familiar with in this title. For the first time I have been really stoked to read a Checkmate story. 4/4
-Countdown to Final Crisis #15- Hippolyta harbors Mary Marvel and asks for her help. The war is still raging on Earth-51 and Ray tells what that earth’s Ray was working on. He had a special immunity power and after finding a deadly virus, he wanted to go to many other dimensions to imlant his immunity. That is why a lot of the people had the atom symbol on their hands. That is alwo how the Monitor’s tracked them. Prime looks for a perfect earth and finds Forager. Earth-51 isn’t as perfect as we thought. After Jason Todd died, Batman killed Joker then started taking out the other villains. The final scenes dealt with Brother Eye perhaps being too big for the Earth to contain. This issue was not as good as the previous two, but it was still pretty good. 5/5
-Countdown Special: New Gods #1- This reprints three New Gods stories: Forever People #1, Mister Miracle #1 and New Gods #7. The first two are origin issues so it basically just introduces us to these characters. I thought the Forever People was a little boring but Mister Miracle was a good little story. The star of the issue is New Gods #7, a great origin of the New Gods and how everything ties together. It was a great issue with the usual bombastic art and story by Jack Kirby. Pick this up if you don’t have New Gods #7 somewhere in your collection. 6/6
-Flash #236- Flash and family start taking out the water creatures with the help of the JLA. Flash had to use his kids pretending to drown to break them out of their hallucination, though, which causes concern to some of the characters. In a really nice twist, it seems these creatures came because of the key Flash had to Savoth (the place we’ve seen the Flash going to in the back-up tales) and Flash has to make a tough, but easy decision, he has to break the key, ending his ability to go to Savoth. The threat is stopped. In the final back-up, we see Wally and family staying in Savoth for the year between Infinite Crisis and 52. This really tied things together and the back-ups were paid off in the main story (when’s the last time that happened?) and this made for a great conclusion to an arc I wasn’t digging at all when it first started. 7/7
-Justice League of America #17- A band of C-list villains gets attacked by the Suicide Squad and some of them get captured. The rest of the villains break into Justice League Hall and the League thinks they have a fight on their hands. There is one twist, the villains just want Sanctuary from the Squad! The JLA knows all about the Squad’s recent happenings but can’t do anything about it. There is a back-up where Vixen explores her new absorbing powers, she can absorb Arrow’s powers and even Lantern’s powers. Interesting premise but nothing really happened too much in this issue and for that reason it doesn’t get a point. 7/8
-Robin #170- Robin learns of a new purple clad woman who steals money from some bookies and begins thinking of Spoiler, someone he thought he saw a few issues back. He ends up meeting with this woman in the issue, they battle, and it ended in a deadlock. Penguin hires some thug to take out Robin and the mystery woman. Nothing too exciting here as Robin seems to have fallen into a little bit of a lull the last few issues. 7/9
-Shadowpact #21- Nightshade, Ragman, and Nightmaster are still in the Nightshade dimension and they find out what caused the devestation. It seems a group called the Unbound landed in their dimension and were taken in. They eventually started spreading their word and got a legion of followers. The only ones who didn’t go alone were children and the Old Marrin, who made himself deaf to avoid their word. He tells of their main goal, to burst through this dimension and go to Earth to spread their “word.” The other members of Shadowpact locate where the trio are and try to open a portal to the Nightshade dimension and as soon as they do, the Unbound tower of light breaks through and it looks like we are screwed. There really hasn’t been a bad issue of Shadowpact yet. It combines humor (Ragman looking up Nightshade’s dress while climbing up a ladder, DC looking for women online) and actually making a rag tag group of magicians into a enjoyable and well-written ensemble. 8/10
Wildstorm
-The Programme #7- The Russians start going to town on Vegas as Senator Joe and Max realize they need to stop them. That’s really about it in this issue. Max finds the Russians as issues end as well. Honestly this was the most disappointing issue thus far. I just thought it was kind of pointless. 0/1
-World of Warcraft #3- The human (Lo’Gosh) learns he has a family and son after looking into some reflective waters. He and his friend Broll escape from their orc owner, Reghar, all the while Valeera (sold the issue before) flies back to try and save the two. She gets there as the other two are flying away. Whoopee. I think any non-WOW fans (like myself) would be hopelessly lost and for that this gets a 0. 0/2 for Wildstorm so far.
-Wildstorm: Revelations #2- The three women break into the Authority’s base to steal some files they hope will help them avert the disaster. They don’t find it so Nemesis sleeps with Majestic while the others steal his information. He knows all about it but still sleeps with her and says he’ll help. You know, not too much going over here, either. The Armageddon comics were really enjoyable, but the mini-series hasn’t been too great yet. 0/3.
Awards
-Book of the Week- I was going back and forth between Wolverine Origins #21 and Booster Gold #6 and both were awesome in their own write (pun intended). In the end, Booster wins since it told a better story than Origins and is just building on the momentum it started way back in issue #1. I can’t say enough how awesome this title is right now.
-Disappointment of the Week- For all the hype and great Armageddon issues, Revelations has been very disappointing so far. It just is, I don’t know, very boring and isn’t really keeping my interest for a story that is supposed to change the Wildstorm universe. Maybe I don’t have a huge knowledge of what is included in the universe but Armageddon was so good and this is just, disappointing.
-Cover of the Week- Slim pickings this week, to be honest, but I have to give it to some one, and Robin #170 was my favorite.
-The Bottom Line- Wildstorm had a bad week this week. I have started giving comics one point for a good issue and zero for a bad one and Wildstorm this week would get the donut, as I would give it a 0/3. Well, Wildstorm started off TPL because that’s what I started off reading, and next up would be DC. DC had a very good week, hitting at 80%, with their only missteps being JLA and Robin, which really weren’t terrible. Marvel’s percentage looked like 76% and they really had some standouts. The bad issues were really bad, though, so I’d say DC was the best publisher this week, in my eyes, and overall this week saw a 69% winning percentage. Not too great, but not too bad.
|
|
|
|
|
Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
|
|
|
|