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I hope you all enjoyed your Fourth of July weekend. Mine was fun, and since I don’t am off from work, I don’t have to worry about getting up on Monday after an awesome three-day holiday weekend. Heck, I forget what day it is sometime! Luckily with this time off I am able to fly through the weekly comics, as well as any trade(s) I pick up and still have time for Marvel Masterworks Reviews! All in all, it is a blast to read this many books when I am off since I usually don’t have the time during the school year. This week was a lighter load, only 20 books, which is good for a 5-Wednesday month, and a little something from every publisher this time around.
Spoilers Ahead
The Main Event:
-Darktower: The Long Road Home #5- The epic concludes as the three gunslingers finally return home, but very changed. Roland being in the Grapefruit, meeting with the Crimson King who reveals a stunning fact, he is related to Roland. He plans on taking over the world and tearing down the Dark Tower which Roland refuses to do, so King says he will kill him. Roland is saved by the appearance of Sheemie, who brings him back to Mid-World, where they return home. Roland is changed and is now obsessed with the Grapefruit. This was an awesome conclusion, it really was a long road home, and Roland is forever changed. Now, we have a third volume coming, but this one stands on its own and the teaming of King and Marvel was just a genius relationship. 1/1.
-Astonishing X-Men #25- After Cassady and Whedon finished their 24 issue-run (in about 4 years?) Ellis and Bianchi take over. Bianchi’s art just leaps off the page as the Astonishing team is now working with the San Francisco PD (a big departure over the anti-mutant sentiment) and investigate a man being burned to a crisp, and a pyrokine being the suspect. Beast looks at the DNA of the dead man and find a type of mutant, one that seems to be genetically engineered, that can’t be detected by Cerebra. The killer escaped to a place where space ships are sent to die and the team goes off after him. This was a rivetting opening issue by Ellis, as they make an interesting little mystery villain, and the gang is acting together very well, like there was no beat missed between Whedon and Ellis’ scripts. 2/2.
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Man #564- This was an interesting (fill-in?) issue featuring Spider-Man stopping Overdrive from stealing some sort of device. Of course, earlier in the issue Peter pissed off his new roommate (Officer Gonzales) when Vin found out Peter didn’t have a job and goes to the Yankee game with his dad. Vin tells his point of view of the story next, then Overdrive tells his point of view, and its all tied up nicely in the end. A lot happened here and it was an interesting attempt at something unique, which worked. 3/3.
-American Dream #5- American Dream overcomes impossible odds and defeats Silikong. The Avengers show up as well, and Red Queen is the daughter of Pym and Wasp, who died saving the Avengers. I wonder if she means the Last Avengers story or if it is a story we have yet to see yet? This was just a fun mini-series, and if you’re looking for something you don’t really have to think about and just enjoy, this is for you. 4/4.
-Avengers/Invaders #3- The Invaders are still captured, except Namor, who returns home. He meets his current counterpart and with people whose egos are so big, they come to blows. The younger Namor gets the upper hand, too. Meanwhile, the soldier who was brought to the future talks to his counterpart. Bucky, who escaped last issue, frees Cap, and Bucky takes Cap’s shield from Stark by issues end. I thought this would be a contrived little story, but it wasn’t, everything has flowed together well, and I like how the meetings between the past and future has been written. 5/5.
-Cable #5- Cable armors up but can’t find the device that will bring him back to the past. He has a run in with Bishop and Bishop is about to kill Cable and the baby when Cable makes a fateful decision, he heads 82 years into the future. He can keep going forward, but not back. So Cable escapes one problem only to fly headlong into another, moving farther away from where he needs to go. I like this title, and I know I complained about the art last time, but that was silly. I love the look of this, it is very polished, and is very aesthetically pleasing. Really good stuff so far. 6/6.
-Darktower: End-World Almanac #1- This is just a collection of a lot of the writings that have appeared at the end of Dark Tower comics explaining in depth certain things about the Dark Tower mythos. This is just a handbook style thing, and you know what you get when you are buying these. 7/7.
-Punisher War Journal #21- This was a little disjointed for me. Punisher escapes from the Hand (after being seriously injured) with the help of the three female SHIELD agents only to pass out on a subway where anti-Punisher defeats him. Frank passes out and awakes to find SHIELD agents around him arresting him. The arc started out well enough, but it is slowly descending into a case of trying to do way too much in the story (too many people being involved) and I don’t like where its heading. 7/8.
-Secret Invasion Director’s Cut #1- This actually had a few new pages of content showing how Dum Dum was overtaken by a Skrull. Other than that, you get the full issue of Secret Invasion, the script, the variant covers, and some Yu sketches. It is a bit hefty ($5) but worth it for those wanting to read the script and even for the extra couple of pages. 8/9.
-Secret Invasion: Front Line #1- Much like Hulk and Civil War Front Line, this focuses on the non-heroes of the MU, specifically NYC. We see a few main characters, Urich at a hospital with a doctor dealing with gang violence, a down on his luck cab driver, and a father-daughter combo where the daughter is conflicted about her parents impending divorce. This was a good first issue, with the Skrulls showing up at the end, and even invading the hospital? 9/10.
-Thunderbolts #121- T-Bolts ends this arc with a whole series of fights, Songbird and Norman, Samson/Baldwin and Moonstone, and it all ending with Bullseye killing the prisoners. Looks like Bullseye is loose again. Norman explains it all at the end and it was a weak ending to a promising story. We don’t actually see anything and the fight between Norman and Songbird was a bit silly. Norman is completely off the hook, too. Secret Invasion is coming to the title, and after that, I will be done. Good run for Ellis, but this one wasn’t doing it for me. 9/11.
DC
-Batman #678- The craziness continues for Batman, as now he has started hallucinating. Robin shows up at the mansion as one of the Club of Villains shows up. He takes him out and he alerts Nightwing. They vow to team up but Nightwing is captured and Robin is alone. Meanwhile, Bruce is talking to a homeless man who turns out to be dead, then dons a purple costume (like Wraith) claiming to be the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. Another awesome offering from Morrison & Co, as the fall of Bruce’s psyche continues. 1/1.
-Batman/Scarecrow: Fear #1- This is just a reprint of Detective Comics #571, a meeting of Batman and Scarecrow where Bats gets a dose of Scarecrow’s no fear gas and sees the one thing he was afraid of (Jason Todd’s gravestone). Not a terribly great issue and I don’t really like reprints like this, so no point here. 1/2.
-Blue Beetle #28- Blue Beetle battles an old Blue Beetle foe named Dr. Mephistopheles and his dog that transforms into a beast. Turns out the old doc is just that, old, and his dog got out of control. Blue Beetle decides not to put him in jail after clearing that up. It was a decent issue, but nothing that got me into the title or even excited for the next one. Unfortunately, this is the last appearance of Blue Beetle in TPL. 1/3.
-DC Special: Raven #5- Raven confronts the daughter who is in control of the Medusa Mask. Raven realizes her emotions, saves her friends, stops the villain, and hangs out with her friends. Eh, take it or leave it, I guess. I am one who is leaving it. Just a cheap plug, this will be on E-Bay in a few weeks. 1/4.
-Nightwing #146- Nightwing finds the lair of the man creating the winged creatures. Talia is involved but wants the man to stop the experiments once she finds out the babies have been disposed. So Talia and Nightwing team up and beat up the evil old dude. The pregnant one who has a super-uterus is saved and Nightwing tells Supes they should have a super-graveyard for these buried villains and heroes. I don’t know what to think about it, I wasn’t crazy about the story but it was ended in a decent way, and the Superman appearance was an appropriate one. 2/5.
-Trinity #5- Teamwork helps Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman defeat Convikt and capture Graak. Batman even finds one of the minions of Morgaine to her surprise, and this minion mentions the Trinity for the first time to them. We focus on Rita seeing the images of the Trinity at the end. In the back-up, Rita and Jose are attacked by the three villains, Jose has to don the Gangbuster costume to defeat them and actually listens to one of the Rita’s readings to save the day. 3/6.
Dynamite
-Project Superpowers #4- The fun continues in this title, as Fighting Yank is seemingly dead and his ancestor complains his curse (of not fighting hard enough in the Revolution) will never be lifted. Dynamic Forces is still tracking Black Terror and Green Lama and a huge fight is on the horizon. The rest of our heroes just kind of wander around, including Daredevil (now just Devil) and Samson. This was not the best of the issues as the heroes are just sitting around now waiting for things to happen. The Fighting Yank finding out about his ancestor’s curse and coming back to life was a good reveal, however, and gets the issue an easy point. 1/1.
Vertigo
-Northlanders #7- I never noticed this before but Brian Wood has a nice little mention in the opening credits as creating the Northlanders, putting it on par with Batman and Superman I guess. Joking aside, Northlanders continues its brutal awesomeness. Sven sees the Orkney’s invade and puts aside their differences to fight against the invaders. Sven gives Thora a mercy kill, attacks and kills Gorm, and then leaves with his archer friend. Great story and I am sad Sven’s adventure will end tomorrow. 1/1.
Wildstorm
-Storming Paradise #1- I love war stories, and I love reading about World War II, and I guess this is an appropriate title to drop around the 4th of July, when people are at their most patriotic. We are focusing on some troops heading into the Japanese theater of operations in and around the time of the dropping of the atomic bomb. Its that strange time when the ETO ended but Japan hadn’t surrendered yet. This just sets things up, moves the troops into places and I don’t know how historically accurate this is, but it’s a fun story. I love stories like this. 1/1.
The Awards
-Book of the Week- Astonishing X-Men #25 got me more pumped up than any other title this week and I am actually interested in this X-title again. It takes a lot to fill the big shoes of Whedon/Cassady but Ellis/Bianchi are up to the task, crafting an original tale that is all their own, but not taking away from what came before.
-Disappointment of the Week- Ellis goes from writing the BotW to the Dissappointment as well, a first here in TPL. Thunderbolts #121 was more disappointing than any other title. Maybe its because I know I am dropping the title and thus justifying it in my mind, but I didn’t like how this ended. It seemd to be rushed a bit since SI is coming down the pike, and it could’ve taken another issue to explore the effects of the fight. Surprisingly, this is Ellis’ fourth time getting this dubious distinction.
-Cover of the Week- Avengers/Invaders #3 wins this week and maybe Alex Ross should stop doing these for a while, because he’s really running away with the TPL Cover of the Week awards, winning 6 of the last 12, including a three-week stretch and now a two-week stretch. Just an awesome cover of the two Namor’s fighting each other.
-The Bottom Line- It was a good week for the three “other” publishers, as both Vertigo, Wildstorm, and Dynamite went 1 for 1, which was a change for Wildstorm after its had a brutal couple of weeks. DC had an off week, as a reprint, a mini-series ending, and a usually good ongoing title failed to deliver. So call it 50/50 for DC and I hope next week (with a projected 10 issues) should be better. Marvel did well, hitting 9/11, with a couple of real winners. Next week looks about 20 issues again and I since I am going away next week (to Canada!) and the ride will be long, I have a lot of reading to get done next week! The comics, at least two trades, it should be awesome. Anyway, see you next Tuesday!
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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