|
|
 |
Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of TPL. This week I was away in PA and did most of my reading down there. I am upstate now and I hope I can get this all typed out before Tuesday ends so I can post it online! Luckily, it wasn’t a very heavy week this time, as an issue of both Wildstorm and Image found their way into my pull box to go along with a scant 5 DC titles and 10 Marvels. Add it all together and there’s only 16 books here. You have to love a five-Wednesday month!
Spoiler Alert
The Main Event
-Universal War #1- This was a Soleil title, a French import Marvel has teamed up with to release their comics in America. This was the one that appealed to me the most and I am not sorry I picked it up, even if it was $5.99. We are in the future and in space, two great things right away, and a huge black void has developed outside Saturn. No one knows what it is and what’s beyond it and their science can’t measure it. There are a team of rogues, all of military people on their second and last chance and being soldiers. All had been court-martialed before and are on thin ice. We have Balti, the hero, as well as, among others, a rapist, a genius and a coward. All this plays out amazingly well, how these team of men (almost like Armageddon!) disobey orders and one actually goes to the other side of the void! Balti is the one who breaks through and he manages to come back, but dies in the arms of the coward at issues end. This has all the makings of an epic and I loved every minute of it. Each chapter opens with a verse of the Bible and the creation story and it really added a neat element and was an interesting story device to correspond with each chapter. This is one you should pick up if you love space and future stories. 1/1.
-Final Crisis: Rogue’s Revenge #1- This is a lot better than I thought it would be. The Rogue’s in reference here are the Flash ones, who must deal with the aftermath of killing Bart Allen, something they never wanted to do. So Mirror Master, Captain Cold, Weather Wizard and Heat Wave return to their lair, dispatch the losers living there and enlist the new (young) Tricker. They want to hang up their costumes and forget about being super villains anymore and they decline the offer to join Libra. We then take a look at Pied Piper, not seen since Countdown. He takes the will of James Jesse, the original Tricker, and finds some secret print on there. He wants to avenge Bart’s death, too. Zoom returns and frees Inertia, who kills twenty people. When the Rogues hear about this, they vow to break their oath one more time, and kill one more speedster. This is a very strong opening book, as we focus on the Rogues, who are really broken up about killing Flash, and their renewed anger at Inertia’s reappearance. Excellent Final Crisis tie-in. 1/1.
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Man #566- So the new Kraven has who she thinks is Spider-Man (but is really Peter’s roommate, Vin) and the real Spidey is without a costume. Pete goes to Matt Murdock to borrow his DD outfit so he can go and save Vin, whom he found out was captured when his Spidey outfit was gone. Kraven wants to hunt Spider-Man so she lets him free in the sewers, the same sewers Vermin was in before. Vermin manages to get smacked around by Kraven who flees and meets up with Daredevil (who we all know is Peter Parker) and Parker again gets beat by Vermin. The inclusion of Vermin makes this seem like a rehash of the Last Kraven story, but it isn’t. It is similar, but it is a lot more light-hearted and includes a case of mistaken identity. 2/2.
-Captain America #40- The two Caps battle it out with Skull, Faustus and Zola looking on. The fake Cap (the one from the 1950’s) is much faster and stronger than Bucky, but Bucky throws him for a loop when he unmasks. Faux Cap eventually pushes Bucky off a building and Falcon flies in and picks him up. They are happy they know who the Faux Cap is now. Meanwhile, Sharon Carter faces off against Sin and Sin stabs Sharon in her (pregnant?) stomach. Skull is not happy about this at all. Another awesome issue as this whole series by Brubaker has been one of the best series, ever, as it has consistently been amazing from #1, right up to #40. 3/3.
-Marvel: 1985 #3- This is where the you-know-what hits the fan. We begin with a look at Clyde Wyncham and that his father’s death affected him, and also affected Toby’s father. Toby and his dad drive off and all of a sudden, the world’s gone crazy. People are getting killed, and super-villains are showing up, including Modok, Fin Fang Foom, Rhino and at the end, Lizard. This was just a very entertaining tale of how life would be different if super-villains really did show up in real life. Mark Millar makes this very realistic. 4/4.
-Mighty Avengers #16- This is the story of how Elektra was taken over by the Skrulls. It seems about three Skrulls got the drop on her and she killed two before getting overwhelmed. She took over the Hand after killing one of the ninjas and took control of a Hydra terrorist cell they were teaming with. This was nowhere near as interesting as the previous ones, especially the Hank Pym one, but its nice to fill in these holes, but sucks for Mighty Avengers fans who don’t care about Secret Invasion. There wasn’t much here. 4/5.
-Punisher #59- The Valley Forge (X 2) saga continues, as Punisher is now captured by General Howe. Howe starts believing what Punisher was saying, that the higher ups are working in some pretty illegal operations. Howe and Punisher leave afterwards. The best part about this is the Valley Forge book that is included here. It really is a great little story and shows perhaps one reason why Frank is as messed up as he is. 5/6.
-Ultimate Fantastic Four #56- Sue was saved by Namor as we learn more about these seven heroes. It seems they can become Agatha Harkness and they want to plant their seed and multiply their numbers. Sue finds out this happened in Namor’s kingdom and the resulting births destroyed a city. The seven members of the group represents the seven heads of the Hydra, and that’s a cool way to bring them to the Ultimate U. Good arc, unfortunately it looks like it may be the last one before the Ultimatum. 6/7.
-X-Factor #33- X-Factor is looking for Darwin, who is currently palling around with Longshot, who is really a Skrull. Jazinda (She-Hulk’s Skrull friend) follows Longshot and when X-Factor unknowingly prevent her from taking Longshot, She-Hulk shows up ready to fight. This is the start of what will be a fun X-Factor/She-Hulk team-up. Fun introductory story. 7/8.
-X-Force #5- Archangel is pissed he’s back and he takes it out on X-Force. Meanwhile, the camps of Bastion and Stiker fight each other with great casualties. The whole war isn’t going too well, and I just don’t think the story has been stimulating enough to make it worthwhile. 7/9.
DC
-Batgirl #1- For a number one, this was a decent introduction for newer fans to Batgirl. She breaks up a crime, then heads to the bat-cave, something she doesn’t have “permission” to use. Nightwing finds out and gives her a tough time because he doesn’t trust. Bruce, on the other hand, comes back and allows her to use it because, perhaps, they didn’t trust her enough before. He gives her access, Nightwing calls them crazy, and Batgirl goes off in search of her dad, who caused her to kill in the past. It was a good re-introduction for Batgirl, and filled in some stuff from One Year Later, though that was a looong time ago. 2/2.
-Batman and the Outsiders #9- Metamorpho escapes from the secret agents who captured him, the Jardine corporation has ties to the huge cannon in space Metamorpho discovered, Batman tries to recover memories from people who worked on it, but it just causes the person to die and not remember anything when questioned (what will Batman do with the dead body now?), a psychic vampire helps Batman with some of the memories she swiped from said dead man, and there’s a creature that kills. I think there was a little too much that went on, from the random people introduced, to now two different monsters running around, I worry about where this is heading. It’s been 9 issues and I don’t know about this Jardine corporation, but they’ve only been mentioned a few times and not enough to keep it the mystery alive. This needs a little bit more tightening up. 2/3.
-Birds of Prey #120- Canary and Manhunter fight, Canary wins and shows up at Babs door as she is leading some woman (Infinity, who can phase through walls) ) to look into a potentially crooked Platinum Flats corporation. Infinity finds Gizmo, a super-smart evil genius with a hole in his brain. Infinity check his memories and finds he was killed by Sivana. Next thing we know, this guy’s alive. Huntress jumps in and saves Infinity, Babs tells Canary they want Speedy working with them, and Joker shows up at the end. I don’t think Joker is best utilized here, as he really doesn’t work well with the whole organized crime thing. I just didn’t get into the issue, maybe there were too many people I didn’t know, but I couldn’t remember a thing about this 2 days after I read it. 2/4.
-Trinity #7- The Trinity realize that a whole bunch of historical artifacts have been stolen, and they all bear the same signs of the Tarot that represent them as a Trinity. Wonder Woman says something big is happening as he scar on her back changes for a third time. Gangbuster shows up for help to find Tarot. Meanwhile, Despero is approached by Morgaine and Enigma. The back-up deals with John Stewart telling Firestorm about Krona and the threat he possesses. It seems Krona escapes at the end of the issue. Another solid one, with a good pair of stories. 3/5.
Image
-Mice Templar #5- The mythology of this story gets even deeper and deeper. Karic was impaled last issue but is miraculously healed, something Pilot says is a sign he is the chosen one. This leads to a fight between Pilot and the elders in the great tree and the fight leading outside with Pilot chiding Karic for helping him. Pilot is picked off by a bat, but the rest of the mice fight them off. Karic learns that all that Pilot told him may be false, as he is a deceitful liar. We see the rats bringing the prisoner’s (including Leito and Karic’s family) to the mice capital, where the king seems to have turned on his people. The plot thickens, the title kicks ass, and this kind of stuff is on the same level as Tolkien’s mythos he created, no joke. There’s a great article talking about the myths of Mice Templar, and trees in mythology, including Yggdrasil in Norse mythology. 1/1.
Wildstorm
-World of Warcraft #9- The title continues its little niche in the comics universe, taking characters inspired by the popular game and weaving an interesting story of a once-amnesiac king going back to his rightful thrown, with side-adventures thrown in. This is one such side-adventure, where Lo’Gosh says he will help the brother of a man helping them find their way home. Valeera starts falling deeper into the dark magic realm. This is just a fun comic to read, and I don’t even like WoW. You don’t need to play WoW to like this. 1/1.
Awards
-Book of the Week- The two main event titles were great, as was the 1985 mini-series, but Mice Templar for me was the best one. It has its own mythology that is just fascinating.
-Disappointment of the Week- X-Force #5 was just a pointless story for me. The six-parter has really done nothing for me up to this point, no matter how much I am trying to like it.
-Cover of the Week- X-Force #5 (variant cover) was the coolest cover, unfortunately the story couldn’t back it up.
-The Bottom Line- The two big publishers both had a pair of misses and in a week of only 16 comics, it hurt a bit. It took me a very long time to get through these, too, because I was on vacation. I am literally finishing this just minutes before I am posting this. Average week, and I hope next week will be a little better.
|
|
|
|
|
Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
|
|
|
|