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I was bragging last week how easy the TPL was to finish due to classes being almost over and now this week classes are completely over. The last class was on Wednesday so picking up the books that night meant I had to teach 0 classes from now until September. Man, it’s good to be done. Anyway, this week sees 1 Wildstorm title, 11 DC titles, and 15 Marvel titles.
Spoiler Alert
The Main Event
-Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust #1- There are five small stories included here. The first is Captain Marvel returning to the Skrulls to allegedly help them out. He storms Thunderbolts mountain at the end of the little story. We next go to Agent Brand, who is floating in space after the SWORD space station was destroyed. She remembers a Skrull that was on board before the station exploded. Beast (old version who may be a Skrull) and Wonder Man (who we believe is the real one) teaming up like they used to. In the end, WM and Beast agree to trust each other for the time being until they escape from their dire situation when Beast turns on WM and kicks him into the lake. Marvel Boy (the Grant Morrison one) is in control of the prison cell where he resides and running things amicably. A Skrull pops in to take over and Marvel Boy (being a Kree) is a big pissed. He kills him and vows to stop the threat as stupid human rule is better than the Skrulls. Finally, the Agents of Atlas take out some Skrulls and aim to stop the whole threat. I think the last two stories were the best (Agents of Atlas rule, and Marvel Boy is not seen enough) and the earlier three stories were good in filling holes in the Secret Invasion saga. Is it absolutely essential reading? Probably not, but for Secret Invasion fans intent on getting the whole story, you need to get this. 1/1.
-Skaar: Son of Hulk #1- The third arc begins. We start with a bit of history, of Caiera and Hulk getting together after defeating the Red King, Caiera getting knocked up by Hulk, and the planet being destroyed, with Hulk thinking his son is dead. Of course, Caiera in her last breaths shoots her fetus into the ocean for it to grow. They grow super-quickly and a year later he is full-grown and leading some of the men against the remnants of Red King and his army, especially the feared Axeman. Skaar and Axeman look to battle at the end of the issue. This was purely an origin story for Skaar and it was a good one. It explained how he was born and aged so quickly and he seems to combine the powers of Caiera and Hulk, making a deadly combination. 2/2.
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Girl #21- May is conflicted (again) between her dedication to Gene and her life as Spider-Girl. Case in point, she follows Sara who goes to a mutant terrorist group. May has to deal with her as Spider-Girl and defeats her, which causes Moose to continue her hatred for Spider-Girl. May knows she should’ve helped out Sara more. Peter is still concerned with Normie’s revelation that May is really in a test tube and the May we know may be a clone! He asks Goblin Queen for any information and she denies knowing anything. Things get deeper in the MC2 universe and I am loving every minute of it. 3/3.
-Amazing Spider-Man #562- Spidey is challanged to duel by the Basher, and the Bookie starts taking bets. Peter Parker sees the challenge on his computer as he is stuck at home. He can’t get a job since Bennet has blackballed him in the journalism circles. Spidey doesn’t know if he’s going to show up but he goes with a camera anyway, and sees another Spider-Man show up?! Spidey dons the suit and the alternate Spidey was really Screwball, paid by Bookie so he can make his money. The bad guys are mad at Bookie and Spidey wants to know more about him and goes looking for him. I liked the art, I liked the story, and its another winner for BND. 4/4.
-Captain Britain and MI13 #2- Captain Britain is dead and the Skrulls are taking over the Siege Perilous and look to control magic. The young doctor, Faiza Hussain, shows off new powers. So Wisdom and the others head to a magical realm, close off all the doors to the other mystical places, to finding Excalibur but not being able to take it out. They should just ask Dr. Doom. While there they are attacked by Skrulls. The Skrulls take a whole bunch of magic artifacts and now have a magical super-skrull. Uh-oh. This lends a nice facet to the Secret Invasion, showing it is a world-wide invasion and not just the US heroes. Plus, it lends another look at the Invasion with the magic aspect. 5/5.
-GeNext #2- This is a fun little series by Chris Claremont where the world went in real time and the X-Men are retired. These are the young kids of the older X-Men. This issue deals with Pavel trying to talk to No-Name but getting knowhere. No-Name gets a strange call and meets with a Shockwave Rider. The young ones attack, more Shockwave Riders show up, there’s a big fight and the veteran X-Men members must now evaluate what is going on. Pavel draws a picture (which is featured prominently in this issue) for No-Name of her in a dress which causes her to run off. I wonder where this is heading. This is the first time I read this book and I enjoy the unique look of the merry mutants. I don’t see this lasting too long (titles like these normally don’t) but I hope to enjoy the ride while it lasts. There were some reprints thrown in (a Marvel Girl story from X-Men Unlimited #42, and two pages from two What The?!! Comics) and for $4 it is a good deal. 6/6.
-Hulk: Raging Thunder #1- The first story shows Thundra (an Amazon from the future) battling some men, then going to the past to kiss Hulk so she can get knocked up and take over the world. The second story is reprinted from FF #133 where she battles the Thing. Neither of the stories were particularly memorable and it doesn’t add anything to the Hulk mythos. For this being a Hulk title, he is in it for only a few panels and was written to show off Thundra. Either she’s making a return or someone felt the need to remember a little known character and in either case, it wasn’t well-executed. 6/7.
-Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #3- Iron Man battles an Excalibur empowered Doom and Iron Man has to run away to stay alive. He runs into Merlin (who he hasn’t met yet but will in the future) who tells him he needs to look for the scabbard to Excalibur to make him invulnerable and gives him a little clue. Iron Man shows up as Doom does and the two battle again. This time the forces of magic take a turn in there, too, unleashing monsters to prevent anyone from getting the scabbard. Iron Man eventually gets it and gets his own new armor. The victory is short-lived when Doom tells him he caused the end of the world and a huge eye opens in the sky. This is just an awesome mini-series and a great third story to add to the Doom/Iron Man Michelinie trilogy. 7/8.
-Last Defenders, The #4- Last Defenders continues its trend of going nowhere, as Nighthawk’s invasion leads to the Avengers showing up, Nighthawk getting his hero status and mask taking away, Nighthawk feeling badly about it, mysterious people still looking on wanting to take over existence, and the Son of Satan showing up to confront Nighthawk. Again, there are too many plot lines going on (the Son of Satan, who hasn’t done anything yet, the mysterious dude who has been in about 10 panels so far) and 4 issues in I feel those plot lines haven’t come together yet and too many things are left dangling, leading to not enough time to tie everything together. We have a main character (Nighthawk) who not many people care about with a rotating cast of heroes so that we can’t even get accustomed to anyone on the team and right now, Last Defenders has been a tremendous let down. 7/9.
-Moon Knight #19- Iron Man holds a party to honor all the little people in the Initiative project and a lot of people go out to celebrate. Moon Knight shows up loaded up on cortisone shots and meets with Carson Knowles, who wants to use this time to use stolen Stark merchandise and take over the people. He starts to do this until Moon Knight casually pushes him off a building (in front of all the crowd and the live telecast), thus ending the threat and pissing off Tony. Moon Knight is free of one threat and at the end frees himself from the Khonshu avatar. I can’t really say it was a bad issue, and it wasn’t bad enough to not earn a point, so it gets one. It was a fitting end to the story, as Moon Knight is free to embark on a new mission, though Tony should be appearing again, as that plot wasn’t totally resolved. 8/10.
-New Exiles #7-The New Exiles are in a new world where the UK owns the US and are fighting the French, with super-powered mutants involved. Havok tries to kill one of the UK peeps and the Exiles (being led this time by Morph) stop him. Psylocke has an encounter with a foe from the past, and Cat sees stars and universes blinking out. This was the start of a new arc, and I am already lost. Exiles is an amazing concept, but when you start out a story which is loaded with too many scenes that don’t reveal anything to us, it is a mess. I loved the Grummett art, but the book did little else. 8/11.
-Punisher: Little Black Book #1- Punisher helps out some chick (who seems to be a gold-digger of sorts) in getting her PDA (her little black book) back from some bad guy. This was an incredibly weak story, with absolutely nothing unique in the Punisher mythos and wasn’t worth the $4.00 worth of paper it was printed on. 8/12.
-Spider-Man: With Great Power #4- Spider-Man witnesses the FF dealing with the huge monster from FF#4 and failing to help, leading Liz to shun him. Peter is still conflicted about whether to be a hero. When he parties one night, he and his posse see JJJ bad-mouthing him. They decide Peter needs to be a hero. This was another interesting idea that wasn’t executed well. We are taking the base of what makes Peter who he is, a geek, and turning him completely around. Is it what he would’ve done? Maybe. But, it hasn’t been executed well in how Peter turned out after his uncle died. This is not a good retelling of Spidey’s early days. 8/13.
-The Twelve #6- The Twelve redeems Marvel after 3 misses. This is all about bringing more out into the open for our heroes here. We see Laughing Mask being led to jail where he is beat by his fellow prisoners. Black Widow is hanging out with some goth chicks. She is what they want to be. However, we see her in a room of men, killing them. Phantom Reporter has writers block and decides to put the mask back on. Mastermind Excello warns that something is terribly wrong. Dynamic Man lives up to his name, being dynamic, while Captain Wonder is a silent stoic hero. Blue Blade’s television show is soundly berated. The most compelling story, however, was Rockman. A woman shows up claiming she is related to him and we see the origin of Rockman. He was actually a cave miner who had a hit put out on him. He went into the caves, anyway, and was attacked. All the men died but a strange gas gave him special powers and also hurt his mind. The town he lived in fell underground in a sink hole and so he thought he belonged under the Earth. The military man tells the woman that is not the man, even though he is, so he can keep Rockman’s hope alive that his dead daughter and wife will come back. Another magnificent issue, where these obscure characters are given new depth and make what were throwaway characters in Marvel Comics an actual personality and perhaps better developed than most characters on the shelves. 9/14.
-X-Force: Ain’t No Dog- Wolverine flies solo to kill a dude with a chip in his brain and Proudstar in a back-up tale remembers all those he has killed. Wolverine tells him in the end he never forgets them. This could’ve been released as a Wolverine one-shot, and this didn’t do anything for the X-Force team, as it focused only on Wolvie, and the Proudstar stuff probably would’ve been better off being dealt with in the main title. 9/15.
DC
-Action Comics #866- This has the Sightings banner so I assume this will be a major factor in DC in the coming months. We start with Brainiac attacking Krypton (30 years ago), killing a Kryptonian, and taking Kandor. We fast-forward to the present where Clark and the Planet deal with new hires (including Cat Grant and her new, um, assets). He tracks a new Brainiac drone who takes a tissue sample of Superman, transmits it back to Brainiac, and his ship of many small countries, and a new Brainiac awakens. Cool, so Brainiac is coming back. This was good way to reintroduce him. 1/1.
-Batman Confidential #18- The fun story of Catwoman and Batgirl continues. Batgirl bares all to steal back the notebook (which she does) and Catwoman chases after her again. They fight, Batgirl ends up with the notebook and Catwoman reveals she wanted the notebook to save someone’s life. Batgirl doesn’t trust her and Catwoman ends up taking a bullet to the arm and falling off the roof for it. This is a really fun issue, and the inner monologues from both Batgirl and Catwoman are very appropriate, humurous and really keep the story going. 2/2.
-Booster Gold #10- Blue and Gold battle Booster’s father and his gang of villains (before they were really fearsome). Booster starts fading in and out of time while Rip tries to fix it the timeline, and Blue Beetle makes a fateful decision. He knows that his death would not cause any of this, and he goes back in time to make sure he does die. The past Blue Beetle is actually the Black Beetle, and enemy of Jaime Reyes so he just wanted Ted to live so Jaime never existed as the scarabed hero. There is a blackboard in this issue as well with some interesting tidbits, one about Libra, one saying Trigon is a Red Herring, one stating Jean-Paul Valley (Azrael) lives and I like the little hints being dropped. Another very good issue of Booster, as the unknown hero really just wants to save his friend, and Blue Beetle shows just how heroic he is, knowing he will die just to save the world. Great characterization. 3/3.
-DC Universe: Superman- This is a collection of reprints, like the Countdown Specials before it. This was definitely more underwhelming than the previous issue, as it focused only on Mongul, a character I really don’t have an interest in. The first story was Superman battling Mongul, the second was a two-parter showing Mongul escape and take over a planet but accidentally killing them off due to a virus and one of thims battling Flash. None of the stories were riveting and the fact that DC doesn’t include the original covers so I had a tough time figuring out when one issue ended and another began. These need to have the covers reprinted, too, like Marvel does. I don’t grade reprints but this was pretty boring.
-Gotham Underground #9- The nine-issue mini-series finally comes to an end, and it leaves more questions than answers. Penguin is about to be driven out of Gotham but he’d rather die. He awaits his fate but Batman and his gang intercede and save Penguin. Batman wants him as his inside man now. And, that is it. Intergang is in control of Gotham now, Batman says he will stop it, Spoiler and Vigilante are back on the scene, Whale and Johnny Stitches are working for Intergang and that’s what 9 issues and $27 got ya. So nothing really changed, and I am a little disappointed in this. It needed something to happen, and with Batman running over with the RIP titles, this will mean absolutely nothing in the long run. Disappointing. 3/4.
-Green Arrow and Black Canary #9- Green Arrow and Black Canary ask Plastic Man about his capture but unfortunately he doesn’t remember too much. Speedy and the British dude (forgot his name) encounter the ones who drove the van, and it turns out to be the League of Assassins. Batman shows up to help GA and BC at the end. Norton took over pencils for Cliff Chiang and the story didn’t miss a bit. Norton is a nice fit for the title. This has been enjoyable to read, and I like that the League of Assassins are coming back, since Ra’s and Talia have been featured so heavily in the Bat books. 4/5.
-Huntress #3- Helena attacks the men below the opera house to steal back her money and she gets it. She manages to anger THE mob boss named Mandragora. Helena later learns that is was Mandragora who ordered the hit on her parents and so she suits up for the first time to take out Mandragora, who coincidentally, put out a hit on Helena. I really like how this is turning out. I thought it would be very boring and by the numbers but it is developing into a nice mobster story with a woman deciding not to take it anymore and gain respect and right those who have wronged her in her life. 5/6.
-Salvation Run #7- Captain Cold narrates this tale of Luthor and Joker banding together to fight the parademons and then teleport away with a device you never saw anyone build. Luthor forces some villains to power the machine and everyone leaves, though Martian Manhunter is stuck on the island in flames. It doesn’t explain how he was flying around in Final Crisis #1. There were some problems here. The mini started off well with Joker and Luthor on opposite ends and Vandal in his own little world. They fought, which was fun, but then the story just sort of ended. I would’ve preferred to have Libra show up and take them away, showing how powerful he is, and the teleportation device was built with no build-up at all. This was a disappointing end to what started off as a promising mini-series. 5/7.
-Titans #3- Raven and the Titans look for the other wives of Trigon, all running into dead ends, and all being overcome by certain deadly sins (envy for Donna and Flash, desire for Firestar and Nightwing, and rage for the rest). Three sons of Trigon show up at the end and I still really don’t care, yet. I guess this was fun to see the Titans fight with themselves but there was little going on in this issue to make it worthwhile. 5/8.
-Trinity #2- Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all deal with certain trials (Superman fighting a small sun, Batman in a magic-laden Gotham, and Wonder Woman fighting Giant Robots) which we as readers see were tests from Morgaine and Enigma. The Trinity get together at the end and get a distress call from Green Lantern. The back-up shows GL fighting two unknown aliens (a talking small one called Graak and a huge beast called Convikt) and getting pounded, causing the distress call. I know Busiek wrote this, but he also wrote in Superman a villain named Projekt 17. Any other words he can use a K for instead of a C? Joking aside, I was into this issue, from the trials of the trinity to the back-ups filling in holes in the main story. 6/9.
-Wonder Woman #21- Agent Tresser is told by Director Steel to keep an eye on Diana since Steel thinks Amazons are in the force and she may be working with Grodd. Meanwhile, WW is working with Beowulf and having a grand time fighting. She is quickly losing her non-lethal judgment. Stalker shows up and says that Beowulf and WW are fated to join him on a mission which results in great personal cost to WW. They end up fighting more foes and WW’s lasso starts rejecting her and her right hand gets all demon-like! Uh-Oh! Finally, Hippolyta gets an ominous sign of a dead shark washing up on shore! Double Uh-Oh! Gail has done a really nice job reinvigorating what was a stagnant title and she should’ve started on it to begin with. 7/10.
Wildstorm
-Number of the Beast #5- Number of the Beast is getting interesting, Truman Show interesting. The High figures out that the world he is in is fake, that they are actually asleep in tubes. Once they die they wake up in the tubes (inside of a bunker). Little do they know that Dr. Sin is now in control of the virtual reality now. I wonder if these heroes that are trapped cause the massive outbreak of energy that is shown in Armageddon. I think this title has been worthwhile so far, and things are starting to make sense in the grand scheme of Wildstorm’s big storyline. 1/1.
Awards
-Book of the Week- The Twelve #6 is an easy winner this week. This is my favorite title and perhaps it is just the timing but it is consistently the best title the week it is out. Both Weston and JMS now hold top honors for most BOTW appearances and The Twelve has nabbed the award 5 out of the 6 issues.
-Disappointment of the Week- Unfortunately, there were far too many nominees for DotW. I hesitate giving these to one-shots, since they usually never have a long-lasting effect in comics. However, that changes this week. Hulk: Raging Thunder should’ve been renamed to Thundra: Raging Thunder, as Hulk was barely in the title and it was just a glorified Thundra story. If you want to write a Thundra story you market it as such. People pay money for the Hulk and he was a minor part in this issue. It wasn’t even a fun story, or something that matters right now in the MU. This would’ve been much better in a Hulk annual as a back-up, but not the main story.
-Cover of the Week- Not too much competition here, but Skaar Son of Hulk #1 was my favorite cover. I don’t really have too much to add to it. It’s just a cool shot of Skaar.
-The Bottom Line- This was just a tough week all around. DC went 7/10 with some real duds, and Marvel had its worst week in quite a long time, at 9/14. The bad outweighed the good and especially the last few titles of Marvel really left a sour taste in my mouth. Still, I can see the silver lining. The Twelve continues being the best title on the stands and it may go down as one of the best mini-series of all time. It is very similar to Alex Ross’ Project Superpowers but actually trumps it in many ways. Any week The Twelve comes out is a good week.
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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