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Man, this is a huge week. There is a Blackest Night Prologue and two Batman: Reborn titles from DC, and the march to Amazing Spider-Man #600 continues with Marvel, as well as the much-anticipated X-Men Forever #1. This is a TPL so loaded I can’t waste it with anymore introduction. Just a run-down of the numbers, 1 Wildstorm, 5 DC and 13 Marvels add up to only 19 titles, but they are big 19 titles.
Spoiler Alert
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Man #597- Spider-Man infiltrates Osborn’s stronghold and learns that the American Son armor is for Harry. Spidey tries to warn him but he gets discovered by Daken and Harry doesn’t help out Spidey. So Norman shoots Spider-Man. Is he dead? I doubt it. The return of Dr. Octopus is teased here, too. Spidey marches to #600 and gets more awesome by the issue. 1/1.
-Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter #1- I had no expectations for this but I was pleasantly surprised. Bill is pissed at Galactus for eating his world. No one will help him but he’s dead set in his mission. He can’t compete with Galactus head-on, so he goes to the world’s where Galactus plans to feed and destroys them before Galactus can eat, hoping to starve him to death. Galactus won’t have this and sends Silver Surfer after him. That is an awesome slant to give someone in a way to defeat Galactus. Bill is just pissed and wants revenge, pure and simple. I’ll be reading the next two issues for sure. 2/2.
-Deadpool #11- Deadpool remains one of the best written titles on the stands. Deadpool survives an arrow to the head, kills a butcher that was helping Bullseye, then attacks Bullseye wearing a suit of meat. He cleaves Bullseye through the chest at the end of the issue, too. Way clearly had a blast writing the two craziest mofo’s in the Marvel Universe, Bullseye and Deadpool, and I had a blast reading it. 3/3.
-Fantastic Four #567- Doom thinks he’s beaten his master but his Master is really playing mind games with him (seeing a future where Reed sacrifices his life and Doom is a hero and married to Sue) before nuking Latveria and taking the mantle of Dr. Doom. This guy is powerful, that is for sure, and I want to see how Millar and Hitch deal with the FF beating this monster. For the first time in a while I want to read the FF. 4/4.
-GeNext United #2- The GeNext crew head over to India where they battle huge robots and manage to defeat them. A mystery on-looker sees all this from afar. That mystery lady is then visited by Kalima who is pissed at this woman for impeding on her ground. The young X-Men show up and this mystery woman is revealed to be the daughter of Dr. Doom and she has a history with Rico. The addition of Sophie Von Doom makes the trip to India a whole lot more interesting. 5/5.
-Miss America Comics #1- Miss America (shown as blonde on the cover but brunette inside of it) uncovers a Nazi plot at home of women trying to sabotage a new carrier ship with the Nazi mind-control devices. Miss America is able to take care of those fifth columnists, though. Yay, America! There’s a couple of reprints from All-Winners Comics, two featuring the Whizzer and one being a silly mystery story. I love these Golden Age-era stories. 6/6.
-Thor: Tales of Asgard #2- This continues the back-up tales that were featured in Journey Into Mystery, a title which featured Thor. It’s Lee and Kirby doing a series of 5-page stories augmenting the myth and lore of the characters that were seen in the main stories. You’ll read about Balder the Brave, Heimdell, Loki, Odin and of course, Thor. It’s Silver Age Kirby at his best, and Lee at his best. What’s not to like about this? 7/7.
-Uncanny X-Men #511- I’m happy that this title has been brought back to prominence with the great storylines presented by Matt Fraction (I could do without the Land art, though). Here Madelyne Pryor tries to resurrect the body of Jean Grey so she can use it as a vessel. The X-Men have different plans and switch bodies, and the threat of Maddie is over. The ending kind of came out of nowhere but having the X-Men interact like this is great, having Cyclops and Wolverine pissed at each other really harkens back to the great Claremont/Byrnes X-Men. I’m a happy X-Fan right now. 8/8.
-Uncanny X-Men Giant-Sized First Class #1- Cyclops deals with the new team of X-Men and in true First Class fashion we have a really fun title to read that really won’t have a lasting effect on anything since it’s all looking at past events. These are always a blast to read. 9/9.
-War of Kings: The Savage World of Skaar- Gorgon follows Starbolt of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard into a wormhole that leads to Sakaar. The two enemies end up teaming up to escape Sakaar, and Skaar with their lives. Both Black Bolt and Vulcan want the Old Power of Sakaar, and I wonder if that will play into the rest of the War of Kings storyline? 10/10.
-Wolverine #74- The two stories conclude with Wolverine killing the guy he was trying to help after the guy learned his son died. I didn’t like how the story ended. The second sees Spidey trying to figure out why Wolvie pushes himself so much. He wants to make up for past sins. Both stories started off really awesome but puttered to a conclusion. This gets a point because I liked how Spidey was written here and the second story wasn’t a complete waste. 11/11.
-X-Factor #44- Monet tries to seduce Darwin, but he realizes she just wants to get the woman they are protecting alone so she can kill him. It seems she’s been taken over by some sort of electronic virus, possibly Phalanx? Her first appearance was during the Phalanx Covenant. Madrox is in the future trying to figure out why people have been vanishing. I love PAD’s writing, and you need to be buying this. 12/12.
-X-Men: Forever #1- This will probably be a very controversial title. Basically, Chris Claremont picks up where he left off way back in X-Men 3 which was printed in 1991. Now, I can barely remember what I had for lunch this morning, much less what happened in 1991, but the opening really does its best to set up the backstory. You’ll notice right away that Gambit’s last name here is Picard instead of LeBeau. So the X-Men gold and blue team seems to have been forgotten here, something I remember necessitated the two titles back in ’91. The X-Men have to defeat Fabian Cortez here, all while under the watch of SHIELD. This really plays up the X-Men as feared by the public and needing the help of Big Brother in the form of SHIELD. The truly shocking thing here is the relationship of Jean and Logan is stronger than it had ever been. The art of Tom Grummett really reminds me of the early 90’s X-Men and is appreciated. It should be interesting to see where Claremont goes with this. Were these really stories he wanted to tell, or just a way for him to get back on a mainstream X-Title? Whatever the case, I did enjoy it and it gets the point for me, but if you’re not familiar with the early 90’s X-Men, this won’t be for you. 13/13.
DC
-Action Comics #878- General Lane is looking for the rogue Kryptonians that are on Earth while the good Kryptonians (Chris and Thara) want to stop the bad, murdering ones. They square off and after the bad guys are knocked out, a whole bunch of military mutants show up to inflict some damage. I don’t like Chris as much as Mon-El, but the backstory of General Lane inevitably butting heads with his daughter should carry this to the end of the World Without Superman storyline. 1/1.
-Batman #687- This is the new Batman and Robin, Dick Grayson and Damien. It really just sets up our two new main characters while Dick and Alfred try to move forward after the death of Bruce. It is really Nightwing coming to grips with everything that happened and donning the cowl. Excellent start for this title. 2/2.
-Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #2- Ok, so Escape deals with Tom Tressor (or Nemesis) and his pals at Checkmate. There’s still a lot going on here that is really confusing and I think that is what the writer was aiming for, for the reader to be as confused as Tom Tressor. It is working and it is working in a way that I find it interesting and want to see how it all ends. 3/3.
-Green Lantern Corps #37- This is a prologue to Blackest Night, the big event from DC this summer. I loved Sinestro Corps and so I wanted to jump on this to get an idea of what is happening. Based on this, it seems a lot of crap has been hitting the Lanterns. It seems that a bunch of the Sinestro Corps prisoners escaped, leading to the Lanterns having to fight back. It also seems that others are still suffering from that War. This issue ends with Oa breaking out of its shell. This was really cool and I can’t wait for Blackest Night. 4/4.
-Red Robin #1- Red Robin is Tim Drake and my man Chris Yost does a great job introducing a much darker Drake, who wears the Red Robin outfit and really has no boundaries like he did when he was Robin. The death of Bruce has changed Drake, and he actually still believes Bruce is alive, living in total denial right now and taking it out on the criminals he battles worldwide. Another excellent start for this post-Bruce world. 5/5.
DC
-Storming Paradise #6- Storming Paradise ends with the United States blowing up the Japanese Super-weapon, finding it almost by accident. The Japanese empower vows to rebuild and destroy the US. This was an interesting open ending, suggesting a follow-up. I don’t know if I will stick around for it but I enjoyed this what-if type of storyline, even if the ending was just sort of happenstance. 1/1.
Awards
-Book of the Week- It was tough to pick a book for this award since a lot of books were really good. In the end I chose between the two Batman: Reborn titles. Batman was quite good, but the new Robin was even better. Red Robin #1 was just a riveting comic from start to finish.
-Disappointment of the Week- None Awarded, which is always nice. I’ve been really easy on the books lately, haven’t I?
-Cover of the Week- Deadpool #11 was just a hysterical cover, completely capturing the charm and wit that Daniel Way provides the title. This is a great cover by Jason Pearson.
-The Bottom Line- DC really had a big week, with Blackest Night coming on the horizon and Batman: Reborn being a big hit. This is their fourth perfect week in a row. Marvel was also perfect and had just a great array of titles this week. There was some classic Silver Age stuff, a look back at the early 90’s X-Men, and some great tie-ins. This was just an epic week and I enjoyed it fully.
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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