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We’re back with another week of TPL. I had another week of work but luckily no SJU classes to attend. I caught up on a lot of homework during my week off from work and so had just a little HW to finish. I don’t know about next week, though, as SJU classes are in full swing and work will be in full swing, too. Anyway, I hope to have this all said and done by Sunday. All in all, 16 Marvels, 9 DCs, 1 Archaia and 1 Dynamite add up to 27 comics and another Marvel Masterworks came out this week (Atlas Heroes) so that should be fun to read eventually. Look for that review, shortly, too.
Spoiler Alert
The Main Event
-Project Superpowers #1- The Fighting Yank finds the Green Lama and tells him about his evil deeds in the past, that he captured many super powered WWII allies in a magical urn to try to get rid of evil. Lama agrees to help and they visit Dynamic Man, who never aged. Yank gets the urn and breaks it but it doesn’t work. It appears that Dynamic Man is evil now and huge fight erupts. We also see that DM is a robot, too! The magic urn finally releases a hero, The Black Terror, and boy is he pissed at Yank. He wants to kill him but will go through the robots first. A very excellent story but I feel if you missed the previews you would be really lost. 1/1
-Criminal Volume 2 #1- I loved the first arc of Criminal but honestly didn’t really latch onto the second one as much. I was going to pick this up since its Bru, and damn, I was blown away by this. It just was fantastic. We meet a black boxer named Jake and his white friend, Sebastian. Their fathers were partners in crime and actually had a heavy crime influence in their neighborhood. The two are friends but Sebastian can’t get out of the whole crime thing while Jake has thrived as a boxer. Things are thrown for a loop when an old flame comes back to their lives, one who Jake gave up so she could be with Sebastian, but it ended up killing her inside. She came back and actually stole money from Sebastian. She was killed and when Jake found out he confronted Sebastian and smacked him. Those working for Sebastian took exception to this and beat the tar out of Jake, ending his boxing career. It ends with Jake on the hospital bed wondering what to do with his life. I loved every panel of this. The characters were interesting, the back-story was amazing and the writing and art made this really authentic. Just a great story told here. 1/1
Marvel
-Captain America #35- Captain America is still dead and Red Skull is slowly but surely destroying the US. In this issue, which is light on action but full of story, sees a Senator hiring outside contractors to defend DC. The senator is actually under the power of Faust. Stark is still dealing with fallout from SHIELD firing on people last issue and Bucky discovers that the water bottles in DC is causing riotous behavior. Bucky dons the Cap suit and with Widow’s help tracks a helicoptor landing in DC. Cap busts in headfirst and right into the Serpent Society. Falcon is looking for Sharon and we see her on a medical bed about to be investigated by Arnim Zola and she tells us she’s pregnant! Is it Steve’s kid? That was a really good twist and Brubaker is not running out of them. These are still must-read issues and I can’t think of a single issue in the 35 so far that have been disappointing. 2/2
-House of M: Avengers #5- The Avengers band together one last time to take on the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Luke engineers one last attack on a prison as reporters (there because Cage told them) capture it all on film. Proudstar is shown to be a mutant on a mission to purge Sapien town. Once he is defeated, Magneto contacts him and says he can’t be involved in these purges since he was a Holocaust survivor. When Proudstar loses it and makes fun of “Saps,” Magneto reminds him that his daughter is sapien. Proudstar is done on the police force. Cage celebrates his victory as this mini-series coms to a satisfying conclusion. 3/3
-Kick-Ass #1- This is another Icon title, this being Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s baby. It is supposed to be the story of real-life and what would happen if someone became a hero. There was quite the ad campaign for this and I didn’t know what to expect. I can honestly say that this was awesome. We follow a young kid, a basic high-school nobody who doesn’t fit in anywhere and loves comics. He wondered why no one ever attempted it. The kid decides he is going to do it. His mother is dead and his father works at night so he starts wearing spandax and going out. He can’t find any crime on the first couple of go arounds but eventually finds a group of 3 kids tagging on the wall. He confronts them and starts to get the upper hand but the numbers are too much and the wannabe hero (Dave) gets the shit beat out of him. He gets stabbed and staggers into the street, getting hit by a car. He is in baaaad shape. This really was just kick-ass, and it lives up to its name. 4/4
-Marvel’s Best-Selling Authors #1- This free sampler highlights all the writers who have produced work for Marvel in the past few years. The highlight is of course Stephen King. They have a write-up about all the artists and the books they have produced. This was free so you can’t hate on it. 5/5
-Marvel Zombies 2 #5- This is the finale of Marvel Zombies and the ending was satisfying for me. The Zombies realize there are not hungry, all except Hulk. He comes in mad hungry and just destroys the other zombies who try to stop him. Finally, the old scientist (who has a thing for Wasp) comes in and sacrifices himself. Hulk eats him, turns back into Banner, and is killed by the rest of the new hero Zombies. They want to help rebuild humanity and go to Reed’s dimension jumping machine when they are screwed over by one of the Acolytes, who sends them away. He then kills Forge. The Zombie menace is over (or is it) and humanity is there to die off in a few generations since the gene pool is too low. Stupid Acolyte. The art is great, the story is great, and I can’t get enough of the Zombies. 6/6
-New Warriors #9- The New Warriors battle a group of villains called the Alpha Clan and have the upper hand but start faltering, possibly because Night Thrasher is not there. Thrasher eventually shows up with devices the rest of them didn’t know they had and start getting suspicious about his true motives and what exactly he is doing. Back at the New Warrior base, Thrasher has Kaz (a techno geek, I guess) to install something that will continue fooling the Warriors. We also get a bit of info on cops Sykes and Givins and their history going back a bit to Sykes’ father. This was the best issue to date, though I don’t know if its saying much. At least we have somewhere to go now, with the rest of the group doubting Thrasher. With his true motives still unknown the process to have it revealed should provide at least one or two full arcs. 7/7
-Picture of Dorian Gray #3- The fun continues for Dorian! This is basically showing that Dorian is a bad influence on everyone, causing death and dismay to all he may meet. He is staying young, though. He meets an old friend and wants to know why this happening. He mentions something about Dorian’s soul and sees the painting he made, with an older, aged Dorian in the portrait! I really hated the first two issues but I really can’t complain about this one. 8/8
-She-Hulk #26- She-Hulk fights the big green alien until she realizes that Cazon really is a criminal, who killed a woman and seemingly killed Jazinda. She-Hulk and the alien go after Cazon, who has a prisoner and is starting t fly away. She-Hulk grabs onto his ship and brings Cazon down. The dead woman is resurrected for questioning for a few moments and can’t bring herself to kill her murderer. Jazinda, who didn’t die but was in a coma, has no such misgivings and kills Cazon. She-Hulk was seriously conflicted in this one and showed some emotion here. She is now a troubled character, not knowing where her heart is. I see some great stories stemming from this team-up with Jazinda and I am sure Secret Invasion will play a part in this. Nice and easy two-parter. 9/9
-Spider-Man: With Great Power #2- I bashed this the first issue for being pretty boring and although I can’t say the title is there just yet, this is an improvement. Peter is coming into his own as a wrestler and even nets a pretty sweet deal. He dons the costume for the first time and invents his spider shooters when he almost falls from jumping around buildings. He uses them in his next wrestling match to great success. He has gained confidence and even talks to Liz. One interesting thing is the seeming disdain that Peter shows towards Ben and May, which is probably how someone his age really behaves. This was a step up from last issue. 10/10
-Thor #6- The locals respond to the Asgardians being there and its generally positive. Thor makes an appearance and strikes his lightning down all over the world to get his fellow gods back. He plummets back to Earth. The stories are well-written and drawn but for some reason I feel it is lacking. I am waiting for something to happen. The issue where Thor fought Iron Man kicked ass and we really haven’t seen anything like that since. This won’t get another point until something actually happens. 10/11
-Thunderbolts: International Incident #1- The Thunderbolts must locate Arnim Zola’s safehouses to stop his experimenting on humans. One of them is in China and Radioactive Man has some reservations about this. RM soon realizes that his government doesn’t want him since they think he’s a danger. RM goes along with them and he sees Swordsman make a deal with Zola to try and resurrect his sister in exchange for his escape. RM allows this after his people are threatened. Decent issue that looked into one of my favorite Thunderbolts. 11/12
-Ultimate Spider-Man #119- Spider-Man and his friends deal with Liz becoming Firestar. Liz doesn’t know what to do and flies off. Torch has to leave due to an FF emergency, Iceman goes to help her and one of the other students reveals he knows Peter’s identity. Peter goes to help her, too. Liz, a mutantphobe, is afraid she’s a mutant. It seems she may be when Magneto shows up offering her her destiny. This had some great writing here, especially Liz questioning Spider-Man about who he is and if he knew her in school. Great stuff, as usual from USM. 11/13
-WWH Aftersmash: Damage Control #2- The Thunderbolts want to see papers from all those helping but of course, some unregistered ones are there. Slapstick, of all people, gets them to leave, after calling in a favor from before. The T-Bolts leave, the heroes clean up, Arch-E shows up, and some being appears in the Chrysler building. There’s a funny bit where everyone calls Black Goliath the wrong name and really there was nothing wrong with this issue. 13/14
-Young Avengers Presents #2 - Hulkling- Hulkling meats with Captain Marvel and reveals to him that he is his father. Cap flies off in shock, Hulkling and the Young Avengers fight some robots and he lets out steam. Cap and Hulkling meet again and have a touching chat. Hulkling reveals he never sees his father again, so I wonder what will happen to Cap in the current MU. This was well-written. 14/15
-The Zombie: Simon Garth #4- The regulars in the book try to lock themselves in while a doctor says there will be a cure. The cure is one big boom and when the abusive husband hears this, he tries to bolt, even killing a cop. Simon Garth shows up, reunites the woman with her kid, kills the bastard of the story and gives them an avenue to escape. He waits behind while the area is nuked and I wonder if he is gone. The government exclaims that all zombies are gone and we see a zombie bird fly away! This is one follow-up that really delivered. Simon Garth as the mute hero was a nice touch. I hope to see more from him. 15/16
DC
-Action Comics #862- Superman, Brainiac and the rest of the LSH call on the reserve LSH members to run interference for them while they go to the JLA headquarters. They find a whole bunch of heroes that Earth-Man captured to siphon off their powers and find Solar Lad is the cause of the Red Sun on Earth. A depowered Superman ends up confronting Earth-Man in a final climactic battle which we’ll see next month. This was a very good issue. 1/1
-All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder #9- The sillines continues as Batman and Robin (completely painted in yellow, in their yellow base) meet Green Lantern. GL thinks he knows that Robin is Dick Grayson but they deny it. Batman lets Robin fight Green Lantern and Robin almost kills him! Batman has to save him and Robin finds out that Batman is Bruce Wayne. They both leave GL there (after calling the ambulance) and head the grave of Dick’s parents to mourn. Let’s be honest, this title is a mess, but it is one of the most enjoyable messes I’ve read. It can’t be taken seriously and I don’t think it is meant to be. It’s always fun to read this. 2/2
-Blue Beetle #24- Blue Beetle is stripped of powers and seemingly helpless. He somehow manages to escape and learns that his family was not killed by the Reach. The family was saved first by Traci 13 then by all the allies Blue Beetle has met in his superheroing. Blue Beetle leads the Reach to believe he has put a virus in their computer and faces death at gunpoint (just like Ted Kord). This is just an interesting book that consistently delivers. 3/3
-Countdown to Final Crisis #09- Countdown continues on Apokolips with Desaad wanting the anti-life equation from Piper, who allegedly has it now. Red Robin is tracking this conversation and RR is sought after by the Challangers. OMAC has Karate Kid and wants him because of a virus he carries that will wipe out humanity. Red Robin and the Challangers eventually find this out and are besieged by an army of OMACs. We finally see the power of Piper, who blows up Desaad’s head and then the whole planet! Still really awesome stuff and this is heading to a nice conclusion. 4/4
-Crime Bible: Five Lessons of Blood #5- Renee travels to the Shores of the Abandoned to meet Flay. He’s appeared in previous issues. They end up fighting, I guess for control of group Flay leads. They fight and Renee wins. She won’t take Flay’s life so he kills himself and Renee heads this group of book worshippers now. Well, the mini-series started out interestingly enough but kind of limped to a finish. This was just hard to get through. 4/5
-Justice Society of America #13- There is a great iconic cover here by Alex Ross. Stargirl shows Thunder around the new place and KC Superman finds out more about Gog and tells his version of Magog. KC Superman finds Superman and finds about his battle with Gog. It seems that Gog has a hand in killing the gods and even goes after Hercules. Gog is chased by the Supermen and escapes, and we see him bow in front of a huge head saying there will be no more gods. Just an awesome issue. 5/6
-Legion of Super-Heroes #39- The LSH deal with some crazy things in their lives. Their funding has been cut, they have just been blamed for the disaster on Titan, someone is spying on the LSH roster, Projectra is no longer a dignitary but uses her power and actually steals a bracelet, Elemant Lad, Colossal Boy and Ultra Boy investigate something on Earth and this was just a nice issue that tied up the events of last issue and introduced new mysterious threats. Solid issue. 6/7
-Teen Titans #56- This issue features Kid Devil getting ripped apart by his teammates and basically is stuck at the tower by himself. He is completely lonely and invites some fans over. He meets a director but the day ends up in disaster when Robin calls him during the party. Kid Devil is completely dejected and takes off on his own for a bit and runs into the director from his party. It turns out that he is actually a villain and tries to recruit him to the Terror Titans. KD denies the offer but is eventually captured. 7/8
-Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #6- We see the origin of Neon the Unknown and the original Ray goes to him for help but he refuses. A shrinking ray goes horribly awry creating a terrible monster, Human Bomb frees his friends from Red Bee who calls on Uncle Sam for help. The original Ray shows up to join the battle to the new Ray’s surprise. I couldn’t find any fault with this. The story was written well, it was well-drawn and it told a story. 8/9
Archaia Studios Press
-Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 #3- There are a lot of different things going on here and without the little synopsis I would be lost, since it is released few and far between. The homeworld of Lockhaven has been shut down, Lieam and Celanawe are stuck in an ice storm and burrow underground. Lieam asks Calenawe about being the Black Axe and tells a little bit of his backstory. Saxon, Kenzie and Sadie walk into a pit full of bats who are still a bit upset that they were not accepted by the birds in the fight between night and day and a fight ensues with Saxon being seperated from the rest. The ending sees Lieam and Black Axe having an owl land right above the ground where they burrowed. Issue four drops in April and I look forward to it. I loved the first part of the series and while the second isn’t disappointing, I think that Mice Templar tells a more interesting mouse story than this one does. This still easily gets a point. 1/1.
Awards
-Book of the Week- There were so many great titles this week but the real race was between Criminal 2 #1 and Kick-Ass #1. Both of them were really awesome but it had to be one of them. In the end, Criminal #1 wins it out. It was just a little better than Kick-Ass #1 and held my interest. Brubaker just knocked it out of the part this week.
-Disappointment of the Week- The only real choice here was Crime Bible: Five Lessons of Blood. The book just kind of limped to a finish.
-Cover of the Week- It’s basically pick the Alex Ross cover this week as his art appeared on no less than three covers this week. The clear winner was JSA #13, with an awesome Superman pose. Just a really cool cover.
-The Bottom Line- DC rebounded from a bad week last week to a very impressive 8/9 showing. Marvel also hit a homerun, with a very impressive 15/16. Throw in a 2/2 for the other titles and you have a really awesome week. It was really tough to pick a DOTW since only two books didn’t get a point. Tremendous week that may not be equalled in a while.
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