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Welcome back to another edition of TPL! This week we have 2 Wildstorm’s, 12 DC’s and 11 Marvels. Add that up and you get a whopping 25 comics! That’s one full week of reading! I won’t delay anymore, let’s see how this week stacks up considering the last two weeks were nothing short of great.
Spoiler Alert
The Main Event
-Annihilation Conquest #5- High Evolutionary is now working for Ultron and has something big in store. Starlord and his crew have a plan to destroy the spire in Hala and they do so, seemingly at their own sacrifice. Ronan dispatches the Kree Sentinels to the Hala homeworld in hopes of wiping it out. High Evolutionary’s plans are revealed, he puts Ultron in Warlock’s body and Ultron will use that DNA to put his mind in a whole worde of Warlock bodies that will make him literally invincible. This mini-series is just rocking along and I can’t wait for the conclusion. Annihilation has been one of the best titles of the last year or so. 1/1.
-Last Defenders, The #1- I didn’t know there was such a big market for the Defenders. Anyway, the main villains are the Sons of the Serpent and so Nighthawk is granted a team in the 50 state initiative by Stark and so he is given a team to lead, in New Jersey. The band of misfits Nighthawk is given is Blazing Skull, Colossus and She-Hulk. They end up in Atlantic City to stop a Sons threat and a huge snake named Quetzalcoatl is unleashed. There’s some mysterious characters they have shown throughout the issue making references to this being the beginning of something. I don’t know where it is going but this issue was rather interesting. I’ll give it a point for the interesting quartet that they have in this title. 2/2.
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Girl #18- Spider-Girl is captured as the Crimelord tries to sell the book. Mindworm turns on Hobgoblin and he wants all the power. So Hobgoblin frees Spider-Girl and the two actually team-up! The cops show up and Spider-Girl leaves the scene. She runs into Deadspot who kills Mona’s boyfriend. Spider-Girl stops Deadspot but finds out that Crimelord is really Mona! We don’t find out who Deadspot is, and Hobgoblin gets away (after killing Mindworm) and May returns to the hospital to get good news, Benjy will be better! May then ignores a guy who likes her to be with Gene. This is always well-written with tons of things going on and never a dull moment. 3/3.
-Amazing Spider-Man #553- Freak is killed by the cops but drops in a sewer. He manages to regenerate and develops different, almost lizard-like, qualities. Peter goes out and has to take unbecoming pictures of Norman’s girlfriend’s dad who is running for mayor. Freak blames Spider-Man for what happened to him and seeks him out to fight. He now seems to be bulletproof, showing he can adapt to whatever hurt him before. Decent enough stuff, though this has been the weakest of the arcs so far. Freak is almost becoming like a Darwin like character, adapting to things that hurt him in the past. 4/4.
-Avengers: The Initiative #10- MVP is still crazed, he cuts off the hands of Constrictor and kills one of his Scarlet Spider selves. The old New Warriors in the Initiative meet with Justice. Cloud 9 and a few others go on orders of Baron von Blitzschlag to the home of MVP and doing something to the clone living there but the New Warriors show up to stop them for reasons we don’t know yet. This was a good action issue and I can’t really hate on it. 5/5.
-Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin #6- This is the final issue and Iron Man and Mandarin have an all out battle royale that ends with Mandarin sending the stolen satellite heading on a crash course with Beijing. Iron Man leaves the fight and stops it and returns to find Mandarin and everyone else gone. He returns home, has a chat with SHIELD and he knows that Mandarin and himself are destined to meet again. This is really a timeless tale, it could go anywhere in continuity and is a good representation of what a first meeting with the two lifelong enemies probably looked like. 6/6.
-Marvel Comics Presents #7- Stacy Dolan confronts Fortune in the first story and they go to his hidden base where Dolan learns that Fortune and his group can delete video (retcon it) but tells Dolan she did shoot the man. Fortune’s friends show up at the end of the story. Ka-Zar stops the villains with the help of Stegron and his zombie dinosaurs. Roxxon is roundly defeated and Ka-Zar tells the rest of the world that the Savage Land is off-limits, or Black Panther and Wakanda will get involved. There’s a Namor story where he mourns the death of Namorita. Finally, USAgent and Arachne learn that the source of Omega’s power may be coming from captured villains. The Namor story was a weak one for me, but the other three were strong enough for a point. 7/7.
-Mighty Avengers #10- Iron Man, Sentry and Doctor Doom are in some point in the past when Sentry was around and remembered. The three time-travelers meet together, Sentry breaks into the Baxter Building and they steal a time machine to return home, only this time, Doom disappears. Ms. Marvel flies over and gets to Sentry but Iron Man is caught in a nuclear bomb emanating from Doom’s castle. I didn’t really think this was much of anything and aside from the last blast, was pretty pointless. 7/8.
-Nova #11- Nova is on the Technarcy homeworld and meets with Warlock, one of only two people on the planet. He refuses to help Nova since he only wants to rebuild his world. Drax and Gamora show up and as soon as they set foot they create a spire that contacts one of the technarchy siredam’s! A siredam is a fully mature technarch and Warlock warns that the end of his rebuilding is lost. Not quite as good as Annihilation but it is always a thrill to see Warlock again. 8/9.
-Thunderbolts #119- There is chaos at the Thunderbolt mountain. Swordsman sends out some troops he paid off to stop the Tbolts troops. They fail and Swordsman kills them instead. Norman is going crazier by the second. The villains in the the cells are trying to mind control the rest of the Tbolts when one tries to go into Samson’s head and gets mind blasted. Samson doesn’t tell Norman though. Swordsman and Venom face off at the end of the issue and Swordsman impales Venom. I don’t know how this fleshes out with the Penance mini-series, I assume that the mini takes place after this, and I don’t know how I feel about this yet. I think it will get a point for having some crazy fight scenes. 9/10.
-Wolverine #63- We see more on the history of Wolverine and Mystique, this time in 1921 Kansas where they were teaming up for a low-level gambling operation. We fast-forward to present day and Wolvie getting pumped with bullets, healing, finding Mystique and having her escape again. She impersonates a senator and has an army around her so Wolverine goes to an old friend, a terrorist, for help. This was definitely entertaining. 10/11.
DC
-Bat Lash #4- Bat Lash rides away from Dominique’s house and arrives at home to find that his parents have been murdered and a whole bunch of Comanche Indians have been killed by Brubaker and his crew. He is devestated and vows revenge. Meanwhile, the mayor throws Brubaker out of town for unwanted advances on his daughter. That is an interesting twist and this is a great Western tale full of heart and story. 1/1.
-Batman Confidential #14- Batman battles Wraith, a villain who is every bit his equal. He tells Batman he has a score to settle with Gordon over events that transpired on June 26th, the night Batman’s parents were killed. Wraith gets away because of Nightwing’s interference and Batman goes face to face with Gordon over what happened that night since all records of him being on duty that night have been erased. There’s a weird tack-on at the end with Wraith telling his story, maybe in the past? Well, that aside, this has been a solid tale so far and I really want to know who Wraith really is! 2/2.
-Booster Gold #7- Booster Gold and Blue Beetle are on their world but it is a different one than they remember. Saving Beetle has changed history and it seems Max Lord never died and OMACs have taken over the world and all but eliminated metahumans. The duo finds a small resistance, of Green Arrow and Hawkman, and want to rechange history. I don’t think it was up to the level of the previous arc, but it was enjoyable and that is worth a point. 3/3.
-Countdown to Final Crisis #07- The heroes from Apokolips end up on Earth and go their separate ways. The Challangers (w/Atom) go to JLA headquarters for help with Karate Kid but they show up and none of the JLA know them! They have been wiped from history! Whoops. They all head upstate and find an old Cadmus lab where they will begin testing. Dubbilex shows up and learns that Olsen knows him but he has no idea why. He tells them that KK is already dead. This was much slower than the previous 2 months but it got the guys where they needed to go. I still don’t know if they are on Earth-1 but I am sure that will be revealed soon. 4/4.
-Countdown to Mystery #6- Huntress has a run in with Eclipso and is taken under his control. Luckily, Bruce Gordon has found a way to try and control Eclipso and releases Huntress from his control. It seems that Creeper and Plastic Man are still evil though. The other dead guy that tagged along with Spectre seems to be organinzing ghosts killed by Spectre to rise against him. In the second tale, the new Doctor Fate finds out more about his past and then when he takes a magic trip through his door makes him want to give up the helmet. The first story was pretty packed while the second was lighter, but both delivered. 5/5.
-Gotham Underground #6- We look back at some shark guy getting beat up by the Suicide Squad and Matches Malone learns that they are sending villains to another planet. Matches (who is really Bruce Wayne) escapes with the help of Oracle and Alfred. Tobias White is gathering a group of villains to fight Penguin but Penguin attacks first with a group of criminals armed with supervillain weaponry. All hell breaks loose and Vigilante gets involved, shooting Nightwing who is also in disguise. He looks to be in very bad shape. This was entertaining. 6/6.
-Green Arrow / Black Canary #6- I missed issue #5 but it seems that Connor was kidnapped by someone. This issues opens with Canary and Queen in disguise looking for information on a ship with camoflauge ability and get a lead. They end up getting attacked by the ship and they shoot it down, and find aliens? That’s interesting and slightly less realistic than what’s been going on. I missed the last issue but felt like I didn’t miss a thing which is good but I felt the story was pretty basic. I love the art by Chiang, though. It just leaps off the page. I hesitate giving this a point, though. 6/7.
-Salvation Run #5- Joker’s team attacks Lex’ team. They fight, Catwoman gets discovered as a snoop and to save herself she sells out Martian Manhunter as a spy. All the villains band together to defeat him to the delight of an on-looking Desaad, who plans on using the world to train the parademons he has. Eh, I could’ve taken this or left it. I get that Joker and Lex are against each other but their confrontation hasn’t been too interesting, yet, and I think the series is taking too long to get where it needs to go. 6/8.
-Suicide Squad #7- Eiling pulls off his coup but sees resistance from some of the Suicide Squad members. Cliffie, who took over Chemo, is killed, and Chemo is out of control. Flagg takes out the new Rustam and steals his weapons as a newly blinded Deadshot roams around looking to kill some board members. This is tough to explain but the series is very entertaining and I am enjoying it more than I expected. 7/9.
-Superman #674- Clark Kent has their apartment building rebuilt and it is magnificent. Clark heads to work and is attacked by Paragon, who just escaped from prison. Paragon can take on the abilities of any meta he came in contact with and when a meta flew over his prison cell (we still don’t know who it was). Superman leads him to the Fotress of Solitude and warns him that he will turn off his powers and Paragon will be defeated. Before anything can happen, a bunch of people from Daxam show up looking for Mon-El, who is in the Phantom Zone to ward of lead poisoning. This was a lot better than the insect stuff from the last arc, and it has earned its point as we head for #675. 8/10.
-Superman Confidential #13- Superman fights a whole bunch of Toyman’s toys. Jimmy uses his watch too many times and pisses off Superman. Jimmy tries doing some investigative work but gets captured by Toyman who wants to cut his hand off with a saw. Nothing to shout home about here. Enjoyable but I don’t think it will be remembered a month from now. 8/11.
-Wonder Woman #18- Wonder Woman inexplicably goes to Tom and courts him. She’s then picked up by a race of warriors and brought to their planet (willingly) to help them stop a threat that is destroying their world. WW investigates, finds a huge ship, finds that it has something to do with the lifeblood of the gods, and is attacked by a member of the Green Lantern Corps. I never thought of WW going after a guy in the opening pages and it threw me for a loop. But hell, she’s been around for 60 years and never had a love interest like Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent has had. It should lead to some interesting plot lines and I wonder where the GLC come into play here. Good stuff here from Gail, as she’s revitalized the title. 9/12.
Wildstorm
-Gen13 #18- The Gen crew comes face to face with the “actors” in their film. They are also Gen’s and have powers like them. Caitlin is on to the whole thing and alerts her teammates, who aren’t as aware of it. They meet at the end vowing revenge. This was very well-written and the current arc has been entertaining so far. 1/1.
-Wildstorm Revelation #5- Going from a Wildstorm title that delivers, we have this. The three women meet with two of the Wildcats and its revealed that Zealot is actually Savant’s mother! Savant’s father shows up, the three of them leave and now they need to go to Gamorra to find more about the missing heroes where they are captured. I am not really digging this, as it hasn’t delivered on the level that Armageddon has. 1/2.
Awards
-Book of the Week- For all the titles that came out this week, and all the points thrown out, you would think I would have a hard time picking a winner but that isn’t the case. Most of the titles got a point but there was really only one that stuck out in my mind, and that was Amazing Spider-Girl #18. It is just a great tale, great art, a really tight script and for the length of its run, over 10 years now, it has very rarely disappointed. This issue was heads and webs above the rest. Congrats on the team of DeFalco and Frenz for their first win.
-Disappointment of the Week- I hate to keep doing this but Wildstorm Revelations had a great curtain jerker in Armageddon but Revelations has not really revealed anything, and has been one big disappointment week after weak, I mean week. I really hope #6 redeems the series in preparation for the next WS mini coming down the pipe. For anyone keeping track, that’s #2 for the trio of Beatty, Gage and Craig on the DOTW count, tying artist Wes Craig for top spot with 7 others.
-Cover of the Week- Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin gave us just a great iconic image of Iron Man, with a great back light. Eric Canete really blew it out of the park with this one and this marks his first time picking up the award. This is the first for Eric Canate.
-The Bottom Line- This week was very similar to last week. The point count was impressive (overall 20 out of 25, or 80%) but some of the titles could’ve gone either way and none of them really blew me out of the water. It’s like getting a B in school. It’s a good grade but you know it could’ve been better. I can’t really hate on Marvel this week, as again they got points in all but one book (an incredible 4 week run where they have gone 43 out of 47) and I hope they can continue the streak. DC’s last month has not been as strong, coming in at 36 out of 46, which definitely needs some improvement. Wildstorm has been the most lacking as Wildstorm Revelations has killed their overall statistics. You know, I love math but most people hate it so I will stop with all the number crunching. In the end, a great week for Marvel, a so-so one for DC and a take it or leave it week for Wildstorm. Here’s hoping to a better next week!
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