|
|
 |
Wow, after another late edition this one is finally on time. That’s pretty good considering that this is a big week, as the last weeks of the month always are. There’s one Vertigo comic, eight DC comics, and 22 Marvel comics.
Spoiler Alert
Vertigo
-Northlanders #21- We’re in Russia and its 1020 AD. The cold weather is bad enough but there’s something else in the air: The plague. This is one town dealing with an epidemic and doing the unthinkable, forcing all non-locals out where they are immediately butchered. Plague stories generally interest me (even Camus’ the Plague was pretty good) and this is a different slant than the other Northlanders stories have taken. 1/1.
DC
-Batman #692- I was looking forward to Tony Daniels coming to this title for some time. Already it is a lot darker than the last storyline. Dick Grayson goes to Catwoman for some help and information on Black Mask, who has made his presence known in Gotham again. Black Mask is reassembling a fearsome cast of rogues, while Dick investigates a huge plot of property owned by Falcone Family. I wonder if Tony has done away with the fun-loving Batman we’ve seen the last two issues? This was a great start for Tony, as he set up Dick’s relationship with Catwoman, and set the Black Mask in motion. 1/1.
-Blackest Night #4- This just keep on coming in this issue. Our heroes are completely overwhelmed by the Zombies and get the hell out of Dodge for a time-out. Members of the JSA and JLA come together to fight off the Black Lanterns but they are just shocked when a huge Black Lantern starts rising from Coast City. This was surprisingly light on Green Lanterns, but it wasn’t as one-dimensional as GLC was a few weeks back. I think the main 8-issue mini-series has been damn good so far. 2/2
-Blackest Night: Titans #3- This is an interesting issue. There’s the requisite fight against the Titans and the Zombies (with the Titans warding them off but not fully stopping them) until Dove’s power shines through and that is enough to kill the Zombies. That’s interesting. So Dove will be a MAJOR player in Blackest Night, I assume. I’m not big in Titans lore but this did a good job explaining things for me and it told a complete tale while still leading into the main story. 3/3.
-Detective Comics #858- I guess now that Batwoman is a major character here we should show her origin? Her father was your typical black ops army-man with twin daughters and wife. The three are kidnapped and two are killed. Guess which one lived? This origin isn’t anything original, yet, but I look forward to see where it is going. The back-up with the Question concludes with the Question finding the missing woman and ending the trafficking. 4/4.
-Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #5- This was definitely the weakest of the tie-ins. Ink fixes things, and Deathstroke shows up to offer him a spot in some sort of evil group. I just wasn’t digging this at the end. The art was iffy at best and I was just getting really bored reading this. I can’t recommend this based on the strength of the other three titles. By the way, this will be on sale on E-Bay in a few weeks, any takers? 4/5.
-Green Lantern #47- We got a whole bunch of Lanterns here. The Red Lantern is attacked and his heart ripped out, but his heart is now in his ring and that has no effect on him. Abin Sur and his sister attack Hal and Sinestro, but they are able to bail to the Indigo Lanterns. Pretty much all the Lanterns were in here and there was so much going on in this book to be worth the $3 and earn an easy point. 5/6.
-Justice Society of America #32- The JSA continues investigating the attack on Mr. Terrific with no real results. The team is on the verge of crumbling when they are attacked again. It appears there are bounties on their heads which is encouraging all these attacks. I don’t know, I spend way too much money on comics a week and this is an easy cut. The story the last few months has been somewhat interesting but not involved enough for me to keep buying. Next issue will be my final issue. 5/7.
-Superman #693- Lane has Mon-El captive but he quickly escapes with a disgruntled Parasite. Bizarro shows up at the end. I just can’t rationalize buying a comic called SUPERMAN when it is starring MON-EL. This is another one getting the axe, immediately. I liked the New Krypton stuff, but I just don’t like Mon-El as a star character. 5/8.
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Man Presents: Anti-Venom #2- The Punisher and Venom head off to find the drug cartel head, with some funny scenes showing Frank trying to kill Venom. Venom goes mad at the end when he finds that his woman is back on drugs. Watch out! The interplay between Frank and Eddie made this one worth it to me. 1/1.
-Dark Avengers: Ares #1- This is a cool concept featuring my favorite of the Dark Avengers. Basically Ares is given a group of human soldiers to train, and train they do. Ares’ first mission for his boys? Take out Fury who let Phobos get badly hurt. This is a keeper. 2/2.
-Dark Reign The List – Punisher #1- This is one of the most striking issues of the List. Basically, Daken goes after Wolverine and shreds him up, literally slicing him to death. Who would’ve thought that is how the Punisher would meet his end? It is fitting. The Franken-Castle story that will follow this will probably be the comic equivalent of Wrestlecrap but this was just a stark, violent story and really fit with the character of Punisher and the whole Dark Reign saga so far. Definitely not for the weak of heart. 3/3.
-Dark Reign The List – Wolverine #1- To me this was just a silly story. Wolvie, Capt. Marvel and Fantomex head out to find some sort of World Brain that ends up in a zombie’s hand in the middle of nowhere. Compare this to the Punisher story. The writing was corny (especially going through the thought processes of the characters as they fight. Wolverine’s was: “Snikt. Stab. Repeat.” It just felt like it was written by a two-year-old. There’s a back-up story that isn’t worth noting, too. This was just a dud. 3/4.
-Dark Reign: Young Avengers #5- So the Young Avengers tackle the Dark Avengers and actually defeat them, and then things go back to normal. Nothing like spending $20 on a series to conclude with nothing happening! I’ll talk about this more below. 3/5.
-Fantastic Four #572- The Reed’s are decimated by the Celestials until the 616 Reed helps save the day. The cool thing about this series is the ending. Reed realizes that, like the cover says, if you want to solve everything, the cost is everything. He learns how the other Reed’s literally gave up their family and their lives to this cause and Reed doesn’t want to do that. He actually deletes his notes and vows to be a team-player. The letters section (which is letter-less right now) featured an interview with new writer Jonathan Hickman gets me interested in the FF again. 4/6.
-Guardians of the Galaxy #19- The Guardians saga keeps getting better. Kang rescues the Guardians so that they can save the universe and the timestream. He brings them to the point right before Magus takes over. Starlord tries to reason with him but that fails. The Guardians save the world but this time the price was very high, including the deaths of Warlock, Mantis, Gamora, Captain Astro, Mantis, and the new Quasar. This was a heavy issue. The only downside to me was that the art didn’t live up to the great story being told. I will really miss some of these characters but I know the impact of those deaths will play into future stories. Another fantastic issue and this is firmly entrenched in my pull box. 5/7.
-Hulk #14- We don’t reveal here who the new She-Hulk is, but she leads the Red Hulk into a trap and he’s captured. This was set-up by Doc Samson and I let a huge yawn escape my mouth. If not for the impending Fall of the Hulks, this may be off the list. Actually, I’ll save myself $6 and not pick this up again until #19 (maybe). I’m just not drawn into the story and it’s frustrating not knowing who the Red Hulk is after the first arc teased that we’d find out. 5/8.
-Incredible Hercules #137- We see Cho finally putting everything together. Cho finds out that Pythagoras never knew Cho had a sister. Cho wanted revenge on Pythagoras but has a better idea. He just leaves and tells Pythagoras he’ll be forgotten. Pythagoras ends up killing himself. It turns out that everything was set in motion by Athena. She was looking for an intelligent person and Pythagoras was the one she had chosen before. She was the one who actually saved Cho by diverting him the day his parents were killed. The two conclude that they need to find Hercules and they head off to NYC, where Peter Parker happens to live. I loved how everything tied together at the end there. Cho is turning into a great sidekick in this book. 6/9.
-New Avengers #58- This is the end of an era. I won’t be buying New Avengers after this. When the title first started it was filled with great dialogue, a great story and great art. Now, New Avengers is just a shell of itself. Post Dark Reign the title has struggled to find its place and Bendis’ drawn out writing style really hasn’t been as sharp as it had been. Take this for example, Cage turns himself in and the Avengers head home while The Hood realizes his gang has left him. This is something that could’ve taken, what, 4 pages? Nope, try 22 or whatever they put in a comic these days. I just can’t read it anymore. In fact, I’ve been wanting to gut my collection to get more room in my basement and this is one where I’ll be getting rid of the whole run once I get my act together (and get some free time!). This is just a case of $3 more in my pocket every month. 6/10.
-New Mutants #6- WARNING! Read X-Necrosha before this book if you can. I didn’t (and there was no warning inside the book) so it was a little confusing. Thankfully Marvel has the recap pages right on the front page to help out, something I really wish DC would adopt. Anyway, Selene is resurrecting all the old X-Men allies and foes and this issue deals with one of the New Mutants’ own; Doug Ramsey. He throttles the Mutants, before ripping off Warlock’s head at the end of the issue. I like the idea behind this, but having it come out while Blackest Night is out just makes it seem like a big copy. Who knows how long Marvel had this planned, but to the common reader it’ll look like Marvel’s trying to imitate Blackest Night with their own premiere franchise: The X-Men. 7/11.
-Nova #30- The Starstalker guy is revealed to be just a bunch of nanites. He decides to turn away his original mission help the Corps stop the Mindless Ones and the Ego problem by transporting the Mindless Ones into Ego to give him a massive headache. So the Corps are rid of one threat but must stop another, the wanted Darkhawk. This wasn’t a spectacular issue, like Guardians was, but it’s keeping things going and Nova keeps developing. 8/12.
-Secret Warriors #9- The Secret Warriors make their escape from the Dark Avengers as Nick plans something. Of course we already know what that is because of the DR: The List issue and it really sullied the impact of these last two issues. Not great planning on Marvel’s part. 8/13.
-Son of Hulk #16- I didn’t actually read this, I just thumbed through it. It seems this new Son of Hulk wants to be Galactus’ herald so he summons Galactus. This just doesn’t interest me, how many Sons of Hulk can we have? Plus this has just been really boring. Not a recommended series at all. 8/14.
-Spider-Man: The Clone Saga #2- Kaine shows up for the first time and things slowly unravel for Peter and Ben. Mary-Jane has the same genetic disease that May has and it is all because of the Jackal. He wants to create an army of Spider-Man so he can rule the world. I don’t remember these plot points in the Clone Saga, but it was so bungled up back in the day that it may have been stricken from my memory. This is doing a great job of telling a linear story. 9/15.
-Ultimate Armor Wars #2- Iron Man and Justine head out to find the man who stole his armor plans. It turns out that Dr. Faustus has stolen the plans, although the body is just a shell for MODOK. Tony delves deeper and finds an enemy donning a purple version of the armor. I actually find this is a lot of fun so far. 10/16.
-Ultimate Avengers #3-We meet War Machine, Tony’s more pompous brother, the new Wasp (who was the old Insect Queen), a robot Hulk, a faux Spider-Man, and a new Black Widow. They are the new Ultimates and they are looking for Cap, who is on the run. We have a great cast so far, and the story is setting up really nicely for a Cap/Ultimates battle and then an Ultimates/Red Skull fight. 11/17.
-Wolverine First Class #20- Peter David writes a great follow-up to part one of Discreet Invasion, as Kitty and Wolverine escape the Skrulls with the help of Capt. Marvel. This has a lot of charm that is needed to a title that is an all ages read. Older fans will enjoy some of the little winks to the 616 Marvel Universe that PAD tosses in here. 12/18.
-X Necrosha #1- Well, I sort of talked about what happened here already while reviewing the New Mutants. Basically, Selene gathers a cast of X-Men Zombies. It seems she wants revenge on Shaw. Destiny is one of those resurrected and she warns her daughter of something. I talked about this being a slight rip off the Blackest Night mini-series but I will give this a chance to be different and see where it goes. 13/19.
-X-Factor #50- David knocks one out of the park here, concluding the running storylines and the Layla stuff in excellent fashion. Trevor Fitzroy is killed and Layla shows her real mutant powers, that she can heal things. That’s why she always had butterflies around her when she first appeared. That leaves Fitzroy a soulless man which will lead to his turning into a villain later on. Layla sends Madrox back to his original time. Layla is gone but we readers see her going to her younger version and telling her things, making her able to “know stuff.” This was an amazing way to end off the first 50 issues of X-Factor before rebooting with #200. It explains all the mystique around Layla Miller and is probably one of the best single issues I’ve read in a while. 14/20.
-X-Force #20- X-23 is saved by Agent Morales but is forever changed. Rahne is brought back to Angel’s mansion injured, and we head out to X-Necrosha. This was slightly ruined by X-Necrosha (that’s what I get for reading this stuff alphabetically!) This was an appropriately paced and constructed finale to an arc before heading into X-Necrosha. 15/21.
-X-Men Forever #10- This was simply a Wolverine funeral story. It’s never going to happen in the regular marvel universe so it’s interesting to read what it could be like. 16/22.
The Bottom Line
I think I am going to do away with awards since it was just a pain to write about each week, especially when things weren’t always deserving. I just think I’m at a crossroads right now with TPL. I’m spending too much money and not really getting a lot in return. I’m definitely going to pare back my reading load in hopes that I don’t get burned out and broke. One of things that is causing the burn-out is something I experienced back in 1996. That is too many big events every other month and the countless tie-ins that are brought with these events. In 1996 it was Onslaught and the Clone Saga. Now it is things like Dark Reign and Blackest Night. I think that a lot of the tie-ins are worthless and is just there to make a buck. I’m going to try and avoid that and just stick to things I like. That’s all for now. Next week’s edition is going to get started on Saturday so hopefully it’ll be finished by Tuesday.
|
|
|
|
|
Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
|
|
|
|