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The delays continue! I won’t waste time with an intro here and so I’ll just give you the rundown. We have 7 DC comics and 16 Marvel comics for a nice stash of 23 books.
Spoiler Alert
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Man #607- The Black Cat and Spider-Man defeat Diablo and prevent him from completing his dastardly plan. Diablo was just a minor piece of this story at best, it was all done to show the sexual tension between Black Cat and our player, Spider-Man. It worked in that regards but I could also see its place as just a two-part story between big arcs. Either way, it worked. 1/1.
-DarkTower: Fall of Gilead #5- Things get really bad here for Gilead, as all the older Gunslingers (including Roland’s father) are killed. The now-freed Roland decides to go underground and turn Gilead into the fortress that Eld originally created it to be in the worst case scenario. This was probably the best issue of any of the Dark Tower series’. It had a lightning quick pace to it and had some great build-up. The written piece at the end really enhanced the story, too. This is definitely my favorite issue of DarkTower yet. 2/2.
-Dark Reign: The Hood #5- The main idea here is that the Hood is bonded now to the demon of Dormammu and is really alone now in his leadership and with his curse. The White Tiger stuff ended well enough and this was a serviceable Dark Reign tie-in thanks to its character (Hood) being a main player and we really get a good look at his history. 3/3.
-Dark Reign: Lethal Legion #3- This mini-series was one where I had no expectations going in and was really surprised. This is another example of how far into the depths Norman’s grasp really reaches as the Grim Reaper was thought to be dead but revealed at the end to be alive and working for Norman. This had a good twist I didn’t expect and it really brought Grim Reaper to some prominence. 4/4.
-Dark Reign: Sinister Spider-Man #4- This is Bachalo at his best. Sure Reed’s story is alright (Spider-Man is a bad guy who is out to eat people and piss off JJJ and he succeeds. He also solidifies his spot in the Dark Avengers) but Bachalo is the reason to get this. His panel layout is just amazing to see and this guy is a real visionary. An excellently drawn mini-series. 5/5.
-Hulk #15- This is the big fight between X-Force and Hulk’s team of renegades that was really well done with an interesting ending that keeps this title relevant in a recent influx of Hulk titles. It seems that Domino becomes the new Red-She-Hulk at the end. That’s actually a nice twist. Like I said, this title is carving a spot for itself in the Hulk universe. 6/6.
-Marvel Zombies: The Return #5- We’re in the future and the Zombies have all taken over. There’s nothing left. Giant-Man is still trying to get to other dimensions and when the Sentry provides a power source it looks like he’s got it. BUT Spider-Man shows up with his New (Zombie) Avengers and a nanite Sandman that finally puts an end to the threat. (Maybe). I’ve said the past 4 weeks, Van Lente has worked magic with the Zombies, keeping them fresh when stories could easily burn and instead be used for novelty. 7/7.
-New Mutants #5- This is a dual story, one deals with Warlock returning to the X-Mansion and Doug’s empty grave. The second is the New Mutants dealing with the aftermath of Utopia and Dani earning her place on the team. I didn’t care for the art (it reminded me of the old children’s book: The Snowman) and the story wasn’t enough for $3.00. A disappointing follow-up to the first four issue arc. 7/8.
-Runaways #14- This was a weird issue. The Runaways (without Chase who ran off) meet with Chase’s uncle and decide to stay on the run. Meanwhile, Chase is off on his own and gets his by a car after he thinks he sees Gert. What was the point of this arc? Kill off Old Lace? I just haven’t enjoyed this title the way I did when BKV was writing it and compared to his great run of issues, nothing compares and this title has been lost since BKV left. 7/9.
-Secret Warriors #8- The captured Fury is really Phobos in disguise and he makes his escape from Norman and his goons. Unfortunately he and the rest of his teammates lead the Dark Avengers right to another secret base. Looks like we’re in for trouble! This motley crew of Marvel second generation heroes are really coming to life under Hickman. This ties together what was great about early SHIELD stories into a modern package. 8/10.
-Son of Hulk #15- The Son of Hulk continues ravaging the new world, becoming its defacto leader, as swarms of bordering nations try and stop him. This is getting a bit repetitive now. Yeah, he’s fulfilling scriptures (like Hulk did in WWH) but we need to move past how powerful he is and bring in some conflict. This was well-written (as in, I wasn’t bored by it) and so it avoids any negative points. 9/11.
-Spider-Man: Clone Saga #1- Tom DeFalco and Howard Mackie attempt to make sense of the Clone Saga from the mid-90’s. Good Luck sez I. The intro is simple enough, May is sick, MJ is pregnant, and Ben Reilly (clone of Spidey) shows up to see May. The two Spider-Men meet and fight it out before resolving their differences and a guy in the shadows (Norman?) is behind it all. So far this mirrors the original Clone Saga which it should, since the story didn’t get convoluted until about 6 months into the seemingly never-ending story. So far, so good. 10/12.
-Thunderbolts #136- This runs concurrently with Secret Warriors and deals with Songbird and Black Widow making their escape from the T-bolts thanks to Paladin and the Ghost. Scourge is revealed to be Nuke, too. This was okay. I liked the dark tone of the book and Diggle seems to be keeping up with what Ellis did with it. However, I won’t be sticking around for this book anymore. It was a nice send-off for me. 11/13.
-X-Factor #49- Strong Man makes some references to Rictor and Shatterstar kissing which is funny stuff. Anyway, Cortex has the jump on the X-Factor of the present but he’s whisked to the future thanks to Doom and the team of Layla and Madrox that are in the future. Peter David has almost effortlessly created a group of characters that stands on its own in the Marvel Universe and has created a fantastic epic with these characters that no one in their right mind would create a title around. 12/14.
-X-Force #19- X-23 makes her escape thanks to the help of an Agent Morales (where have I seen her before) and we see that wherever she was captured has a bunch of the trigger that controls X-23. The rest of the book deals with furthering other plots (Wolfspane passes out, Black Queen resurrects Destiny, Bastion is recording X-Force through Pierce, and Elixir is still out). The X-Men team books have been just amazing lately. 13/15.
-X-Men: Forever #8- Things start picking up here as the X-Men discover a hidden facility that is run by the daughter of Bolivar Trask (who was killed on a mission with Fury and Logan back in WWII) and gets the jump on Fury as the X-Men go to battle other Sentinels. I had trepidation going into this title and although some things I think were done for shock value (Wolvie dying, Storm dying but coming back as a young woman) the story has been interesting, especially the back-story for Trask. 14/16.
DC
-Batman: The Widening Gyre #2- Batman’s mystery hero helps him some more and it’s throwing Batman off his game, so much so that he’s laid out by Cornelius Stirk after falling for his telepathy tricks. I don’t know why Superman was in here but other than that this was a solid telling of Batman and the mystery of his new ally is intriguing. 1/1.
-Blackest Night: Titans #2- The Titans face a veritable who’s who of their past dead allies and foes (some who are completely unknown to me). This was a cool battle issue and I can always enjoy them. At least it didn’t feature Martha Kent. 2/2.
-Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #5- I was ready to crap all over this one but it was actually pretty good. We have Ink, the unwilling hero, whose brother is found alive and behind this big crime wave in his city. Ink also finds out his tattoos have gone mad because of him. He turns himself in for murder and Red Arrow shows up to boot him out of the JLA. This has a lot of levels the other FC tie-ins don’t have and you can just feel the gritty atmosphere set up by Wallace. 3/3.
-Green Lantern #46- Sapphire, Sinestro and Lantern form an uneasy alliance as the Indigo Lanterns brings Sinestro face to face with Mongrel. Sinestro regains control of the Yellow Lantern but they all face the Black Lanterns who were just resurrected, Abin and Arin Sur. This Blackest Night tie-in is performing very well right now and this really gives a great look at the wide array of Lanterns in this event. 4/4.
-Justice League of America 80-Page Giant #1- The JLA are split up and take a trip through the timestream in a ruse set up by the Time Commander to steal an hourglass. This was decent, but not worth the $6.00. Yeah it was like 4 comics but the stories were mostly hit or miss. 4/5.
-Justice Society of America #31- In-fighting plagues the JSA but things are calmed down. Billy Robinson is captured on camera as attacking Mr. Terrific (though he was under mind-control at the time) and Mr. Terrific doesn’t make it in the end. I wonder if he’s really dead. This is moving things along, keeping the main story going while telling a complete story in the issue itself. 5/6.
-Superman #692- The world mourns Mon-El as Metropolis is still reeling from the Kryptonian’s attack. Of course, Mon-El isn’t really dead and he’s just a pawn in Lane’s scheme. My comments for JSA ring true here, too. 6/7.
Awards
-Book of the Week- It was kind of an underwhelming week in terms of GREAT books. So, when in doubt, choose the best-written and most consistent book. That is X-Factor #49 for you. I can’t think of any other title in this century that has been as consistently good right out of the gate as X-Factor.
-Disappointment of the Week- Runaways has just been really disappointing for me as a fan of the book. There were other crap books this week (New Mutants and JLA 80-page) but those were more for cost reasons than anything else. Runaways was a title that was just so great and to see it fall has been heart-breaking.
-Cover of the Week- Spider-Man: Clone Saga is my favorite cover this week, featuring a cool shot of Spidey and Scarlet Spider squaring off against each other. It’s just a cool pose for both.
-The Bottom Line- Well, this is only 5 days late instead of 7 so at least I’ve improved there! I only have 7 books left to read for this week’s TPL (though I haven’t actually written anything about them yet) so expect that up by Wednesday. Maybe Tuesday if I’m productive tomorrow.
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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