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This was a very one-sided week in terms of comics I bought. DC had only 4 titles, Wildstorm chipped in with 1, but Marvel had a whopping 18 titles, almost five times more than the other two publishers. Not only that, but Marvel (of the books I picked up), had 7 debut issues, whether they were mini-series or new ongoings. To talk about the pricing (something I mentioned last week), 12 of the total 23 comics were $2.99, one was $3.50 (Criminal), 9 were $3.99, and one was even $4.99.
Spoiler Alert
The Main Event
-The Stand: Captain Trips #1- I had never seen the movie, or read the book, but I had to pick this up. I really liked Darktower and wanted to see how this would be, and holy crap did it kick all kinds of ass. It wasn’t an action-packed issue but it featured a very good build to what will come. It starts innocently enough with a family leaving in a hurry with some sort of mention of an issue at a power plant. We then see the disease start its slow spread, and how it infects a group of people. We also see the introduction of Larry Underwood, a failed rock musician coming home to New York from LA. Just an awesome introductory issue. 1/1.
-Secret Invasion #6- Marvel Boy sees Capt. Marvel (the Skrull version) die. Spider-Girl (Skrull) goes back with her buddies. The Avengers show up at Manhattan and see the devastation there, and Thor shows up at the scene, meeting the new Bucky!Cap. The Avengers (all of them, New, Mighty and the like) square off against the Skrulls at issues end. Yeah, I am getting ready for a big-ass fight next issue. This was just a set-up for the next issue, but the arrival of Thor is enough for a point. Probably the slowest of the issues though, but two beautiful spreads by Yu makes it worth it. 2/2.
Marvel
-Amazing Spider-Girl #24- Brand New May meets her doppelganger, as Peter looks more into the whole clone thing but is captured by Menace. May has other problems of her own, especially Gene ruining her posters and punching her friend, Wes. May goes out to help her mutant friend from falling to the dark side when dopple-May attacks. SG escapes but is caught in a huge explosion. Mary-Jane is happy when May comes home, but the Spider outfit is still there at the site, so did the fake May come home? Hmmm. Clone Saga done right. 3/3.
-Amazing Spider-Man #571- Spidey fends of Anti-Venom, who goes after Mac/Venom when the T-Bolts take him. Norman has a run-in with Menace that doesn’t really go anywhere. Norman steals Peter’s camera and finds a key piece of information, Peter’s powers malfunction when he’s around anti-Venom. That is something he is going to use. Not only that, but the camera can track Spider-Man, and Bullseye is on the case to track and take out Spider-Man. Another really good issue, as taking the Anti-Venom led to the Thunderbolts which means cool villains like Bullseye taking on Spidey. 4/4.
-Criminal #5- Jacob is forced to make a badge for the guy who was with Iris and then is forced to go on his heist with him, too, impersonating an FBI agent to steal money. He does that, and Iris is convinced her man will kill Jacob, so she acts first, killing him and getting Iris shot in the process. Now this guy has a body to dispose of, a bullet wound, and still needs to make his comic strips. Another great one from Brubaker and Phillips. 5/5.
-Darktower: Treachery #1- Roland and his ka-tet have returned to Gilead but all is not well. Roland is still under the influence of the Grapefruit, Cuthbert and Alain draw the ire of the gunslingers in training for being made gunslingers without the final fight they usually have to perform, and Roland’s father and the other Gunslingers go out in search of Farson, only to meet opposition. I kind of missed what happened at the end (probably because I’m not familiar with the characters) but this was another King success for Marvel, continuing the awesome story of Roland. The back-ups are well worth your time to read as well. 6/6.
-Deadpool #1- This is an awesome Secret Invasion tie-in, as Deadpool takes out a whole Skrull armada in his own hilarious fashion, only to ask to join them at the end. There is a good little history of Deadpool tacked onto the end, probably increasing the price of the comic a dollar. Very fun, and the humor of Deadpool is firmly intact here. 7/7.
-GeNext #5- This ended the GeNext story, with the kids taking on the evil version of the X-Men and winning. We still have no idea who No-Name is, either. Eh, I wasn’t impressed with this, as no questions were answered, but I guess it was re-written to make a second series. This didn’t resolve anything. 7/8.
-House of M: Civil War #1- This is the story of how Magneto came to power in the House of M world. It starts similar enough to his 616 origin, Holocaust survivor, daughter died in fire, his wife left him thanks to his powers and he sleeps with Samantha Dane. Where it changes is that Magneto takes out a Sentinel, meets with Apocalypse and they both start to gather mutants. Apocalypse and Magneto have a big fight over their methods, leading to Magneto’s victory, and he announces to humans that mutants will be taking over. I wonder what is the Civil War here, between the good and bad mutants? Still a very good issue. 8/9.
-King-Size Cable #1- Cable leads Bishop on a wild goose chase, with Bishop even unwittingly saving Cable and the baby, becoming part of a legend. You know, it was good, but not worth $5.00. This would’ve worked as a good two-parter. 8/10.
-Ms. Marvel #30- Ms. Marvel continues fighting the Skrulls, finds a super-super-Skrull who she drops into the middle of other Super-Skrulls, where they take each other out. The Super-squared-Skrull is really a product of Hydra. Then we fast-forward and Ms. Marvel is out of Secret Invasion and out of my pull list. Just not interested in Carol as a character anymore. The start of this art was cool battle stuff, but this ended with a Hydra Skrull taking out the other ones, and I guess Manhattan is saved? Take a pass on this, not really needed in the breadth of Secret Invasion. 8/11.
-New Exiles #11- Sabretooth goes off to fight the Hydra Sue Storm and Wolverine, who are hopping dimension with Slaymaster to take out alternate versions of Psylocke. Well, Claremont certainly has a thing for Psylocke. This was good enough, some good fight scenes, developing a decent plot, and Sabretooth running off on his own only to be saved by the mysterious Cat. 9/12.
-NYX: No Way Home #2- So the gang have their teacher kidnapped with way too much blood. They go off (unaware they are being tracked) and go hiding out, only to be taken prisoner by some gang members. It seems Bobby Soul’s autistic brother has a sort of power as well. This is just a fascinating look at the young NYX-ers, and my little synopsis doesn’t give it credit. Recommended. 10/13.
-Secret Invasion: Inhumans #2- Easy to sum up, Inhumans battle Skrulls, Skrulls want to use Black Bolt as a weapon, Medusa is mad and shows up with Crystal at the ship. I think this is a good tie-in, detailing a key part of the beginning of the Invasion with Black Bolt, and how separate the Inhumans really are from the rest of the Earth. 11/14.
-Secret Invasion: Runaways & Young Avengers #3- Xavin faces his old mentor and defeats him with the help of his friends. He gets by with a little help from his friends. This really just pounds home the teamwork of the young teams and ends with the YA going back to the action and the Runaways leaving to go back home. The YA/Runaways team-ups are always fun. 12/15.
-Secret Invasion: X-Men #2- The X-Men try to take out the San Francisco Skrull contingent. Beast wants a tissue sample to create a Skrull Doomsday device and the X-Men take out a Super-Skrull to get that. Nightcrawler is still being influenced by the palantir type orb. I just don’t get why this is important to the Invasion right now. It’s another aspect to the Invasion, but so far removed from everything else it lacks importance. 12/16.
-Ultimate Origins #4- We start seeing how everything is tied together, Banner tested on himself to try and create a super-serum, using Fury’s tissue sample, and killed Peter Parker’s parents, putting Peter in Fury’s care for now. The devices from previous issues turn out to be Watcher’s and they are going to watch the downfall of the Ultimate Universe. Good issue, with a good build-up. 13/17. By the way, about the Watcher thing, did I call it or what? http://www.imemine98.com/misc/blog/tpl/aug2008/081208.html
-Ultimate X-Men/Ultimate Fantastic Four #1- The X-Men of the future come back to take Reed Richards to the future with them, where Reed meets the future FF and the past FF go to the X-Men for help. I wasn’t too crazy with the present art. The future stuff is Mark Brooks, which is always easy on the eyes. The thing I don’t like is that this $4.00 comic will be continued in another $4.00 comic, an annual of some sort I believe. Why did they need it in a new number 1 issue? I don’t know. This had a Days of the Future Past vibe to it, and despite the misgivings, this told an interesting tale that makes me want to find out what’s next. 14/18.
-X-Men: Magneto Testament #1- I wasn’t expecting much from this, but I was really surprised by how good it was. It is Magneto: Year One, from the very start. It shows his youth, growing up at a time when Germany was slowly turning into a fascist state. Erich Eisenhardt (Magneto’s real name) starts seeing this, sees his family getting beat up in for dating a German, and himself getting beat for simply throwing a javelin (made of metal) extra far. Awesome story, and the afterword by writer Greg Pak brings it all full circle, reminding us of the horrors of the Holocaust. Just a stunningly memorable Magneto tale, one we haven’t read in quite a long time. 15/19.
DC
-Batman Confidential #21- This is the conclusion of the Batgirl/Catwoman saga, and it was pretty good, as Batgirl runs through the gauntlet of villains in Arkham to get to Riddler, who has the book. Of course, Catwoman already took out Riddler. Catwoman gives the book back to Batgirl and Catwoman even admits Batgirl has some good skill. It was a fun look at early Batgirl. 1/1.
-Final Crisis: Revelations #2- Spectre (Crispus) and The Question (Montoya) face off, with Mercy actually getting in the middle of them to spare Renee’s life. The Crime people have a new leader show up, Vandal Savage, and this brings nothing but bad things, as now the world is becoming a mindless group of zombies, including Batwoman. I didn’t really have any problems with this one. You have a gratuitous Batwoman appearance, but the whole Darkseid thing running with the Crime Bible is pretty cool. 2/2.
-Green Arrow and Black Canary #12- We see that Shado accepted a hit on Green Arrow (from Dr. Sivana) to save her child, who is cured of his Leukemia, Green Arrow and company save him and Connor, but both were under the influence of Sivana, and now Connor’s awake. It was what it was, and I guess it was passable. I don’t know, I wasn’t terribly impressed with it, that you have 12 issues leading up to this? Where a normally temperamental GA is now working side by side with Shado against Sivana. Eh, goodbye GA. 2/3.
-Trinity #15- This issue rocked, as the Trinity showed up at the lair of the evil Trinity, and we see the events of how that happened (Batman coming to his senses) and a whole group of heroes ready to lay the smack down. The second story talks about Gangbuster (at the evil Trinity’s lair) trying to find his tarot reading friend with the help of Hawkman. This was definitely one of the best issues so far, with the Trinity working together to find the source of the evil. 3/4.
Wildstorm
-World of Warcraft: Ashbringer #1- This is actually better than the ongoing series, taking a cool LOTR type theme (with a powerful orb that brings evil to the one who holds it) and when evil falls again, the man who holds the orb crafts a weapon out of it to fight off the evil ones, and an unknown treacherous friend. This is just a really good mythical lore type story that I am digging. 1/1.
Awards
-Book of the Week- The Stand: Captain Trips was an easy winner, since it was just awesome. Do yourself a favor and pick it up, it was an epic start to what looks to be an epic story.
-Disappointment of the Week- Ms. Marvel #30 was something that I thought was a big disappointment, with little conclusion to the epic saga. So Hydra’s involved now? Yeah, I doubt they could make a super-weapon that is more powerful than the Skrulls where Reed Richards and the others have failed. I just didn’t like it, and this actually prompted me to drop Ms. Marvel from my list and actually the second week in a row that Ms. Marvel missed the mark.
-Cover of the Week- Amazing Spider-Man #571 by John Romita Jr was the winner, with an awesome upside down original Goblin and Spidey underneath him. I love the angles that JR Jr. uses on his covers.
-The Bottom Line- I was happy this week. There were five misses in a week of 24 books, which isn’t a bad mark, but I think I felt a bit rushed to finish it and couldn’t quite enjoy it the way I could have. I literally read these 24 books in a span of 48 hours, and rushed through a lot of them. Still, I was a very happy camper this time around.
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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