|
|
 |
I really dread the last Wednesday of every month as a comic book fan. It’s not that I don’t like reading the comics (cause I do), it’s just the sheer amount I get during the last Wednesday that gets to me. It is always the heaviest week in terms of comics that I pick up, as well as trades I pick up, too. For some reason I didn’t get the Marvel Masterworks this month, but I am sure they are coming. Next month has five Wednesdays, and sure enough, the last week will be the killer, and it seems that Marvel is putting out no less than 5 trades I plan on picking up. Luckily I have time this weekend to read them, as there is no 6 hours of classes to eat up my time this weekend. Anyway, I picked up 5 DC’s, 1 Vertigo, 1 Dynamite, and 27 Marvel comics, for a grand total of 34 books. This month finished off with a total of 96 books, the lowest amount since September of 2007. If there were no Secret Invasion it’d be even less, too. Well, enough intro, it’s too long as it is right now.
Spoiler Alert
The Main Event
-Captain America #42- This has been, in my opinion, the best first 42 issues of a title since Fantastic Four hit the stands back in 1961. The only different is, the FF didn’t lose their titlular stars to death and had them replaced, like this title did. Brubaker has really crafted the definitive Cap run, something that is incredible considering the great stuff Stan Lee and Jack Kirby wrote. So this issue features Red Skull trying to see his master plan realized, only to have it once again crushed by the forces of good. Bucky saves the presidential candidate from Sin, and becoming a hero in the process, becoming the accepted new Captain America. Skull and Zola are trying to use Sharon as their pawn when she breaks free and shoots Skull (Lukin) and the 1950’s cap impales Zola. Falcon finds Sharon as we wrap up the whole saga. Sharon doesn’t know she lost her child, Black Widow makes the Skull’s puppet presidential candidate resign, Bucky is now a hero and finally Red Skull has a new host body, the mechanical body of Arnim Zola. So Skull’s attempts at taking over America failed, thanks to a new Cap and his band of friends, and Skull now has to deal with being in a body that is not his own. Where does Brubaker go from here? I didn’t know how this would end and I have to say the ending was well-done. It was important to not only show how cunning Skull was, but more importantly to make Bucky’s Cap a suitable replacement for Steve Rogers. 1/1.
-Ultimates #5- We waited a while for this and now that it’s here, I can say I am really looking forward to Ultimatum. Basically, Wanda was killed by a robot version of Hank Pym that fell in love with her (sort of like the Vision story in the 616 MU) and saw he couldn’t have her. This led to a big fight in the Savage Land where Cap impersonated Black Panther, the robots (basically Ultron Avengers) were defeated, and Hawkeye tried to kill Magneto, but Quicksilver got in the way of the arrow, killing him. Magneto is pissed, and Ultimatum will stem from this anger. I didn’t have a problem with this. Of course, delays hurt it, and I don’t think it lived up to the hype it received, but it set up things in the best way possible, and finally brought Joe Mad back to comics. Good, but not great, mini-series. 2/2.
Marvel
-Angel: Revelations #5- Angel and his friends stop the mad priest as Angel apparently kills him. His friends promise not to tell anyone. Angel sees a prophecy from the young girl showing the X-Men. This was a decent Angel Y1 story, different from anything else we’ve seen from Angel. This is only for the hardcore X-Men fans, as casual fans will probably be turned off by the art and esoteric content. I liked it and give this its props. 3/3.
-Avengers: The Initiative #17- The heroes of Camp Hammond try to stop the Skrulls, but fail. The only one who remains is the cowardly Ant-Man (the irredeemable one). Meanwhile, 3D-Man and the Skrull Kill Krew receives help from a teleporter to get to where they are going even quicker. Anything with Ant-Man gets an easy recommendation. 4/4.
-Black Panther #41- Black Panther and Storm are captured by the Skrulls but all is not what it seems. They actually placed Skrull impersonators in their place, impersonated the Skrulls, and wiped out the ones who wanted to take Wakanda. Basically, don’t mess with Wakanda. They send the Skrull ship back to where it came from with the same message. Finally we see what Black Panther and Storm can do when faced with an outside for intent on taking over. It takes the cartoony story of the Panther, Storm and the FF facing the Gangster Skrulls with a magic frog. This brings Panther back to awesomeness. 5/5.
-Daredevil #111- Lady Bullseye? Awesome. She was a young girl imprisoned by the Yakuza when Bullseye ripped through them and her inspiration was born. She is sent by the Hand to take out Iron Fist and Black Tarantula, and keep Daredevil out of it. She does, by framing him for murder. Matt, who just cheated on his institutionalized wife with Dakota, finds out the next day on the paper. Good introduction to a new perspective on DD’s most feared foe. I like how this started. 6/6.
-Deadpool #2- Deadpool is at his hi-jinxy best, using the Skrulls to replicate him in their Super-Skrulls with his powers and actually getting the Skrulls to trust Deadpool with training them! This goes horribly, of course, and when Deadpool disappears with the Skrulls in chaos, they wonder what happened. Turns out that Deadpool was working for Nick Fury! That was one reveal I didn’t see coming. Thank goodness Deadpool has his own title now, and I think Daniel Way has done a great job picking up the merc with the mouth where Nicieza left off. 7/7.
-Fantastic Four #560- Earth ends in the 2500’s, and the Hulk and his crew have come back in time to bring their inhabitants back with them, saving them. They need Johnny and Doom to power the machine to do so. Johnny thinks that Hulk leads the thing, but the real mastermind is actually working for the FF as nanny to Franklin and Valeria. She takes out Reed, Thing and Sue, and returns to them. Could it be she is the Invisible Woman of the future? If you checked no, you haven’t been reading comics long enough. Does this mean the Invisible Woman who dies is the future one? Is this future the one we see in Old Man Logan?This has been an interesting concept thus far, and Millar/Hitch have done a great job on it. 8/8.
-Fantastic Four: True Story #3- The zaniness continues, as the FF travel through fiction to stop Nightmare from stealing all creativity and originality. I thought the concept of the first issue was interesting, the second was okay, and by now I am just like, what the hell is going on? This may be too over my head, a little too avant garde for me. It’s just not something I am used to in comic form, and is something I know I should like but this time around I can’t bring myself to enjoy it. A miss this time around. 8/9.
-Hulk #6- Red Hulk fights Green Hulk, Green Hulk wins, we still don’t know who Red Hulk is. A-Bomb is Rick Jones and he doesn’t find out who Red Hulk is after Samson shoots him down with a ray gun. Thunderbolt calls Red Hulk a failure. Great art by McGuinnes, a decent Hulk mystery, and cool fights, what else could you want? 9/10.
-Marvel 1985 #5- The villains still run rampant and Toby finds Spider-Man using his comic book knowledge to tell him about what is happening in his world. A quick-moving issue that works well in bridging the story between the villains running wild and the on-coming arrival of the heroes. 10/11.
-Ms. Marvel #31- Ms. Marvel returns home but is still disconnected from her family thanks to Rogue swiping her memories years ago. So Carol’s family is dead to her, I guess. I just don’t like this character. I think it’s time for Ms. Marvel to leave TPL. 10/12.
-New Avengers #45- This is the Skrull’s presence in House of M. New Avengers really just shows the Skrulls in these major event, and Annihilation is mentioned briefly in the end. Good issue to those interested in what the Skrulls are up to, but not really appropriate for New Avengers. It’s a mixed bag. We don’t need SI: Thor, X-Men or the others, but a SI tie-in talking about House of M and Civil War wouldn’t hurt as it would still give us a New Avengers title focusing on the Invasion. Still, this was a good issue. 11/13.
-New Warriors #16- I can’t believe I am typing this but I actually like this series now. It has turned itself around after the SI tie-in. Here the New Warriors learn of Donzell’s plan to head back in time to prevent everything from happening, especially the Civil War. That’s why Thrash was so unmoved when people died. So they head into the past and into an Iron Man type world, with Tony ruling everything. Looks like they took a wrong turn somewhere. 12/14.
-Nova #17- Super-Skrull leaves as quickly as he came (but not as a villain, he really saved Nova) and Nova returns home. His brother’s lab was attacked by Skrulls so he goes to help him. He runs into Darkhawk, who is security there, and when the Skrulls attack his brother tries to unlock the Worldmind from him. The Worldmind is released, and alive, but in the form of Wendell Vaughn Quasar? Well, I’m down with that. 13/15.
-Runaways #2- The Runaways deal with the Majesdanians, who want Karolina to pay for the sins of her father, and the destruction of their world. Nico wishes them away and they are dispersed, they learn about the Skrulls destroying their world, and a mystery foe is seen at the end. Terry Moore has made this an accesible read to all comers, a first since BKV’s run on the title ended. 14/16.
-Secret Invasion: Amazing Spider-Man #2- Spider-Man does a nice recap on the opening page as Jackpot tries to get help in fighting the Super-Skrull. She doesn’t get it but instead must deal with Menace showing up at the end. I didn’t sense any importance to the story here. I thought it was a little sophomoric and another tie-in that isn’t needed. If they kept it a one-shot it would’ve been okay, but how can they make this a three-parter when the titular character appears for all of one page? 14/17.
-She-Hulk #33- She-Hulk convinces Super-Skrull to save Jazinda from the death he had planned for her. I like how it showed a different aspect to the She-Hulk character. It also showed that Super-Skrull isn’t the heartless prick we think he is (though readers of Annihilation would know that already). We learn Jazinda’s healing powers (swallowing a mystic gem stolen from the Kree). I thought this was well-done. 15/18.
-Skaar: Son of Hulk Presents The Savage World of Sakaar #1- This cleared up a lot of confusion I had about Skaar, from what Skaar’s purpose is, to those that hang around him. It really takes you in depth in the world of Sakaar. We see all about how Axeman was born, how Caiera came to be who she was, how Skaar grew up, and a brief history of what happened before, starting with Planet Hulk. For those who like the world of Sakaar, this is an awesome book to pick up. I wasn’t expecting much but got a lot. 16/19.
-Thunderbolts #124- The Thunderbolts take on more Skrulls, Swordmaster’s sister is killed by Moondragon but Skrulls are blamed and I really didn’t care about any of this. The Thunderbolts are written much better in Spider-Man right now. Not an essential SI tie-in. 16/20.
-Ultimate Fantastic Four / Ultimate X-Men #1- I didn’t expect much from these two one-shots but they were actually pretty cool. This second part sees the FF/X-Men of present day heading back in time to stop young Reed from wiping out the mutant race at the behest of an older Sue Storm. The X-4 manage to stop this, and make a vague reference to Ultimatum. I am thinking that Ultimatum may be the Ultimate Universe’s House of M? This had a different twist on the whole future thing, and I enjoyed this prologue to Ultimatum. 17/21.
-Ultimate Spider-Man #126- Spider-Man is possessed by Venom and has a fierce battle with the Ultimates, and then he wakes up? Yeah, it seems that the Ultimates stopped him off-panels and Peter is alright now. Peter finds out that Fury wants to use Venom as a weapon and he doesn’t like that idea at all. I really liked the storytelling here, with Spidey just waking up and being as confused as we are. Easily worth a point. 18/22.
-Wolverine Annual #2- I usually hate Wolverine One-Shots but this annual by Duane Swieczynski and Mike Deodato was just awesome. Here Wolvie goes to a small town to fight an evil howling wolf that is really an old Indian totem seeking revenge. The pacing of the comic was awesome, with the payoff of the villain coming at the end and it’s what I look for in a Wolvie tale, Wolvie using his wits to defeat something more bestial than he is. 19/23.
-Wolverine: First Class #7- Kitty asks for Logan’s help in tracking Colossus after a girl calls him, and the girl turns out to be a Russian super-hero, who kidnaps both Kitty and Colossus to bring them to Russia. Wolverine follows where it seems there was some sort of nuclear reactor incident. Wolvie finds Kitty, who seemingly falls due to the radioactivity, and he is ready to take on those who took her. This wasn’t an essential tale but wasn’t bad enough for me not to give it a point. A decent story. 20/24.
-Wolverine: Origins #28- The third Wolvie book of the week, as Original Sin begins. This is just a retelling of how Wolverine became an X-Man but with a twist, it seems it was orchestrated by this Romulus person, and Wolvie makes a reference to betraying the X-Men once before and not wanting to do it with Daken. It is an interesting prologue, to see how Wolvie betrayed this team, but the real star here is Deodato’s pencils. He drew the hell out of two Wolvie books this week. 21/25.
-X-Force #7- Yet another Wolverine tale (remember, he leads X-Force). Basically X-Force sees Graydon Creed back on TV spewing his anti-mutant sentiment. That story is boring and the whole issue was a little dull, until we see Vanisher reappear and steal the Legacy Virus. Vanisher from X-Men #2? I am interested to see how the Legacy Virus plays into things. 22/26.
-X-Men: Legacy #216- Emma talks Charles on a walkthrough of his mind, where he sees his past failures and comes to terms with all the things he’s done, and he leaves Scott on peaceful terms. It was a nice ribbon on the box that this story was. 23/27.
DC
-All-Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder #10- This title is just something else. I mean, can we even take it seriously anymore? The Goddamned Batman is impressed with Robin’s prowess then he goes and finds an injured Catwoman. We take a look at Batwoman, who is arrested and her identity discovered, and Black Canary, who steals money. Gordon’s wife gets into a drunken accident, too. There really hasn’t been a coherent story yet. We’re 10 issues in and so far Batman kidnaps a young kid, random people show up, Batman makes love to Black Canary with his costume on, and now this madness. I can’t go so far as saying it is completely unreadable, cause it’s a damn funny look at Batman and what happens when good writers just don’t care anymore. Terrible story, but well worth the $3.00 to get a good chuckle at what DC really thinks is a serious book. 1/1.
-Batman: Gotham After Midnight #4- Batman has a run-in with Midnight, who shows how far he’ll go, murdering innocents, to get Batman off his back. It is revealed at the end that Joker may possibly be Midnight. I love the stylized pencils of Kelley Jones, and it’s Batman at his best, trying to solve a mystery and using his detective skills to do it. 2/2.
-Superman #680- This was all about Krypto the Superdog and bringing him back as an actual threat and not a hackneyed Silver Age joke. Krypto helps Superman defeat Atlas as Lois Lane and the rest of Metropolis come to see that Krypto isn’t just a dog, but an actual superhero. I have to admit, as much as I didn’t like it when it first started, I really came around to it. It wasn’t just about Atlas, but Krypto having a relevent role in the DCU. Probably the best Krypto story. 3/3.
-Superman/Batman #52- The Lil’ Leaguers take on the Lil villains, and Lil Superman pays the ultimate price to stop them. Mxyzptlk brings them all back, except Lil Joker, who finds his older counterpart. This was a totally inoffensive, good clean-fun comic and something different from what we usually see in Superman/Batman, which I can appreciate. 4/4.
-Trinity #17- The main story sees the heroes actually lose, and a great power being unleashed on the world. The back-up story features the origin of Konvikt and that he is actually an honorable character. When he learns his attack in the first arc of Trinity led to a non-military death, he actually wants to redeem himself. So far there has been no major missteps in this series, as storytelling has been solid, and I like the evil trinity and the ominous footsteps appearing at the end of this issue. 5/5.
Dynamite
-Project Superpowers #6- This is a title that could get confusing very quickly, if you don’t pay attention. Luckily, I’ve been paying attention. Samson and Scarab continue fighting evil forces as their cavalry arrive. Dynamic Man consults a secret masked panel about taking out these super heroes. Fighting Yank must have his ancestor give up his guilt in order to save the heroes from certain death, and the end of this issue sees Gren Lama suddenly growing old. This has been a really good story by Alex Ross thus far, as these unknown characters have been developed very well and make me actually care about them. Fighting Yank is one of the best morally torn character I’ve seen in a while. 1/1.
Vertigo
-Northlanders #10- Northlanders continues its ass-kicking ways, as the little boy leads the Norse troops to Lindisfarne, a very religious town that is completely decimated. The little boy joins the Northmen later on, but still has the cross of his dead father. This was a unique look at a boy rebelling against his family and religion in the most brutal way possible. 1/1.
Awards
-Book of the Week- This was a tough choice, but I have to go with Captain America #42, it was just a great ending to what has been an epic tale by Ed Brubaker.
-Disappointment of the Week- Secret Invasion: Spider-Man sort of sums up why I left comics in the first place during the whole Onslaught crisis; there were just too many tie-ins. Too many and in this economic crisis unless a story is absolutely pertinent to what it is I am reading, I get pissed wasting the $3.00 for it. It’s not a bad story, and I won’t say it is, but it isn’t needed in the grand scheme of what the Secret Invasion is that couldn’t be handled as a one-shot or even a series of panels in the main title.
-Cover of the Week- Wovlerine Annual #2 features just a classic Wolverine pose by Mike Deodato, who actually drew I think three covers this week. It was just really cool with the blacks and reds.
-The Bottom Line- Well, it was nearly perfect. Some of the Secret Invasion stuff was totally unneeded and led to most of the deductions but overall I was satisfied with how this week went. I don’t have too much else to say since it’s 10:00pm on Tuesday and I desperately want to post this on time and not be late for two weeks in a row. Next week looks to be a VERY light week, so I hope to knock off some trades in that span, too.
|
|
|
|
|
Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
|
|
|
|