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This is the most depressing edition of TPL. You know why? Today I went back to school. Even though I am a teacher I still feel like I was when I was younger and I had to go back to school after a nice (somewhat) relaxing summer. This summer was really crazy towards the end especially with the housework I’ve been getting done (floors done and then painting the living room, dining room and master bedroom) right up to the day I went back in. Yikes. That would also explain the recent delays to Wednesday Comics and Superstars.
Spoiler Alert
Marvel
-Agents of Atlas #10- The Jade Claw story deepens. Lao learns from Woo that the Jade Claw has her own dragon and he’s really interested in this development given the dragon history we see a bit of in this issue. That is a plot I really want to see developed. There’s some great other threads that have been lain here, including the “real” Venus wanting to stop the Atlas version, some history of M-11 and the previous incarnations as well as his upgrades at the end as Atlas battles the Jade Claw’s forces. This is one of my favorite books on the stands. 1/1.
-Black Panther #8- Shuri looks into attacked her and it seems that a “man in the shadows” is setting up Namor as the attacker. Meanwhile, Black Panther is training his new group of female warriors to battle robots, more specifically, Doom-bots. I didn’t think Shuri would be interesting as a character but “shur” enough this has been better than the last few issues of the Black Panther run that preceded this. It’s a new look, but T’Challa is still there and is as mysterious and secretive as ever. 2/2.
-Cable #18- Bishop tracks Hope and Cable to their ship and boards and sends Emil to find Hope. Once he sees her he’s gonna nuke the whole thing and save the past. That’s all well and good until Hope uses her power to freeze everyone. Well, everyone except the Brood that have just entered the ship. I fear that after this arc that there will be nothing left. How long can we watch Bishop chase Hope and Cable once they get free in outer space? Where do they go from here? This was the start of a good story and I like the inclusion of the Brood. 3/3.
-Daring Mystery Comics – Marvel 70th Anniversary #1- This is written by noted author David Liss. I’ve never read any of his novels but this comic was really well done and if he takes this care in his novels I am sure they are pretty damn good, too. This works more as an origin of the Phantom Reporter. He came from a rich family whose parents urged him to pursue his dreams. He wanted to be a reporter but when that wasn’t enough he donned the mask to battle crime as the Phantom Reporter. The first crime he busted involved some hijinx from an old acquaintance and a damsel in distress. It wasn’t reinventing the wheel or anything but it told an interesting origin on a character that never really had one. Liss wrote a little post word and he expressed interest in writing more comics. This may be the best of the 70th Anniversary comics to come out. 4/4.
-Deadpool #15- Deadpool is really lost and just doesn’t know where to go. He’s definitely at a cross roads here. A very crazy, psychotic, crossroads. I love how Way writes Deadpool, with the two voices in his head as well as the audible voice which acts as a third thought. Deadpool, after ending up dressed kind of fruity at a Navy bar decides he’s going to join the X-Men. This may be one of the best written series and as long as Way is handling Deadpool he is in good hands. 5/5.
-Exiles #6- The Exiles first debuted in August of 2001 and here we are, 8 years later and the title is finally going to shut its doors. Sure it went through three volumes but it has consistently been on the stands. Writer Jeff Parker had the title in good hands at the onset of the third volume but sales were not to be and this has been dumped by Marvel. So Parker was left with condensing what could have been months of storyline developments into one issue and it is a satisfying finale. We meet the person behind it all (a female Kang), the heroes realize why they can’t go back to their worlds (it would mess up their timestreams) and the Exiles are left where they started, a group of heroes saving dimensions from certain doom. It was a fitting end to the Exiles and that’s all you can really ask for. 6/6.
-House of M: Masters of Evil #2- I have to say that this House of M tie-in is actually more interesting than some of the others that have been released in the wake of the event. Here the Hood and his gang are not villains but heroes to the sapien population, almost a modern day Robin Hood. Except they don’t give to the poor, they only keep for themselves. They battle some of the House of M forces and some of the Hood’s gang are captured but the Hood frees them and he declares that they need their own country to really make a statement. It’s the same Hood but it’s amazing how your perspective differs based on the situations. 7/7.
-Incognito #6- The secrets are all revealed. Zack learns he’s but one of 26 clones that were created and one of his brothers (Yuri) is sent out to sully Zack’s good name. Zack is freed thanks to the sacrifice of Ava Destruction and he’s able to kill his brother to hopefully end this whole thing. The master mind behind this all, Black Death, is still in prison and Zack tells him that he won’t hide anymore. This was an excellent ending to a noir super-hero classic. 8/8.
-Invincible Iron Man #17- I like the cover homage to Amazing Spider-Man #50. Tony is getting dumber and you can tell based on his e-mail to Maria Hill. Maria, by the way, is captured by Hammer while she and the Widow are trying to get Cap some important information. Tony is still on the lam, he drops his armor when he’s shot out of the sky and he’s off to one of his bases. Pepper seems to be dead, too, though I bet she’s in some sort of stasis inside the armor. You know I didn’t even realize that the cover was an homage to ASM #50 until I was reading Marvel Zombies Return and the ad for this issue was right next to the last page of Zombies featuring another homage to ASM #50. Dumb Tony is actually a lot of fun to read. 9/9.
-Luke Cage: Noir #2- Luke continues looking into the case of a rich man’s murdered wife but when he digs too deep he learns he’s been set up for the murder. This is the perfect character for the Noir series and having Cage in the 1930’s Harlem is just perfect. 10/10.
-Marvel Zombies Return #1- I’m always a bit trepid when picking one up fearing that this is the one that runs out of steam. Thankfully, it doesn’t appear to be this series. Zombie Spider-Man arrives at a similar universe to the one we know and it looks to be the late 60’s. This is just crazy action, with Spidey killing the Sinister Six but letting Sandman go and when the real Spidey shows up Sandman is so pissed he kills him. Poor Peter Parker is dead. If this continues being a tongue in cheek tour of destruction by the Zombies then sign me up. Van Lente has really made these Zombie tales enjoyable. 11/11.
-Mystic Comics – Marvel 70th Anniversary #1- This 70th anniversary issue focuses on the original Vision in what turns out to be an uninspired story of Vision battling an evil being from his home world. It wasn’t a bad story but based on the greatness of the Phantom Reporter story it was hard to get too worked up for it. Like I said, it wasn’t bad so it will get its point, but it is isn’t something that you must go out of your way to read. 12/12.
-Strange Tales #1- Is this Marvel’s response to Wednesday Comics? This is a really cool collection of stories from a bunch of I guess you’d call them independent artists and writers featuring a wide gamut of character in very short tales. Most of the ones in here hit and I like that the Strange in Strange Tales really refers to the somewhat bizarre stories featured in here. This was definitely a lot of fun. 13/13.
-Torch #1- This focuses on the recently resurrected Toro. He wants revenge on the man who killed him, the Mad Thinker, and he goes to fight him. He’s captured and Mad Thinker starts experimenting on him and digs up the original Torch. This is an interesting premise to start off and I like how Marvel is honoring its long legacy with stories like this and the Marvels project. 14/14.
-Ultimate Spider-Man #2- Torch sleeps on Spidey’s couch the whole issue as Peter goes to school and stops a mother/daughter villainous team during lunch. Mysterio makes an appearance, too. So far nothing really has happened and unfortunately this is not as good as the original Ultimate Spider-Man series was. I can’t get into the art and the story is just pedestrian. 14/15.
DC
-Batman #690- Batman tries to handle Clayface and Lyle Blanco (special-ops supervillain supreme) and although he is able to defeat them this was just a ruse by Two-Face to keep Bats occupied while he has a teleporter find Batman’s Bat Cave and he does. He welcomes Batman (who he knows is a fake) with his own Two-Face Batman costume. I really liked the writing here with Dick questioning some of the things he has been doing and how he will earn from his mistakes. 1/1.
-Final Crisis: Run #5- Easily my favorite Final Crisis tie-in continues with the Human Flame getting even more powerful, defeating the 26 Dimension Hypergriffin, tackling Firestorm, Green Lantern (John Stewart) and Red Tornado and causing a power plant explosion at the end. This is just a massive loser of a character who is trying to make a name for himself and is just failing at every turn. This is an appropriate way to end the Human Flame story that was set in Final Crisis. 2/2.
-Justice League: Cry for Justice #3-The new Justice League question Promotheus asking how he was able to get all these villains together. Their intense questioning was for naught since it wasn’t actually Promotheus but one of his pawn’s. Meanwhile, Mikaal and the Gorilla are flying off in their inevitable meeting with the rest of the new Justice League. Writer James Robinson writes about the Prometheus villain here, the one we’ve seen in Faces of Evil that was originally created by Grant Morrison. Well, we have the players, we have the villain and so the pieces are set on the board. The build-up in this first act has been fine so far. 3/3.
-Solomon Grundy #7- I was suckered into buying this for the Blackest Night Prelude and that little prelude would only occur on the last two pages. False advertising aside, this was actually a cool story of how Solomon Grundy became Grundy (Cyrus Gold killed himself to escape from a common death) and how Gold tried to reverse the curse. I can actually look past the marketing ploy because the issue was so strong and it made me think about getting the trade. 4/4.
Vertigo
-Northlanders #20- This brings back Sven from the very first arc of Northlanders. Here he’s a bit older but still as deadly. He takes out a band of Vikings who threaten his home and kidnap his wife. These punks don’t stand a chance. What a wonderful issue full of blood and gore and Viking goodness. 1/1.
Image
-Mice Templar II #3- Mice Templar continues its amazing run. The captured mice, led by Leito, try breaking free but fail when the rats quickly descend upon them. Karic and Cassius continue their trek towards their mission and even battle killer bees en route. There’s a fantastic essay at the end about the hero’s journey and all the 17 aspects of it. It ties our little mice into great epics like Beowulf. This is setting itself up to be a comic book version of Lord of the Rings with its intricate mythology involved. I’m so happy this is coming out monthly now, too. 1/1.
Awards
-Book of the Week- Daring Mystery and its story featuring the Phantom Reporter was so surprisingly good that it deserves recognition here. Author David Liss did an amazing job with the origin of Phantom Reporter and he added so much to the character and actually outdid what was going on in the Twelve.
-Disappointment of the Week- Ultimate Spider-Man #2 is a title I am just not getting into. It’s two issues down and I just ask myself, so what? It doesn’t have any meaning for me yet and if a book has no meaning I ask why I am buying it and reading it?
-Cover of the Week- Invincible Iron Man #17, with the cover homage to Amazing Spider-Man #50 was my favorite cover of the week. I love homage covers
-The Bottom Line- I’m thinking of ending the awards portion of this column. I don’t know if it really serves any purpose, especially since the disappointing titles have been few and far between these last few months. Have I not been critical enough? I was also thinking of taking away the points I give and that’s another thing I am toying with. I guess I’m just indecisive because of the school year starting and all and am just a bit grumpy. I just hope that I can keep this on schedule as the school year grinds on and my extra-curriculars like yearbook and the website don’t eat up too much of my time. This was a solid week of page-turning and a very manageable number of comics.
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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