New Comix! - Week of 5/9/12

Only came home with 2 comics last week.  One was great and the other one should have stayed at the store.  Let's get to it.

Avenging Spider-Man #7
Avenging Spidey is basically a team-up book pairing Spiderman with various heroes on random missions.  In this one Spidey teams with one of my favorite heroins, SheHulk as they foil a museum heist and end up fighting an Egyptian god.

The story starts off with Spidey and SheHulk teaming up against a monster that has been plaguing the New York sewers.  After wrapping up the monster (literally) SheHulk says she has to rush off to an event her Law Firm is hosting at the museum.  Spidey tries to accompany her but she turns him down.  He ends up following her there anyway.  No sooner has SheHulk arrived than the two heros foil a robbery by two Egyptian god worshippers trying to free their deity from a cat statue.  The robbers are caught but not before awakening the statue.  It picks SheHulk to be it's champion and she grows a cat tail, much to the delight of Peter Parker.  The museum is suddenly overrun with cats who come together and form a 50-foot-tall cat deity out in the street.  SheHulk readies to fight the god thing when Spider-Man (who has spent all issue talking about how much he loves Egyptian mythology) shows up wearing a bull head.  He says he's the servant of some greater Egyptian god and that everything is under control in modern day New York City and that the Cat God can go back to where it came from.  The Cat god concedes to the more powerful god's wishes and disappears.  Spider-man then continues to pick on SheHulk's cat tail even though it has vanished.

This book is so fun.  Most fun I've had reading regular Marvel U Spider-Man in years.  I've really been enjoying these team-ups but him with SheHulk is top notch.  She's usually pretty snarky herself but around Spidey she's got nothin'.  He pretty much cracked wise the whole time and she pretty much threatened his life through the whole ordeal.  Very funny dialog.  Great artwork.  Great job.

 - Pick of the Week!

Avengers Assemble #3
And then there's this.  This book features the creative team behind most of the fantastic Ultimate Spider-Man series so it should be a great book.  But it's not.  The purpose of this book was to be an easy jumping-on point for new or returning comic readers brought into the comic shops by the mind-blowingly awesome Avengers movie.  Knowing this I expected the plot and dialog to be dumbed down but...C'MON BENDIS!  Here's what happened.

A group of lame no-name villains have been given enormous powers based on the signs of the Zodiac.  In the first 2 issues the Avengers had a few run-ins with this group and were outmatched for the most part.  Now the entire Zodiac group has shown up at the Helicarrier and it's fight time.  They fight a lot and there's a lot of lame dialog and then Tony Stark realizes that the villain's powers are being sent to them like a broadcast.  He shoots a gun that shuts down the transfer of power and the Zodiac's are depowered immediately.  Suddenly a huge figure touches down, revealing the power behind this lame super villain group, Thanos.  I was about to get my hopes up about this story when he started talking.  What Thanos says is some of the lamest excuse for SuperVillain dialog I've ever heard.  Something like, "You have angered the Mad Titan, warrior of death.  For this I will kill your planet."  Ugh...

AVENGER'S MOVIE SPOILER ALERT BELOW!!!

The dialog was WAY dumbed down.  The art was similarly uninspired.  The Villains were beyond lame.  The ONLY reason I MIGHT pick up the next issue is because I'm interested in learning more about Thanos since watching the Avenger's movie (stay through the credits).  His dialog was so lame in his one panel appearance though, I can't imagine it will be any good.  Maybe I'll feel less blah about this title in 4 weeks and I'll give it a shot for the sake of the villain.  Maybe.

  - This was not good.  The only reason it got 2 stars is because the Avengers are awesome even in a terrible story.

New Comix! - Week of 5/2/12

Just bought two new comics this week and I'm almost a week late with the reviews so let's get to it!

 Avengers vs X-Men #3

To get caught up on the AvX backstory read last week’s posting about AvX Versus #1.  That’ll help.  Some additional info you’ll need before I can review this issue is that, as the Avengers and X-Men were fighting all over the island home of the X-Men, Wolverine snuck in the back way and attempted to murder the girl who the Phoenix is coming for.  He believes there’s only one way to save the Earth from the destructive Phoenix and that is to kill the host while they still can.  As he attacks, Hope is filled with some of the Phoenix’s power (due to it getting so close to Earth) and she fries Wolverine in the air and runs away from the island.

At the start of issue #3, Wolverine is waking up from regrowing his flesh and Spider-Man is there to quickly hand him some pants.  As he runs outside he discovers that the X-Men had tricked the Avengers with an illusion and were already gone, gaining a head-start in the hunt for Hope.  The Avengers whittle down her possible locations to 5 different areas and split up into teams.  Cap insists that Wolverine come with his team to the Savage Land in Antarctica.  As they fly south, Cap takes Wolverine into a storage room in the back of the jet to explain how he will not allow Wolverine to murder the girl.  Wolverine says there’s no other way and so Cap decides to force the issue and they start brawling.  This fight seems pretty silly to me.  Why are these “heroes” always punching each other?!?  That being said, Captain America vs Wolverine is the fight I never knew that I needed to see!  Silly or not, this was a great fight!  They go round and round with neither one gaining the edge, until Giant man joins in and kicks Logan out the back of the plain where he falls a few thousand feet and lands in the snow.  The last image of the issue shows Logan rising from the snow, his face shadowed and breath foggy in the air as he says, “Well, alright then.  I guess it’s up to me.”  Check it out!

This issue wasn’t the best storytelling I’ve read in the comic world, but it had what this entire series is all about…awesome hero on hero fighting.  I can’t help it!  It was fun!  Gosh!  Props to John Romita Jr. for some pretty nice artwork as well.  I mostly like him on Spider-Man exclusively, but there were some really nice moments art-wise in this issue.  Especially that Wolvie in the snow bit.

 – Book of the week!

 Ultimate Spider-Man #10

So, the new Spider-Man, Mile Morales, got his powers from a test tube spider that hitched a ride out of OzCorp with this Uncle Aaron, who happens to be a world-class thief.  Aaron wasn’t even after the spider, but he knows how Peter Parker got his powers, so it doesn’t take him long to figure out who the new little Spidey is swinging around town.  In this issue, Aaron asks Miles to meet him on the roof of a high-rise downtown.  Most of this issue is them talking, but it was still fun to read.  Uncle Aaron  (a.k.a. The Prowler) is trying to force Miles into teaming up with him.  After going round and round on the issue, he tells Miles that the Scorpion is in town and is a real villain that needs to be taken down and that they could do it together.  He doesn’t tell Miles that the Scorpion came up from Mexico with his gang chasing after The Prowler!  At the end of the issue Miles texts his uncle and says, “I’m in.”. 

This is an interesting spin.  Miles is only 13 years old and is having a hard time telling his favorite uncle “no” even though he now knows that he’s a criminal.  I’m curious to see how this goes down and how Miles is going to get away from the bad influence of his uncle.

Not terribly exciting, but a solid issue with continued character building for the young Spiderman.  Quality storytelling and good artwork.