Fear Itself #6Marvel's Summer Crossover event moves closer to it's 7th issue conclusion. Odin's evil brother, "The Serpent", has regained all his former power and is marching on Asgard. His chosen warriors have beaten down Earth's defenders at every turn (killing Captain America a.k.a. Bucky) including Thor, who almost killed Evil Possessed Thing and almost killed himself putting down Evil Possessed Hulk. The Avengers physically pick up and carry Thor to Asgard where classic Cap (Steve Rogers) verbally lashes into Odin for not fighting his own battles. Odin calles them apes and sends them away in a flash, then takes Thor inside to heal his wounds and give him an ancient suit of armor that Odin wore the last time he defeated The Serpent. The issue ends with Tony Stark presenting the weapons that he created for the Avengers using Asgardian tools. Odin prepares to bless the weapons, which are a mix of Stark tech and magic Uru steel, and all are dropped into a vat of molten Uru, including Tony inside his Iron Man suit. That's gonna leave a mark!
Like the previous issues in this series, there are a ton of cool scenes in this issue made all the better by incredible artwork by Stuart Immonen. I enjoyed reading this book. For some reason this series just hasn't grabbed me (or anyone I've heard about) like House of M, Civil War, or Secret Invasion. I don't know why. It seems kinda cool. It just doesn't seem to hold the same weight. That being said, it's a fun read with cool art, so I don't see why this story is getting so much bad publicity from fanboys.
Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1This issue relaunches the always-excellent Ultimate Spider-man series. Peter Parker died on his front yard after defending his friends and family from the Sinister Six. Here we have the story of new Spidey, Miles Morales. The story opens with a laboratory scene at OzCorp where Norman Osborn is tasking a scientist with the job of recreating the experiment that genetically altered a spider that went on to bite Peter Parker and gave him his spider-like abilities. Norman tells the scientist that it was he who created Spider-Man, but that he has no data to recreate the effects. Then he threatens to kill the scientist if he ever tells anyone. As the scene ends a test spider escapes...again. That night a burgler breaks into OzCorp to nab some cash and hi-tech items. The burgler turns out to be the Ultimate Comics version of The Prowler. While he's filling his bag with stolen goods the spider crawls into the bag without him noticing. The scene then changes to a new charter school in downtown New York where we're introduced to Miles Morales and his mixed-racial parents. Miles is lucky enough to have his name drawn from the lottery of 700 children and gets to attend the new school. Afterwards he goes to visit his shady uncle, who likes to moonlight as a burgler in a purple mask. While his uncle goes to get popsickles, the spider crawls out of the bag beside Miles and puts the bite on him. Miles starts to seize on the ground as his uncle comes back in. When he wakes up his father is there and the two men are arguing about the uncles bad influence as Miles' dad accuses his brother of giving him drugs. Miles runs out upset and is followed out by his father. When his dad runs right by him shouting his name Miles looks down in surprise to see that he's blending in with the wall behind him!
Despite the complete lack of super-heroics, masks, fights, or web-slinging, this was a great read. Brian Bendis works his magic once more creating characters that are interesting and relateable. Miles is a good kid whose parents are caring and hard-working, but can't seem to catch a break to escape New York's low income neighborhoods. Norman Osborn desperately wants to recreate Spider-Man, so you know he'll be all over this kid. This story has a lot of potential and I'm excited to see where the story goes next.
- Book of the Week!
Danger Girl and the Army of Darkness #3I'm a big fan of the Army of Darkness and the "Ash" character in general. There are a lot of comics starring Ash these days and I can't get them all, but this one looked fun to me, so I've been following it.
In previous issues the Danger Girl team has been alerted to impending supernatural dangers stemming from the book of the dead (a.k.a. Nekrinomicon). They aquire one page of the book on a mission and featured on that page is a drawing of Ash, so they are on a quest to find the man in the book and see what he has to do with the evil book. In the meantime, Ash is trying to live a normal life after coming back to the present from the year 1300 AD, but a series of visions are causing him to attack innocent people, because to him they look like deadites (possessed humans). This, as is no surprised, lands him in lockdown in a mental hospital.
Issue 3 picks up with Danger Girl, Sydney Savage, breaking into the hospital, commandeering the clothes/identity of a doctor and breaking Ash out. During the story there are multiple flashbacks showing Syndey's childhood, trainging, and all the reasons she decided to get into the spy business.
While the interactions between Syndey and Ash were pretty funny, most of the story was about her, and I don't have a whole lot of interest in the Danger Girl characters. It was kind of boring. The promising thing is that the book got a lot more fun after Ash finally started interacting with Syndey, and now that he's been found and broken out of the hospital, the fun level should just go up from here. The artwork was about average, but definately not bad. I'm looking forward to issue 4 when the action should really pick up!
The Legend of Drizzt #2Issue 1 picked up right after the events of the novel, Gauntlegrym, which saw Drizzt's dwarven ally Pwent crawl from his grave as a vampire. As Drizzt and his new elven companion, ???, travel the area hunting for Goblins, the vampire dwarf beats them to a goblin tribe and dispatches them, sating his blood hunger for the first time. Drizzt finds the goblins the next day and is confused because they look like they were killed by both a dwarven battlerager AND a vampire.
In issue 2, we see that Pwent is haunted by the voice of the vampire who turned him and it is trying to get him to attack humans. Pwent refuses to give into the voice in his head and instead finds and attacks an owlbear (see cover image). He drinks it's blood, but is not very filling. The voice tells Pwent that eventually he will have to give in and drink the blood of thinking creatures, instead of beasts. Drizzt is hot on Pwent's trail and finds the body of the owlbear the next morning. It remains to be seen if he will find his friend in time to help him deal with his situation.
This story is not terribly exciting and aside from the images of Drizzt himself, the art is pretty sub-par. This artist can't seem to draw women much better than I can! If I were not a huge Drizzt fan, I would stop buying this book. If you're not a Drizzt fan, steer clear.
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