New Comix! - Week of 7/11/12

I'm not feeling great and it's late, but I don't want to get weeks behind in my reviews, so I'm pushing on.  These might be a bit shorter than usual though.

AvX Versus #4
The 2 fighters per issue series continues featuring Daredevil vs Psylocke and Thor vs Phoenix-powered Emma Frost.

The Daredevil/Psylocke fight was good,but basic ninja vs ninja type stuff.  There was some good philosophical dialogue between the two at the end and the fight ended in a draw.

Thor vs Emma was AWESOME!  The sole reason is artist/writer Kaare Andrews.  Andrews has an exaggerated style that you either love or hate.  I happen to love it.  Emma fights in her diamond form and taunts Thor about his pretty hair and implies that he's a cross-dresser.  Thor answers by giving her an enchanted hammer uppercut starting at her crotch and shattering her upwards.  The diamond pieces are seen entering the atmosphere, pausing, then zooming straight back down towards the God of Thunder.  Thor finds himself in the middle of a fiery diamond rainstorm that tears him to bits.  Emma reforms herself from the shards and proceeds to pummel Thor senseless.  Winner: Emma Frost.

This book is just fun reading and the art was really cool in this issue.  I wish Marvel would give the reigns of a flagship character's monthly book to him.

Avenging Spider-Man #9
This issue was meant to be a springboard for the revamped Captain Marvel character who gets her own book next month.  The problem with it is that it sucked.  Bad.

Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) is a pilot (even though she can fly?  Why?) and offers to give Peter a lift to see his Aunt who just moved to Boston.  On the way they meet a high-flying Robin Hood wannabe and the armored bounty hunter assigned to bring her in.  Everyone fights.  Captain Marvel beats on the armored guy.  Spidey quips.  You know what?  I just can't make myself care about this story.  I started liking Carol when she was a member of the New Avengers a few years back, but I just couldn't care less about her here.  The plot was lame.  The dialog weak.  The ONLY good thing about this issue was the art by Terry Dodson, who is fantastic.  Not $4/issue fantastic though.  Not for me.

This is 2 crappy issue of this series in a row and the next issue continues this lame story.  I don't have money to throw away so I'm going to cancel this from my pull list next week.  If decent-looking issues come along after this story arch, I'll pick it back up.

The stars are for Terry Dodson.  If not for him this gets 1 or maybe no stars.  I don't have time and money to waste on subpar comics.

Spider-Men #3
Hey!  It's the opposite of suckiness!

The dual Spidey story continues with Peter and Miles teaming up against Mysterio.  He uses his illusion powers to conjure an army of Spider-Villains for the guys to face, but Miles makes it to Mysterio and shuts his avatar body down (see last issue's review for details).  As the Ultimates arrive to assess the situation, they find Peter missing.  Nick Fury tells Miles that Peter has gone to see this world for himself and to make sure he's not crazy.  We then see Peter quizzing a convenient store clerk about the very public death of the Ultimate U's Peter Parker.  On the last page we see Aunt May and Gwen leaving her house in Queens and stopping when they see a Spider-Man standing on their lawn.  They both start shouting threats at him (they are publicly known as that world's Spider-man's family after all) when Spidey pulls off his mask and the ladies are shocked to see an older version of Peter's face with tears streaming down his face.

This story is wicked fun.  Pichelli's art is top-notch.  That sappy ending even worked on me!  I love this series more than I thought I could.  Keep it coming, Bendis.  You're doing what you do best!

Pick of the week!!!

Wolverine and the X-Men #13
Gladiator, the Emperor of the Shi'ar Empire has brought a force to Earth to end the Phoenix threat and to retrieve is son from Wolverine's school.

The Shi'ar fight bravely and Gladiator is about as powerful as any Marvel hero, but he can't stand up to the Phoenix.  They beat him soundly by the end of it.  The cool thing is that althroughout the book, the focus isn't on Gladiator or even Wolverine, but on his son's bodyguard who came to live at the Jean Grey School with him, Warbird.  In this issue we learn Warbird's entire history and it's REALLY well done.  She is a surprisingly interesting character and this one issue has cemented her as a favorite in this series.  She's strong and ruthless, but deep down has the heart of an artist and a romantic.  This sounds cheesy, but it was a really good read.  Though Kid Gladiator ordered her to help him save his father, she followed higher orders and knocked him out to keep him safe.  In the end they are seen back at the Jean Grey school holding a battered, possibly dying Gladiator and looking for help.

I haven't had this much fun reading X-Men since Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men.  Nick Bradshaw took over art from Christ Bachallo this week and did a great job.  The art is always good and the story always entertaining.  Great series.

New Comix! - Week of 6/27/12

Fun week of comix!  2 Great ones and 1 decent.  Pretty good haul!

Wolverine and the X-Men #12
This issue picks up right after the events in AvX #6 last week.  Marvel timed this VERY well, which doesn't always happen.  In AvX #6, The Avengers raided the X-Men island, Utopia, and made off with the "Mutant Messiah", Hope, with the help of the Scarlet Witch.  In this issue, the X-Men then set off scouring the globe for her, enlisting many of Wolverine's X-Men team to do it.

Rachel Summers, Cyclop's daughter from the future and one-time Phoenix host, leads the hunt and tracks down Wolverine.  Their talk goes poorly and soon it's an all out brawl between a squad of X-Men and a squad of Avengers and man is it a good one!  Between Phoenix Namor and the Shi'ar Prince Kid Gladiator, Thor spends most of the time getting beat down.  Iceman tries to talk things out with Beast only to get shot in the face with some kind of heat gun!  Kid Gladiator tries to push around his school principal only to have Wolverine attack a certain "weak point" that is left to the imagination, and the Kid drops.  The X-Men definitely have the edge in the fight and in the end, Rachel finds Hope, knocks out Black Widow, and...let's her go!  She didn't say why, but something she saw when she looked in Hope's mind convinced her to let her go.  On the last page she's trying to explain to Cyclops how Hope and most of the Avengers were able to escape when the King of the Shi'ar race, Gladiator arrives and announces that "THE PHOENIX DIES TODAY!"  For those who don't know this guy...he's like Superman with a mohawk!

For a book that was basically one big fight, it was an awful lot of fun.  This series is known for it's humor and they somehow managed to keep that present even in an intense storyline like this.  Chris Bachalo's art is heavy and blocky and SO cool!  His rotating artist on this title is Nick Bradshaw, who did a great job with the cover (see above).  Nick's artwork is VERY similar to one of my all-time favs, Art Adams.

Fun Fact: Of the 7 Avengers featured fighting on the cover, only 3 of them actually appear in this issue!

This wasn't a jaw-droppingly awesome issue, but it was pretty darn entertaining!

The Mighty Thor #16
If you've been following my blog, you know that I'm not crazy about the current storyline in Thor.  The Thunder God accidentally freed a race of ugly alien dog things that were sealed away by Odin eons ago and they are now running amok, putting everyone in Asgard AND nearby Broxton, Ok asleep and trapping them in a big, group, nightmare world.  In the nightmare world a goth kid from Broxton used his imagination to turn Thor into the goofball character that his metal band put on their cd cover, The Deconsicrator (the dumbest thing I've seen in comics in a while).  The big "D" smashes up the landscape in dream world for a while before calming down and realizing that he not only feels his hammer in his hands in the dream, but he can feel it in his hands in the real world as well.  Consentrating, he calls forth a bolt of lightning in the real world and fries the alien dog right off his sleeping chest, waking himself from the dream.

I have forgotten to mention this in the past few issue's reviews, but while the sleepy dog alien story has been happening, Dr. Don Blake, Thor's ex-host from his earth banishment days has realized that he is not real.  He was created by Odin specifically to house Thor's spirit while he was on earth learning humility.  He's not happy about this and asks Thor's longtime villain, The Enchantress, to make him a god again.  She agrees and puts Blake through some weird ritual and at the end she CUTS HIS HEAD OFF!  His head doesn't die though!  While his decapitated head looks on black goo poors through his neck and takes the form of a big, black muscular creature that Enchantress names "The Keep".  Blake has just been used.  In this issue, Enchantress, The Keep, and Don's head take a trip to Hell to use it as a shortcut to Asgardia.  They find the ruler of the dead, Hela, incapacitated by an alien dog (they're called Mares BTW).  The Keep kills the thing and Hela wakes up.  She sees what Enchantress has done to Blake and warns her that Thor will either kill her for this or at least want to, but gives her leave to travel through her realm and onto Asgardia.  Upon arrival, the 2.5 travelers find all of Asgardia's inhabitants asleep all over the place with a goofball dog thing sitting on top of each of them.  They bypass the litter of bodies and head to the throne room.  When they open the doors they find Thor waiting for them, fully awake and already pissed (and for some reason, not waking up his friends and family?).

Okay, i think the Mares are stupid.  I mean, just look at them!  And the Deconsicrator?!?  Ugh...that's almost bad enough to take this series off my pull list!  But the Enchantress bit?  That's got me interested.  I'm very curious to see how Thor handles the treatment of his alter ego.  And The Keep is actually kinda cool looking!

Not great, but getting better.

Spider-Men #2
Every now and then a comic book comes along that makes me sit back in my chair, smile while I read it, and occasionally laugh out loud to myself.  This is one of those books.

In the last issue, Peter Parker into a scuffle with Mysterio and accidentally got caught up in a weird portal that transported him to the Ultimate Marvel Universe.   In that universe, the original Spider-Man is dead, and the world now knows that he was Peter Parker from Queens.  As the grown-up regular Marvel U Spidey swings around town he is shocked and completely freaked out by how people keep mentioning Peter Parker to him.  Then he goes to the rooftops and runs right into the new Ultimate Spidey, Miles Morales, in costume.

This issue: Peter Parker was Miles' hero so when he sees the old suit he immediately asks if he's Peter Parker, hoping that his idol was either not killed or has come back to life.  Peter doesn't know what's going on, but he's tired of people knowing his secret identity all of a sudden and after a few funny back and forths, the freaked-out Peter starts getting physical.  While Pete has the experience, Miles has a shocking "venom-sting" and following a very cool fight scene, uses it to knock him out.  Peter wakes up  in SHIELD custody talking to the African American version of Nick Fury, which he thinks is quite funny.  Nick quickly realizes that this isn't HIS world's Peter Parker and lets him go, asking Miles to fill him in on the details until Fury can fix the situation.  As they are flying away in a SHIELD helicopter it is hit with a rocket blast and goes down.  Luckily there are two Spideys on board, so they save the pilot and escape.  Then they see their attacker, it's Mysterio.

After Peter goes through the portal, we get a scene of Mysterio waking up and realizing where Spidey has gone.  He's not happy.  He gets up, puts on a virtual reality-type headpiece and activates a life model decoy-type body that he calls his avatar and sends it through the portal.  It turns out that the Ultimate Mysterio that Peter Parker fought before his death, was actually the avatar controlled through the portal by the regular Marvel Universe Mysterio!  Very cool twist!  He sees the Ultimate U as HIS playground and he's ready to take out the remaining Spider-men in his way!

Oh my dang, this was SO fun!  Sarah Pichelli once again rocked out some beautiful artwork, but it's Bendis' writing that make this so special.  Character crossovers are usually SO lame, but Peter and Miles are both so likable and funny and Bendis's dialog is so witty that this is just a blast.  This will be a really great collected graphic novel when it's all said and done, but I'm not going to miss a single issue of this one.

- PICK OF THE WEEK!

New Comix - Week of 8/24/11

I left the comic store with a whopping SEVEN comic books this week! What can I say? Lots of good stuff on the shelves this go 'round! Let's get to it!



Green Lantern RetroActive #1
This comic is part of a recent series that DC is putting out where every week they do a "retro" style comic for the major DC characters in the style and timeline of the different decades, such as "60's", "70's", ect... This is the first issue I have bought in the RetroActive line because I just didn't care about any of the comics so far. In my opinion comics are just getting better and better and it's hard to step back into a 70's style comic book and enjoy it as much. I did, however, have to buy this one because it's all about the 1990's Green Lantern (and my personal favorite GL), Kyle Rayner.

This was not a fantastic or compelling story with amazing art, but it did have a bunch of fun "Kyle" moments where they play up how he's just a regular guy with an awesome ring. This was created by the same creative team that worked on the book in the 90's so it had some fun nostalgia for me there as well. The whole issue was pretty much, GL vs Effigy, some fire-based villain I know nothing about. He was a whiny baby and Kyle had take him down and ended the fight by slingshotting him back into deep space where he came from.

Like I said, not all that compelling, but it was a fun ride. The art was fine, just nothing outstanding. Overall a nice reading experience.





Green Lantern Corps #63
This is the final issue before they relaunch the series without Kyle, but with a new #1 next month. Kyle will be moving on to a new titled, "Green Lantern: The New Guardians". I'll pick both the #1's up to check them out, but no promises on staying with this book without my favorite GL on board.

This issue delved more into the fractured relationships within the Corps. in the aftermath of the War of the Green Lanterns. Many lanterns are calling it quits. Others are an emotional wreck. There's a growing anti-human sentiment which Kyle learns about the hard way. In a very cool scene, Alpha Lantern Boodika, who was previously thought destroyed (she's a cyborg now), is repaired and comes back full-strength. I've always liked her.

I think at least 4 different artists handled art duties on this issue and some where better than others. Boodika's section was the best, artistically, and I wish that guy could have done it all. Not a bad issue, but not really a must-read. I'm glad I bought it though just so I could see Boodika being brought back.





Batman The Dark Knight #5
This is the Batman title that I am following almost exclusively because it's written and drawn by artist David Finch. That being said, I just realized that another artist, Jason Fabok, took over artist duties on this issue and I didn't even realize it. He does a great job of mimicking Finch's style. I can't believe I'm typing this, but not having David Finch do the pencils didn't seem to hurt the book! Now to the story...

This 5-issue storyline has been all about Batman rescuing his childhood friend, Dawn Golden, who had been kidnapped. After he rescued her in the last issue, it comes out that her wealthy socialite father was actually a demon worshiper and had raised her for the sole purpose of sacrificing her. Now a hoard of little blue demons and her creepy undead father come after her again and manage to overpower Batman. Batman then teams with the demon hero, Etrigan, to rescue her again. They show up in the sewer lair just in time to see undead daddy plunge a dagger into Dawn's chest! Etrigan uses his unexplained demon powers to destroy her father, but it's too late for Batman. 5 issues of story and HE LOSES?!? Yikes! Batman's not supposed to lose!!! I know the hero can't always win, but this ending seemed all wrong to me. I mean, what was the point?!?

Despite the weak ending, I enjoyed seeing the teamup between Batman and Etrigan and the art was killer as always. This was a pretty cool issue.





Kick-Ass 2 #3
WARNING: THIS TITLE IS FOR MATURE READERS!
Kick-Ass is a story about a regular high-school kid who loves comics and wants to be a real hero. His first venture into vigilantism results in him getting stabbed and run over by a car. After he heals, he tries again, eventually takes down a mob boss by the end of the first story arc. This is issue 3 in the 2nd storyline.

The whole point of this comic is to have a super-hero story that is as realistic as possible. It's gritty. It's bloody. There's LOTS of bad language. Because it is so realistic, it makes it very fun and unpredictable. When someone dies in this comic, they REALLY die. Brutally. If you don't mind seeing/hearing this kind of thing, you should check out the movie that came out last year. It's pretty true to the comic.

Back to issue 3...Kick-Ass has joined a whole group of super-heroes lead by a couple of former mob guys. These "heroes" immediately take down a prostitution/slave ring and do so very effectively. They then spend the rest of the comic doing regular stuff like feeding the homeless, patrolling the streets, helping drunk women get home from parties safe...good stuff. Then the bad guys show up. K.A.'s former partner-turned-villain The Red Mist brings a gang of killers into the good guy's hideout and catch the Colonel (good guy leader) alone. They destroy the place and brutally murder him. I mean, YIKES! It remains to be seen how K.A. and his group will respond to the very real threat. The book ends with K.A.'s former partner HitGirl (who's now retired) watching the news story from home and making a fist in anger. I think I know one 8-year-old girl ninja who's coming out of retirement!

I feel guilty liking this book because it's so graphic, but dang it if it isn't fun to read!





Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1
I had to get this book for old times sake. I can't really enjoy the 80's TMNT cartoons anymore (just too cheesy), but the classic comics were actually really good. This series looks to be of the same style.

Let me just say...this was GREAT! Dan Duncan does a great job illustrating the turtles in a fun, indy-style that in some cases reminds me a LITTLE bit of Hellboy's Mike Mignola. The story has been revamped, the origin updated, and I like what they did with it. April O'Neil is back, but as a lab intern, not as a mouthy reporter. We are introduced into this story right in the middle of a larger story where Splinter and 3 of the turtles are facing off in a vicious gang fight with a mutated cat named, Old Hob, and his human thugs. The turtles hand the thugs easily while Splinter himself puts down Old Hob. There are flashbacks to their time in a genetics lab run by Baxter Stockman, who takes orders from a General Krang! No mention of Shredder yet. The whole time Raphael is seen wondering the streets in a hoody, digging old pizza out of garbage bins, and looking pretty awful. We don't know much about the overall story here, but I'm gonna stick around and find out.

This was SO fun to read! Fun, simple artwork with an updated story = WINNER!

- BOOK OF THE WEEK!!!




The Ultimates #1
I think this is the 5th storyline in the Ultimates history, but i'm not positive about that. I do have them all, I just can't remember. I've liked the Ultimate Universe versions of the Avengers since they started, but there have been some sketchy stories since then. This one looks promising.

The issue shows a variety of world crisis through the eyes of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury. He handles each situation like it's just another day at the office, dispatching teams of agents and superheroes very efficiently. Unfortunately Reed Richards is apparently a bad buy now and has a team of geniuses working with him in a mysterious dome in northern Germany. All of a sudden Fury loses contact with the various Ultimates teams around the globe and it's looking very bad.

I liked how the writer, Jonathan Hickman, handled this story. It felt like very real-world style crisis management. Esad Ribic did a great job on the art and I specifically liked how he drew Ultimate Thor and IronMan. If this book had not come out the same week as TMNT it would be book of the week, but I have to go with the more enjoyable of the two books here.