Wednesday, January 25, 2012

My Weekly Pull List - 1/25/12



Astonishing Alternate Reality X-men!  The Future Foundation continues to follow Doom ! And Cyclops' X-men meet Wolverine's X-men head-to-head!

Alpha Flight #8
Astonishing X-Men #46
Avengers: Solo #4
FF #14
Secret Avengers #21.1
X-Men Legacy #261

Marvel Comics On-Sale - 1/25/12



Alpha Flight comes to a conclusion this week!  More Solo adventures with Hawkeye and Avengers Academy in Avengers: Solo!  Deadpool prepares to get Dead! And Hawkeye joins the Secret Avengers!

Alpha Flight #8
Alpha Flight #8 (Yu Variant)
Astonishing X-Men #46
Avengers: Solo #4
Avengers: Solo #4 (Movie Variant)
Captain America & Bucky #626
Daken: Dark Wolverine #20
Deadpool #49.1
Fantastic Four #602
Fantastic Four #602 (Venom Variant)
FF #14
FF #14 (Venom Variant)
Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #22
The Mighty Thor #10
The Mighty Thor #10 (Venom Variant)
Secret Avengers #21.1
Ultimate Comics Ultimates #6
X-Men Legacy #261
X-Men Legacy #261 (Venom Variant)

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Flash Review - 1/11/12



Avengers 1959 #5 – Its over!!  Woohoo!!  Probably one of the more pointless series that Marvel has put out in a good long while and I couldn’t possibly be happier that it’s done.  I put up with this series because I thought at the end there would be a cliffhanger or tie-in or SOMETHING that made it relavent to current stuff going on, but no!  This series ended exactly the way it began: With no point at all.  Was it fun seeing Namora?  Always.  Did I like seeing Kraven the Hunter as a good guy for once?  Definitely.  But 5 issues and $15 later, I sort of expected that we would get a little something more out of all this.  Maybe, in the near future, we will find out that Louise Mason took Infinity Formula or some crap and she’s still young, vibrant and adventuring (since she hasn’t been seen really since her stint over in Sensational She-Hulk years ago.  That would be worth it, but I sort of doubt it.

Battle Scars #3 – OK it’s not that this series is bad.  In fact, the characters being used and the action we are seeing is actually pretty interesting (I love me some Taskmaster), but I don’t feel like we are getting anywhere.  Here we are in the 3rd issue of the series and we still don’t know anything about Marcus Johnson, this supposedly majorly important character.  I know they are trying to keep us in suspense but in addition to not telling us, they aren’t really dropping any clues to keep us interested really.  If we don’t get some real revelations about his background (and QUICK) I will get officially bored with this series.  Luckily there are only 3 issues left.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 9 #5 – And here we go!  We had the opening arc to show us where everyone was and how they were doing, and now the story starts!  The First Slayer!  Dream hijacking Fairies!  And the broken Slayer Scythe can fix everything!  Now this is how you get a story going!  I am sad to see Willow go, but, I understand, she needs her magic back to be complete.  I just hope that we get a limited series for her or that this book still follows her instead of having her disappear for months and then coming back with the solution.  Her goodbye-but-not-goodbye with Buffy was so sad, Buffy is always watching Willow leave her lately.And that little bastard Andrew trying to through her out, the nerve of him.  Doesn’t he know that she carrying vampire/slayer babies!?  Can’t wait to see how this all turns out.

Carnage U.S.A. #2 – Bleh.  After last issue’s spectacular opening, I was expecting more from this newest installment but it was a bit dry.  I’m not as interested in the whole Carnage-possessing-people angle as I thought I would be, but there’s still time for them to pull it out of the fire.  I AM thrilled to see Dr. Nieves (aka Scorn) return after her appearances in the last Carnage series, I think we can expect great things from her in the coming issues.  We haven’t had a really cool new symbiote in a while.  Other than that I am just hoping for the best in the next 3 issues.

Journey into Mystery #633 – Nothing even really happened in this issue…and it was still awesome!  That’s the sign of a good issue right there!  This opening installment of the latest JIM arc started a bit slow and with lots of build-up.  Still lots of shadiness coming from the All-Mothers, more whackiness from Loki and Leah (who I love more and more every issue), and Daimon Hellstrom too (who seems to be getting a lot of page time lately in a few places)!  Also, I think the more we see the Disir, the cooler they get.  They started out as just mindless zombie servants but the writers have really taken care to develop these cursed hags into their own individuals.  I look forward to more adventures with the Princeling of Lies every single issue.

Magneto: Not a Hero #3 – Woah!  I am not even sure what’s going on in this one…but its great.  OK the lame Brother of Evil Mutants knock-offs are retarded, but Joseph and Astra are awesome!  It’s nice to see that “Old Man” Magneto can still face off again his own younger self and make it out alive, even if it did required skewering Astra to do it.  And speaking of Astra, what could possibly have been locked in her head to make her scream like that when the Three-in-One found it??  I still have hope that Joseph will live after this and maybe we will get a Magneto in both X-men camps, but I suspect that this would be hoping for entirely too much.  Oh! And it was fun seeing Pixie talk to Anole and Rockslide, I love how they are keeping continuity and connections between the two mutant base camps.

New Avengers #20 – Alright, now THIS is battling Avengers style!  This book continues to be the best Avengers book in print (and considering how many Avengers books there are now, that says a lot).  Its great to see Daredevil finally really mixing it up with the rest of the team (I thought him joining was gonna be like when Thing joined the Avengers West Coast and he was never going to ACTUALLY be a part of them).  Now as for these new Dark Avengers…  I am still not sure really who all of these people are.  Last time Osborn got big name villains and gave them Avengers costumes, but this round he picked a bunch of second string types to fill up his rank (I mean really Skaar?  Baby Hulk??  And who the hell is this “Scarlet Witch blond chick???).  The big shocker for me this time though was Norman throwing Luke Cage the distance of a football field or 3.  Is it Super Soldier Serum? Infinity Formula?  The Goblin Formula?? (shiver…)  Who knows, but I bet we can find out next issue, assuming of course that the team lives after their battle with Ragnarok.

X-Factor #230 – ReGenesis finally hits X-Factor!  And what a great set-up this was!  The team is falling apart and no one knows who to trust (except Layla, they all know that they don’t trust Layla).  An unexpected visitor in Wolverine makes everyone very nervous…especially in light of the apparent death of their leader Jaime Madrox.  Some fun scenes with the group as a whole (like Rahne/Rictor/Shatterstar or M/Longshot/Guido/Banshee)  And speaking of Guido…what’s up with the no soul??  I can’t wait until we finally see some reprecussions from this development.  And of course the long-spoiled “surprise” ending…HAVOK AND POLARIS ARE BACK!  When X-Factor is in need of a leader (again) who better to step in and fix thing then the former leaders who brought the team back the first time! Now Guido and Rahne were on X-Factor with them before and Shatterstar, Rictor and Banshee (then Siryn) were on X-Force but they saw his leadership so I don’t think they will give any problems.  I wonder how Monet will react to these people (who are basically strangers to her) waltzing in an trying to take over Jaime’s business.  I see M either becoming friendly with Layla again over this or just flat out leaving.

X-men: Legacy #260.1 – What is there to say? This title is always good!  I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Gambit, but having Rachel and Frenzy on Rogue’s squad  can only make this book better and better.  I know Rogue’s here to explore her inner teacher more, but something tells me that HER squad will be there one that plays clean-up crew for the new campus.  And what better way to break in the new team then by bringing back some old friends...er…I mean enemies.  They established way back in Uncanny X-men #96 that the N’Gari cairn will always regenerate and the N’Gari will eventually find a way to return through it and I am so glad to see that newer writers haven’t done away with old continuity such as this.  If they keep this up then this book will eventually blow Uncanny right out of the water, and coming from a die-hard Uncanny fan that says a lot!

Wake Me When the Humans are Dead - Review Wolverine and the X-men #4


WOW!  What…a great issue.  After an exciting and exhausting opening arc, the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning decided to take it easy for some at home R and R (Recoup and Repair)…which of course never goes QUITE as smoothly as everyone hopes.  Additionally we saw the school’s brand new additions, which are all but guaranteed to shake things up (in the case of Krakoa literally).  All this and a glimpse into the future we’ve never seen!

Let’s start off with some new additions first shall we?  Well we already knew about Krakoa from last issue, but it’s nice to know that the living landmass (which is a bit more accurate than the Island That Walks Like a Man) is settling into its new surroundings so well.  You have to marvel (heh…marvel) at the writers decision to put the New X-men’s very first foe as a student at the new school.  And speaking of old foes as new students, say it with me everyone: Apocalypse!  Yeah fine, we’ll call him Evan if it makes you all feel safer but let’s be real here people.  It’s teenaged Apocalypse with no memory.  Unfortunately for him, he looks like a villain that he’s never even heard of (but everyone else has) and that basically makes him the mutant equivalent of the school Goth kid (as opposed to Kid Gladiator’s jock).  And let’s talk about Angel…  Wow.  I mean we got a brief glimpse of his condition over in X-Force, but…I mean…just Wow.  It was one thing to just bring him back to life with no memory, I was already down with that.  But this?  Healing power is reinstated…check!  New combination of skin color and wings….check (he’s never been white colored with metal wings)! Oh and he thinks he’s a real damn angel!  All this adds up to Warren Worthington III being a student once again at the school he helped build for years.  I think we can safely say that these new additions to the school will make for some very interesting stories in the months to come.

Today’s lecture by guest teacher Deathlok gave us some amazing insight into the future of the X-men. Over the years we’ve seen many different version of the “future X-men” and they always include some staples.  Old Man Wolverine.  Sorceress Storm.  Rebellion leader Cyclops.  Even evil Nightcrawler.  But this time we got a view of a whole new and different team.  We always picture the future of the X-men being led by one of the New Mutants or even Generation X, but what if the team leader in the future was Omega? Or Gladiator?  Or how Ironic would it be if the next brilliant Beast character to head the science squad was alien mutant Brood, one of the X-men’s deadliest foe, Broo?  And I’m sorry but was that a Phoenix emblem I saw on Quentin Quire’s uniform?  Screw Hope Summers, what if Quire was the Phoenix host of the future?  And of course, what incarnation of the X-men would be complete without an Apocalypse of their very own to fight?  Unfortunately this time Apocalypse will take on the form of a dear friend and team mate.  I think this most recent look into the future of the X-men was one of the more insightful and creative takes on the future team we have seen in a very long time.  Bravo!  Now let’s just see if any of it ever happens…I mean Sam Guthrie and Dani Moonstar are full-fledged X-men now so why couldn’t they be?!

This title just keeps getting better and better.  It’s so wonderful to see the heroes that we have known for years acting as mentors and teachers rather than super heroes.  Even Iceman, who is historically THE wisecracker and joker of the entire X-men structure, has taken on no small measure of responsibility as not just as a teacher but as the caretaker of one of his oldest friends.  I definitely got a huge laugh at Husk (who I didn’t even recognize under that hood until my second read through) still being all crispy and healing during the faculty staff meeting.  These new sides of our old favorites, as well as the new students of this increasingly more exciting and populated school, tell me that we are in for quite a semester at the JG School for Higher Learning.  Oh and did I forget to mention Kitty Pryde is pregnant with god know what?  Yeah...that happened too.

Flash Review - 1/4/12


Avengers Academy #24 – Welcome to Second String University! Where every B-list character from the last 15 years attends class on how to be a better second rate hero!  Lightspeed and White Tiger are great additions to the team but I don’t really see the point of having every character without a home showing up here.  I mean really…Rover?  Lyra?  Butterball???  Anyway, other than the gratuitous guest stars the story is pretty good.  I really like the use of Hybrid and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if after all is said and done he joins the school as a part timer also (a la Krakoa in Wolverine and the X-men).  Reptil’s “betrayal” comes to a head, thank god, because I really thought this was going to be one of those storylines that got drawn out forever.  Lose the guest stars guys and keep this book as one of the top Avengers books around right now.

Avengers: X-Sanction #2 – So now I know what this is!  This entire series is a prelude to the upcoming Phoenix Saga!  That makes it so much more interesting now.  One thing though…why does he have his mental powers back??  I don’t think he still working with the InfoNet so why is his telepathy still functioning??  This whole “kill the Avengers” bit is really a bit weak, and seemed like a bit of a cheap way to give people some Cable action without taking back his sacrifice from Second Coming.  The battles are fun to read and the artwork is great but the story itself doesn’t seem like one that NEEDS to be told.  Next issue’s battle with Red Hulk should be quite entertaining and Nathan will probably learn that this is a Hulk of a completely different color.

Defenders #2 – I don’t want to jinx it but after two issues I can say that this new Defenders volume is one of the best outcomes from Fear Itself, hands down!  The Worthy were the best part of the crossover and I was a bit upset that we didn’t get more background on them during the storyline so if this title keeps on going for a while maybe once we are done with Nul we will get to learn more about Skadi and the others.  And the new shining star?  Red She-Hulk.  Betty Ross has been around now for the better part of 50 years and never has she been in the spotlight like this before now.  And unlike other old-school characters who got updates recently (ahem Rick Jones), this one was a complete home run!  I hope the writers never revert her to plain old Betty again!

Fear Itself: The Fearless #6 – Not much to say here.  The quest of the hammers is boring as hell and I can’t wait for it to be over.  I DO love the entire backstory that we are getting on Valkyrie though.  At this point it is the saving grace of the series.  Oh and Sin.  She’s awesome!  IO just recently picked up an older issue of Captain America where she was still a Valley Girl who kills people and this version of her is WAY better!

Uncanny X-Force #19.1 – I was so shocked…at just how much I wasn’t into this issue.  I loved the Age of Apocalypse.  I t was one of the most amazing stories that Marvel has ever told.  I even loved the occasional visit there by other characters and the 10th Anniversary one-shot and limited series they had.  It started to wear a bit thin when it became such an integral part of X-Force for the last year or so but it was still characters I loved and wanted to know about…but this?  They are now officially reviving a dead story/world and giving it its own series.  Really guys?  Really??  So rather than leave an amazing story alone with a definite beginning and a definite ending you instead decided to make Wolverine into Apocalypse, give Jean Phoenix powers and then strip everything away from her, kill a score of characters, and then take a bunch of second string types and make then a team under Sabretooth?  Not good guys…not good at all.  You should have left this one alone.  Who really cares about the AOA version of Reisman, Stryker, and Trask (or his daughter at least)?  It just seemed like they are really stretching for new ideas for books when we already have an overabundance of books to collect already.

Uncanny X-men #4 – AWESOME!  First of all, I complained a while back about how everything is a big story arc now and the days of standalone single-issue stories were over…and then suddenly they weren’t!  I, also, was a huge fan of the Phalanx Covenant from back in the 90’s, a storyline that gave us Generation X and the Emma Frost as a hero for the first time.  But like most old storylines, we rarely hear of anything that happened during it…until now!  This solo story of the last remaining Earth Phalanx from the Covenant was both exciting and a bit heartbreaking.  This wasn’t the horde of techno-organic monstrosities looking to absorb and/or destroy our planet, no, this was a single lonely creature looking to reconnect with it lost tribe (for lack of a better word).  In other scenarios the X-men may have even helped it with its mission.  Unfortunately, in this scenario, helping him would have required the sacrifice of more humans as collateral damage.  And seeing the continuing dynamic between Cyclops and Storm, each coming from a different moral standpoint, continues to be engaging and entertaining.

X-men #23 – I’m really torn on this title right now.  It’s been the black sheep of the core X-titles since it began with Curse of the Mutants and never really gained its own footing…until now.  While the story is still a bit so-so, there has been some amazing character development in these past few issues.  First and foremost, I asked for it last year and they finally delivered, Storm is back!  They let this strong leader of fade to the background for years and then finally she’s back!  She has her own squad and she is IN. CHARGE.  It’s also great to see Warpath, Domino and Jubilee back on active X-men duty finally after some major setbacks and downtime for all of them.  I look forward to next issue and seeing where Jubilee disappeared to and whether or not Storm will actually kill her vampiric friend.

Wolverine and the X-men: Alpha & Omega #1 – I don’t know where they are going with this but unless they pull some crazy $#!t out of their asses in the next 3 issues, then I am going to say that there didn’t need to be a limited series for this title about 3 months after it began.  Couldn’t this have maybe been the second story arc of the regular WATX title?  Or I certainly hope that this doesn’t end up being a 4 issue story that could have been told in a one-shot.  Either way, I do love Kid Omega and I look forward to his hijinks in future issues, I just don’t want to have to pick up 8,000 extra issues to see them.

A Less Than Wonderful Tale - Review Avengers Annual #1



OK it took forever but they finally released the next part of this story!!  Just to make sure everyone is all caught up, the first part of this Revengers storyline was released last year in the New Avengers annual, and we were promised a continuation in (what we thought was 2011’s) Avengers Annual.  So we waited and waited…and then waited some more.  And now it’s finally here!  Was it worth the wait? Eh…maybe…not a terrible story, but I wonder if it was worth the 6 month wait we endured to get to it.  

First and foremost, this just wasn’t as good as the first part.  I’m sorry, but it just wasn’t.  I know that Avengers is supposed to be the “premiere” team of Avengers but the New Avengers book and missions are just consistently more interesting and exciting, not to mention successful (expect this time of course).    The New Avengers installment just seemed to be written a lot better in my opinion.  The Revengers strike on the New Avengers seemed more thought out and calculated whereas this attack seemed just like a blunt strike (and should have failed if anyone’s asking me).  And then Wonder Man calls a press conference??  He used his Avengers and Hollywood connections to get together a large grouping of reporters to out all the Avengers dirty little secrets…because no one has done that at all in recent times (coughOsborncough)…uncreative guys.  Also, even if he had the reporters on his side at first (even when the Avengers attacked him publically he might have had the media on his side), but I would really think that, as he threatens to topple Avengers Tower into the ocean, that they would have maybe turned on him just a little bit…  Slap shod storytelling, mediocre art.  Fail for this part…not an epic fail, but a fail nonetheless.

Now for some positive thoughts.  The background behind this story, the entire point Simon was trying to make…FLAWLESS.  With some better writing for the book, this type of story could easily be a jumping off point for good stories for the next year (you know, if Marvel didn’t already plan their stories out 7 years in advance).  Why did he do it?  Because he believed in his cause.  Everyone read this and was waiting to hear about how Simon was mind controlled, or possessed, or a clone or SOMEthing.  But no, he was just angry at the Avengers and had a point to make.  And boy did he make it.  Defeated or not, his message was heard and there’s nothing that the Avengers can do about it.  Those reporters WANT to know what the Avengers have done, and why aren’t they responding to the allegations.  At the end of the day that’s what most villains or terrorists want: to have their message heard…and it was.  It wasn’t Ultron manipulating him, it wasn’t Scarlet Witch screwing things up, and it wasn’t Purple Man (marvel at this long-standing ridiculous name for a moment)…it was a bitter Avengers who decided that this system of fighting just doesn’t work anymore.  And to top the entire story off, we even got insight as to why his cohorts were fighting by his side since most of them weren’t really evil and a few even former Avengers or Avenger allies.  Again, no coercion and no forced service…these were more real people with real grudges or valid reasons for joining up with Wonder Man.  My favorite however was Eddie Brock’s response, “I think Simon Williams is right.  You guys don’t work.”

Overall, this was kinda sloppy.  The basic idea came through and it was a really good message being conveyed, but it was a bit haphazard in the telling. This could have been a great starting point for the media to turn on the Avengers like the X-men in the 80’s or have new archenemy (in Wonder Man and his new team), but I suspect that the next time we see Wonder Man will be in his rehabilitation and all his Revengers will spend some time in the Vault or the Raft and then join the Thunderbolts.  And just to finish this up on a high point I will mention my FAVORITE part of the entire issue was the scene between Beast and Wonder Man.  People often forget that for a large chunk of the 80’s Beast and Wonder Man were an inseparable pair and the best of friends.  However once Beast left the Avengers and the Defenders to join X-Factor and Wonder Man joined the West Coast Avengers they’ve barely been seen together since (except their brief visit during Beauty and the Beast).  So it was really nice to see this relationship get touched upon again and to see that despite their lack of panel time together, they are still as close as ever.  That one scene somewhat helped make up for a bit of an otherwise lackluster performance.