My Weekly Pull List - 2/22/12

Cyclops' and Wolverine's X-men come face to face for the first time since Schism in X-men: Legacy!  Intergalactic gambling for the future of Kitty Pryde and the Jean Grey School!  The final battle between Magneto and deranged clone Joseph!  And the final fate of vampire Jubilee!

 

Avengers Academy #26

Avengers: Solo #5

Avengers vs. X-men: Program #1

Magneto: Not a Hero #4 RG

New Mutants #38

Secret Avengers #23

Uncanny X-Force #22

Venom #13.3 C4

Wolverine & the X-Men #6

X-Men #25

X-Men Legacy #262

C4 = Circle of Four

RG = ReGenesis

Marvel Comics On-sale - 2/22/12

Hawkeye's solo adventure coming to its exciting climax!  Blackheart's hellish Circle of Four continues!   More misadventures in Otherworld in Uncanny X-Force!  And return to Ani-Mator's Island in New Mutants!

Avengers Academy #26

Avengers: Solo #5

Avengers: Solo #5 (Movie Variant)

Avengers vs. X-men: Program #1

Captain America & Bucky #627

Deadpool #51

Dorothy & the Wizard in Oz #5

Fantastic Four #603

Magneto: Not a Hero #4 RG

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #23

Mighty Thor #11

New Mutants #38

Secret Avengers #23

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #7

Uncanny X-Force #22

Venom #13.3 C4

Wolverine & the X-Men #6

X-Men #25

X-Men Legacy #262

C4 = Circle of Four

RG = ReGenesis

Hope's Falling - Review Generation Hope #16

All I can say is – it’s about damn time!  For months now, Hope Summers has been walking around like she’s god’s gift to the mutant race and like she can do whatever she wants since no one can stop her.  And she really crossed the line when she took physical control of Kenji to defend herself from Laurie that was the last straw completely.  Being Cable’s daughter, and therefore Cyclops’ granddaughter, doesn’t really carry much weight when you treat your grandfather like garbage and challenge his authority at every turn.  It’s really no wonder that things came to a head the way they did in this issue.

                It’s been no secret that Laurie hasn’t had fuzzy feeling for Hope for quite some time now so it made perfect sense for Kenji to go to her first.  I was even excited to see the return of some familiar faces from the X-men foes gallery, in the form of Dragoness, Random, Litterbug, Erg and Bliss, to torment and question her high and superior attitude, but I never expected to see such a full scale mutiny against Hope, especially not by half of her own team.  What did she really expect though?  She holds Laurie against her will, makes Gabriel use his life threatening powers at her whim, forcibly control Kenji’s very body, and even lies to the one person who still trusts her, Sebastian Shaw, when he asks if she knows about his past.  Something I am sure Cable tried to teach her, in their travels through time, was the importance of earning and keeping trust. So why does she feel she is above such pleasantries?  Why does she feel like everyone, even the people who aren’t directly under her control, need to simply accept her doing whatever she wants at any given time?  And unless she changes her attitude, and quickly, I could easily see a future like the one Kenji envisioned where all new mutants are enslaved to her will.  Seems like a major disaster waiting to happen.

                The big shock for me was Emma Frost in this issue.  I knew she wasn’t Hope’s biggest fan, but I never expected her to go that far to bring her down.  I’m glad that someone was finally willing to say what we’ve all been thinking since Hope appeared “the Phoenix could be lurking inside this wretched girl waiting to kill us all”.  OBVIOUSLY!  I wouldn’t be surprised if we found out that Hope was somehow (possibly even unconsciously) preventing Scott from seeing the danger surrounding her.  I suspect that Scott will be furious when he wakes up from his enforced siesta, but he will eventually see that whatever happens next is for the best and no one’s fault but Hope’s.  I can only imagine what she said to Magneto to get him to join in this rebellion, but he is the only other senior team member present during the last page’s debacle.

                I think that Hope had this coming and deserve whatever she gets at this point.  She just swooped in after Cable died and expected everyone to bow to her every whim and that was before she really understood her powers and mutant messiah rap.  She expected everyone to adapt to her methods, which were earned in one war torn future after another, rather than try to acclimate herself to her new environment and fit in with this timeline’s inhabitants.  If Cable were still around he would tell her to stop being such a brat and grow up already, but unfortunately he isn’t around right now…or is he?  Only the final issue of X-Sanction will be able to tell us.  Until then I can’t wait to see how this mutiny turns out next issue.

Flash Review - 2/8/12

Battle Scars #4 - FINALLY!  It took 4 issues of boring battling between everyone in the world and Marcus Johnson.  We saw some creepy aging guy at the very beginning and Nick Fury (sort of) at the very end…and that was interesting!  Other than that everything in the middle was still boring as hell.  I love Deadpool and Taskmaster but every panel that didn't have them on it seemed like a complete waste of time to me.  And the big shock ending that he was Fury’s son…wasn’t such a big deal to be honest, I kind had that suspicion a while ago.  Here’s the twist though.  He’s not Nick Fury, he’s the living LMD that we saw over in Secret Avengers…oooooo!  With only 2 issues left, there’s no point in stopping the series now but what a wait of 6 issues. 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 9 #6 – I love a good Nikki Wood as much as the next Buffy fan but to be honest that was the only good part of this issue…oh that and the return of Spike!  The story of Spike going on a police ride-along was a great secondary story but the whole issue in general was a little flat.  Also, it was also really great to see Principle Wood again (especially since the last time we saw him was with Faith in the show’s finale and now she’s off on her own with no explanation of why they split), maybe we will get to see more of him but I doubt it.  I know the show was big on having a few quiet episodes in-between the huge events but someone should tell the writers that that doesn’t always fly with printed stories.  We didn’t even get a cliffhanger ending…

Carnage USA #3 – SUCH…a disappointment!  I keep saying it but this series has just left me completely unfulfilled with each issue.  The team of Avengers they threw together for this is boring, the storyline was weak as hell, and the best part of the issue was the appearance of Venom (the worst and least of the Venoms ever) at the very end.  The symbiote weapons that the soldiers are using are lame, the use of Scorn/Tania Nieves is lame, and Carnage’s entire plane to subjugate the town and make them pull out their own teeth is the worst.  The preceding Carnage limited has Shriek, Doppelganger, and all sorts of craziness so we were led to believe that this sequel was going to be bigger and better than ever.  NOT SO MUCH.

Journey into Mystery #634 – First and foremost I loved the Buffy reference at the very beginning!  If anymore remembers season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there was a Halloween episode that involved an impending God of Fear being summoned and we find out at the end that the words next to his miniscule picture mean “Actual Size” so I loved the opening splash page of this issue.  After it was a bit of a downhill slide though.  I love a good Nightmare story but I prefer him corny and campy not actually evil and sinister.  Last issue was better and hopefully next issue will be great, but this one was a little weird.  But Journey has been great lately so we can ignore one slow issue.

Secret Avengers #22 – First issue of a brand new era!  Love the new line-up.  Hawkeye will be a great leader for this new team…if he can get Brian Braddock under control that it.  I have seen Captain Britain and his uppity attitude in the past (mostly in old issues of Excalibur) but he seemed like he mostly got that under control until now.  I think it will be great to see the dynamic between two leaders (who usually would never have even crossed paths) as this new team progresses.  I am surprised to see Giant Man joining the team since “covert ops” never really seemed like his thing but Hank Pym is a great character no matter where he is so it should be fun to watch.  Thrilled to see Black Widow and Beast are still around, but I somewhat question the presence of Valkyrie.  I already think that The Fearless series is a complete waste of time and money but by having her show up here we already know she lives through that story (with her sword and some measure of her powers) and joins this team…so why are we supposed to even bother with Fearless??

Venom #13.1 – SO much better than the first part!  The art is better, the villains were more interesting, and the storyline was pretty good.  Watching the Antitheses take apart their “good” counterparts was exciting to say the least.  I mean who would have thought that X-23 would get taken down by a cheerleader??  I have loved Blackheart ever since Hearts of Darkness back in the 90’s so it’s great to see him coming back with some devious plots that don’t involve taking down Mephisto.  I’m not sure how I feel about Daimon Hellstrom and Dr. Strange suddenly being everywhere in the Marvel Universe at once I’ll reserve judgment on them until later.

Wolverine and the X-men #6 – What the hell!?  That skank Kitty Pryde woke up at the end of last issue all preggers and we’re all left wondering “Who’s the father?”  The answer this issue was creepier then we could have ever expected: Kitty is pregnant with millions of Brood designed to kill just her.  Again I ask “What the hell!?”  And as if it wasn’t bad enough to hear about her inhaling brood, we got to watch her inhale a mini Kid Gladiator…ewww.  And as much I love the Brood and their stories…didn’t we just have TWO Brood related stories over in Astonishing X-men within the last year??  I wish they wouldn’t over use such a great X-villain so much.  And way does Wolverine insist on making Kid Omega so heavily involved in everything?  It’s one thing to keep him under watchful eye at the school but another all together to make him an integral part of important missions.  Which leads me to…

Wolverine and the X-men: Alpha and Omega #2 – This is why he shouldn’t trusted or forced to participate because even if they pressure him into helping they have no guarantee that they can control him or trust him not to betray them.  And since he is a telepath able to create and control something as elaborate as his mental prison for Wolverine and Armor, who could really stop him without Jean, Emma, or Charles around?  I’m sorry but I just don’t see Rachel (sorry…”Ms. Grey”) being up to the task without the help of the Phoenix Force or its echo.  And one last thing…does this mean that Armor is now longer going to be in Astonishing and is here now?

X-men #24 – I’m not really feeling Raizo Kodo and his band of vegetarian vampire followers (especially since they are popping up everywhere now) but in a way this story did need to happen.  I mean, unless they were going to make Jubilee go crazy and evil, they needed to have some way of getting her under control.  Unfortunately it may end up meaning that she leaves the X-men AGAIN to go join his group, which would be a big shame since she JUST got back with the team.  On the bright side…wait there is no bright side, here’s to Jubes staying for more than just a few issues.

Date With a Devil - Review New Mutants #37

This series just gets better and better every issue!  These last few issues since ReGenesis have been just amazing just amazing, total throwbacks to the feel of the original series from the 80’s.  There’s lots of campy humor, character development and quirky mutant “surrogate family” fun all around.  To be honest I wasn’t sure that I like this line-up of the mutants when it first rolled out after Schism (after all there’s no Cannonball.  No Boom Boom.  No Wolfsbane!  And they threw Doug Ramsey in and left him there to do nothing) but they have really made the most of this “light” team and even threw in X-man as a brand new member (which they haven’t done with New Mutants (Vol. 1) #87 when they added new member Cable to the roster).  Nate Grey fits right into the crew seamlessly with the other returning classic characters as we see Magma fulfill her deal with Mephisto and go on a date with the devil himself.

First of all, I am glad they didn’t drag the “date with a devil” angle out forever.  I really thought that it was going to be some weirdness where they were in some crazy perilous situation and he popped up saying “OK time for our date”, whisking her away to some perilous solo adventure.  Oh no!  This is a completely different Mephisto, complete with nerdy glassed and loose fitting shirt and tie, and (if anything he’s said is real and true) this is my favorite version of him ever!  Secondly, WOW!  If he’s being real then he really pulled out all the stops for Amara.  The fact that the date was IN Hell itself was a pretty good jumping off point but then add in the erupting volcanos,  bright red corvette, and the band and serving staff of the damned and who could even resist?  Magma, that’s who.  Never one to be easily impressed she instantly asked “What do you want from me?  You’re the devil so you must want something to leave me and my friends alone.”  Surprisingly enough, he SEEMS to not want anything.  He even made it sound real.  According to the devil, conning people out of their souls is easy and boring after millennia of doing it and every once in a while he wants to go out and actually have some “normal” fun with a girl like everyone else (although I think Northstar may have other ideas heh).  

Well once she saw he wasn’t in it for her immortal soul; she then also wasn’t falling for his games anymore.  She quickly asserted control of the date and took them out of hell to a local diner.  From here on, it got even funnier!  Just the fact that a red skinned man can sit in a diner and have it not be completely out of the ordinary showed just how far the (Marvel) society has come.  Back in the 80’s, that still would have incited a riot if Nightcrawler sat out if the open like that.  Instead it was Magma getting the evil glares for her failed attempt at working in the same diner.  A brief explanation about the “diversification of Hell” and an ironic saucy sauce joke later, and this date ended up being an actual smashing success.  And of course, what first date would be complete without the awkward and hesitant kiss at the end of the night.  For most of the issue I thought there was going to be some kind of twist coming at the end, but this kiss and Mephisto’s sheepish reaction to it made the whole thing seem real to me.  With the epilogue of him throwing rocks at her windows to ask to call on her again made this one of the best date issues I’ve ever read.  Here’s hoping they go out again!

                Of course no date is complete without the girl’s family diligently sitting home waiting and worrying about her.  Between Dani being half interested sister and half disapproving mother and Bobby being half jealous boyfriend and half over protective father, we have the entire family gauntlet right here in our very own dysfunctional mutant clan.  I even thought that the touch of Warlock’s techtag bracelet for her was a nice touch…if it had last for longer than one block of the car ride.  One thing that I’m not really onboard with is Bobby’s intense and (in my opinion) sudden crush on Amara.  These two have known each other for years (and yeah he’s flirted but it was always in fun), but now he’s completely head over heels in love with her (and not her with him).  Also it hadn’t occurred to me until this issue that X-man joining the team is a lot like a younger Cable re-joining since they are genetic duplicates (or alternate reality counterpart or whatever) and I am glad to see him practicing his newly reduced power successfully.  Other non-date related fun:  Warlock still has his hidden hellhound hiding in a closet, thanks to Lil Loki over in Journey into Mystery.  Dani’s trying to go visit Illyana on Utopia, but unfortunately she busy being sucked underground in Uncanny X-men.  And Doug trying to track down Dr. Strange (you know, just in case).  Al while Bobby mopes in a corner.  Classic New Mutants angst and character building.  Keep it coming guys!!

The Blink storyline went on a little too long for my liking (especially since she didn’t even stay with the team) but this standalone issue more than made up for it.  It could have easily been another Hell adventure of the team, but that’s been done more times than I can count at this point so I am glad they went with this instead, and I LOVE this version of Mephisto.  His character is always handled so differently by the various writers that have gotten their hands on him, but I am really hoping that we see more of this version in the future…you know, on their next date.