Avengers Solo #5 – Well the good news is that the series is over. And it finished up just how it started: Hawkeye’s story sucks and the Academy back-up carried the book. All we learned from thids book is that the top Avengers all still barely trust each other and are willing to do shady things behind each other’s backs. On the other hand, I am really curious to see how this “test” that Finesse and Striker were put through affects their relationship with their professors in the future. Here’s to more West Coast Avengers fun in the coming months.
Magneto: Not a Hero #4 – It’s not that I didn’t like this series per say, it’s just that it seemed like the entire thing could have been told in a one-shot rather than drag it out for several issues. I was sort of expecting Astra to be a bit more important and maybe even see more of the deformed Brotherhood clones. And Joseph was such a great character back in the 90’s and now they kind dumbed him down to “Well you’re good now, Magneto, so I’m going to be bad. And not just bad…badder then you ever were”. I am never really a fan of just bringing characters back from the dead only to throw them away again. Like why couldn’t Joseph return and ACTUALLY become the evil Magneto while Max (the real Magneto) continued on as an X-man? Good story, but the length made it boring.
New Mutants #38 – You know, I was JUST talking about this with a friend of mine recently. “Why did they bother bringing Doug back and then do nothing with him? And what ever happened to Bird-Brain and the Animator’s other creations?” I swear I was just talking about it like last month, and there they are! Many comic creations from the 80’s were a bit cheesy and cartoony but that was the style back then so now the challenge presented to writers is how do you bring these corny characters back in a way that keeps to their origin but also updates them for more modern readers? HERE’S THE ISSUE WITH THAT ANSWER. When Bird-Brain last hung around the New Mutants, he was a clunky awkward caricature but now in his dramatic return, we see an updated Bird-Brain who is strongly reminiscent of his original drawing but even a seasoned reader couldn’t help but be startled but his fearsome look as he attacked Dani and the rest of the team. More importantly then Bird-Brain’s new style is Warlock’s sudden shift at the end and refusal to let any of them leave the island. One can’t help but wonder how far he will take that ultimatum when his friends don’t back down.
Secret Avengers #23 – I love the team, and the new direction of the book. I think Captain Britain is at his most snarky in this title, much more so than we have seen in the last few years. What I don’t like is when they give us stories of characters that spoils the ending of another storyline. Like when Valkyrie joined this new line-up for example, clearly that means that she lives through the end of Fear Itself: the Fearless with at least some measure of strength and power to her so it almost defeats the purpose of us reading the end of Fearless. Well they did it again, this issue with Venom. I am all for Venom joining this team, I think it will be nice to have a Venom around that a little less Lethal and a little more Protector, but they already stated flat out in this issue that he recently saved Las Vegas from being sucked into Hell. Now obviously the chances of the Marvel writers actually sucking Las Vegas into Hell are remote at best, but, for the sake of storytelling, maybe they should not have mentioned that until the final issue of Circle of Four? Just a though here guys, work with us!
Uncanny X-Force #22 – Some real high and low points in this issue. High points include Besty still rocking the Lady Britain outfit (which is a nice welcome change from her normal unitard and AOA Kurt starting to loosen up a bit around his new comrades in the midst of this insane Otherworld War. Now on the other hand, some bad or just weird parts of the issue were creepy muscle-controlling guy and his grow ass power, the nonstop barrage of Otherworld battling and creatures (almost as if they were trying to squeeze an entire huge war into just 2 or 3 issues), and last but DEFINITELY not least is Weapon III slicing Fantomex’s face right off his head (which is just as bad as Deadpool’s entire head being severed while he continued bantering). The entire storyline is just turning into out to be a bit much and poorly handled I think.
Venom #13.3 – Eh…I dunno. This storyline started out really strong and I was into it, but now it’s starting to peter out a little bit. Part of the reason for my lagging interest could be because we already know that this ends with everyone being fine. Red Hulk is over in Avengers. X-23 is with Avengers Academy. Venom just joined Secret Avengers. And Ghost Rider is presumably still alive and being a bitch, but who really cares at this point about her. It’s also worth mentioning that I hated Mephisto in this issue because I just saw and LOVED him over in New Mutants a few weeks earlier. I’m going to of course get the last few issues of the story but my hopes aren’t as high as they once were.
Wolverine & the X-men #6 – I LOVE a good Brood story! I do, it almost doesn’t matter what else is going on because I just love reading about Sleazoids. And not a person on this Earth hates Brood aliens more than Kitty Pryde so it’s MORE than fitting that her entire body would be being invaded by them. I love seeing how Broo reacted to his brethren being so close by (and even more glad that he chose to protect Kitty from them). I’m a little less into the whole gambling story but I get it, they are trying to keep a large portion of this book light and happy so that fine, I just hope they don’t put so much emphasis on “fuzzy warm feeling” that we lose the quality of the story and the character development. Oh and who’s this creepy alien coming after Broo? How many people even know he’s there?
X-men #25 – Sigh…I just…don’t care. Yeah, I don’t care about this anymore. I am getting really tired of Raizo Kodo and his band of miscreants, and to be honest, I’m not really that invested in Jubilee anymore. They’ve ruined a classic character to the point where I just don’t even care anymore. It was bad enough when they took her powers but this vampire deal has really run its course. The best part of this issue is that they finally dealt with Storm and her history with vampires. Maybe with Deadpool showing up next issue, this whole thing will get a bit more interesting.
X-men: Legacy #262 – BIIIIIIIG Let Down. I was expecting this issue to be about the two sides of X-men meeting up for the first time to take down Exodus and then go their separate ways maybe a little less angry. No instead the entire issue was a cross country chase with him and a brief and over-before-it-started disagreement between Logan and Rogue. And the only ones of Cyclops’ X-men that even appeared was Generation Hope (which mean this is either before Kenji’s mutiny or after and it didn’t go very well) which was a completely let down. I don’t really understand why Hope showing up is worse than Cyclops since as far as I can tell she is the one person he won’t kill but I guess that something we will get into last issue since they only showed up for the last page.
