Alpha Flight #4 – The latest volume of Alpha Flight continues to impress! Alpha Strike looks like it’s going to be a MUCH cooler arch-enemy team then Beta or Gamma Flight ever were, plus adding Northstar’s boyfriend Kyle to the team is a great twist. I kinda thought it was a bit stupid the way she betrayed her husband and team so abruptly but after reading this, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was being controlled by Purple Girl (or is it Woman now?). Marrina gets cooler and cooler each issue and as much as I love Northstar as an X-man, he clearly belongs with Alpha Flight! I am so glad this series was upgraded from a maxi-series to an ongoing one.
Black Panther the Man Without Fear #523 – I’m not really a huge Black Panther fans and don’t know that much about him or Daredevil (whose book and neighborhood he took over) but that’s not what’s great about this book. The best part of this Fear Itself tie-in is that its showing the people’s reactions to everything on the street level. Yeah, in Home Front we are seeing lots of people out in the mid-west and in Wolverine we saw some people, but this storyline is getting into the gritty reality of a mob mentality gone completely crazy. Now of course this is supposed to be all because of Hate-Monger’s and the Serpent’s influence but the truth is that under these kind of stressful circumstances, oftimes people DON’T really need that much of a push to degenerate into this. The weakest part of the story is the American Panther. LAME! They gave us a character for 3 issues and then had him arrested (with no name given to him) and his costume passed off. Seemed like a waste of almost no character development.
Fear Itself: Hulk vs. Dracula #1 – Now as much I hate some of the extraneous tie-ins for the Fear Itself crossover, at least this one made some kind of sense and fell into a logical place in the storyline. When last we saw the Worthy-Possessed Hulk, he was sent flying through the air after a battle with Thor. Well this issue picks up right from where the Hulk fell off. He lands after his Thor battle right in the middle of Dracula’s territory and the stage is set for 2 more issues of Hulk-y Vampire fun. Do I think we really needed to have a 3 issue series about the Hulk fighting Dracula? Not at all but at least it made sense in terms of the storyline, I am still trying to figure out how Juggernaut got from the Raft prison, the fighting Speedball in the Midwest, and then landing suddenly in Uncanny X-men (which came out two months ago). So props to Marvel for a well-crafted, albeit unnecessary, tie-in.
Fear Itself: The Monkey King – First let me take a chance to give a nod to the title character for having the single STUPIDEST codename since Lorna Dane tried to go by, Magnetrix. And second, remember earlier when I mentioned pointless tie-ins? Well here’s another good example. For one thing the connection to the actual Fear Itself story is vague at best (he just tried to grab one of the Worthy Hammers and failed) and, that isn’t even in this issue. The only purpose this issue served was to try and grab some new readers into whatever storyline Sun Wukong is in next. Basically a Marketing Ploy One-shot.
Ghost Rider #3 – Just like Alpha Flight this latest variation on a classic hero is awesome! I’m liking Alejandra as the new female Ghost Rider more and more each issue and, I am thrilled to see that they still kept Johnny Blaze around. Both Adam and Seeker remind me a bit of Caretaker from the 90’s series in evil and good ways, respectively, and I can’t wait to see where they drag Alejandra and Blaze. I will say that seeing the level of power that Alejandra can unleash with the power of Ghost Rider so quickly only makes me want to see Blaze take the power back and see what HE can do with it!
Journey Into Mystery #627 – Not a whole lot to say about this issue. A fun little standalone issue involving Mephisto and one of his little games. Didn’t have a lot to do with Fear Itself as the cover suggested but it was still a good laugh. I always love issues where Mephisto isn’t evil so much as just evilly playful and it’s just always fun to watch people kick Nightmare around. Not a great tie-in but still a great issue!
New Avengers #16 – Daredevil Joins the Avengers! …but so what? I mean don’t get me wrong, he’s a great character and I love him in his many guest appearances in all kinds of books, but he (just like Spider-man and Moon Knight) is supposed to be a solo hero. I didn’t like it when they did it with Wolverine but they made it work (although Spider-man joined at the same time and I’m still not sold on him being on the team) so now I guess they just think they can grab whoever isn’t on a team and make them an Avenger. Some people would make excellent reservists (which seems to have been done away with) or awesome occasional guest stars, there’s just no need to shove them down our throats trying to make them work on a team they aren’t supposed to be a part of. That all being said, the story itself was excellent and I loved seeing the Avengers in action and not retreating from battle!
Uncanny X-Force #16 - It seems to be a trend this week to have issues that are really big set-up issues but nothing really happens in them. Just like in Buffy and Fear Itself, this issue seems like its getting us ready for a whole bunch of cool stuff coming up next but nothing particularly interesting happened here. Psylocke killed Sanjar (aka Death) which sets her up to become the new Death next issue and we watched Deathlok allow his human (insane) side take over while Deadpool ate a really gross looking fruit, but that's really about all. OK fine we watched them remake an entire section of the world into some new biosphere and learned Archangel's master plan, but let's be serious, I think we all know that they'll never ACTUALLY re-terraform the entire planet. That would require some sort of huge sweeping storyline, so that leaves the only real investments here the fates of Archangel and Psylocke. Still a great issue but definitely the weakest one of this storyline.
X-men: Legacy #255 - Now here's some excitement!! Rogue invokes the Arin'n Haelar (Shi'ar duel of honor, which cannot be refused) and wins, Rachel Summers is back in action, and Havok and Polaris are apparently being manipulated and controlled...again. I swear if I had a dollar for every time those two got somehow screwed with, I'd be QUITE rich. Now whether they are being controlled or just lied to and acting stupid remains to be seen but hopefully we will get more information next issue. It interesting to see Magneto and Polaris interacting as father and daughter (well kinda, I mean she still calls him Magneto instead of "father", Max or Erik) since I've never really gotten to see much of them in that respect. And of course all of this sets the stage for heroes fighting with each other at the end. Frenzy continues to be exciting to watch and its very nice to see they didn't soften her up when they had her join the team. X-men: Legacy continues to shine as one of the best X-books in print, Uncanny and Vol. 3 should take some notes.
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