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.
Nice read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he just bought me lunch because I found it for him smile Thus let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!
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