Avengers #17 - Pretty good issue. It was nice to finally see the Avengers make some headway against the Worthy because so far they have just been getting their asses kicked. I loved seeing the Protector finally earning his place on the team and just being a team player in general. Now the cover was a bit misleading, having Hawkeye and Spider-woman on the cover, I thought we were going to get into more of their budding illicit romance, but alas no. The fact that they were able to put a small dent in Skadi made up for it though.
Avengers: Children Crusade #7 - This continues to be the best book Marvel puts out! They haven't shown a redemptive ret-con like this since Jean Grey turned out to NOT be the Phoenix, and you know what? I'M OK WITH IT! Lets be serious just like back in the 80's when Marvel told the writers that they couldn't bring back Jean unless she could be absolved of her sins, we couldn't have Wanda come back, still having all this power, and still be guilty. So now we have a strong case for TEMPORARY insanity AND she doesn't have that level of power anymore. OH! and did I mention that aside from Rictor, she can no longer repower mutants? Well that's one way of keeping the status quo! (poor Moonstar!) And, surprise surprise, Doom is shady and backstabbing. Who knew!? I do want to point out one fact though, just like back in the Secret Wars when he acquired the Beyonder's power, the first thing Doom did with his new power is fix his own face.
Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #4 - Whew! One more down! As Fear Itself winds down, all the limited series that go with it are ending one by one. This one was LESS bad then a lot of the other ones, helped by the fact that I love She-Hulk and Howard the Duck, but I honestly could have done without Frankenstein's Monster in this one. I mean, there are plenty of monster-y characters out there that would have been much cooler and made more sense right? Wouldn't Morbius have been great instead of Franky?? Or any number of supernatural-ish characters. Alright series, not sad to see it go but not kicking myself for having bought it either.
Fear Itself: The Home Front #6 - These mini-story issues are a bit hit or miss. On one hand, the Speedball story is great! Seeing him confront and help the people that blame him for ruining their lives and their towns is a powerful story that I think he needed to go through to finally put his time as Penance behind him. On the other hand, the short stories with Dust and the Great Lakes Avengers/Champions/X-men just seemed like filler. They had no point really and whether they were good is almost not the point, because with so much going on, did we really need more filler and background stories?? Falling in the middle is the Amadeus Cho story, which I'm kinda so-so on. It seems a little pointless so far but I am really into the whole "next generation of archetypes" scenario and have hope that it might be leading to something. So with one more issue left, I am interested in seeing these little stories getting tied and up seeing if they have a point in the end.
Fear Itself: Uncanny X-Force #3 - Just another fish in a sea of unnecessary tie-ins. Everyone knows that I'm a huge X-fan and typically the mutants can do no wrong, but this one is right up there with the Wolverine and Deadpool tie-ins (which just shows that these two characters have too many books they appear in). I won't even get into what the story was about because it had nothing to do with Fear Itself really and at the end our characters didn't even grow or learn anything. So this entire series was basically a non-entity.
Fear Itself: Youth in Revolt #5 - Now THIS is youth in revolt. The past 4 issues should really have been called "Youth Falling in Line" since absolutely everyone did exactly what they were by Steve Rogers like good little soldiers. Well that's all over with! Thor Girl and Cloud 9 on the r unun, Hardball and Gravity almost killing each other, and Firestar has her old New Warriors and Avengers attitude. But even in the middle of all this youthful rebellion we still had time for Prodigy to take charge again and Thor Girl and Cloud 9 to save all the trapped people (including themselves) from underneath a collapsed building. I also want to mention that, even though I don't know her that well, I'm really enjoying the soft side of Komodo since I get the impression that she doesn't show it very much. If there is a new Initiative series after Fear Itself, this book has definitely convinced me to buy it!
Generation Hope #11 - My favorite part of this issue was Laurie. Hands Down. Its bothered me from the very beginning that these "Lights" just blindly follow Hope and whatever she says, so watching Laurie talk back, defy and even attack Hope was awesome for me! Even though in the teaser pics she is still with Hope, I bet in the future we can expect Laurie to be more and more of a foil to Hope authoritarian leadership. The other great development in this issue was seeing Prodigy and the other New X-men make the effort to connect with the Gen Hopers. I mean, we see Pixie pretty often in the other X-men titles and we get a sprinkling of Anole, Dust and Rockslide here and there, but other then them the rest of the New/Young X-men have somewhat fallen to the wayside. And you would think that with a new crop of young mutants in the mix, we would have seen more interaction or at least REaction from the older crew. So glad they finally got around to this and I hope that even after the Schism, we see more of a mixing of these two groups.
Invincible Iron Man #508 - DIS. A. PPOINTING. It was frustrating enough that at the end of Fear Itself #6 we are told that we HAD to read this issue to find out about Tony jumping into the molten uru vat, but once we got here it was worse! The uru vat action happened only on the last two pages and we don't even see the full outcome! The rest of the issue is full of some crap with a mud monster and Pepper being abandoned to a Worthy possessed Grey Gargoyle. Not only was it a stupid issue where nothing good happened, but it wasn't even what we were told it would be. Epic Fail.
Uncanny X-men #543 - I'm honestly a little torn over my opinion of this issue. I was a little frustrated that most of the last few issues of Uncanny were being spent on Fear Itself, but this issue was actually pretty great! As far as tie-ins go it was really good, it involved the main storyline but also managed to evolve the book's individual storylines. We got to see more of Emma and Namor's strange attraction/flirtation, major developments with Kitty and Peter, plus cracks in the relationship between the X-men and Mayor Sadie Sinclair. And speaking of Kitty and Peter...NOT FAIR! These two just never catch a break, I swear. Between alien infidelity, fake deaths and planetary bullets these two are the most dramatic mutant couple since Cyclops and Jean Grey. I hate that they broke up but I LOVE that he is going to continue being the new Juggernaut. I can't wait to see how Fear Itself leave this team, this plus Schism a crazy amount of trauma for any family, even a mutant one.
X-Factor #225 - RICTOR HAS HIS POWERS!! I am so glad that they brought this into the storyline right away instead of waiting until Children's Crusade is over. And aside from that: Madrox is retarded, Layla is shady, and Rahne is depressing. Just another day here at X-Factor Investigations! This issue was pretty much standard as far as everything else goes. I am curious about who BB is, and whether we already know them. The other great development is that Marvel FINALLY seems to be getting around to dealing with the relationship between Longshot and Shatterstar! This has been hanging in the air for seriously, like 20 years at this point, and I can't WAIT to see how they handle this and deal with the whole Benjamin Russell thing. X-Factor continues to shine, even in its more low key issues
X-men #18 - As far as this series goes, the bar is pretty low. That being said, this was a pretty good issue. I pretty much think that this book is all filler and borderline non-canon so I don't put too much stock in the stories in it, but it IS really great to see Lee Forrester again after such a long absence,e specially having her deal with Cyclops and Magneto at once. It always fun to see the FF and X-men mix it up so no real complaints about the issue, I love the fluff.
