Weekly Comic Review for 12/18/13

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope everyone had a great New Year’s Eve. I’ve been down sick all day (not the best way to start the new year) but I wanted to get this caught up before I went to bed.

All-New X-Men #20 – Laura finally pulls herself together and reveals that sometime after Avengers Arena, she was caught by the Purifiers. So, the team (with X-23/Talon and without Magik this time) heads off to their base to assault them. Looks like (confusingly enough) they have a mutant of their own able to take out the team in one fell swoop. HUH? I hope there’s a good answer for that next issue. I also hope the issue is more interesting.

Bloodshot and H.A.R.D. Corps #17 – We start out with a little one page background story about Victor/Superstar to give us a little insight on the character before jumping back into the battle at Harada’s base. Bloodshot is fighting to get the nanites, Palmer is fighting Harada, Superstar is fighting to get to some mysterious goal of Kozol’s, and everyone is is just fighting. Bloodshot gets his job done but when Victor just about reaches the goal (revealed to be 2 young psiots), he finds out Palmer is solo against Harada and goes after him. He sacrifices himself to save Palmer and everyone else gets away. I’m disappointed to see him go. He had potential. They better make better use of the others. Genius and Flatline start a connection but the 3rd newbie was pretty much non-existant for the issue. Not like he matters to be anyway. They need to develop the characters they have more instead of just adding new ones and killing off the ones they start to develop. (Why create a background for a character you kill later that issue???)

Eternal Warrior #4 – We get more info on how Gillad’s son is still alive. Gillad seems surprised that he’s around tho it seems that the Earth brought him back… just like it did Gillad?!? WTF? Have the writers even read any of the other Valiant comics and seen anything about how Aram, Gillad, and Ivar became Immortal? Well, Gillas and his daughter destroy the Mother Tree which will supposedly lead lead to all sorts of evil eventually and stuff. Honestly, I don’t care at this point because I’ve already dropped the title. It seems to have no real connection with the rest of the universe and the story’s not that interesting.

Forever Evil: Rogues Rebellion #3 of 6 – The Rogues get caught in Gotham in Poison Ivy’s clutches. She doesn’t care about the whole Crime Syndicate thing but she does care about her plants which aren’t getting sun. (Always good to have you priorities…) She makes the Rogues find a way to get them some sun. They break into WayneTech and get attacked by a bunch of Man-Bats (Why are there so many?) but escape with what they need. It’s not quite enough for Ivy though and then Mr. Freeze shows up to make matters worse. Not quite sure where the rest of the mini-series is going right now.

Green Lantern: New Guardians #26 – Readers Digest version… Alternate universe aliens attack the planet. Kyle tells the native aliens “It’s bad to hurt others just so you can be happy. So, stop it or else.” Carol gets mad at Kyle for laying down the law. They Guardians talk about someone coming and Kyle not being ready. Not a bad issue but it’s pretty pat is in resolution tho I’m not sure why Carol was as mad as she was over Kyle trying to fix something obviously so wrong. I back Kyle on that one.

Harley Quinn #1 – Harley packs up her stuff and moved to the new place in Coney Island. (She even ends up getting a dog on the way.) Of course the whole place is a bunch of freaks… literally. It’s a horror wax museum and all sorts of oddball tenants. Harley has the entire top floor and roof access. She pics up a couple actual jobs (one being what she did before becoming a criminal and the other being roller derby) to help pay the bills too. This should definitely be interesting to see where this goes. I’ve already added it to my pull list.

Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe #4 – The secret of Mr. Dapples (who it turns out is really a Miss Dapples…) is revealed. It’s the cosmic cube. So, Longshot takes it, straightens out the world, and the In-Betweener blames it all on the cube and leaves Longshot alone. I’m actually pretty disappointed on how simple yet drawn out this mini-series was. There was no real surprise anywhere along the line. *yawn*

Scarlet Spider #25 – And we reach the finale sadly. Kaine and Araceley are on the road, just the two o them. We get bits and pieces of what happened after the explosion throughout the story. More or less, Kaine saves everyone but to battle that weird being, he goes “full spider” and everyone freaks out. He leaves and Araceley goes with him. He doesn’t want to be a hero but she wants him to be and he keeps ending up in the roll. Scarlet Spider and Hummingbird (Araceley) will be in the new New Warriors title so I guess he’s going to get stuck in the roll.

Supergirl #26 – Normally, I don’t read this title. Heck, I don’t pick up any of the Super-titles. I saw the new/real Lobo on the cover though and had to check it out. Lobo is trying to track down the person claiming to be him who is over in Stormwatch right now. (That title is ending with issue #30 so I wonder if this will be resolved by then.) Supergirl comes back and stops to talk to a friend about what’s happened recently. That friend just happens to be the person that Lobo was pointed to to get information about the fake Lobo. Obviously, Supergirl and Lobo end up battling. Then, Supergirl kills him. (Or so she thinks…) Nothing spectacular. I would like to know what’s going on with the new Lobo but not sure if I want to keep following this storyline with Supergirl to do so.

Trinity of Sin: Pandora – Forever Evil: Blight tie-in – This issue is much better than the preceding Constantine one. The team is battling Blight but not doing so well. They end up using a spell (which they don’t really explain) but they all get taken down. The bodies arrive on the floor at Terrance Thirteen’s feet. (Not a nice surprise for anyone.) The team really should have picked their battles better. I’m not really enjoying this branch of the Forever Evil story.

Young Avengers #14 – Resolution part 1 – The big battle is finally over. What better way for a bunch of kids to wind down but a dance party. It’s time for a little character building now that the fighting’s over. Billy and Teddy enjoy each other’s company and start getting close again. We learn more about Miss America as a kid. Kate tells Marvel Boy off. (I loved that part!) Oh yeah, and Speed shows back up and dances with Kate. WHAT? Um… Kate, you might want to question this. No one knew where he was. Him just showing up at the party doesn’t set off a red flag? What are these heroes thinking any more? I can’t wait to see next issue to see who finally reacts to this, what is going on with it, and what happens to the team from this point on. Loki is gone now. Is the team going to expand at all given all the other kid heroes around? Can’t wait to see.

Harley Quinn and Young Avengers are both good reads this week. For the third spot, despite Superstar’s death, Bloodshot and H.A.R.D. Corps was a solid story. I miss the weeks where I really had to think about which issues I had to drop from my top list to just have 3.