Weekly Comic Review for 12/4/13
*blows the dust off the comics*
Wow. I’m really late this week. Between the holidays and a lot of personal stuff (Anyone know of a good job for a professional geek who needs one badly? Plus, anyone wanna help me move?), posting got put to the wayside. I’m finally getting a chance since I’m sitting home on a Saturday night. I apologize if I don’t get to a lot of stuff in the next month. I’ll try to get to some of my overdue stuff if I can. So. let’s get down to it.
Amazing X-Men #2 – It’s part 2 (of 5) in the quest for Nightcrawler. We saw Wolverine and Northstar in Heaven at the end of last issue. Guess where that leaves Storm, Firestar, and Iceman? You got it! And sadly, there’s not much weather down in Hell. Plus, it’s a bit warm for our walking popsicle too. So, it looks like it’s time for Hell to finally freeze over… or at least a little piece of it. (Yes, the joke had to be made.) It also seems like demons really like boats because there’s another one in Hell. In Heaven, Wolverine takes on Captain Jack (You’re kidding, right?) while in Hell, Storm is captured by Captain Kid. Wolverine walks the plank off the edge of the clouds even though Xavier told him now to. (Charlie’s bossy even in heaven. It’s not like Logan had a choice.) Nightcrawler is finally seen at the very end, looking on in Heaven to possibly save the day. Right now, I think the story could use a little saving.
Earth 2 #18 – And the battle drags on and on and on. When are we going to get to the good part of this title? There’s so many things going on that it’s hard to keep track. (Anyone remember Hawkgirl popping up again just long enough to get captured and she hasn’t been heard of since?) Superman beats on the Flash and the World Army. Batman (no clue who this actually is) breaks into Arkham’s basement where he meets Red Tornado. (Lois Lane? Really?) In there, he frees Aquawoman (a dark haired Mera, I’m assuming) and Jimmy Olson (who apparently can access any and all data and information stored anywhere). Who better to fight Superman than Lois and Jimmy, I guess. *slams head on the desk repeatedly* Before going, Batman makes one more stop and shoots the Joker through the head. That was actually the most interesting part of the whole issue.
The Fox #2 – Let the insanity commence. As weird as the first issue was, this one is even more so. The Fox starts out on a raft in a river of pink water going through a land of diamond. He gets attacked by a monster with “weirdly delicious” breath. (His words, not mine.) The monster turns out to be Bob Phantom. (He’s an old school MLJ character all this Red Circle stuff is based off of and he appeared briefly in the recent Mighty Crusaders relaunch. Goggle him.) We then get the story of how all this came to be with some diamond queen who comes to him for help (after sending enough other heroes to their apparent doom) and who speaks very cheesy broken English. “Hero us, courage man.” Through this, we also get introduces to the concept of She-Fox. (It was just a hallucination but it seems that it’s an actual character that will be around.) On the (slightly) more serious side, we get a back up story of the Shield. (I guess he’ll be there at least for a while.) I say slightly because the modern Shield is telling a tale from 1944 and the bad guys are a German named Master Race and a Japanese guy named Hachiman. (The names are actually written in a font that you would expect of the countries.) I’m not sure yet if I love this book or if it makes me want to cringe. I’m enjoying it for the time though. 🙂
Green Lantern #26 – When we left Hal and Kolowog, they were just about to get their asses kicked by Nol-Anj’s clan. Since this was an attempt to make sure that the emotional energy didn’t get overused, he chooses the best possible choice… call in the entire Green Lantern Corps (including Mogo) to help out. Nol-Anj’s band ends up surrendering to the corps to keep her free though she still has to turn in the star sapphire ring. The only decent part of the whole story was discovering that the Durlans has a hand in taking this whole thing totally out of control. At least they haven’t forgotten about them.
Inhumanity #1 – I thought this was the new series but it appears to be a one-shot. All it is is a rehashing of the Inhumans’ origin and recent history and then having Karnak jump out a window and kill himself for no decent reason. I wasn’t impressed. Total waste of money.
Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe #3 – Longshot saves the In-Betweener’s chaos side from the Helicarrier crash. Then the chaos guy, just because he likes chaos, summons CapWolf, Dracula, vampire Wolverine, and an over-powered scrawny Magneto. We also get a Venom controlled Punisher and a Carnage controlled Silver Surfer. WTF? Spider-Man pops in and out of the storyline, saving the mother and daughter with the possessed teddy bear. We also get random cameos by Captain America, Ghost Rider, and other heroes. This issue is a mess and goes all over the place. The story may be about chaos but it’s a mess unto itself.
Quantum and Woody #6 – Speaking of chaos… I’m not even sure where to start with this one. It was bad enough to see Eric jump at the chance to be a hero last issue. Being the smarter of the pair, you’d expect him to actually think. He’s going off on a suicide mission and thinks it’s all hyperbole. He wants to take off and leave Woody behind and Woody is the one who has to point out that they will die if they are apart for 24 hours. He’s then the one who figures out what’s actually going on — that Eric’s boss is trying to start a war and he’s going to sacrifice Quantum to do that. Oh, and to top it all off, we get another quick blip from when Eric was in the Army. It’d just enough to point out that he’s homophobic on top of being an idiot. The title’s been going down hill but this issue is a real low and it’s close to getting cut.
Shadowman #13 – This issue starts a whole new team in a while new direction. Now if only someone had given them a compass. All of a sudden, Jack Boniface is going around and beating people up for no reason (and supposedly did this as a teen too) and the abettors want to kill Jack because of this. Jack goes of to see a quick to get rid of the Shadowman loa which ends up is some total evil that her predecessors locked away. Now it has a voice in Jack’s head. To top things off, I’m not all that fond of the new artwork in the book. It’s all very dark and sorty messy in my opinion. This better improve quick. I don’t want to have to drop 2 Valiant books.
Trinity of Sin: Phantom Stranger #14 – Forever Evil: Blight tie-in – The Trinity of Sin battles against Constantine, Nightmare Nurse, and Swamp Thing for the way they pulled them in. Question ends up taking off but the other 2 stick around after things calm down. Blight ends up getting a hold on Earth by taking over the Stranger’s friend Chris. Gotta complicate things somehow. We even get an appearance by Black Lighting and Blue Devil who seems to be caught up in all the mystical mess going on. This side branch of the Forever Evil storyline isn’t all that interesting. Yes, it’s part of the search for one of the Justice Leagues. We haven’t seen them in Firestorm’s head so I’m not sure if somehow those specific heroes somehow got pulled elsewhere to if we somehow just never saw them there. Who knows. To quote Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Bored now.
Wow. I forgot how bad a week this was. The Fox is the only really solid book there. If I had to pick 2 others, it would be Amazing X-Men and Earth 2. I really hope this past Wednesday’s stuff is better. Still working my way through it.