Weekly Comic Review for 8/7/13
There was a little more to read this weekend.
All-New X-Men #15 – This issue plays a little closer to home. Most of it takes place right in the mansion or in the city nearby. No super-villains. It’s all character building with a little humor. Rachel comes back to the mansion clueless about what’s going on and runs across Jean a couple times. From their reactions, I guess they can’t tell who the other is. Jean does get a peak into the (older) Beast’s mind and finds out that he has once been in love with her. This causes her to approach the younger Hank about this while he’s looking into the mutations he’s fated to go through. As for Scott and Bobby, they go out on the town where they stop a getaway car and get a bunch of fan girls approaching them. A lot of character building going on for everyone here. This is, except for Angel. I’m guessing he’s over in Cyclops’ book, but it would be nice to see soem sort of update on this side.
Dial H #15 – This is it. The last issue. The big battle between the dial team, the Centipede, and the Operator. We get the history of the Operator and the dials. We even see him create a new dial (E Dial?) for Centipede to use. Roxie finds a way to turn the H Dial into a mash-up dial which causes Nelson to become combinations of the heroes he’s previously been so he could take on the Operator. In the end, they win and walk off into the sunset… of the other dimension. About as exciting and end as the rest of the series has been. It seems there’s going to be one last tie-in during the Forever Evil storyline… Justice League: Dial E. (Interesting that they put it as the Justice League tie-in.)
Earth 2 #15 – It seems that the JSA and World Army wonders didn’t do so well again Steppenwolf’s minions. For some reason, they let all the main characters live and that confuses Flash. (Mr. Terrific is on the air ship with the World Army though. But… Didn’t the JSA capture him??) We see Hawkgirl do more research and get captured by a pair called Hazard and Melody. Plus, we see Mr. Miracle (Scott Free, who got his name from Shilo Norman instead of the other way around) and Big Barda take of Fury until Red Tornado (a female looking android) shows up. Lots of interesting looks at characters going on but I still prefer the old JLA over the new one.
Green Lantern #23 – Following the battle with Larfleeze, the Corps start cleaning things up. They’ve found the member killed by the escaping criminal, the Star Sapphire who died in battle, and a rookie no one ever knew who died in his first battle. This makes Hal flip out some and he decides to go out after the escapee himself. It’s not tile he finds her that he realizes that she is a Star Sapphire herself now. And then the rings turn off again. This is already getting old.
Kevin Keller #10 – Kevin and Devon share a kiss in Pop’s shop. One of the mothers there flips out even though her daughter was cool with it. Veronica posts the whole thing to YouTube the second the argument is over and Pops has kicked the mother out. This causes the video to hit the news and the whole town to get into an uproar. Meanwhile, Devon is visiting his father who he is just coming out to when he sees the news report come on. Luckily, his father never seed it until after Devon is gone. This issue really brings up a great topic on how some people will have no problem with opposite sex couples making out in public but if same sex couples even kiss (especially if they are males), the same people will have a big problem with it. I’m glad to see topics like this being brought up in the Archie line of comics where new generations are more likely to see them.
Phantom Stranger #11 – Trinity War tie-in – Following the events in the main storyline, the Phantom Stranger takes Batman, Katana, and Deadman into the afterlife to look for Doctor Light even though he knows it may get him erased from history. There was nothing Light could remember though. Just as they are about to take Doctor Light back to Earth, he gives Phantom Stranger something just in case things don’t work out. Then, Zauriel shows up. (He really has the worst timing.) Batman, Katana, and Deadman are sent back to Earth while Doctor Light is sent back into the ball of light he had been in for healing. Finally, Zauriel takes his sword to the Phantom Stranger and obliterates him. Now, there’s a next issue so something is still going on. Plus, the powers that be seem to have a plan for the Stranger so I’m not sure that they are going to let the decision of an angel ruin their plans. Additionally, did the Phantom Stranger still have the little black orb Light gave him or did someone else get it. (You never saw it passed off.) I wonder if that might have an effect on things. More questions than answers this issue. I definitely what to see what else is going on though.
Quantum and Woody #2 – After a quick opening page, we jump back with our naked brothers who are surrounded by cops. As expected, they realize their powers by accident and end up getting themselves in trouble. They find more clues as to what their father was doing but no enough answers yet. They makes costumes so they can hit the company offices to get more answers. On the way, Woody decides it looks too gay (literally, as he describes… It reminds him of what a gay friend used to wear.) so he changes into regular clothes leaving Quantum as the only one in Spandex. Actually, the best scene in the book comes from their discussion of the costumes.
Quantum: I feel like I’m wearing bondage pajamas!
Woody: Don’t be ridiculous. Bondage pajamas would totally be assless.
Gotta love it. Like Archer & Armstrong, this book is definitely good for the laughs.
Shadowman #9 – With the help of Baron Samedi and the dead within the Deadside, Jack fights his way through to Master Darque. After a fight and lots of mystical energy going back and forth, Shadowman is able to finally defeat Darque. There is a price though. Dox doesn’t make it back. The books is mostly all the plan and battle. Not bad but not overly exciting really.
Stormwatch #23 – Not sure why I was thinking this was one of the books being cancelled but I guess it’s not. (Maybe I saw enough stuff predicting it would be next. In this issue, the team goes out on their second mission which is much more successful. When they come back, Storm Control fills the team in on some information that was withheld from them regarding the Kollective — the fact that there was an original team of Stormwatch that had been wiped out by a change in time. The team has questions about the original team and the Kollective are concerned another wipe might make someone even more powerful than Jenny Soul. After all this, Storm Control check in with Xiomar who seems had the power to open gatways. Then, Engineer gets taken over by an A.I. who wants to help them. This really isn’t getting much better unless they are able to take on the Kollective and go back to the old team. If we’re lucky, the Kollective will just wipe out the New 52 timeline and go back to the old one!
A good list of books to go through this week. The stand out books this week are All-New X-Men, Kevin Keller, and Phantom Stranger. There’s good personal storylines in each of the books that really makes me like them.
One other thing I wanted to touch on was the stuff going on in the Green Lantern line. With all the rings on the blink, I wonder how long before we get another cross-line event to address the issue with the spectrum entities. I read all the Lantern titles with the exception of Larfleeze so it’s not an issue of buying a bunch of extra titles. What’s really annoying me is the fact that most of the issues of the Green Lantern stuff for a while have all been tied in across each other. Can’t they stand on their own? Even Larfleeze’s attack linked them together even if it didn’t have a banner like “The Larfleeze War Part 1” or something. This is getting real old. I enjoy the books but I don’t like them as much as I did when each title could run it’s own storyline. I hope this improves sometimes soon.
