TF Views

When ever I see Jon Stewart I think of the Daily Show.

Someone shoop this! Now!

Sparky Prime wrote:Yeah, I had the same thought.

...I have now seen Sparky's Sex Shades.

I've been getting through the X-Men trade I got for X-Mass, and I'm loving Forge's debut. I always felt there was more to the guy than I knew, and I was right.

Also: CANON AGES. I dunno what happened in the late 90s, but X-Men suddenly stopped talking about how old they are. Before then, though, it's all over the place! Kurt's 21st birthday! Rogue is 18! Crazy.

Avengers Prime #5:
Meh. No real suprises. No real twists. Nothing much to write about. Buy it if you need filler. Skip it otherwise.
Grade: C/D

GI Joe Origins #23:
The "Origins" series ends this issue. But, this last arc will presumably be picked up in a later series. And, if not, it would be simple enough to write the story of the Mad Monk off as an example of serious organization disfunction. Contrary to my early impressions, the Monk did not end up becoming Snake-Eyes.



Dom
-still has not read all of this week's comics....nor started "Batman Inc."

Gomess wrote:
I've been getting through the X-Men trade I got for X-Mass, and I'm loving Forge's debut. I always felt there was more to the guy than I knew, and I was right.

Also: CANON AGES. I dunno what happened in the late 90s, but X-Men suddenly stopped talking about how old they are. Before then, though, it's all over the place! Kurt's 21st birthday! Rogue is 18! Crazy.

Well, speaking of Forge and Canon Ages, Forge is a Vietnam Vet. That puts him around my dad's age, so...about 60? Go ahead and try to picture Storm being around that age. I'll bet you can't do it.

Forge, though, is totally one of my very favorite X-Men ever. Even when he got Jim Lee'd, wherein he had one of the worst costumes ever. Basic X-Men uniform, not bad. Accentuate it with fringed boots and ponytail to get stereotypical Native American points? Man, Claremont didn't even stereotype the dude up this much. Add in exposed section of his robot leg, which means that he cut out the thigh of every uniform he wears to show off the crippling injury he got in Vietnam? Oh, yeah. We have a winner. Even with all that, I like the guy.

His power's amazingly practical, and you throw in the magical ability he had back in the early days, you've got a guy not to be messed with. But he can't get out of his own way. He makes a lot of mistakes, which is something Warren Ellis really ran with at the beginning of his X-Men run. For some reason, I'm a sucker for characters that just can't get things to go right for themselves at all.

By the way, Gomess, have you read Ellis' X-Men stuff? It's fantastic, especially the first arc with Simone Bianchi drawing it.

Iron Man and Thor #3:
Abnett does a good job of blending the high concept, (forcing devine evolution), with common sense.

Grade: B


Dom
-cannot post a real review.

138 Scourge wrote:By the way, Gomess, have you read Ellis' X-Men stuff? It's fantastic, especially the first arc with Simone Bianchi drawing it.

I have not. Ellis is hit and miss for me, but I'd like to see what he does with the mutants. And Simone Bianchi's always good.

Of course, my comics tastes aren't a yardstick for anyone, because I still love Liefeld's X-Force run. Maybe for different reasons to most of my fellow 90s Kids.

Come on, Rob, seriously; YOU set up Shatterstar being bisexual. You did it. "Warrior culture similar to an Ancient Greek or Trojan", no kidding.

/lack of knowledge of current comics prevents further participation in thread~ bzzzzt

JSA vol 4: Fair Play

Finally got the next volume of JSA. It doesn't have the bumper 10 issues that vol. 3 did, and the individual chapters are kind of all over the place, making a unifying theme difficult. And the art changes from chapter to chapter. More than any of the volumes so far, this one screams "unrelated monthly issues!".

The central story of the book concerns Roulette, a character who owns an underground metahuman fighting ring. She kidnaps people and forces them to fight while the spectators place bets on who will win. I saw this and immediately thought "I've seen this on Justice League Unlimited". And it's the same basic concept for one of the episodes of that series, the one focusing on Wildcat. No doubt they got it from the comic, which predated the show by a few years. The title of the collected volume probably comes from the fact that Sand steps down as chairman and Mr. Terrific takes over, just in time to go through this ordeal.

An interesting tidbit is established in several chapters: Alan Scott, Sentinel (when does he go back to calling himself Green Lantern?) is no longer human. His body is composed of the green energy, and he wasn't even aware of it. Dr. Mid-Nite even tells him "you only bleed because you think you should". Makes you wonder why he can't heal his broken spine in the current issue of the monthly series...

Then there's a weird chapter with Stargirl, Jakeem Thunder and Solomon Grundy. And a big Joker grin on the Statue of Liberty. Probably some crossover I know nothing about.

And finally, the last chapter has the JSA investigating a murder in Gotham, where they run into Batman. This is probably my favorite chapter of the book, largely because we actually see Batman showing respect for someone for once, namely Alan Scott and the other original JSA members. He's not so taken with the new team members, comparing them unfavorably to their namesakes. But they work together to solve the case, and there are some nice character moments along the way.

Overall: As I said, more than any of the other volumes, this one shows its status as a collection of monthly issues. But character change, some leave, some new ones arrive, and some plots are set up for the future. Good solid superhero storytelling, in my view.

andersonh1 wrote: Then there's a weird chapter with Stargirl, Jakeem Thunder and Solomon Grundy. And a big Joker grin on the Statue of Liberty. Probably some crossover I know nothing about.

Maybe the "Last Laugh" thing? The Joker was going to die, so he Jokerized a bunch of other villains and let 'em loose. Yeah, it was about as dumb as it sounds, but the part of the crossover that went through Simonson's "Orion" book was pretty solid.

This is why I don't read the big two anymore. Because even if you read just one title, something from one of the other gajillion titles that they've decided to cross over shows up inexplicably leaving one thinking "what the fuck?" which really means that you can't ever just read one of their titles you have to read them all. Gah.
/rant.