Comics are awesome.

[138 Scourge]

I'm gonna go ahead and pass on Flashpoint. And on Fear Itself, for that matter. You'd think I'd be all over a summer event book done by Matt Fraction and Stuart Immonen, but I just don't feel the need for it.

Now, "Spider Island", that could be interesting. I guess everyone in New York ends up with Spider-Powers, maybe? Looks like something that could tread a fine line between "Superhero Story" and "Horror Movie", and that's the kind of thing that perks my ears up. Plus, it involves the new Spider-Girl, and I like her.

Anyway, I discovered a new comics store I really liked on FCBD, so I guess that event works sometimes, huh? Kind of sucks for the store I left, I guess, but whatevs. Going to this new store's gotten me buying more comics lately. Here's some of 'em I've bought and what I thought of 'em.

Herc #3: A Fear Itself tie-in. Well, these things get hard to avoid. Anyway, Herc spends his first day taking appeals from the people of Brooklyn, whom he's sworn to protect. The appeals for Herc's help are hilarious, ranging from troubles with thugs and drug dealers, to little yapping dogs, to one dude just straight telling Herc he's gotta go after the Kenyans and the Greeks. Herc gets a new costume, which is handy since it makes less sense for him to be wearing the ol' sash-and-skirt combo into combat now that he's no longer superpowered or immortal. Also, a gang of villains busts loose from the Raft, Marvel's current super-prison. The villains are inspired choices for Hercules to go against: The Basilisk, the Griffin, Man-Bull (half-man, half-bull), and a mystery villainess with a nice last-page reveal. Pak and Van Lente have done an amazing job of making this second-tier hero into one of my favorite Marvel character, and this issue makes Herc really feel like the same dude I became such a fan of in Incredible Hercules.

FF #3: So you've got four alternate-universe versions of Reed Richards running around trapped in the 616, and since none of 'em are as compassionate as the regular Reed Richards, they have every intention of sacrificing the 616 Earth for what they perceive to be a greater good. What to do? Well, if you're Val Richards, Reed's super-genius daughter, you get together Doctor Doom, the Wizard, the Mad Thinker, some dudes from AIM, Diablo, and more besides together to plot Reed Richards stopping strategy. This book, as I've mentioned before, seems really gimmicky from the premise, but it delivers on Johnathan Hickman's desire to do the kind of FF stories that haven't been done before. I'm really liking it, and for as much as I like the FF, I'm really hard to please when it comes to their comics. A bit slow, but the fact it seems to be biweekly right now helps keep things moving.

Captain America: The Fighting Avenger One-Shot: Hey, Prowl. You bought this yet? You oughtta buy this. It's by Brian Clevinger and Gurihiru. This was supposed to be a longer series, but Marvel's tragically cutting back on their all-ages stuff lately. Damn shame, they were a line of fun, low-continuity stories that delivered superhero action in it's purest form. This particular issue features a story set in Cap's early days, before he even had a proper codename (a running joke in the book). He's assigned to a crack squad of US soldiers so they can show him the ropes of fighting a war, give him a bit of experience. The mission's supposed to be a milk run, until Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker shows up. And before Strucker brings them to his superior, one Johann Schmidt. Obviously this book isn't set in 616 Marvel, but who gives even half a rat's ass, it's a fun story with Gurihiru's always gorgeous art.

Alpha Flight #.1: Good god, friggin' gimmick numbering. Okay, Alpha's had a convoluted history, which all was just sort of cut short when most of the team was killed off-panel in an issue of Avengers. During the Chaos War event, the guys that were killed off came back to life and managed to stay that way. Everyone that was dead came back, but Alpha actually got to stay resurrected when Hercules put the universe back together. Chalk it up to Herc being a pretty flawed god, or say that his affection for Snowbird subconsciously bring back her friends, but either way, Canada's got a super-team again. This being dead and brought back actually helps some of the characters, Guardian, for instance. Last I checked in with that guy, he'd died, come back, turned out to be a killer robot pretending to be Guardian, come back again, but somehow kind of an android character, died again, brought back as a teenager, showed up as the older character simultaneous to the teenage one, then the two versions were gonna co-exist because they couldn't figure out who was the real one...y'know, things like this, a simple "was killed and brought back from the underworld" is sometimes the best solution. And in a way, I like that they don't waste time with how they came back. No Alpha Flight: Rebirth here, they're just back. (For you DC guys, it's like the end of Blackest Night). This "preview" issue covers the returned Alpha facing down a two-pronged terrorist attack on Canadian election day. But said "terrorists" include the Purple Girl, a former Alpha member. And they claim to be gathering proof of bad things about the "Unity Party", the Canadian third party that wins the election in a landslide by the end of the issue. Basically, it serves to re-introduce the characters and set up the new series, which, from what I can tell, Canada's newly-elected "Unity Government" is gonna be bad news. Fun fact: said Unity party is led by Gary Cody, longtime Alpha supporting cast member based on a friend of team creator John Byrne. This is basically the original Byrne team, just with slightly different takes on the characters. For instance, I don't think original Marrina would have said "Bite me, Earth media". I'm in for the ride, this is by Pak and Van Lente, and with what they've done with Hercules, I'm interested in seeing what they do with a team I've always kind of liked. Just by including the Purple Girl, and showing her do cool new things with her mind-control powers, they've shown they're not gonna ignore what came between Byrne's run and now, so that's a mark in the book's favor already.

So that's some of what I've gotten lately. I slacked for awhile, but I like getting the comics weekly again. It's a fun thing to look forward to on Wednesdays.

[Dominic]

"FF" and "Fear Itself" would be tempting if not for the fact that I am trying to cut my pull-list.

Dom

[138 Scourge]

Oh, here's some more stuff I bought lately:

Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth Axe Cop's a crazy webcomic written by a six-year old and drawn by his thirty-year old brother. So it's every bizarre kid's action fantasy given relatively coherent shape. It is hilarious. Chicken-brain robots stealing a giant diamond to get parts to power a bad-guy making machine? Why not? Axe Cop and his team leaving their main mission to go back in time because the dinosaurs need help? You bet. How can you tell that Earth's becoming bad guy Earth? The planet grows giant devil horns, what else? It's a pretty fantastic read, I highly recommend the three-issue "Bad Guy Earth" series, or just checking out the webcomic. Great stuff.

Venom #1 and 2: I cannot friggin' believe I'm buying a Venom book. Still, this is by Rick Remender and Tony Moore, and those are the guys that gave us "FrankenCastle", so I'm inclined to trust those guys. This book centers of Flash Thompson, former school bully that made it his mission in life to give Peter Parker a hard time. Flash has had a hard time of it since the original Spidey books, being a recovering alcoholic who's short of couple of legs. Now, Spider-Man's biggest fan plays host to an entity that just hates Spider-Man's guts, and together, they play covert ops super-soldier. Interesting combination. I like the strict protocols preventing Flash from bonding with the suit: He can only wear it for forty-eight hours at a time, and for a limited number of missions. If he loses control of himself and the symbiote takes over, there's a kill switch installed in him that'll blow him right the hell up. In these two issues, Venom's trying to stop a mysterious weapons dealer that's trying to get a supply of Antartic Vibranium, which dissolves all other metals. In the course of this, he runs into a new Jack-O-Lantern and one of the Kravens the Hunter (no idea if this is Sergei or Alexi Kravinoff, probably the first, but he's crazy and lives in the Savage Land like the second). So far, I like it. The stories move fast and the art is just gorgeous. Not wild about the new Jack O' Lantern, he seems pretty much like Deadpool with a flaming pumpkin on his head, but he might grown on me a little more as the book goes on. I'll stick around for awhile, since I can safely say this is my favorite version of Venom yet. Not that the competition there was real hard.

[Dominic]

GI Joe (Cobra) #10 and #11: I picked up the two issues leading up to the Commander's death the other day while stopping in at Harrison's. (And, if Newbury keeps cocking up my pull list, I might be stopping in at Harrison's even more.) That said, these are as good as one would reasonably expect, meaning they are excellent. Costa wrote the sort of story that comics should have, big ideas mixed into a "what happens next" type of story. Grade: A


Dom
-has piles of unread comics? How? Why? Who know. Stay tuned.

[Dominic]

GI Joe Cobra #1:
IDW renumbered the Joe books. In the case of "Cobra", this is the second renumbering. (Stocking and buying back-issues of this series is going to be a joy for people who work in comic shops. And, it is going to throw off the numbering of the compilations.) Baroness is the focus of this issue. But, it looks like Costa is going to play around with Serpentor and a new character, Vargas. This is the only Joe book that I am going to bother reading.

Grade: A


Dom
-still has piles of unread comics....

[Sparky Prime]

Green Lantern #66, Green Lantern Corps #60, Emerald Warriors #10
Wow, all three titles in a single week. Kinda nice reading a whole 'chapter' of the War of the Green Lanterns all at once. And this chapter had some pretty big developments... Last we left off Hal and Guy were facing the Entity possessed Guardians while John and Kyle went to try to stop Mogo from recruiting more Green Lanterns under Krona's control. Well here

Spoiler

John upholds his reputation of destroying planets by killing Mogo

. Honestly, I thought that would be a possibility, but I'm a bit surprised they actually went that route. Seemed to me like he gave up a little too easily on finding another option. Things start to turn around here with the conclusion being in the next round of issues. As I've said before, this hasn't been the 'war' between Green Lanterns I was expecting this story to be, but it has still been an interesting conflict within the Green Lanterns. Should be good to see how this turns out.

[andersonh1]

Green Lantern #66, Green Lantern Corps #60, Emerald Warriors #10
Wow, all three titles in a single week. Kinda nice reading a whole 'chapter' of the War of the Green Lanterns all at once. And this chapter had some pretty big developments... Last we left off Hal and Guy were facing the Entity possessed Guardians while John and Kyle went to try to stop Mogo from recruiting more Green Lanterns under Krona's control. Well here

Spoiler

John upholds his reputation of destroying planets by killing Mogo

. Honestly, I thought that would be a possibility, but I'm a bit surprised they actually went that route. Seemed to me like he gave up a little too easily on finding another option. Things start to turn around here with the conclusion being in the next round of issues. As I've said before, this hasn't been the 'war' between Green Lanterns I was expecting this story to be, but it has still been an interesting conflict within the Green Lanterns. Should be good to see how this turns out.

I hate to see

Spoiler

Mogo killed

. I agree that it seemed like John should have taken more time to consider his options. The future strain between him and Kyle could be interesting. Guy across well, and I really enjoy the way he's written these days. He's still got the attitude and determination of the 90's version, but he's got some more depth too. I liked his admission about how much he loves the Corps.

[Sparky Prime]

The future strain between him and Kyle could be interesting.

Or anyone else in the Corps for that matter. At least with

Spoiler

Xanshi there was an outside force destroying the planet and John in his overconfidence failed to stop. But Mogo, he killed himself.

The solicitations have been saying one of the four wouldn't be a Lantern anymore by the end of this story and this development I think would make a strong case for John getting kicked out.

I liked his admission about how much he loves the Corps.

I thought that was interesting as well. And his hate being that he was filled with rage. Kind of ironic being the Lantern with the worst temper and one of the few to shown with a great deal of control while wearing a Red ring.

[Dominic]

Likely it was a question of Guy being used to being angry all the damned time.

As for killing Mogo, how much time to you really want to spend thinking about other options when you opponent has his own gravity well?


Dom
-just saying.....

[Dominic]

I cannot find, nor do I feel much like searching for, the movie thread.

Thor (the Mighty Avenger):
Passable plotting. Well paced. A few worthless characters and scenes. Thor's squeamishness about genocide falls someplace between unintentionally hilarious and eye-rollingly stupid. Not a terrible movie. But, wait for the DVD, but even so, do not make an special effort.

Grade: C/D