Wednesdaybusiness 6/19/13

This week, I'm going to steal a page from The Comics Curmudgeon's book, and try out some one-sentence reviews.

-------

A+X #9 by Nathan Edmonson, Humberto Ramos, and David Lapham

Wolverine and Cap fight giant snakes and a magically-powered chimp, and Kid Omega tries to steal Doctor Strange's stuff, and it's all very entertaining.

-------

Age of Ultron #10 by Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, Bryan Hitch, Paul Neary, Butch Guice, Brandon Peterson, Carlos Pacheco, Roger Bonet, Tom Palmer, David Marquez, and Joe Quesada

Hank Pym and the Avengers succeed in defeating Ultron and saving the future (and Hank somehow knows how to pronounce a forward slash out loud in conversation), the space/time continuum gets a little fucked up, and Joe Quesada cums all over himself for drawing a mediocre picture of Angela that he claimed was Top Classified Secret but then told the newspapers about anyway.

-------

Avengers #14 by Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer, and Stefano Caselli

The Earth is becoming a sentient entity, every electronic device on the planet - including things like planes and nukes - is blinking on and off every few minutes, the multiverse is going crazy over in New Avengers, the goons on A.I.M. Island have just hatched something potentially horrible, and Hawkguy just isn't ready to handle this level of anarchy.

-------

Batman and Batgirl #21 by Peter J. Tomasi and Cliff Richards

Batman is still losing it over the death of his son and Batgirl is still losing it over the death of her brother, and so they both lose it at each other, and the results make for a pretty fun comic.

-------

Cable and X-Force #10 by Dennis Hopeless and Salvador Larroca

The Uncanny Avengers try to arrest X-Force because they still think X-Force are terrorists even though they've very openly saved the world at this point, and it's kind of fun but also kind of stupid.

-------

Captain Marvel #13 by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Scott Hepburn, and Gerardo Sandoval

With Bruce Banner's help, Carol and company finally figure out that Yon-Rogg is behind everything, and then Kree sentinels start waking up all over the Earth and the Avengers have to go punch them.

-------

Fantastic Four #9 by Matt Fraction and Mark Bagley

The Fantastic Four go back in time to witness the creation of Doctor Doom, but so do a kajillion ultra-narcissistic Dooms from other dimensions, and it's pretty great.

-------

Indestructible Hulk # 9 by Mark Waid and Matteo Scalera

The Hulk teams up with Daredevil to help him out with his usual Daredevil business, and instead of explaining why that's so much fun I'm just going to post one whole page from the comic.

-------

Morbius #6 by Joe Keatinge and Valentine de Landro

The Superior Spider-Man bullies Morbius into helping determine the cause of a break-in at Horizon Labs, and they end up fighting a new techno-supervillain named Nikoleta Harrow who is really cool and I hope becomes a recurring character.

-------

New Avengers #7 by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Deodato

The Multiverse is still going completely haywire, Doctor Doom is pretty suspicious about the bits of it he's seen, Wakanda and Atlantis are going to war, and it really feels like Jonathan Hickman's getting into his groove in the best possible way lately.

-------

Supergirl #21 by Michael Alan Nelson and Diogenes Neves

I am kind of surprised by this, as I don't hear many people talking about it, but Supergirl is easily the best comic in the Nü52 right now, aside from maybe Dial H.

-------

The Superior Spider-Man #12 by Christos Gage and Giuseppe Camuncoli

As the Spider-Slayer takes over the prison and gives a bunch of the inmates increased powers, J. Jonah Jameson becomes... ACTION OLD-GUY!

-------

Thunderbolts #11 by Daniel Way and Phil Noto

I usually really like Daniel Way's comics, but for all the action this one has it's still totally boring me.

--

-------

Uncanny Avengers #9 by Rick Remender and Daniel Acuña

Captain America found out about all the killing Wolverine did in Uncanny X-Force and he's kind of being an uptight turd about it considering that he killed hundreds and hundreds of Nazis back in the day, the Apocalypse Twins have put together a pretty hilarious Four Horsemen that I don't want to spoil yet, and apparently Wonder Man is a pacifist now for some reason?

Geek Packing

So we're moving to a new apartment. This is what it takes to transport all of my trades, graphic novels, and comics. Yyyyyyyeah.

Next order of business: Action figures. LOL my life.

Wednesdaybusiness 6/12/13

Speeding to catch up on almost a month's worth of comics after a hectic move to a new apartment. These reviews may be a bit brusque!

-------

Astonishing X-Men #63 by Marjorie Liu and Gabriel Hernandez Walta

You know what? I'm just going to come right out and say it: This comic is fucking stupid.

So apparently Iceman was severely messed up by the events of X-Termination, though I only know that through the synopsis on Marvel's website. He's so far been dealing with this by... harassing all of his ex-girlfriends. Now he's gone all Omega-Level Mutant and frozen all of America. The fact that all of the USA is frozen is not mentioned in any other Marvel comic, FYI, and Iceman seems to be fine in all the other X-Comics he's in. While he's busy freezing the entire country and turning himself into a giant ice-monster, he's also rounding up all his exes for... reasons. This doesn't entirely make sense, because some of his exes are quite powerful in their own right. Shadowcat has seen her share of battle, and Polaris is Magneto's friggin' daughter.

I've noticed a trend of internalized sexism in Majorie Liu's comics. As a straight cisgendered dude, I don't necessarily like to even bring something like this up - because I know I probably shouldn't be opining on how a woman chooses to write women - but this story is really wigging me out. Last issue's scene where Iceman took over Mystique's bathwater and started feeling her up has not been addressed as any sort of assault or violation; In fact, she actually seemed more worried about him than anything. In this issue, he's literally freezing his ex-girlfriends in blocks of ice, and they're still all "OH POOR BOBBY!"

My good friend Jellybean "Don't You Die on Me!" Bonanza referred to this issue as He's Just Not That Into You Even Though You Could Combine Forces And Kill Him. I think that's pretty spot-on.

Nice Guy Iceman is sick of being put in the Friend-Zone, is what I'm saying.

Maybe worry more about the army of ice-monsters and less about the immature idiot you all dumped years ago.

------- 

Avengers Assemble #16 by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matteo Buffagni

In part two of The Enemy Within, Captain Marvel has bucked the usual trends and tropes, and actually gone with the most rational course of action right away: Calling up all of her teammates in the Avengers the instant things seem to be starting to go wrong. I can't even describe how happy this makes me. I really hate it when something horrible is going down in the middle of New York City and I'm left saying "Where are all the eighty-kajillion other superheroes in NYC? Why is it just [blank] handling this alone?!"

So S.W.O.R.D. reports a Brood invasion in the center of NYC, yet they didn't detect their ship approaching. The Avengers - especially Thor, Wolverine, and Hulk - make short work of the aliens, like you'd hope and expect. Captain Marvel is starting to realize that she's been passing through a Greatest Hits of her superhero career, and that her unseen enemy Yon-Rogg is to blame.

Yon-Rogg, meanwhile, is trying to contact his fellow Kree on the planet Hala to report in, and offers to conquer the Earth for them. They basically tell him to go screw, he has a hissy fit, absorbs the last shard of the Psyche-Magnetron into himself, and vows to conquer the Earth for himself.

I love DeConnick's writing (I know I say that all the damned time but it's true), and I'm glad they're giving her a sort of Event book, even if it's taking place over the course of two comics she was already writing. I'm quite interested to see where this thing goes, as the stakes are already pretty high and we're only on part two of five.

This comic is so self-aware that it runs the risk of coming to life.

-------

Avenging Spider-Man #22 by Christopher Yost and David Lopez

Octo-Spidey and The Punisher both end up fighting Hobgoblin. The Punisher uses the opportunity to find out if Spider-Man really has begun killing his enemies, and finds out that the answer is YUP. He confronts Spider-Man about it, they get in a brief scuffle, Spidey webs him to a wall.

The books ends with the revelation that Octo-Spidey's been keeping all his enemies and/or former comrades (depending on how you look at it) in tubes deep in some bunker somewhere. I hope we learn more about that, but I believe this is the last issue of this comic, which is restarting as Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #1 next issue.

I don't mean to undersell this issue, as it was a great read. There just isn't a whole lot to summarize about it. And sometimes a simple, solid story is a good thing.

22,173 is a lot of entries. Where does Frank keep all these hundreds of journals?

-------

Batman #21 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

The full title of this comic is Batman: Zero Year: Secret City: Part One. Clearly, the Nü52 is living up to its promise that it will simplify things. LOL LOL LOL.

I guess this is supposed to be the Nü52 version of Batman: Year One. Except that where Year One was gritty and direct, Zero Year is zany and baffling. I may just be stupid, but I seriously could follow this thing. All I really know is that young Bruce Wayne was whiny and wore a lot of rubber Mission Impossible masks, and that we're getting A Portrait of the Riddler as a Young Man.

I think this is just a case of me being too firmly grounded in my Post-Crisis upbringing. I know who my Batman is and where he came from, and this is not my Batman.

YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD, ALFRED!

-------

Guardians of the Galaxy #4 by Brian Michael Bendis, Steve McNiven, and Sara Pichelli

This comic took a little while to grow on me, especially with the sort of emo rejiggering of Star-Lord's backstory, but I'm finally starting to feel like it's slowly approaching the level of awesomeness that Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning were able to squeeze out of these characters a few years back. It isn't quite there yet, but it's certainly picking up. I think that Bendis is finally starting to get better at writing ensemble casts. I don't know if he took some writing lessons or what (and I'm not saying that to make fun of him; there's nothing wrong with making efforts to improve your art), but it's a noticeable change from the clusterfuck Avengers books he was writing a few years ago, and I'm genuinely impressed.

Minor gripe: The planet is called Spartax. The people and things on the planet are referred to as Spartoi. Bendis still isn't very good at research.

He IS Groot, you know.

-------

Savage Wolverine #6 by Zeb Wells and Joe Madureira

So we're starting a new era of Savage Wolverine, where it will be a place writers and artists can tell whatever stories about Wolverine they want, without being bogged down by the constraints of continuity. I think that's a pretty rad idea.

However, this issue makes a point of mentioning that this takes place before Doc Ock took over Spider-Man's brain, which is a moot point both due to the non-canon nature of the series, and the fact that Spidey's only in it for a couple pages.

This issue is about Elektra recruiting Wolverine to fight some ninjas and do some killin'. The Hand, Kingpin, and Lady Bullseye are all involved. I'm excited about this one. I love Daredevil stuff, and chucking Wolverine in there instead could make for a really fun story.

It's tellin' you to stop sniffing women you don't know very well.

-------

Superman Unchained #1 by Scott Snyder and Jim Lee

Andy Khouri of ComicsAlliance already had a really fun article about this comic on the internet before I even got the chance to read the thing, so you might as well just go check that out.

The one thing I'll say about this book is that I'm really glad to see Nü52 Superman actually behaving in a noble and heroic way, instead of being the smarmy asshole Geoff Johns has been writing him as in the various Justice League books. This actually feels like a proper Superman story, and that's great.

Though Jim Lee has a tendency to make Superman look really scary a lot of the time.

-------

Uncanny X-Force #6 by Sam Humphries, Adrian Alphona, and Dexter Soy

We're finally starting to see some Spiral in this book, which frankly is the first thing that's caught my interest about it. Also, the Fantomex Triplets are back. Also also, Bishop seems to be going back to normal. This comic has been slow going so far, but it seems to be picking up. I'm glad to see it.

The Mojoverse: Not a great place to grow up!

-------

Wolverine and the X-Men #31 by Jason Aaron and Nick Bradshaw

I'm starting to find out that I don't know many people who are following this book. You really should be. It's great.

The new Hellfire Club has gathered dozens of X-Villains to be teachers at their new school full of newly-discovered mutants and defectors from the Jean Grey School. Quentin Quire, aka Kid Omega, has attempted to infiltrate the school. He's failed. Things are getting interesting.

I really love Quentin Quire. I am totally willing to read a story that is all about him.

I love the idea of a supervillain school.

-------

Wolverine #4 by Paul Cornell and Alan Davis

This book is crazily weird, made by two of the best people in the comics world, and I love it. That is all.

Seriously, Wolverine, stop sniffing people.

Wednesdaybusiness 6/5/13

I know it's been a while since I've posted. I'm back-dating my reviews. Sorry these won't show up in anybody's feed-readers!

-------

Age of Ultron #9 by Brian Michael Bendis, Brandon Peterson, and Carlos Pacheco

So Age of Ultron is finally starting to be about Ultron again. Woot?

Morgan le Fay's universe apparently kerploded, and Wolverine was the only survivor, because OF COURSE HE WAS. He wakes up after some sort of epic world-ending battle that we didn't get to see. Bendis comes from the "Tell, don't Show" school of comics, apparently. I mean, who would want to see a team of alternate-universe Avengers have an epic battle against the forces of magic anyway? FUCK THAT, let's see some long-winded dialogue instead!

You guys, I don't like this series very much.

So yeah. Wolverine goes off... somewhere... and hops in a time-machine that we don't get to see. Again, it happens totally off-panel. New York City is in ruins. It is seriously a wasteland. But then on the next page Wolverine has traveled through time like it's just something he always does.

Anyway, Wolverine goes back in time to stop the other Wolverine from his past but our future from killing Hank Pym's past self to prevent him from creating Ultron in his future so that Ultron won't kill everybody in both Wolverines' presents. Oh, and Sue Storm is there, and Wolverine punches her. Off-panel.

They concoct some sort of plan where Hank Pym of the past will code a virus into Ultron's initial programming and then somehow force himself to forget about it until the exact moment when Ultron tries to kill all the humans... You know, that one time he tried to do the thing that he tries to do every time?

Then the two Wolverines and Sue Storm are suddenly back in The Savage Land on the next page. Their travel from New York to Antarctica in a flying car took place off-panel. The two Wolverines go into some cave, because they've decided that one needs to kill the other for reasons.

The end.

Seriously, this fucking comic, you guys. This fucking comic.

SEEMS LEGIT.

-------

All-New X-Men #12 by Brian Michael Bendis and Stuart Immonen

So now we make the leap through some sort of cosmic wormhole into another Bendis comic, but one that is REALLY GOOD. Seriously: Age of Ultron makes me want to slam my head through the drywall, and All-New X-Men is one of my favorite comics right now, and I just can't get that to make sense!

So in this book, Mystique, Sabretooth, and Lady Mastermind are disguising themselves as the young X-Men and committing all sorts of elaborate heists (which has led to them having a Scrooge McDuck money room, and that is hilarious). The Uncanny Avengers go to Wolverine's school to investigate, and Young Cyclops gets to meet Old Havok.

The scene between Cyclops and Havok is genuinely beautiful. This version of Cyclops is from so far in the past that he still didn't even know his brother was alive, let alone a mutant. And now he's finding out that in the future - a future that has mostly seemed incredibly bleak to him - his brother is not only alive, and not only a fellow mutant, but also is the leader of a team of Avengers that includes Captain America. It's a really nice way to throw the character a bone after he's been getting kicked around for eleven issues.

And then Young Jean Grey starts rummaging in Scarlet Witch's head, finds out that she depowered all the mutants a few years ago, and the two of them get into a huge fight.

All of this is illustrated wonderfully by Stuart Immonen. I know I say that about every issue, but I seriously can't get enough of that guy's work.

I just don't understand Bendis at all. Maybe he's overworked? Let's just let him write his two X-Men books and hand all the other shit over to somebody else.

I don't know why Cap is being such a dick, tho.

-------

Avengers #13 by Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer, and Mike Deodato

The High Evolutionary and his army of manimals have captured all of the little super-kids that Hyperion has adopted, and the High Evolutionary is trying to use them as a power source. Hyperion rips his arm off. It regrows as a gun. Then the High Evolutionary resurrects Terminus, and rides around inside him like a Power Ranger. Hyperion teams up with Thor to wreck everyone's face.

This comic is complex, and extraordinarily creative, and has beautiful artwork, and also knows exactly when to just say "fuck it" and have some godlike heroes and villains punch the shit out of eachother. I love it.

Maybe don't kidnap this guy's kids, is all I'm saying.

 -------

Avengers Arena #10 by Dennis Hopeless and Riccardo Burchielli

In case you can't tell from the cover, this is the issue where Nico gets killed by a Sentinel. Oh, um, spoilers, I guess?

The first few pages are literally just Nico crawling around in the snow covered in blood, missing one of her arms, so it's really not much of a spoiler. The rest of the issue is a flashback to HOW Nico got killed.

This comic is a total trainwreck and is screwing with a lot of really great characters that I really care about and yet it's just so damned readable that I can't look away.

Comics! For the kids!

-------

Cable and X-Force #9 by Frank Tieri and Salvador Larroca

Apparently Dennis Hopeless stepped away from this comic this month so he could focus fully on murdering the heck out of Nico in Avengers Assemble.

So Frank Tieri - who I'm honestly not familiar with - has stepped in to tell a story that's not related to Cable or X-Force at all.

I guess the Avengers forced Hope to live with a pair of foster parents at some point after Avengers versus X-Men. Given that she is the mutant savior, and also incredibly powerful, it seems like maybe she should have been sent to Wolverine's school or something? At any rate, she wants to hang with Cable, who she considers her real father, so she attempts an escape. The Uncanny Avengers show up to stop her, she defeats them handily, and hops a bus to wherever the heck Cable is right now.

It was actually a very good issue, despite framing the Uncanny Avengers as a bunch of easily-bamboozled nitwits.

Suffice it to say, the Avengers do not support her right to choose.

-------

Dial H #13 by China Miéville and Alberto Ponticelli

Dial H remains not only my favorite DC book, but one of my favorite current comics, full stop.

It's a bit too twisty-turny and surreal to give a proper summary of at this point. This issue focuses on the character of Open-Window Man, and it is fantastic. His origin story caused me to laugh harder at a comicbook than I have in years. It is simultaneously silly and brilliant.

If you're reluctant to take the plunge into the actual Nü52 but don't want to give up on DC completely, BUY THIS BOOK. Buy all the issues. Read them all in one sitting. It is outstanding.

Open-Window Man: Year One

-------

Fearless Defenders #5 by Cullen Bunn and Will Sliney

While this isn't my favorite comic in the world, I would've bought it for the cover alone.

This one is essentially just a long fight-scene, where they call in all their super-powered friends to help them out. It's the most fun issue of Fearless Defenders so far.

The book has been suffering from a lack of Colleen Wing.

-------

Iron Man #11 by Kieron Gillen and Dale Eaglesham

This comic has taken a very rapid u-turn from being something I thought was great, to being something I think is terrible. Not just terrible as a story, but terrible for the actual character of Iron Man.

Basically, Howard and Maria Stark were having trouble conceiving a child, so an alien robot offered to help. But he also genetically altered baby Iron Man to be super-intelligent and super-talented with technology, because humanity needed some sort of catalyst to spark super-science and "uplift" human civilization. Which not only ruins the whole self-made-genius aspect of Tony Stark, but also pretends that Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Bruce Banner, Victor Von Doom, and hundreds of other super-scientists wouldn't have had any impact on humanity at all.

I really hope this is all later revealed to be some kind of trick, because otherwise it will fuck up Iron Man on a baseline character level. I don't care if Gillen wants to tell this story and see it out to the conclusion, but if that's the case I hope the next writer comes along and says "Nope!"

Just a few issues ago, we were fighting Death's Head. What happened!?

-------

The Movement #2 by Gail Simone and Freddie Williams II

I'm gonna' be real with you: I love Gail Simone, but I can't seem to follow this comic at all. I have no idea who these people are or what they're doing.

It's still early, and I do really like that DC is giving one of my favorite writers a lot of room to create and play in her own brand-new corner of their fictional world. But right now I'm not feeling any particular feelings about this comic.

I now know more about "James Cannon" than any of the main characters.

-------

Red She-Hulk #66 by Jeff Parker, Carlo Pagulayan, Patrick Olliffe, and Joe Bennett 

This comic is getting too difficult for me to review. All I can really say each month is "It's awesome."

Betty Ross has easily become one of my favorite superheroes ever, in a very short time. Seriously, go buy this book.

That's just how it goes.

-------

Superior Spider-Man #11 by Christos Gage and Giuseppe Camuncoli

Christos Gage has apparently stepped in to write the script for this issue. I like Christos Gage.

Spidey has been called in by Mayor Jameson to oversee the execution of Alistair Smythe, aka the Spider-Slayer, the man who killed Jameson's wife. Obviously, Jolly Jonah wants this thing to go off without a hitch.

Octo-Spidey is less than thrilled to be returning to the prison he broke out of in his previous life, but he also wants the mayor to trust him, and sort of wants to see the Spider-Slayer get iced, too.

Smythe breaks free, of course. But Otto has already used his intimate, insider knowledge of the prison to block every possible escape-route as he chases Smythe. It's a really cool look into what all these criminal masterminds and super-genius inventors think about while they're sitting around in jail all day. I really like where this plot-line is going.

My one small gripe is that this book is changing artists pretty frequently. They've all been extremely talented artists, but it's still a little disorienting.

Spider-bots!