Saturday, November 27, 2010

The Best of the Rest! November 27th edition.

Hey all, hopefully you're enjoying some sort of Thanksgiving break. I know I am! Since I am officially on Thanksgiving break, I can devote some more time to posting to this here blog. And as such, here's yet another Best of the Rest! This week's BotR is a bit of a mixed bag, with a few Marvel and DC books, some good and some horrible. So let's get this party started!!!

Help me, I'm drowning!
So during my last BotR post I mentioned how much I was enjoying the Aquaman series I had started reading a week ago. What a difference a week makes! These past couple of issues have been bad. I'd almost go so far as to say REALLY bad! See, when I think Aquaman I think underwater. Makes sense, no? And yet for some reason the storyline I'm currently moving through involves an alien invasion. In an Aquaman comic book. Yuh-huh... The series still has Peter David's at times laugh out loud moments, but I can't wait for this storyline to end!

Okay, with the preliminary blabbing out of the way, we head to the main event, the comic books! First up is Osborn #1. We detail the case of the incarcerated Norman Osborn, who has yet to be formally charged for his meltdown during the Siege of Asgard. A few Senators are debating whether he should be charged in a regular court, or whether he should be handed over to the military. However the Senators are afraid that Osborn will get off on an insanity plea, so they decide to lock him away in some sort of ultra-top secret prison. However, it appears that one of the Senators is a fan/disciple of Osborn, and that the priest who is working at the top secret prison is also an Osborn groupie. Well, after reading this comic I can gladly state that I won't be picking up the rest of this series. I didn't really know what to expect going in, but this wasn't it. It wasn't a terrible story, but it just didn't interest me in the least. I just can't rationalize paying $4 for a comic that didn't hook me. Score: 5 out of 10.

Let's switch gears a bit and head over to DC to check out Batman: Streets of Gotham #17. This issue begins with Harley Quinn wandering around in a daze committing crimes. After she's finished, she returns to her base and is accosted by Catwoman. The two women begin to fight, and Batman shows up and knocks Harley out cold. At first Catwoman believes Batman is Dick Grayson, but Bats reveals that he was actually Bruce Wayne, and the two share a kiss. From there Bruce tells CW that there have been other cases like this, where a person would be bitten by weird little bugs, which would then mind control the person. From there we head to Hush, who was kidnapped by an old mobster last issue who had a score to settle with Bruce Wayne. Before the mobster can kill Hush, he beats up the old mobster's goons and swipes the gun from the mobster, revealing that he isn't Bruce Wayne, and that he wanted to work with the mobster in getting at Bruce. This was a weird one. I don't know what the HELL was going on in that first half of this comic with the bugs and Harley... That was pretty weird. It did lead to a kiss between Selina and Bruce, so that was nice and all, but still, what was up with the bugs?! As for the Hush stuff, it had Hush in it, so naturally I loved it! Score: 8 out of 10.

Let's take a look at Superman #705 since that's what's next on my hit list. So this is written by J. Michael Straczynski and has Superman STILL wandering the country aimlessly. This time Supes is strolling through Mt. Prospect, Illinois. Supes is distressed by the fact that the people seem afraid to see him due to the fight he had with the Hulk Hogan-impostor two issues back. Later on, Supes heads to a hotel with Lois and has a nightmare where one of the women from earlier is scolding him and he's being beaten up by a giant creature. When Supes wakes up, he discovers that all of the wounds from the dream hadn't gone away. From there the story branches out to a boy who was being abused by his father preparing to see Supes walk by his home. The kids father smacks him around and tosses him into the basement, where the kid calls to Superman to help him. Supes hears the kid and rescues him and his mother from the abusive father, taking them to the police and then cutting a promo(right at the “camera”)about always reporting instances of abuse. Wow, that was pretty weird... I hated the beginning of this comic, I mean really, how ungrateful ARE the people in the DCU? How many times has Supes saved their collective bacon? If the man wants to walk through your town, grin and bear it! I thought the story with the abused kid was pretty well done though. Supes walking by the kid's house and then saving him was a nice touch, and the pacing for that scene was nicely done. However, the end kind of made me laugh, which I'm SURE wasn't JMS's intention... Or at least I hope it wasn't... I mean what was up with Supes literally looking RIGHT at the “camera” and doing a public service announcement?! That as just bizarre... Overall though, I did enjoy this one, and as such, I'll give it a: Score: 8 out of 10.

It's time to head back to Marvel as we check out the latest issue of Marvel's favorite Atlantian, Namorita! Oh wait, it's actually Namor #4... Bleh. While Namor is fighting his grandfather(who happens to be a vampire)in a secret temple underneath Vampire City, Namor's forces are being trounced by the vampires above the temple. Loa(one of the younger X-Men)and an Atlantian magician arrive at Vampire City and the magician casts a spell that weakens the vampires. Oh, and for some reason, Loa can breath underwater now. *shrugs* Meanwhile, Namor defeats his grandfather and casts a spell on the old vampire(there's a lot of spellcasting going on here...)which kills most of the vampires in Vampire City. Wanting this storyline over with(and who could blame him)Namor emerges from the temple and tells the surviving vampires that he's making their city a part of Atlantis, and as such he doesn't want any trouble from them. That's pretty much the end of this one. Yeah, I didn't really enjoy this one. I don't care for Loa(Marvel has killed off countless young mutants, and yet SHE survives?!), I could see the outcome of the battle between Namor and his grandfather coming since LAST issue and the resolution of the vampire trouble kind of bothered me... I mean really, Namor tells the vampires to knock it off and then leaves? Um, they're vampires! How do you just leave them alone! They make notoriously bad subjects! Oh well, hopefully things pick up next issue. Score: 3 out of 10.

Wheee, now we hop back to DC with Outsiders #34. Man, it's been awhile since I read the last issue of this series... I have NO idea what's going on! Apparently Achilles has marched into Markovia and razed a village in order to gain the attention of Markovia's king, Geo-Force. Geo-Force and his lackey Eradicator confront Achilles, which leads to Achilles punching Eradicator right out of this comic! Seriously, he never showed up again! Achilles and Geo-Force then fight for the better part of this comic, with Achilles revealing that he was attacking Markovia because he thought Geo-Force was a conquest hungry dictator. Geo-Force refutes that claim, stating that Markovia was always being invaded, not the other way around. Geo-Force then proceeds to drop a building on Achilles. Achilles climbs out from under the building and decides he doesn't want to fight anymore since the building falling on him cleared his head and convinced him that Geo-Force was telling the truth(huh?!). To make up for destroying a village and killing loads of Markovians, Achilles pledges himself and his forces to a very confused Geo-Force. There was also a back story involving Metamorpho and his father-in-law, but since I don't like Metamorpho, I'm going to ignore all of that, as is my prerogative. What's there to really say about this one? The fight between Geo-Force and Achilles was fun, but the ending was a huge cop-out. Achilles quits the battle because... well, I'm not really sure why he quit fighting. Because a house falling on his head brought him to his senses or something... Meh, that didn't really work for me. Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.

One more and I can wrap this post up and send it to bed. Our final review of the post? Invincible Iron Man #32. Last issue the Hammer girls sent the Detroit Steel drones to attack Tony Stark's grand unveiling of his new repulsor powered car. Tony hops into his Iron Man armor, while Rescue and War Machine also arrive on the scene to come to Tony's aid. The Hammer's up the stakes by sending Detroit Steel himself to attack Tony, while Tony's support staff work to figure out a way to block the satellites that were controlling the Steel drones. Tony eventually realizes that the drones were keyed in on his repulsor technology, so War Machine and Rescue power down their armor, which leads to all of the drones, as well as Steel going after Tony, while Tony's staff works to kill the signal controlling the drones before the overwhelming odds kill their boss. This was the EIGHTH part of this storyline, with the next issue closing the storyline out. I think I started reading this series at around part three of the storyline, so there were a few story elements that I just didn't get. So while I've enjoyed this story for the most part, I'll be happy when it ends, so I can follow the next storyline right from the start. Score: 7 out of 10.

The Random Scan of the Week!Man, you know you're in trouble when your villain knows about your caption boxes!

14 comments:

  1. Nice review dude, shocked you liked Superman for once with JMS writing it, as for Streets, I'm also wondering what the hell was up with that bedbug crap... that was just weird. Anyway, what's that scan from X?

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  2. I'm sorry to hear you're not into the Aquaman series.I actually thought the series kept a good balance of sea and surface world. The issues coming up with the Final Night were espcially good if I recall correctly. At least I wasn't the one who recommended it.... :/ Oh Wait.

    And it's hard to believe the Outsiders (LOL at the Eradicator getting punched out of the comic) got a higher rating than Namor: The Worst Mutant. But letting Vampires live in your kingdom? That doesn't sound like Namor.

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  3. Thanks for the comments, gents! I HATED the way Supes started off, JT, HATED it, but I liked the pacing of the story with the abused kid(although like I said in the review, it made me inadvertently laugh), so that made up for the lousy start. And yeah, what was up with the guy and those bugs in Streets?! Ugh...

    As for that scan, I KNOW it's from Cable/Deadpool, I know it's from one of the later issues, but I'm not sure exactly which one. I actually scanned this a while back(before I started putting issue #'s with each scan), so I'm not 100% sure which C/DP that scan was from... If you REALLY want to know, you know I'll dig out my C/DP's and fill ya in though.

    Well, I really enjoyed the first few issues of Aquaman, Kello, but it hurt the series when Tempest/Aqualad(who I found myself really enjoying)took off for a bunch of issues. Plus the alien invasion/Atlantis stuff was just plain confusing! I get the feeling that PAD was writing for people who read his earlier Aquaman work(the Atlantis Chronicles, etc), which I unfortunately didn't!

    Yeah, Outsiders wasn't anything to write home about, but it was WAY better than Namor... The Namor comic was just sad. I mean, he's got the vampires on the ropes, he's defeated their elders, which killed off half the vamps in the city, and he decides to make a truce?! Um, isn't that just setting up unnecessary troubles for the future?! I mean they're VAMPIRES! They're gonna attack the other Atlantians! Am I the only one who realizes that?!

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  4. I think Tempest left for a while because he had his own mini-series. You might want to check online for that, assuming you have you haven't read it before.

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  5. I did actually get that Tempest series, but I actually read it BEFORE I started the Aquaman books, so there's probably a bunch from that mini that I'd appreciate now that I didn't then.

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  6. Heh guys its me again just wanted to let you know that someone named Jeff the Chef and Jacob Bennett are now part of my club we still have four spots available. Anyone interested?

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  7. Lol. Wow Don't know what to say about the comment above me Buuuut
    X-MAAAAAN!!!

    Loving BOTR post this week. I'm sad to hear the Aquaman run is spoiling, lol, I've been wanting to read some Aquaman stuff but don't know where to start and don't want to start at a bad place. Lol.

    Superman #705<--I haven't read it yet but it does sound pretty interesting.

    I'm still in the works of collecting some Outsiders stuff. Kind of excited to start reading some stuff.

    Lmao @ the scan. Deadpool is awesome. I would've never known this awesome guy if it hadn't been for JT.

    Lol, nice BOTR this week X. Can't wait for the next run.

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  8. Aquaman seems to be like the tides. Up and down. The last couple of issues have actually been pretty enjoyable. Hopefully it stays that way.

    What kind of Outsiders stuff are you picking up, Lisha? The current run or some of the older stuff?

    I'll have to remember to post more DP scans for you, Lisha! Trust me, I have plenty more!

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  9. "Aquaman seems to be like the tides. Up and down." Lol, that made me laugh for the oddest reason. But Aquaman is one of my favorite heroes, and I want to read up on him but I hear so many bad things about comics. Maybe I should just read for myself. Lol.

    And as far as the Outsiders stuff, I guess I hear/read about the characters I want some intro stuff, or whatever I can find to be honest. My library had some stuff but it's either missing or damaged. So I turn to e-bay and comic sites. lol.

    "I'll have to remember to post more DP scans for you, Lisha! Trust me, I have plenty more!"

    Aww you're such a sweetheart!!! You're the best.

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  10. Glad you liked that tides comment, Lisha! The past 15 issues or so that I just read were actually pretty good, but now we seem to back in the gutter again...

    Ahh eBay... My best friend and worst enemy... I fear going to that site, because I know I'd wind up dropping some crazy $ there!

    "You're the best." I agree! :D

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  11. Well having a 15 streak of good issues isn't bad. Maybe I'll talk to the library into buying some stuff. They're trying to expand their graphic novel and comic collection. Lol.

    Lol, oh don't get me started on e-bay. I've been eying some comic book lots people are selling with between 50-150 comics for about 20 bucks. I think I'll get a couple for myself for Christmas.

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  12. Wow, that's pretty awesome! If I was you I'd be tossing out requests like crazy!

    That's where I got this Aquaman series from. eBay can give you some insane deals every now and then. I don't even know how many different full runs I've picked up from eBay! And that sounds like an awesome Christmas gift for yourself! I might just have to pick up a gift like that for myself too! :P

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  13. I've been trying to come up with a list that didn't seem so selfish of things I just want. Lol. But I'll keep doing my research of volumes and graphic novels for them to add to.

    And eBay is just one amazing place sometimes. And I'm seriously thinking about getting a lot. I've been looking at seller's ratings to see who's been giving a good deal. Lol.

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  14. Pfft, be selfish, Lisha! I mean if they're trying to expand their trade selection, and you know about it, why not be all, "Get lots and lots of WW stuff in!" :D

    HA, yeah, I used to have a few sellers saved, you know, guys with really fast shipping and stuff like that. But for me, I usually use eBay to pick up full runs, since it's always cheaper to get a full run on eBay then it is from a comic shop.

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