Bonus Best of the Rest! Dec. 11th edition.

Yes, you read this post's title correctly, this is a BONUS edition of the Best of the Rest! Since I'm mainly done with school(I am SO not sweating my Chem test on Monday)until the middle of January, I wanted to finish up most of last week's comics before I started reviewing the stuff I picked up this past Wednesday. So there you go, a quick and relatively painless(well unless you're a fan of Gen Hope...)Best of the Rest post. Onward!

I've got nothin'...
Usually before I start the reviews for one of these posts I'll post SOMETHING about me, comic books or a combination of both... Well since I just posted a BotR post yesterday, I don't have anything to add here. So why even add this? Force of habit I guess...

First up is Marvel's latest effort to a)push their younger mutants and b)shove Hope SO far down our collective throats she could probably see daylight, Generation Hope #2! The story here is that the newest young man to receive his mutant powers has gone quite mad, and not even Hope can sooth his madness... I KNOW, I'm shocked too!!! Cyclops, Rogue and Wolverine(along with those other new mutants)stand around outside wondering how Hope was doing against the new mutant. The answer? Not very well. The new mutant tosses her around for a bit before rampaging out of his apartment. Of course before going after the new mutant, who could be killing dozens of people, Chairman Summers demands that Hope is collected first. With Hope taken care of, the senor X-Men go after the new mutant, but he's too crazy and powerful to be stopped. This issue ends(comically to me)with the other new mutants standing over the fallen Hope telling her that they need her... Are you KIDDING me?! Seriously, are you kidding me?! What a joke this series has rapidly become. And only two issues in... Have you ever seen that episode of The Simpsons where Homer plays the voice of Poochie the dog? At one point Homer heads to the TV executives and gives them several ways Poochie could become a bigger star, including, “Whenever Poochie isn't onscreen, all of the other characters should be asking, 'Where's Poochie???'” THAT is exactly what this issue was like! It's bad enough that Marvel actually named the ENTIRE team after Hope, but all throughout this comic, whenever Hope wasn't around, everybody was wondering where she was, what she was up too and if she was alright! Talk about overkill... See, after having Hope presented as the end all, be all and do all for the X-Men, I now realize I hate her... It's like she can do no wrong, and everybody becomes blithering idiots whenever she's around. Yep, I think that I'll be cutting ties with this series once this first storyline concludes... Score: 3 out of 10.

Sticking with Marvel(but improving greatly)let's take a look at Captain America: Patriot #4(of 4). This issue starts with FBI agent Skinner pretty much accusing the Cap of the late 1940's, Jeff Mace, of treason. Prior to that point though, Skinner had been trying to to ruin Jeff's life, separating him from his long-time girlfriend, giving him lousy assignments(in one funny scene, Jeff, as Cap, has to tell a classroom full of students the proper way to “duck and cover”), and other go nowhere jobs. However, Jeff manages to learn that Skinner was working on a top secret government project behind the FBI's back, and threatens to reveal Skinner's duplicity to Skinner's bosses. As a compromise, Jeff resigns as Cap, and Skinner leaves Jeff and his girlfriend(FBI agent Betsy Ross)alone, promising to never pester them with his treason charges again. And that's pretty much that. Jeff and Betsy move to a small town where Jeff starts up a newspaper and the two(presumably)live happily ever after. I really liked this issue. Hell, I can go one further and say that I really liked this mini-series. Jeff Mace is one of those characters that nobody really knew much about, making him the perfect character to get a mini-series. THIS is actually what comic companies should be using a mini-series for. To give us the history of a barely known character. But going back to this issue, I enjoyed Jeff's interactions with Agent Skinner, I liked their compromise, and it was nice to see something end happily ever after for a change. Score: 8 out of 10.

Okay, that's it for Marvel this post, the next three reviews will be from the DC side of the fence, starting with Freedom Fighters #4. We start off with the Jester from the 1940's telling his grandson(the current Jester)to get revenge on the Arcadians for the death of his son/his grandson's father. The younger Jester promises to do just that before teleporting away. While that is going on, Mimic breaks Black Python loose from his restraints at the Enclave A prison facility on the orders of some guy named King Bullet(wow, what a lame name...). The two villains then cause a full on prison break, at which time the Freedom Fighters teleport blindly into the middle of the battle thanks to Phantom Lady's unpredictable powers. The prison guards attack both the prisoners and the Freedom Fighters since the prison was top secret and doing all sorts of despicable experiments on the prisoners, and as such didn't need any heroes nosing around. So after a whole mess of random fighting, this issue ends with the Freedom Fighters coming face to face with King Bullet and his group of villains, who had every intention of getting out of prison. Meh. This comic was better than the last few issues, but it still didn't do much for me. The part I enjoyed the most was with the Jester(s), and they only appeared briefly during the beginning. I WANT to like this series, but so far no good. I'm not ready to give up on this series just yet, but my patience can only last for so long... Score: 5 1/2 out of 10.

Next up is JSA All-Stars #13... I'm going to blitz through this one, because I hate the story going on here. While the All-Stars are off on some alien planet fighting an evil alien warlord, Cyclone(who is powerless)is trying to figure out why there are two clones of herself(with powers)hanging around. Oh, plus one of her classmates at school managed to give himself Cyclone's powers after doing some kind of test with her DNA. Cyclone and the other two Cyclones head back to the All-Stars headquarters to figure out what was going on when they discover... oh god... like 9 more Cyclones... And so it gets worse... That annoying robot at the All-Star's base explains that the nanites in Cyclone's DNA(huh??)created clones of her when they thought she was going to die to preserve themselves, which explains(I guess...)all of the other Cyclones. So um, the nanites in Cyclone's bloodstream hopped into the bodies of other women around Cyclone's age and made them all look identical... Whatever. Bottom line is that the Cyclones defeat Cyclone's classmate, which gives the original Cyclone her powers back(somehow). From there the robot fixes the clones(somehow...)and the rest of the All-Stars return from the alien world, blissfully unaware of this really bad story. Ugh. I hate Cyclone, so imagine my unmitigated horror at the sight of nearly one dozen of her! This was by FAR the worst storyline I've read since this series began. The best thing I can say about it? At least it's over. Score: 3 1/2 out of 10.

One more and I'm out of here... We'll end things with Secret Six #28. Much like the JSA All-Star review, this is the last part of a storyline I have ZERO interest in. As such, I'm going to go the cheap route and just hit on the main points here. The two different teams of Secret Six members(who were on opposite sides of a battle in the world of Skartaris)decide to work together to defeat the main bad guy starting all sorts of trouble in Skartaris. Eventually Black Alice(yet ANOTHER character I can't stand)swipes the powers of the bad guy and defeats him. From there the two Sixes leave Skartaris and head to Amanda Waller, who gives them all pardons and tells them she'd be interested in working with them again. The only good thing about this issue is the ending, which sees Giganta attacking and preparing to torture Dwarfstar for his role in the death of the Atom(Ryan Choi), who Giganta was interested in romantically. I know I've said it before, but I see I'll have to say it again, I am SO glad this storyline is over... Two separate teams of Secret Six members hanging out in the prehistoric-ish world of Skartaris is NOT my idea of fun. Plus whenever Black Alice ends up saving the collective bacon of the team, I always get pissed off. BUT, Giganta being told by Waller of Dwarfstar's role in Choi's death, and her subsequent reaction boosted this comic up a few points score wise. Score: 5 out of 10.

BONUS Random Scan Of The Week!???