Saturday, August 6, 2011

Secret Six #36 & Iron Man 2.0 #7.1

After the last couple of pretty bad Marvel comics I've reviewed, I'm going to read a DC book as well as a Marvel book with the hope being that I'll break the streak of bad comics I've been unfortunate enough to have read these past few days. Although looking at the two books in front of me, I'm not really that optimistic.

Secret Six #36:

Summary: This issue kicks off for real with the Secret Six planning their assault on the Bat-family, an assault that Bane hopes will break Batman(the Bruce Wayne one) emotionally, since breaking Bats physically didn't work. Unfortunately for Bane, there are two problems... The first is that a homeless family was living in the warehouse the Secret Six was staging their attack from, which provides 4 potential witnesses to Bane's plans. Bane wants to kill the family and be done with it, but Scandal won't allow Bane to kill two children. Oh, and that second problem? Penguin, who the Six took captive last issue to gain insight on Batman and his associates, had a tracer hidden under his skin and had his people leak Bane's plans, which has brought a who's who of super-heroes to the warehouse. And when I say a who's who, I mean practically every hero from the Birds of Prey, to Bats and his colleagues, to the Teen Titans to Superman! In other words, the Secret Six were screwed big time. Since they did have the homeless family, Catman figured they may be able to barter for their freedom, and yells to the gathered heroes outside that they did indeed have hostages. Huntress, figuring this whole scene was going to end poorly and still having feelings for Catman, enters the warehouse and offers to let the Six use her as a hostage provided they let the family go. The Six agree to this and free the family, holding Huntress in their place. Even with Huntress, Bane realizes that his plan had been shot to hell, and offers the Six a dose of Venom to power them up with the hope being that if they were going to lose, hopefully they'd take a few heroes out first. With that, the Venom-fueled Six tear through the wall and attack the gathered heroes, ultimately falling in defeat. With that, the Six are all carted away, which is fine by Bane, since he realizes that working with individuals like the Six was a mistake, and that his next shot at Batman wouldn't fail.

Thoughts: Well, this was the last issue of the Secret Six. I have to say, it's been quite the journey... There were a few peaks, but sadly, there were more valleys. Fortunately, this series ended on a high note, as I found myself really enjoying this issue. Bane's plan to break Bats was sound, with the only flaw being his choice of team members, since they themselves were so flawed. I didn't really care for the whole, “blaze of glory” thing the team was going for as they staged their final assault on the gathered heroes, but I can understand why Gail Simone wrote it, since there was really no other way to end this one... The Six weren't going to surrender, and there was no way for them to escape. A suicide attack was really the only way this series could have logically concluded. Sadly Ragdoll didn't die, but since I didn't see him in the epilogue, I'm going to say that he did perish, just to make myself feel better.

Score: 8 out of 10.I love how smug Damian looks here.


Iron Man 2.0 #7.1:

Summary: This issue gets started with James Rhodes(War Machine/Iron Man 2.0) being briefed on the Palmer Addley case by his underlings. Yes, the Palmer Addley storyline is still going strong, although it was interrupted for a few issues by the lame Fear Itself x-over issues. While Rhodey is being briefed, some third world dictator has come to Paris to talk about ways to peacefully end the political strife that was running rampant through his country. The dictator doesn't like the idea of giving the dissenters in his country any extra freedoms, and as such is looking for any reason to leave Paris early, without a peace deal in place. While Rhodey is in the middle of his briefing, he gets word from General Babbage that some robot based on Palmer's designs was flying out of Asia towards Europe. Babbage tells Rhodey to suit up and Rhodey intercepts the robot in Paris. The two battle, and after some destruction, Rhodey defeats the robot. With the robot defeated, and no massive destruction or lives lost, Rhodey figured he thwarted whatever scheme Palmer had concocted... However, the dictator from earlier was right across the street from the battle and decides to leave Paris early since he felt threatened. With no peace plan negotiated, the dictator takes drastic actions and brutally cracks down on the dissenters in his country. In other words, it appears that Palmer got exactly what he wanted after all...

Thoughts: What can I say, I liked this issue. It was actually a great .1 issue, since any new readers learned everything they needed to know about the strange case of Palmer Addley during Rhodey's briefing, while giving us fans who have been following the series from the start a few new little snippets on Palmer's plans. I mean, I really loved the way it looked like Rhodey had won the day, at least until you realized that everything had gone exactly according to Palmer's plan, as the peace talks were scuttled. I may be in the minority, but I'm definitely looking forward to more of Rhodey butting heads with Palmer Addley.

Score: 8 out of 10.Didn't he?

8 comments:

  1. really like how that artist drew donna troy's outfit
    have they in the comics ever really expained why her outfit is like that?

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  2. Huh, I didn't even notice her costume until you pointed it out, Movieartman, but yeah, it looks pretty sweet. They might have spoke about it, but trying to remember/unravel Donna's origin/life is like trying to learn a foriegn language without any help... It's nearly impossible!

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  3. thanks for that Secret Six review i was curious how that series was gonna end. especially with that title not being part of the DC relaunch. so i guess with all of them getting hauled off to jail we now see how Deadshot and King Shark end up on the Suicide Squad again which is a title that will be part of the relaunch. i'm a big SS fan but i don't know what to think about what's coming next month on this one.

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  4. "so i guess with all of them getting hauled off to jail we now see how Deadshot and King Shark end up on the Suicide Squad" Exactly the same thing I was thinking. I'm still not 100 percent sure how that damn reboot is gonna even work out, but King Shark and Deadshot are both locked up at the end of this issue, making them prime candidates for the Squad. But then again, I thought DC was altering their history however they saw fit anyway, so in a way it wouldn't have mattered if the two went to jail. Ah DC... How you confuse the hell out of me...

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  5. think of the DC relaunch as getting remarried as opposed to going back in time and avoiding your first marriage all together and doing something different with your life. the old history still exists it's just not as relevant anymore. i suspect this whole thing is just away to attract new readers since this will make a good jumping on point with out people feeling pressured to hunt down a ton of back issues to get the full background story. does that make more sense now?

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  6. "the old history still exists it's just not as relevant anymore" I definitely see what you're saying, Dave, but I'm kind of dubious DC can even do that... Supposedly Stephanie Brown was never a Robin post reboot, Lian was never born, I have NO idea where any of this leaves Wally West's run as Flash, Roy Harper grew his arm back, in a way I think your time machine analogy fits better. It's kind of like DC went back to an arbitrary point in their history(five years ago comic book time?) and started new from there.

    "i suspect this whole thing is just away to attract new readers since this will make a good jumping on point" You are absolutely, 100% right on that one! I've already had two people mention that fact on my blog, as well as the guy who owns the comic shop I frequent. A lot of people seem to think that this reboot will suddenly make DC easy for new readers, but just looking at the post-reboot Bat-universe, I'm not sure that's gonna happen. I mean Bruce has gone through at least 4 Robins(possibly 5 depending on the Steph situation) in what, a five year span? That seems impossible, and incredibly difficult to wrap your head around if you really are totally new to DC. But I definitely agree with you, the reboot is definitely an attempt to attract new eyes with a supposedly streamlined history and easy jumping on point, but since it's DC we're talking about, I'm sure they'll find a way to fuck it all up and somehow lose even more market share to Marvel...

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  7. well i think we can expect some weird arbitrary type stuff in this relaunch. Harlequin having a new look (costume & hair) i can understand. but King Shark is now a hammer head instead of a great white. i dunno what's up with that but you can bet i'll be brutally honest in my assessment of the new title on my Suicide Squad blog.

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  8. Exactly! A new look is understandable, but the King Shark thing is just bizarre... Did DC do a focus group on which shark comic fans preferred and decide to go with Hammerhead? Eh, go figure.

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