Justice Society of America #48:
Summary: We get started with Obsidian stupidly breaking into Scythe's cell to get retribution for Green Lantern(Alan Scott). Obsidian gets squashed(even though he has insane amounts of power, but whatever), and Scythe rushes outside to try to kill the JSA again. Flash(Jay Garrick) decides that with the JSA's ranks so thin, he'd have to deal with Scythe on his own. Even though Scythe has already proven he could take on the entire JSA for HOURS. With Jay out of the picture, Dr. Chaos attacks and beats up Wildcat and Dr. Midnite with absolute ease... Man, is Marc Guggenheim making the JSA look like a bunch of amateur losers or what? Oh, and on top of all this, Mr. Terrific has been getting progressively dumber, forgetting how to read by this issue... Yeah. Scythe winds up getting the upper hand on Jay(wow, who'd have guessed THAT would happen!?) while Dr. Chaos begins to blow up various things in Monument Point, and the JSA All-Stars FINALLY show up to lend the horrendously overmatched JSA a hand.
Thoughts: Thank god this storyline is ending next issue... I'm not really sure what Guggenheim's master plan for this series is, but if it was to make the JSA look like a bunch of worthless losers, well then, mission accomplished! I mean Wildcat and Dr. Midnite had their asses handed to them by some feeb named Dr. Chaos! A guy who hadn't exhibited any hand to hand fighting skills until this issue. And how did he beat them up? He handcuffed Wildcat and simply smashed Midnite... What a sad bunch of heroes... And the end didn't help matters either, since the All-Stars SHOULD have shown up like 5 issues ago when this storyline started! What the hell kept them away for so long?! Bad stuff here...
Score: 4 out of 10.
*sigh* Is this storyline over yet?Annihilators #1(of 4):
Summary: We get started with the Spaceknight, Ikon, beating down each individual member of the Annihilators as a way to prove to them that just because they had insane amounts of cosmic power they weren't necessarily a good team. She points out that if they would have cut loose with their powers they probably could have defeated her, but that they would have endangered or destroyed Knowhere(which is where they were based out of), which is why they needed a team member with a more limited power-set. After the Annihilator's cool off a bit, Cosmo tells them that before he had died, Star-Lord had been worried about a Dire Wraith invasion. Ikon gets annoyed to hear this, since her people, the Spaceknights, had taken care of the Dire Wraith menace by locking them in Limbo(or something like that) a while back. While this conversation is going on, the team is alerted that somebody was trying to tear a hole in reality to free the Wraiths. The Annihilators respond and run into a guy by the name of Dredd. Dredd is surrounded by an impenetrable force field, and before the Annihilators can figure out a way to stop him, he opens a hole for the Dire Wraiths to escape from.
Thoughts: You know, I REALLY wanted to like this mini-series... I mean, all things considered, I should LOVE this mini! It's written by two of my favorite writers(Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning), it has several characters I like(Gladiator, Silver Surfer, Ronan) and one character I love(Quasar). So yeah, this should have been a dream come true for me. Unfortunately, it was more akin to a nightmare! I hate the Spaceknights, and as such, I can't stand the Dire Wraiths. I wish they were still trapped in the 1980's, where they all belonged. I don't like Ikon at all, and the opening scenes of this comic, with Ikon beating up the Annihilators simply made no sense! Sure Gladiator or the Silver Surfer could destroy a planet if the mood so struck them, but are you seriously trying to tell me that they couldn't defeat Ikon because they were afraid to “cut loose”? Come on, I'm SURE they know their own strength, or they'd have killed EVERYBODY they ever battled! On the plus side, Quasar was written perfectly, as he showed all of the self-doubting that made him a favorite of mine. I'm definitely hoping for bigger and better things next issue, but with the story apparently revolving around the Spaceknights and the Dire Wraiths, I don't think I'll be getting my wish...
Score: 5 out of 10.
Yeah sorry, but there's NO way a lone Spaceknight beats Gladiator. EVER!Wolverine/Hercules: Myths, Monsters and Mutants #1(of 4):
Summary: We get started with Wolvie and Hercules sharing some war stories at a bar. Eventually Wolvie announces that he was done torturing Matsu'o Tsurayaba(the guy who fatally poisoned Wolvie's lady love, Mariko) and that he intended on killing Matsu'o that night. Oh, and Wolvie sent a letter to Matsu'o telling him such. Knowing the end was near, Matsu'o sends what few Hand ninjas he had left after Wolvie, and the ninjas are easily picked apart by Wolvie and Herc. While that's going on, some strange man with a box walks into Matsu'o's penthouse, killing Matsu'o's bodyguards as he went. Upon finally meeting Matsu'o, the strange man reveals that he was actually Achelous, an ancient enemy of Hercules. Achelous tells Matsu'o that people like Wolverine and the rest of the super-hero community had stolen the fame of the old myths, and as such he wanted Wolvie as dead as Matsu'o did. Matsu'o agrees to assist Achelous(really, what does he have to lose by this point?), and this issue ends with Achelous opening the box he was carrying to reveal a talking head... Okay then...
Thoughts: The stuff with Wolvie I was totally fine with. I know all about his hatred for Matsu'o and what happened with Mariko. It was the Hercules stuff that left me a bit confused. I'm sure I SHOULD recall Achelous and the head in the box from somewhere, but sadly, I'm drawing a blank. I keep thinking they appeared in a Hercules mini-series from a few years back, but like I said, nothing about those two is coming to mind... Oh well, I'm sure we'll discover more about them next issue. As for the comic itself, it was what you'd expect it to be. A wacky, fight-filled book with minimal story involved. Wolvie wants to kill Matsu'o. Matsu'o is going to hook up with some of Hercules' enemies. Hercules will then team up with Wolvie to deal with the villains. Simple. If I would have remembered more about Herc's two villains I probably would have enjoyed this one a bit more, but as it is I'll give it a score of...
Score: 6 out of 10.
Hercules vs Ninjas. Advantage? Hercules!Action Comics #898:
Summary: Larfleeze attacks Lex Luthor since he wanted to get his hands on the black/white spheres that Lex had been collecting. The two battle, and when Lex tires of the battle, he simply tosses Larfleeze into one of the white spheres, figuring that would rid him of that muppet-looking pest. It actually works, as Larfleeze winds up falling out of the sphere several miles away and declares that after being in the sphere, he didn't want it anymore. As for Lex, he heads off into space in search of the final few spheres and we discover that Lex's Lois-bot was actually a double agent for Brainiac.
Thoughts: This comic was all sorts of bad! First off, Larfleeze was in it. So right off the bat, there's a huge negative. The story itself just never grabbed me, nor could I make sense of it... Did Lex want the Orange Lantern power? How did Larfleeze find Lex? How did Larfleeze reemerge from the sphere? There may have been answers to these questions in this comic, but to be honest, I really didn't care. The only things that made this comic worth reading was the fact that no matter what, Paul Cornell writes a great Lex Luthor, and the fact that Brainiac had been manipulating the events around Lex through the Lois-bot. Other than that though? This was one comic I easily could have done without.
Score: 3 1/2 out of 10.
If Larfleeze would have died here this comic would have gotten a perfect score...
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