Captain America #618:
Summary: Sharon Carter and Black Widow manage to fight off the various Russian soldiers they were confronted by last issue, and the two women learn that somebody named the Red Barbarian, a former KGB agent, was behind the framing of Bucky. Widow decides to go rogue to try to help Bucky, and “loses” Sharon in order to help Bucky while not incriminating Steve Rogers. Bucky is still being tortured in the Russian prison he was locked up in, with seemingly EVERY inmate in there having their own reasons for wanting to hurt and/or help Bucky... Seriously, I didn't know what the hell was going on half the time! Ultimately we learn that the Red Barbarian wanted Bucky to be faced with several people from his old Winter Soldier days in order to force Bucky to recall some deep seeded activation code that the Red Barbarian and his KGB ilk had implanted in Bucky's brain. Finally, Steve Rogers is trying to figure out how Henry Peter Gyrich fit into the whole Bucky mess. It seems that Gyrich helped facilitate Bucky's transfer to Russia after talking to an old Russian diplomat friend of his. Before Steve can talk to the diplomat, the guy turns up dead, killed by a deep cover Russian spy, who then killed himself, leaving Steve with no leads.
Thoughts: Gah, what was this all about?! Usually I absolutely love this series, but this issue was just... All over the place... Sure, there were parts of this issue that bugged me on the heels of reading Fear Itself #3(which I won't get into in case you've yet to check it out), but still, I expected to enjoy(and understand!) this issue a lot more than I did. Normally I'd say the sooner this storyline was over the better, but in light of recent events, maybe I should be cherishing a certain character in this series while I still can...
Score: 5 1/2 out of 10.
Man does Bucky's life suck...Wolverine: The Best There Is #6:
Summary: Okay, first things first, I didn't review issues #3-5 on the blog because I just recently picked up issue #3, which I was missing for some reason. Long story short, I figured why bother wasting my time reviewing issues #3-5 when I'd probably be the only person to ever check out those reviews? So in lieu of reviews for issues #3-5, here's a BRIEF rundown of what happened... Wolvie is trapped by a total nutjob named Winsor who wants to test Wolverine's healing factor to see if it could be used to cure his son from a mutation that makes the kid super-smart. Winsor threatens to blow the kids head off unless Wolvie goes along with Winsor's insanity. Not wanting to risk the kid's life, Wolvie suffers through days(weeks?) of torture which allows Winsor to test the limit's of Wolvie's healing factor. Eventually the kid tells Wolvie that his life was never in any danger, and that Winsor had a strange mutation that caused him to create an unlimited number of diseases within his own body, which is what Winsor really wanted to cure. Now figuring the kid was safe, Wolvie decides to kill Winsor, but has to get past Winsor's unkillable henchmen first. There we go. All caught up. Wolvie carves his way through Winsor's goons(literally) until he finds the Corruptor, who had also been captured by Winsor. From there, Wolvie heads towards Winsor's office and after a quick run-in with Winsor's lab assistant(who was being fed a diet of Corruptor's sweat, making her more compliant) grabs Winsor by the neck and prepares to kill him. However, Winsor reminds Wolvie that killing him would result in Winsor's body releasing a mess of viruses... To deal with that, Wolvie drags Winsor back to the lab Corruptor was being held in and forces Winsor to touch Corruptor, at which point Wolvie tells Winsor to create a virus that would cure him of his mutation. With Winsor now harmless, Wolvie unhooks Corruptor from the machine's that had kept him sedated and decides to let Corruptor deal with Winsor however he saw fit. With this whole nightmare out of the way, Wolvie runs out the door and collapses outside.
Thoughts: You know, I hated this story the first two issues. I mean it was, for lack of a better term, batshit crazy. It was so crazy that I didn't have the slightest idea as to WHAT was going on! Even after having read the entire 6 issue storyline, and having read 4 parts in a row, I'll admit that there were still a few aspects of this story that left me confused as hell... But with that said, by the end of this issue, I was thoroughly enjoying the story! Go figure! I guess that says something about me though... Anyway, we don't know what happens to Winsor, what the deal was with Winsor's assistant and the weird mobster they pulled out of the quicksand back in the first issue, nor do we ever see Winsor's son at all this issue, which were a few of the things that bugged me storywise this issue. But for the most part? The out and out insanity here made up for the little quirks that bugged me, and made this a Wolvie story I'd remember, if only for the absolute madness that went on during it.
Score: 9 out of 10.
Man does Wolverine's life suck... What?!
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=32633
ReplyDeleteHmmmmm....... I still don't want to believe it... There's a part of me that's screaming that Fraction was BSing the crowd. He just seemed TOO keen on giving that information out. I mean he goes out of his way to avoid talking about some things(like Thing's involvement), but he was giving away a whole MESS of info on the Cap thing. Plus it wasn't actually the Red Skull who did the deed, just a fake Red Skull wannabe with cosmic powers... I still don't want to believe that Brubaker would allow this... It just doesn't make sense... I mean, this would be the kind of shit I'd expect out of DC, NOT Marvel!
ReplyDeletewhat do you think about this?
ReplyDeletehttp://gothamspoilers.tumblr.com/post/6234645233/so-somehow-someone-was-able-to-find-this-cover
why red? is there a fusion betwen tim an dick an jason or is just Jason Todd
Hmmm... I'd seen that cover yesterday, but I never gave any thought that it could be a fusion between Dick/Tim/and possibly Jason... That would suck on SO many levels, because we'd be losing two of the more interesting Robins...
ReplyDeleteI was really hoping Dick would keep the Batman name in DCU Version 3.0, but upon seeing that picture, it seems unlikely. In a perfect world, that would be Jason Todd FINALLY getting the Nightwing run he was supposed to get after the One Year Later event, and the color red would kind of have me leaning towards it being Jason(which WOULD be a comic I'd buy). I guess we'll have to wait and see who's announced as the writer, if it's Judd Winick, you KNOW that's Jason! But I have a sinking feeling that it's gonna be Dick being regressed to his Nightwing days, a huge step down from being the Batman of Gotham City. Thanks for the link, Damian!