Birds of Prey #14 & FF #6

And we've made it to the end of the comic book week(which runs from Wednesday to Tuesday in case you were wondering)! Miraculously, I managed to keep my word and delivered every review on the day I had promised I would! How about a round of applause for YOUR Comic Book Malefactor?? No? Meh, whatever. Here are the final two new comics from last week's pile, before I bring home what I'm sure will be an obscene amount of comics tomorrow to start this mess all over again.

Birds of Prey #14:

Summary: This is one of those comic books that mixes the past with the present, making for a tough review... First I'll deal with the stuff from the past, 1950 Argentina to be precise. The Phantom Lady, Black Canary(that would be the first one, Dinah's mother) and Lady Blackhawk are escorted to a small village in Argentina by a US army officer with orders to hunt down a Nazi war criminal who was hiding in the village. Upon arriving, the foursome are met by a mess of kids with guns, dressed up like little soldiers. The army officer winds up getting shot in the head saving Phantom Lady, ending the flashback. The story in the present details Phantom Lady, Lady Blackhawk and Black Canary(the current one) visiting a VA hospital, meeting up with the old soldiers. Eventually Phantom Lady meets up with an old soldier with advanced Alzheimer's, and as she was passing by, he grabs her arm and stares menacingly at her. Eventually Phantom Lady gets free and continues making the rounds. Once Phantom Lady is out of sight, the Alzheimer's patient gets up and sends a message in Morse Code to somebody... Later on, Barbara Gordon invites Blackhawk, Phantom Lady, Canary, Huntress and Manhunter out to dinner. Phantom Lady excuses herself and heads to the bathroom, getting jumped by a mess of guys with electrical powers. Wondering what was taking Phantom Lady so long, Blackhawk heads into the bathroom, and it's second verse, same as the first. Before being knocked out though, Blackhawk manages to scream, alerting the other women that there was danger. By the time they reach the bathroom though, there's no sign of the attackers, Phantom Lady or Blackhawk. This issue ends with Phantom Lady and Blackhawk waking up in some sort of wacky laboratory, with Blackhawk realizing that the men who captured her had something to do with the mission from 1950.

Thoughts: Yeah, this comic was a bit confusing, especially since we never actually find out what happened in Argentina in 1950, but I found myself enjoying the pacing of the story. It moved along briskly, and I'm sure everything will come together next issue. Plus there was no Hawk or Dove, making this the best issue of BoP since the series relaunched! Huzzah!! The bottom line here is that this was a slightly confusing, but otherwise perfectly acceptable comic book.

Score: 6 out of 10.Look out, it's a bunch of creepy kids with guns!!!


FF #6:

Summary: We begin by recapping how Black Bolt died after the War of Kings. Yes, died. From there we flashback to a few weeks ago and wander aimlessly around the capital of the Kree empire, Hala, seeing what the Inhumans were up to. Then we flashback AGAIN, this time a few thousand years back to Hala, where some Kree scientists are telling the Supreme Intelligence about how well their genetic experiments on other alien races were going. The Supreme Intelligence begins to look over the information being fed to him, with most of the scientists within him applauding the info they were seeing. However, a religious leader steps forward and warns the Supreme Intelligence that he was noticing something the scientists hadn't realized, that one of the genetically modified beings would be capable of destroying the Supreme Intelligence several thousand years into the future. After conferring with the voices in his head, the Supreme Intelligence orders the genetic programs stopped and the scientists behind them killed. Before the last scientist is killed, he manages to destroy the data of where all of these experiments were taking place, leaving the Supreme Intelligence with only 94% of the worlds. From there, the Supreme Intelligence orders all of the genetically modified beings killed lest they trouble him someday. We then go somewhere else where we see Black Bolt floating around in space with his eyes suddenly lit up.

Thoughts: Well, I think this'll be the issue where Hickman's Fantastic Four run jumped the shark for me. This was easily the worst comic book I've read in quite some time actually... And that's really saying something, because I read A LOT of comic books in a month! First off, I hate Black Bolt. So that should help some of you understand where I'm coming from here. On top of that, I REALLY like Vulcan... So yeah, you should be able to put one plus one together on where my anger is coming from... Black Bolt and Vulcan died together in the War of Kings mini-series. Now Black Bolt is suddenly alive again? I call bullshit. And there didn't even seem to be any reason for Black Bolt coming back to life! He just sort of wakes up! What the hell is that?! I'm going to have to think hard about whether or not to pick up the next issue of this, thus far, terrible series. I don't know, maybe I'll just wait until the Human Torch comes back before I start collecting the FF's adventures again. If Hickman is still writing it, at least we know how Johnny will come back. He'll inexplicably return to life in the Negative Zone one day, floating peacefully in the sky...

Score: 0 out of 10. Yup, the dreaded imperfect score... Take a bow, FF #6, you've earned it!Yeah, because Black Bolt will somehow make this series suck less.