10 Thoughts On... Avengers: The Korvac Saga.

Hey all, X here with a random post about a hardcover I read over a month ago... I typed up the review back then, but never found my opportunity to post it... Until now! Tomorrow will be the New Comic Day post, but today it's some fun with the Avengers, circa the late 1970's.

Avengers: The Korvac Saga. Collecting: Avengers #167-168, #170-177. Thor Annual #6

Synopsis: Michael Korvac was an evil man, and was eventually transformed into a living machine thanks to some jerk-ass aliens. Korvac the machine bumped heads with Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy, but was always defeated. That all changed when he found himself on Galactus's massive spacecraft and absorbed millions of years of knowledge and immeasurable power. Now a god, Korvac has decided to bring order to a universe that was full of chaos. Sure that sounds good on the outside, but who would want to live in a universe where the order was enforced by Korvac? Certainly not the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy!

-First things first, this story had an awesome flow to it, especially considering it was written back before every storyline was geared towards a trade and thus 4-6 parts.

-With that said, Jim Shooter did a masterful job of putting this story together. We get a VERY slow burn leading up to the inevitable showdown between the Avengers, the Guardians and Korvac. I honestly don't think Shooter gets NEARLY enough credit for his work/contributions to comic books.

-I've got to admit, the Guardians of the Galaxy really didn't impress me much in this trade. How in the world did they have a comic in the 90's that lasted as long as it did?

-The fact that Captain America punched Iron Man, a man wearing ARMOR, while calling him a “low-life mercenary” pretty much guaranteed that this trade wasn't going to score any lower than an 8!Oh Cap... You so crazy!

-Speaking of characters who didn't/don't impress me, why Ms. Marvel was included here is simply beyond me. I mean really, what did she add to things? I'll answer that myself, actually. Nothing. Nothing at all. God do I hate her...

-Hawkeye defeating the Collector, a cosmic being, in one on one combat, automatically made this comic's score at least an 8 1/2!If you ever needed evidence as to why Hawkeye is the BEST comic book archer out there, here it is!

-The Collector's daughter being sent to spy on, pretend to love and eventually betray Korvac, who had the power of a god? Lame... Lamer still, the fact that she wound up really falling in love with him! That is SO clichéd!

-As a fan of Cap, I was really getting into his fight with Korvac! I mean the guy has NO powers, and was standing toe-to-toe with a GOD! Man is Cap awesome!Yeah, so he has the powers of a god... So what?

-So Korvac winds up dying because his wife wasn't totally devoted to him?! Really?! And then his wife kills HERSELF because Korvac was gone?! GAH!

-An issue of the Avengers from the 70's/80's wouldn't be complete without the obligatory Quicksilver/Vision argument!HA! He called Vision a digital watch...

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10. I enjoyed pretty much everything about this hardcover except for the ending... The way Korvac died just didn't do it for me. I will say this though, I LOVE that Korvac wasn't portrayed as a pure villain, but rather was somebody who truly wanted to do right. I mean he could have used his powers to run amok, but he didn't, he simply wanted to “fix” the universe. NOW I understand why this is considered a classic Avengers story!

10 Thoughts On... Irredeemable Vol. 2

Hey all, it's your humble servant, X, here with another 10 Thoughts post. This is actually one of my inventory posts(yes, I really DO have inventory posts saved to my computer!), as the impending end of the school year, coupled with Mother's Day made it impossible for me to get a fresh post up. But hey, an inventory post is better than no post at all, right? Right?!?

Irredeemable Vol. 2. Collecting Irredeemable #5-8... Just four issues again?

Synopsis: So far the Plutonian has destroyed his home city as well as an entire country, causing the deaths of millions. His former teammates are desperate to stop him, but before they can do that, there are two questions that need to be answered... How can you hurt the most powerful man on Earth, and what caused him to snap? One of those questions is answered definitively in this volume...

-Plutonian taking Volt's arm? Awesome AND creepy! The best kind of awesome!"Hey wait, I didn't mean that literally!!!"

-I find it pretty funny that everybody is pretending that Bette wasn't having an affair with the Plutonian before he went crazy... I mean how obvious does it have to be?! Did the rest of the Paradigm have to walk in on the two getting busy?!?

-So Modeus seems to be at the secret base of the Plutonian... Or is he?!

-I liked AND didn't like the Modeus robots alerting the Plutonian to their location. On one hand it made sense since they knew they had fulfilled their purpose in “life”, and thus would be destroyed/decommissioned, so they wanted to try to eliminate the Paradigm first. On the other hand, did they really think the Plutonian was going to let them live? Seriously, he's crazy! I doubt he'd bat an eye at pulping some robots...

-I kind of wonder what the Plutonian's deal is... In the first trade it seemed like he could have killed his ex-teammates at the cemetery, but he didn't. But in this trade he flies straight to their base when the Modeus robots alert him. A part of me figures that he WANTS Qubit and the rest of the Paradigm to kill him. Then again, maybe he's just way crazier than I am, which makes it impossible for me to figure him out. Then again, I AM pretty crazy...

-The little kid corpses in the playroom? INSANELY creepy!!!The fact that the Plutonian actually POSED the dead kids creeped me out the most here!

-Ah, so the Plutonian had inadvertently allowed thousands of children to die... Although in all honesty, it wasn't his fault... He couldn't be everywhere at once.

-And then the coup de grace, Samsara discovering the Plutonian's role in the deaths of the kids. It seems that action(as well as the guilt for causing the plague coupled with the way his girlfriend broke up with him) is what drove the Plutonian totally out of his mind.

-Did I enjoy seeing Charybdis kicking the ever loving hell out of the Plutonian? Yes. Yes I did. Which is what makes this comic so great to me... How often do you actively root AGAINST the main character of a story? And enjoy doing so?Yeah! Hit that bastard again!!

-The ending with Charybdis basically declaring himself the leader of the Paradigm was interesting to me in that it's not brawn that's going to defeat the Plutonian, it's going to take brains to halt his path of destruction. It was great to see SOMEBODY bloody the Plutonian's nose a bit, even if it filled them with too much confidence in the end.

Score: 9 out of 10. Yeah, I went with a 9 here, same as the first trade. Mark Waid is doing a great job of keeping me interested in this series. Granted, the four issue trades IS bugging me(I guess Marvel spoiled me with their 6 issue+ trades releases), but other than that, I have no gripes here. As a matter of fact, there are still plenty of little things here that I'm really looking forward to. After reading this trade, I picked up trades 4 & 5(I already had 3), as well as the first two Incorruptible trades. And I plan on putting this series on my pull list. So kudos to Mark Waid. You succeed in pulling me in!You KNOW that this is my current desktop background!

10 Thoughts On... Irredeemable Vol. 1

Hey X-Maniacs, X here with a 10 Thoughts post. I'm pretty busy with the impending end of the school year coming up, so I figured now would be as good a time as any to post this, since I had actually finished typing it up a week ago. Tomorrow I should have a bunch of new comic reviews up, but today, we're going the retro/trade route. That's it from me, here's a look at the first Irredeemable trade.

Irredeemable Vol. 1. Collecting Irredeemable #1-4... Just four comics?!

Synopsis: What if Superman got sick and tired of saving the necks of those idiots in Metropolis and started to listen to those people who kept calling him a menace? That's the question Mark Waid's Irredeemable asks. The Plutonian basically has all of the powers of Superman(we're talking freeze breath, super strength, heat vision, the works), but has turned his back on society, utterly annihilating his former home city, and roaming around the Earth, killing his former super-hero teammates and basically abusing the frightened populace of the planet. The few remaining heroes have banded together, but really, what can they do against a foe who knows them, their families, their weaknesses and is more than willing to use that knowledge against them?

-Okay, I'm just going to come right out and say it... For this to be a REAL trade, shouldn't there be at least six issues collected here?! I mean the cover price is reasonable($9.99) and I got it at Amazon way cheaper than that, but still...

-Another thing, Grant Morrison writes the afterword for this trade, and it was some great stuff! He actually makes two very interesting points... Number one, he DOES know how insane his writing is seen by many, calling himself, “the madcap purveyor of free-form gibberish...” I LOVED that line! I may use it on myself! The second thing he mentioned was that it's the very vocal older comic book readership who were clamoring for the return to the days of Ollie(Queen), Barry(Allen), and Hal(Jordan). Morrison, unlike Chairman Johns or Dan Didio IS a progressive writer, whether you like him or not, possibly the only one DC has on-board these days... That's sad...

-The Plutonian killing his sidekick? Terrible! The remaining heroes raising the dead kid temporarily to talk to him? Creepy!

-Sadly, I really didn't pick up on a lot of the names of the super-heroes in this book... There's Qubit(the guy who can talk to machines), but the names of the rest escape me... Whatever happened to the days where everybody had ultra easy names to remember?!

-The Plutonian's girlfriend's reaction to the fact that he was working by her side in disguise at their job(ala Clark Kent and Lois Lane) was FANTASTIC! And way more realistic than most characters who are duped by heroes in that manner.D'OH!!!

-I also loved the way the Plutonian's enemies decided to hide at the base of the dead hero, Inferno. And THEN see the Plutonian strolling around the base, ignoring them completely!

-How quickly the villains tried to betray Plutonian was both hilarious and sad... I mean the guy was still talking and they were trying to stab him in the back! Villains...He was still talking!

-The US delegate at the UN bashing the Plutonian, a super-human with KNOWN super-hearing? Not that smart...Yeah, not that smart.

-The delegate from Singapore lying to the Plutonian about how grateful the people of his country were? Nice try, but he can hear heartbeats!

-I also LOVED the way the Plutonian utterly destroyed Singapore, and the sick choice he forced Qubit to make... It went such a long way in showing how frustrated the Plutonian was with the way people blamed him for not being able to save EVERYBODY, even though he was able to save ALMOST everybody. Awesome look into his warped mind.This was, by far, one of the best scenes I've read from any comic in some time.

Score: 9 out of 10. If this trade would have been a full-sized, 6 issue trade, I'd have probably gone with a 9 1/2 for the score. I really enjoyed this trade, and the story here, but there were two little things that bugged me... The first is the fact that the characters who weren't the Plutonian(and to a lesser extent, Qubit) really didn't leave enough of an impact on me for me to really get to know them. The second is that with a lead character who is an absolute, genocidal monster, I'm not sure what the shelf-life of this series is, at least for me. I mean no matter how well Waid writes this series(and I REALLY like Waid and his writing), I can't shake the feeling that after like 15-20 issues of the Plutonian acting like an animal, the initial luster of this series is going to wear away... I mean he's a real bastard! It'll be interesting to read a series where I'm openly rooting AGAINST the lead character!

10 Thoughts on... Invincible Presents: Atom Eve and Rex Splode Vol. 1

Hey, it's a 10 Thoughts post! Yeah, that's as much of an intro as I have...

Invincible Presents: Atom Eve and Rex Splode Volume One. Collecting Invincible Presents: Atom Eve #1-2 & Invincible Presents: Atom Eve and Rex Splode #1-3... Phew!

Synopsis: Basically this trade fills us in on what Rex and Eve were up to before the events of Invincible #1. There, how's THAT for a synopsis!

-Eve was a government experiment... I knew that already, I think... No, that HAD to have come up in an issue of Invincible... Right?

-Eve's “siblings” are pretty freaky looking.Boy, Atom Eve sure got the looks in her family!


-Her father is pretty weird looking too... I mean who lurks the streets wearing a lab coat?That's one sweet lab coat!


-Man, Eve has WAAAAY more reason to hate the government than Invincible does! Bastards...

-I love that Rex's family basically sold him for a steak!

-Man, I forgot how awesome Rex was... He was an epic little teenage ninja!

-So Rex first met Eve while she was fighting her arch-nemesis, Killcannon! I also love that Eve has like the WORST arch-enemy ever! Killcannon... Yikes...

-Okay, I'm going to just come right out and say it... I LOVED Rex's first super-hero costume!That's right, I LIKED that costume!


-His second costume, Pyro-Lite? Not so much...The Man.


-After reading these issues, I have to say, it sucks that Rex died. He was probably my... 5th or 6th favorite Invincible character... You know you're reading a great series when you even HAVE a list of favorite characters, especially when the list goes beyond like 3!

Score: 9 out of 10. Super solid trade, that gives insight into two of the supporting characters in the Invincible books. If you don't read Invincible, you probably wouldn't care for this trade, but if you do read Invincible, it's definitely worth a look.

10 Thoughts on... Invincible #71-78

Not that long ago I posted a 10 Thoughts post for a Y the Last Man trade and I admitted that I REALLY wasn't pleased with the way these 10 Thoughts posts were coming out. I mean I was basically reviewing the damn trades, just in bullet format, and I didn't want to do full reviews for those trades... It takes too much time, and I've always disliked the way I review trades... What can I say, that's just me. So I'm going to try to change the way I do these posts. First I'm going to do a QUICK little synopsis about what the trade/comics I'm looking at are about, then I'll list 10 random thoughts about them. As always, drop me comments about the post, what you like/didn't like, how smart/handsome I am, etc. Consider this 10 Thoughts version 1.5, not quite what I want yet, but getting closer...

Invincible #71, 73-78. Yeah, I could never get my hands on issue #72...

Synopsis: Invincible, his brother Kid/Young Omni-Man, his dad Omni-Man and Allen the Alien have collected several allies and are now ready to take the battle to the Viltrumites. However, the Viltrumites aren't going to go down without a fight. Can Invincible and the Coalition of Planets finally end the Viltrumite menace and free the universe? Well I know because I read the story, and if you read this post, you'll know as well!

-Man, Invincible's dad(who I'll be calling Nolan since that's easier to type than Omni-Man) has some set on him, no? I can't believe he decided to pay his ex(?)-wife a visit before leaving Earth with Invincible and Young Omni-Man(who will now be know as Oliver because, well, you know why!). Once you call a woman no better than a pet, it's going to be hard to win her back... Trust me...

-I've got to admit, once Nolan decided to take Oliver with him and Invincible, all sorts of warning bells were ringing in my head...

-I am SO pissed that I don't have issue #72, since that's the issue Invincible finally kills that pompous ass, Conquest! Dammit!!! If anybody wants to send that issue my way, I'll send you... um, my best wishes?

-Never trust a fat alien. Those are my key words to live by.The Viltrumite leader has one sweet cape...


-”Your balls are inferior”... Oliver is awesome!Jerk face!


-Which is why I was so pissed when I thought he was dead! Blast you and your mind games, Robert Kirkman!!! Seriously, if he wouldn't have been revealed as alive later on, I'd have been VERY angry!

-The Viltrumite leader “killing” Nolan had less of an impact on me. Sorry Nolan, but you were a jerk. AND you don't wear shoes!I don't know why Nolan's lack of shoes bothers me so much, but it does...


-I totally brought that the Viltrumites had headed to Earth and destroyed everything. When Cecil Stedman died, my heart... It almost didn't make it... Luckily though, Cecil's death was simply a figment of Invincible's overactive imagination. Because if it wasn't...No, not Cecil!!!


-The swerve with the Viltrumite's deciding to live on Earth and interbreed? GENIUS!!!

-Okay, so Atom Eve put on some pounds while Invincible was away. Now he was gone for 10 months, and we know she was preggers before he took off... Obviously(or at least I think it's obvious) that extra weight is baby weight. So, did she lose the baby, did she have the baby and give it up for adoption, or did she have the baby and hide it?

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10. The ONLY thing keeping this from a perfect score is the way almost EVERYBODY no-sold dying! Invincible, Nolan, Oliver, it's like, unless you see somebody's head fall off, they're almost definitely NOT dead!

10 Thoughts on... Y: The Last Man: vol 3.

Hey, I just realized that I haven't done a 10 Thoughts post in like a month or so. There's actually a really good reason for that though... I HATE the way these posts have been coming out! They're easily some of my worst work... I have a few that I typed up a while back(including this one), but I just can't stand them... I'm actually toying with a new format for when I feel like doing a 10 Thoughts post, but it's still in the development stages. Anyway, I don't have any new reviews for tonight, so I figured tonight was as good a night as any to post this. Enjoy... Or don't...

Y The Last Man vol. 3: One Small Step. Collecting: Y The Last Man #11-17

-Yorick and his trio(355 and Dr. Mann) come across a Russian agent named Natalya, who after seeing Yorick(who REALLY needs to work on the whole “hiding” thing) explains that there were two other men alive aboard a space station(as well as a lone woman), an American and a Russian.MEN!


-We learn that Yorick's mother sent the Israelis after Yorick since she didn't trust the US military(who were still in disarray) to find and return Yorick to her. So how does Yorick's mom know where he is at all times? She had a tracking device installed inside of Yorick's pet monkey, Ampersand.

-The Russians knew that the American Government had a special biological fallout shelter hidden in Kansas, and as such have given the Astronauts the go-ahead to try to land in the wheat fields of Kansas, near the shelter.

-The quartet(Yorick, 355, Mann, and Natalya) manage to find the fallout shelter and are met by a helpful pair of twin scientists, who were the only scientists who had remained there. Oh, and the fallout shelter is hidden inside a barn.

-The group hears a loud explosion from outside and 355 and Natalya rush outside figuring that the explosion was from the landing space capsule.

-Unfortunately all 355 and Natalya discover is some blown up farm equipment and they rapidly realize that they'd been hoodwinked. The Israelis had set up the explosion to draw 355 and Natalya outside so they could head inside and kidnap Yorick, which they successfully do.

-355 and Natalya discover two Israeli soldiers watching them, and 355 manages to kill both women. 355 gets on the radio of one of the dead soldiers and tells the Israeli commander that there were two male Astronauts about to touch down to Earth in mere moments, and that she'd allow the Israelis to have the Astronauts provided they returned Yorick. After some thought, the Israeli commander agrees to the deal.

-The Israeli commander waits and eventually sees that 355 was being truthful, watching as a space capsule begins to make it's way to the ground. The commander takes a rocket propelled grenade and tries to blow it out of the sky, since she wanted her country to have the only man left. Yorick manages to crash into the mad woman, messing up her aim, and one of the commander's top lieutenants betrays her, finally having had her fill of her commander's madness.Now that's a BIG gun!


-355 and Dr. Mann arrive at the capsule's crash site and are only able to pull one Astronaut free of the capsule before it explodes, killing the other two occupants. As luck would have it, they pull the female Astronaut free. By this time Yorick has been returned to the fallout shelter, and 355 and Dr. Mann bring the female Astronaut inside. The Astronaut explains that the men forced her to leave the exploding capsule first because she was pregnant. So although they lost the male astronauts, the female astronaut was potentially carrying a male fetus.

-Natalya decides she'd stay at the lab to protect the astronaut and the two scientists since she failed to retrieve her countryman, and Dr. Mann, Yorick and 355 continue their trek towards California.

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10. The main story was phenomenal, nearly as good as the last trade. The only thing that brought this trade down a notch was something that I didn't mention in the review(by choice!), a two part story dealing with Ampersand running off and joining up with a traveling acting troupe... Yeah. If not for that though, this trade very easily could have gotten another perfect score.

10 Thoughts on... Fables vol. 2

Fables vol. 2: Animal Farm. Collecting Fables #6-10

-We begin with Snow White forcing her sister Rose Red to head upstate to check on the farm where the non-human Fables were forced to live.

-The farm has all sorts of magic spells put on it to prevent curious locals from investigating. However, upon arriving, Snow White discovers a bunch of spent shotgun casings, and finds the animals holding a secret meeting in one of the barns. The meeting is being chaired by one of the Three Little Pigs, who basically refuses to inform Snow what the meeting was about because the meeting was... you know, secret. Oh, and the former leader of the farm has mysteriously vanished.

-That night Snow White and Rose Red look out the window of the farm house they were staying in and discover the head of one of the Three Pigs on a pike.

-It appears that Goldilocks and the Three Bears(she's married to Baby Bear) had killed the Pig in order to send a message to the other animals on the farm that the time to strike back at the Adversary(who stole the Fable character's lands) was nigh.Well Goldilocks was already a criminal, why not become a revolutionary?


-A fox, who wasn't interested in fighting the Adversary, happens across the morbid scene and runs off, with Goldi proclaiming that the Fox had to die. At around this same time, Rose Red secretly meets(there sure are a lot of secret meetings going on here...) with one of the remaining Three Pigs, who admits that they ordered the death of the other pig, and that they wanted Rose on their side to go after the Adversary. Rose agrees to help.

-The fox winds up running to Snow White and basically fills her in on what had been going on at the farm. Snow and the fox try to escape the farm grounds, but are chased after by a few of the pro-Goldilocks/Pigs animals. A tiger nearly gets its claws into Snow, but the fox distracts the tiger, allowing Snow to get away.I can safely say that it's never a good thing to be chased by a tiger.


-Soon thereafter, the tiger catches up to Snow, claiming that it killed the fox. Snow kills the tiger with a gun she had discovered, and is finally caught by her sister, Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

-Back in New York City, Boy Blue discovers that there was trouble up at the farm after a robin he sent up to check on the situation was killed. He reports this news to the Big Bad Wolf, who is not allowed to go to the farm himself. The Wolf gathers Boy Blue, Bluebeard, Prince Charming and a flying monkey together and sends them up north as his kick-ass posse... That is just insane!

-Snow White finds herself locked up with the former head of the farm, Waylen Smith. With some help from the fox(who wasn't killed by that damn lying tiger), Snow and Waylen get free and wake the giants and dragons who were sleeping at the farm and convince them to(literally) squash the glorious animal revolution. However, their victory is short-lived as Goldilocks shoots Snow in the head from a distance with a high-powered sniper rifle!

-Snow manages to survive(I have NO idea how!), and she gets sent back downstate to be tended to, while Boy Blue and his posse arrive on the scene to set up a war crimes tribunal(HA!). The Pigs are put to death(in an awesomely awful way, since the executioner was inept), while the other leaders either escape(Goldilocks) or are forced to preform hard labor(the Three Bears). In the end we learn that Rose Red never actually betrayed Snow and that she only joined the animal revolution to buy Snow time to escape. Upon learning that, Snow installs Rose as the new head of the farm and they all live happily ever after... Or at least until the nest issue... What do you want, I couldn't resist that line!

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10. I actually enjoyed the first trade a bit more than this volume, but my hatred of talking animals is legendary, so yeah. For a trade that was full of talking animals though, an 8 1/2 is REALLY good!

10 Thoughts on... Y: The Last Man: vol 2.

It's the weekend, meaning it's time for me to switch away from my regular, current reviews and bust out a few trade reviews. I'm still happily playing through Dragon Age 2(for the PS3!!) and have lost 17 hours to that game thus far. Can you guess what my weekend plans entail? Anyway, enough jabber, here's the review.

Y: The Last Man, Book 2: Cycles. Collecting Y: The Last Man #6-10.

-Yorick(covered in a cape, hood and gas mask) manages to gain access to a train by trading a motorcycle he swiped from the Amazons towards the end of the last trade. With all of the men gone, the only real way to get cross country is by the trains. Anyway, Yorick, 355 and Dr. Mann(as well as Ampersand the monkey) get on-board and kill some time talking about stuff. As luck would have it, two thieves hop into the car Yorick and company were in, demanding whatever the trio had on them. 355 draws her gun, which freaks out Mann, who tries to stop 355 from shooting anybody. By this point, Yorick, like an idiot, charges the two criminals and gets tossed out of the moving train. 355 beats the hell out of the thieves before tossing Mann out of the train and then following herself, since her whole mission was to keep Yorick safe.

-Yorick's sister, Hero, is pulled deeper into the ranks of the Amazons thanks to the Amazon's charismatic leader, Victoria.

-Some woman living in a small town in Marrisville, Ohio finds Yorick's unconscious body(as well as Ampersand) laying near the train tracks not that far from her home.

-The woman(whose name is Sonia) takes Yorick into her home and watches over him until he wakes up, quite surprised by his new surroundings and demanding to know what became of 355 and Dr. Mann.

-Mann wakes up a little banged up but no worse for wear after falling from the train, while 355 is laying with her head cracked open against a rock.OUCH!!!


-Yorick tries to impress upon Sonia not to reveal his presence to the other townswomen, but unfortunately she had already told them, leading to a crowd of women waiting outside of Sonia's house to see if there really was a man still alive. The women are relatively friendly, and Yorick is shocked by how well run their town is, a far cry from some of the towns and cities he had passed back east. While talking to the woman, Dr. Mann rushes over and tells Yorick that 355 needed assistance. The townswomen inquire what kind of a name 355 was and when they hear she's a government agent, they give each other one of those, “Uh-oh...” looks. Ultimately the women agree to bring 355 to town to work on her wounds.

-While that is going on, the Amazons are still on Yorick's trail, with Hero locating the two thieves from the train and discovering that the man the Amazons were hunting down sounded exactly like her brother. Hero reports this information back to Victoria, hoping they could spare Yorick, but Victoria manages to convince Hero(with some awesome brainwashing techniques) that Yorick was no different than the other men, and as such had to die.

-With 355 now being looked after by Dr. Mann, and Yorick chopping wood with Sonia away from town, the other townswomen meet up afraid that 355 had come to town for them. Why would that be the case? Well, Yorick and Sonia wind up sharing a kiss, after which she admits to him that all of the women in town were from a nearby women's penitentiary, and were released by the guards since they had no way to seriously keep an eye on them. Upon learning this, Yorick freaks out and rushes back to town, ranting about how the townswomen should still be in jail.That old woman is all kinds of awesome!


-While Yorick is making an ass of himself, Hero enters the door demanding Yorick turn himself over to the Amazons. Yorick immediately goes to embrace his sister and is met with a bow to the head. From outside Victoria appeals with the townswomen to send Yorick outside so she could kill him and finally rid the Earth of all men. The townswomen refuse, much to the shock of Yorick and the rage of Victoria. Victoria demands that the Amazons burn the building to the ground, but Yorick heads outside against the advice of the townswomen, who were willing to fight to the death for him. Yorick tries to talk some sense to Hero, but she's completely brainwashed by this point and pushes him to his knees, at which time Victoria walks over with a handgun, ready to blow Yorick's brains out. Before she can pull the trigger though, Sonia throws an ax from the house, catching Victoria right in the side of the head, killing her.Talk about a splitting headache! Hee-hee-hee...


-In retribution for Victoria's death, Hero shoots an arrow into Sonia, killing her. The other townswomen charge outside, grab the fallen handgun and decide to lock Hero and the Amazons in the prison they themselves once resided in. Besides all of that, a few Israeli soldiers have snuck onto American soil after being told of Yorick's existence by someone from the White House, and we also learn that while Yorick is the last man on Earth, there were two worried male astronauts up in a space station wondering what the hell was going on back home.

Score: 10 out of 10. Ah, so THIS is why this series was so highly spoken of! There's really not anything for me to complain about here. The story was awesome, the artwork was awesome, the dialogue was awesome, in a word, this trade was awesome! And not only was this trade awesome, the future storylines that were set up look great. Hero appears to have become the defacto leader of the Amazons with Victoria gone, meaning she'll be in direct conflict with Yorick when she makes her inevitable escape from the prison. The Israeli storyline has been simmering on the back burner, but you can tell it's going to be HUGE when it finally comes to the forefront. And the last page, which showed us that there were two male astronauts who survived the great die-off was a mind-blower. Truly great stuff here.

10 Thoughts on... Fables vol. 1

One more “10 Thoughts on...” post before the weekend is finished. I'm kind of leaning towards saving these “10 Thoughts” posts for the weekends and doing my regular reviews during the week. Of course that plan can, and almost definitely will change, but that's the current plan. We'll see just how long I decide to stick with it.

Fables, Volume 1: Legends in Exile. Collecting Fables #1-5

-First, it's quick origin time! It seems that assorted Fairy Tales characters(and not the G-rated, Disney-fied versions either) had their lands and kingdoms conquered by some mysterious Adversary character. By the time the Fable's characters realized just what a threat the Adversary posed, it was too late as he had amassed too much power. With no recourse, the Fables characters were forced to go into hiding in the regular world, or as they call it, the Mundane World. Since not sticking together is what screwed them over in the first place, they've decided to a) stick together in Fabletown, a small section of New York City, and b) NEVER reveal who/what they truly were to any of the Mundanes(regular folks).

-Man, Snow White really came across as a bit of a witch early on in this one! Who'd have thunk it?

-And then you had Prince Charming, Snow White's ex-husband, who is the very definition of the word man-whore!Man, Prince Charming is a real ass!


-Besides meeting a few of the main characters in Fabletown, this trade centered around trying to figure out what happened to/who killed Rose Red(Snow White's sister). Rose Red's boyfriend, Jack(of Jack and the Beanstalk fame) alerts the town's sheriff, the Big Bad Wolf of the crime, and the Wolf scopes out the VERY gory apartment shared by Red and Jack.

-As the Wolf goes through with his investigation, he meets with Bluebeard, who seems to be one of the richer members of the Fable community. During the interview, the Wolf learns that Bluebeard was actually engaged to Red, but that the engagement was secret, and wasn't to be revealed until a year after the engagement occurred. This naturally makes Bluebeard a suspect since his whole thing is to marry and then kill his wives on their wedding night.

-Bluebeard points the finger of blame at Jack, since Bluebeard had nothing to gain in killing Red, and lost a rather fat dowry paid to Red as well.Bluebeard and Jack, NOT the best of friends.


-Yeah, so while this whole whodunit mystery was going on, I have to admit, Pinocchio made me laugh pretty hard...What can I possibly add to that?!


-During some huge meeting where all of the Fables character meet up once a year to touch base, the Wolf reveals he solved the mystery, telling the gathered that Red(with help from Jack) had faked her death. And he proves this by pulling a wig off of Red herself! Basically Red wanted Bluebeard's money so Jack could do some stupid get rich quick scheme, and figured she could pay Bluebeard off before the time to marry came up. With the time of the marriage fast approaching, and no money in sight, Red and Jack figured the way to go was to fake her death so she wouldn't have to go through with the marriage.

-Snow White screwing Prince Charming(who slept with Red a few years back) out of a ton of money he thought he'd acquired was pretty funny, and totally deserved.

-If I had one gripe with this trade, it was that so many characters were introduced! Snow White, King Cole, The Wolf, Boy Blue, Beauty and the Beast, Jack, Rose Red, Prince Charming, Bluebeard, and so on and so forth. There were times when I'd be sitting there trying to remember who was what to who, and what each character was currently doing.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10. I really enjoyed the whole whodunit murder mystery that was the focal point of this trade. It was fun trying to figure out the mystery along with the Wolf(and yes, my guess of Bluebeard was wrong), and I really liked the way Bill Willingham had the Wolf spell out EXACTLY how and why Red and Jack did what they did. I wasn't expecting to enjoy this comic(I mean it's about fairy tale characters!), but once you realized this wasn't the cartoonish version of those characters, but rather the darker, pre-Disney versions, I was able to get into this story rather quickly. This was a good opening arc, and I figure as I read more and get more acquainted with the characters, I'll enjoy each passing trade more and more.

10 Thoughts on... Y: The Last Man Vol. 1

Here we go with try number two of this “10 Thoughts on...” deal. Let's see if it comes out any better than my first shot at it...

Y: The Last Man, Book 1: Unmanned.. Collecting: Y: The Last Man #1-5

-This comic gets started with every single creature with a Y chromosome on the Earth suddenly vomiting up blood and dying... Well every creature with the exception of Yorick Brown and his pet monkey, Ampersand.

-Throughout this trade, we get no real clues as to what caused the massive die-off, and Yorick himself, being an amateur illusionist, believes it was the ring he picked up from a magic shop that he was intending on proposing to his girlfriend with once she returned from Australia.

-The closest thing to a clue we have about what may have happened to the men is that a secret agent from the US Government, Agent 355, had gone to Jordan to spirit a woman out of the country due to some sort of ancient necklace the woman was wearing. The woman refuses to leave, explaining that her father had warned her that a catastrophe would occur if the amulet left Jordan. Some terrorists who wanted the amulet wind up killing the woman, and 355 kills the terrorists, taking the amulet with her. Soon after leaving Jordanian airspace, all the men perish.

-Two months after the death of all the men, Yorick(obviously very covered up) and Ampersand make their way to Washington DC in search of his mother, who was a congresswoman from Ohio. Yorick finds his mom, who is overjoyed that he survived, but wants Yorick to hide, since in the two months since the great die-off, several dangerous groups of women have popped up.Hi mom!


-Yorick's mother tricks him into entering a safe room hidden under the White House after an attack by a bunch of crazy Republicans. Since the majority of women left in the government were Democrats, the wives of the dead Republican Representatives decide that they deserved the jobs of their late husbands.It's funny 'cause it's true!


-Agent 355 winds up locating the Secretary of Agriculture and explains to her that with the President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, etc. dead, she was now the acting president and had to head to Washington.

-355 and the new president show up at the White House just in time to see the crazy Republicans and the few female Representatives and secret service agents having a stand-off on the lawn. The new president(being a rare non-crazy Republican) manages to convince the crazy Republicans to leave for now, just as Yorick breaks out of the safe room and heads outside.

-Yorick wants to head to Australia to find his girlfriend, but the new president tasks 355 with escorting Yorick to Boston where there was a female geneticist who was extremely knowledgeable in the area of cloning and genetics, with the hope being the geneticist could clone/figure out why Yorick and his monkey were still alive.

-Yorick and 355 manage to locate the geneticist in Boston, Dr. Mann, but Mann is unable to do any experiments on Yorick because her lab was mysteriously burnt down. Mann explains she had a back-up lab in California, meaning the trio would have to sneak out to the west coast, keeping Yorick safe from harm during the trip.

-Besides all of that, we also learn that the new leading military force in the world is Israel, since they actually had female soldiers who had seen military action, something much of the rest of the world couldn't also lay claim to. The Israelis go about conquering several Middle Eastern nations around them as they begin to throw around their newfound world power status. Another pending threat is the Daughters of the Amazons, a bunch of women who had fallen into a cult that felt that all men deserved to die since men suck. These women have cut off one of their breasts like the mythical Amazons of old and have amongst their ranks Yorick's sister, Hero. Needless to say the rumors that one man had survived the great die-off was of great interest of them, since they felt it was their duty to rid Mother Earth of ALL men.

Score: 9 out of 10. This first trade was more intriguing than great to me. The story was extremely engaging, and the mystery of what happened to the men was great, even though it didn't take center stage during the second half of this trade. Yorick is an easy character to like, as are 355 and even Dr. Mann. They have their own distinctive personalities, and each bring something different to the table. Who knew a world run by women would be turn out so sucky?! I always figured all of the world's troubles stemmed from the men!

10 Thoughts On... Invincible Vol. 13.

Guess what??? It's time for me to unleash a BRAND NEW feature here at Ye Olde Blog! One thing I've always had problems writing was reviews for trades/multiple issues of something. I mean I CAN do it, but it always takes a REALLY long time, and the review is oftentimes unbearably long(for example, I once did an almost 3,000 word, four page long post on the JLA/Avengers mini-series!). So how do we rectify that? Well, not that long ago, JT mentioned to me that people like lists... Don't ask me how THAT conversation got started, but it did. That revelation(whenever JT tells me something it's a revelation) got me to thinking, why not do trade reviews but FORCE yourself to stick to a set number of points? I mean when I was at my laziest I used to do bullet point reviews, so what's stopping me from doing a set number of points to talk about a mini-series, trade, or even a plain, old back issue? Nothing! So with those thoughts prancing around my head, “10 Thoughts on...” was born. Damn do I SUCK at thinking up titles... Anyway, consider this post a test run. If it comes across relatively well I'll probably do a whole series of these types of posts. If it sucks, blame JT. Oh, and in closing, any similarities between this post and JT's “What I Learned From” posts is purely coincidental... *ahem* With all of that out of the way, let's get to the post!

Invincible Volume Thirteen: Growing Pains. Collecting Invincible #66-70 as well as Invincible Returns #1.

-There seem to be less than 50 Viltrumites left running around the universe, making their hold on their empire tenuous at best.

-It's REALLY weird to me that Omni-Man is flying through space wearing nothing on his feet... I mean what is that all about? Allen the Alien is wearing strange little metal foot things, why isn't Nolan wearing... I don't know, anything?!

-So Nolan and Allen have managed to gather a bunch of people/weapons to strike at the Viltrumites, in the upcoming “Viltrumite War” storyline. The only thing left to do is pick up Invincible from Earth...

-I guess Atom Eve and Invincible should have used some protection... The potential child of Atom Eve and Invincible has SO much potential it's mind-boggling. I mean Robert Kirkman can take that angle in so many different directions.Whoops!

-God help me but I really like the Sequids! I don't know what it is about the little body-snatching devils, but I really enjoy them! That's why I was so bummed to see them completely and totally defeated...Those poor Sequids...

-I'd SO buy and read a Cecil Stedman series! He out Nick Fury's Nick Fury! Oddly enough, I find myself siding with Cecil for the most part throughout this series. Even when he does things that I KNOW should bother me, I still tend to see his points. I mean why shouldn't he use D.A. Sinclair and his Reanimen to make the world a safer place? Plus that scar on his face is badass.

-I'm also glad Kirkman seems like he's ready to pull Invincible away from the brink and have him stop killing everything! I mean I get that Kid Omni-Man is quite brilliant, but should Invincible really be taking super-hero advice from his kid brother?

-The Universa stuff wasn't that bad at all, but why does it always seem Invincible is being battered by pretty much EVERYBODY he fights? I mean is he really the guy you want to bring into a battle with foes as fearsome as the Viltrumites?Once again, not very invincible.

-I don't know about anybody else, but I'm going to miss the all black and blue Invincible costume. It's not like the yellow, blue and black costume was bad or anything, but I thought the black and blue variant was pretty snazzy. Yes, snazzy!

-Things come to a close here with Nolan and Allen finally arriving on Earth to pick up Invincible so he can go to war against the Viltrumites... So much for the whole, “No more killing” edict, huh? I was a bit disappointed that Atom Eve didn't tell Invincible that she was pregnant, although I can fully understand her keeping the information to herself considering the fact that her boyfriend was going off to fight in an intergalactic war. With this trade out of the way I'm ALMOST caught up on the Invincible series, meaning I can FINALLY do regular reviews for them! Hooray!

Score: 9 out of 10. I can honestly say I've enjoyed every Invincible comic I've read thus far... That's a real rarity for me! I mean every issue/storyline has been good to great. I can't think of one instance where I could point at something and say, “Well that sucked!” If I was wearing a hat right now I'd take it off for Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley. But I'm not, so I can't. But I would.