Best of the Rest! May 8th edition.

It's Monday, which means it's time for a brand spanking new Best of the Rest post.  As usual, I'll bust out a few reviews, followed by JT, who will bust out a few reviews of his own, but in blue text.  Considering the relatively small comic haul for both JT and myself, this post shouldn't be as long as the past couple of been.  Okay, let's see which comic is up first for me...

Walking Dead #110: Rick takes a group of people to the Kingdom to meet Ezekiel and his group.  Meanwhile, Jesus prevents Kal from betraying everybody to Negan and the Saviors.  Michonne is initially pissed by Ezekiel's king act, but the two have a nice little heart-to-heart and seem to get along very well.  Once we got past the Jesus stuff, this issue slowed way down.  It does turn out that I like Ezekiel now!  Kirkman did a great job of filling out his character, which means one of two things...  Either a) he's going to die next issue, or b) he's going to betray Rick and company to the Saviors.  Hopefully neither thing happens, but after reading as much of this series as I have?  I would not be surprised.  Score: 7 out of 10.

Secret Avengers #4: AIM sends the stolen Iron Patriot armor loose, at which time it begins attacking individuals who had been targeted by America.  To avoid a diplomatic incident, SHIELD sends Hulk to destroy the renegade armor.  On top of that, SHIELD sends Nick Fury Jr, Mockingbird, Black Widow and Hawkeye to AIM Island to assassinate the Scientist Supreme.  Meh, meh, and double meh.  I swear, the name Secret Avengers is cursed for me...  Regardless of who the writer is, or how much I enjoy their work, without fail, I can never get into this series...  This one is getting dangerously close to the chopping block...  Score: 5 1/2 out of 10.

Superboy #20: Dr. Psycho enlists Superboy's help in dealing with HIVE, which had sent agents after Psycho, who has gone rogue from them.  Yeah, and that's it.  Nothing much to say about this one, actually... It seems as if SB randomly bounces from one clandestine organization to another.  Plus we all know Psycho is going to betray SB!  There's one of the failings of the New 52, introducing a brand new character would work way better than slotting Psycho here, who will undoubtedly turn of SB.  Score: 6 out of 10.

Ultimates #24: Cap learns that the leader of California was planning on blowing Sacramento up and heads there.  Meanwhile, Iron Man escapes from the Californian leader and meets Cap in Sacramento   Finally, Thor and Invisible Woman join the two and the four(okay, mainly Thor, Sue and Iron Man) manage to prevent the Stark Space Station from obliterating the city.  This one ends with Cap deciding he didn't want to be president anymore since he was a soldier, not a politician.  I enjoyed this one.  We still have a threat in California and the West Coast Ultimates, and Cap has stepped down, which was pretty much a given.  Good stuff here!  Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.

Avengers Assemble #15AU: This takes place in Jolly Ol' London, where the only heroes left are Capt. Marvel, Capt. Britain, some woman named Excalibur, who is a healer, a guy named Computer Graham, who can enter computers, and a girl who has magic soccer(or I guess in this case, football) powers...  Yep, really...  Poor, poor London...  Anyway, I've already wasted enough time on this rubbish(hey, when in Rome...).  Basically Ultron kills everybody who tries to fight him.  The end.  Yeah, I picked this comic up on a whim and am now cursing myself for wasting the money...  This comic was all sorts of terrible...  A girl with magic soccer powers...  Yeah, that's all for me...  Score: 2 out of 10.

Avenging Spider-Man #20: I can't believe this series is at issue twenty already! Anyway, let's do this. This issue features Superior Spider-Man visiting the SHIELD Helicarrier after he stops a bunch of A.I.M. soldiers/scientists/nerds. It just so happens he's done so while Black Widow and Hawkeye are there for Secret Avenger stuff, while Dr. Bruce Banner is on board, and while the Russians have sent people to kill Chameleon so he doesn't leak government secrets. Spider-Man is there to free Chameleon because he's collecting real life Sinister Six trading cards, and sends his Spider-Bots to find him and cut the power. Before he can get to him, the Helicarrier is invaded by two dudes with skulls for faces that can burn you with their touch. Spidey heads to find Chameleon and finds bodies in his wake, and blames himself for their death's since he freed him, but quickly backtracks, saying if those guys hadn't invaded, he'd have had time to get there and stop Chameleon. We see Chameleon running to his freedom, wearing the face of his Doctor as Spider-Man heads off to find him and is confronted by none other than The Hulk! This was an interesting issue for me because I never really got into it. It just happened and here we are, I have no feelings either way which is kinda... bad if you think about it. Once again, this comic wasn't bad but I doubt I'll remember it this time next week. Score: 6/10

I know! I'm shocked too!!! I know you guys expected more reviews from me but hey, I'm a busy dude! Plus X took all the good books! :P Either way, expect a Throwback review from me tomorrow, and until then, this is JT, and my buddy X, signing off!

Avengers Assemble #7

So poor JT got stuck reviewing the disaster that was AvX #11 yesterday.  I get to to look at another Bendis scripted book today, Avengers Assemble #7.  Do I hope it will be good?  Yes.  Should it be good?  Yes.  But will it be good?  We shall see shortly...

Avengers Assemble #7:

Summary: This issue kicks off with Thanos summoning the Elders of the Universe to him to show off his Cosmic Cube...  Oh, and to kill them, which he apparently does.  From there the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy team up to take on a massive Badoon warship.  Even though the Badoon have superior weaponary and numbers, the Avengers have Hulk and Thor, and as such send the two brutes out in to space with the hope being that they could get onboard the Badoon ship and Thor could destroy the ship's reactor with his lightning.  Thor manages to do just that and manages to get back to the Guardians' ship with Hulk.  The Guardians warn the Avenhers that the BAdoon wouldn't take this laying down, but before the two teams cn fret over Badoon revenge, they find Thanos.  However, it seems the Cosmic Cube has had some adverse effect on the mad Titan as he is huge, starry and has the Cube trapped in his chest.

Thoughts: No complaints here.  The best thing about the Avengers fighting in space for most of this issue is that Bendis couldn't go dialogue crazy due to nobody being able to hear anything in space.  Besides that, the story was strong and simple, the Badoon teamed with Thanos and are therefore bad.  The Avengers and Guardians fought the Badoon.  They destroyed a Badoon ship, something which could lead to repercussions down the road.  Plus you had Thanos taunting and supposedly killing the Elders, although that action seems to have been what trapped Thanos in the state he was in at the end of this issue.  Honestly, I'm looking forward to the next issue which wraps up this storyline.  I'll be curious to see hos Bendis wraps it all up.

Score: 8 out of 10.
 
Thor and Hulk vs the Badoon army?  Yeah, I'd take Thor and Hulk every time.

Avengers Assemble #3

(As a note, you should probably check out THIS post first for an explanation of what's going on here)
Really, all I can say here is which Bendis will we get? Good Bendis, who can write a good story, or bad Bendis, whose dialogue gets TOTALLY out of control? We shall see...

Avengers Assemble #3:

Story Points:
-The Avengers and the Zodiac battle, with the prize being the Ultimate Nullifier.
-Cap has the Black Widow take the Nullifier and hide, while the rest of the Avengers try to deal with the Zodiac.
-Hulk manages to beat one of the Zodiac so badly they lose their powers, at which point Iron Man realizes the Zodiac's powers were being beamed to them.
-Iron Man rigs up a device to disrupt the powers being sent to the Zodiac, thus depowering them.
-The Avengers demand to know who was supplying the Zodiac with their powers, at which time THANOS shows up(!!!), ending this one!

Thoughts: Yeah, the ending totally saved this one for me! The Thanos revelation was excellent, and actually makes sense story-wise, so props to Bendis for that. The Ultimate Nullifier not only destroys whatever it's aimed at, it also destroys the user, so it makes perfect sense that Thanos would want it(through the Zodiac as his minions), as it could, possibly, end his life, as well as several others. Sure, this one dragged in the middle, and the dialogue did get a bit crazy at times, but or a Bendis comic? This one was pretty good, with a damn good ending.

Score: 7 out of 10.

Avengers Assemble #2

After last night's New Avengers disaster, I almost pushed this comic to the bottom of my comic pile, mainly because I'm not sure if I can stomach another Bendis-written Avengers title this soon. But I've decided to just get it over with... Just like with a band-aid, I'm going to rip it off really quick and get it finished with fast.

Avengers Assemble #2:

Summary: I'm going to skip over the first few pages because I couldn't make sense of them. Basically, some super-powerful being gave the Zodiac powers to collect items of power from the Earth... Or something. From there, Hulk arrives at Avengers Mansion and wants to talk to Captain America. Meanwhile, Taurus beats up the Avengers, but Hawkeye, Black Widow and Thor manage to get away from the battle with the box Taurus was carrying. Later on, the Avengers(now with Hulk) discover that the box contained the Ultimate Nullifier(?!!!). Cap tells Widow to hide the Nullifier in a safe place, and this issue ends with six members of the Zodiac slamming into the Avengers ship.

Thoughts: Now this was much better. The story was easy to follow, there wasn't PAGES full of endless, unnecessary dialogue, and the cliffhanger was strong. Add Mark Bagley's art, and this issue put New Avengers #24 to shame. Yeah, I don't get how/why the Zodiac would have the Ultimate Nullifier(shouldn't that thing be locked away at the Baxter Building?), nor who powered the Zodiac(the Supreme Intelligence? Korvac? Immortus?), but if the story stays as solid as it was this issue, I'll happily stick around to discover all of the answers to those questions.

Score: 7 out of 10.

See, Bendis needs to do more dialogue like this!

Avengers Assemble #1

Last review for the day? The THIRD monthly Avengers title Marvel will be putting out... And yes, it's written by Brian Bendis... Because he has to write EVERY Avengers title, I guess. I am a tiny bit hopeful that Bendis will steer clear of his usual insanity and give us some old school Avengers action in this series, since this series is obviously geared towards people interested in the Avengers movie, and not interested in Bendis's man-crush on Norman Osborn... Or at least that's what I'm hoping...

Avengers Assemble #1:

Summary: What a bad name for a series... Great battle cry, bad title... Anyway, we begin with a new version of the Zodiac forming. From there, the Avengers unveil their newest home(or one of them anyway), a rebuilt Avengers Tower. We switch from that scene to the desert where the Hulk is watching the army transport something. A water based member of the Zodiac(Aquarius I'd guess) attacks the army, which brings the Hulk into the fray to help the army... Who naturally misunderstands and figures Hulk was working with the Zodiac member. Eventually (probably) Aquarius escapes with an object the army felt was very important. Hulk also leaves after getting a piece of (probably) Aquarius's costume. From there, Hawkeye and the Black Widow are in Latveria tracking down the stolen object when they run into the massive Taurus. Thor and Iron Man respond and engage Taurus, while Hawkeye and Widow steal the object from Taurus's forces and try to escape. Unfortunately for the Avengers, Taurus defeats Thor and Iron Man(!?!) and throws Thor through the truck Widow and Hawkeye were trying to escape in, ending this one.

Thoughts: Eh, same Bendis, different title. While I am grateful that Norman Osborn didn't pop up here, the dialogue was still the same dialogue Bendis has been using for years now... The stuttering, the repeating, the inane conversations, they were all still here. Now, the story has some potential, as Bendis is at least giving us a threat from the Avengers past(for a change), but with a twist. I'm interested in seeing where this series is going to go, but I must admit, I am a bit disappointed in what we got here as well. Oh, and I love how Hulk and Thor were here even though things haven't been straightened out for them in their own series's...

Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.

Mayhaps the Avengers should have stuck with Tanarus...