Best of the Rest! January 22nd edition.

Hey all, I won't bore you all with a long winded intro, instead I'll just go right into my two topics du jour and then to the reviews. Onward!

I want to buy Iron Man #500... Can you spare $150?
So I was going through the solicits on Tuesday to see what I'd be grabbing from the comic book shop come Wednesday, and I noticed that Invincible Iron Man #500 would be released. That's good, since issue #500 was the start of a new storyline(or so I thought), one that I'd be following from the beginning, unlike the last story, which I started reading at the 3rd or 4th part. Since this is one of those MEGA, GALA, SUPER anniversary issues Marvel LOVES to put out, not only was Iron Man released with one cover, it also received several variant covers. Now I personally have never understood who would buy a $3/$4/$5 comic book for an extra amount of money simply because of the cover, but somebody must, because Marvel REALLY loves putting out variants. Anyway, IM #500 had 4 different covers, so I figured I'd take a look at them just for kicks. You had the original cover which was $5, a JRJR cover for $18, a Marko Djurdjevic cover for $50(!)and a Joe Quesada cover for $150(!!!!)... Yes, that's right, one hundred and fifty dollars for a comic book you could instead buy for $5... I mean really, who in the WORLD would pay an extra $145 for a COVER?! Maybe if the comic was made of gold and had an I-Pod built into it I'd consider paying that much money for a NEW comic, but $150 simply for a cover?! I can't rationalize that at all...

Good-bye DC... It's been fun.
The rumors state that Chairman Johns, aka he of no original ideas, will be renumbering many DC series during the sure to be sucktacular Saint Barry Allen love-in Flashpoint ala the awesome Age of Apocalypse from Marvel back in the 90's. I've already stated that I WON'T be buying any DC Flashpoint issues as a protest due to DC allowing Chairman Johns almost unlimited power to destroy the DCU as he sees fit, but now it appears that DC will be dragging even more titles into the black hole of creativity that I'm sure Flashpoint will be. Let me state this in as plain a manner as I can. I buy a lot of comics, both Marvel and DC. Lately my enjoyment of DC comics has been waning, while my enjoyment of the Marvel books has been growing. I WILL NOT buy ANY DC comic that carries the Flashpoint banner. So let's say for example DC decides to have the Secret Six x-over with Flashpoint. That means I won't buy the Secret Six for as long as Flashpoint is ongoing. Furthermore, once I stop buying a book like Secret Six, there's a really good chance I won't bother picking it up again once Flashpoint ends, since I'll probably have started picking up other Marvel/Image or indy books to fill the void. I've enjoyed reading about the DCU these past four years or so. I've brought TONS of DC comics, as this blog is a testament to(as of right now I have 1,001 posts with a “DC Comics” label). I honestly think Flashpoint will be my breaking point, and the thing that destroys my interest in DC once and for all... I hope that isn't true, I mean if I was able to withstand the unadulterated awfulness that was Secret Invasion from Marvel, maybe I'll be able to stand Flashpoint, but the outlook seems bleak, and I fear I'll be saying good-bye to those DC characters I still do enjoy. I hope you're happy Chairman Johns and his brainwashed Silver Age cronies, you're about to lose a huge fan...

Okay, let's get to the reviews. Up first is Widowmaker #3(of 4). We get things started with Black Widow sending Hawkeye into a Dark Ocean Japanese brothel with the hopes of getting some information about the Dark Ocean organization. Basically, the Dark Ocean is an evil Japanese organized crime organization run by Ronin that has been killing several international spies. Hawkeye blows his cover almost immediately and is attacked by the women in the brothel. Black Widow rushes in to help and confronts the leader of the brothel, the Madame. The Madame explains that she was working with Ronin and that once Ronin's plans come to fruition she'd be an emperess, not just a simple Madame. After dropping some more vague hints, she disappears, leaving Widow not only knowing where Ronin was, but WHO he was. Meanwhile, Mockingbird and Dominic Fortune go after the Russian side of the Ronin mystery, and after beating up and tricking Russian soldiers, they head to an island that was disputed by the Russians and the Japanese. Upon arriving at the disputed island, Mock and Fortune meet up with Hawkeye and Widow, who had arrived moments before. The heroes share notes, and Ronin walks out of a temple, at which time Black Widow attacks. She takes Ronin down and unmasks him to reveal the Red Guardian, her ex-husband. Ronin explains that he was sickened by the democratic Russia, and wanted to take out the leaders of both Russia and Japan to create a new world power. This issue ends with Ronin forcing a volcano to erupt on the disputed island, figuring the destruction of the island would distract the Russian and Japanese governments enough for him to swoop in and kill all of their leaders. Well, we finally found out who Ronin was, and what his plans were. That was a major plus here, because the first two issues basically had the heroes running about aimlessly. I really don't have much more to say than I enjoyed this issue and am looking forward to seeing how the heroes will be able to stop the insane plots of Ronin. Score-wise, let's give this one a solid 7 1/2 out of 10.

Next up we head to DC and Secret Six #29. This comic actually crosses over with the last issue of Action Comics, although I have NO idea what issue that was, and I'm not really interested in figuring it out. Picking up from that issue of Action, the remote control rigged to blow up Lex's building is sitting precariously on top of its button. Lex acts nonchalant about it, which annoys Vandal Savage, but Lex has good reason not to care, as he sits in his chair and erects a force field around himself, sure that he'd survive the explosion. Lex taunts Vandal a bit and then has a bunch of guns set their sights on Scandal Savage, telling Vandal that if he doesn't disarm the bomb, he'd ventilate Vandal's daughter. Vandal stomps over to the remote and tries to shut it down, but realizes that it was stuck... D'oh! With the bombs now activated and counting down, Lex sends Black Alice away to try to find as many bombs as she could, while Vandal asks Lex to at least allow his daughter into the force field. Scandal says that she wouldn't go unless the rest of her team was saved as well, so Lex says fine, provided Vandal admitted defeat. Vandal reluctantly does as asked, and Lex allows Vandal, his underlings and the Secret Six into the force field just as the building blows. From there, Scandal slugs Lex for threatening to have her killed earlier and leaves with the Six, while Lex and Vandal decide to stick together, ending this issue. Hey, this was the first time in AGES I enjoyed an issue of the Secret Six! Of course Gail Simone did try to ruin that by emphasizing Ragdoll, who is just painfully unfunny by this point. This story would have been SO much better had it simply focused on Lex and the two Savages. Instead we get Ragdoll narrating the thing. Ragdoll was funny back when he was still new, back when Simone first brought the Six together, but right now he's just tired... I get it, he's a sexual deviant and screws monkeys. Yawn. Whatever. The Ragdoll annoyances really brought down what could have been a great comic and simply left it a very good comic. I mean I still REALLY enjoyed this comic, but I can't help but feel it could have been better. As it was though, I'd easily recommend this issue and the Action Comics that set it up, as this was a fun little two-part crossover. I'll give this issue an 8 out of 10 for a score.

Heading back to the Marvel Universe, here's X-Factor #213. After his confrontation with Hela last issue, Darwin seems to be having some difficulty ridding himself of her death influence. Jamie catches up with Darwin in Vegas, and Darwin tells Jamie he wouldn't be returning with Jamie to X-Factor Investigations until he was able to purge Hela's influence. With that, Jamie returns to the rest of the team and they complain that he should have done more to help Darwin. Shatterstar tells Rictor that Wolfsbane's child wasn't his, which is something Rictor had figured out two issues back. Shatterstar tells Rictor that he met the father of the unborn baby while fighting Hela, and Rictor decides he needed to clear the air with Wolfsbane. Rictor heads to Wolfsbane and tells her he knows about the baby's father, and was wondering why she lied. Wolfsbane tells Rictor that she didn't want to be responsible for Rictor going to Hell(on account of him being gay)and figured a baby with her would have kept him with her and away from Shatterstar. The two talk, and Rictor once again reiterates that Wolfsbane leaving him didn't “turn” him gay, and that with a baby on the way she had more important things to worry about then Rictor's soul. This issue ends with Pip the Troll(who X-Factor saved from Hela last issue and was serving as X-Factor's receptionist)seemingly plotting against the team over the phone with somebody. This was really an aftermath/set-up issue, and it was a VERY strong one at that. Wolfsbane seems to finally have come to terms with Rictor's homosexuality(or at least as much as she can with her ultra conservative upbringing), Darwin has left the team for the time being, while Pip has joined and seems to have some sort of plan against the team formulating. Really good stuff here, but what would you expect? It's written by Peter David. For a score, I'll go with an 8 out of 10.

Sticking with Marvel, here comes the final part of the I Am An Avenger mini-series with issue #5. We have three stories here, so let's get started. The first one is a suicide prevention PSA starring Captain America. A teenager with a lousy life heads up to his roof to jump when he spots Cap battling against the forces of Hydra. Cap puts down the Hydra goons, but a huge Hydra robot lands to continue the battle. Cap flings his shield at the robot, but it knocks it away, right over to the kid on the rooftop. Without his shield, the robot manages to take advantage of Cap, and the kid decides to try to help Cap by tossing the shield back, hitting the robot. The robot blasts at the kid, destroying everything around him but somehow leaving the kid unharmed, which gives Cap the opportunity to destroy the robot. Cap looks over at the kid and gives him thumbs up, and the kid heads back inside to call the suicide prevention hotline. Story #2 deals with Ant-Man sneaking around Avengers mansion(or thinking he's sneaking around Avengers Mansion). After some sleuthing, Quicksilver approaches Ant-Man and tells him that he was vouched for by Steve Rogers, meaning he had no reason to sneak around the Mansion like a criminal. After some thought, Ant-Man leaves the Mansion and walks in the front door, being welcomed by the team. Finally we had a little 3 issue story about the Young Avengers wanting to play baseball, but realizing it was raining outside, and we all know it's IMPOSSIBLE to play baseball outside, lest the universe implodes. Man are baseball players a bunch of wimps... ANYWAY, Thor arrives and wonders why the kids were standing around with clubs(HA!), and they stammer that they were just hanging out. Finally realizing what they were up to, Thor taps his hammer and clears the storm. However, after seeing Thor, the kids decide to head back inside to train as opposed to playing around. I actually liked all three stories in this mini. Not loved, but liked. The Ant-Man one was probably my favorite, but as a HUGE Young Avengers fan, I also enjoyed their little mini-story. What more can I say, this was a perfectly acceptable comic, and what kind of score do we give perfectly acceptable comics around here? How about a 7 out of 10.

One more and we're done. I'll close this post out with another Marvel book in Uncanny X-Men #531. I don't remember if I posted a review for Uncanny #530, but I guess that's neither here nor there. This issue begins with most(if not all)of the mutants living on Crazy Mutie Island(Utopia)suffering from a strange flu that was robbing them of their powers. Lord Summers(who has also taken ill, but is no-selling it)walks along the hallways of Crazy Mutie Island looking in at all of his various sick soldiers. The few X-Men who were off of Crazy Mutie Island are told by Lord Summers they can't return to Crazy Mutie Island until they've figured out what was causing the flu, so they decide to look into the Collective Man's attempt to take over the crime gangs of San Francisco's Chinatown. From there we head to the Sublime Corporation's Secret Offices where Lobe(the leader of the Sublime group)is toasting his 5 fake X-Men. Back on Crazy Mutie Island... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............ Oh wow, I must have fallen asleep out of absolute boredom! Um, where was I? Oh who cares. This issue ends with Sebastian Shaw falling out of Fantomex's ship and powering up from impact of the fall, much to the rage of Emma Frost. Sorry, this issue was just painfully boring. I don't care about this weird rehashing of the Legacy Virus storyline. I don't care about the Sublime Corporation and the fake X-Men(if it wasn't for the dumb “No More Mutants” proclamation, we wouldn't NEED fake mutants!), and I SURE as hell don't care about Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw! After reading Invincible Iron Man, I KNOW Matt Fraction can do better than this, but I'm now of the mindset that NO writer can really make the X-books worth reading again until Marvel FINALLY undoes the damage done during the House of M. With the Scarlet Witch's return in Avengers: The Children's Crusade, hopefully this will be the year “No More Mutants” is retconned and the X-Men are once again led by Professor X and head back to X-Mansion, where they belong. For a score, I'll go with a 3 1/2 out of 10, which is almost generous...

I Am An Avenger #4(of 5)

Overall: Okay, we have 4 stories in this comic. For the purpose of this post, I'm only going to review the first two, since the last two only take up a grand total of 3 pages. The first story is a look at the Thing and deals with him revealing to the Fantastic Four that he had joined Luke Cage's Avengers, or as the Human Torch astutely calls them, “The Picked-Last Avengers”. That is SO true! I mean in what universe does LUKE CAGE get his own Avengers team?! Was Morbius too busy to lead the team or something? Anyway, back to this story... While telling the surprised FFers that he was indeed a member of the Avengers, Thing gets buzzed by Luke Cage, who needs Thing to head to New Jersey to deal with some giant worm creatures. Thing heads off to help the Avengers, but gets called by Mr. Fantastic, who begs Thing to return to the Baxter Building because it was under attack. After a moment of thought, Thing abandons the Avengers to head to the Baxter Building. Upon arriving home, he finds nothing wrong, and is told by the team that Valeria(on her own)had created the message from the Baxter Building to test Thing's allegiance. Thing ends this tale by telling the FF that while the Avengers was a team he was a part of, the FF was still his family. The second story is the conclusion to the Firestar/Justice thing that has been running the past three issues. Bottom line here? The Justices and Firestars from the past and present join forces and defeat Loki, destroying the sword Loki had been using to mess with the timestream, and sending Loki back to the past where he belonged. In the end, Justice and Firestar realize there is too much history between them and decide not to try to rekindle their romance.

The first two stories were actually quite good. The second two aren't worth talking about, because really, what can you accomplish in a page or two? The first story had some good moments, with Valeria's test making for some interesting storytelling... I would REALLY enjoy seeing Valeria turn into a villain akin to Lyrl Dox from the LEGION/REBELS series. I think she has the potential to do it, I just wonder if Marvel would go through with it. But the FF facing off against a foe as smart as Reed, who is their own daughter? That sounds like a great story to me! The second story(the Firestar/Justice one)wasn't bad, but wasn't as good as the first tale. It was the very definition of a perfectly acceptable comic book story.

Score: 7 out of 10.Adding "in bed" to the end of everything sounds like a good idea... In bed!!!

X-Files Week #1

Hey X-Maniacs, welcome to the first installment of the X-Files! What is the X-Files? Well, it's basically just me reviewing a bunch of comics in the same post with some random commentary tossed in for good measure, ending with a random comic scan. In other words, it's pretty much the exact same as my Best of the Rest post, but with a snazzier name. Ideally I'll try to get one of these X-Files posts up once a week, say every Sunday, but we all know this isn't an ideal world, so I'll play it by ear. If I have time(and find myself bored enough!)I'll do one of these posts. If not, well then obviously I won't! So that's the long and the short of it. Without further ado, let's get started.

Something smells fishy...
So as I mentioned last week, I finished reading the Kyle Rayner Green Lantern years(or as GEOFF Johns calls them, “The Years That Don't Matter”). That means I can finally begin reading one of the MANY other piles of comic book back issues I have lying around my bedroom. After some thought, I'm going to start reading the Aquaman series from the 1990's. I don't know much about this run other than the fact that Aquaman's hand falls off and Peter David is the writer early on. That second fact is pretty much the reason I brought that series, as I am(and always have been)an unabashed fan of PAD. As I make my trek through those Aquaman books, I'll try to mention on the blog how the series is progressing and what I like/dislike about it.

JMS, we hardly knew ye...
Earlier this week, my good friend(and known super-genius)JT informed me that J. Michael Straczynski was leaving the Wonder Woman and Superman books after only 4 months or so of being the regular writer. It seems the Superman: Earth One(written by JMS)sales were so impressive, DC wants to try to capitalize on things, and as such have shunted JMS away from the monthly books in favor of him creating the second volume of Supes: Earth One. In other words, JMS isn't able to write Supes: Earth One #2, Superman and Wonder Woman at the same time, so he's going to take the job that'll net DC(and himself)the most money/acclaim. To that I say; fair enough. I picked up the Superman: Earth One hardcover and I'll admit, I did like it. I didn't love it, but for the most part, it was a good read. It took the Superman mythos and gave them a bit of a twist. I personally didn't care for the twist, but to each his own. While I liked JMS's Superman: Earth One, I haven't liked his take on the main Superman book. Superman fighting crazed world conquering aliens? Good. Supes matching wits with the diabolical Lex Luthor? Very good. Superman aimlessly wandering across the United States? Um, not so good. I guess JMS has some kind of end plan for the whole, “I'm Superman and I'm going to walk across the country for some reason!” story, but I just found the whole thing to be boring and uninteresting. JMS's WW run left me with more conflicted feelings though. On one hand, I hate the fact that he felt the need to reboot Diana. I mean it's Wonder Woman for crying out loud! One of DC's vanguards. You don't need to reboot her in such a drastic fashion. Once you get over the initial shock of the WW reboot though, there's a pretty interesting story going on in the WW series. So JMS off of Superman is a plus in my eyes, while him leaving WW is more of a mixed package. With JMS leaving these titles, some other writers will finish his stories using his notes/plots, which unfortunately means we'll probably have a good 8 more issues of Superman walking across America, but at least when JMS's Superman plot is done, another writer can move in and give us what we want in a Superman comic... Superman acting Super!

Whew, okay, that takes care of the news portion of this post, let's get to the reviews! Well speak of the devil! I'm going to start things of with JMS's Wonder Woman #604! This issue gives us the confrontation between Wonder Woman and the guy who killed her mother and stole the magic lasso... um, Evil Army Guy? I don't think he was ever called anything other than colonel, so I'll stick with Evil Army Guy, or EAG for short. EAG gives his origin story, since that's what bad guys do when you first meet them, explaining that he was an evil army guy, his evil antics caught up to him, he was nearly killed, but was saved by a goddess, who told him to kill all of the Amazons. So with that pesky origin out of the way, EAG and WW fight. And fight. And fight some more. Eventually they both fall into some magic flames, where Wonder Woman's dead mother was apparently hanging out... Well that's kind of weird. WW's dead mother tells WW to leave EAG to her, and she proceeds to kill EAG as revenge for EAG killing her a few issues back. WW's dead mother knocks WW out of the flames and WW passes out for a while. When she wakes up, all that remains is the magic lasso, which she takes, as she decides to hunt for whatever was behind EAG and his slaughtering of the Amazons. Well, I was enjoying this issue right up until WW's dead mother showed up. EAG's origin was okay, and added some further intrigue into why the Amazons were being hunted, and the battle between WW and EAG was nicely done. But WW's dead mother suddenly popping out of those magic flames? Nope, that didn't work for me! She was dead... Why was she in those flames? And a better question, how did she, a dead woman, manage to kill EAG?! Weird... Score: 6 out of 10.

Next we go to the Marvel Universe and check out Captain America: Forever Allies #4, which is the final issue of this mini-series. Basically, Bucky Cap has been chasing down one of his old enemies from WWII, Lady Locus. Locus(who has demonstrated telepathic and telekinetic skills)has been traveling the Earth in search of a gem that would amplify her telepathic abilities to the nth degree, allowing her to take over the Earth, or steal candy from babies or kick puppies, or some similar nefarious plot device. Locus manages to track the gem down to a temple in the Andes, but is followed by Bucky. Locus spots Bucky arriving and enslaves him mentally, forcing Bucky to traverse through the temple, defeating its traps and collecting the gem for her... Or so she thinks. It turns out that after his Winter Soldier days, Bucky went to SHIELD and had them rig his mind so that it could no longer be controlled by outside sources. Bucky smashes the gem before Locus can get her hands on it, fits her with a psi-damper and turns her over to Black Widow and the Falcon, who were en route in case Bucky actually did fall under Locus's mental domination. With Locus caught, Bucky can put that piece of WWII behind him, ending this mini-series. This issue was good, but not great. I found myself enjoying the flashback portions of this comic, back when Bucky was the leader of the Young Allies during WWII a bit more than the main story. Lady Locus was a good threat, but once Black Widow began trying to explain the history of the power gem Locus was after(it had something to do with the Deviants and Eternals), I was taken out of the story. I've just never had any interest in the Deviants/Eternals, and bringing them into this story just sapped me of my interest. Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.

Sticking with Marvel, here's Namor: The First Mutant #3. Namor has had enough of those infernal aqua-vampires and meets up with an Atlantian sorcerer, who gives Namor a spell that would kill off most of the aqua-vamps. Unfortunately for Namor he has to preform the spell in the middle of the aqua-vamps hidden city. Oh yeah, plus the spell only works if an Atlantian king drains all of their blood upon the conclusion of the spell, meaning that in order to rid the aqua-vamp menace from his people, Namor has to sacrifice his own life. Namor is fine with the whole noble sacrifice thing, and takes some Atlantian soldiers and invades the aqua-vampire city. While his soldiers engage the aqua-vamps, Namor and a young soldier head beneath the aqua-vamp's city to begin the ritual. As the ritual nears its end, Namor informs the soldier that she'll have to complete the spell, since Namor has to kill himself to finish the ritual. The soldier doesn't want to do it, but Namor tries to tell her that his life would be worth ending the menace of the aqua-vamps. Before the soldier can complete the spell, Namor's grandfather, who happens to be a very big, very angry aqua-vampire strolls over for what I'm guessing won't be a very pleasant family reunion. I found the first half of this comic to be kind of boring. It was basically Namor getting his forces together while speaking cryptically with the royal sorcerer. Once Namor's forces arrived at the hidden aqua-vamp city though, things definitely picked up, with the cliffhanger leaving me very interested in getting my hands on the next issue. Score: 7 out of 10.

Next up is I Am An Avenger #3(of 5). Yes, there is a mini-series called I Am An Avenger. Anyway, this mini contains two mini-stories as well as a two page Stingray and a one page Hulk tale. I'm going to skip those last two stories, so to the 2 Stingray fans out there, I apologize in advance. The first story deals with Nova helping Spider-Man deal with some aliens who had broken into a New York City bank to steal an alien artifact that some billionaire collector had mistaken for an ancient vase. This story was written by the team of Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, and had Spidey and Nova in it, so it should go without saying that I really enjoyed it. The other story dealt with Justice and Firestar fighting their younger selves, who were sent into the present by Loki for some reason or another. The younger Justice and Firestar figure that the current Justice and Firestar were evil dopplegangers created by Loki, but by the end of this story, the Justices and Firestars have figured out what Loki had done and have resolved to deal with Loki together. I actually liked this comic more than I thought I would have. I'm a sucker for Nova, and I've always loved his dynamic with Spidey, and the Firestar/Justice story is also beginning to grow on me. The one page Hulk story was kind of funny, while the Stingray story didn't do a thing for me, mainly because Stingray was in it... But all in all, this was some pretty good stuff. Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.

One more comic before I end this post. We'll finish things up with a look at Avengers: Prime #4(of 5). Things start off with Hela attacking the Enchantress, since the Enchantress betrayed Hela last issue and assisted Thor. Hela handily defeats Enchantress and heads over to Thor's hammer, which was left behind when Enchantress teleported Thor to safety. Hela tries to lift the hammer thinking that Thor might have been dead, but is angered to learn that she couldn't pick up Mjolnir. To rectify this, Hela summons Thor's grandfather and tells him that Thor was dead, and that if he lifts the hammer for her, she'd return him to life. Thor's grandfather tries to lift the hammer, but can't, which leads him to believe that Thor was still alive and that Hela was lying to him. Thor's grandfather goes to attack Hela, but she banishes him back to the underworld. Meanwhile, Thor, Iron Man and Steve Rogers are trying to figure out where they are. At first Thor feels that they have all died and were in the afterlife, but later on he begins to believe that the fall of Asgard during Siege has screwed up the nine realms, and that is what was going on. Regardless of what was going on, Thor begins to rally several different creatures to his side, since he knows that all roads lead to Hela, and that last time they battled, she defeated him with ease. Back with Hela, she is attacked once more by the Enchantress, but Hela puts her down again, this time with the mystical Twilight Sword. Meh. My Norse mythology/knowledge of Thor is kind of rusty, so I'm not really sure what the importance of Hela holding the Twilight Sword is. This issue was okay, although I did find myself enjoying it a bit less than I enjoyed the first few issues. The story kind of dragged here, with the heroes not really doing much, and some of the dialogue irked me, especially Tony Stark, who couldn't seem to stop talking... Overall though, this wasn't that bad of a comic, but it was definitely a step down from the great last issue. Score: 6 out of 10.

Until next week, here's Arsenal, back when he still had a daughter, had kicked his drug habit and two arms!

I Am An Avenger #2(of 5)

Overall: This comic contains four stories, although one is really short, and one is just a one page comedy deal. So basically there are two real stories going on here. One of them dealt with Steve Rogers attending the funeral of the soldier who was killed by Daken back during the closing stages of the Siege x-over. Steve basically does what Steve does, acts super classy and shows why he's one of my favorite characters in all of comics. In the end he asks for, and is given the dead soldier's dogtags and adds them to a collection of fallen soldiers dogtags back in his room. The other story was a two parter that showcased Justice and Firestar. It also had Speedball and Nova in it, so it was a nice little nod back to the New Warriors, who I have always been a fan of. Screw Civil War, the New Warriors rule! Anyway, everybody around Justice and Firestar suddenly disappear, and when they go to figure out what happened, they are attacked by alternate versions of themselves! The mini story was about Wolverine(acting WAY too jovial)taking Jarvis out for a few beers, and the one pager revolved around D-Man and a pie eating contest... Yeah...

If nothing else, the D-Man and Wolverine stories hurt this comic, because the other two stories were exceptional strong. I LOVED the Steve Rogers story, and the Firestar/Justice stuff was well done, especially with the way their past relationship was portrayed. Basically, read the first two stories, and then close this comic. Trust me, you wouldn't be missing out on much.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.In the words of my sister, this art was "pretty".