Irredeemable #37

First new review for this week? The final issue of Irredeemable... This series has been, for lack of a better word, brilliant. Has every issue been a perfect 10? No, but every issue HAS been solid, and this series was built on a magnificent premise... What if Superman went bad? And I don't mean, stopped helping people or used his powers for his own profit bad, I mean went totally Dr. Doom levels of bad? That idea has given me 37 issues where I have been actively(and happily) routing against the main character in a comic. Here's hoping this issue finally gives us the Plutonian FINALLY getting his comeuppance.

Irredeemable #37(Final Issue):

Story Points:
-Before the Plutonian could kill him, Qubit teleports the bullet he stole from Bette Noir all of those issues ago into the Plutonian's heart... The same bullet that could actually kill him... IF Qubit stopped thinking about it.
-Now with this piece of blackmail hanging over his head(or more appropriately, in his chest), Qubit tells the Plutonian to circle the Earth and to collect all of the radiation poisoning the planet.
-The Plutonian does as asked, since Qubit had promised to give Plutonian a new chance at life to get it right.
-Having collected ALL of the radiation, the Plutonian flies back to Qubit, who opens a teleportational portal and sends the radiation into it, saving the Earth.
-However, the radiation has absolutely decimated the Plutonian's body, leaving him weakened and on the brink of death.
-The Plutonian asks why Qubit lied to him, and Qubit explains that he didn't lie, he was going to disperse Plutonian's essence through thousands of alternate realities with the hope that in one of those, the Plutonian could be redeemed...
-And that's it. The Plutonian's world has finally been saved and the Plutonian is gone...
-Or is he???
-This issue ends with two very young comic book creators by the names of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster having suddenly come up with the idea of a certain superman...

Thoughts: Needless to say, this issue was rather bittersweet... This is the last time I'll get to read about Qubit(who had become a favorite character of mine) or Kaiden, or anybody else from this universe... However, I guess it's NOT the last time I'll be reading about the Plutonian since he lives on in Superman! THAT was a sweet piece of storytelling by Mark Waid, which should come as no surprise to anybody. Waid is one of the top writers in all of comics and it's no shock that he ended this issue so wonderfully. In the end, the Plutonian DID kind of get redeemed, as he was reimagined as the greatest hero in the DC Universe. My heart tells me this was a perfect comic book, my head tells me it was a really, really good one. In the case of this comic, I'm definitely going to go with my heart.

Score: 10 out of 10.

Winter Soldier #5

This series has been heating up lately, and this issue should bring everything to a head concerning Doom, Lucia Von Bardas and the sleepers.

Winter Soldier #5:

Story Points:
-Doom is working with SHIELD to reformat a teleportational device constructed by Reed Richards in order to get himself, Bucky and Black Widow into Latveria before Von Bardas launched her nuclear assault.
-Think about that last line for a moment... DOOM was working with SHIELD!!!
-Oh, and Doom and Nick Fury's banter here was absolutely suburb.
-Anyway, Doom is as good as his word and gets the trio near the missile base.
-Von Bardas, the Red Ghost and his super-apes and the Russian sleeper are no match for Doom and company, as Doom destroys the super-apes and Von Bardas, while Bucky is forced to kill the sleeper.
-The Red Ghost however, escapes.
-With the threat over, SHIELD takes Von Bardas to question her about the location of a third sleeper, and Doom promises to keep his knowledge of Bucky being alive to himself provided Bucky and SHIELD didn't mention his nuclear weapons program.
-SHIELD learns where the Red Barbarian(who sold the three Russian sleepers to Von Bardas) was located and Bucky assassinates him.
-This one ends with Von Bardas telling SHIELD that she was never given the third sleeper, meaning there was still one out there somewhere...

Thoughts: I LOVED this issue! Seriously! Doom + Bucky + Nick Fury = awesomeness to the third power! There's really not a bad thing I can think to say about this comic... I loved the set-up, I loved the fight scenes, I loved the dialogue, I loved everything! And you know what that means...

Score: 10 out of 10.

Captain America & Hawkeye #629

Last review of the night? Hows about a little Captain America/Hawkeye action? Some of my favorite Cap issues from the 80's had Cap and Hawkeye teaming up, and when written correctly, those two characters have, in my humble opinion, the best dynamic out of all the Avengers. Yep, I'm a HUGE mark for both of these characters, so this BETTER be good!!

Captain America & Hawkeye #629:

Summary: This issue opens with Captain America and Hawkeye battling a bunch of armed goons in New Mexico. It seems some environmentalists had gone missing so the two longtime Avengers have decided to look into it... At which point they ran afoul the armed goons. Cap and Hawkeye manage to take the goons out(while bickering with each other the entire time), at which point a woman by the name of Kash shows up to tell the two Avengers they were trespassing. Long story short, Kash heads the Damocles Research Facility, and she had sent the armed men out to look for the missing environmentalists herself... Or so she claims... Cap, and especially Hawkeye, don't exactly believe her. Regardless, Kash takes the two Avengers into the research facility and reveals that they they had found a lot of dinosaur bones in the caverns around the facility, and oh yeah, a horribly mutated member of her security team that was caught and carried off by some sort of weird creatures. Hawkeye figures that Kash and her people were somehow trying to figure out a way to weaponize the dinosaur bones and Kash doesn't confirm nor deny that accusation. After some more information, Kash takes the two to a secure doorway that leads into the caverns where the creatures first broke into the facility. Cap and Hawkeye go in for a look and are soon attacked by a creature that looks like a combination of Venom and a dinosaur's skeleton. Hawkeye manages to down the creature with an explosive arrow, but unfortunately, the explosion ends up drawing A LOT more of the creatures to Cap and Hawkeye's location, ending this issue.

Thoughts: Huh, this comic was pretty much perfect... By the time I got to the end I was desperately looking for something, anything, that I could point at and say, “Nope, I didn't like this.” However, I never found that thing. Great dialogue? Check. An inviting story? Check. Good art? Check. And the biggie for me since I'm such a huge fan of both, Cap and Hawkeye portrayed properly? Yep, that gets a check too. Not only that, but this comic actually felt more like a team-up book between two equals. It didn't feel like Hawkeye guest starring in Cap's book. Both characters have their strengths and weaknesses, and Cullen Bunn did a great job displaying those here. Seriously, I don't have a bad thing to say about this issue... Which means, for the SECOND time in ONE night...

Score: 10 out of 10. Awesome, after months WITHOUT a perfect score, I've got two in a row!!

The dialogue between these two was just perfect here...

AvX: VS #1

First review of the night? The first issue of the AvX: VS mini-series. From my understanding this mini is supposed to bring us the battles from the AvX event in more detail... So this should either be a great companion to the AvX event, or a serious waste of money. Let's hope it's the former and not the latter!

AvX: VS #1(of 6):

Summary: Well hot damn, this comic was EXACTLY what I was hoping it would be! One issue, two fights that took place during AvX #2. The first one gives us Iron Man vs Magneto. Now in theory, Mags should trounce Iron Man, right? WRONG! Iron Man has been able to counter Magneto's powers since the 1980's(yeah, for THAT long!), and this battle proves no different. Eventually, the two have to resort to a fistfight high above Crazy Mutie Island(since power-wise they were too evenly matched). Mags becomes distracted when he senses the Phoenix Force eat a planet(I'm not sure how, but whatever), and Iron Man brings the hammer down, defeating Magneto... Hell yeah baby!! Avengers 1, Brotherhood of Evil Mutants 0! Next up we have Namor taking on the Thing. The two combatants wind up plummeting into the water and Thing manages to pin Namor to the bottom of the sea with the teeth of a giant sea creature, defeating Namor yet again... Yeah, the FF owns the fish-man. That ends this issue with the Avengers 2, the X-Men nil.

Thoughts: Well hell, I LOVED this comic book! The Iron Man/Magneto battle was PERFECT. Jason Aaron had those two characters DOWN. The banter, the dialogue, the fight itself, I couldn't have dreamed up a better fight between those two. And yes, it ended the way I'd have expected it to end. Tony Stark is just too smart to be defeated by Magneto, and his massive intellect was the x-factor in that battle. On the other hand, while I enjoyed the fight between the Thing and Namor, I was fully expecting Namor to win... Yeah, the Thing is strong and all, but he was fighting Namor in Namor's element... On the land? Thing wins, hands down. But under the sea? I'd have expected Namor to pull out the win. So yeah, I can't say I agreed with that outcome. Regardless though, this issue, and this mini-series? It's an absolutely BRILLIANT idea! Seriously, I don't know why Marvel or DC didn't think of something like this before. Oh, and before I forget, they also had awesome little fun facts that were in caption boxes during the battles... Yes, they thought of EVERYTHING! I only have good things to say about this one, and you know what THAT means...

Score: 10 out of 10. Yep, it's the second perfect score of 2012! Huzzah!!!

Stark resilient all the way, baby!!!

Avengers Academy #27

Okay, a quick word here first... I am a huge fan of Avengers Academy, as is evidenced by how much I shamelessly promote it at any given opportunity. I am also a huge fan of the Runaways, and have been horribly disappointed by how the Runaways have fallen since Brian K Vaughn left the kids in the hands of other, lesser writers. So, in theory, this issue SHOULD be fantastic... Will it be? With Christos Gage at the helm, I am VERY optimistic.

Avengers Academy #27:

Summary: This issue kicks off with Striker holding a press conference telling the world that he was gay. Ever the media-hound, Striker is hoping that news would get him some serious face time with the tabloids, and sure enough, he gets a call from his mother with tons of interview offers... Striker is awesome... Anyway, the Runaways managed to sneak into the Avengers Academy campus during the press conference and seem to have some sort of plan. Before they can enact it though, Juston and his Sentinel arrive on the scene since the Sentinel had sensed the Ultron tech in Victor... Well that right there just upped the awesomeness quotient of this one... Seeing a Sentinel and fearing the worst, the Runaways attack it, which leads to some of the Academy staff and students getting into the battle. Before things get too out of control, Pym arrives on the scene(at about 30 feet tall or so) demanding the fighting stops so he can find out why he had received a report that there was Ultron tech on the campus grounds. Victor explains to Pym that he had been created by Ultron, which was why the Sentinel was sensing Ultron tech... Oh and Victor then does what I was hoping he would and tells Pym that since Pym had created Ultron and Ultron had created Victor, Victor was pretty much Pym's grandson(!). I love Christos Gage's writing!! Now that the battle had ceased, Pym asks why the Runaways had come to the Academy and Chase reveals that he thought Old Lace was still alive, since he could “feel” her mentally again. When Nico used the Staff of One to tell them how to find Old Lace, the Staff pointed to Reptil as the catalyst for finding Old Lace. Pym decides to look into the situation and invites the Runaways inside where they have some funny interactions with the Academy kids. Ultimately Pym figures out a way to open a dimensional portal to the dimension Old Lace was in by using Reptil's amulet as a... um, dinosaur tracer. Before opening the portal though, Pym pulls Tigra aside and tells her that they had a responsibility to take Molly and Clara away from the rest of the Runaways since they were so young. More on that later... From there, Pym takes everybody into his lab and manages to open a portal to another dimension. The Academy kids, some of the staff and the Runaways all enter the portal and before long Old Lace and Chase(as well as the other Runaways) are reunited. Since the Avengers Academy staff had done what she needed them to do, Nico casts a spell to see what the Academy staff really wanted from the Runaways and sees the conversation from earlier between Pym and Tigra. Needless to say, she isn't pleased, and that ends this issue.

Thoughts: You know, I laughed out loud no less than FOUR times during this issue... It was hysterical! Not only that, but the story was fun and made sense, the art was pretty good, and ALL of the characterizations here were spot on. Seriously, Gage wrote Victor so well(my favorite Runaway, fyi) I'm hoping he stays with the Academy after this storyline. The conversations between Victor and Pym were EVERYTHING I had been hoping for coming into this storyline. The ONE thing I was REALLY hoping we'd get to see was Pym and Victor interacting because of their obvious connection, and as usual, Gage did not disappoint. I really don't have any bad things to say about this issue... Wait, does that mean what I think it does?!?

Score: 10 out of 10. You know what? What the hell, this issue gets my first perfect score of 2012. It was the perfect blend of story, dialogue and humor, so kudos to the creative team on this one.


Yeah, as a fan of Pym, Ultron and Victor, this issue rocked hard.