Avengers Academy #16 & Fear Itself: FF #1

Two more Fear Itself comics to sift through today, which should come as no big surprise, since like half of the zillion comics I picked up this week are Fear Itself tie-ins. Today it's my favorite Avengers title, Avengers Academy, and the Fear Itself: FF one-shot, which COULD be great depending on what happens in it...

Avengers Academy #16(Fear Itself tie-in):

Summary: This is another issue that has two stories going on in it(man, most of my comics lately are like that...), so as usual, I'll tackle one story before touching upon the other. We get started in Dubai, where Giant Man(Hank “Awesome” Pym), Quicksilver and Justice are trying to keep the Serpent possessed Absorbing Man and Titania from destroying Dubai. After an extended battle that sees Justice and Quicksilver fall to Titania, Giant Man manages to trick the Absorbing Man and Titania into entering a huge dimensional doorway, taking them away, even though he knew that they'd eventually be back. Before he could do what he wanted, which was to be at the side of his students, Pym winds up collapsing due to exhaustion. Back in Washington DC, the Avengers Academy kids(and Tigra) are responsible for evacuating as many civilians as they can. Veil spots a little girl standing near a partially collapsed building and rushes over to get the girl to safety. However, the girl tells Veil that her mother was trapped in the building, and not knowing what to say to the girl, Veil heads into the building to look around. As luck would have it, Veil finds the badly injured woman and manages to help her escape from the building. Back on the street, the woman rushes over to embrace her daughter when she is gunned down by one of those Nazi war machines, dying at her daughter's feet. Absolutely stunned by what she had just witnessed, Veil transforms into a toxic gas, slips into the cockpit of the Nazi war machine and murders the driver. Veil returns to the little girl, who is kneeling in front of her mother's corpse, and can't find any words to say to the shocked child. A paramedic rushes over and Veil tells the paramedic to take the girl to safety before collapsing near the dead woman, mouthing that she was sorry to the child.

Thoughts: Woooo, Christos Gage is easily one of the best writers in comics today! Seriously, if you see his name on a comic, pick it up, because it WON'T disappoint! The work he's doing in this series during the Fear Itself issues is truly remarkable. Yes, we're getting appearances by the Worthy, which is something I feel all Fear Itself tie-ins SHOULD have, but he's also taking the opportunity of the war itself to further develop the Academy kids... I hate to beat a dead horse, but that's the difference between this comic and Generation Hope, which features lead characters of around the same age... Comparing this series to Gen Hope is like comparing Shakespeare to a coloring book... Anyway, I know I'll be looking forward to the next issue of what is, in my humble opinion, the best Fear Itself tie-in besides Invincible Iron Man that Marvel is producing.

Score: 9 out of 10.Damned Nazi BASTARDS!!!


Fear Itself: FF #1:

Summary: This issue gets started with the Serpent possessed Thing rampaging through New York City before being confronted by the Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic(FINALLY!!!). Naturally the two try to talk sense into Thing, but he doesn't want to hear it, so Mr. Fantastic tries to slow Thing's progress, which proves to be a bad move, since Thing simply grabs Reed and knocks him out. Sue tries to attack now, but is unable to halt Thing's attack, until she shoves one of her forcefields down his throat to suffocate him. Some sort of explosion strikes Reed, which distracts Sue long enough for Thing to break free of her hold. Thing tells Sue to deal with Reed's injuries while he went about spreading fear. From there Dragon Man tries to attack Thing, but is dispatched with relative ease. Thing goes to kill Dragon Man, when he is next confronted by Alicia Masters, who heard about what was happening on the TV and ran out to try to talk sense into Thing. For a moment it looks like Alicia is getting through to Thing, until he grabs her by the neck and tosses her into a nearby light post. From there, Thing walks over to deliver the killing blow, but is stopped by one of Sue's forcefields. Sue begs Thing to allow her to assist the injured Alicia, and Thing lets her, since the two women couldn't spread fear if they were dead. Sue manages to resuscitate the very injured Alicia, and this issue ends with the Thing continuing his path of destruction.

Thoughts: Now THIS was a very good Fear Itself one-shot! It had everything you'd want, Reed and Sue trying desperately to save Ben from whatever outside force had taken him over, a battle with Dragon Man, and Ben's one real true love, Alicia, trying to talk sense into him. If I had a complaint about this issue, it would be that Ben didn't kill anybody important, as macabre as that may sound... I mean if you REALLY want to establish how evil Ben was now, have him kill Alicia! That action would have ramifications that Ben would NEVER recover from, leading to some pretty awesome stories down the road. Sure, after Fear Itself ends, Ben will have to come to terms with all of the people he killed while possessed, but imagine what he'd suffer if he'd killed Alicia... I mean it's not like she's doing anything anyway... Besides that though, this was a very well written story, so props to Cullen Bunn on a job very well done.

Score: 9 out of 10.Wow, those little mouths on Ben are quite annoying...

Invincible Iron Man #506 & Ultimate Fallout #2

Hey there all, two reviews to kick off the start of the comic week. The first comic I'll be looking at is this week's top pick, Iron Man #506. I could have went with another Fear Itself book for comic #2, since I have about 5,000 of them to read this week, but instead I'll go with Ultimate Fallout #2. The first issue got a perfect score out of me, hopefully this'll be a repeat performance...

Invincible Iron Man #506(Fear Itself tie-in):

Summary: The story here is twofold, and I've got to say, both parts are pretty damn good! But that's for the “Thoughts” section, let's hit the review first! The main story involves Odin taking pity on Tony Stark after he offered his two most important things to Odin(since those gods do like their sacrifices), his dignity(since he was kneeling on the ground begging for Odin's assistance) and his sobriety. Odin reveals himself to Stark, and Tony asks for Odin's aid in helping him build weapons that could put Earth's heroes on par with the Serpent and his Worthy. Odin agrees to allow Tony access to his great forge, but tells him that he only had a few more days before the full might of Asgard came down upon the Earth to wipe out the Serpent, oh, and that he didn't see Stark's side having any shot of winning, godly weapons or not... Ah that Odin, what a great guy! Anyway, the slightly drunk Tony heads into the forge and meets with Odin's chief weapon makers, a mess of foul-mouth dwarves. The dwarves aren't exactly happy that they have to stop what they were doing to help Tony create weapons, but Odin is the boss, so they halt their work to hear Tony out on his ideas. After Tony speaks to the dwarves, most of the dwarves go back to work, although a few are still VERY miffed that they were taking orders from a “pink elf”. After Tony drunkenly knocks down some metal, a dwarf punches him in the nose, at which point Tony reciprocates in kind. Having knocked the dwarf on his ass seems to have given Tony some respect amongst the dwarves, so they invite him into their rest area and offer him a drink, which he gladly accepts... As for the other main story, Pepper Potts decides to don her Rescue suit and head to Paris to see if there was anybody still alive for her to help. Meanwhile, the Hammer girls, who haven't gotten a response from Detroit Steel(because he was turned to stone!), decide to head to Paris to retrieve the Detroit Steel suit, and if possible, the pilot of the suit. To that end, the younger of the Hammers hops in a suit of armor, gathers a team, and off they go. Add the Grey Gargoyle, who's still lurking around the eerily quiet streets of Paris, and next issue should give us a three way throwdown between Rescue, the Hammer girl, and the Serpent possessed Gargoyle.

Thoughts: What can I say? This was a very good comic, that validated my faith in it. I mean it wasn't perfect or anything, but it tied into the Fear Itself events perfectly, which makes sense since Matt Fraction is writing both. Whereas most of the Fear Itself tie-ins are unnecessary to the main story, or unnecessary period, reading Iron Man greatly enhances the main FI mini, since events in Iron Man tend to bleed over into Fear Itself. I enjoyed both stories, although I am a bit annoyed that Tony threw away his years of sobriety just like that... I get that Fraction is trying to show that the whole Fear Itself thing is SO big that Tony is willing to do anything to end it, but we already knew it was big, what with Washington DC being destroyed and Paris being turned to stone and all... Tossing out Tony's years of sobriety just seem kind of unnecessary... At least that's how I see it.

Score: 9 out of 10.Well, when in Rome...


Ultimate Fallout #2(of 6?):

Summary: This issue begins where the last one left off, with Steve Rogers apologizing to Aunt May for his imagined role in the death of her nephew, Peter Parker(Spider-Man to you noobs you there). May reads Cap the riot act before slapping him in the face and yelling at all of the heroes present before running outside, where she collapses to her knees. J. Jonah Jameson(of all people) walks over and offers May a hand, helping her up and recommending she returns to the Cathedral, which she does. From there we head to Thor, who's in the Cathedral, thinking about how awesome Asgard was, and envisioning all of the recently deceased heroes hanging out in Valhalla. Meanwhile, Rogue is sadly wandering around the country, figuring that with all of the recent deaths, God would soon be taking everybody else as well. This issue ends with Many Jane writing an article detailing how “the world” killed Peter.

Thoughts: Eh. I liked the last issue and the singular focus it had on Peter's death more than this one. I mean I get that this mini-series is setting up the new Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimates and Ultimate X-Men series's, but did we really need a bunch of pages featuring Thor thinking about Asgard? We know he's Asgardian, what did his thoughts really add to this story, or the new Ultimates series? Add the fact that we had Rogue(who along with Shadowcat are probably my most hated X-Men) in this one, and yeah, this issue definitely fell short of the high bar set by the last issue.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.Aw, get up ya drama queen!

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3? Yes please!

Hawkeye's in the new Marvel vs Capcom game coming out in the fall?! That's all I need to hear... And it looks AWESOME! Plus Hawkeye's lv 3 attack features Hank Pym!!

New Comic Day! July 20th edition.

Hey there X-Maniacs, it's the original Comic Book Malefactor, X, here with yet another New Comic Day post! Can you believe it's almost August already? Sheesh, the summer is just flying by... This is another VERY full week for me comic book-wise(as you'll see for yourself soon enough), so let's skip the smalltalk and get into the heart of this post. As always, let's take a gander at last week's comic books before I get into which books I picked up this week... Last week's Pick of the Litter, New Mutants #27, was as good as I'd hoped it would be, coming away with a nearly perfect score of 9 1/2 out of 10. Last week's Runt of the Litter, Ghost Rider #1, was actually better than I'd expected it to be, receiving a perfectly average score of a 6. As for last week's average score, it was a 6.65, which was the EXACT same average score as the week before!! How frigging weird is THAT?!

Okay, that takes care of last week, let's head into this week and take a gander at what comic books I came away with today... Batman: Gates of Gotham #3, Hellblazer #281, Justice League of America #59, Superman/Batman #86, Ultimate Comics Fallout #2, Zatanna #15, Avengers #15, Avengers Academy #16, Captain America Corps #2, Daredevil #1, Fear Itself: Deadpool #2, Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #2, Fear Itself: FF #1, Fear Itself: The Home Front #4, Generation Hope #9, Invincible Iron Man #506, Iron Man 2.0 #7, Uncanny X-Men #541, X-Factor #222... That's almost 20 comics again... God, the summer is hell on my comic buying budget... So what do we have here... A handful of DC books, a mess of Fear Itself minis and tie-ins, and a few comics that I'm not looking forward to at all. Hmm, for this week's Pick of the Litter, I'm going to go with Invincible Iron Man #506. Matt Fraction has been bringing his A game to this series since the Fear Itself event started, so I'm expecting at the very least a 9 for a score here. As for this week's Runt, there are plenty of suspects, but I'm going to go with Generation Hope #9. This series has sucked since the get-go, if it doesn't improve here, with all of the Schism stuff going on, I think I'll finally give up and drop this title. As usual, I have a mess of comic books to read, which means I have lots of comics to review for the blog. Before I go though, a quick note... After doing 20 reviews in 7 days last week, I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep that pace again this week... Sometimes it's nice to just read a new comic without having to worry about reviewing it as well. So don't be surprised if I don't post reviews for EVERY comic you see listed above. I'll try my damnedest to push out as many reviews as humanly possible, but I can almost guarantee I won't get to them all. And that'll do it. Until next time, X out!

The Random Scan of the Week!Um, exactly how does Two-Face plan on escaping? I mean it's a giant roulette wheel! That's probably not Harvey's best moment right there...

Birds of Prey #14 & FF #6

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

Birds of Prey #14:

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

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

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


FF #6:

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

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

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

Teen Titans #97 & Superman #713

Today we take a break from all things Marvel and head back to the DCU for two comics I am NOT looking forward to reading... With that rousing introduction out of the way, let's take a quick look at the comics in question.

Teen Titans #97

Summary: The Teen Titans rally and thanks to Solstice(who's name I'm tempted to put in all caps since she's SO damn important apparently) beat up Rankor, the evil Indian god. Solstice then tells her parents that she was going with the Titans, which her parents happily give their approval for, ending this issue.

Thoughts: Yeah, that's right, that's as much of a review this rubbish is getting from me. I'm SURE there are more in depth reviews out there if you REALLY want to know the minute by minute craptitude that was this comic, but I'm definitely not wasting anymore of my time talking about this one... It's bad enough I wasted time reading it! I will say this about this issue though, it actually helped establish two things for me... The first is that Nicola Scott can make even the worst, most boring, terrible comic book look good. She's that good an artist. The second is that I definitely WON'T be picking up the rebooted Green Arrow series come September... I was on the fence as to whether or not I should pick it up, I already handed in my pull list for September, but was still contemplating adding GA before the reboot. But after reading this? Nope. JT Krul just isn't a good enough writer to get me to commit to a comic I was undecided on, and this issue solidified that fact. So check that out, this issue of Teen Titans was SO bad, it actually convinced me NOT to pick up GA in a two month's time! That's some epically bad storytelling!

Score: 2 out of 10.*gasp*!! Who saw THAT coming?!


Superman #713:

Summary: This issue gets started with Superman calling Superboy and Supergirl to him and then proceeding to get undressed in front of them... Okay, there was a bit more to it than THAT... Let me start over again... Supes calls Superboy and Supergirl to him and after they arrive, Supes begins to talk about how he didn't think it was a wise idea to be Supes anymore because, in Supes mind, Superman served as a target for villains and caused regular citizens to resent him... Uh-huh... With that, Supes changes to Clark Kent and declares that he was finished being Superman, but that he WOULD still help people, just anonymously. From there, Clark walks into a coffee shop in Portland, Oregon, and begins typing up an article asking if the world needed a Superman. From there Clark meets a man dressed in a Superman sweater, and the man is aghast to see Clark Kent writing something negative about Superman! Yes, aghast!! The man tells Clark that Clark doesn't understand Supes at all(HA!), and then tells him that they wouldn't be able to find a single person in Portland who'd speak ill of Supes. Clark decides to go with the man, and needless to say, everybody they speak to in the streets only have positive things to say about Supes, no matter how Clark tries to paint Supes as a potential menace. After the sixth person, Clark begins to rethink his stance since it seemed so many people saw Supes as a symbol of all that was good and right in the world. While the two are strolling around town, Clark and the Supes fan hear a news report from Seattle stating that a crazy super powered woman had taken Lois Lane hostage. Needless to say, by the time the fan turns around, Clark is long gone, undoubtedly on his way to Seattle.

Thoughts: Huh. I'm actually having a bit of trouble thinking of what to say about this issue... I mean it was REALLY slow, but that's not to say it was awful... In a way I think this issue kind of epitomizes my problem with this entire storyline. It took too long to get where it was going... Did we really need four separate examples(told by six people) of why the world needed Superman over the course of an entire issue? Wouldn't two or three people over two or three pages have been able to suffice? In that same vein, couldn't this story have been told over 4 to 6 issues instead of a mind-numbing 12? I guess that's the thing. This storyline wasn't horrible or anything, it just took too long to get where it was going. Same thing with this issue.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.Yeah, that's kind of creepy, Supes...

Ghost Rider #1 & Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #521

As promised, the last two Fear Itself tie-in issues I have left to read are on tap for today. Will I like either of them? If I were a betting man I'd say no, but who knows, I gave a Bendis written comic book a 10 earlier this week, stranger things have happened...

Ghost Rider #1(Fear Itself tie-in):

Summary: This issue begins with that slack-jawed yokel, Johnny Blaze, rejoicing in the fact that he no longer has the Ghost Rider curse. From there we head to Dayton, Ohio, where Sin and her Nazi forces are decimating the city... Why Dayton? That seems kind of random... Anyway, Deathwatch(!!!) and Blackout(!!!) are following behind Sin's forces(at a safe distance) and using her chaos to strengthen themselves. Okay, that just made this entire comic book worth the cover price right there... The new BAD-ASS female Ghost Rider(yawn) shows up and beats the hell out of Blackout and Deathwatch. She then tries to show that she's a BAD-ASS by scaring some kids. Sin walks over relatively pissed that BAD-ASS new Ghost Rider was here and the two fight with BAD-ASS Ghost Rider summoning her BAD-ASS new motorcycle, complete with BAD-ASS Gatling guns attached(because she's a BAD-ASS), which help BAD-ASS Ghost Rider put Sin down... Wait, what?! BAD-ASS Ghost Rider decides she was going to kill Sin with her own hammer, but gets knocked out and turned back into a regular human instead. Sin taunts her fallen foe, stating that since BAD-ASS new Ghost Rider was going to bring devastation to the world, she would leave her alive... Um, since Sin is already destroying the world why the hell would she allow BAD-ASS Ghost Rider to stay alive at all? Unless Sin knows she's gonna lose, which says a lot about Sin's self-esteem I guess... Anyway, the main story here ends with Johnny walking back into his secluded home to discover Mephisto standing there telling Johnny that by getting rid of the Ghost Rider spirit he had damned the human race. And since Mephisto was feeling like a helpful devil at the time, he wanted to help Johnny undo the damage. The back-up story tells us how the new BAD-ASS Ghost Rider got her powers. It all had something to do with corpses, human sacrifices and Nicaragua... Or at least that's what I got out of it...

Thoughts: What do you want me to say? I despise the idea of a female Ghost Rider. We already had TWO perfectly fine Ghost Riders in Johnny Blaze, or the WAY superior Danny Ketch. Was this a bad comic book? No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed the main story a lot, although I didn't get the origin story in the least... But seriously, what is Marvel's obsession with taking established male characters and turning them female? I don't get it, and I don't like it. Mr. Sinister, Loki, Bullseye, and now Ghost Rider have all been replaced by a female impersonator... Is it THAT hard to come up with a new character? I mean why couldn't Marvel/Rob Williams create a new character(I don't know, an unknown sister of Johnny Blaze or something?), give her some original powers, a cool name, a tight leather outfit, and put THAT comic out? No, instead they're going to try to cash in on the Ghost Rider name(which isn't exactly THAT marketable as it is, considering how many times the GR series has been canceled), by making another Ghost Rider, this time an edgy, female version. I'll stick around for another issue or two, because this comic was better than I ever thought it would be, but after that my curiosity will probably have been sated and I'll almost certainly drop this series.

Score: 6 out of 10.Man does Deathwatch look awesome... AND he has a great name too!!


Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #521(Fear Itself tie-in):

Summary: We kick this issue off with some loony getting fired from his job because he's a racist idiot or something. We then waste four pages establishing that this guy was indeed a racist idiot. Eventually one of the Serpent's hammers falls from space towards Yancy Street and the essence of the Hate-Monger catches a ride back to Earth with the hammer. Once on Earth, the Hate-Monger's essence possesses the racist idiot from earlier. From there we see the Black Panther in his civilian guise of Mr. Okonkwo trying to help the people who have been injured due to the events of Fear Itself by turning his restaurant into something of a hospice. Eventually(and I'm skipping a bunch of stuff because I'm bored and tired), the Hate-Monger and some of his mind controlled goons walk into the restaurant and begin to complain about Okonkwo and other immigrants stealing property and um... steaks from real Americans. BP gets tired of listening to the Hate-Monger talk about steaks and decides to deck him, but is stopped by the American Panther, who is pretty much a guy dressed in a Black Panther outfit with some American colors adorning the outfit. Okonkwo punches the American Panther instead of the Hate-Monger, but the American Panther is TOO American to get hurt from the punch(what?), so Black Panther's assistant(whose name I don't believe was ever mentioned) grabs Okonkwo and walks him out of the restaurant so he could cool his jets. While outside BP realizes that the guy who was claiming to be the Hate-Monger was probably the real Hate-Monger, which would explain how he was able to hold the crowd under his thrall. Before BP can do anything about the situation though, some suit from Homeland Security walks over and tells BP he was under arrest for trying to infiltrate America(or something)...

Thoughts: Um, okay... I guess... This was a Fear Itself tie-in issue in the loosest possible sense. It was thanks to the Serpent the Hate-Monger made it back to Earth, and the people of New York were obviously acting differently thanks to the Serpent's influence, but that was about it. There was no Sin, no Serpent, no Worthy, nothing like that. Instead it was your regular Hate-Monger story where the Hate-Monger did his whole, “Make people angrily scream the word hate while shaking their fists!!” thing. The story was nothing special, and since it was hardly a Fear Itself tie-in, I definitely won't be picking up the next issue.

Score: 4 out of 10.USA, USA, USA!!!!

New Avengers #14 & Journey Into Mystery #625

Hey all, two more Marvel comics to breeze through today, both of them Fear Itself tie-in books. Before I get to those two comics though, since I actually managed to logically plan out my massive 20 book week, I can tell you exactly which books I'll be reviewing every day until this coming Wednesday! How awesome is that! So unless I get buried under a mountain or something similar, here's the schedule for the rest of the week... Today I'll be reviewing New Avengers #14 & Journey Into Mystery #625, while Sunday brings Ghost Rider #1 & Black Panther #521. Monday I'll be reviewing Teen Titans #97 & Superman #713, which brings us to Tuesday where I'll be scraping the proverbial bottom of the barrel and braving Birds of Prey #14 & FF #6. So there you have it, X-Maniacs, a nice, orderly, set in stone look at the rest of the week! With that out of the way, let's take a look at New Avengers and Journey Into Mystery.

New Avengers #14(Fear Itself tie-in):

Summary: This issue starts with Mockingbird talking... And talking... And talking... Yes my friends, Brian Bendis IS indeed writing this issue! Why do you ask? Blah blah, Mockingbird was given the Infinity Formula, blah blah, it saved her life, blah, blah, blah. From there, Spider-Man announces he was quitting the New Avengers(and who could blame him!! They suck!!!) because Victoria Hand was their liaison, and he hates Norman Osborn and she used to work for Osborn or something. Whatever. Eventually Mockingbird walks in the room and everybody is surprised to see her alive, which gives Wolvie the chance to pull Spidey aside to try to talk him into staying, or leaving, who really knows? Then Sin's Nazis attack New York, and the New Avengers rush into battle. Mockingbird is pleased with her newfound enhanced abilities, and tells us. Again, and again, and again... My god, does Bendis think blithering idiots are reading this?!? Anyway, Mockingbird's happiness with her new abilities turns to sadness when Avengers Tower falls to the forces of Sin. And then Mockingbird talks some more, and this issue ends.

Thoughts: You know, Bendis really impresses me sometimes. I mean just the other day, I gave a comic he wrote a perfect score because I enjoyed it so much. Today? Nope, we won't be getting anywhere CLOSE to a perfect score! First of all, for all I complain about the awful Justice League line-up, THIS New Avengers line-up is pretty damn bad in it's own right! First of all, we have Spider-Man, Thing and Wolverine, who all have responsibilities to other teams/series first. Then there's Ms. Marvel, who I've always hated, Luke Cage, who I hate when he's written by Bendis, Iron Fist, who's there because... Well, I don't know why he gets to be an Avenger, but I guess if Luke can LEAD an Avengers team, why can't Iron Fist be a member, and Mockingbird, who I actually REALLY like, but was written WAY out of character in this issue. I mean she even said it herself, she's a secret agent! She prefers staying in the background! In this issue, she wouldn't shut up!!! What the hell Mockingbird was this?! Bizarro Mockingbird?!? My god, I have to read another comic book quickly to rinse the stain of this comic from my brain! NOW I remember why I never picked this series up!

Score: 1 1/2 out of 10.Hey look, Mockingbird is talking and talking and talking and talking and......


Journey Into Mystery #625(Fear Itself tie-in):

Summary: Man are these Journey Into Mystery comics hard to review. I'm just going to go with the broad strokes, because a whole mess of stuff happened here. In Hell, Hela and Mephisto are at each other's throats thanks to Loki's chicanery. Mephisto believes Hela was going to throw in with the Serpent, and Hela felt Mephisto was about to unjustly declare war on her. One of Hela's lieutenants tells Hela that Mephisto had the souls of the Disir within his realm, which further inflames the situation. As for who told Hela's lieutenant this news? Loki of course! With the two hell-lords distracted, Loki and Tyr manage to sneak into the Tongue's quarters(the Tongue was sent to Hela by the Serpent to see if she'd ally herself with him), and force him to hand over the documents he had from the Serpent before Tyr kills him. Now holding official evidence of the Serpent's plans, Loki rushes over to Hela and Mephisto and reveals that the Serpent was planning on causing a revolt in Hela's Hel. Hela realizes that she couldn't defeat Mephisto AND quell a revolt at the same time, and Mephisto has no interest in conquering a Hel that was in full revolt. The two hell-lords decide to put aside their differences for the time being and decide to listen to Loki's advice and deal with the Serpent, since he caused so much friction between Hela and Mephisto. To that end, Mephisto sends half of the Disir to Hel to make sure none of Hela's souls attempted a revolt and gives Loki the other half to deal with the Serpent. Hela in turn gives Loki her two top lieutenants, Tyr and Leah, before heading back to Hel to make sure no uprising occurs. Now having gathered more forces against the Serpent, Loki sets his sights on the next part of his plan to defeat the Serpent, a trip to Limbo.

Thoughts: I'll admit, there are times when I'm reading this comic and have NO idea as to what's going on... But then I'll turn the page and love what I was reading... It's weird. This comic was like that. I'd read a page and be completely lost, and then turn the page and find myself enjoying the story. Go figure. As usual, I'm loving young Loki, and enjoying the hell out of the artwork and dialogue. Sure, the story goes over my head at times, but hey, as long as I enjoy the dialogue and art, that's something, right?

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.Poor Loki seems to be having some problems here...