X-Factor #226

Last comic for tonight, and it should be solid. Why is that? Peter David is the writer. And if PAD is writing something, you can bet the farm that it'll at least be a solid read.

X-Factor #226:

Summary: Madrox, Layla, Shatterstar and Longshot head to the old farmhouse Madrox used to live in to try to dig up some clues as to a) who murdered the woman who was living there, b) where her son disappeared off to, and c) who B.B. was. Longshot luckily happens across a SAG card belonging to Jason Roland, who also happens to be the Hangman(!!)... Wow, there's a villain I haven't heard from in a while! Anyway, Madrox learns that Hangman used to be married to the murdered woman, and as such Madrox figures Hangman killed her and absconded with the kid. Pip the Troll manages to get a lock on Hangman's position in Los Angeles, and Madrox realizes that he'd better bring the entire X-Factor team with him for this one since the Hangman would regularly battle the West Coast Avengers to standstills. So the team arrives in LA and Madrox splits them up into three separate squads, telling them to remain in constant contact with each other. Naturally everybody bickers with each other(because that's what this team does best!), and the Hangman attacks Madrox's group. The Hangman's mystical noose begins to strangle Madrox, so Wolfsbane tries to free him while Guido goes after the Hangman himself. Unfortunately, the noose is unbreakable, and the Hangman is as strong as Guido. During the fight, Guido mentions the Hangman's murdered wife, which stops the Hangman in his tracks since he had no idea she had been killed. The noose lets Madrox slip free, and Hangman reveals that somebody named Bloodbath(B. B. I'd guess) must have done it and that if Hangman didn't do as Bloodbath commanded he'd kill everybody.

Thoughts: Anytime a story causes me to think back to the West Coast Avengers, I'm a happy camper. This issue did a lot of little things right... It showed us that Hangman was one tough SOB, by having him take on Guido one-on-one, while strangling Madrox with his enchanted noose. After establishing that yes, the Hangman is no pushover, we were shown that he was afraid of whoever this Bloodbath character was, thus establishing Bloodbath as an even GREATER threat. Besides all of that nifty storyline advancement, we also got a mess of little character development scenes, which is something you can always rely on Peter David for. All in all, this was a pretty good issue that has me intrigued to see Bloodbath finally show up.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.How can't I love this series?

Wolverine #17

Next up is the latest issue of Wolverine. This storyline should be Wolvie's final one in the Bay Area before heading back east. So far Jason Aaron hasn't disappointed me with this series, hopefully that trend continues here.

Wolverine #17:

Summary: So there are some murders taking place in Chinatown that seem to be gang related and directed at the supposed leader of the majority of Chinatown's gangs, the Black Dragon... Don't worry, this will all make sense(hopefully) in a few moments. From there Wolvie heads to his girlfriend Melita's apartment and pretty much says good-bye to her since he was moving cross country. Before Wolvie can give Melita a proper good-bye, a kid climbs in the window telling the Black Dragon there was trouble in Chinatown... Yep, Wolverine is the leader of the gangs of Chinatown... Of course he is... Anyway, Wolvie ditches Melita(who pretty much sets the stage for the end of this storyline by hinting that she may have moved out herself before Wolvie comes back) and goes to take care of this Chinatown trouble. He heads to the office/headquarters of the Black Dragon with the kid and finds his second in command, a sarcastic old man. Wolvie discovers that the rival gang members had stolen the money he had squirreled away to rebuild the school, and thus he was forced to kill him some Chinese gang members to get his cash back. After taking out some rival gang members, Wolverine is confronted by... Really? A goddamn talking monkey... Now, for those of you who don't know, my GREATEST pet peeve in ALL of comicdom is talking animals in general, but talking monkeys in particular... Anyway, this is Gorilla-Man(I get the “Gorilla” part, but the “Man” part escapes me...) from the Agents of Atlas and he was also on the trail of Wolvie's targets, a group called the Jade Claw. Wolvie and the monkey throw down for a while before the old guy and the kid tell the two that they'd discovered a secret door in the Jade Claw warehouse and the foursome enter it, heading downstairs where they find a massive tunnel(that literally seems to stretch back to China), lots of goons, and two dragons carrying crates of heroin on their backs... That's definitely different. Anyway, the dragons spot Wolvie and his group hiding in the shadows and Wolvie and his rag-tag crew are soon confronted by a mess of angry superpowered Jade Claw members.

Thoughts: You know, I SHOULD hate everything about this comic... I mean I've never liked Wolvie's Asian adventures(I hate the very thought of Madripoor) and I hate talking monkeys... I mean it SHOULD be a recipe for disaster! And yet, I enjoyed this comic... A LOT! Weird. It was just all SO over the top I found myself really getting into this one. I mean come on, there were DRAGONS, walking FROM China, WITH crates of heroin... On their BACKS! Plus the talking monkey was just the most random pick for a guest star I think Jason Aaron could have possibly chosen here... So yes, call me crazy, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Sure, dragons and a talking monkey in a Wolverine comic... Why not?

Ultimate Hawkeye #3

After a mostly disappointing look at a few DC comic books yesterday(and one fantastic Marvel comic), it's time to get back on track with a trio of Marvel books today. We'll start today off by taking a look at my favorite comic book archer, Hawkeye... Well, actually Ultimate Hawkeye, but that's close enough to the real deal.

Ultimate Hawkeye #3(of 4):

Summary: Now joined by Nick Fury's Ultimate X team, Hawkeye decides to split his forces into two since there are two main bases the new mutants who have declared war on the SEAR(Southeast Asian Republic) were operating out of. Hawkeye and pretty much everybody else will sneak into the northern base to steal a sample of the Serum that was creating the mutants, while the Hulk would go to the southern base to raise hell and cause the mother of all distractions(under the watchful telepathic eye of Jean Grey though). With his brilliant plan worked out, Hawkeye sends the Hulk to the south and he wreaks havoc as as expected, while the others sneak into the northern castle. Unfortunately though, Jean's telepathy ends up getting blocked, and she loses contact with the Hulk. The Hulk continues his rampage regardless, but ends up facing a foe who is able to revert him back to his Bruce Banner form. As for Hawkeye and company, they run into the shadowy leader of the mutant uprising, who tells them there was no need to fight since they had created PLENTY of the Serum and were willing to share.

Thoughts: I liked this comic. It was good, solid, and easy to follow read. So the last issue of this mini gives us a twofold problem... First off, Hulk's been de-powered and is at the mercy of his mysterious foe. Secondly, Nick Fury doesn't want to share the Serum, he wants SHIELD to have sole ownership of the Serum... That puts Hawkeye in a bit of a pickle, since the leader of the SEAR mutant uprising has revealed that he has such vast quantities of it. If the secondary leader of the uprising was able to put down the Hulk, who knows what sort of powers the leader of the uprising can throw at Hawkeye and company. And Hawkeye is going to have to attack the leader of the uprising since he has to destroy all but a sample of the Serum... So yeah, good stuff here. Hopefully the last issue is as good(or better!) as this one was.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.Hawkeye: Ultimate Fighting Machine!

Uncanny X-Men #544... Plus some bonus thoughts on Nate Grey!

Hey look, it's the FINAL issue of Uncanny X-Men!! I mean wow, can you believe that Marvel would actually cancel UNCANNY X-MEN! I never thought I'd see the day! Wait, what do you mean Marvel isn't actually canceling the book they're only renumbering it?! Wait, why am I surprised by this? We ARE talking about Marvel Comics here...

Uncanny X-Men #544: The(not so) Final Issue!:

Summary: The story here is twofold, with half the comic featuring Lord Summers on Crazy Mutie Island(Utopia) watching the last of Wolverine's mutants heading off(Iceman), while the other half of this comic features the return of... MR. Sinister(!!!!!!). First off we'll deal with the Sinister story. It seems that Sinister is trying to recreate himself by using the story of the Uncanny X-Men as his guide. Sinister has thus far been able to recite the story of the X-Men up until the most recent event... Schism. Sinister figures that Schism ended with Lord Summers and Wolverine putting aside their differences for the sake of mutantkind... Which is NOT true, and leads to a red light going off in Sinister's laboratory. Having predicted wrong, Sinister enters an oven filled with skeletal remains and burns himself to death(!). Sometime later, a new Sinister emerges from a cloning tank and reads through the story of the X-Men, crossing out the wrong information the prior Sinister had added and perfectly predicting the way Schism ended, right down to the name Wolvie chose for the new school. Having successfully completed his predictions, and having the proper temperament, personality and attitude, this Sinister heads off to begin his plans anew. As for the mutants? Lord Summers is bitchy towards Iceman for leaving, Beast makes sure to pick up the last few leaving mutants just to put the screws to Lord Summers one final time(because Beast IS awesome) and Lord Summers responds to all of this by taking down all of the photos of the older X-Men teams and sealing them away, since they were a reminder of the past, and looking to the past is defeatist behavior to Lord Summers.

Thoughts: What the hell do you think I thought of this issue!? It returned the real, true, legitimate MR. SINISTER!!! Possibly my favorite X-Men villain, and one of my favorite villains in ALL of comic books. Whenever I think back on this issue I find myself adding an extra 1/2 to the score over and over again because the stuff with Sinister was THAT awesome. I loved that Sinister kept recreating himself until he had become the character he used to be, one who knew the X-Men inside and out, possibly better than they knew themselves! And upon finally becoming complete again? Naturally he sets out to get back to work making the X-Men's lives a living hell. And why does he do that? Because he's awesome. That's why. But it's not only the stuff with Mr. Sinister that was great, the parts of this comic that dealt with Iceman leaving Crazy Mutie Island, as well as Beast's GREAT cameo appearance made this the best issue of Uncanny X-Men I've read in YEARS! All I can hope for is that Kieron Gillen keeps THIS sort of work up and doesn't slide back to his pre-Fear Itself stories. Regardless, with a Mr. Sinister storyline on the horizon, I have a pretty good feeling Uncanny X-Men #1 will be one hell of a good comic.

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.It looks like I have a new Windows desktop picture already!


What's in a name? Everything!

As a totally nerdy aside, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that this issue gave us one of the FEW times I've seen somebody put Nate Grey's name properly... You see, in an issue of X-Man(X-Man #-1 I believe) Mr. Sinister gave Nate his name. His last name, Grey, came from his mother, but his first name? Sinister named Nate after the one who did the most work in actually creating Nate, and that would be Sinister himself. And what is Sinister's real name? Nathaniel Essex. However, in the comic I'm referencing, Sinister called Nate “Nathan” as opposed to “Nathaniel”... To me though, if Nate WAS named after Mr. Sinister(as Sinister himself said), then his proper name would be Nathaniel Grey, NOT Nathan Grey. Now, why the hell did I just go off on a spiel about Nate's name? Because in this issue of Uncanny X-Men, Mr. Sinister was looking at a chart of the Summers and Grey family trees and Nate was named “Nathaniel” on the board, FINALLY correcting something that's bothered me for a good 6/7 years now, back when I first read that X-Man #-1 back issue. So thank you Kieron Gillen and Greg Land for righting that wrong when it comes to my favorite fictional character.Yes, it IS Nathaniel Grey! Finally! Thank you!

Batman #2

Okay, so far the two DC comics I've reviewed today have been EXTREMELY disappointing... Here's hoping Scott Snyder and Batman rectify this situation...

Batman #2:

What Happened: Right off the bat we get the whole, “Dick Grayson as Bruce's assassin” deal out of the way as Dick has a logical explanation for why his DNA was under the dead guy from last issue's fingernails. Still unsure of who the murderer was or why they'd targeted Bruce Wayne, Bruce goes to meet with Lincoln March, who wanted to run for mayor. The two chat for a while before a big guy dressed like an owl throws a bloodied security guard in the room, stabs Lincoln in the stomach with a blade, tosses some blades into Bruce and boots Bruce out a window several dozen stories high. The owl assassin jumps after him, but Bruce manages to land on a gargoyle while the owl assassin falls to his presumed death. Bruce still refuses to believe there's an evil “Court of Owls” operating in Gotham, and the owl assassin from early sits up in the ambulance.

The Good: Eliminating Dick as a suspect early on in this issue was a good move... Seriously, how many people were naive enough to believe that Dick, who has a solo series, was going to be turning evil? The owl assassin had a good look. There's a lot of intrigue here between the Court of Owls, Lincoln March and the owl assassin claiming he loved killing Waynes.

The Bad: Some parts of this comic seemed unnecessary, especially early on... I don't get why Bruce finds this whole Court of Owls idea to be TOO unbelievable when he has battled against a man who looks like a crocodile, seen a man who looks like Two Face and frequently teams with an alien from a destroyed planet...

The Verdict: The good definitely outweighed the bad here(thankfully), but this story is still in the building stages. And it's building slowly. But at least it was better than the other two Bat-family books I've read today...

Score: 8 out of 10.Who DOESN'T love killing Waynes?!

Nightwing #2

Here's another title that is safely on my pull list forevermore. Not that I expect to be tempted into dropping this series any time soon... At least for as long as it keeps pumping out quality stories like it did last issue.

Nightwing #2:

What Happened: Nightwing and the villain he was jumped by last issue(Saiko) battle to a no contest when Saiko escapes while Dick saves some bystanders. The female acrobat from last issue tells Dick that it was urgent that they went to see Mr. Haly in Atlantic City, so the two hop a jet and go. Dick learns that Haly was dying, that Haly always knew Dick was Nightwing and wanted Dick to take ownership of Haly's Circus upon his death. Dick hops back on the jet and naturally joins the Mile High Club because he's Dick Grayson. Dick is then called by Saiko, who tells him he had tortured Haly into telling him that Dick was Nightwing. Dick goes back to Haly's warehouse, fights Saiko again, and the warehouse explodes. Dick manages to escape with Haly, but there's no sign of Saiko. Haly dies in Dick's arms spouting cryptic gibberish.

The Good: Dick joining the Mile High Club made me chuckle... I mean once you saw that the female acrobat had red hair you KNEW it was going to happen eventually! Dick as the owner of the Circus has some potential going forward. Saiko has a pretty cool look. Haly knowing Dick's secret identity DID make sense.

The Bad: Are secret identities completely frowned upon in the new DCU?! Jeez... The story wasn't the most interesting thing I've ever read. Why did Saiko decide to torture Haly? Did he suspect Dick and Nightwing were one and the same or was it just a happy coincidence?

The Verdict: Okay, first things first... The three former Robins have three separate series'... Dick Grayson stars in Nightwing, Jason Todd stars in Red Hood and the Outlaws, and Tim Drake stars in Teen Titans. Those 3 series have put out a grand total of 5 issues thus far. There are already a multitude of characters, from only FIVE issues, who know the secret identities of those three characters! Tim was hunted down by villains AS Tim, seemingly EVERYBODY knows Jason Todd is the Red Hood, from friends to enemies, and in this issue Saiko discovered that Dick was Nightwing... Hell, in Batman and Robin a villain there knew Bruce and Bats were one and the same! There used to be a time when the identities of the Bat-family members was a stringently held secret... Now EVERYBODY knows who's who it seems! Back to this comic though. It was okay. Not great, but not terrible. But yeah, Saiko suddenly knowing Dick's identity really bothered me a lot and hurt my enjoyment of this one...

Score: 7 out of 10.I guess I'd have been more surprised if Saiko DIDN'T know Dick was Nightwing...

Red Hood and the Outlaws #2

For the first time this week, let's take a gander at what DC has to offer... This is one of the few DC comics that are safe no matter how badly the series is, so that's good... I guess...

Red Hood and the Outlaws #2:

What Happened: We get a few snippets from Jason's past and learn that yes, he WAS still beaten to death by Joker, that he was returned to life for reasons that nobody understood(good old DC...) and that Talia DID toss him into a Lazarus Pit to fix him up. He was taken in and trained by the All Caste to become a better fighter(thanks to Talia). Back to the present, Jason, Roy and Starfire head to the former location of the All Caste's base, where they only find dead bodies and zombies. Roy and Starfire deal with the zombies and Jason talks to the ghost of his old teacher, who tells him the one responsible for the carnage was the Untitled. Needless to say, avenging shall commence next issue.

The Good: Roy and Jason still star in this series, so that's still good. I enjoyed the parts of this story that took place in Jason's past. The art is vibrant.

The Bad: Roy's dialogue annoyed me here, and I usually love Roy... This story is doing NOTHING for me. There really wasn't anything new here, which is weird since this was the second issue of a brand new series. I mean this issue basically ended the exact same way issue #1 ended...

The Verdict: To be honest with you, if Roy and Jason weren't the stars of this comic I would have probably scored it 1, maybe 2 full points lower. I disliked this comic that much. It was just Roy acting immature and spouting bad dialogue, Jason having flashbacks and Starfire... well, I have no clue why she's even here since she seems disinterested in everything going on around her and since she didn't actually DO anything of note in this one. Yeah, this was a pretty big disappointment...

Score: 6 out of 10.So wait, Roy got his arm back but is also one of the more annoying characters in comics now? That's a weird trade off...

Avengers #18

Now this should be an interesting comic book... If I understand things correctly, this issue takes place AFTER the events of Fear Itself and deals with Captain America tasked with putting together a new squad of Avengers seeing as that two of their number(Bucky and Thor) perished during Fear Itself. Let's see what happens here!

Avengers #18:

Summary: Wow, I was sure wrong... This issue shows us that a disgruntled agent of SHIELD had been collecting samples from various superheroes, super-villains, aliens, the works, and having become disgusted with superhuman after the events of Fear Itself, hands these samples over to Norman Osborn and AIM(or HAMMER, I guess). As for the Avengers, well, they really don't DO anything. Captain America tells Tony Stark to rebuild Avengers Tower, most of the Avengers head to Avengers Mansion to live while things are being rebuilt, and Cap tells the gathered Avengers that he had to reevaluate who was going to remain an Avenger.

Thoughts: What the hell was THAT?! Seriously, the cover to this issue REALLY misled me big time! Frigging Bendis... Leave it to Brian Bendis to take something as simple as picking a new set of heroes to be on the Avengers and not even be able to do THAT in one issue!!! This comic was most definitely an example of Bad Bendis. Here's hoping we get Good Bendis next issue. Oh, and why the HELL is Luke Cage the owner of AVENGERS MANSION?!? I know Bendis loves him and all, but Avengers Mansion has been in the Stark family for YEARS! *sigh* Let me just end this post now before I go insane...

Score: 2 1/2 out of 10.On the positive side, Hawkeye was here. On the negative side, everything else.