Captain America #3

First review of the night(and week)?  That'll be Captain America #3...  I've been SO looking forward to this one, especially since I named Cap #2 as my favorite single issue from 2012.  So yeah, I'm salivating at the thought of reading this one!

Captain America #3

Summary: This issue opens with Cap using the last of his energy to prevent Ian from getting beheaded by the strange aliens.  Unfortunately, the alien leader decides that he'd beat Cap to death with his own shield for that affront.  Before Cap is trounced, the lead alien's second in command tells the leader that he had witnessed Cap battling against Zola's mutates, meaning Cap wasn't their enemy.  The leader decides to take mercy on Cap and Ian and lets his second take them into his home.  While there, Cap tries to explain that the second in command doesn't have to be subservient to the leader, but the leader overhears that insubordination and decides that now he was really going to kill Cap.  The second stands up for Cap and is callously shot in the head by the leader, which infuriates Cap.  Cap manages to get his hands on his shield and smacks the leader with it, but the leader just shrugs it off and slashes Cap across the gut with a blade.  Cap gets his hands on a piece of rock and beats the hell out of the leader, taking him down to the delight of the rest of the tribe.  With the leader down, Cap staggers off and looks down at his wound, discovering Armin Zola's face in his chest, taunting him!

Thoughts:  I enjoyed reading this issue, but it was definitely a major step back from the last issue, although anything short of perfection was going to be a big step back from the last issue!  Regardless, I DID like it.  After this issue it seems that Cap will take up the leadership of the tribe now that he has felled the leader, although if the tribes members see Zola's face in Cap's chest, I don't know how readily they'd follow him...  Speaking of which, that sure came out of left field!  I don't know if Cap is hallucinating due to his fight with the leader/blood loss(although I doubt that), but how did Zola's face get IN Cap?!  And why did it take so long for it to show up?!  That was weird, but a good kind of weird.  The kind of weird that has me looking forward to the next issue.

Score: 8 out of 10.

Take THAT, alien scum!!

New Comic Day! January 16th edition.

It's Wednesday again!  You know what that means!!  Oh, you don't?  Huh.  Well, around these parts it means it's time for New Comic Day!  I am the prolific X, and I'll be your host this week.  Instead of dragging this intro on, let's get to the heart of this post and find out what comic books I plan on picking up today.  Provided my comic shop has them in stock...  Batman #16, Grifter #16, Superboy #16, Team 7 #4, Comeback #3, Saga #9, All-New X-Men #6, Captain America #3(!), Captain Marvel #9, Daredevil #22, Dark Avengers #185, Indestructible Hulk #3, Venom #30, X-Factor #250, Avenging Spider-Man #16.  I also picked up Alpha #0.1 even though it was a reprint due to my undying love for all things Alpha.  Whew, now THAT'S what I call a good comic week!  So 15 books(16 with Alpha!), with one that I absolutely, positively can't wait to read.  Now, normally this is when I say, "Okay all, these are the three books I'll be reviewing this week..."  However, this week?  This week ol' X is feeling a bit ambitious...  Back in the early days of this blog I used to review EVERYTHING I brought.  Yeah, it took a lot of time, but it was good for my writing and typing skills.  Lately I've had to take some time away from the blog due to personal reasons(damned personal reasons!!!), and as such have been slacking around here.  Well no more!  This week I will try to post as many reviews as humanly possible.  Now, I'm not going to post a review for everything, because JT will be calling dibs on a few of those books.  But the ones JT doesn't take?  I'll try to tackle on my review days.  And those days are Thursday, Saturday and Monday this week.  On Thursday you can expect, at the very least, reviews for Captain America(and something else as well) starting at 8 PM.  But yeah, this should be a jam packed week here at the blog.  And now I hand you guys over to the very capable JT for his comic selections this week.  Until tomorrow?  Yep, X out.

Thanks for that awesome introduction mi amigo, and thanks to you all for reading as usual. My comic pull for this week will include the following; Batman #16, Batman and Robin #16, Saga #9, All New X-Men #6, Avenging Spider-Man #16, Captain America #3, Captain Marvel #9, Indestructible Hulk #3, New Avengers #2, and Savage Wolverine #1! So that's a total of ten books for me, which is actually a lot... you know, unless you're X and you get like fifteen books a week. As for my reviews, of which you can expect three of, since I'm not the lean, mean, blogging machine that my pal X is, will be Batman #16, All New X-Men #6 and Avenging Spider-Man #16, Yep, Bats, X-Men and Superior Spidey WITH the X-Men? You can't go wrong with that. So expect to see those up on Friday, Sunday and Tuesday, with plenty of reviews sprinkled in between. So, until next time, this is JT, signing off!

Wally West Chronicles #1: Flash #9

Hey X-Maniacs, tis I, the great and powerful X, here with a bonus post for the week!!!  You see, a few years back I did a couple of posts called the Jason Todd Chronicles, where I'd take an old Batman comic book, something pre-1988 and with Jason Todd in it and do a picture-type review for it...  What do you mean Batman's only been around since 2011?!  There WAS A DCU before the New 52, you know!  Anyway, I'd mix "comedy"(and I use the term loosely) and pictures and presto, I'd have a post!  Now, that lovable scamp, JT, loved those posts(for some reason...) and would often mention them during our conversations.  He's weird like that.  In order to shut him up... I mean, in order to appease him, I told him he could pick a comic book out of my collection and I'd dazzle the readers of this blog with a new post.  Much to my dismay...  I mean, much to my joy, JT took me up on the offer, which brings us to this post.  Unlike my regular reviews, I won't be scoring these issues because, well, I'm simply reading these comics with the express purpose of having a little fun.  So there ya go, that's what you've gotten yourself into by checking this post out.  One last thing before I get started...  If this post sucks as much as I suspect it will, this was JT's idea, JT's choice of book, in other words, JT, this is ALL your fault!!

Flash #9(Feb 1988)

This issue kicks off with Wally West, you know, THE ONE TRUE FLASH, talking to his psychiatrist about his father...  Um, that's interesting, I guess...  Don't know if I'd put it in a comic though...  Maybe this is why Didio and Johns hate Wally...  While rapping with the shrink, a woman barges in and exclaims that somebody was stealing from the diamond exchange down the hall...  Well that's weird.  Why would there be a diamond exchange down the hall?  Luckily, Wally is THE ONE TRUE FLASH and all and runs down to the hall to find...  Oh.  Oh no.  Damn you, JT!  The Chunk stealing the diamonds!

See, I told you, The Chunk.

Like most of us when we see a deformed, morbidly obese man, Wally immediately attacks.  Unfortunately for Wally though, the Chunk SPITS a diamond at him and hits him in the temple...  Now let's all think about that sequence for a moment...  Wally is THE FLASH.  Fastest Man Alive(or at least he was in the 1980's, 1990's and 2000's).  He's battling against a 500 pound man wearing a bow tie.  He's felled by a diamond that was SPIT at him?!  Ugh...

Apparently there's no way to avoid that attack, Fastest Man Alive or not.

To make matters worse, The Chunk then spits a mess of diamonds at Wally, shredding his costume and disorienting him.  And with good reason!  Who could have seen THAT coming!  The Chunk slowly lumbers out the door and by the time Wally gets up, he realizes that The Chunk was GONE!!!  Gone I say!!!

That's got to be the most embarrassing loss suffered by any superhero ever!

Jeez, after that I understand why Wally is seeing a shrink...  Anyway, Wally heads home and finds his mother and girlfriend(who just so happens to be married to another man...  Yeah, and?) arguing.  Wally gets a notice to go to a City Council meeting, but since that doesn't really go anywhere, I'm going to blissfully ignore it.  The next day, The Chunk strikes again!  This time he climbs into a truck carrying 1900 pounds of gold and disappears with it.

Well that was easy!

As luck would have it, Wally's shrink had heard of a young man fitting The Chunk's description (500 pounds and deformed?) so Wally goes to Cyborg and asks him to hack into some medical and school files hoping to figure out just who The Chunk was.  Cyborg is seemingly fine with the whole invasion of privacy thing and gives Wally The Chunk's real name.  With that, Wally goes to dinner with his girlfriend...  Instead of, oh, I don't know, looking for The Chunk!

Huh, he actually said hello for Cyborg...  I never do that...

Later on, The Chunk is robbing a museum that was showing some platinum...  Why they were showing it, I have no idea, but there we go.  Wally races in and buys time for The Chunk's hostages to escape.  Wally then tries to reason with The Chunk since he knew his real name and all.  Long story short, The Chunk ate a miniature matter transmitter and became a walking singularity because...  Hey, look out behind you!!  Ahem...  Anyway, being a walking singularity will make you really hungry(trust me, I'd know!), so The Chunk has been gorging himself on dense materials.  The Chunk also calls Wally "smooth, cool and popular".  Not anymore, The Chunk...  Not anymore...

Sure you could wear a suit like that, The Chunk!  You just probably shouldn't is all...

Unfortunately, Wally makes the mistake of swiping The Chunk's bag o' platinum, so The Chunk sucks Wally over and teleports them into... Um, himself?  Another dimension?  A black hole?  I'll be damned if I know, but he teleports Wally somewhere and tells him that he was never getting back home!  Holy cliffhanger, Batman!

Wally West is mmm, mmm, good!

Final Thoughts: Well that was... something...  I guess this post will make all of those The Chunk fans happy...  I mean, there are The Chunk fans out there.  Probably.  Like JT!  He MUST be a fan of The Chunk!  That's the only reason I can imagine he'd subject me to this comic book!  Plus, if nothing else, this post gives you somebody being defeated by spitfire diamonds...  HA!  Get it, "spitfire"?!  Eh.  I'm mercifully done here, until next time, X out.

Ultimate X-Men #21

One more review for the night(that's a lie!  There's actually another!!) and I've polished off 6 reviews in three nights...  Just like the good old days!  Anyway, we'll finish this week off with a review of Ultimate X-Men.

Ultimate X-Men #21

Summary: On Utopia, Kitty Pryde(with the backing of Tony Stark) meets the press and says the the mutant nation was giving the world the seed they had created, a seed that would grow anywhere, regardless of the environment   Needless to say, a lot of the media is dubious of Kitty and her so-called mutant seed.  Some of Kitty's own people are also angry with her, as they resent being stuck on Utopia and don't like Kitty's olive branch to humanity.  Later on, a group of mercenaries attack Utopia, but the mercs are taken down pretty easily since Tony was still there and had his Iron Patriot armor with him.  Kitty demands answers from the mercs, and when they won't talk, Jimmy threatens to start popping claws into heads.  That makes Kitty freak out and start screaming at Jimmy(the hell!?) about how they had to be peaceful.  Jimmy asks what they were supposed to do when they were being attacked by guys with guns, so Iron Patriot strolls over and tells them that they couldn't be completely pacifist  nor could they run around attacking everybody.  Um, thanks Tony...  And THAT ends this issue.

Thoughts: What the hell was with Tony and his bizarre pep-talk !  "Now you can't be completely peaceful...  But you can't be warlike..."  Thanks for that sage advice, Tony...  The weird ending notwithstanding, this issue wasn't all that bad.  I enjoyed the middle of this book with Mach Two continuing to plot against Kitty, and was interested to see Jean monitoring the situation in Tian.  I will say this, I don't get what Mach Two wanted to do here...  I mean, I hate Kitty as much as ANYBODY, but Mach Two's plan seemed to be, "We'll attack the humans."  There are like what, 20 mutants living in Utopia?  What are they going to attack? A small town?  A large supermarket?  But hey, she hates Kitty which makes her alright in my book!  Other than Mach Two though, this current mutant seed storyline really isn't doing it for me...  Here's hoping we go somewhere else pretty soon.

Score: 6 out of 10.

Can't we all just get along?!?

Fantastic Four #3

Another X night as I polish off two more comics before tomorrow and New Comic Day.  The first review of the night will be Matt Fraction's Fantastic Four.  In a half an hour?  It's Ultimate X-Men.  Let's get to it.

Fantastic Four #3:

Summary: Reed has set up an educational mission for his kids on a planet that seemed to be formed from unstable molecules.  Besides giving the kids something to do, Reed is hoping to learn something about the ongoing breakdown of his own molecules on that planet.  After a lot of bickering from the kids, the time comes for Reed, Sue, Johnny and the kids to land on the planet.  Unfortunately, the planet tries to... well, eat the group, which leads to Sue having to wrap everybody up in her force field.  The Thing leaps down from orbit to help(really?!), which gives Reed, Sue and the kids the opportunity to get into their landing craft.  Johnny heads off to help Ben, while Reed reaches out of the craft to snag Ben, pulling him to safety   The group heads back to their spacecraft and that's that.

Thoughts: This issue definitely wasn't up to the level of the first two, that's for sure.  The story was nothing, and the kids were SO annoying!  They were annoying to the point of me not wanting to read their dialogue anymore.  They were that annoying!  As for the story, it was a pretty empty little one and done.  The Family Richards explore an alien planet.  The planet tries to eat them.  The group escapes with their lives.  Meh.  This issue is the first one that actually made me wonder if the storyline going on in this series has any legs...  Next issue should be pretty telling.

Score: 5 1/2 out of 10.

SHUT UP!!!!!!!!

The Walking Dead #106

Hey guys and gals, as you've obciously seen by now, X was feeling better and came back to the blog early, so welcome back X, hope you continue to feel better, playa. Now, for my last review of the week, I'm gonna tackle The Walking Dead, so let's see how the gang deals with Carl's disappearance.

The Walking Dead #106

Summary: This issue starts out with the fallout of the ironing by Negan, as we see Carl asking Negan if he can wrap his face up again. Negan tells him no, and Carl get's defensive, which riles Negan up, since he's a fan of Carl being a little bad-ass. He asks Carl how he should torture him, since he obviously can't let him go unscathed, but Carl, defiant as always, tells Negan he should kill himself and save Carl the trouble of doing it, which gets a big laugh out of Negan. Back with Rick and the gang, we see them taking out Walkers as Rick seems to be more angry than usual. While they do so, we see Spencer, the guy who fancied Andrea a bit is pretty jealous, which probably won't bode well for him, Andrea, or Rick, as anyone who's read this series can tell. Eventually, Jesus returns and wakes Rick up, ready to give him the info he's got from spying on Negan's crew. It turns out Rick has told everyone that Carl's disappeared, and although he thinks Negan took him, he's been playing dumb so he doesn't rile up the rest of the community. Jesus tells Rick he's found Negan's camp, and he heard automatic fire there, and Rick says Abraham's machine gun is missing, putting two and two together that Carl is obviously at Negan's camp. Jesus says he can take him there in the morning, but Rick says he can't wait that long. Rick, Jesus, Andrea and Michonne pile into a van and head off towards Negan's camp, planning to confront them head on and just ask for Carl back, when they're met at the halfway point by Negan and his men. Negan confronts Rick and says he has something for Rick, and the issue ends as Negan tells Rick he can't wait until Rick see's what he's done to his little boy.

Thoughts: Man... talk about a cliffhanger. I can't wait to see what Negan's done to Carl, and Negan has been established as such a sick son of a bitch in his few appearances so far, it could literally be ANYTHING. I put nothing past this guy... and I'm wondering what Rick's reaction will be as well. Hell... I wouldn't be surprised if Negan took Carl's other eye.... or took a hand to make him match his dad. Just my imagination alone if probably worse than what Negan's done. As for this issue, I enjoyed the character development here, especially with Spencer's jealousy. He was basically the prince of that community for a while, now Rick's in charge and has Andrea, so I wouldn't be surprised if he lashed out at one of them. All in all, this was an enjoyable issue, and really set up some big things for the upcoming issues.

Score: 7.5/10

Negan: I can't fucking wait until you see what I've done to your little boy!

Stormwatch #16

Last review of this Sunday night is going to be the lone DC Comic I've picked up this week, Stormwatch.  Stormwatch has actually been one of my favorite New 52 titles, so here's hoping that continues here.

Stormwatch #16

Summary: Projectionist manages to get a message to Stormwatch, telling them she had been kidnapped by the thought to have gone rogue Midnighter.  Midnighter catches up to her, but unfortunately for him, Apollo has responded to Projectionist's message.  And he is PISSED!  Apollo batters Midnighter while Engineer and the Shadow Lord(actually a disguised Harry Tanner) head to the scene.  The Shadow Lord tells Apollo not to kill Midnighter since he wanted to see Midnighter's execution in person.  The group take Midnighter back to Stormwatch's base and Shadow Lord prepares to kill him, but the blast is intercepted by Apollo, who claims if anybody was going to kill Midnighter, it would be him.  From there, Jenny Quantum shows up and accuses the Shadow Lord of actually being Tanner after an investigation of her own.  Shadow Lord denies that, but Engineer tells the group that it was almost mathematically impossible for Shadow Lord to be anybody BUT Tanner.  Now exposed, Tanner reveals himself and tells the team he was only doing what he thought needed to be done to make Stormwatch more proactive.  As for killing Midnighter, he knew Midnighter would see through his deception, thus trying to eliminate him.  Apollo is furious about that and decides to kill Tanner, but is taken down hard by Engineer, who states that according to her calculations, Tanner was right.  Midnighter decides now was the time to exit stage left and drags Apollo towards the exit hatch.  Tanner tries to stop Midnighter, but Midnighter boots Tanner away and leaps into the Bleed with the semi-conscious Apollo, ending this issue.

Thoughts: As usual, this was a good issue with great characters.  I've enjoyed this storyline and am happy to see Tanner exposed.  The fallout from this issue should be interesting with Apollo mistrusting Midnighter, who WAS right the whole time, Projectionist learning Tanner had played her the entire time, and Engineer seemingly joining the dark side.  With Engineer, I'm guessing she has been corrupted somewhere along the line, I recall something happening a few issues back that should explain her antics.  Apollo and Midnighter?  It'll be interesting to see how readily Midnighter forgives Apollo for not believing him and, you know, trying to kill him and all.  All in all, good stuff that has me looking forward to the next issue.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.

Ouch indeed!

Thunderbolts #3

First of two X reviews for tonight is Thunderbolts.  This series has been good, but not really great yet.  Here's hoping this is the issue the greatness begins.

Thunderbolts #3

Summary: Rulk and Deadpool are resuscitating the Leader, which Deadpool thinks is a bad idea since Punisher wasn't going to take kindly to working with a villain like the Leader.  Meanwhile, in Kata Jaya, Punisher is training a some rebel forces and Venom is... um, driving a truck...  As for Elektra, she's randomly been captured by Madman.  Huh.  Back with Rulk and Pool, Rulk manages to wake Leader up, but has kept him very sedated so he wouldn't be any trouble.  Rulk and Pool rendezvous with Venom, who is angry to see the two traveling with the Leader.  While Venom and Rulk argue, Punisher walks over and shoots Leader in the head, exactly like Pool predicted, ending this issue.

Thoughts: What the hell was THIS!?  I swear, as I started reading this issue I thought I missed an issue somewhere along the line...  I mean, last I remember, Deadpool had been shot in the head while working with Elektra.  Now he was suddenly with Rulk, with no mention of Elektra at all...  And nobody even mentioned Pool getting shot!  I mean, I KNOW it happened!  But here Pool was just randomly working with Rulk...  Weird.  And then there was Leader, who was drugged up and vomiting.  What purpose did that serve!?  Or Punisher shooting monkeys...  Or Venom driving in trucks...  I have no clue what this was all about.  And I didn't like it one bit.  I trust Dan Way, so I'll give this title a longer leash than most other series, but if things don't pick way up, this series may find itself in the scrapheap.

Score: 3 1/2 out of 10.

Not yet, but I'm well on my way!