Winter Soldier #15

And it's my final review day before it's New Comic Day!  Two reviews on tap for tonight, the first being the now Brubaker-less Winter Soldier.  Jason Latour is taking over from the incomparable Ed Brubaker, and has impossibly large shoes to fill.  Here's hoping Latour can keep at least half the magic Brubaker brought to this series.

Winter Soldier #15

Summary: This issue gets started with Bucky wallowing in a bar in Croatia.  It seems he went there to confess some of his crimes to a man the Soviet's had him screw over several years ago.  That went poorly and left Bucky as the only conscious person in the bar...  At least until Nick Fury walks in.  That's Nick Fury Sr, fyi.  Fury wonders why Bucky was drawing attention to himself when he was supposed to be playing dead, and Bucky says something about needing to confront his past before he can face his future...  Okay...  Bucky then says he didn't want to lose himself in somebody else's missions anymore, which is why he broke from SHIELD.  So Fury naturally tells Bucky he had a mission for Bucky...  And Bucky accepts it!  Basically, a deep undercover SHIELD agent has been working with Hydra for the past 30 some-odd years.  Bucky(back in his brainwashed Soviet days) killed the guy's handler, so he'd been on his own since then.  Except now he's finally had enough and walked into a Hydra-run casino and gunned down several high-level Hydra operatives.  Bucky's job is to extract him.  Bucky gets to the old guy with little trouble, but quickly discovers that the faction of Hydra that was trying to kill the old guy dabbled in black magic and just wouldn't die.  It takes some teamwork from Bucky and the old guy, but eventually they defeat the undead Hydra menace.  The old guy tries to sucker punch Bucky(because he's drunk or angry or old or something), but Bucky counters and knocks the old guy out.  The old guy vomits and passes out, and this issue ends with Bucky helping him away.

Thoughts: Well, that sure wasn't what I was hoping for...  Unlike some fans, I went into this comic with the highest of hopes.  I mean, yes I'm a huge Brubaker mark and all, but I was more than willing to give Latour a shot.  And so far?  I'm feeling a lot less optimistic...  So Bucky wants to do his own thing after working with SHIELD for a while.  Understandable.  If that's the case, why does he immediately take on Nick Fury Sr's list o' tasks?!  Weird...  And the main mission in this issue, with the old guy?  It just didn't click for me.  Here's hoping Latour just needed to get a bad issue out of the way before bringing his A-game...

Score: 4 out of 10.

Damn did Fury look OLD in this issue!

Green Arrow #17

Hey everyone, JT here with my second review of the week, Jeff Lemire's Green Arrow. I haven't followed this series since like issue three or so, but I figured I'd give it a chance with Lemire taking over. He claims this issue will read kind of like a number one, so let's see if Green Arrow's comic can be as good as his TV Show.

Green Arrow #17

Summary: This issue starts off with Oliver Queen, poor and beaten, walking through a desert in his Green Arrow gear, proclaiming that this whole time he was nothing but a rich and spoiled kid playing superhero, but he's a no one, and he's going to die alone. We jump back three weeks to see Ollie finding out that Queen Industries has been stolen by Stellmoor International, and Oliver wants answers. He confronts Emerson, his dad's best friend who was to hold the company until Oliver was ready, but he basically says the company suffered because Emerson was so busy having to watch after Oliver and his decisions, and how he couldn't even run Q-core, a pet project he gave Ollie to see if he was ready. Emerson hints that Queen Industries is not the only legacy that Robert Queen left Oliver, but before he can tell him, he's suddenly shot in the back with an arrow through a window. The arrow has a rope connected to it, and it's pulls back, yanking Emerson out of the window, which of course makes it look like an enraged Oliver Queen pushed him out of the window. The Security guards try to subdue Ollie, but he escapes and is ready to suit up, so he calls his friends at Q-Core, Jax and Naomi (they know he's Green Arrow) and tells them to get his suit and arrows ready, but they say "He's making us do this." and suddenly Q-Core explodes, with Jax, Naomi, and other employees in there. Oliver doesn't have time to grieve since he wants revenge, so he heads to his safehouse and gears up, when suddenly he's attacked in the base by an archer who introduces himself as Komodo. He's pretty much superior (Shout out to Doc Ock!) in every way and schools Oliver. The fight takes the two to the roof and Komodo is about to put Oliver out of his misery, causing him to die a poor, friendless man, when suddenly Komodo is tackled and subdued by a man named Magnus. He says Komodo and The Others have gotten out of line, and he throws something in Komodo's eyes that blind him long enough for Magnus to help Oliver up. The issue comes to a close as we see Magnus, a man who has had both of his eyes cut out, and he tells Oliver that he shouldn't be there, as he was never supposed to leave the island.

Thoughts: Jeff Lemire must be a fan of Fraction's Hawkeye series, cause this kind of seemed like that. The little boxes that zoom in on actions during fights, the art style was very similar to Hawkeye, and that's not a bad thing. If you're gonna emulate a series, that's not a bad one to do. Don't get me wrong though, Lemire wrote this issue very well, I enjoyed the scene of Oliver being pissed about losing everything and basically finding out via the news. I also like the mystery surrounding the island now, as well as what else the Queen Legacy had left for Oliver. But Lemire did what he said he would. he basically gutted this series, he took Ollie's friends, his business, his money and his pride all in the span of one issue, and Oliver is a character that's more interesting without those things, so seeing him bounce back will be fun to say the least. And Komodo looks to be a interesting villain, him taking down Oliver was child's play, so I'm definitely excited to see more of him in the near future.

Score: 8/10

Komodo: Just look at you... you have no idea what you could have been, do you?

X-Factor #251

Last review of the night is going to be X-Factor.  But you probably know that already, since the title of the post says "X-Factor"...  So yeah...

X-Factor #251: 

Summary: We kicks things off at the former site of X-Factor Investigations, where Monet beats the crap out of Darwin.  From there we head to the rest of the team, who are trying to figure out why the various Hell-Lords are trying to kill Tier.  Before the demons can attack, Madrox sends a mess of dupes out, misdirecting the Hell-Lords...  Momentarily.  Eventually, Mephisto gets his hands on Tier and is preparing to kill the boy, but is stopped when his daughter, Jezebel  stabs him in the back.  Literally!  With that, Jezebel teleports the team back to their former headquarters.  After separating Monet and Darwin, the group heads to Central Park.  Once there, Jezebel reveals that the Hell-Lords wanted to kill Tier because he was the seven billionth person born on the planet.  And whichever Hell-Lord kills him?  They'd be declared the top Hell-Lord and win a brand new car!!!  No, not really.  Well, the first part IS true.  Anyway, before the team can come up with a strategy, Pluto arrives and breaks Shatterstar's arm, warning the team that he'd do a whole lot worse unless they handed Tier over to him.

Thoughts: This was another strong issue of this series.  As usual.  I swear I say that every issue with this series...  But it's true!  This is probably the most consistently good comic I pick up.  So now we know why the Hell-Lords are coming after Tier, and the reason is perfectly plausible when it comes to Madrox and his unlucky group...  Of course Tier would be the seven billionth person born, drawing X-Factor in the middle of  massive demonic battle!  That's just their luck.  Now that we have the "whys" of this story out of the way, I'm intrigued to see how Peter David writes the team out of THIS quandary...  How in the world are they going to defeat some of the most powerful demons and gods in all of the Marvel Universe, all while trying to save the life of Wolfsbane's son?  Should be really interesting going forward.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.

That's gonna leave a mark!

Stormwatch #17

First review of the night is going to be my favorite DC comic book, Stormwatch...  Yes, that's right, THIS is my favorite DC series.  Not Batman, but Stormwatch.  This is a series that has flown under the radar, but man is it good!  And after the events of the last issue, I'm only expecting things to get better!

Stormwatch #17: 

Summary: This issue gets underway with Midnighter waking Apollo up and telling him that he needed to draw on whatever energy he had left to help the two of them escape from Hyperspace.  Apollo does as asked, and the two head back towards the Earth.  Harry Tanner is panicked by that, and tells Engineer she shouldn't have allowed the two to escape.  Engineer isn't worried in the least, since there's really no where on the planet the two can hide from her.  As proof, Engineer fires a massive energy blast at the two, which they are narrowly able to avoid   By this time, Jack Hawksmoor and Projectionist arrive and tell Engineer to a) fix Jenny Quantum, who Engineer put in a nanite induced trance, and b) stop acting crazy!!  Engineer doesn't do either, and instead teleports the two of them to a rain forest in Brazil, which negates Hawksmoor's powers.  Harry and Engineer turn their attention back to Apollo and Midnighter, but find that the two had managed to evade Stormwatch's cameras   Harry freaks out again, while Engineer shrugs off the loss of the two, stating that she had bigger fish to fry...  Such as the eradication of all human life on the planet Earth!  Harry is shocked to hear that, and tells Engineer that while he had done some terrible things in his day, he drew the line at genocide...  Well we all have our limits.  Engineer shows Harry that he has NO power over her by having the ship itself knock him around, before leaving him, stating that he was a reminder of her former human frailty.  As for Apollo and Midnighter, Midnighter has directed Apollo to Moscow, where they come across Zealot(!!).  Zealot attacks, figuring the two to be alien shape-shifters(Daemonites?!), so Midnighter convinces her it was really him by showing off his incomparable skills.  Once that little misunderstanding is out of the way, Zealot agrees to assist Midnighter with his Stormwatch problem.  As for Engineer, she takes control of OMAC and sends him to kill Midnighter and Apollo.

Thoughts: This issue was GREAT!  The pacing was fantastic, as there was never a dull or boring moment.  On top of that, we see that Engineer has seemingly gone fully crazy, and was now trying to eradicate all life on Earth.  Which basically leaves Apollo and Midnighter as the only two people who can do anything about that...  Oh yeah, and they aren't getting along due to Harry Tanner's duplicity.  And then there's Tanner, who tried to stand up to Engineer and was batted aside like he was nothing.  And Zealot!!!  Seriously, not only is this my favorite DC comic book(hands down!), it's one of my favorite comic series from ANY company.  Right now?  This series is THAT good.

Score: 9 out of 10.

Apollo, Midnighter AND Zealot?!  Yes please!!!

All New X-Men #7

Hey everyone, JT here with my first review, and it's basically one of my books, considering I've reviewed every issue of this series so far. So yeah, to say this is one of my favorite series at the moment would be a very accurate statement. Anyway, we left off with Mystique seeing Young Scott online and getting ready to pursue him, let's see how she does.

All New X-Men #7

Summary: We start things off with Young Cyclops heading to a bank and finding a safe deposit box he had, I guess to see if he still had money in it. He gets into it with no key since an employee recognizes him and she's basically a mutant groupie. Scott looks in his safe deposit box and pulls out some cash, his old red block-pair of glasses, some other less important things and an envelope, but when he's about to leave he's confronted by Wolverine, and the Canucklehead drags him out of the bank, then asks if he's hungry. Scott tells Wolverine to leave him alone, and we find out Wolverine is actually Mystique, who introduces herself to Scott as Raven, a friend of Charles Xavier. Scott is taken aback by Raven's shape-shifting but the two eventually go off and talk. Did anyone else notice that Mystqiue's shape-shifting form looks EXACTLY like Alisha from the TV Show "Misfits"? She even had the little beauty mark thing on her lip. Anyway, Mystique uses her silver tongue of persuasion to convince Scott to go back and lead his team, and eventually somehow shut down both Logan and Present Cyclops' school, saying that's not what Xavier would want and it's not what Scott fought for. Mystique then hightails it out of there and Logan shows up to take Cyclops back to the school. Cyclops asks why he hasn't killed him yet, since Logan clearly wants to, referring to both himself and present Cyclops, but he says he's learned that killing is usually the easy way out, and not always the right way, something he learned from Prof. X. The issue ends soon after as Cyclops arrives back at the school and gives the envelope from the safety deposit box to Jean and walks away, as she cries upon seeing their "Save the Date" wedding invitations.

Thoughts: Well, this was a pretty interesting issue. I enjoyed the stuff with Cyclops and Mystique, I always enjoy her mind games, as she's one of the best, and preying on a young Scott to basically keep him and the two X-Schools busy while she does what she wants was a great idea. I also liked the humor here, with her knowing Logan so well that the two asked Cyclops the same questions when confronting him, plus I marked out from seeing Alisha of Misfits, being a fan of that show. The things I didn't really care for were mainly drill Sargent Kitty Pryde leading the team in push-ups and her little argument with Past-Iceman, I could've done without that, and so far Bobby has been more annoying than anything, so he either needs to find a way to be useful and entertaining or stick to the background. I also don't get why Jean was crying at the end, I mean she already knew she married Scott.... she's seen her old memories basically and relived her life thanks to Beast sharing what he knew, so I don't get why that surprised her. All in all this was a good issue, not much happened but Mystique being back and playing mind games is always a plus in my book. Plus, Misfits.... so yeah.
 
Score: 7/10

Wolverine: This means that whatever security guard school you graduated from doesn't mean a damn because Capt. America told me that this means you do what I say.

Iron Man #6

And we're already up to our final review of the night!  Man, that was sure fast, no?  We'll end things with the latest issue of Iron Man...  In space!

Iron Man #6:

Summary: So Iron Man defeats some space pirates and gets rewarded by the princess of an alien world, who throws a big ol' alien shindig.  Tony and the alien hit it off and she ends up taking him back to her room, where he removes his mask and the alien throws up...  Huh.  It turns out that facial hair is a big no-no on that planet and the alien throws poor Tony out of her room.  While he's walking down the hallway, he's attacked by a pair of robots who accuse him of deicide.  Tony defeats the robots, but allows himself to be taken into custody since he knew this was a charge he wasn't guilty of.  This issue ends with the aliens accusing Tony of killing their god, the Phoenix.

Thoughts: This was a pretty good comic.  Kieron Gillen seems to have a good feel for Tony's voice, which is a good thing since most of this comic was just Tony and the alien princess chatting.  The story looks like it has some good potential, as it makes sense that some civilizations WOULD worship a cosmic force like the Phoenix.  It'll be interesting to see how Tony beats this particular charge.

Score: 7 out of 10.

My nose?

Thunderbolts #4

Second review of this Thursday evening is the latest issue of Thunderbolts.  This series hasn't really hit it out of the park yet for me...  Here's hoping this is the issue that changes that.

Thunderbolts #4:

Summary: This issue gets underway with a furious Red Hulk spiriting off with the body of the Leader, who was shot in the head by the Punisher last issue.  With that, Venom states the obvious(that this "mission" was a mess), and that once he sprung Elektra the group should go their separate ways.  However, Punisher overhears that Madman was also on the island and heads off with Deadpool(Punisher and Deadpool...  The ultimate odd couple...) to deal with him, while Venom rescued Elektra.  From there we learn a bit about the leader of the country the Thunderbolts were invading(don't care...) before heading back to the present where we see that man shoot himself in the head in front of Elektra(still don't care...).  This issue ends with Punisher strapping a landmine to himself and exploding it on Madman, Venom finding Elektra, and Rulk trying to bring Leader back to life with tons of gamma radiation.

Thoughts: Eh.  Once again, this comic just didn't do it for me...  I mean I WANT to like it, but it's just not happening...  Maybe it's the setting, I don't know...  Anyway, there's really not much I can say here.  I didn't love this comic, I didn't hate this comic.  I just read it and moved on.

Score: 6 out of 10.

I would SO watch a Deadpool/Punisher sitcom!

Superior Spider-Man #3

Hey all, first review of the night is none other than the third issue of Superior Spider-Man!  This is the first issue of this series that I've reviewed, as JT has been the resident Superior Spidey reviewer up to this point.  Here's hoping this issue is as strong as the first two were!

Superior Spider-Man #3

Summary: This issue starts with Mayor Jameson summoning Spidey with a massive Spider-Signal.  Spidey seemingly destroys it upon arriving(or does he???) since he figures it would simply tell his villains where he was...  Take THAT, Batman!  From there, Jameson tells Spidey that the Vulture was up to his old tricks again(which Spidey already knows!), and he ends up getting paired with Carlie on the case, since the two managed to bust Vulture before.  Carlie again notices that Spidey was acting... off, and thinks back to Spider-Man #700 and what Doc Ock said to her...  Spidey fixes the lenses in his mask to track down the electro-magnetic signature Vulture leaves behind and ditches Carlie.  While travelling, Spidey(and Peter) relive a moment Spidey(back when he was still Doc Ock) and Vulture had back in the day.  The gist of the flashback was that Vulture was only in the crime game for the money...  Spidey tracks Vulture down and confronts him, telling him he would give him 50 million dollars from hidden back accounts if he simply retires.  Vulture figures this was another one of Spidey's wisecracks and has his little henchmen attack.  Spidey tires of that and smashes one of the henchmen, knocking their mask off and realizing that the henchmen were actually little kids.  That causes Spidey to flashback to his own abusive childhood, and makes him decide that he had to stop Vulture...  For good.  Vulture realizes that Spidey seemed REALLY pissed and decides to take flight, but is followed by the still angry Spidey.  The two tussle in the air a bit and Spidey manages to direct Vulture over the Spider-Signal from earlier, using it to blind Vulture and then driving Vulture head-first into it, nearly killing him.  Naturally, Carlie is on the rooftop when this happens, and states that the Spider-Man she knew would never do anything like that.  Spidey explains that he couldn't allow Vulture to continue harming people like Carlie and the children, and Carlie seems to accept that, which leaves Peter feeling very worried.

Thoughts: I enjoyed MOST of this issue thoroughly.  The stuff between Vulture and Spidey/Ock was great.  I loved the flashback, and the fact that Ock was going to simply pay Vulture money to go away since he considered Vulture something of a friend.  I also liked the fact that Spidey/Ock decided he was going to kill Vulture here...  Well, I kind of liked it...  I'd have been okay with Spidey/Ock deciding to kill Vulture because he was using children to do his bidding and that was evil.  However, we're led to believe that Spidey/Ock was SO outraged that Vulture made him strike a child, much like he himself had been struck by his father, that he snapped and wanted Vulture dead...  That kind of bugged me because Doc Ock once tried to like, oh, I don't know, destroy the world!!  Was he somehow exempting kids from his extinction plan?  Or was that different because he was dying?  Another thing that bothered me a bit was the end.  I wasn't sure if I should take it to mean Carlie realized that Ock really WAS Spidey, but was a better Spidey, or if she realized he was Spidey, or if she still thought it was Peter...  Or maybe something else entirely...  But yeah, that was a bit confusing.  However, everything besides those two quibbles?  Great.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.

To be honest, I deducted a half point because the die was never cast...