Captain America #7

Hey all, X here with the first review of the week.  This week I'll be kicking things off with one of my favorite ongoing titles, Captain America.  Rick Remender really hit on something great with this storyline, I'm just hoping he can keep up the momentum as we race towards the finish.

Captain America #7: 

Summary: Cap manages to gain access to the upper reaches of Zola's lab, where he is met by Jet Black.  Jet is prepared to attack Cap again, but after some discussion about Zola's murderous antics, Cap can sense that Jet isn't like her father, and doesn't want to murder all of the Phrox.  The two have a bit of a fight, but that ends when Cap notices one of the Phrox being dropped into a steaming vat of dead Phrox.  Cap makes the save, but is unable to pull himself up the rope he used to catch the falling Phrox.  Luckily, Jet pulls Cap and the Phrox up, realizing that her father's way was wrong.  It's then that Zola launches his lab/battle station towards Earth, where he intended to use his hordes to conquer the planet.  Jet promises to help Cap stop her mad father from demolishing the Earth, provided Cap promises to save Ian from Zola's machinations.  Cap heads off to find Ian, but the brainwashed Ian finds Cap first, and shoots him through the abdomen.

Thoughts: I enjoyed this comic, as usual.  However, it's been so long since I read issue #6, I didn't quite enjoy this story as much as I could have...  I didn't really remember everything that happened last issue...  That's what happens when you read like 200 comics a month!  Honestly, I probably should have read my review of issue #6 before I read this one, but that ship has sailed.  Still, I enjoyed this comic, and can't wait to see what happens when Cap realizes just who shot him.

Score: 8 out of 10.

New Comic Day! May 29th edition.

Hey comic fans, X here with the latest New Comic Day post.  It's the fifth Wednesday of the month, so I'm not really expecting to pick up a lot of comics...  Or am I???  Um, I actually don't know yet...  The easiest way to rectify that is to check out which comics I should be picking up when I head to the comic shop in a few!  Deathmatch #6, Red Hood and the Outlaws Annual #1, Morning Glories #27, Avenging Spider-Man #21, Captain America #7, Dark Avengers #190, Indestructible Hulk #8, Morbius #5, Venom #35...  So 9 comics this week, which is roughly what I'd expect in a long month like May was.  I'll definitely be reviewing Cap #7 on Thursday.  For Saturday though, I have no clue what I'll be reviewing...  Probably Hulk #8, but that could change depending on what I read and when.  So yeah, that's all I've got for now.  Now we'll check in on JT and see what he'll be picking up today.  Until later, X out.

Hey guys and gals, JT here after a brief sabbatical to let my hand heal. It's not 100% by any means but I'm hoping by Friday it's feeling fine enough for me to type up some reviews. This week I plan on picking up Deathmatch #6, Injustice: Gods Among Us #5, Earth 2 Annual #1, Red Hood and the Outlaws Annual #1, Smallville Season 11 Special (not annual?) #1, Wake #1, Avenging Spider-Man #21, Captain America #7, Indestructible Hulk #8, Morbius the Living Vampire #5, and Uncanny X-Force #5. Of those books I plan on doing single reviews for the Red Hood Annual and either Injustice or Avenging Spider-Man. I guess we'll see, shall we? But until then, this is JT, signing off!

Throwback Tuesday: Featuring Amazing Spider-Man #14

Hey hey, X here with yet another Throwback post.  Now, this was supposed to be a JT review week, but he came down with an "injury"...  Conveniently to his hand, so here I am, the Brady to JT's Bledsoe, saving this blog's season.  Or not.  Just go with it.  Anyway, this will be the first Throwback post from the Marvel side of the fence.  So sadly, it probably won't have nearly the same amount of sexism, racism, marble tournaments or magic cigars as the DC comics from the same time period had.  Sad, I know.  Nope, today it's time to check out some old school Spidey action.  And not just any kind of old school Spidey action, but the very first appearance of the Green Goblin!  This should be good...

Amazing Spider-Man #14(July 1964)

Summary: This issue gets started with the Green Goblin finishing off his "flying broomstick" and meeting with the Enforcers.  Gobby tells the Enforcers he had a plan to defeat Spider-Man, which would allow the Enforcers to avenge their previous loss to the Webslinger.  Next up, the Goblin heads to a big Hollywood producer(?!) and gets him to agree to make a Spider-Man movie starring Spidey, the Goblin and the Enforcers...  Um, okay, I guess...  Meanwhile, Peter Parker aces another test!  Huzzah!!  While at school, Peter hears about the Goblin flying around Manhattan, and decides to head out there to investigate.  Spidey meets up with the Goblin, who tells Spidey that the producer wanted him to star in a big Hollywood film.  Spidey decides to meet up with the producer at his hotel, and signs a $50,000 contract to make a Spider-Man movie...  If he just waited until the 90's, he could have made WAY more than $50,000!  From there, Peter Parker manages to get himself a flight to Hollywood thanks to J. Jonah Jameson, who wanted Peter to take pictures of Spidey while Spidey made the movie.  After a quick flight cross-country, the Goblin and the Enforcers(who Spidey thinks are just actors) trick Spidey into meeting them in the desert to practice their lines.  While alone in the desert, the Enforcers attack, and Spidey realizes he'd been tricked.  Under the Goblin's leadership, the Enforcers actually do a decent job, forcing Spidey to retreat into a nearby cave to catch his breath.  The Goblin and his goons follow, closing the cave entrance with a massive boulder, trapping Spidey inside with them.  Spidey manages to pick the hapless Enforcers off one by one, leaving only himself and the Goblin.  Unfortunately for Spidey, all the ruckus draws out the Hulk(really?!), who was hanging out in the cave.  Gobby stays high in the air, hoping the Hulk would finish Spidey off for him.  After a few pages of brawling, Spidey eventually tricks Hulk into bashing the boulder blocking the cave entrance, freeing Spidey.  The Goblin decides now was the ideal time to escape, but Spidey manages to snag Gobby's broomstick.  After the fight with the Enforcers and the Hulk, Spidey is too wasted and can't hang on to the broomstick, falling into a small spring below.  Spidey remains in the spring long enough to make Gobby think he was dead, and for the Hulk to head back into his cave.  Spidey hops out of the spring, makes sure the Enforcers get arrested by the army, and meets back up with the movie producer, who decides to scrap the Spider-Man movie to make a Hulk movie instead...  Big mistake there, buddy...  That Spidey movie is definitely gonna out-gross the Hulk one!  With that, Peter Parker heads back to New York, his Hollywood dreams over.  As for the Goblin, he promises that the world hadn't heard the last of him!

Thoughts: Hey, this was a good comic!  It makes you wonder what DC was thinking by pumping out the campiest comics imaginable, while Marvel was doing good comic stories...  Weird.  Anyway, there were a few things that made me scratch my head and say, "Wha-huh!?" so this wasn't exactly a perfect comic.  First off, why did the Goblin decide he was going to try to kill Spidey?  Where did that come from?  Did Norman Osborn just wake up one day, build a rather phallic looking flying broomstick and decide to go after Spider-Man just for kicks?  I mean, how does that work?!  And his plan was to trick Spidey into agreeing to star in a movie?  And then kill him??  That seems rather elaborate...  I guess he wanted to catch Spidey with his guard down, but still, to go through the trouble of finding a producer, selling him on the idea of a Spider-Man movie(where the unknown Goblin would be the villain), and then selling Spidey on starring in the movie seemed like a convoluted plan...  Besides that, the Hulk...  Really?!  I mean, THAT was one hell of an unnecessary guest appearance if I ever saw one!  Of all the caves in the US, Gobby traps Spidey in the cave the Hulk was hiding in?!  Although, to be fair, if this comic was written now, you KNOW Wolverine would have been in that cave...  Wolvie does love himself some gratuitous guest appearances.  Overlooking those minor quibbles, this was a good read...  I guess if I want to slag on old comics, I should stick with DC...

Umm, whatcha doin' there Gobby??

Best of the Rest! May 22nd edition.

Hey all, X here with the forth BotR post of May.  How time flies...  Anyway, I'll be doing only three reviews in this post(I know, only 3!?), while JT chips in with a few of his own...  Or at least that's what I originally thought when I typed this up a few days ago!  With JT nursing an injured hand, this is going to be an exceptionally brisk BotR post, since it'll only have my 3 reviews...  So yeah, enjoy.

Daredevil #26: Wooo, I love this series!!  The most important thing going on here is that after consulting with Foggy, DD realizes that the man behind all of his recent troubles is(drumroll, please), Bullseye!!!  DD then manages to find the villain's base and defeat Lady Bullseye(!).  This issue ends with DD approaching the iron lung containing the villain(Bullseye), with Ikari approaching DD from behind.  Yup, this series is gold.  Plain and simple.  This was the second consecutive issue where I audibly said, "Holy shit!".  In this issue, it was the page before the reveal when I realized what Foggy was drawing.  Super, good, amazing stuff here. Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.

Teen Titans #20: This comic was bizarrely all about Trigon...  Yep.  Scott Lobdell was all, "You know what people want to read about in a comic book named 'Teen Titans'?  A super old demon named Trigon."  So yeah, we get Trigon's story, with a heavy emphasis on Raven.  And in true Lobdell style, the Raven portions make little to no sense!  He left Raven's mother alive so she could teach Raven humanity and love?!  And then he STILL expected her to be all, "Yeah, cool.  Let's destroy the earth and other relams, dad!"  How does that even make sense!?  Oh, and to top it all off, it looks like he also retconned the prior issue where Raven was controlling Tim, shifting that instead to one of Raven's brothers.  So either a) editorial stepped in and told Lobdell he could no longer run with that story thread(and with DC's editors, that's a very real possibility), or b) Lobdell himself forgot he even did the Tim/Raven thing(also a very real possibility) .  Anyway, Trigon's backstory somehow sets up next issue's confrontation between Trigon's sons and the Titans and Raven.  This is such a headache to read every month...  Score: 5 out of 10.

A+X #8: The first story is about Shadowcat and Spider-Woman trying to keep a magic meteorite away from AIM, Hydra and the Absorbing Man.  Kitty actually allows Absorbing to touch the meteorite, thus gaining it's abilities, only so she could defeat the now powered Absorbing Man.  Thus proving my long-time point that Kitty is an egotistical bitch.  The second story has Hawkeye and Deadpool teaming up to rescue a restaurant owner from Captain Barracuda.  Honestly, I should have hated this story, but I didn't...  When it started I was thinking, "Hawkeye teaming with Deadpool?!  Bah!"  And yes, I did think, "Bah!"  But by the end, the story had won me over.  So yeah, not bad.  Score: 7 out of 10.

Uncanny X-Men #6

Hey comic fans, JT here with my second review of the week, Uncanny X-Men. After the last issue where Dormammu pulled Magik and the rest of the Uncanny team and students to Limbo, let's see how they deal with mounting an escape...  And that's about as far as JT got with this review...  Hey all, X here to finish this review off.  Mi amigo wound up hurting his hand, and as such wasn't able to finish this review off.  Poor JT also won't be joining in on tomorrow's Best of the Rest post, nor will he be able to get a Throwback Tuesday post up.  That means it'll be all X, all the time, at least until JT's hand heals up.  Hopefully for Wednesday and New Comic Day.  So hey, I get to review an issue of Uncanny X-Men.  Huzzah...  Or something.  I wasn't a fan of the prior issue, and the way Bendis decided to make Dormammu into Magik's bitch.  Here's hoping the Dread Lord Bendis does a better job writing the Dread Lord Dormammu here.

Uncanny X-Men #6

Summary: Dormammu properly treats Magik like HIS bitch in Limbo this time around.  Lord Summers tries a full scale optic blast on the Dread One, but it does no real damage.  All the while, Dormammu taunts Magik, telling her he was going to kill her friends, because Dormammu is awesome!  Dormammu finally has enough of Lord Summers' band of X-Men, and unleashes the Mindless Ones on the group.  The Evil X-Men put up a valiant effort, but end up overwhelmed by the endless hordes of the Dark Dimension.  Also, Dazzler joins SHIELD as their mutant adviser.

Thoughts: Way, way better than the last issue.  Dormammu was treated properly here(as a God!!), and shrugged the Evil X-Men off.  Let's face facts, Dormammu doesn't rule a country, he doesn't rule a planet, he doesn't rule a galaxy, he commands an entire DIMENSION!  Magicians invoke his name and use his power when crafting spells!  Sorry, there's NO WAY Magik should be able to spank a being with a resume like the Dread One has.  So I was really happy to see Bendis rectify last issue's follies.  Of course, this IS Bendis we're talking about, so there were naturally parts where I could only scratch my head in confusion...  Dazzler as the mutant adviser to SHIELD?  For real?  I mean, don't get me wrong, I like Dazzler and all, but why would SHIELD hire an ex-disco singer to advise them on all things mutant?  That would be like the US hiring Lady Gaga as their British ambassador!  It just doesn't fit!  So yeah, while there was some good here, it was still a Bendis comic, meaning it was far from perfect.

Score: 7 out of 10.

Uncanny Avengers #8AU

Huh, so Age of Ultron is still rolling along.  Too bad...  But hey, We have an AoU tie-in issue written by none other than Rick Remender!  So this HAS to be good, right?  Well, at least it should be better than Bendis's work...

Uncanny Avengers #8AU: 

Summary: This issue actually takes place in the present of Age of Ultron(after Wolverine killed Pym and screwed up the timestream), but the past of Uncanny Avengers...  Yeah, it's kind of confusing...  Basically, this issue sees Kang manipulating the Apocalypse Twins when they were still children, not the adults we saw in the last two issues of this series.  Kang has instilled in the twins the fact that humans and mutants are unable to live together in peace, and as the chosen caretakers of mutantkind, the twins had to segregate mutants from humans.  So basically, humans bad, mutants good.  That's the way Kang raised the twins.  Since he was destined to be a constant thorn in their side, Kang wants the twins to kill Colonel America(AoU's Steve Rogers).  As for the Colonel, he was meeting with the Morlocks, led by Rogue and Havok.  Uriel attacks the Colonel, but Havok intervenes, giving the Colonel time to escape.  Angered that a mutant would defend a human, Uriel ends up killing Havok, who was mainly fighting defensively.  Rogue then attacks Uriel, but winds up impaled by him.  As she is dying, she manages to absorb Uriel's memories, and tries to convince Uriel not to follow Kang's teachings.  Uriel takes pity on Rogue and goes to find a healer among the Morlocks, but before he can, his sister kills Rogue, much to Kang's approval.  With the mission to kill the Colonel a failure, Kang returns to his base with the twins and decides to punish Uriel by sending him to an anti-mutant camp to better learn the hatred of humans towards mutants.  Eimin tells Kang that she would face the same punishment her brother was getting, so Kang agrees to send her as well.  This issue concludes with Kang leading the twins through his massive trophy room of dead heroes.

Thoughts: Yep, Remender can indeed tell us a really good AoU story!  It kind of makes me wonder why Marvel lets Bendis do anything...  We got a glimpse into the Age of Ultron world, AND Remender managed to give us a deeper look at the twins, further advancing his own storyline.  What more could you want in a tie-in issue!?

Score: 9 out of 10.

Superior Spider-Man #10

Hey blog readers and true believers, JT here with my first review of the week, and keeping up the trend, It's Superior Spider-Man! In the last issue we saw a battle of the minds, literally, between Peter Parker, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Otto Octavius, The Superior Spider-Man. Now that we have a clear winner for the battle of Peter's body, let's see how things go from here.

Superior Spider-Man #10

Summary: This issue starts off with Doc Parker waking up and ready to start his day with no further interruptions from Peter's consciousness, now that he's purged his memories. He then goes onto stop a gang war between The Owl and White Dragon and their respective thugs. It turns out Owl and White Dragon are two of the six bosses of the main gangs of New York, and while taking down the bosses, some of the thugs escape and are led to safety by thugs wearing a Green Goblin insignia. Interesting. From there we see Doc Parker heading to class when he runs into Mary Jane, but since he doesn't know how Peter would act, considering he no longer has his memories, he avoids her and says he's busy, which makes MJ even more suspicious. While this is going on, Carlie Cooper and Capt. Watanabe, who has returned from leave, questions the officers on duty about Spider-Man shooting Massacre, but they all cover for him and say they weren't looking, but Carlie reveals to the Captain that she did the autopsy and Massacre was killed from point blank range, not a stray shot like the officers claimed, so Carlie will have to find another way to prove her theory about Spider-Man. We eventually see The Green Goblin (!) rewire the tech in a Spider-Bot which makes it not pick up on him and his thugs as a threat, and uses this to send some of his goons to MJ's nightclub to burn it to the ground. While this happens, MJ is trying to remain calm, certain that Spider-Man will be there to save her and her employees, but Spidey is across town, having just stopped my main man, The Tombstone, and his gang, saying that the fire across town seemed beneath him so he dispatched it to the fire department, who manage to save MJ and her employees. The issue comes to a close as Superior Spider-Man reflects to himself that everything is under control and everything else is beneath him, unknowing to him, we see The Green Goblin surrounded by an army of thugs as he proclaims himself "The Goblin King!"

Thoughts: I am SO happy the Green Goblin is back. He popped up a few issues back but seeing him here and outwitting Superior Spider-Man was great. I'm excited for a few meeting with Superior Spider-Man and Goblin is right up there with Venom and Scarlet Spider-Man, both of which are coming up in the year. I really enjoyed him basically building an army while Spider-Man preoccupies himself with other people, and Goblin is really keeping a step ahead of him. I also like that the women in Spider-Man's life were featured here, with Carlie and Watanabe investigating him, MJ starting to realize something was wrong, Aunt May being proud of him about to become a doctor, and his date with Anna which ended in a kiss before he was called back to action. Add in a brief appearance by Tombstone, and I'm a happy camper. While I enjoyed this issue, the thing with the dude named Pedro who looked like Peter seemed a bit blah for me, as did Mary Jane's wait-and-see approach. I know Spidey always saves her but she could at least TRY to get out instead of waiting around for him. That annoyed me, especially when it wasn't just her life on the line but her employees as well. But besides those things, I enjoyed this issue and I'm excited to see what both Doc and Gobby have up their sleeves. 

Score: 8/10

Young Avengers #5

Thursday is an X review night, and predictably, I chose Young Avengers as my first book to review this week.  Young Avengers has been everything I could have hoped for...  And more!  So yeah, this is definitely the book I'm most looking forward to reading.  Which means I should probably get to reading!

Young Avengers #5:

Summary: Loki actually manages to come through and channels Wiccan's powers into a massive counter-spell.  With the rest of the team now magically powered, they are able to eliminate all of Mother's hench-parents, causing Mother to leave.  However, a side-effect of the spell means that the group can't go to their parents, or near where their parents died, since that would make them return to life and go all evil and stuff.  Or at least that's how Loki explains it.  Miss America sees it more as that Loki wants the group to stay together for some Loki-esque purpose.  Whatever the reason, the crew does decide to stick together and do super-heroic type stuff.

Thoughts: This was a pretty solid issue.  I wasn't in love with it, as I was the previous issues, but I still enjoyed it.  The team is officially together, we still don't know for sure where Loki stands, and Wiccan seems ready to return to being a hero.  In other words, the future looks bright!  Speaking of looking bright, the next issue brings us Speed and Prodigy, which is like a double treat for me!!  I loved Speed through the original YA run, and was a huge fan of Prodigy before Decimation ruined New X-Men: Academy X(stupid Marvel...).  It should go without saying that I am hugely looking forward to the next issue.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.