A Few Quick Thoughts on: Dark Wolverine #80

Writers: Daniel Way and Marjorie Liu. Pencils: Stephen Segovia and Paco Diaz Luque.

What I Thought: This was another good issue of this series, although I wasn't as high on this one as I've been on the previous few issues. I'm still enjoying Daken's mind games with Osborn, and pretty much everybody else he came across in this comic. Daken played around with Osborn, Moses Magnum and his gang, and the world at large when he saved a baby right in front of some television cameras. Leave it to Daken to do what Osborn wanted done(fixing his tarnished image), but in his own way, not Osborn's. I was a bit let down by the way this comic ended, I've never really liked comics that had ambiguous endings, like this one did. So did Daken kill Emmy or not? I guess he did, but I'd have actually liked to have seen exactly what Daken decided to do in the final moments of this one. Other then that, no real complaints on my part, this was another solid Dark Wolverine.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.Yet another example of why Daken > Wolverine. Where as Wolvie at times is little more then a mindless berserker, Daken is cold and calculating, which makes for a much more interesting/satisfying read.

I Love Dark X-Men #1(of 5)!!!

Writer: Paul Cornell. Pencils: Leonard Kirk.

What Happened: We begin this issue with a bunch of Californians wandering around in a trance repeating "I'm an X-Man". Before the seemingly hypnotised people wander off a cliff, they all wind up regaining their senses, with little memory as to what they were doing. Needless to say, Norman "Marvel" Osborn isn't exactly overjoyed to hear this news, since he feels his Dark X-Men are the only true X-Men, not a bunch of whacked out Californians. In order to both calm the public and discover what was going on, Osborn orders his Dark X-Men to head out to Cali and get to the bottom of this weirdness. The Dark X-Men, who consist of Dark Beast, Omega, Mimic and Mystique(who has morphed herself into Jean Grey!), fly out to California and head to the hospital where these formerly entranced people were being held for observation. The Dark X-Men visit one of the wanderers, and he claims to have no memory of what he was doing. Neither Mimic nor Omega believe the guy is a mutant, or their own powers would have activated. Before Mystique can begin to question the man, Dark Beast sprays him with a drug that puts the man in a trace and guarantees he'll answer any questions he's asked truthfully. Once the man is drugged, he suddenly recognizes the Dark X-Men and Omega begins to absorb vast powers from the guy. The amount of power Omega takes in is too much for him to contain, so he flies through the roof of the hospital and starts to run amok. Mimic begins to copy the ability of precognition from the formerly powerless man, and upon seeing a bleak vision of his own future, Mimic falls into a funk. Mystique orders Mimic to stop Omega before he kills anybody outside, but Mimic, now despondent refuses to go, so Dark Beast sprays Mimic with a drug cocktail that makes him extremely aggressive. The now half crazed Mimic chases after the drunk with power Omega and the two begin to tear into each other, as well as the area around the hospital. While Dark Beast and Mystique argue over what to do about the other two members of the team, as well as the guy in the bed who caused the mess, massive amounts of energy begins to seep out of the man, taking a humanoid form. The energy figure immediately recognizes Dark Beast from "home", as well as Mystique, who it refers to as "mother". Mystique is clueless as to what's going on, but Dark Beast slowly begins to figure out the identity of the energy being, and he is none too pleased. This issue ends with the energy being managing to pull itself together, turning out to be the greatest character in the history of comic books, Nate Grey!!!

What I Thought: Ahhhhhhhhhhhh... That is the sound of me being completely and totally satisfied. Where do I even begin? I guess with the obvious. I am THE biggest X-Man(Nate Grey)fan on the face of this(or any other)planet. It's true. I proudly own every single comic book, trading card, action figure and video game that has ever featured Nate. Going in to this comic, I knew Nate was going to return, it wasn't exactly a state secret, but actually getting to see/read Nate's return with my own two eyes was an almost indescribable experience. I can honestly say that I am now at peace. Now, with my fanboy gushing over with(for now), I should probably say something about the actual story in this comic. The story was very good. It made sense, Paul took some time to give the readers a quick overview of who these Dark X-Men are, and there wasn't anything here that I can point at and say, "I didn't like that". Likewise, the art was very well done. I still don't care for Mimic and Omega, but I have always been a fan of Mystique, and a very big fan of Dark Beast, so for me, the team balances out nicely. Now, this is usually the part of the review where I post my score. Being purely impartial, I'd probably score this comic around an 8. However, I'm not an impartial person. And since I'm NOT impartial, and this is my blog, to do with what I please, I'm going to score this comic a tad bit higher then an 8...

Score: 10 out of 10! Come on, that score really shouldn't surprise anyone!No, I'm an X-Man!

A Few Quick Thoughts on: Supergirl #47

Writer: Sterling Gates. Artist: Matt Camp.

What I Thought: I definitely enjoyed this one. The story was sound, the art was good, and the swerve at the end made perfect sense, even if it was pretty obvious. I liked the way Sterling worked in the flashbacks Alura was having about her departed husband, Zor-El, without having the flashbacks take away from the story. I'm guessing that Alura and her lackey, Commander Gor, will force out everything Reactron knows about Project 7734 and it's leader, Gen. Sam Lane. Once she discovers that Lane orchestrated the assassination of her husband, things in the Superman-universe should get VERY interesting. I for one am getting extremely curious to see how DC is going to wrap up the New Krypton/Gen. Lane storyline. Will the Kryptonians attack Earth? Will Lane start a war with New Krypton first? And of course, where will Supes fit into this whole equation? Yeah, things are really starting to heat up in the Superman family of books.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.I shudder to think of what Commander Gor is going to do with that rod he's brandishing at Reactron... My brain works in weird ways.

A Few Quick Thoughts on: Superman/Batman #66

Writer and Artist: Scott Kolins.

What I Thought: Well, a few quick things here. First off, this was a Blackest Night x-over issue. Besides that, although this comic is called "Superman/Batman", neither character showed up. Instead we had Bizarro(filling in for Supes)and Man-Bat(filling in for the Dark Knight). I kind of liked the premise here with Bizarro looking for a friend. Hey, when you're a backwards talking dude from a square shaped planet, I'd imagine it must be hard to make new friends. Man-Bat wasn't interested, he wanted to be cured of his bat condition and instead of befriending Bizarro, Black Lantern Solomon Grundy wanted to tear his heart out. Poor Bizarro. Seeing as that I like Bizarro, and the throwdown between BL Solomon and Bizarro was pretty cool, I have to admit that I enjoyed this one. In the long run, I'm sure this comic isn't going to matter, but this was a fun little meaningless tale.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.If I was just a little bit crazier, I'd only talk in Bizarro-speak.

A Few Quick Thoughts on: Action Comics #883

Writers: Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann. Artist: Pere Pèrez.

What I Thought: I've been really enjoying the past couple of issues of this series. In my worthless opinion, Greg Rucka has done a great job having Nightwing and Flamebird fill in for Superman here. With that said, I've got to say this particular issue didn't really do much for me. Since his initial appearances in the AWESOME Last Son storyline, I've been a fan of Chris Kent(Nightwing), but in this comic he really got under my skin... The way he was acting/talking here was a long way from the kid who sacrificed himself to take Gen. Zod back to the Phantom Zone, or who battled his insane mother at the Fortress of Solitude. He was acting more childish here then he ever did as a 7 year old. While Chris' antics bothered me a bit, I was glad that NW and FB have decided to rededicate themselves to their primary mission on Earth, hunting down Gen. Zod's sleeper agents. I'm also hoping that this storyline leads to Chris getting his abnormal growth spurts under control, because I don't know how interesting a comic book about an 80 year old superhero could possibly be...

Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.Wow, where did Jimmy Olsen get the money to but himself such a sweet looking TV?

A Few Quick Thoughts on: Wolverine Origins #42

Writer: Daniel Way. Pencils: Doug Braithwaite.

What I Thought: This was a pretty decent comic that dealt with Wolverine trying to strike deals with people who have mainly been enemies of his over the years. Logan reasons that instead of just going straight for Romulus(as usual), he's going to try doing something completely out of the ordinary, with the hope that Romulus won't be able to see what Wolvie was planning until it was too late. To that end, Logan has thus far recruited Bruce Banner, his son Skaar, Cloak, and in this issue he went to the Silver Samurai and asked his longtime foe if he'd teach Logan how to better wield the Muramasa Sword. Out of everything in this comic, that part probably bugged me the most, because I'd always been under the impression that Logan more then knew how to handle a samurai sword. According to Marvel's official stats, Wolverine is a master of ALL forms of fighting, so in all honesty, shouldn't Logan be a better sword fighter then Samurai himself? Besides that, I did enjoy this comic, the art was good, the story and dialogue were well done, and I am eagerly anticipating the rematch between Logan and Romulus down the road.

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.Umm, maybe it wasn't such a good idea asking for help from the guy whose hand you lopped off a few issues back Wolvie...

A Few Quick Thoughts on: A Few Quick Thoughts

Dec. 14th is the official last day of the Fall semester for me! That means I only have 9(!)more school days to go before I can get away from that place for about 4 weeks. That's the good news. The bad news is that with the end of the semester comes a TON of papers, exams and projects that will be due over the course of the next week and a half. In order to meet my school obligations, I'll have to cut down on the amount of stuff I write for this here blog. Now, that doesn't mean I'm going to quit posting, 'cause I'm not. What it does mean is that my posts are going to be ALOT shorter, and less informational. Instead of doing an actual review for each comic, I'm just going to post what I thought about the book, along with my score. When I have time, or when the comic is particularly good or bad, I'll do an actual review, but until the 14th, you can expect to see me taking alot of shortcuts around here. Tonight I'm going to try out the new Quick Thoughts format on the most recent issues of Wolverine Origins and Action Comics and tomorrow I plan on doing a proper review for Dark X-Men #1, which is a comic I've been waiting 5 years to read. Alright, that's it for now, thanks for reading and sticking with me, and of course, Long Live The Legion!

A Quick Look at Adventure Comics #4

Writers: The comic book GOD, Geoff Johns, along with Sterling Gates. Pencils: Jerry Ordway.

What Happened: Alexander Luthor of Earth-3(the one from Infinite Crisis)rises as a Black Lantern, collects a bunch of Black Lantern Rings, and uses his abilities to teleport to other dimensions to send himself after his one-time ally, Superboy Prime. On Earth-Prime, the ever annoying Superboy Prime reads his copy of this very comic and is aghast(aghast I say!)with the way it ends. Prime forces his terrified parents(who don't realize he is powerless)to drive him to the local comic book shop so he can get his copy of Adventure Comics #5 and discover what his fate is. Prime demands that the clerk give him a copy of Adventure #5, but the clerk explains to the panicked Idiot of Steel that Adventure #5 hasn't hit the newsstands yet. Prime decides to jump online to see if he can find spoilers for Adventure #5 so he can discover what fate awaits him. However, before he can read the spoilers, BL Alexander arrives and begins to torment Prime in an attempt to build rage up in Prime. Since Prime in his weakened state is unable to build the amount of rage BL Alexander was hoping for, BL Alexander re-powers Prime. Prime, now Super again, attacks BL Alexander, but is unable to inflict any real harm on his one time friend. This issue ends with several heroes who were killed by Prime(including the Threeboot versions of Element Lad and Sun Boy!)returning as Black Lanterns, all ready to force Prime to join their ranks.

What I Thought: Huh. I opened this comic with a lot of preconceived notions. Several people whose opinions I value highly were VERY down on this comic. And when I say VERY, I mean VERY! After reading this comic, I have to say that I respectfully disagree. I LOVED this comic! It was hilarious! In my opinion, this was the perfect way to write a Superboy Prime story. I've never hid the fact that I think SB Prime is a great character. He's probably the comic book character that I most love to hate. His actions, his dialogue, everything about him is just so annoying! In this issue, Geoff keyed right into what makes Prime great, his ability to annoy and BOY was he annoying here! Never before did I find myself rooting more for Black Lanterns then when Element Lad and Sun Boy showed up. And I think that's the fun of this comic, openly rooting AGAINST the starring character. I've got to say, I read the entire Superboy Prime story with a dopey grin on my face. Sometimes it's nice to just sit back and read a good, fun comic, which was exactly what this was.

Score: 9 out of 10."A conduit of rage"? Hey, Alexander must be checking out my blog!