X-Factor #223 & X-23 #13

After the last two lackluster Fear Itself related comics I read, I figured I'd grab the two X-books I had in my new comic pile and give them a read and review. It turns out that wasn't the wisest choice...

X-Factor #223:

Summary: Having escaped from the various demons that were chasing after her unborn child last issue, Wolfsbane is on the road with Jack Russell. The two have managed to drive to Oneonta, New York with no demonic trouble, at least until the ghost of Feral appears in the back seat. Feral warns Wolfsbane that there was no sense running since the big gun was coming after her now. Before Wolfsbane can figure out what Feral's ghost was babbling about, the car she was traveling in is attacked by Cerberus, you know, that three-headed demon dog. While that scene is playing out, X-Factor is trying to figure out just where Wolfsbane got off to. The team tries to get Pip the Troll to help them find Wolfsbane, but Pip is unwilling, since he claims that having Wolfsbane around led to nothing but trouble, although in reality, he seemed to be working for some outside force that wanted Wolfsbane's child for itself. Siryn/Banshee uses her charm-voice powers to coerce Pip into locating Wolfsbane, which allows Shatterstar to teleport the team to Oneonta. By this time, Jack Russell, in his werewolf form, has attacked the demon that was traveling with Cerberus in an effort to keep Wolfsbane safe. The team, thinking Jack was Wolfsbane, attack the demon in force, defeating it. As for Wolfsbane, while running from Cerberus and the demon she has gone into labor, and is helped into a house by a boy calling himself Agamemnon...

Thoughts: Um, I'm not really sure what happened here... I mean last issue was extremely funny with a good storyline, this issue? Not so much. I don't get how Jack managed to sneak Wolfsbane away from the rest of her team right under their noses... I mean damn, they're supposed to be detectives! How embarrassing is that! While there wasn't anything actively bad here, this issue just never managed to click for me... Maybe I was just in a bad mood when I read this issue or something, but it seemed like a big step down from last issue. Oh well, maybe things will rebound next issue as Wolfsbane finally gives birth to her child.

Score: 5 out of 10.When in doubt, post a splash page!


X-23 #13:

Summary: A sleeping X-23 and Gambit are traveling around New York City in a taxi when X-23 suddenly wakes up after having an extremely strange dream. Gambit inquires as to what the dream was about, but X-23 isn't interested in sharing, especially since some of Gambit's stitches had popped back open. To deal with that, the two head to Cecilia Reyes's apartment in the city and ask for her assistance in fixing Gambit up. While there, X-23 picks up the scent of her old friend, Kiden Nixon, in Cecilia's apartment and inquires about that. Cecilia tells X-23 that she had allowed Kiden and her friends to crash at her place while she was living on Crazy Mutie Island(Utopia), and when she returned to the apartment, Kiden and company were gone. With that, X-23 decides to head out while Gambit got patched up, and travels around New York wondering about Kiden, while also looking for Alex Cimini, a boy who X-23 refused to kill back during her assassin days. While walking around the city, X-23 is suddenly reminded of her dream from earlier and freezes in the street, getting hit by a bus. As she's coming to, she spots a man with red eyes sporting the symbol she saw in her dream on his head, just as a building begins to collapse. X-23 decides to head into the damaged building to find anybody who may have needed rescuing, and bumps into the FF version Spider-Man. Spidey and X-23 save a few people when they spot the symbol from X-23's dream now in the sky, with Spidey telling X-23 that he also had a dream about that symbol. The two head around the city, dealing with various building collapses, and this issue ends with the rest of the FF arriving to tell Spidey and X-23 that the trouble was just beginning.

Thoughts: Yeah, I had no idea what was going on here. Something about X-23 having a weird dream or something. Oh, and Spidey also had the dream. Bottom line, I didn't get it. Once X-23 left Gambit, this issue kind of dissolved into a confusing mess. But hey, this was the first part of a new storyline, so I'll be patient and wait to see if things start making sense come next issue. Even though I've been kind of down on the last four issues or so, I still trust Marjorie Liu's writing abilities, and am hopeful that things will pick up next issue.

Score: 4 out of 10.When in doubt, post... Ah, you get the idea...

Thunderbolts #161 & Heroes for Hire #10

Back to Marvel we go with two Fear Itself tie-in issues... Man does Marvel love their Fear Itself tie-ins!! I mean damn, we're at the halfway point, and there have been like 100 FI x-overs already! Overkill much?

Thunderbolts #161(Fear Itself tie-in):

Summary: After Serpent possessed Juggernaut's temper tantrum last issue, the T-Bolts are laying around in varying states of consciousness. Juggy, who apparently remembered that he had to get to the Uncanny X-Men series to exhibit a mess of new powers, flies up into the sky Thor-style and leaves this series. The T-Bolts dust themselves off and get up, just in time to see a massive missile careening towards Chicago. The T-Bolts figure the government was planning on nuking Chicago in order to stop Juggy and didn't realize that Juggy had flown away. Back at the T-Bolt's base, the Fixer realizes what the missile really was and secretly contacts Baron Zemo(FINALLY!!!). Zemo complains that the missile was based on his work(or something along those lines) and states that Sin had stolen his missile tech to use for her own ends. Fixer tells the T-Bolts to stop the missile at all costs, which leaves it up to Moonstone since Songbird was tapped-out power-wise, Mach-V's armor had been destroyed, Ghost didn't have the capabilities, and Satana was trying to coerce Man-Thing to rejoin the T-Bolts. Moonstone flies up to the missile, and manages to alter it's course, sending it skyward. Unfortunately, the warhead has disengaged from the missile itself and continues it's trek to Chicago with nobody left to stop it. Before hitting Chicago, the missile makes an adjustment and falls into Lake Michigan. Fixer realizes that was a bad sign, and decides to head out to the lake with the Beta-Bolts. As for the T-Bolts, Satana manages to convince Man-Thing to rejoin the team(so much for that Fearsome Four mini-series...), and Man-Thing teleports the T-Bolts to the shore of Lake Michigan, where a mess of mutated fish creatures emerge from the sea to attack the T-Bolts, and anything else in their path.

Thoughts: Meh. With Juggy gone, I don't really get why this series is still bothering with the Fear Itself x-over stuff. I mean I was only interested in the T-Bolt's Fear Itself books because I wanted to see how the team would react to the sight of their powered up, Serpent possessed teammate. Unfortunately though, Juggy had to go to San Fransisco to deal with those pesky mutants, leaving the T-Bolts to battle mutated fish monsters... Seriously, what more needs to be said? Just to end this review on a positive note, I will say it's nice to FINALLY see Baron Zemo pop up somewhere, especially since he was screwed over by Sin in that Book of the Skull one-shot leading up to Fear Itself. So much for Zemo having a role in Sin's downfall in the main Fear Itself title as I was hoping though...

Score: 5 out of 10.Up, up, and away!!!


Heroes for Hire #10(Fear Itself tie-in):

Summary: The Shroud and Elektra are trying to quell a Purple Man created riot at the Raft, while Paladin and the Gargoyle are being battered around Yancy Street(or the remains of Yancy Street) by some creature that was created when a chemical lab exploded on some guy. Misty Knight decides to head out to Yancy Street to help any survivors of the Serpent possessed Thing's attack, completely unaware of the status of Paladin and Gargoyle. As for Shroud and Elektra, Shroud uses his powers to send the room they were battling the crazed convicts into darkness, giving Shroud and Elektra a huge advantage. Not liking that turn of events, the Purple Man reaches a hand into the darkness and is able to gain control over Shroud and Elektra with his pheromone powers. With that, he orders Elektra to murder the Shroud, ending this issue.

Thoughts: Once again, meh. We didn't get a member of the Worthy in this issue, or even a single Nazi mech. Instead all this issue really dealt with was the fallout from the attacks on Yancy Street and the Raft. I don't get why this Monster guy is running around the remains of Yancy Street, since it doesn't add anything to the Fear Itself story, while the Elektra/Shroud portions were okay, even though I couldn't help wondering why the Purple Man didn't simply take control of the two heroes right from the start... Supposedly he wanted to torture them before killing them, but come on, at least escape prison before you decide to start torturing heroes! Like T-Bolts #161, this issue was a Fear Itself tie-in in the loosest sense imaginable.

Score: 5 1/2 out of 10.Yes, several pages in this issue had Elektra and the Shroud battling criminals in the dark. Fun, fun, fun...

Superboy #10 & Superman #714

Let's switch gears and bravely take a trek to the DC side of things... I have two comics with the name, “Super” on the cover, so I guess I might as well give them a read/review together. And don't worry Marvel fans, after this brief trip to DC land it's back to the world of Marvel for me.

Superboy #10:

Summary: Well here's an easy comic to review... This issue tells the story of Tannarak, the wizard responsible for the Hollow Men, as well as the multitude of Superboy clones hidden deep beneath Smallville. The bottom line is that Tannarak is an uber-powerful mage who has butted heads with the Phantom Stranger for tens of thousands of years. He's always tried to create duplicates of people to send throughout the world to conquer and/or destroy it. After biding his time for several hundred years, he resurfaced in 1880's Smallville, offering to give Smallville's town doctor, the immoral Eben Took, the children his wife lost in childbirth. The two plotted for over a hundred years until they managed to acquire Superboy's DNA, at which point the cloning shenanigans began. From there we head back to the present where Tannarak tells Superboy that once SB was defeated he'd harvest the souls of the people of Smallville to power his army of Superboy clones... And that's about it.

Thoughts: I have no real complaints here. We now know exactly who the villain of this storyline is, and what his major malfunction is. I don't know that we needed an ENTIRE issue spelling that out for us, but since Tannarak's story wasn't boring, I guess I can't complain... Much. I don't quite grasp spending this long on a villain's origin story, especially since there's only one more issue before DC blows Superboy to smithereens, but what can ya do?

Score: 7 out of 10.Since Superboy only appeared on two pages in this one, it was pretty easy picking out a page to scan!


Superman #714:

Summary: This issue begins with Supes rescuing Lois Lane from the crazy woman in Seattle that had kidnapped Lois last issue. With Lois out of harm's way, Supes returns to Seattle, and is surprised when the crazy woman begins to battle Supes with an array of Kryptonian powers. Realizing that a battle with another Kryptonian type individual could wreak untold damage in a major city, Supes calls to the Superman Squad from the future(UGH!!!), who open up a portal taking Supes and the crazy woman to the Still Zone, a place where only Supes and this woman existed. With that, the crazy woman, Lisa Jennings, gives her origin story... Basically she was a mild mannered teacher until she happened to touch a Kryptonian Sunstone at the very moment Supes was walking past her house. The Sunstone forced all of the negative emotions Superman was thinking at the time into Lisa's head, driving her crazy... As well as inexplicably giving her Supes' powers, but let's casually forget about THAT, since it makes no real sense... Now knowing why Lisa was crazy, Supes grabs the Sunstone that Lisa had conveniently brought along with her and thinks only happy thoughts into it, um, reversing the negative thoughts in Lisa's head and causing the Sunstone to explode. With that taken care of, Supes exits the Still Zone, takes Lisa to the hospital, makes out with Lois(for the last time I guess...) and sails off into the sunset, concluding this series until the reboot.

Thoughts: The biggest problem with this issue for me? The Superman Squad. I absolutely hate that idea, and in a universe that already has the Legion of Super-Heroes running around in the future, I don't see the need for this Superman Squad... Kind of like how I didn't see the need for this storyline in general. It added nothing worthwhile to the Superman mythos, and didn't tell a particularly interesting story. If you did happen to enjoy JMS' gazillion part storyline, more power to you. Me? I found it plodding, boring, and completely anti-climatic. Here's hoping post-reboot Superman is WAY better than this.

Score: 4 out of 10.The end of Superman... For now...

Avengers Academy #17 & Wolverine #13

Okay, now that Ultimate Fallout is out of the way, let's get to this week's Pick of the Litter, Avengers Academy #17, as well as this week's... um, secondary Pick of the Litter, Wolverine #13. Both series have been amazingly good as of late, here's hoping that trend continues...

Avengers Academy #17(Fear Itself tie-in):

Summary: This issue begins with the last of Sin's Nazi mechs leaving Washington DC. The Avengers Academy cadets are met by Falcon, who tells them he admired their work and the way they saved lives in the stricken city. From there, Tigra arrives on the scene and tells the kids that they earned some downtime, at which point she takes them back to Infinite Avengers Mansion. Upon arriving, Jocasta tells Tigra and the cadets that Pym, Quicksilver and Justice had been injured, which leads to Tigra wanting to head to Pym's location to check on him since they were an item again. With that, Tigra leaves and the kids spread out to(try to) relax. Meanwhile, the Serpent possessed Titania and Absorbing Man have been teleported to the Arctic last issue by Pym, and the Absorbing Man is taking out his frustrations on Pym's machinery. Titania points out the futility of this tantrum, as they were supposed to be spreading fear amongst the world, not breaking machines in the middle of nowhere. Absorbing Man, who isn't fully possessed and still hates Pym more than the Serpent's mission, explains that he can't stop raging against Pym, so Titania decides to strike at Pym where it would hurt him the most, the Avengers Academy cadets. With that, Titania opens an inter-dimensional doorway to Infinite Avengers Mansion and the two villains destroy the device that powered Infinite Avengers Mansion's dimensional doors, stranding the Academy students inside. From there, they smash through the wall of the Mansion and attack Reptil, Striker and Finesse. Reptil manages to distract the villains, giving his teammates the chance to run, before he shrinks down to the size of a bug, leading the villains to believe he ran off. The other students, Veil, Mettle and Hazmat try to reach any Avengers through the communications room, but are met by static and dead air. When they turn around, they are confronted by Titania and Absorbing Man. Hazmat tries to blast them, but finds her powers ineffective against two of the Serpent's Worthy. Titania responds with a blast of her own, which obliterates the communications room and most of the rooms around it, ending this issue.

Thoughts: This was a good issue of this series, as usual. It continued advancing the Fear Itself story, with Absorbing Man and Titania attacking the students at their home base, while further developing the characters. I didn't mention in the review the scenes where all of the kids were trying to cope with the stuff they saw in DC, but that just added to what makes this series so great. I actually care about these characters, all of them, which is a VERY rare thing for me. If I had a complaint, it would be that this issue was pretty much setting up the events of next issue. Titania and Absorbing Man only arrived at Infinite Avengers Mansion towards the end of this comic, which is when the action picked up. But the character development prior to that made up for the late action, and has me eagerly anticipating what happens next issue(which comes out in two short weeks!)

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.And that is a VERY bad sign.


Wolverine #13:

Summary: Much like the past couple of issues, this issue is split into two stories, one detailing a member of the Red Right Hand and why they hated Wolvie, with the second part detailing Wolvie's methodical march through the base of the RRH. The first part is simple enough, once upon a time there was a girl who was raised by the Hand. Wolverine killed her father, her brothers, and eventually killed her as well. The girl, now a woman, was resurrected(as the Hand tends to do), and was ready to get a second chance to fight Wolvie. However, the leader of this sect of the Hand didn't need her as a warrior, since so many of that Hand sect's warriors had fallen to Wolvie, but as a source of children. Not wanting to live the life of a baby-making machine, the woman set out to find Wolvie, but instead found the old man who was organizing the RRH. The old man promised the woman revenge on Wolvie, provided she helped train a few down and out type people to fight Wolvie. The woman explains that Wolvie would simply tear through them, which the old man explains is the plan... Back in the present, Wolvie has cut through all who opposed him in the RRH's base(as it turns out, the people the woman trained), leaving only one gun-toting man standing between Wolvie and the door holding all of the RRH members. Wolvie runs through the bullets and guts the man, who tells Wolvie that there was nothing left for him to fight, and that all that was left was the RRH members themselves. Wolvie prepares to enter the door when the dying man tells him that the plan was never to kill Wolvie, but instead to make him hurt, and that a whole world of hurt was waiting for Wolvie behind the final door. Wolvie asks the dying man if he knew him from somewhere and the man simply tells Wolvie that he doesn't know him at all, before dying. With that, Wolvie opens the doors to the inner sanctum and walks in, ending this issue.

Thoughts: I've read a lot of Wolverine comics in my day. I have Wolverine #50(that would be from the series from the 1990's) all the way through the current issue in singles and have a few spotty issues before #50, as well as a few trades. Add the multitude of X-Men comics and mini-series starring Wolvie, and yeah, I've read a ton of Wolvie comics. Thinking back on all of them, this current storyline is among my all time favorite Wolverine storylines, especially if it goes the way I'm hoping it does with next issue's conclusion... But I'm getting ahead of myself... This issue was extremely good, and furthered the story of the Red Right Hand as a group of people who Wolverine had wronged. Granted, the woman from this issue was a member of the Hand, which makes it harder to find sympathy for her, as I was able to do for many of the RRH members who were spotlighted prior to this issue, but still, Wolvie killed her father, her brothers, and then her. So yeah, I can fully understand where her hatred comes from. As for the story set in the present, with Wolvie advancing towards the RRH's sanctum, I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it was only a few brief pages. The dying words of the gunman struck a chord with me, as it was another example of Wolvie killing some random, faceless “villain” that he didn't know personally. But that's the part of this story I'm loving... All of the people Wolvie has killed through his LONG life AREN'T faceless... They're somebody's father, brother, sister, whatever. That's what makes the RRH so intriguing to me. These are regular people who have had their lives turned inside-out by Wolverine for some reason or another. They've lost a loved one to Wolvie's savagery, and have banded together to hurt Wolverine. I guess we'll learn the answer to that question next issue, just how do they plan on REALLY hurting Wolverine. Obviously it can't be through physical means, since Wolvie can heal from any physical wound, so what is the end game? Besides that, I'll be interested to see Wolvie's reaction when he comes face to face with the RRH members. I mean he's not staring down Sabretooth, Omega Red or Romulus, he going to be staring into the faces of a bunch of mainly older people, who have put him through hell(literally!). What exactly can he do in the face of that?

Score: 9 1/2 out of 10.There goes Wolvie, killing somebody else he doesn't know anything about...

Ultimate Fallout #4(of 6?)

I figured I'd do a quick review of Ultimate Comics Fallout #4 before I posted a few more reviews later on tonight since this was the big reveal of who the new Ultimate Spider-Man is. I'm sure this issue will get people talking... Well, let's get to it!

Ultimate Fallout #4(of 6?):

Summary: We get started with lame-o Spidey villain the Kangaroo trying to shake down some chump for money. Before he can damage the guy too badly somebody in an Ultimate Spider-Man costume arrives to attack the Kangaroo. Kangaroo and many of the bystanders are kind of disgusted that somebody was masquerading as the dead hero, but fake Ultimate Spidey manages to defeat the Kangaroo using a spider-sense, agility and super-strength, all hallmarks of Ultimate Spidey. After that, he hops onto a building and realizes that wearing the Spider-Man costume could possibly be misconstrued as a sign of disrespect. With that, fake Ultimate Spidey pulls off his mask revealing... somebody I don't know... The second story deals with Reed Richards, who has apparently gone insane in the Ultimate Universe. Ultimate Reed manages to return from the Negative Zone and starts up an evil version of the Future Foundation. Finally, Valerie Cooper is trying to warn the government that some reporters had discovered that the US had been responsible for the creation of mutants.

Thoughts: Okay, so the new Ultimate Spider-Man is a minority. Let's get that out in the open right away, because that's all anybody is going to be talking about. Do I care? Not really. Do I think it's going to be successful for Marvel? No. No I don't. It's a proven fact that people don't like it when you change the identity of a big name comic book character(Batman with Azrael and Spider-Man with Ben Reilly come to mind), so I'd have to say this idea is doomed to fail, and that's too bad. I think Marvel would have been better served to give the new Ultimate Spider-Man a different name(Ultimate Scarlet Spider would have worked for me), but taking a beloved character like Peter Parker, and changing him out is a big mistake. It's always a good thing to try to get minority characters more mainstream attention, but you CAN'T change Spider-Man into a minority kid. Not unless you want it to fail. It's only going to serve to piss some people off and alienate fans, not bring in new ones. Sure, I'll be picking up the new Ultimate Spidey series, but I wonder how many other fans won't be now... So while this was a nice idea in theory, it was done terribly, and with the wrong character. Spidey is too iconic to change that radically. Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Peter Parker, these are the big three in comics. Fooling around with them is going to bring in some major backlash. Like I said, it's a nice idea, but it was done with the wrong character. So there's my piece on the situation. I'm sure people will have plenty of opinions on the matter, but remember, that's just my opinion, don't crucify me for it... Besides that, the Reed story bugged me since it looks like Jonathan Hickman is simply borrowing his Future Foundation junk from the mainstream Marvel U and bringing it into the Ultimate Universe, except with an evil Reed leading the way. Since I'm not a fan of the mainstream Future Foundation, I can't imagine I'd want to read about an Ultimate version...

Score: 7 out of 10.Fan reaction to this should be interesting...

New Comic Day! August 3rd edition.

It's time for the latest New Comic Day installment here at Ye Olde Blog. As usual, before I get into the comics I picked up earlier today, I'm first going to take a gander back at last week's purchases, and how they did... Last week's Pick of the Litter, the book I was most looking forward to reading, was New Mutants #28, which pulled down an above average score of 8 1/2 out of 10. It didn't quite manage to reach that “great” territory, but an 8 1/2 isn't too shabby. Last week's Runt was Fear Itself: The Deep #2, which pretty much met my low expectations, coming away with a below average 5 out of 10. So for once, my Picks were right on the money. The overall average for all of the new books I read last week was a 7.39, which indicates that last week was a GREAT comic reading week for me! That's a huge improvement over the prior week's 6.44, which was the lowest average score I'd ever had. Seriously, any week where the books I read nearly averaged a 7 1/2 out of 10 is what I'd call a successful week. Here's hoping this week can meet last week's lofty standards.

Speaking of this week(and that's what you'd call an awesome segue!), here are the comics I snagged at the comic shop... Irredeemable #28, Batman: Gates of Gotham #4, Secret Six #36, Superboy #10, Superman #714, Avengers Academy #17, Fear Itself: Wolverine #2, Heroes for Hire #10, Iron Man 2.0 #7.1, SHIELD #2, Batman Retroactive 1980's #1, Thunderbolts #161, Ultimate Comics Fallout #4, Wolverine #13, X-23 #13, X-Factor #223. 16 books, which is just about perfect for me... Anything is better than the insane 20 books I've been regularly bringing home the past several Wednesdays! While I wouldn't mind a nice, slow 12 book week, I can deal with 16. There's really only 2 comics here that I'm REALLY looking forward to reading, so this week's Pick of the Litter isn't a difficult decision... It's going to be Avengers Academy #17. I say it constantly, but it bears repeating, if you aren't picking up this series, you're missing out on not only the best Avengers title on the market today, but the best teen-oriented comic, the best Fear Itself crossover comic, AND one of the best comic books month in and month out from ANY company! On the other end of the spectrum is this week's Runt of the Litter, which goes to Fear Itself: Wolverine #2. If this issue is anything like the first issue, we'll get a story that has little to do with the main Fear Itself events, and instead is a way to spotlight Wolverine's girlfriend, Melita... So yeah, it should be terrible... I think that's about all I have left to say here... I should have a post with reviews for Avengers Academy #17 and Ultimate Fallout #4 up later on tonight, so until then, I'm off to do some reading. X out!

The Random Scan of the Week!Damn those traitorous Canadians!

Retro-Reviews: Batman: Gotham Knights #44 & Avengers Spotlight #23

I literally had no earthly idea what to do a post on today, so I decided to go with the old standby, the ever (un)popular Retro Reviews!!! What's a Retro-Review you ask? Well, it's pretty self-explanatory, but since you asked I guess I'll explain it anyways... A Retro-Review is when I grab a random old comic from my MASSIVE comic collection and give it a half-assed review. Pretty simple, no? As an added bonus, I'll review a DC AND a Marvel comic in order to please you regardless of your comic company preferences! Alright, let's get this party started with a DC book...

Batman: Gotham Knights #44(October 2003):

Summary: This is the second part of a three part story looking back at the death(HA!) of Jason Todd. It also takes place in the past(just after Jason's excessively brutal death at the hands of the Joker), as well as the present. Since it makes the most sense, we'll start off in the past. We begin with a(thankfully) quick snippet of Jason's last moments as the Joker beats him with a crowbar and blows him up. Batman arrives a few minutes too late to save Jason and Jason's mother, and instead discovers the corpse of his adopted son. From there Bats is forced to change Jason out of his Robin attire before returning to the scene after the authorities had arrived as Bruce Wayne: mourning father. The Ethiopian authorities all want bribes to help Bruce bring the bodies of Jason and his mother back to the US, and since he didn't want to raise too many alarms about how Jason died, Bruce pays all of the required bribes. Upon arriving back in Gotham, Bruce burns the tattered Robin outfit Jason had been wearing, before telling Alfred to handle the funeral arrangements. Poor Alfred does as told, and is forced to view the horrendous condition Jason was left in, as the funeral director recommends a closed casket funeral. Nightwing is pissed off at both Batman and himself for not having trained Jason better, while Barbara Gordon is furious with Bruce, and Bruce alone, since she felt Bruce had rushed Jason into the Robin role, as well as warned Bruce that one day Joker would pull something as brutal as Jason's murder to really get at the Bat-family. From there we fast-forward a bit to Batman meeting Joker in the end battle of the “Death in the Family” storyline, which has Bats leaving a bullet riddled Joker to die aboard a crashing helicopter. Naturally, after going over the wreckage with Superman, Bats finds no trace of Joker's corpse. So why were we reliving these events in this issue? Because a social worker in Gotham felt that Jason's death needed further investigation and has reopened the case. The social worker's supervisor has recommended that the social worker simply leave the closed case alone, but the social worker can't shake the feeling that there was more to Jason's death then a simple terrorist bombing in some third world country. This issue ends with Bruce, Dick Grayson, Alfred and Tim Drake being forced to answer questions from the social worker the following issue.

Thoughts: This was a pretty good issue from a very strong storyline. I remember enjoying the first issue of this storyline more than this issue(that would be Batman: Gotham Knights #43), mainly because it had Jason, before Joker killed him, working a case with Babs as Batgirl. The flashback scenes were way better than the storyline from the present here, mainly due to the insight we got from the various members of the Bat-family concerning Jason's death. Bruce was his regular self, simply pushing all of his feelings away, Dick was full of anger, Alfred was angry with Bruce for the way he threw himself into his Batman work and wouldn't mourn Jason's death, and Barbara openly blamed Bruce for what happened, going so far as to say so during Jason's funeral. All in all, this three issue storyline is pretty good, and would definitely get a thumbs up from me.

Score: 8 out of 10.The look Babs shoots Bruce in that bottom panel is 24 different shades of awesome.


Avengers Spotlight #23(October 1989):

Summary: As was usually the case with this series, we get two stories focusing on two different Avengers. The first story is about my favorite Avenger, Hawkeye, and seems like the logical place to begin. We kick things off with Hawkeye being attacked by two c-list super-villains by the names of Bobcat and Mad Dog. The two villains talk cryptically about capturing Hawkeye and bringing him back to some undisclosed mastermind, but are unable to work together and begin to fight amongst themselves like... ugh... cats and dogs... With the two villains battling each other, Hawkeye uses the momentary distraction to fire a tear gas arrow at the villains before sneaking up an alley to recompose himself. Upon exiting the alley he is confronted by the Bullet Biker, yet another lame villain from Hawkeye's past. The Biker manages to get the upper hand on Hawkeye by tossing a grenade at him, which leads to Hawkeye losing his bow. Even without his bow though, Hawkeye is able to take Biker out with a well placed garbage can lid to the face. Hawkeye is next confronted by the Death Throws, a bunch of villainous jugglers... Yes really, villainous jugglers! The five evil jugglers juggle menacingly at Hawkeye, surrounding him and tossing various items at him. Hawkeye escapes by climbing up a utility pole and throwing an explosive arrow down at the Death Throws, putting them out of action. Pretty banged up from the invasion of c-list villains, Hawkeye heads to a nearby rooftop where he is confronted by his old mentor, Trickshot, which ends Hawkeye's story. The second story involves Vision, who recently changed his appearance and became more robot than man, going on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to announce to the public that although his appearance had been altered, he was still the Vision.

Thoughts: I am a sucker for this series, so it should go without saying I enjoyed this trip to the past. As expected, I loved the Hawkeye story... I mean what's not to like in a story that has Hawkeye facing down a who's who of lame 1980's Marvel villains? The Vision story didn't really do anything for me, as it was supposed to be funny, but never seemed to click. That's pretty much how things went for me with those Avengers Spotlight/Solo Avengers comics though, I'd usually enjoy the lead Hawkeye story, while the back up tale about a different random Avenger was usually pretty bad. But come on, Hawkeye vs evil jugglers is a win in my book every time!

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.What's worse than 1 evil juggler? How about FIVE evil jugglers!!!

Fear Itself: The Deep #2 & Fear Itself: The Worthy #1

I only have two more books left from last Wednesday to review, which means I have no idea what I'll be posting tomorrow... Ah well, I'm sure I'll think of something. These are the two books I placed at the very bottom of my new comic pile, so yeah, it's safe to say I'm not expecting anything from either of them. Besides all that, this is my 300th post of the year! Huzzah!! So if it's taken me 7 full months to reach 300, I should have a good shot at 500 posts before the year is out. That'll give me 3 consecutive years of 500+ posts, which would be, to me at least, a huge accomplishment.

Fear Itself: The Deep #2(of 4):

Summary: The New-new-new Defenders(Namor, Loa, Dr. Strange, Lyra & Silver Surfer) are trying to deal with venomous demon sea creatures that were actually possessed by the Undying Ones, who had struck a deal with Attuma and the Serpent... Yes, it's complicated. All you really need to know is that the Undying Ones are working with the Serpent against the New-new-new Defenders. There, that's a bit simpler... The Defenders manage to push back the initial assault they're faced with, but are soon confronted by three extra large whale-demon creatures. After a rather drawn out battle, the Defenders manage to topple the giant whale demons, but this issue ends with Lyra being pulled under the water by more freaky sea life.

Thoughts: Meh. I have to say, not all that much happened in this issue... I mean the issue began with the Defenders battling demonic sea creatures and ended the exact same way... I guess we learned that the Undying Ones were somehow involved, but I can't really say that I care all that much. There wasn't anything wrong or actively offensive going on in this issue, but in the grand scheme of things, it seemed like a wasted issue. If I skipped this issue and went right to issue #3, I doubt I'd even realize I missed anything.

Score: 5 out of 10.Take this page, read it about 20 times, and that pretty much sums up this issue.


Fear Itself: The Worthy #1:

Summary: All right! An easy review for me to close the week out with!! This comic gave us 8 mini origin type stories about Sin and the 7 Worthy of the Serpent. So if you want to read 8 mini stories as told by the Serpent's 8 generals, this is the comic for you! I guess before I end the review portion of this post I'll name the 8 characters profiled as well as the writers who did each story... Sin was written by Christos Gage, Jeff Parker did Juggernaut, while Jen Van Meter gave us the Titania tale. Frank Tieri wrote the Grey Gargoyle piece, Greg Pak did the Hulk story, Tom DeFalco gave us Attuma's story, Tom Peyer wrote the Absorbing Man story, and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa finished things off with a look at the Thing.

Thoughts: Well, this comic didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. If anything, this would be a really good comic for fans who are newer to the Marvel Universe. With that said though, I enjoyed reading this... I mean, I probably shouldn't have, it was simply $4 spent on mini-stories that didn't cover new ground, but none of the stories were really bad. I don't have anything I can really point at and complain about, which is REALLY rare in one of these collection type comics... Usually you get one good story, a few solid ones and a bunch of crappy ones to round out the issue. This comic had some good stories(Sin and Juggernaut were my favorites), with the rest of the stories being solid. As much as I want to, I can't complain!

Score: 8 out of 10.It's easy to overlook, but the Red Skull is an awesomely evil character.