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SuperMegaSpeed Reviews

Back by popular demand...

Daredevil #102 - Mr. Fear seems to be living the good life so i don't see why he's bothering with any kind of grandiose scheme that's just going to attract the attention of some super-hero. Ego or psychosis, i guess. Anyway, everyone knows i love the Wrecking Crew and i hate it when they're used as "big dumb villains" for any random super-heroes to mop up in a few panels. They seem to be getting some respect again, first in New Avengers, then in Omega Flight, and now here where Daredevil gets thrashed and then says "Wrecker is out of my league. I should've known that. I do know that." Damn right! I love the Hood/Masters of Evil plot spilling into Daredevil, and i have to love any comic that features villains from Spider-Man, Daredevil, Thor, Avengers, and Masters of Kung Fu all in one comic. The fact that the comic is superbly written by Brubaker is just gravy.

Annihilation: Conquest #2 - Good stuff. I thought Abnett & Lanning did a fine job with Starlord's crew, and overall they are handling all the moving pieces in this story very well.

World War Hulk: After Smash #1 - Well, whatever. This was fine. Nothing great. A little sappy. Overall, i wasn't as thrilled by World War Hulk as i wanted to be but it was good.

Avengers: The Initiative annual #1 - I can't say this was great but it was a good introduction to these characters for me now that Gage is co-writing and i'll be picking it up. I'd like to see more of a focus on 50 State teams and not just the new recruits, almost like a - dare i say it? - Secret Defenders format. Keep the main plot focused on the recruits but let's stop in and see what all the different teams of established characters are up to in this post Civil War world.

Sensational Spider-Man #41 - It's almost impossible to comment on this since just about nothing happened. Which would be fine if i wasn't paying money for it. They better come up with a twist ending for One More Day or else this is just watching a very slow train wreck.

Nova #9 - Ok, so no Groot & Rocket Racoon mini-series? How about a Cosmo the talking Russian Dog mini-series? I assumed Cosmo was launched from earth in the 1960s but he understood Nova's Exorcist reference, so i guess not. Oh, right, the main plot: they stole my idea to use the Technarchy but i'm happy for them to use it. Now write a story explaining that Doom 2099 is the real Doom who got sent to the future in that awful Tom Defalco FF story. Oh, right, the plot again: Hey is that Count Abyss, from the Infinity Watch comic? That's a pretty cool and obscure character to use here.

Punisher War Journal #14 - Naw! Naaaaaaw! They didn't kill Aragorn!?!? Did they? Is he really dead? I'm less upset about Death Adder since he's already dead, killed by the Scourge back in 1986 or so. Hey, this is Kraven's other son, right? I'm pretty sure he had two, and one bascially followed in his father's footsteps but is more insane, and the other decided to be a movie star? I hope so (and i'm pretty sure it is) because otherwise i have a hard time reconciling this character with the one in Beyond. By the way, this is what i was expecting from Punisher War Journal: the Punisher fighting mainstream Marvel super-villains. But hopefully this won't be another 6+ issue arc. Two issues would have been enough, three is the limit.

Fantastic Four #552 - As far as time travel stories go, the ones where it's characters from other time periods coming into the present day are far better than those where the main characters go into the past or the future. But this is mainly a character study of Reed anyway, mainly sort of addressing fan complaints about what a dick Reed has been lately. Frankly, i think Reed is a dick and i like him that way, so i probably read this comic differently than McDuffie intended. In my version, the other members of the FF defending Reed from Doom's criticisms are actually suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and don't realize or can't accept that the things Doom is saying are essentially true, even if Doom has his own reasons for saying them. Anyway, McDuffie is a great writer and they should try to keep him doing something at Marvel after he leaves FF so he's not stuck writing those bland DC characters.

Spider-Man / Red Sonja #5 - Well, it's over, anyway. Kulan Venom was a cool idea, but that was pretty much the only idea in this whole series.

Bonus DC coverage: McDuffie's JLA/Injustice League story - It's not McDuffie or DC's fault but it seems like whenever i look over the fence at DC it seems like Injustice League has formed again. And there's so damned many of them that no one really gets to do anything. McDuffie delivered a fine action story here but there's nothing in the way of character development or anything, and nothing really clever in the plot either (basically the good guys won because the insanely powerful Firestorm woke up and freed Batman, who freed everyone else). Batman and Superman are treated way too gingerly, too; they are super-super awesome and all the other characters acknowledge it every 30 seconds. And my god, how many shots of the Black Canary's butt do we need?

P.S. - a lot of my comics come to me with pages ripped at the staple and half hanging out. Are they being read by gorillas before they are given to me? I don't want to anger any gorillas, but please try and be a little more careful.

P.P.S. - i love all these new features in the backs of the Marvel comics. Fury Files, the interviews, the previews, the questions they ask all the creators. Keep it up!

By fnord12 | December 15, 2007, 4:00 PM | Comics


Comments

Ripped at the staples? Must be from reading them on the toilet, letting the bacteria spread to the pages.

I hate to do this, but I pretty much agree with your JLA review (though with less anti-DC snark, jerk!). The treatment of Superman, Batman, and (to some extent) Wonder Woman in the last five or so years of DC comics is one of the things that really bugs me. You can make characters marquee characters without making others worship them. In addition, the whole point of this story seemed to be just to set up a new miniseries (not by McDuffie) which seems a waste of McDuffie. The next issue did the same thing.

To be fair to McDuffie, this really was just a huge fight, with a huge amount of characters, and there wasn't room/need for much characterization. I felt there was a bit more than you, particularly with Vixen's powers, but there's not much, nor is there room for it.

And there are never enough shots of Black Canary's butt!* Because she's the leader!

*just kidding