By fnord12 | November 11, 2013, 4:43 PM | Comics & Liberal Outrage | Comments (6)| Link

SuperMegaSpeed Reviews

Avengers AI #5-6 - I think it's time to acknowledge that Doombot is the breakout character of this series, cancel this book, and give him a solo title. I also feel robbed that MODOK and HERBIE (and others) were on the cover of issue #6 and not even in this series. In fact, since the Henry Pym/Vision/Victor/Dmitrios parts of this story are so thoroughly uninteresting, how about having Doombot form a new team with those guys? (And why would you send two robots out to try to quell a protest of people whose bank accounts were stolen by robots?)

Uncanny X-Force #12-13 - I enjoyed Adrian Alphona's cartoonish art on issue #12, and it's really unfortunate that this series can't seem to hold onto an art team. That and the atrocious pacing have been the series' two major problems. And its depiction of Puck. The three problems with this series are its inconsistent art, its bad pacing, its total rewrite of Puck's personality, and the weird shoe-horning of the Demon Bear into this storyline. Ok, four. The four problems with this series are the art, the pacing, Puck, the inexplicable use of Demon Bear, and bringing back Cassandra Nova for a story that was already a complicated mess. Ok, amongst this series' problems... oh forget it. This comic sucks.

Fantastic Four #13 - What?!?

FF #13 - Ok, this is at least understandable, and a lot of fun. And the infinite super-apes finally balance out the lack thereof in Brubaker's Winter Soldier

Young Avengers #11 - Not sure if i like swapping Young Loki with Teen Loki, but this continues to be a fantastic book. I see from the Sales Chart (link in the post below this one) that you people aren't buying this. Why not? It's awesome! Every issue has great art, amazing twists and turns and plots and schemes (that are nonetheless easy to follow while reading in monthly increments), great characterization, and at least one experimental layout or other innovation each issue (this one has an org chart connecting all of Marvel's teen characters plus a splash panel showing Loki exploding into a deck of cards that show all his past incarnations). Fine, i won't preach. But i'm enjoying it.

Daredevil #32 - Since it's difficult to repeat every month how good this comic is, let me just say: all of that plus Legion of Monsters! Nice play on Daredevil's (and our) assumption that all southerners are racists, too. Caleb at Every Day Is Like Wednesday makes the interesting point that in the Marvel universe, with mutants and monsters and everything else to hate (robots, apparently), you might even expect there to be less racism, but i'm sure racists can always find a little more room in their hearts to hate another group, and you can't ruin the "world outside your window" aspect of the MU, anyway.

Indestructible Hulk #14 - Bear with me here, because this is going to be difficult to believe. I am not loving this time travel arc generally, but i thought this was a particularly weak issue - and this is the part that is going to be hard to believe - even though the Hulk fights Fin Fang Foom this time. The storyline is just dragging a bit and needs to wrap up. Also the art switch after the first five pages was a little jarring; you'd think the Hulk would get better treatment than Uncanny X-Force in terms of having a consistent art team.

Iron Man #17 - Wow. I'm really impressed with this. It's been a long time since i've read a story in realtime where there was a twist that a) i didn't see coming b) i understood and/or was able to keep up with even though i was reading in monthly installments. If you go back and look at my past reviews of this arc, you'll see me thrashing around the idea that Tony Stark was actually genetically programmed for super-intelligence as a baby by a rogue Rigellian Recorder. I really didn't like that idea, and i wouldn't put it past Marvel to do something like that at this point, and as much as i liked aspects of the story, i was really nervous about that becoming canon. At best i was hoping for a "Nah, it wasn't really true." in the last part. This twist is much cooler. Yes, Arno is a character that may potentially be abused by future writer. But the resolution here was a unique revelation that nonetheless doesn't hurt Tony's character. Kieron Gillen's outro says "I hope you feel the need to re-read the run at this point." and yes, i do. One day. In the meantime, looking forward to more, and hoping the art remains Pagulayan and/or Eaglesham and doesn't go back to Greg Land.

Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #4 - We only got this because we accidentally got the first part. This one was a little better, i guess, but we could have skipped it.

Wolverine #10 - As it's the middle part of a storyline, i don't have a lot to say except that Cornell and Davis are doing nice work. I originally didn't feel like i needed to read a Wolverine solo series and was only getting this for contractual reasons, but now that i'm committed to it i can say that i'm enjoying it.

Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #5 - Kept this as a separate entry since it's a totally different creative team and story from issue #4. This is the beginning of the Secret Six plot that's been building for a while now (before the title change) and it was as good as i was hoping it would be. Nice use of the Wrecking Crew. I often feel like they are used as generic punching bags, but this time they were treated well and i liked Dr. Octopus' take on them (my favorite thing about this series has been Octavius' opinions about all the characters he's encountered). I hope everyone knows it was the Norn Queen, and not Loki, that gave the Wrecker his powers, but i guess it's ok if Mysterium doesn't.