"No longer like a toad in these foul cellars will I secret the venom of hatred -- for you shall bring me love!" - Erik
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« Comics: September 2014 | Main | Comics: November 2014 » ComicsMarvel Sales In related news, She-Hulk's been cancelled. By fnord12 | October 24, 2014, 1:21 PM | Comics | Comments (2)| Link I was double-confirming that Numinus* never appeared again, and i came across this, which is pretty funny. The people mocking the costumes know nothing about the characters, and sometimes they are way off the mark or not realizing that the character actually is a joke character, but it's still pretty funny. *if you don't know who Numinus is, count your blessings and maybe don't go too deep into the above link. By fnord12 | October 23, 2014, 12:59 PM | Comics | Comments (3)| Link By fnord12 | October 22, 2014, 2:18 PM | Comics | Link Axis #1-2 - Almost immediately after committing to follow this series, i regretted it because i knew that from a certain point of view it wasn't really a special event, it was just Uncanny Avengers renamed. They put that series on hiatus and created this series with the same storyline, characters, and writer. And we'd already decided we didn't like Uncanny Avengers. So that's why Min is refusing to read this. But i figured they know more readers will be coming in to see this and the point of my resolution was less about getting something that i would love and more about just being able to follow the big events that are going on at Marvel. And issue #1 does open with a two page recap to catch me up on what i've missed (including the Magneto series). And it does work as my "keep up with Marvel" series, showing me how old man Cap is operating while Falcon is now Winged Captain America, Thor's got his axe, Young Apocalypse, etc.. And a big collection of additional characters show up as well. So, mission accomplished from that perspective. As to whether or not i actually liked it, the jury is still out. I definitely don't think much of the scripting. All characters equally alternate between blandly quippy and blandly earnest, with the occasional angst getting thrown in. The most character-ful moment was when Thor told Falcap the he "will not clean weeds while there is battle to be had", but then i realized that was part of the Red Skull's hate wave. Plotwise, there were definitely some cool moments, like when one group of X-Men showed up to rescue the captive group and there was a reconciliation. The adamantium Stark Sentinels are a good threat for an issue or so, too, and Remender is doing well poking at the idea that Tony Stark rebooted his mind after Civil War. I don't know that i love the retroactive idea that Stark has been keeping enemy lists since childhood, but the idea that Civil War era start would have compiled ways to defeat all his hero buddies makes sense. Overall, i won't say i'm hooked but i'm not regretting my decision to follow this series. My two concerns so far are 1) that Red Onslaught and his Stark Sentinels are so immensely powerful that the good guys are just crashing into such a wall of immovable force that the fight scenes are almost meaningless and 2) if i understand things correctly, many of the heroes have been wiped out (i.e. killed) which means that we're in alternate universe or cosmic reboot territory, which is exactly what i don't want from my "keep up with Marvel" series. But it's only two issues so far, and a surprisingly non-decompressed two issues at that, so we'll see where it goes. Daredevil #9 - At least once before i worried that Waid was going to give in to the rich history of depression and misery in Daredevil's backstory and he pulled back from the brink. But he's doing it again! Well, if so, i've enjoyed Happy Daredevil so i'm sure i'd enjoy Waid's Miserable Daredevil too. As for this issue, a nice continuance of the plot. I liked that blind Daredevil didn't know that the kids were purple instead of like, feeling the heat from their skin and knowing they were purple or something. I also liked seeing the Purple Man rise from the dead; it recalled the scene from Bill Mantlo's Alpha Flight. That was a horrible issue but i still love references like that. Ms. Marvel #9 - It's good; you should get it. This issue Ms. Marvel learns that she's an Inhuman, but she won't let them keep her in the Refuge and she goes back to her regularly scheduled plot. One problem is that Alphona's art is overly messy for fight scenes. The very stylized art is fine for the normal tone of the book which is mostly downtime, but the fights in the beginning and the end against mechanized opponents didn't come off very well. I think it would be better if we got Ms. Marvel some super-villains to fight instead of all the mechanical stuff sent by Cockatiel Thomas Edison. The other weird thing is the cartoonishness of the art in certain contexts. In the battle at the beginning, which is happening at a school, the school is completely turned to rubble and you can see students getting buried in the rubble and their hands sticking out. But it's all played for laughs. Seems kind of gruesome to me. Superior Foes of Spider-Man #16 - The last issue. It seems to suffer for it a bit. The conclusion (in the sense that the various SFOES show up with their various factions to betray each other) is actually fine, but there's some dropped threads that maybe should have been fully removed. Like, the Punisher shows up for no reason. And they show us Mach VII getting a pep talk from Tony Stark about how he can take Boomerang by himself, but that goes nowhere. It's also not clear to me at all who Boomerang swapped costumes with in the end; i don't know if something got dropped in the compression for the final issue or if i have reading comprehension problems. I really didn't like that conversation with Tony Stark, by the way. First of all, it was just really dickish. Stark is not that much of a dick that he'd send some random guy that he doesn't know off to fight super-villains, does he? Second of all, Mach VII isn't just some random guy. He's the original Beetle, someone that Stark has fought on occasion. Does he really want to just blow that guy off instead of ensuring that he stays on the side of the angels? And why is Carol Danvers like Tony Stark's secretary or something? I squinted hard at the blow-ups of whatever document she's filling out but it seemed to be from a generic form; was it supposed to be a joke or important information or what? Also i guess i'll just note for future continuity purposes that this series ends with Boomerang and Shocker definitely not friends (c.f. Elektra #6) and while Carol Danvers is on Earth. By fnord12 | October 21, 2014, 4:33 PM | Comics | Comments (12)| Link I know i promised to buy Axis and i will keep that promise, but due to problems in the supply chain i only have one book to review this week: Captain Marvel #8 - Well, Min was right. After we both read last issue, Min said that she liked it better when Rocket Raccoon thought Carol's cat was a strange alien creature called a flerken but he was obviously wrong. It seemed like just a silly joke: Rocket is unfamiliar with cats. But then when last issue's focus was about the cat being a flerken and ended with it having laid eggs in Carol's spaceship, Min made her comment. And i said well, let's wait and see. It could just be a red herring and we retain the joke. But no, the cat really is a "flerken" and now it has laid a million flerken eggs which have hatched into flerken kittens. This issue has CM, Rocket, and Tic fighting an amorphous blob thing to defend the flerkens. And that's the story and it's not really that great. By fnord12 | October 15, 2014, 2:34 PM | Comics | Comments (10)| Link I of course wouldn't be aware of the awesome snake vs. croc battles in Mark Trail if it weren't for the Comics Curmudgeon. By fnord12 | October 12, 2014, 11:42 AM | Comics | Link I'm working my way through 1989 in my comics timeline, and i'm up to John Byrne's She-Hulk series, the conceit of which is that She-Hulk is aware that she's in a comic book and so she continually breaks the fourth wall. And she meets a character named Weezi who turns out to be the Golden Age heroine the Blonde Phantom. Like She-Hulk (and unlike most other characters in the book), she's also aware that she's a comic book character. The joke is that she's getting old now and she wants to join She-Hulk's supporting cast so that she can age in Marvel time instead of real time. In the She-Hulk series, Weezi is breaking the fourth wall before ever meeting She-Hulk and she actually seems more experienced at it. So i was curious if it was ever the case that she broke the fourth wall in her old Golden Age stories. I don't own any original Blonde Phantom appearances and it's even difficult to find digital versions online, but i did find one in Sun Girl #3 (Dec 48) and holy crap if it isn't just perfect for what i was looking for. Blonde Phantom fights the Spoiler, a villain who ruins the endings of stories. And sure enough: But who really won that fight? After all, the dramatic ending was spoiled from the beginning. Ok, i might have edited one of the word balloons in one of the panels above, and there might even be an anachronism in there, but it's still pretty awesome. Continuity alert: the Spoiler also once fought the Sub-Mariner. Also, since i don't have any appearances of Sun Girl, either, i'll note that in this issue she fights King Kong... ...and meets some alien Humpty Dumptys. By fnord12 | October 8, 2014, 10:29 AM | Comics | Link From the cover of Thor #408. By fnord12 | October 6, 2014, 10:50 AM | Comics | Link New Warriors #10 - One comic this week. And as the Evolutionary guy (i forget his name and there's nothing in this issue that tells me) says after a page with two empty panels, we are wasting time, "and time is something we have far too little of right now". But this issue does move the main plot forward in a big way while still providing some nice fight scenes, character moments for everyone, and a Team-Up between Jake Waffles and Mr. Whiskers. But what happens to Whiskers is just shameful. Wrong and cruel. No amount of Eternals showing up on the last page are going to make up for that when Min finds out about it. By fnord12 | October 1, 2014, 10:06 PM | Comics | Comments (1)| Link I guess polybags are technically vegetarian, but that's no reason to eat them. Also, those bags may have technically been polybags, but not in the way we comic collectors understood it. By fnord12 | October 1, 2014, 6:38 PM | Comics | Comments (5)| Link |
