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« Comics: June 2014 | Main | Comics: August 2014 » ComicsSuperMegaSpeed Reviews Due to my hiatus and other factors we have a few weeks to go through here. By the way, spoilers below! Infinity Man and the Forever People #2 - I'm sorry that for my Speed Review for the first issue i just called it Forever People. I didn't notice the smaller print "Infinity Man and the" part. And that shows you how observant i am and how seriously you should take my reviews. Anyway, Wanyas is getting this and sharing it with me because of the Giffen Kirby-homage art, and guess what this issue doesn't have? And this is issue #2. I mean storywise it's fine, and Tom Grummet's art is pretty good too, but it's like someone tricked me into reading a random DC comic for no good reason. At least if you're going to do this plot, you can play up the space hippie angle that was apparently in Kirby's original series. The communal weirdness with the Mother Box at the end was a good start but there needs to be MORE MORE MORE of that. Also Giffen art. Daredevil Road Warriors #0.1 - This was a digital only book that became non-digital only with the printing of this book, and it tells the story of Daredevil's trip from New York to San Francisco. Which may sound boring, but he fights the Man-Bull, a Super-Adaptoid, and the Mad Thinker along the way. I say "a" Super-Adaptoid because this was was built by the Thinker making it not the Super-Adaptoid and so i don't know why it's not just an Awesome (or perhaps Spectacular, Uncanny, etc.) Android. But the story is done very well and Waid again does a good job making a classic villain (the Thinker, not so much the Man-Bull) seem like a credible threat the way we don't see much of lately, and there's just a lot of cool fighting as well as some good downtime scenes between Matt and Kirsten McDuffie. I know Min, looking over my shoulder, had some problems with the art but i thought it was ok (it's no Chris Samnee, ofc). I also thought these Infinity Comics were specifically laid out in some way to take advantage of modern touchscreens, but you can't tell by looking at this paper copy. Unless it's the fact that the book is all nice rectangular panels, but that's what comics are fricking supposed to be. I'm glad i didn't read this in realtime since it kind of spoils the fact that Foggy is still alive and i liked the actual reveal in the actual series, but i'm glad this made it to paper format. Daredevil #5 - And this issue tells us exactly how Foggy Nelson faked his death, and it's a fun story involving Ant-Man, who sure appears a lot in this Daredevil series, and a new Leap Frog (of sorts). I got a little uncomfortable about the implications of Pym being inside Foggy blasting away cancer cells, but then Waid clarified it and showed that it wasn't really effective anyway. Daredevil #6 - Aaand here's another Daredevil book. This one's an Original Sin tie-in, my first and possibly only. The idea with these is that we're revealing something awful in the character's past thanks to the explosion of the Watcher eye (i have to admit i got a little thrill typing that even though i'm not reading the main series). I actually thought they were all going to be about the characters themselves, literally their original sin, like (as Waid started to hint in earlier issues) maybe Matt Murdock was actually a bully when he was a kid, or maybe he beat the original Fixer to death or something in his first appearance. But here at least, it's actually the emergence of a suppressed memory regarding Daredevil's parents (it turns out the reason mom left is because dad was a wife-beater). Not sure how i feel about it yet, but it does seemed to be designed for maximum unobtrusiveness, i.e., it doesn't seem like it should contradict anything that's already been published and i'm not sure in the long run it'll be too much of a drag on DD considering everything else he's been through. Somehow from there, though, we get into a conflict with non-Black Panther Wakandans and so this is stretched into a two-parter, so we'll see where it goes. Captain Marvel #5 - Ok, i think it's fair to say the past few issues have been meandering but i like the resolution to this story, in a general sense, which is that the reason the planet is making the people sick is because of the mining of a particular substance that's been going on there. Again, it makes the past few issues, where CM and her motley crew were roaming the galaxy looking for ships to defend themselves with against the Spartax empire, nearly pointless. We could have had CM sensibly decide to investigate why the people were getting sick directly and saved us a few issues of water treading. But we're here now and it's an interesting twist. Now, as to the particular substance that they are mining, i think i have a problem with that. It's vibranium, and i just don't trust writers today to handle this correctly. Vibranium is special on Earth because it's a rare metal that came to Earth on an asteroid. If we now have a planet in space where it's being mined, then suddenly every alien in the galaxy has some (the Spartaxians already did) and that quickly works its way to every villain and government on Earth. It looks like DeConnick is already making sure that doesn't happen (i.e. the Spartaxians have lost all their vibranium-lined warships in the fight with the Builders and this planet seems to be the only supply, which is why it's so important). Which is good, although it doesn't prevent later writers from discovering caches of the stuff all over the place now that the door is opened (but i guess that could have happened anyway). In any event, next issue we have Captain Marvel fighting people in space, which is what we've been saying we wanted since issue #1. Elektra #4 - This continues to be an entertainingly weird little book. Black Widow #8 - Somewhat less weird, somewhat less entertaining. She-Hulk #6 - Who threw up all over my comic book? Ms. Marvel #6 - At first i was disappointed to not see Adrian Alphona's art, but Jacob Wyatt draws some cute scenes. Love the Thomas Edison Parrot Clone. And the Wolverine guest appearance is well done. I'm liking this book a lot. Savage Hulk #2 - I already raised my continuity concerns, so i'll just say i enjoyed the Hulk/Abomination fight (with added X-Men) that i didn't quite get in the recent Waid/Bagley version, and this is enjoyable. Superior Foes of Spider-Man #13 - I was a little down on last issue, which was the first after some fill-ins, but i think things have fully rebounded here. The legion of losers are all wrapped up basically off panel, and we are back to the fun of earlier issues, with the group mostly being back together, except Shocker and i'm amused by his bonding with the head of Silvermane. It's funny and there still good character work here. One of my favorite Marvel books, rivaled only by... New Warriors #7 - ...which matches your talking Cockatiel with a talking Cat and Dog (named Jake Waffles!) and has lots of other great humor besides (I sense... that i am hungry), but also makes good use of the Inhumanity set-up and promises us Phobius, Helio, and Gronk for next issue (and presumably Maelstrom too). A really well written book that makes use of lots of elements of the Marvel universe and is just a lot of fun. By fnord12 | July 31, 2014, 2:41 PM | Comics | Comments (2)| Link Here, here (this one has some particularly good analysis), and here (this one might be a little hard to follow; this is what she originally posted to generate such outrage). (First via Atrios, second two via MightyGodKing). It's not just nerd rage that's the problem, though. Min and i have plenty of nerd rage! The problem is that it's always expressed in sexist, racist, and violent attitudes. Delve into the comments on any of those posts and you'll see even the sympathetic commenters devolving into conversations about whether or not the original Village Voice review was any good, or if the ending to Mass Effect 3 was good, or if the historical research by the lady in the third link is accurate. And that's not the point! The point is you don't respond to someone you disagree with by calling them a whore and threatening to kill them. By fnord12 | July 31, 2014, 12:49 PM | Comics
& Liberal Outrage
& Movies
& Video Games | Link And what the hell is this guy talking about? By fnord12 | July 30, 2014, 7:53 PM | Boooooks
& Comics
& D&D
& Godzilla
& Liberal Outrage
& Movies
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& TeeVee
& Video Games | Comments (1)| Link I was poking around looking up stuff on Master of Kung Fu, and i came across this cover, which i thought was pretty awesome. This is from Marvel UK's Avengers Weekly, which reprinted (obviously) Avengers stories. With this issue they got kicked (hah, hah) to the back of the book and Master of Kung Fu became the headliner. Looks like all the covers of this series were reprints of the original covers except this issue which got something special. By fnord12 | July 30, 2014, 8:57 AM | Comics | Comments (1)| Link Thanks to Wanyas including the Forever People in my comics pile (even though it doesn't even have Giffen art this time! But i'll save that for the speed review) i am getting a rare glimpse at DC's house ads, and, well, this one stuck out: It's not that i find it offensive or anything, although i'm surprised DC isn't worried about what parents might think. It just seems dumb, and i guess confirms that the target audience is 13 year old boys. By fnord12 | July 30, 2014, 7:50 AM | Comics | Comments (1)| Link By fnord12 | July 17, 2014, 12:43 AM | Comics
& My stupid life | Comments (3)| Link What makes it "custom designed"? You can't ask for specific text to be put on it, you can't specify the length or width, choose the colors, or anything. I also love when it's not enough for you to pay for your crappy shirt or hat that's going to advertise their product. You also have to send in proof of purchase of their candy product. We wouldn't want some skater guy who's not really into M&Ms wearing one of their shirts, would we? (Ad is from Marvel comics with Oct 88 cover dates.) By fnord12 | July 13, 2014, 5:19 PM | Comics
& Ummm... Other? | Comments (2)| Link Paul O'Brien has some interesting speculation in his review of the latest arc of Bendis' All New X-Men. People have been thinking that Marvel is headed for a reboot since the teaser art from AvX was first released, and the events of Age of Ultron certainly sound like they are settings things up. If so, it's a crazy slow shamble towards a reboot, but that's the pace all Marvel's stories work at now so i suppose it's not impossible. I haven't read Age of Ultron (but i did read the follow-up in Hulk that suggested pretty clearly that continuity is broken) and i dropped All New X-Men after (*checks*) oh my god, eleven issues of nothing happening, so i don't know how plausible O'Brien's speculation is, although his review makes it sound convincing. And i've already given my thoughts on the various outcomes of a Marvel reboot on multiple occasions, so i don't want to get into all that again at least until we have some kind of confirmation. I just wanted to say that if the idea is that the All New X-Men are leading the way to this line wide reboot, it explains why this series seemed to go off the rails from its original remit. Paul O'Brien summarizes it like this: The thing is, that's not exactly how i thought the series would be. O'Brien is right that the general idea was that the Silver Age X-Men go to the present and see that things haven't turned out the way they would have hoped. But you'll notice that most of O'Brien's examples are personal - Jean is dead, Beast mutated, Angel's in whatever weird state the X-Office has put him in nowadays. He does say that they also haven't made "headway" on the mutants right issue, but he's right to only mention that in passing, since Bendis' book, at least in the eleven issues i read, also focused on the personal more than the bigger mutant picture. And when i originally heard about this series, i thought the concept was pretty brilliant. Take Days of Future Past and flip it on its head by having the Silver Age X-Men come to the present and react to it as a dystopian horror the way the 1980s X-Men reacted to the Days of Future Past future, i.e., because of the way it showed that Professor X's dream of mutants and humans living together was destined for failure, not because some individual characters were dead or whatever. The subtext would be like bringing George Orwell to the present and having him learn about the NSA and state secrets privilege and the abuse of the Espionage Act and the like. In the Marvel universe there was Civil War and the 198 mutant camp and the mutants segregating themselves in Utopia and lots more stuff like that. So the idea could be that the Silver Age X-Men show up for six issues, are horrified by the "future" and then go home resolving to make changes to make their future better, and leaving the present day X-Men realizing how much they've failed. I think there's a smattering of that idea with Cyclops having formed a separate group of X-Men with Magneto, but (from what i've read) it really got lost in the sprawl of Bendis' plots, and the focus again seems to be more on the personal (how could Scott have killed Xavier?!?) than anything about the current state of mutant rights. Which is too bad, because while that short story might not have served any long term reboot goals, but i think it would have been a much more powerful story. By fnord12 | July 13, 2014, 9:26 AM | Comics | Link Although, why not Uncannily Weird Strange Tales of the Unusual Strangeness? By fnord12 | July 2, 2014, 8:38 AM | Comics | Comments (2)| Link |