Weekly Comic Review for 10/9/13
I picked up my books today and realized that I hadn’t posted my review for last week. Oops. So, here it is.
Afterlife with Archie #1 – Yes, it’s finally happened. Zombies have reached Riverdale. It starts out with Jughead carrying the body of Hot Dog who was hit by a car. He turns to Sabrina to heal Hot Dog but it’s too late. This is when it turns all Pet Cemetery. They bury the dog in a swamp and cast a spell. (Sabrina’s aunts send her to another dimension as punishment for this which means she won’t be around to deal with what happens next.) When he comes back, Hot Dog is acting rabid and bites Jughead. This has Jughead with a swollen arm and then, later, with him asking like a zombie. I’m not sure where this will lead. The art style gives a more modern take to the characters than the traditional look. There are 4 different covers (Yes, even Archie Comics has hit this sales method.) with a different (and rougher) feel to it than the normal smooth cover feel. (I got the one with Betty in a nighty looking at the rest of the cast as zombies breaking in.) I’ve heard that Archie Comics even requested that this title be kept separate from the other Archie Comics titles. This should get interesting.
Archer & Armstrong #14 – This is the start of “Sect Civil War”. For the most part, this is information on how the sects started and what’s going on with them. We get some view of Archer reaching out to one of the sects and also see how things go with Mary-Maria and the sects she’s had connections to. Overall, it’s not too exciting. I’m hoping the rest of this arc is more interesting.
Avengers Arena #16 – The stress of everything finally hits the young heroes’ limits as they suddenly start turning on each other. This is a show that Arcade really seems to enjoy. While all this is going on, Apex and Deathlocket follow through on plans to break further into Arcade’s set-up. (I was wondering what happened to them after Deathlocket found all the bodies.) They get caught but we do discover that Chris Powell wasn’t as dead as he was reported to be. Hopefully, he’ll get the Darkhawk gem back. It makes me wonder if Arcade was the one who yanked it out of his chest in the first place. I hope the others don’t kill each other in the meantime.
Eternal Warrior #2 – We have another of the 8 bit covers with this issue. It’s a cool one based on Activision’s Pitfall. Sadly, that’s the best part of the comic. We pick up with Gilad in 1877 working with a Geomancer. This doesn’t seem out of place but at the end of it, he turns his back on the Geomancers and the Earth. When we jump back, it says “Now” but we know from Archer & Armstrong that he has continued protecting the Geomancers. Gilad’s daughter says to look for the Geomancer he left behind in 1877 but we also know that the position has been refilled a couple times since then at least. While I thought the title would be interesting, the fact that the story seems to be totally out of continuity is quite annoying. We also have people following the daughter trying to kill her. As annoying as she is, I find myself almost hoping they do.
Green Lantern Corps #24 – Lights Out part 2 – The battery is destroyed and Oa is on the verge of destruction. What’s Hal’s solution? He just wants to fight Relic. No thought about all the Lanterns who will die. No thought of the prisoners in science cells that will die when the planet explodes. Luckily, there are a few members of the corps with brains. John and his team of rookies take on Relic to distract him from everyone else escaping and the elderly rookie sacrifices himself to allow the rest of the team get away after the everyone else escapes. In the end, Oa explodes. There are a lot of changes going on here. I wonder what will be left after it’s all over. Maybe Mogo will be the new base planet.
Kevin Keller #11 – For a change, it’s Kevin vs. Veronica. It’s time for a charity event and the two of them can’t agree on what to do. Kevin wants to do a carnival and Veronica wants a ballroom dance. Their friends are split between the two sides and, in the end, they decide to do both.
Stormwatch #24 – It’s the origin of a new big baddie called Extremax. The A.I. that’s taken of Engineer tells Stormwatch about him and the thousand years he’s been terrorizing everyone and gathering technology to make a space ship bigger than the moon yet neither the Green Lanterns or anyone else has ever seen or heard of him other than the A.I. and the Kollective. Yeah, this is just getting stupid. DC has taken a great series and did everything they could to destroy it. I guess they have more Superman or Batman titles they want to launch. I’m really thinking of dropping this.
Superman/Wonder Woman #1 – I’m not sure why I picked this up other than to prove to myself that this would be as bad as I thought it would be. Sadly, I was right. Yay for Young Romance with a super-powered twist. “We’re in love but we’ve got to keep this a secret. Oh, the drama!” Clark and Diana have a date and then run off together to save a plane from a storm and run into Doomsday instead. I can’t believe how bored I was.
X-Men #6 – Battle of the Atom chapter 7 – The truth outs. Xavier goes psycho on one of the young mutants showing his true colors. Then we find the truth about the older Kitty Pryde. It’s actually a shape shifter who is Wolverine’s son (and probably Mystique given his blue skin). (I was wondering why she looked all Days of Future Past.) The future X-Men (first team) lock down all the mutants and take out Krakoa and the modern X-Men. We finally find out who the Iron Sentinel is too. It’s the adult version of Shogo (the baby). Things are really ramping up here. Only 3 more chapters left after all.
There’s a lot of questionable issues this week. There’s really only 3 titles that I would consider in my top 3 this week. They are Afterlife with Archie, Avengers Arena, and X-Men. The rest are just acceptable or less than that.
