Weekly Comic Review for 11/18/15
Christmas is over and I’m starting to recover from being sick. (Definitely not what I asked Santa for!) Time to start on more review catch-up.
Black Knight #1 – I’ve always liked the Black Knight. I Was excited to see him get a title and hope they would do good by him. I’m not sure they have. While things aren’t as bad as they were for my expectations of Doctor Strange, the situation is still odd. The Black Knight is on some mystical island called Weirdworld which seems to be almost Medieval though there are anachronistic stuff like when they find a POW chest from WWII. It also seems that Dane is (yet again) falling under the thrall of the Ebon Blade. Can’t they think of any other stories for him? It seems that every time they try to do a story around him, that’s what it’s all about. With how the blade makes him act, he has become a lord of the realm and the Uncanny Avengers come to check this all out. If they need an appearance by them already, that’s not a sign that the book is going to be all that strong.
Earth 2 Society #6 – The heroes of Earth 2 (still not the Justice Society) take on Doctor Impossible and his crew which now includes Hourman. This Hourman is Rex Tyler (the son of the original Hourman in pre-New 52) who is reclaiming his right to Miraclo and has teamed up with Jimmy. At least the Johnny Sorrow they have has some semblance to the original. This still doesn’t stop the corruption of all these old characters in this title from being annoying as hell to me.
Extraordinary X-Men #2 – Storm and Iceman check in with “Old Man Logan” who appears to have come from a future where he’s the last X-Man and doesn’t want to be part of it any more. Jean tries to have a normal life but when she uses her powers to stop anti-mutant bullies, the guy she was interested in even turns on her. In fact, the person being bullied ends up being an Inhuman and turns on her too. (The Marvel universe is a real mess full of assholes now even more than it used to be.) And, while all this is going on, Colossus and Magik go looking for Nightcrawler only to run afoul of Mr. Sinister. It’s never good to see him pop back up. And it’s worse when Magik’s control lapses and the school is left open to the denizens of Limbo. Looks like this book is going to be spreading out the formation of the group over quite a bit here tho last time they pulled Nightcrawler into a team, he held things up too.
Harley Quin #22 – There’s a little bit of everything going on this issue. The grandson of one of Sy Borgman’s enemies brings her back to like as a cyborg ironically. Harley has a nice heart to heart moment with someone she meets on her flight home. Mason is getting in all sorts of trouble in prison. In fact, he gets beaten up while on the phone to his mother. On top of that, we have Harley’s usual getting in trouble and slapstick along with the set-up for next issue. With all of that going on, everything is only getting a few pages each which doesn’t really allow for much real time for anything. Everything flies by too fast.
Red Thorn #1 – This is one of the new Vertigo titles. The story follows and is narrated by the main character Isla who is looking for information on her missing sister. Like her sister, she’s an artist. One person she drew actually came to life though and another she has drawn repeatedly is Thorn, another main character in the book. A good chunk of the book is also about her meeting and forming a relationship with the bearded and redheaded Alec. There is definitely a mythical feeling for the book given the creature who shows up with her sister’s sketch book. I’m not quite sure what to make of this book. It’s definitely a different style of story and seem to be worth a check out.
Secret Six #8 – First, Black Alice faces off against the magical crew that came to her hospital room and beats the heck out of them. The the Children of Arion meet up with the rest of the team to convince them to destroy some columns which is the option to help save Alice but may cause trouble for everyone else. After the team heads down to Atlantis (where they run across Aquaman), we find out the Children of Arion aren’t quite what they seem. (Not only aren’t they human, but they are pretty damn ugly.) The team is really between a rock and a hard place with all of this.
Titans Hunt #2 – This title is definitely a mystery still. Dick is trying to dig into what he can. Gnarrk takes off from his job somewhere. A shadowy figure is seen in relation to Roy and Mal. In Roy’s case, events from that end up leading him to jail after he starts hearing voices. (I wish I knew why they haven’t included Bumblebee in all of this since he’s in the middle of the story anyway.) And to close things out, Dick draws Garth out only to have Donna Troy show up as well. I can’t wait to see where this is all leading up to. I really wish I could just read through it all right now.
It’s funny looking at the list. The titles, for the most part, get better as you go down the list. Obviously, this means the top 3 for the week are Red Thorn, Secret Six, and Titans Hunt. They all have a pretty good storyline going. Now, if I can finish getting over whatever sickness I got and not spend so much time sleeping, I’ll try to catch up on more of these reviews.
