Weekly Comic Review for 1/21/15
Yes, it’s true. I have actually caught up on my months of back logged reading and am back to my weekly reviews. The comics I haven’t reported on have been sorted and I will be working on a overview review by title and/or story arc. But in the meantime, here are the books I picked up last Wednesday.
All-New X-Men #35 – This issue actually starts out with one of the story mechanics I hate most, the “now” and then “before” sections. When the issues starts out, the time torn young X-Men (who are stuck in the Ultimate universe) are teamed up with the Ultimate X-Men and are fighting Doctor Doom. The only problem is that other than Angel and X-23, the team was totally separated last I remembered. I actually looked to make sure I hadn’t missed and issue. Then I noticed at the bottom of the page amidst the battle is the dreaded word “Now”. After a few pages, it jumps to “Hours Before” and we see what happened after the end of the last issue. Can someone tell me why we couldn’t just be linear and start here? Looks like the writer wanted to start things off with an exciting battle instead of a story that made sense. If your audience is confused as soon as they open the comic to the first page, you are doing something wrong. Was seen in the first page, the team comes together and there is conflict between the 2 Icemen and having Angel (who is apparently dead in this universe) show up causes some stress too. Of course, now the team just needs to beat Doom, save Beast, and get back to their reality. The group is misplaced in time and now dimensions. What’s next? Gender swapping? Yeah, I think it’s time for them to go home. Too bad Cyclops is in outer space.
Earth 2: World’s End #16 – OK, if you’ve been reading my reviews of Earth 2, you’ll know how bored I was getting of this long drawn out war with Apocalypse storyline. But what’s worse than a story that drags on month after month? Making it drag on weekly and then doubling up once a month. Yes, this is a monthly title about the war. From reading New 52: World’s End, we already know everyone will end up on Earth 1 so that leaves out some surprise to this book. The story had gotten a little bit better tho it’s still dragging on nonetheless. The issue mostly revolved around 2 groups. First, Green Lantern has teamed up with the avatars of the other colors like grey (Solomon Grundy) and white (Alan’s lover Sam who isn’t really quite Sam). The avatars fight the furies of Darkseid which includes a corrupted Huntress. Meanwhile, the team of Batman, Red Tornado, Power Girl, and the Kryptonian Val escape the base where they found Superman who was presumed dead… and now actually is. They are able to team up with the avatars but before the issue is over, the pregnant Death starts giving birth to Darkseid’s child. Can’t wait to see who/what that turns out to be.
Green Lantern: New Guardians #38 – After a falling out over recent events (check out my upcoming mass review for the details), Kyle and Carol take off on their own. After some talking, it comes out that Carol has been (not totally intentionally) been influencing Kyle into falling in love with her. Is this a bad thing? No clue quite yet. Before they can find out themselves, a big invitation is given to them in the form of an escapee from the Source wall (again, wait for the summaries) who is dead with the white life symbol on it. Obviously they need to track it down. There’s some inky black stuff going on but I really never figured out who was behind it. Of all “people” that Kyle doesn’t need around right now… Oblivion is back! This is going to get messy.
Justice League #38 – The Amazo Virus chapter 3 – Well, it seems Luthor has really stepped into it this time. He made a virus that would remove powers from metahumans. When someone tries to assassinate him, the virus is released and actually starts killing anyone with powers (except Superman and Wonder Woman) it seems. The formerly unknown flipside is that any normal human infected with it gains some sort of random super power but it soon burns them out. Looks like you’re going to die either way if you get it. And Batman’s protective suit just cracked open while fighting Patient Zero in an attempt to capture him to try to get a cure. They do get him but it seems he’s not the real cure. Superman is. (Wait! You mean Luthor lied? He’s in the Justice League now. He’d never do that!!! End sarcasm…) Before he can look into that, the infected start exhibiting some sort of clone mind thing which can’t be good.
New 52: Futures End #38 – How ironic that I’d start back on the weekly reports as the weekly book reaches the same issue as the monthly DC ones. Well, there’s still too much going on here to keep track without a scorecard. Amethyst is taking Frankenstein back to his castle since he’s dying due to Nth metal poisoning and Constantine said that’s where the cure was. Grifter and Lana Lang are fake married and Lana has put herself in the position as Fifty Sue’s mother. Yeah, this is one bad soap opera here. Don’t forget the fact that they have a vault with the DNA of every metahuman from both Earth 1 and Earth 2 which has to be connected to Justice League 3000. Brother Eye has sent Bruce/Batman back in time but has connected Joker to him to make sure he’ll kill Terry/Batman. Not only is Terry teamed up with Plastique now but he’s caught up with the Batman of that time and Tim Drake. On top of all this, there’s now a female Firestorm in town as Jason is melded with a woman and they can’t seem to separate. She isn’t the best person to be a superhero though given her recent history with people. (She’s Tim Drake’s ex who left him when she found out he used to be Red Robin and didn’t tell her.) Like I said… soap opera.
Superior Iron Man #4 – Superior Spider-Man is gone so I guess Tony is taking over the mantle. After some stuff in the AXIS storyline (I’m not reading it so don’t ask me.), Tony has turned into a bigger jerk than he usually is. At least his armor is cooler though. He’s pushing Extremis 3.0 to people supposedly through a phone app. Extremis makes the people who get it younger, more beautiful, and all that. Sadly, there’s a hefty fee for it. Tony gave everyone a free sample and of course everyone wanted more. This meant crime and such going on to get the money. To counter this, Tony puts out a bunch of monitoring drones that have all the information on everyone. The ultimate Big Brother. I’m surprised Tony’s ego can fit in his armor any more. Daredevil has it all figured out though so Tony takes him out and deletes his memory. Like I said, a big jerk. (I’m being nice here because I can’t think of a better way to say what an ass he’s become.) To top it all off, Tony has Teen Abomination at his house. He said he’ll try to cure him but he treats him like the monster the kid looks like. I know they can’t leave Tony like this too long but it’s interesting watching it. It’s like checking out a train wreck. You can’t help but look.
Teen Titans #6 – Welcome the new Power Girl. Since Kara went back to Earth 2, she gave powers to her protege. The girl looks like Bumble Bee from the Teen Titans cartoon with the big poofball hair things that make her look like Mickey Mouse. The full extent of her powers have yet to be discovered but she is really strong. While the team tries to figure her out, Beast Boy is infiltrating S.T.A.R. Labs who is now backing the team because something seems fishy about it. (Manchester Black is involved so you know it’s not on the up and up.) To make matters worse, some kids who are fans of Raven recorded one of her spells and tried to figure it out. Let’s just say that things didn’t go well. More on that next issue I expect.
Wonder Woman #38 – War-Torn chapter 3 – I don’t normally read Wonder Woman but I had to pick up this arc because it had something a lot of us have been waiting for. The appearance of Donna Troy in the New 52 Universe. The thing is that we don’t really know what’s up with her. She’s not Diana’s clone. She was summoned using a baby and a bunch of other stuff and came out full grown. She still has yet to speak but she’s been presented as the perfect person to take over as queen with Hippolyta dead and Diana always away from Themyscira with the Justice League. It’s all building up to quite a battle. Who knows what’s up with Donna if she’s going to be ready to take on Diana now that she’s the God of War.
Ok, there was a lot of back history not filled in there but that will happen soon. It seems it’s the 75th anniversary of the silver age Flash because there’s a 75 with a lighting bolt on the cover of Justice League, Teen Titans, and Wonder Woman with a classic looking cover involving the Flash. (Teen Titans actually shows the original team of Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Wonder Girl.) It should be interesting to see what they do with some of next week’s covers and which ones they choose to do. They didn’t do anything with Green Lantern: New Guardians after all thought that’s really disconnected from most of the other stuff and Kyle had no real connection to Barry.
There were definitely some interesting books this week tho interesting doesn’t always equate to greatness. The top 3 this week go to Green Lantern: New Guardians, Justice League, and Superior Iron Man. They all have some good twists that should be leading to some (good) interesting things.
