snap judgments

Sure, someone could read these before they go get their books, so watch out.  Could be spoilers.

BAM!  Review time!

New X-Men #24

I like Psylocke better in New X-Men than the Uncanny version.  No kinky stretching sessions for you, reader!  Why does this look familiar to me for some reason? The school bus from last issue really does blow up, killing Brian Cruz and a bunch of other people who can’t really recall from the book and everyone takes the time to react, bury the dead and take stock of their lives.  Nice to see as so many things are going on these days, it takes a little of the edge off of a very humanizing book (not to mention all of the X-Titles) when someone dies or things blow up every single issue. The brand new junior team’s world gets a little darker and a little more focus.  What room are they in with the Wolverine uniform, just sorta hanging there?  The Sentinel toting government continues to be blatant and terrible and suggest placing the blame for the students death’s not on the GIANT ROBOTS SENT TO PROTECT THEM FROM THINGS LIKE THIS, nope.   Time to blame Emma!  Don’t ask me why.  Maybe because it was her idea to get the kinds out of a dangerous situation in the first place.  Ah, well.  This book just got a whole lot more serious as of one issue.  Maybe it’s my doubt in recent main X-Men titles, but I’m on an upswing with the New X-Men.

Cable & Deadpool #26

Steal those entry pages from Joe Kelly, Fabian!  I just wish you were a liiiiitle funnier.  WHOA!  Rad.  Apparently, Cable’s been chasing Apocalypse from the past (yeah, I know) and now is hunting him down in the present (ok) and DP and Irene Merrywether go looking for him to find the usual big Apoca-Sphinx with a possibly EVIL Cable inside.  (anyone notice that now with Black Box, Cable now has… cable?)  The intro tells you it’s not going to be funny this issue, but there are a couple chuckles as only DP can bring you as well as an interesting take on an old story.  The Return of Apocalypse was inevitable and as the intro put it ‘the publishing budget needs a nice oomph in the first quarter… drag some low selling (yet incredibly highly praised) into the mix and PRESTO - cue ominous music - APOCALYPSE RETURNS’.  The honesty is nice.

X-Men: 198

The covers are great, they really make me think of revolution.  Too bad there’s none inside.  God, Dave Hine wants Mutant Town back.  You can really tell he loved every single character he created and while I might not have been so inclined, I can respect that.  But when we go to revisit his old stomping ground, it’s to follow two NY cops who have come to pressure a poor blue kid on smack into what they refer to as the ‘MUTANT RELOCATION CENTER IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY’.  Jesus H. Christ.  Symbolism be damned, folks.  This is all related to the Squid Chest Guy by the Blue Guy, who after his tale, shoots up and goes to bed.  How quaint.  Apparently, Val’s back for more Nazi-like edicts as she announces permanent structures will be built at the Westchester Happy Camp.  Now, we’ve all thought of this by now, I’m sure but how many students were there at Xavier’s before again?  Someone did the math, I know it…   She also continues to announce, out loud, in front of (around) 198 angry mutants with their powers intact, that they can finally leave the compound BUT FIRST have to have a electronic tag placed under their skin.  It had to happen eventually, but one of the crow takes note of all this rather Gestapo and I’d never thought I’d say this but GO ERG!!  He stands up!  He notes how much BS this whole situation is!  And then… goes and gets the tag implant.  Nice. This tag, we find out, also can cause shocks to the system as a means of controlling behavior. Double nice.  Also, the guy with the squid stomach can also do voodoo on his little miniatures.  This is all going the wrong direction, folks.

Sensational Spider-Man #24

AUGH!  MY EYES!  THAT COVER!  Jesus, Spidey, tone down the ‘Roids.  Ok, now I’ll be honest:  the idea behind the story is not that bad.  All of Spidey’s animal villains are on the fritz and going feral.  That I can get into.  It’s the poor characterization, the Spawn art, the bad banter and the plot holes I can live without.  We start out with a ‘Spider Sense on the fritz’, which has to be a fine use of all the powers they’ve been throwing the guy recently. Spidey fights the Lizard and his son (similar circumstances I suppose), gets to the roof to find BC and then BC and Lizard fight.  Did I miss the Black Cat getting claws? And Medina’s been wanting to draw BC in the rain FOREVER. ‘I like a nice piece of tail as much as the next girl.  Can I have another?’  This kind of banter I can do without. Meanwhile, MJ is trying to stall a visiting John Jameson and Aunt May invites the poor boy up anyway.   ‘Was that bad, dear?  Are you angry?’, she asks, suddenly senile.  As MJ can’t put her finger on what’s giving her the creeps, they find out that they are alone in this part of the building (convenient no save from Super HQ) and ‘little Johnny Jameson’ is strangling a drunken bellhop.  BC pushes Lizard off the roof, Lizard retreats and they find out someone shot the Lizard Jr. and he’s reverted back to being a little boy.  Sad and messy.

Sentinel Squad O.N.E. #3

Is is sad to be rooting for the telekinetic dinosaurs?  After last issue’s disaster, Sentinel Squad O.N.E. gets dressed down by Val Cooper (really, what happened to this woman?), some reassignments are made that don’t much matter in the long run as they get their new CO (as stereotypical as it can get) then have to go the Savage Land to rescue the last squad that went down there (with Rhodey) and figure what the Mutates are up to.  *whew*  Finding a settlement of engineered dinos, they run at it like a brick wall and everyone dies.  But the main characters, of course.  The secret mutant Lexington (who’s also a very generic mutant having something to do with electricity) takes charge and calls for a retreat.  The stereotype commander is dead by his own foolishness and now it’s up to the survivors to actually THINK instead of run into things.  I might wind up liking this group just because they seem unkillable.  And hey, telekinetic dinosaurs.

Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four #10

God I hope that Marvel’s jerking me around on this Dead Sue thing.  That’s such a bad idea as evidenced by the fun and flair of the Marvel Adventures stories.  If everyone read these books, they could see how easy it is to write the First Family.  Fun, light hearted, intelligent, full of action and wonder.  The Fantastic Four buy Vibranium that happens to have been poached and this issue’s guest star, the Black Panther comes in to kick the ass of he who bought it.  Misunderstanding battle happens, the FF investigate (and get to a BEAUTIFUL bad cop/good cop with Storm and Thing) and go to Wakanda to explain themselves.  Another nifty misunderstanding fight, full of jungle traps and simple danger, that’s eventually resolved.  We get a tour of awesome Wakanda, Thing wears a funny hat, then the bad guys show up to be thoroughly trounced by the good guys.  Victor is declared and the ewoks dance.  I’m really finding myself sold on these books.

4 First Family #1

Ok, more Dark FF.  It’s the ‘just after accident’ stage when everyone is shuffled off into containment (think the movie) where Johnny put on ice, Sue’s checking in on everyone invisibly, the Thing is put  through the usual rejection and anger phase and Reed stares out at the world in a little bit of a fugue state.  Turns out the fugue state is inhabited by some Franz Stahl guy and a lot of fairly vague questions are asked about what exactly happened to the lot of them.  One guy mentioned earlier who was also irradiated has a fit, breaks out and it looks like the Four get to do their thing.  It’s a bit ‘enh’, the art’s pretty thick and moody which fits the kind of realism they’re trying to get at.  Not enough going on to really make a judgment just yet, let’s see issue two and find out what their point is.

Son of M #4

And Pietro introduces huffing to the Ex-Mutants as well as his daughter.  This book continues to be watching one sad little man’s train wreck and, though the time jumping thing’s a little easier after this issue, it still leaves things unsettled.  Luna huffs, gets powers, they go to Genosha where Callisto gets to wax philosophical about her lost abilities, they have her huff and she gets them back with a peculiar price and everyone says Pietro’s name a lot.  Crystal does not come off as a nice person, Medusa and BB seem rather reasonable despite the huge obvious signs that Pietro’s doing wrong.  I’m going to keep reading it, looking for the pony in the pile.

the Pulse #14

the finale.  Back to what Bendis does best, dialogue, irony and grit.  And reminding me what it is that made me like this book so much when it first hit the shelves.  The humanizing of superpeople, the idea behind the mask, the person inside all this incredibleness.  If that makes sense.  Jessica relates the tale of how ‘Mommy met Daddy’ and no, it wasn’t at a bar.  It was taking down the Owl (’if there’s an animal, there’s some guy who wants to be called that’) where Jessica and Heroes for Hire first meet.  They convince her to stay for the clean up an they find two kids left by one of the villains.  Jessica takes off her mask in front of the cops to keep them from having to spend a night at the precinct alone and scared.  Luke Cage, struck by this humanity, goes to see her afterwards and bandages up a wound and lets her fall asleep on the couch.  It’s humanizing, but not trivial.  The little things show up how much these characters are like us and how much we can live in their world.  Or already do.  A quintessential Marvel book and I’m sad to see it go.

Thunderbolts #100

Really?  Where have I been?  Boy is it hefty.  It’s got the main story in the front and what looks like reprint backups to pad it out for the special #100.  Mind you, I haven’t been reading this and opening it up, it seems like I missed a LOT.  But the basic story is that Zemo wants to destroy Captain Marvel (the Genis model, working under a new codename) because he’s going to destroy the universe.  Those of you who read the Captain Marvel series know this is nothing new.  Zemo’s Thunderbolts fight Songbird’s Thunderbolts and eventually Genis is cheesed out of existence by scattering him through the Darkforce.  Songbird spends a moment to mope at his grave until Zemo locks lips with her and they convince themselves they did the right thing.  Very splashy, full of fight by name battles (’I'll get you, *Name of Character Here*!’  “You’re going down, *Other Name*!’), a bit heavy handed, but I can’t say it’s a bad issue.

Batman and the Monster Men #5

I wish all Batman books could be like this.  I think what gets me right there is the fact it reminds me so much of the Batman cartoons, the Dini ones, with their black backgrounds and noir-o-vision.  The plot isn’t complicated, you can see it a mile away but it’s the mood and the tone that really make a good Batman book.  Hugo Strange’s diabolical plans come to fruition, Commissioner Gordon is hassled about how he knows to contact ‘the Bat-Man’ (and yes, ‘Joseph Loeb’ is reference as a character) and Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend’s dad finally puts his drunken foot in it with the mob.  She goes to Bruce Wayne for help and what does he do.  That’s right: slips something into her water and she’s out like a light.  That’s my Bruce.  But the Detective’s mind is at work and he’ll pull all this story together in the end.

Wildcats: Nemesis #7

I get the feeling that DC’s Preview Books are just books that aren’t selling as well that they don’t want to promote.  That could be just me.  Anyways, the Wildcats team (do they capitalize the CATS anymore?) is still following around this Nemesis chick and she’s still having uninked flashbacks to all the cool stuff she did in the past.  There’s a nice Wildstorm history lesson at the front which reminds everyone why there are superhumans in the universe and the secret alien war that started everything, but other than that, the writing falls flat when it comes to the main character.  I thought the Bad Girl era of books was over, but from the overly vampy nature, to the killing a bunch of people in the most provocative gown she can, laughing at the tough guy characters and being the center of an already established team, she’s just not doing it for me.  You know what is, though?  Taking the entire population of New Jersey and making a Mutate Army out of them.

Firestorm #23

It’s One Year Later time!  Do not adjust your comic books, no one knows what’s going on these days and that’s kind of a unifying fact.  DC leaves us to hunt for clues in changes through all their books, so we start with Jason Rusch showing up at the center of an accidental blast from one of the most ridiculous bombs I’ve ever heard of.  A giant nuclear warhead that spawns a whole bunch of other little nuclear warheads.  Tell me we don’t need one of those.  It was supposed to be a test, but something went wrong and now it’s Firestorm to the rescue.  Senator Lorraine Kelly is not only Firebird, but she’s the new Number Two needed to make Firestorm!  Professor Stein is missing and shady people are kidnapping the new duo!  It’s wacky!  Not much to really say, since this is the start of something, but so far… I can’t complain.  Let’s see where all this One Year Later stuff goes.

Fables #47

Always a treat.  The second part of a two-part story that showcases two Empire puppets, Rodney and June, who want to be come real young men and women so they can marry and express their love.  It’s a traveling tale (and I am such a sucker for those), taking you all the way from Geppetto’s humble cabin in the Enchanted Wood to Fable Town itself, or at least the outskirts.  And let it not be said that this heartwarming fairy tale of love isn’t without that patented Fable darker undertone.  Fables is such a wonderful series of tales, very detailed and intricate.  Call me girly, but this stuff is great.

Tom Strong #36

Whoa.  This is apparently… the last issue.  As evidenced by the end of the world scenario we find ourselves at on page one.  Nicely summarized, Tom Strong was sent off to find a missing runaway who turned out to be Promethea bringing about the end of the world.  We go through the America’s Best Universe, so to speak, see everyone, go to our loved ones and embrace the unknown.  Very Alan Moore and in depth, but I look at how well this one issue was (since I haven’t been following this book either) and think to myself, ‘Man… did House of M suck’.  Not too shabby a tale for the end of a series I didn’t read.

Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi #2

Hyperactive Child Theater presents a Few Minutes Entertainment!  This should go right into the hands of younger kids who are running around the stores pointing at all the anime and telling you which ones they have and which ones they don’t.  Yu-Gi-Oh players and the Batman fans.  You know.  Three short simple stories full of anime-isms with scattered Japanese pop culture terms added for a brief educational experience.

Exterminators #3

….

Aaaand that’s all the time we have!  (Seriously, just the cover of the book turned me off.  Please don’t make me read it.)

Happy Wednesday.