snap judgments

Still slowed down on these reviews, DC just ain’t giving it up these days.  Not to mention my new love of new Doctor Who and some of the research I’m doing to shout out some statements.  The Internet is serious business after all.   Reviews!

Beyond! #1

ATTENTION MARVEL!  Really.  The mass graves thing is yawn-inducing by now.  Very edgy way back when in things like ‘Days of Future Past’, but way overdone by this point.  Yes, you’re trying to shock us by showing how deadly this book can be but please find another way?
Starting off with everyone’s favorite Marvel everyman, Gravity (yes, I had to remind myself who that was too), he find a mysterious bubble device thingamagig in the middle of a park, decides to go give it the once over and we completely eliminate ANY idea of the middleman and get straight to all the people we paid $2.99 to see.  A cast introduction that pretty much takes up the majority of the book as they collectively scratch their heads, the bad guys snarl and the good guys try and get organized here while we figure out everyone here.  A big splash page shows some space and Marvel’s favorite universal power symbol, ‘white space’, tells us that this is a fight to the death.  These nine guys fight to kill and whomever pleases the Beyonder, I guess (hey, I didn’t see a jumpsuit, so I don’t know) gets a prize.  Yes, our cast thinks it’s a little ridiculous, but not too ridiculous for Venom who decides that it’s a good enough excuse for him to go after Spider-Man.  And he does, Spidey does his thing and Venom just puts a spike right through his chest.  Everyone goes ‘OH NOES!’, Medusa runs to his side, Spidey croaks out a last ‘Tell MJ I love her!’ and … dies, I guess.  This makes Medusa very mad.  I’m buying it for her, really so they have my attention for at least another issue out of character loyalty.  And as far as characters go, it’s a pretty interesting crowd with some dude and some winners.  Hank Pym is there, a little pen clipped to his jumpsuit (making me wonder if this is the West Cost Avengers era Pym? Is this an Avengers Forever thing where everyone’s from a different timeline?) and correcting himself on the use of the word wife in regards to the Wasp (who’s in her modern uniform, getting me more confused on continuity).  Nothing really to write home about, but here I am writing about it so read at your own risk.

Incredible Hulk #96

Wow, four issues to #100.  Maybe we’ll get to see the Hulk again.  No, really.  We’re hitting Bruce Jones levels of lacking Hulk here.  Out of the 18 panels containing the Jade Giant in this book, only two involve smashing.  Most are reaction shots and standing around.  This is not the direction for the Incredible FRIKKIN’ Hulk!  For God’s sake, people, is it REALLY that hard?  This is part one of the ‘Anarchy’ storyline, which means the Hulk is now a freedom fighter instead of a gladiator.  For the most part if you took out the Hulk and maybe even put in another heavy hitter in the Marvel Universe, hell, even a galactic one, the book would read exactly the same.  This issue gives us some background on the horrible things done on this alien world to some bug people and I’m sure it was very meaningful and Oscar worthy, but I cannot get over the lack of the Hulk in the book.

Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius Super Summer Spectacular

Actually, that’s Fantastic Four Presents: Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius - Super Summer Spectacular, I guess to make sure we all file it under the FF.  Good clean fun, good for kids, you know the drill.  A bunch of stories, only two reprints and a lot of fun is had by all.

Last Planet Standing #5

My decompressed brain cannot handle all this action!  Good lord does something happen in this book all over the place!  It’s great!  This is a comic book, my friends.  The kind of book you thought up when you were bored in fourth period English and just started thinking up crazy things like power combinations and epic word destruction and Galactus and yeah!  We got Punisher Robots (sorry, no Castle, though that might be his face kind of smushed on some killer robots from outer space), we got Wanda and the Silver Surfer combining powers for a heroic cause (hey, Wanda can be used for good? Who knew?), epic dialogue from the Surfer and the World Devourer, quips from the little guys trying to save the day, it’s just comics.  Good to detox with after all this Civil War.  The main idea is that Galactus is going to take the energy of Earth, shunt it to his big ship, combine it with the ship and living gods, then pour all of it into a special star and create an entire cataclysm to devour.  WHOA. Thankfully, the good guys win, Spider-Sense great for tense wire-cutting scenes, and the Silver Surfer and Galactuc somehow COMBINE to create not only a new entity, but a new Power Essential!  It’s like reverse Galactus, people!  Instead of devouring a planet’s energy, he GIVES IT BACK!  I feel incredibly guilty I didn’t spend enough time in the M2 Universe.  It’s the last issue, but a good one.

Marvel Team Up #22

Now, whatever you do, do NOT take this book seriously.  No.  Stop it right now.  Just put your hands up in the air, realize that there is no real teaming up in this issue and enjoy.  Why?  Evil Tony Stark (this one’s from an alternate universe that missed Disassembled) turns a confused and alone LMD Diamondback into a new set of armor for himself and takes the name IRON MANIAC.  Maybe it’s because I just read Last Planet Standing, but that’s kind of cool.  He even announces the name in Logo Font like DOOM does!  The New Avengers show up for about 2 1/2 pages really only just to sort of wave their arms about and let this guy escape and we learn that some guys in lab coats have a Skrull.  Freedom Ring?  In a coma.

New Excalibur #9

Frank Tieri REALLY liked his Apocalypse vs. Dracula series.  I did too, but as it’s only little entity; he took a real throw away idea and gave you exactly what you wanted from it, no more, no less.  But as we know from Weapon X, Mr. Tieri really likes his stories and will take them as far as they can go.  Thus, this issue of New Excalibur.  Chamber, by some miracle, is awake.  Not only that, he can talk via a little remote doohickey.  And instead of using it to scream constantly, “OH MY GOD MY CHEST IS AN OPEN WOUND AND I HAVE NO LUNG PLEASE KILL ME!’, he turns down a creepy old man’s offer for help.  Creepy old man doesn’t take no for an answer, kidnaps him and takes him back to the All New!  All Different! Clan Akkaba, headed by none other than the pink haired retard with Blink’s powers from the mini-series.  They dunk him in an Apoca-Tank, give him the grey skin, blue smile and, oh yeah, a CHEST and try and convince him to join their little cult.  He says no and bails.  New Excalibur lands on the scene and are ready to go kick Clan butt and Chamber makes the very brave and very correct decision to tell them all to just leave everything alone, including him.  Some people just want to be left alone,” he tells them, reading them the riot act and stomping off like an angry little British kid with a horrible skin condition and blue clown makeup.  New Excalibur proceeds to just sort of shuffle their feet and the Clan escapes with Ozmandius masquerading as Apocalypse for their nefarious deeds… whatever those are.  I just hope they leave Chamber alone.  Also not cool having very little of the book dealing with the team, but I can’t say they were really doing much with them before.

Uncanny X-Men #475

Going back to the magazine style of cover layout for the book, kind of reminding me of what Morrison’s run had.  And I was all set to just hate this book.  My optimism for a good X-Men title is somewhere near my shoes and considering how much I hated Deadly Genesis, Brubaker was fighting an uphill war, awesome Cap issues aside.  But no.  This was a good start, far more back to basics than I thought it would be.  It’s Xavier, pretty damn well humbled by Decimation and Deadly Genesis, one-upping Magneto by going out and trying to fix his problems.  How does he do it?  He gathers some X-Men who want to come and who could benefit from the scenery change and puts them in the Blackbird and flies them to the Shi’ar Empire to stop this Vulcan guy from doing anything evil because he’s the latest character to get the ‘most powerful mutant I’ve ever encountered’ title.  The team s a little funny and there’s a lot of old baggage to dump from the last issues and I think space travel could do these guys some good.  A little unsure about Lorna Dane and her new ‘powers, but not really powers’ situation, but it’s not emerging ‘from the dark night that engulfs her’ that Mulligan’s X-Men had so… I’ll be strong.  I’ll give this a shot.  If only for the ‘get in the damned plane and fly these people across the stars to fix this mess’ Xavier and Thunderbird.  I don’t know how he got there, I don’t care.  He’s Thunderbird.

Missed DC entirely, even the last two books in the Marvel Previews, so let’s indulge a little bit and put the title of this website to the test.

Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man #17

Good kid fun.  Maybe a little silly, maybe a little simple, but he’s not dying or being reborn or living with Avengers or telling everyone who he is.  He’s just Spider-Man, doing Spider-Man things.  Read it for a good detox.

Mighty Marvel Western #1

If you liked them, you’ll like this.  If you didn’t like them, you’ll move on to the next book.  If you never read it, you’ll flip through the book and make your own decision.  It’s niche book and it’ll do well for just it’s niche.  No new ground, but Marvel Western tales.

Happy Thursday, folks.