Bought/Thought 12/24

[GNR]

Thanks DBM,I snatched up the first trade then #7-22.

How is the older stuff like Savage Sword and Chronicles?

 

[GNR]

Thor #12 and DD #114 are perfect examples of comics you would flip thru and be like "meh,nothing happens".

Thor is just unlike anything else at the moment,I really hope JMS stays on for a while,he's been planting some seeds all the way through and is truly letting these characters live and breathe.This was one of the books I was thinking of trimming due to price tag,but at this level of quality on all fronts,I don't think I will.

Murdock's life going thru hell is a given no matter the writer.I've been itching for more kung fu action,I still remember images a while back of Wolverine and Bullseye popping up,but the story has been meaty enough.Murdock is really being made to look like a ******** here,and he totally deserves it.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Is that "once" the time Thor grabbed Loki by the head and gave the "nothing shall stop my hammer from returning to my hand, even your face" line (paraphrased, of course). Or was that the last Ragnorok?

I get there is a familiar heritage between them, just after all this time, Thor has had to have figured that Loki's his enemy now.

I expect an epic showdown, but Loki is really Thor's only well known enemy and I doubt JMS would let him be axed off. Hopefully, thought, it is worth the crap-ton of build up. A good beginning is nothing without a good ending.

No, it was the time that Thor used Mjolnir to literally suck the life out of Loki. Odin banished Thor's soul to Mephisto's realm or something, which resulted in Eric Masterson taking over as the god of thunder.

I don't think Loki will die either, but I don't think Loki needs to die to give the current arc a satisfying conclusion. Ed Brubaker played all kinds of games with the Red Skull's life and I felt satisfied with every stage of it except the first (where he was unceremoniously shot in the first issue).

 

[BrianWilly]

Wonder Woman #26 and 27
"Rise of the Olympian"
Repeat after me, colorists: Vixen! Is! A! BLACK WOMAN!

Okay, now that we've established that, let's get to the good: this is really good. This is a kind of story that Wonder Woman has deserved for years, an epic world threat that not even Rucka managed to fully fit into his run. You really feel like some huge, incredible event is happening in the Wonderverse. The gods are back...but not all is well. The Amazons have returned...but at what cost? etc etc.

I like Genocide. I'm kind of ashamed to admit it and I'm pretty sure Lopresti came up with that design by using the "spikes" costume set from City of Heroes, but I really like what Simone has done here. And what it's doing with the lasso? Really awesome. Of course, the last time I was really excited about a villain was Superboy-Prime, so take that however you will.

Two single issues of Simone writing Donna Troy pretty much just eclipsed two whole years of Countdown and Winick in terms of quality. Winick's Donna hasn't done anything gratuitously bad yet, but she gets bogged down by all that other ass that Titans is filled with, and nonetheless I've no doubt that Winick will get around to filling her with wretched writing sooner or later, as he does. But not here; this is a Donna Troy that isn't the joke of the cosmos, this is a Donna Troy that is Donna ****ing Troy.

Now, the story so far is not all perfect. In fact, it's very noticeably not. There's a lot of, hmm, telling and not showing as far as significant character/plot points are being handled. For instance, Donna gets great dialogue but then she starts talking about possibly mourning Diana and the passing of the burden or something and it's like, wait what? The story is acting like Diana's dead or something but she's just really beat up. Cassie and Etta are crying emo tears about Diana being beat up and it's just, guys, instead of crying emo tears, maybe you should make yourselves useful or something. Just a suggestion. I think Simone was trying to convey some kind of gravity or sadness about the situation, and it comes across as just weird.

Another example is that the characters repeatedly tell us about Genocide teleporting instead of actually showing it to us, so the action surrounding said teleportation just comes across as stilted. And when we do see Genocide doing anything, anything at all, it's usually just...punching someone. So we wind up with this creature that sounds scary and talks scary and feels scary but...certain little things make it not quite as scary as it should be, or rather could be.

Now, for the griping: There's something going on here with Nemesis that's not quite right, and will probably be revealed at length. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. So much of Simone's characterizations in this series so far has been varying degrees of "there's something going on here that's not quite right, and will probably be revealed at length," and it's all going to make for a great story once it all comes together, I'm sure, but it's also making it virtually impossible to fully connect to the things happening on the page. Why the **** are characters acting this way? What the hell does s/he mean when they say those things? etc etc. In this case specfically, Nemesis has obviously figured out that Wonder Woman is Diana Prince (or maybe he just never forgot? **** it I dunno), except that we have no idea when or how this happened because, well, it never happened in this book. Except that the book itself and everyone in it are acting like it happened, like it's the most natural thing ever.

The narrative just feels so incomplete. I feel like we're getting half the story with every issue despite paying full price, in this weird Brand New Day sort of balance between "WTF am I reading here?" versus "Oh it'll all be explained down the line and it'll be a great explanation, yup"...it's an incredibly, incredibly thin line to straddle, and I'm not sure Simone is pulling it off. I've always had full confidance in Simone's handle on characters, but never a lot in her plotting capabilities; it's been a problem all through the All New Atom and in Birds of Prey as well.

It doesn't look like the DMA is going to continue being Diana's hangout by the end of this arc. Many readers will probably be glad of that, and I certainly wouldn't mind leaving behind the bad things that the place has done to Wonder Woman's series...but it's interesting that the DMA and Agent Diana Prince in particular actually came across incredibly strong and well in these past two issues. When Simone started her run I had thought that not even she could salvage the DMA as a viable "status quo" for Wonder Woman, and yet now here she is doing exactly that...ironically, it seems, just as the DMA is about to run its course.

On a related note, Sarge Steel is totally [blackout]controlled by Dr. Psycho[/blackout]. It's pretty much a gimme in the latest issue, but you heard it here first.

To summarize: it's got its flaws and I'm sure I'll be nitpicking at it until the very last panel of the saga, but I really am looking forward to what's coming next.

(8.4 out of 10)


Thor #12
Loki is awesome.

(9.6 out of 10)


Nova #20
Nova is awesome.

(9 out of 10)


Reign in Hell #6
Wait...what? How does Satannus saying Shazam having anything whatsoever the **** to do with Neron? Did I miss something? Oh, I guess the explanation must have been in that mountain of incomprehensible exposition that Giffen layers into every single issue.

This is...I'm sorry to say, this is not a great comic. I mean, Giffen gets all the freebies that he wants for life on account of having written Annihilation, but still, I can hardly believe that it's the same person writing this. I kept holding out hope, but you know what they say: abandon hope all ye who enter here. Heh you see what I did there making a theological allusion to hell in an unrelated context. Now if I were to keep doing that for six issues straight, I'd pretty much end up with this comic.

Zing!

On the slightly not bad side, Zatanna vs Lobo was actually pretty damned (LoL!) cool. And holy (LOL!!!) **** Linda again!

(4.1 out of 10)

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Linda as in Supergirl Linda? She's in Hell?

Angel: After the Fall #15
I just got around to reading this and wow, was it ever awful. I don't know what Lynch is thinking or how Whedon could have approved this nonsense. It's just so... so very bad. And the thing that irks me most is that it has a kernel or two of things that could've been good. But the way they're presented and the way the story so far has led up to them? Bad, bad, bad.

But at least Franco Urru figured out how not to make people look like they're melting. His art was actually quite good on this issue. It seemed like he stopped trying so hard to get likenesses right and instead just drew the characters as characters instead of drawings of actors. Whatever he did, it worked for him. Too bad the rest of the issue didn't.

 

[BrianWilly]

I actually don't remember much of AtF #15. Did they seriously just win by filling Illyria with the Power of Love? And then Gunn is still just stupid for some reason being stupid.

As for Linda...well, see for yourself.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Two single issues of Simone writing Donna Troy pretty much just eclipsed two whole years of Countdown and Winick in terms of quality.

And in the category "damning with faint praise"...

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I actually don't remember much of AtF #15. Did they seriously just win by filling Illyria with the Power of Love? And then Gunn is still just stupid for some reason being stupid.

As for Linda...well, see for yourself.

Yes, they did win with the power of love, in a way. But that was one of the parts I actually liked. I don't know why Spike's stupid memories were involved, but the idea of Wes' memories of Fred making Illyria realize her logic is faulty was cool. Whedon may not ever let happy couples stay together, but he does have a knack for making happy couples seem great and not at all gross or obnoxious like they are in real life. But, then again, it was enmeshed in all that other awful crap that made up the issue and the AtF run in general, so it was bittersweet at best.

That Supergirl stuff... um... well, it kind of sucked. Also, who's the guy in the yellow hat and coat with the spitting chick on his back? Also x2, Lobo killed Zatara? I never knew that.

 

[yenaled]

Lobo killed Zatara the last issue, I think. Like killed his spirit in the underworld.

The guy in the Fedora is Dr Occult.

 

[BrianWilly]

I think Illyria's logic should have made Illyria realize that Illyria's logic is faulty. No one in this damned book has been behaving in any comprehensible way for the past three or four issues.

Yellow hat guy is Dr. Occult; you may recognize him from Gaiman's Books of Magic. He's in hell to rescue the brunette Rose, who you may also recognize from Gaiman's Books of Magic.

Lobo killed Zatara in this last issue of this series. Zatara has been in hell as one of the members of the resistance. Or...something. Hard to keep track of who is on whose side. Anyway he's been dead already anyway, but Lobo gave him permadeath. Or something.

And yeah, this series started off with hella promise (LOL!!!!!) but took a nosedive around the last two or three issues. I'm hoping for more Linda just out of principle, of course, but who knows what the hell (LMFAO) is going to go down.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Illyria's logic has never been rock-solid, though. She's a crazy, angsty demon god. We knew she'd gotten attached to Fred's life and the perceptions that her form created, so it's not hard to see her twisting that into a skewed justification of her crazy rule-the-world ideas. Illyria as the main villain of the series worked for me. Very little else did.

 

[BrianWilly]

But what she was doing didn't seem to have anything to do with her usual Godking of the Primordium rantings about power and sovereign rights and I'm so awesome bow to me or whatever. What she was doing was a very

Final Fantasy 8

Time Compression Ends Everything deal where she just thought everything sucked so she was going to end it all. That doesn't seem like Illyria's MO, and likewise you'd have to skew pretty damn far to get anything remotely like it from anywhere in Fred's psyche, so the whole idea of her thinking that it's what Fred would want just feels like some random justification that Lynch needed for his finale; you can really only justify it by saying that, well, she's just crazy.

So the end net result is that everyone's just crazy, thanks for asking, and that's why people are doing the stupid things that they're doing. And by everyone I suppose I just mean Gunn and Illyria and a little of Angel too.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I guess it's only somewhat decent to me in the context of how bad everything else has been in AtF.

Anyway, regarding Thor #12 again, this line from CBR's review of the issue summed up why I liked the time travel stuff nicely: "If the god of trickery’s past is a lie, isn’t that actually more appropriate?"

 

[BrianWilly]

I generally just abhor insanity as plot motivation. Part of why I think Fight Club is overrated.

That's right I said it.

As for Loki, I really didn't actually think about that retconny time travel stuff all that deeply. Mostly I just got "****, Loki is awesome" from the issue.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I got that feeling too, right around the point where he lit a frost giant on fire by snapping his fingers. If you've ever wanted to see a Thor fanboy get giddy, you should've come over to my house when I read that bit.

 

[Anubis]

I generally just abhor insanity as plot motivation. Part of why I think Fight Club is overrated.

That's right I said it.

As for Loki, I really didn't actually think about that retconny time travel stuff all that deeply. Mostly I just got "****, Loki is awesome" from the issue.

Dear God you fail at life.

 

[SouLeSS]

So, can someone explain to me what happened in Thor?

As far as I can tell, it was just Loki asking Hela to let him go back in time, where he creates a time paradox by being the one responsible for little Loki being taken in by Odin.

That's about it. Right?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

He did other stuff, too. He killed Bor and masqueraded as Bor to tell Odin that adopting Loki would make them even after Odin allowed Bor to die. Given that Bor's coming back into the series pretty soon, that'll probably end up being significant.

But for the most part, yes, it's a predestination paradox. Loki knew to go back in time and do all this because he'd told his younger self to go back in time to tell his younger self to go back in time, etc.

 

[SouLeSS]

Gotcha. Good issue, just wanted to make sure that I caught the jist of what happened.

 

[Blader5489]

I generally just abhor insanity as plot motivation. Part of why I think Fight Club is overrated.

That's right I said it.

As for Loki, I really didn't actually think about that retconny time travel stuff all that deeply. Mostly I just got "****, Loki is awesome" from the issue.

I don't know what's worse: saying Fight Club is overrated, or saying Fight Club is overrated while sporting a Speed Racer avatar.

 

[fifthfiend]

I generally just abhor insanity as plot motivation. Part of why I think Fight Club is overrated.

That's right I said it.

Insanity isn't the plot motivation in Fight Club.

...I mean it's a major plot device sure, but if you're talking motivation then that'd be like, some kind of existentialist 'yearning to escape the crushing sameness of modernity' thing crossed with his being all hella in love with Marla.

 

[Manic]

Wonder Woman #26 and 27
"Rise of the Olympian"
Repeat after me, colorists: Vixen! Is! A! BLACK WOMAN!

I'm thinking you got a bad/partially faded copy. I'm looking at #27 right now, at two pages that show Vixen, Firestorm, and John Stewart. She's colored slightly lighter than John and Jason, but I think she almost always is. The moment I start to confuse her with a white character, however, is the day I get pissed.

You hear me, colorists from X-Factor?! You're not off the hook yet!


One other little thing...

In this case specfically, Nemesis has obviously figured out that Wonder Woman is Diana Prince (or maybe he just never forgot? **** it I dunno), except that we have no idea when or how this happened because, well, it never happened in this book. Except that the book itself and everyone in it are acting like it happened, like it's the most natural thing ever.

This is actually one of Gail Simone's "remember a while back when this thing happened? Well, it led to this, but I forgot to tell you" things. A few issues back, Nemesis went to Agent Prince's condo, where he ran into Diana's loyal troupe of white gorillas. The gorillas kept referring to Diana as "the princess," and Donna Troy even came by and referred to Agent Prince as her sister.

I think we're just supposed to assume that Tom put 2+2 together.


I do agree with you about the cpnstant crying, though. Frankly, you'd think everyone would finally act relieved when they saw Diana alive. But no, the tears just kept on coming. I can see Tom being that upset (he's practically married to her, after all), but Donna and Cass need to nut-up (or egg-up, I guess) and get a ****ing grip.

 

[Dread]

No, it was the time that Thor used Mjolnir to literally suck the life out of Loki. Odin banished Thor's soul to Mephisto's realm or something, which resulted in Eric Masterson taking over as the god of thunder.

I don't think Loki will die either, but I don't think Loki needs to die to give the current arc a satisfying conclusion. Ed Brubaker played all kinds of games with the Red Skull's life and I felt satisfied with every stage of it except the first (where he was unceremoniously shot in the first issue).

To be fair, Brubaker was THIS CLOSE to letting the Red Skull plot go on too long. I say THIS CLOSE because he was better with build-up than JMS. He may have been bleeding things along, but enough happened that I never felt cheated. JMS isn't as skilled at that.

I certainly at least want some sort of fight with Loki. Red Skull basically was ended by Sharon Carter rather quickly.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, but without Steve it doesn't really matter who takes the Red Skull down. Bucky fighting the Skull would've been nice, but Sharon's the one he hurt more so it felt right that Sharon f***ed him up. Also, I don't think the Red Skull plot went on too long. I actually like it when a writer can lay down a solid foundation, with one hero on one side and one villain on the other, and run with it for years. It's better, to me at least, than the stories that have one full plot with one full hero/villain conflict in one arc and then jump to something completely different in the next.

 

[Dread]

Hey, I didn't say I disliked it. I agree, Sharon probably had the most reason to be the one to take down Skull after all he did. But, still, it's like if you watched a TV series for 5 seasons and then the villain simply goes down with a single bullet.

But, Skull will be back so it is alright.

It is personal pet peeve of mine when a build-up to a conflict with a villain goes on for 12-40 issues and then they are beaten in a page. It makes it almost worthless, like, "No one could have figured out, 'Just shoot him' a year ago". Let's see a longer sequence. But I guess that's the action movie buff in me. Hence why I usually enjoyed all three times Bucky took on Crossbones. Now THOSE were fights.

Yeah, CAPTAIN AMERICA was able to pull off that one slow build plot for about 3-4 years and pull it off brilliantly from beginning to end. Yeah, I probably would have liked a longer showdown with Skull, but at least he went down and all that.

That said, I will feel very cheated if Thor simply beats Loki with one move. C'mon man, he's the God of Thunder. It should be an actual fight.