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Bought/Thought for August 13, 2008; SPOILERS INSIDE!

Amazing Spider-Man #567: As Marcdachamp said above, this storyarc just kind of fizzled out. I like the idea of the new Kraven; but, it all wrapped up too quickly and could have ended a whole lot better. I love the three-part stories. This one felt like it could have gone on a bit longer or been worked on a bit more. Still, plenty of decent action throughout made it enjoyable enough. And, at least we have another new enemy for Spidey, as Brand New Day has been giving us quite a few of those. (BTW, I take it that is the New Kraven's mom at the end? Are we suppose to recognize her???) 7/10

God, I cannot express how excited I am for New Ways to Die, though. Looks fantastic.
 
Dread, why the **** do you keep referring to Ultron as "Great Ultron"?
 
Dread's Skrullinated Reviews for 8/13/08 - The Obligatory Bendis Rant:

SECRET INVASION #5:
This issue, however, it a letdown and a bog down. In other words, a typical Bendis issue where a lot happens and yet little happens. Or at least nothing that was expected.

You know if it was the other way round you'd complain it was predictable,



Reed can patch together a gun that exposes them flawlessly within 2 pages.

To be fair he has been studying one and already knew how they were doing it. The rest is perfectly in character.

HOW THE ****ING GOD DAMNED HELL IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT THAN EVERY OTHER SKRULL STORY YET WRITTEN!?

Scale


How!? If Bendis was satisfied with telling "just another" story, it would be different. But he always goes on and on and on and on about how different, better, and superior his stories are, and they're ****ing NOT

For gods sake calm down. A writer hyping his story is not a personal attack and should not be considered as such.
Anyway got any links for him saying his stories are superior or have you just pulled that (like most of your personal attacks on bendis or whedon) out the ether?
 
Big week for me. Time to crank out these reviews...


Fantastic 4 #559
Does it ignore Marvel's current status quo? Yep. Does it kick ass anyway? Hell yes.
While the first storyline Millar/Hitch did suffered from "opening arc syndrome," the current arc is moving along just nicely. That usurpative b**** Alyssa meets Sue for lunch, and informs her that there are still hanging plot threads from the previous arc, so that should lead to something interesting in the next few issues. For now, the New Defenders (led by Professor Hulk) make their move on Johnny, who whoops their rank amateur asses until he's caught off guard and slammed down several stories of a skyscrapper. Val continues to pretend she can't speak whole sentences while her babysitter (who I'm convinced is Val from the future) carries her around.

Oh, and the New Defenders have captured Galactus, and are using his comatose cosmic body to power a machine Prof. Hulk has built. Good times.

----------

Astonishing X-Men #26
As someone who frequently reads Ellis' free online comic FreakAngels, I can tell you that the man is no good at ending single parts to his multi-part stories. While most writers who craft multi-issue stories like to end each issue with a cliffhanger that leaves the reader salivating for more, Ellis likes to end each issue abruptly, as if something else is going to happen when you turn the page. But there is no page to turn. It just stops. And that's what this issue did. It stopped. It's like ending your sentence with a comma.

That said, Ellis moved the plot along a bit quicker this time, now that he's done reintroducing the characters. Storm and Cyclops had an idealogical discussion about killing the enemy in the field. Armor got to take a few cracks at Wolverine's weight. The bad guy seemed to be up to something with a "ghost box" and kinda managed to avoid getting his rear end electrocuted, beat up, stabbed, shot, and mind-raped until the X-Men regrouped and forced him to kill himself rather than give them information.

And then there's Bianchi's art. His women look like trannies. People's poses tend to be exaggerated and inappropriate at times. He puts so much detail into skin wrinkles that the bad guy's face looks like it's drying up and cracking. And for whatever reason, I do not like the way the man draws mouths. Why oh why didn't they put Choi on this book?

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Booster Gold #11
There really is no way for me to describe what's happening in this book. I tend to make time traveling stories more confusing when I try to explain them, which is why I try to stick to discussing characters in the Doctor Who thread. That said...

Booster starts off this issue still in disbelief that his sister is back from the dead. After getting it hammered into his head that he can't go back and do stuff like that (see: saving Ted created OMAC-world), I can see where he'd be skeptical. Booster goes off on his mission to save time from a bumbling mastermind, while Rip and Goldstar (whose star is blue) sit this one out. Booster stops the time anomaly from happening, but causes another that... well, let's just say it creates a world where somebody actually respects Killer Moth.

Rip gets the idea to disguise Booster as Batman so he can go back and fix this whole thing, but their sudden appearance in the Batcave prompts Alfred to bust a cap in Rip's ass. Oops.

----------

X-Men Origins: Jean Grey
This one-shot doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. It just manages to tell us with some nice Mayhew artwork.

----------

Angel: After the Fall #11
You know, I once loved Gunn. He was one of my favorite characters. But now... just... ugh. It's not the fact that he's evil now. He got sired. I expect him to be evil. I just want him to make sense. It's like when he talks, he's only telling people half of what he's trying to tell them. It's like talking to a drug addict who insists that he's not high; nothing he says or does makes much sense, but he insists that you're the one not making any sense. It's frustrating.

Big plot point: Gunn casts a spell to undo all of the healing spells Wes has been casting on him, assuming Angel is still undead and that it'd just be horribly painful. Well, Angel is human, and the spell kills him. You know what would suck for Angel but be an interesting revelation? If WR&H decided only to keep LA inside of Hell as long as Angel was alive, and his death brought everyone back to Earth.

I have to note that Runge's artwork tends to get a little... vague. There was actually a point toward the end of the issue where it looks like he didn't bother drawing faces on the characters.

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Doctor Who #6
This series has actually taken so long to come out, I forgot what the hell the plot was about. Luckily, this is the conclusion, and it manages to recap just about everything that's happened in the past 5 issues. It's also an unbelievably wordy issue, as writer Gary Russell perfectly captures David Tennant's rapid-fire, long-winded exposition speeches where he explains how everything works, who's doing it, and how to stop them. Oh, and the Doctor points his sonic screwdriver at a lot of stuff to make things happen. This includes (I kid you not) using the screwdriver to create a forcefield to block a large bolt of energy from a big f***ing cannon. However, the cannon was sonic-powered, so it was essentially noise blocking noise, but it sure as hell made me do a double-take.

The few Who fans who visit this forum won't be surprised to hear that this issue suffered from "what the hell do we do with Martha?" syndrome. By that, I mean there's a huge battle where we see Martha tending to a wounded alien, and that's exactly all she does in the entire issue. Oh, and there was also a panel where she straddled the Doctor's leg like Princess Leia in that one Star Wars poster, complete with the Doctor heroically holding up a weapon while she does it.

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Green Arrow and Black Canary #11
So let me get this right... the massive conspiracy that surrounds Connor's attempted murder was, in fact, a case of the sniper shooting the wrong guy, and retrieving the body of their mistake. So what does that mean? I have no idea, although they do reveal that the League of Rubes has been working for Shado. That answers absolutely nothing.

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Wonder Woman #23
The story of Wonder Woman vs. The Devil concludes with... well, Wonder Woman kicking the Devil's ass. With a bit of humor on Simone's part, the demon continues to try to make bargains with Diana as she drags his disembodied head back to her allies. In the end, she gets her soul back, and all is right with the world. Yippee, hooray, and all that.

Meanwhile, Agent Tom Tresser has a conversation with Donna Troy about his relationship with Wonder Woman. Oh, and they have this conversation in Diana Prince's apartment. At this point, if Tom doesn't know Diana Prince is Wonder Woman, he's a complete idiot. The apes living in Diana's apartment said they thought Tom was there to protect "the princess," and quite frankly, Donna Troy showing up at Diana Prince's apartment and talking about her sister is kind of a dead giveaway. It'd be like turning up in Clark Kent's apartment, and meeting Supergirl who asks what you're doing in her cousin's home.

Sarge Steel, for all of his paranoia, is not an idiot. He sees through the fact that Tom is covering up something for Diana & Etta, and immediately puts Tom on his list of suspects. Of course, as I said, he's unbelievably paranoid, and his list seems to consist of just about every female superhero there is. Show of hands, who thinks it's possible for Black Canary (a married woman) to secretly be part of an Amazon conspiracy?
 
CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI-13 #4:

Brian takes down the Skrull Mage, and Pete's actions in destroying the "wall" last issue bare fruit as the high level demon Satannish (who actually IS a real Marvel character, and eagle eyed fans will spot Lilith, who gave the Midnight Sons trouble in the 90's) shows up and repays Wisdom by nuking all the Skrulls in Britain. That frees up Britain, but what about helping the rest of the world? Eh, I guess MI-13 has enough of a local mess to handle, with reconstruction and reclaiming the freed demons.


While it was more of a cameo, if the demonic Lilith is back, that would provide more than enough reason for Blade to hit England. He was one of the Midnight Sons who fought hard to vanquish her years ago when she plagued the Earth with her "Lillin". If he heard she was back, it would be perfectly in character for him to want to kill her (or some of the other demons running about). While Blade mostly focuses on vampires, he has on occasion taken on other supernatural beings. Of course, it could simply be because he knows Spitfire is now a vampire and wants to stake her. Whatever works. At any case, it is the best hope for something decent happening for Marvel's first successful movie franchise in years.

I noticed Lilith too. Gives Blade another reason to be in the book
 
Three freaking weeks of reviews! Or is it four? I think it's three. Onward.


Final Crisis #3
This is...a bit more like it, I think. It's still not the Final Crisis that I would like Final Crisis to Crisis, but it is a bit more like it. It feels more inclusive of the DCU and more directed by the DCU as a whole instead of just some JLA crossover arc. A whole lot happens, more clues and events are laid down at a breakneck pace, and I'm interested in seeing each and every one of these plots play out. Particularly when we go to Oa, I'm betting that Morrison isn't going to forget to include Kyle and Guy. And in spite of that intentionally ridiculous getup, Morrison has laid down the first real possibility of rehabilitating Mary Marvel that we've seen yet: she was possessed by Darkseid. There, simple as that. Freddy and Black Adam will kick her ass and then she'll get back to her old self. Not quite good as new, but probably as close as she's going to get.

Incidentally, some people on another board have brought up the possibility of eye color as some sort of significant clue. I'm not going to be That Guy who actually goes and looks all this up, but apparently Libra, Turpin, and even Mary's eye colors have changed in-between panels, sometimes in very notable ways like blue to orange. It certainly would seem like no big deal, except that the last time we had eye color discrepancies during a Crisis it turned out to be a pretty darn big deal. And, y'know: it's Grant Morrison.

(8.3 out of 10)


Final Crisis: Revelations #1
Did Libra just singlehandedly pwn the Spectre? I mean, I know it happens occasionally, but it never stops being badass, especially when it happens so casually here. On the badass scale, Pwn The Spectre is so much more badass than Pwn Superman or Pwn Georgia, though both are often valid devices. Uh, too topical? Too soon?

I thought offing Dr. Light was hella cool, though I'm a bit iffier on offing Effigy. I had hoped that Effigy would stick around 'cause he fits surprisingly well with what Geoff Johns has upcoming for the Dominators and their little orange greed thingy, and come on, it's really not as if Kyle has that many good rogues out there.

What else to say? Rucka brings the A-game, continuing the path he has set Renee down, last we saw her. And he also continues the story that others have been telling with Crispus Allen, notably to bring it all to a head and maybe put...well, not closure, but certainly an apex to Cris' story as the Spectre. And it is incredibly fitting that both Renee and Cris' stories have brought them to this point, completely naturally and believably. That's the DCU working at its best, when it brings characters organically through its fantastical world.

(9.1 out of 10)


Trinity #9, 10, and 11
Wow, this all of a sudden just got really damn good.

I dunno, I really think everything is rapidly falling into place here and the drive kicked up a whole lot. The characters and interactions continue to be more and more like the good DCU of longago and less like the...less good...DCU of notlongago. And Superman's reaction to the Crime Syndicate in #10 is kind of like the single best Superman scene I've read recently in this or any other book, even if it was because of some subtle personality alterations.

On the downside, it feels like everytime we get close to a really significant plot development in this series, we're immediately shunted off somewhere else, in another story direction, and it feels like a big distraction. It literally is a distraction in the story as well, as the character themselves have noted. We do a bunch of things with Konvikt and that seemed cool...and then it goes away and we do something else. There's big news about Krona and his Cosmic Egg opening...which is then put by the wayside. The symbolism and story involving the Tarot seemed to be heading on a bigass roll...but then wait, we have to do something else with the Crime Syndicate. If I have to list a fundamental flaw in this book, it would be that sort of jumpy story pacing.

Nonetheless, I'm really having a ball reading Niceaza's telling of the Bat Family's little sideplot tracking down the Dreambound. Niceaza's got a really good handle on these characters, it's fun and irreverent and yet adventurous as well.

(8.7 out of 10 for #9)
(8.4 out of 10 for #10)
(8 out of 10 for #11)


Secret Invasion #3-5
Might as well check in with this comic, seeing as how I haven't commented for a few issues. It's still pretty solid, as in solidly underwhelming. People hang around for issues doing nothing, and when they do something it feels flaccid. I mean, literally, flaccid is the word I'm using here and it's the perfect word to describe all this.

This issue, for instance; Captain Marvel has been hanging out at the Thunderbolts headquarters for five issues. Five. ****ing. Issues. And what does he do here? Nothing. Norman Osborn, written here without a whit of the morbid charisma that Ellis and even Jenkins has portrayed of him, literally just talks him out of doing anything, so he flies away, yippee let's move on to the next subplot.

And what happened to Thor and Bucky who were at the end of the last issue? Nothing. Nothing happened, check back next month. What the hell, Bendis wasted pages after pages after pages of bull**** banter between incompetent heroes yapping at each other ineffectually 'cause apparently that's what people really want to see, and the ones that people do want to see are put on hold while we cut to the yapping banter portion of the program? Two characters who are completely peripheral to the Marvel universe and aren't even real superheroes, Agents Hill and Brand, literally do more here in the span of a few pages than every single hero here combined.

Well except for Reed, who shows up with some sort of machine that literally reveals who the Skrulls are which seems to completely invalidate the all that work which into making these Skrulls completely undetectable. Flaccid. Completely ****ing flaccid.

This is a bad comic. It could definitely be worse, sure, and it works reasonably well with what it does have, but what it has isn't a lot. Bendis has worked up a completely flaccid event and swindled everyone out of their time, money, and effort...gee, welcome to last year. And the year before, and the year before that...

(4.5 out of 10)


Thor #10
Uh...stuff happens. And it's all incredibly well-written and drawn and words flow from the page like music, truly novel in its own way. And, yes, the plot is moving so ****ing slow.

But y'know what? Something I just realized is that...I don't actually mind. It's strange, but I don't. I'm enjoying the pace of reading this comic, and I'm enjoying JMS's slow ass pace. I can really only attribute it to the fact that I'm really not as invested in Thor as I probably should be, in spite of having followed him all this way, and so I'm actually able to appreciate this more. And I'm beginning to think that this sort of pacing is really just right for this story which, again, has been pretty damn gold. I don't need this to be hurried, I don't need JMS to do anything differently than what he's been doing. We all know what happens when JMS is forced off his kilter, when he has to write to the beat of anyone's drummer but his own.

(8.5 out of 10)


And now for something completely different/same
Secret Invasion: Thor #1
This comic can pretty much be summed up in that scene where Thor tosses Mjolnir to Bill for him to prove his identity and Bill catches it and transforms: preeeetty damn awesome. Looking forward to more.

(8.8 out of 10)


Reign in Hell #1
Demons with laser swords? It's like Christmas, but in hell!

I quite enjoyed this. A lot of it felt a lot like Annihilation which is only of the good. And seeing Zatara chat with Zauriel in hell was pretty cool, and old familiars like Asmodel, along with that backup in the back with Dr. Occult...and Ralph and Sue. Really, just seeing so many of these rare characters being written so well here in a big epic battle-y event was nice and, again, somewhat reminiscent of Annihilation's tone.

So yeah Linda. It's...not really the sort of homecoming that I had expected for her, much less the sort that she deserves. But, whatever, I'm over it, and there'll be many more opportunities down the road in this series as well as others now that she's finally back. One thing that annoyed me, though, was Shadowpact. Can someone more familiar with them tell me if it's actually normal for them to just stalk random people and attack them for no particular reason? "You're too dangerous to roam free"? Yeah, sure guys, it totally looks like she's about to have a meltdown there what with all that dangerous going to coffee shops and whatever that she's doing. Hey, maybe it was an evil coffee shop. With evil...coffee.

(9 out of 10)


Green Lantern Corps #27
How much of a fan of gross is Tomasi? Well let's just say that if you saw eyeballs on this issue's cover and didn't expect some to be exploding inside, then you haven't been reading enough of him.

So as the solicits have hinted, Kyle's looking to tap some Korugarian ass with that poison-tipped penis of his and well, we'll just have to see how this goes. At least both characters are awesome, so it has that going for it. Whatever it is.

Speaking of penis, Kyle also seems to have casually drawn one exploding on a piece of scrap paper that Guy found. Why so serious, Kyle? No, seriously, why? Kyle seems to have mellowed out a lot since SCW, and not all in a good way, and I can't imagine this isn't some intentional thing that Tomasi is setting up.

Oh, yeah, there's some plot too, involving Lantern families getting offed. This oughta be fun.

(8.5 out of 10)


Wonder Woman #23
I have been and remain pretty completely apathetic regarding the swords and sandals portion of this particular story. Simone has apparently worked up this huge ****ing deal about Diana losing her soul or her humanity or whatever without ever showing us the part where it actually happens, and just has Diana constantly talking about it in text boxes in a complete display of telling and not showing, which is freaking grade school writing. Similarly, she has built up D'Grth as this huge ****ing deal, the Devil Himself, the greatest evil upon multitudes of worlds...by having a bunch of characters mention it repeatedly instead of ever building up the character himself. I mean, eventually Diana defeats him by running him through with the invisible jet which, yeah okay I thought that was pretty cool...but a bunch of Teen Titans could have defeated this Ultimatest of Ultimate Evils if all it took was brute force, and not even that much brute force considering what the DCU and Diana herself is capable of mustering. Weaksauce.

Like I said last time, the portion with Nemesis, Donna, and the monkeys have instead been far more interesting than the so-called main plot, though that is hardly enough for me or anyone to be able to commend this story. I'm just glad it's over now so that we can get back to more important plots, which I am actually still looking forward to.

In the meantime, I am incredibly confused about whether or not Nemesis actually knows Diana's secret identity or not. Donna asks him what he's doing at Diana Prince's apartment, he says he thinks she's an Amazon spy, and then Donna says well okay my sister will tell you what you need to know in her own time. All the while no explanation is actually ever given to Tom as to why there would be freaking monkeys at Diana Prince's apartment and he's just like oh, okay whatever. Just what exactly is going on here?

(5.3 out of 10)
(6.6 out of 10 for the whole arc)


Blue Beetle #29
The very very good news is that Sturges seems like a very very good fit for this book, which will make this...eh, probably the first time in a good long while that DC has successfully replaced a good writer on a good series. Pfeifer "got it" for the most part, but had a finite amount of things he actually did with "it," partly due to time constraints. Sturges gets it and is doing a lot with it.

The bad news is...well, nothing, really, so far. Would it be too much to ask for you to keep it up? Please? They days of this being DC's single best comic on the stands are gone and probably won't be back for a good while, but that doesn't mean it still can't be one of the best.

(8.7 out of 10)


Booster Gold #11
Hmm. It's a fun and enjoyable issue, but nothing spectacular. I do miss some of the spectacularness that came with this series, the sense of zany and wild and adventure, but this will do for now.

And, I'm sorry, I know that Alfred with a shotgun is supposed to have become one of the iconic badass imageries of our time, but I just fail to grasp that Alfred with a shotgun should be any threat whatsoever to Booster, Michelle, or Rip. It just feels like a lame sort of cliffhanger 'cause Dixon was at a lost for one that would actually work.

(7.3 out of 10)


Nightwing #147
How much of a fan of gross is Tomasi? Well, fortunately for us all, he stops just shy of actually having half of Nightwing's face ripped off as the cover suggests. Also fortunately for us all, he's not above having Dick splatter facefirst into a swarm of bats in the stratosphere within the first two pages of this issue for...really, for no apparent reason whatsoever. He just needed to see bats exploding in someone's face.

Heh. "Not above." I make funny.

Anyway, a pretty solid story, some nice dialogue between Dick and Two-Face who I has recently recaptured my interest as a character, yes mostly due to the movie. Doesn't tie into Batman RIP very much in spite of the heading on the cover, for which I am grateful 'cause I sure as heck haven't been following that.

(7.7 out of 10)


Justice Society of America Annual #1
...Huh.

It started off really good and seemed like it was going to a real good place, and then all of a sudden it just went to an annoying place. It seemed like the story had a point, and then all of a sudden that "twist" happened, and then the story didn't seem to have a point anymore. Combined with the decompressed format of the ongoing Gog JSA story, I'm just starting to wonder if it all even has a point or if Johns is just making the plot up as he goes along. It's not that it's bad stories, but I simply don't like it when stories don't seem to have a longterm goal in mind.

(6.5 out of 10)


Supergirl #32
A great issue. Not what I expected as a story idea, and the one-shotness of it is kind of depressing because it kind of makes it seem like Puckett is just passing time until his run is done. But only kind of, because even as a one-shot story it's really remarkable and well-told, and it does fit into the greater scheme of Supergirl! vs! CANCER! that Puckett has laid out. I truly have enjoyed Supergirl! vs! CANCER! so far, and will miss it when it goes.

Up next, Empress. At last.

(8.9 out of 10)


Green Arrow and Black Canary #11
Oh for the love of ****ing **** ****. I saw it coming. I saw it coming from miles and miles away and still I must bang my head against the wall to attempt to clear away all the suck.

For those wondering, yes we get a definite answer to what the hell really was going on for this past year, and for those wondering, no, it really does not actually manage to become all that much clearer than the initial explanation of "cloud sniper." The explanation was such a cluster**** of a Xanatos Roulette of a cluster**** that it is simply not worth a fraction of the effort or panel-time here to try to know. Oh and Winick spends half this issue on a military base with a bunch of characters that he just introduced because apparently we care or something. Thinking that people care about a bunch of his ****ty one-off creations in lieu of the actual main characters of this book has been to Winick's detriment for some time, now.

But because I know you're all dying to know, who exactly is the grand grandmastermind of all this way back on that fateful cloud-sniped day?

Shado.

Wait excuse me, I meant Shado with an image-inducer pretending to be R'as-Al-Ghul hiring a bunch of random people to wait months to kill someone when they actually killed the wrong person because these expert assassins couldn't actually hit a moving target with alien technology 'cause of nerves or whatever and therefore had to kidnap the comatose wrongly-shot victim instead for some reason.

As in, the one person in all of the DCU who is THE LEAST ****ING LIKELY TO COME UP WITH A PLAN LIKE THIS.

****.

(3.9 out of 10)


Manhunter #33
And the plot rolls on. Some good action, some good dialogue, although nothing too significant occurs. Well, it turns out Kate's son is impervious to trucks, but other than that...I was just hoping for more Jaime and it doesn't look like we're gonna get any. Too bad.

(7.6 out of 10)
 
Buffy the Vampire Slayer #17
Of the awesome, there is much. This whole plot is one big ball of awesome, with every moment of Fray being a big moment of awesome.

And, no, I really don't mind Darth Willow of the future, probably because I'm probably one of the few people who had no problems whatsoever with Willow's season six shenanigans and thought it one of the highlights of the series. Now, I say I don't really mind, because there is actually some part of me that does mind. Part of it is a characterization-based complaint; I feel that we had established at the end of season 7, and even for much of the comic series, that Willow's not some kind of time bomb waiting to go off anymore. I feel that we had received a lot of closer on her journey in regards to the temptations of dark magic, and all of a sudden having this whole "WHOA THERE SHE'S GONNA GO EVIL AGAIN SOMETIME WATCH OUT" twist invalidates a lot of that. I feel that making Willow's dark side some sort of omnipresent plot bunny that could take over at any moment, mostly as some sort of shocking last page shock reveal, really marginalizes the true gravitas of her dark side. The reason that evil Willow was so good and so significant was because it was plausibly rare, and rarely plausible, a once in a lifetime thing that came about due to all the unfortunate stars aligning. It was significant. It was not "oh hey now we got a reoccuring villain to pull out now and again."

Which brings me to the other part of my reticence for this twist: it seems like a lot of this comic series has been to pull out old villains from before and really milk them for all they're worth. Now, let's be fair: not only is this a time-honored comic book tradition which every single long-running comic in existence has utilized to some degree, this wasn't even that rare back when Buffy was a TV show. Spike, Anya, Harmony, and Ethan all played this up, showing up so often as to be series regulars and even cast members eventually. But in the interest of fairness, it is incredibly notable here and any sort of story convention that is incredibly notable is really just one step shy of incredibly distracting.

Speaking of which, I almost find Melaka's exaggerated future speech distracting, but not quite. You basically understand everything she says, which is kind of amazing in its own way. The only thing that's actually distracting about it is if you've read the original Fray series way back when and their slang was very, very obviously not as extreme as it is here. I get what Joss is doing here with the "Hey it's the future" contrast, but it virtually makes these speakers sound like different characters than they were before. Virtually, but not completely. It does set up some very worth-it gags, of course, which forgives much.

(8.4 out of 10)


Angel: After the Fall #11
I'm about a hair's breadth away from dropping this book. I don't know what else to say. Ever since First Night began, the quality just ****ing plummeted, and we're sitting pretty in rock bottom right now. That I paid actual money for this issue, with its unintelligible script and horrific artwork even moreso than the unintelligible horrors of the last issue, is a shameful mark on my near-spotless record of not paying money for comics that suck ass.

This needed to be good. The plot with Gunn needed to be more than rock solid, and it wasn't. It was stilted, weird, and underwhelming. Blah blah visions blah blah something else blah evil blah. And we didn't even have any of the quirky humor that saved a lot of the prior issues. All we have is maddeningly decrepit dialogue that makes everyone sound like drugged-out asylum patients and half-finished artwork that makes them look it. And the story at this point is just fanfic. I'm sorry, it just...what the hell.

The next issue had better be Olympic gold, or I'm off. I wish I could say that I would miss the series a lot, and maybe a few months ago I would've...but now, on the grand scale of things, not that big a loss.

(3 out of 10)
 
**** all, you're like the 50th person I've seen that's said something like this. If you read the book, it's pretty clear that the spell's / baddie's whatever is going on really, is making them all have the emotions/ideas/thoughts/mannerisms of the other two in the trinity.

And compared to everything else that's going on, and how well it all works together, it seems a bit lazy. I'm enjoying it, but when all the other details are laid out so meticulously, chalking their swapped personalities up to magic doesn't work well for me.

There may be a better explanation coming, but with so many other things that need explanation, I don't want it just glossed over.
 
To be fair he has been studying one and already knew how they were doing it. The rest is perfectly in character.

Sure right before he got blasted by Pym he said something like "ah ha! I got it!" But that's it? That's how they're going to solve the big "who can you trust?" problem? Reed figured it out and can throw together some parts and whamo we have a instant gun that shows who's a skrull.

Dread brings up all the points i'm pissed about too. The issue of scale doesn't make this a "better" or "different" story than any other Skrull story. So it involves more than the Avengers and FF. So what?

This is an event. The lat page of every book should leave the reader with emotion. Something that makes the next issue a can't miss. A wow moment. Some sort of twist. A return or death. Something that makes you happy, sad, excited, or angry. Sure last page made me and i'm sure other angry with the feeling of "that's it!" Clint is mad. A street level guy that shoots arrows is mad. I like hawkeye and all but on a grand event level he isn't going to really turn the tide with his anger. Not like say, i dunno, Thor. Bendis should have ended this issue with a shot of Thor giving the Earth people some hope that things may turn their way. Oh wait...
 
I didn't have a problem with Reed's Skrull identifier. He's Reed f***ing Richards. They might as well rename him Mr. Deus Ex Machina.
 
Sure right before he got blasted by Pym he said something like "ah ha! I got it!" But that's it? That's how they're going to solve the big "who can you trust?" problem? Reed figured it out and can throw together some parts and whamo we have a instant gun that shows who's a skrull.

Dread brings up all the points i'm pissed about too. The issue of scale doesn't make this a "better" or "different" story than any other Skrull story. So it involves more than the Avengers and FF. So what?

This is an event. The lat page of every book should leave the reader with emotion. Something that makes the next issue a can't miss. A wow moment. Some sort of twist. A return or death. Something that makes you happy, sad, excited, or angry. Sure last page made me and i'm sure other angry with the feeling of "that's it!" Clint is mad. A street level guy that shoots arrows is mad. I like hawkeye and all but on a grand event level he isn't going to really turn the tide with his anger. Not like say, i dunno, Thor. Bendis should have ended this issue with a shot of Thor giving the Earth people some hope that things may turn their way. Oh wait...

Don't worry, you and Dread are both correct. gildea and Blader are two people who will defend this crap until logic and reason become nonsensical.
 
It's like clockwork--a Bendis comic is released and inevitably the Bought/Thought thread features a scathing rant from Dread followed by a rebuttal by gildea. It's almost eerie in its consistency.
 
Why are people *****ing so much about Secret Invasion and "nothing happening". Don't you guys realize that the entire 8 issues take place in about a 2-3 hour time period? Instead of it going from Day 1 to Day 23 to day 56 to day 983 of the invasion like some other events/books/stories, it goes from, essentially, minute to minute showing what everyone's doing.

That's why the heroes have been in the Savage Land for so long, that's why Sentry's been hanging out in TB mountain for so long, thats why Maria Hill was surrounded by the same group she just now took out for 3 issues. It's all taking place in such a small amount of time, and it's doing it on purpose to show you just how precise the invasion actually is. Now it's time for the heroes to kick some ass, and you guys are gonna keep *****ing about it too, arn't you?

Jesus, there's just no pleasing some of you unless it's one of your "indie" comics or one of your "I'm in this elite group of people because I pick up this comic even though it's not really that good but no one else really picks it up so I'm going to praise it to all high end when meanwhile there are much better mainstream comics out there that I'm going to senselessly bash for weeks upon weeks upon weeks." If you don't like the event, then stop picking it up. The worst thing I can imagine for one of you guys is contiuing to buy Secrect Invasion and all it's tie-ins when you hate the event and hate the tie-ins. It's like you're buying it specifically so you can come on here and ***** about it.

I guarentee you that the Skrulls never in a million years would of imagined Brand comming on board, saving Reed, crashing their ship into the Savage Land -- with Reed toating his "SKRULLCANNON" device -- and getting ready to kick some ass. For people to go "oh well the whole savage land plot was stupid and useless because all the characters on the ship were skrulls!" is just stupid. Did you really think that some of the heroes were gonna be the real heroes? I remember when the first few issues came out everyone was like "OMG THATS AWESOME I WONDER WHOS A SKRULL WHOS NOT!" now youre all "PSH IT WAS A WASTE OF TIME THEY WERE ALL SKRULLS!" It's part of the invasion. It got, essentially, the entire 'hero' force of Marvel Universe tied up for enough time it takes the Skrulls to unleash they're guys on New York.

Man, you people make me sick sometimes, I swear.
 
I agree that Secret Invasion is a huge letdown of an event. Where are the huge event worthy OMG scenes that make you really want to keep reading?

Lets compare these moments in Secret Invasion to another such event:

Secret Invasion:

*Nick Fury and his Generic Commandos save the day. (Pretty cool scene)
*A ship full of 70's heroes exit a ship and claim they are the real deal. (would have been great if it meant anything, but alas it was a waste of comic space.)
*Brand saves Reed, and he does what he always does, McGuiver a solution that isn't plausable.
*Maria Hill pulls a fast one on Skrarvis. (Arguably the biggest OMG moment in the story.

Now lets look at another event.

Annihilation:

*Galactus falls in a fight with other cosmic beings.

*Annihilus turns him into a weapon and destroys whole planets by using Galactus' feeding ability.

*Drax exits an escape pod at the last moment and stays behind to fight an ARMY by himself so the others could escape and he could finish his mission.

*Drax rips Thanos' Heart out with his bare hands.

*Drax frees the Silver Surfer and Galactus, which leads to Galactus lashing out in anger, destroying a entire galaxy.

*Ronan smashes his judgement hammer on Ravenous' face, ending a fight that started in the beginning of the series.

*After a hard battle, Nova wins the war by ripping Annihilus' guts out through his mouth.

There are more, but these are some of the more major happenings of the series. Tell me which was wins again. Annihilation shows how you do an event. :up:
 
What about the part where the Skrull team is beamed down to Earth and ready to kick ass with only the Young Avengers/Runaways being around?

What about the fact that Tony Stark is still all ****ed up thinking he's a skrull, and that for about an issue itdid seem like he was indeed a Skrull.

What about the fact that it showed that the Skrulls were indirectly responsible for pretty much everything that's happened past HoM?

Annihilation was one of the best comic events in years, so you can't really go "well this doesn't live up to annihilations standards!" because, honestly, what has recently?

The entire first issue of Secret Invasion was full of "holy ****" moments. Yet it's still not enough to please some of you.
 
I didn't say SI was the worst event done, because it's not. But it did let me down. It is doing very well in filling plot holes of previous comics, which I love, but it's missing more of the bigger moments you expect from these types of events. The Tony thing was interesting, the way she messed with his mind, but it wasn't really an OMG moment.

The Skrull attack on NY with the Young Avengers I forgot about, since that was a really cool scene. So you got me there Souless.
 
Secret Invasion:

This had moments, I'll give it that, but overall it was pretty crappy. I was extremely disappointed the cliffhanger was in no way touched this issue, so that sucked. Hill get's a pretty badass moment like the Civil War: New Avengers crossover with Iron Man, but this should have happened in issue 2 or three. Also when she "died" I have to admit I smiled.

Reed, what the hell man? I know you're the smartest man on the planet but to make a super reveal gun out of spare parts that can easily reveal all the skrulls? Yeah this just got very anti climatic quickly. If he found some serum that need to be injected or something more time and labor intensive, thereby validating all the skrull work in hiding from all detection, this would have given people the chance to reveal skrulls without making them a joke and keeping suspense. Ball dropped.

Norman's speech, while decent though lacking Norman's trademark insanity completely, wasn't awful, but should have happened a long time ago and the T-bolts should be off their asses in NY and joining the fray. Nick's secret warriors have been underwhelming so far, I would have bought the T-Bolts killing, eating and disebowling the skrulls a lot more logical then a bunch of people with little practice, varying powerlevels and no experience as a team wiping the floor with a bunch of skrulls that kicked the crap out of everyone in the iniative and the Young avengers with ease.

The end with Clint was; however, well done. Since luke cage can't make a good decision to save his life, I hope this is bendis saying clint's taking point.

The art's good and I'm not a big Yu fan but he's growing on me like a benign fungus I think.

Overall it wasn't bad, but I can't say I thought it was good either.



FF:

I know I stopped reading this after the first arc, but I couldn't contain myself, Millar's current stuff (1984 and Wolverine are pretty great, not bothering with kick ass) had me coming back for one more try. I wish I had more self control now. Yeah the baddies are from the future and that's the tie in to old man logan, but that said I don't like seeing current powerhouses get schooled just to show how badass some new guy/team is. That's crappy storytelling and ****s on the work of so many others. First Doom, and now the big guy? Please, I don't buy it, I'm not impressed and it just shows disrespect to so many storylines in the past. Millar also ties back over to Nu Earth and I can't wait for futher thinly veiled lectures about how corporations are bad, the envirnment is good and puppies are furry. Mark, pick a new cause, please, your predictions of nuclear holocausts and WWW3 didn't pan out, even Moore stopped with his end of the world senarios via Watchmen when people turned out to be less self destructive then he thought, follow that lead. For a death of the invisible woman arc, she isn't really present in this, which kinda sucks. The redeeming point is johnny. Though he's been treated as a guy wearing clown shoes, personality wise (johnny might be self absorbed, but he's not the tool Millar makes him out to be either) at least he's given the chance to shine as a super, which I think not too many people get that johnny is comparable to sue in power levels, maybe surpassing her. While he can get jobbed from time to time this is a guy that could flash fry the planet if he wanted, I'm glad he's shown as a serious threat. But that's the only real good I can find. Pretty art by hitch, but I've seen better by him. Wolverine and 1984 are just worlds better than this.




Haven't had a chance to read anything else so far but more to come.
 
What about the fact that Tony Stark is still all ****ed up thinking he's a skrull, and that for about an issue itdid seem like he was indeed a Skrull.
Yeah that got boring around the freaking third issue of the same exact thing.
What about the fact that it showed that the Skrulls were indirectly responsible for pretty much everything that's happened past HoM?
But they weren't. This is the hilarious part. They weren't responsible for anything and Bendis made big point of reminding us every single issue of Avengers that they didn't do jack. They had nothing to do with Civil War. They had nothing to do with the Hulk. They impersonated a bunch of B-listers like Blackbolt, Pym, Elektra, Jarvis, and Spider-Woman and then proceeded to perform their incredibly efficient and stealthy task of...waiting for the heroes to **** up themselves.
 
Reed's gun = Bendis' major plot device. We just had a big huge fight about how Deus Ex Machina was Bendis' number one weapon, and a million people screamed that that would never happen, and we'd all be shocked and surprised.

Which we weren't. And we aren't.
 
Sure right before he got blasted by Pym he said something like "ah ha! I got it!" But that's it? That's how they're going to solve the big "who can you trust?" problem? Reed figured it out and can throw together some parts and whamo we have a instant gun that shows who's a skrull.

Hey I think it's pretty poor story telling too, just saying reeds super science on the fly has been a common for ages.

Dread brings up all the points i'm pissed about too. The issue of scale doesn't make this a "better" or "different" story than any other Skrull story. So it involves more than the Avengers and FF. So what?

It does make it different. You could easily type "so what" to anything it's not a rebuttal.
If it's better is questionable.

This is an event. The lat page of every book should leave the reader with emotion. Something that makes the next issue a can't miss. A wow moment. Some sort of twist. A return or death. Something that makes you happy, sad, excited, or angry. Sure last page made me and i'm sure other angry with the feeling of "that's it!" Clint is mad. A street level guy that shoots arrows is mad. I like hawkeye and all but on a grand event level he isn't going to really turn the tide with his anger. Not like say, i dunno, Thor. Bendis should have ended this issue with a shot of Thor giving the Earth people some hope that things may turn their way. Oh wait...

I completely agree. Was the wrong moment to end it on.




Reed's gun = Bendis' major plot device. We just had a big huge fight about how Deus Ex Machina was Bendis' number one weapon, and a million people screamed that that would never happen, and we'd all be shocked and surprised.

Which we weren't. And we aren't.

Really, who did? T
he only debate I recall was if fury turning up was a DEM. As I recall you stood alone. Unless I'm mistaken it seems like you're quite blatantly lying about the past, poor show. Of course I could be wrong and you'll link to something showing one million perople saying that bendis would not write a DEM into this (tell you what instead of one million lets say 15). Of course you'll just ignore this as per, instead concentrating on slagging people off because of your mistaken beliefs on their opinion.

But yeah reed's gun is a DEM.

It's like clockwork--a Bendis comic is released and inevitably the Bought/Thought thread features a scathing rant from Dread followed by a rebuttal by gildea. It's almost eerie in its consistency.

See I'm not really rebuttalling (what english?) dread's opinion on SI is fair enough, I agree with a lot of it in fact. (depending on ending i'd go with b- instead of c+ but hey ho). It's just his constant personal attacks on someone he has never met and that he simply makes stuff up to justify it. Its the exact same thing as the whole whedon debacle a few months back I just don't think dread (who despite my continual harping I have lot of respect for) deserves that level of abuse hence I turn up about once a month for a bit of discussion.

Of course you're also missing doc's response to my post largely centred round telling another poster to ignore me due to being unable to "reason" to his blinkered opinion.

Part of the hype's merry go round. :)
 
Amazing Spider-Girl #23: Probably the best issue of Amazing Spider-Girl yet! Various storylines are all merging, and May is pulled in so many directions at once, both in her private and superhero life. Plus, Project: Changeling takes the forefront, and it will no longer be a secret from May by the end of this issue. 8/10

Punisher #60: I was expecting great things from this last issue, as I saw it was a Pick Of The Week by another reader; but, I found it only ok. Throughout this final Ennis story, I was excited how previous stories I loved were all coming together. You knew Frank would get away some how, working on Captain Howe's sense of doing what's right...and, you knew the eight Generals who thought of the plan to capture Frank would get theirs in the end...it's just that we don't get to see Frank's retribution, and all the "war in Iraq is just like the war in Vietnam" is forced into this story. This was a bunch of build up without much of a payoff. 7/10

Halo-Uprising #3: Did everyone else forget about this book? Thankfully, it's much, much better than the Graphic Novel that came out a couple years ago. In this issue, we discover what the "Key of Osanalan" is and the hows and whys of the Covenant looking for it. While the main star of Halo is Master Chief, it's the story of Ruwan and Myras that captures the reader's attention. This is a comic I expected little to nothing from. Usually, books and films based on video games suck pretty bad; but, Bendis actually does a pretty decent job of it. 8/10

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #42: As Marvel Adventures comics go, this one is pretty good. In it, Black Cat steals a Puma Totem from an art exhibit, hoping to augment her powers with it's supposed mystic abilities. Only problem, the exhibit is being run by the owner, who happens to be the Puma, and is being photographed by Peter Parker, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Naturally, a chase insues, and all three end up doing battle. 7/10

Marvel Adventures Hulk #14: There are things I would do if I was editor of this small world of Marvel Adventure comics. One, would be to get rid of the ridiculous monkey that Bruce Banner and Rick Jones brings with them every single issue. Two, while keeping the innocence of the stories, I would try to mature the stories up a bit, that way they pay homage to the classic stories we remember reading as kids. (Those of us who were kids in the 70's and 80's, at least.) The problem, like with this issue, is that it really insults even the youngeset reader with how utterly juvenile it is. The other problem is Peter David doesn't even research his Marvel Adventures continuity. As many of these comics tend to use the same villians, I remembered that Psycho Man already appeared in Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four. So, when he says to Bruce and Rick, "I've never had the opportunity to manipulate a human's brain waves," that's actually incorrect. 4/10

Only three more Marvel Comics left to read, Fantastic 4, Last Defenders, and Genext. Of course, after that, I still have 17 other books to read from the other comic companies.
 
So speaking about Bendis being a huge *****e in interviews I just came across this nugget:

my line and [Civil War writer] Mark’s [Millar] line is very similar: anything that isn’t preaching. Anything that isn’t Captain America looking at the camera telling you what’s wrong with you. It’s story and characters first, and subtext should be subtext. I can’t stand being preached to, and it’s not in me to do it.

Oh god that's priceless. Let me go re-read that issue of POWERS where he *****es about how people on the internet are cowards through a mouthpiece character for four ****ing pages and marvel at the sublime subtletey of Bendis' not-preachy-at-all subtextitude. Let me go read that crazy ***** ranting about ****ing MySpace in Civil War, because God knows that wasn't preachy or anything.
 
Reed "There's No Problem That Rayguns Can't Solve" Richards.
 
The Last Defenders #6: Growing up, The Defenders was one of my favorite comics. I'll never forget getting hooked on The Six-Fingered Hand story that ran through issues #94-100, or taking a trip when I was younger to the East Coast, and my mom stopping into a 7-11 and buying me Defenders Annual #1. (I read it about 20 times on that trip alone.) This miniseries, while alright, does not capture any of the former glory the book had, and the new "Last" Defenders doesn't really mesh that well, even though this series tries to tell us it's the perfect mix for the group. (She-Hulk is terribly miscast in this book!) 6/10

GeNeXt #4: This miniseries hasn't been too bad, especially when you consider it's written by Claremont, who single-handily killed the Exiles franchise as we know it. This "next generation of X-Men" relies heavily on the characters, as each issue lets us get to know this group and their dynamic with each other more and more. They should cancel New Exiles and replace it with a GeNeXt ongoing. Claremont seems better suited for it. 7/10

Fantastic Four #559: Millar is telling an interesting story, and this group of Defenders is a lot more interesting than the ones in Last Defenders...I just really hate Johnny Storm's character at times. It makes me groan when a writer tries to give him a purpose, whether it's as an actor or singer. 8/10
 

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