TheCorpulent1
SHAZAM!
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2001
- Messages
- 154,474
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 31
The Mighty Thor: This is why I hate Fraction's comics. The nuts and bolts of his comics will generally be f***ing terrible--mischaracterizations galore here in Thor, pacing a snail would speed past in Iron Man, etc.--but the broad strokes range from good to utterly awesome. This issue has awesome in spades, as Tanarus is revealed to be the nefarious product of an Ulik/Geirrodur/Karnilla team-up, the Allmothers embrace the refugee influx from other Nine Realms and decide to restore Asgard as Asgardia, a republic of all the mythical races, Fallen Asgard is finally being rebuilt, and Thor is revealed to be heading toward the Demagorge with a bunch of other "dead" gods. Cushioning out the issue, however, is a bunch of bizarre, awkward crap like Kelda apparently being one of the crazy witches out in the desert all of a sudden, Jane Foster being with some dude named Erik (possibly Solvang, the nerd who spent Fraction's first arc bugging the Asgardians about the emptiness of the Asgard dimension), and the Silver Surfer taking a job as a line cook in Broxton. This issue is basically the definition of a mixed bag, and it's extremely frustrating because, with just a few nips here and tucks there, it could've been awesome. The same holds true for most of Fraction's run, to be honest. But as it stands, the good serves as much to highlight the bad as it does to make the series fun. Irritating.
Green Lantern: New Guardians: Man, this series has improved considerably from its tepid, slow first issue. The now tragically emotionless Ganthet turns on Kyle and, along with the other Guardians, serves him a beatdown when he finally gives in and allows all the other rings that have been chasing him to empower him. Just as quickly as Kyle becomes a freaky, purplish demigod powered by all the Corps, though, he loses that power and the other rings get destroyed, leaving him severely weakened. Salaak loses any and all respect I ever had for him by acting as the ultimate authority stooge and knocking Kyle the f*** out for rightfully rebelling after the Guardians essentially told him they wanted to keep him locked up as a lab rat to figure out what was going on with the other rings. When the Guardians try to take back Kyle's ring, however, they're stopped by the orange ring, which turns out to be Glomulus in disguise. Some more fighting occurs, but the Glomulus revelation leads more or less directly to the big cliffhanger ending: Larfleeze has arrived to claim Kyle and everything else for himself! Also, he may have been behind everything so far. Exciting! I'm greatly enjoying this series now. Enough that I'm thinking it may be all the GL action I need, since Green Lantern Corps has been kind of meh. We'll see after their respective first arcs are up, though.
Aquaman: Solid. Johns picks up the pace a little bit, thankfully. We learn some stuff about the Trench and Aquaman is pointed in the direction of their home, so by the end of the issue he and Mera have set out to find it. The continued disrespect of everyone toward Aquaman is starting to wear on me, just as I suspected it would. Aquaman does nothing but try to help and the guards get in a huff because he doesn't know what the Trench are and couldn't really do much to stop them (they retreat on their own for some reason). I was fine with the prevailing opinion of Aquaman being somewhat low, but the cops treating him like s*** here makes no sense from any objective standpoint. He and Mera did far more than anyone else to fight the Trench off, so the cops condescending to Arthur and patronizingly promising to put in a good word to the press about his helping out strikes me as very forced and arbitrary. They seem to act that way solely because that's how Johns has decided people act toward Aquaman now. Anyway, we do get a few interesting tidbits here. Aquaman apparently had a normal, all-American childhood on the surface now (which I don't like, but it's not that big a deal), he had a run-in with some slightly twisted scientist called Stephen Shin that ended badly when Arthur refused to show him Atlantis, and his trident is apparently someone else's trident--someone who Shin warns will return to reclaim it at some point. That last point has me intrigued. Aquaman works best when he's got a cool relic or otherworldly aspect, like the water hand or, in this case, a trident that's more than just a pointy stick. I'm hoping it'll belong to someone cool, like Poseidon or Neptune or maybe even Ocean Master, but it doesn't seem to have any magical powers, which you'd kind of assume those characters' personal weapons would have. Then again, maybe Arthur considers its magic mojo something of a "big gun" that he doesn't whip out unless as a last resort. Interesting wrinkle either way; looking forward to more about that.
Wolverine and the X-Men: Sweet Jeebus, this is a fantastic comic. The second issue is even better than the first. Aaron is bringing such a wonderful energy to the X-Men; it's like he too sat around reading the X-Men comics Marvel's been putting out for the past 5 to 10 years and thought, "Man, remember when X-Men comics used to be fun?" Only he then got handed the assignment of writing one of those X-Men comics and endeavored to bring the fun back. And he's succeeded in spades. It works on all levels: the big picture, with the Hellfire kids doing everything in their power to bring the school down with crazy-ass s*** like an army of flamethrower-wielding Frankenstein monsters, down to the little character moments, like Broo instantly falling in love with Idie or Quentin Quire ending the issue totally content to see the school crash and burn. Great from start to finish. I'm so glad I stopped hating on the concept of Schism and decided to try this series after all.
Green Lantern: New Guardians: Man, this series has improved considerably from its tepid, slow first issue. The now tragically emotionless Ganthet turns on Kyle and, along with the other Guardians, serves him a beatdown when he finally gives in and allows all the other rings that have been chasing him to empower him. Just as quickly as Kyle becomes a freaky, purplish demigod powered by all the Corps, though, he loses that power and the other rings get destroyed, leaving him severely weakened. Salaak loses any and all respect I ever had for him by acting as the ultimate authority stooge and knocking Kyle the f*** out for rightfully rebelling after the Guardians essentially told him they wanted to keep him locked up as a lab rat to figure out what was going on with the other rings. When the Guardians try to take back Kyle's ring, however, they're stopped by the orange ring, which turns out to be Glomulus in disguise. Some more fighting occurs, but the Glomulus revelation leads more or less directly to the big cliffhanger ending: Larfleeze has arrived to claim Kyle and everything else for himself! Also, he may have been behind everything so far. Exciting! I'm greatly enjoying this series now. Enough that I'm thinking it may be all the GL action I need, since Green Lantern Corps has been kind of meh. We'll see after their respective first arcs are up, though.
Aquaman: Solid. Johns picks up the pace a little bit, thankfully. We learn some stuff about the Trench and Aquaman is pointed in the direction of their home, so by the end of the issue he and Mera have set out to find it. The continued disrespect of everyone toward Aquaman is starting to wear on me, just as I suspected it would. Aquaman does nothing but try to help and the guards get in a huff because he doesn't know what the Trench are and couldn't really do much to stop them (they retreat on their own for some reason). I was fine with the prevailing opinion of Aquaman being somewhat low, but the cops treating him like s*** here makes no sense from any objective standpoint. He and Mera did far more than anyone else to fight the Trench off, so the cops condescending to Arthur and patronizingly promising to put in a good word to the press about his helping out strikes me as very forced and arbitrary. They seem to act that way solely because that's how Johns has decided people act toward Aquaman now. Anyway, we do get a few interesting tidbits here. Aquaman apparently had a normal, all-American childhood on the surface now (which I don't like, but it's not that big a deal), he had a run-in with some slightly twisted scientist called Stephen Shin that ended badly when Arthur refused to show him Atlantis, and his trident is apparently someone else's trident--someone who Shin warns will return to reclaim it at some point. That last point has me intrigued. Aquaman works best when he's got a cool relic or otherworldly aspect, like the water hand or, in this case, a trident that's more than just a pointy stick. I'm hoping it'll belong to someone cool, like Poseidon or Neptune or maybe even Ocean Master, but it doesn't seem to have any magical powers, which you'd kind of assume those characters' personal weapons would have. Then again, maybe Arthur considers its magic mojo something of a "big gun" that he doesn't whip out unless as a last resort. Interesting wrinkle either way; looking forward to more about that.
Wolverine and the X-Men: Sweet Jeebus, this is a fantastic comic. The second issue is even better than the first. Aaron is bringing such a wonderful energy to the X-Men; it's like he too sat around reading the X-Men comics Marvel's been putting out for the past 5 to 10 years and thought, "Man, remember when X-Men comics used to be fun?" Only he then got handed the assignment of writing one of those X-Men comics and endeavored to bring the fun back. And he's succeeded in spades. It works on all levels: the big picture, with the Hellfire kids doing everything in their power to bring the school down with crazy-ass s*** like an army of flamethrower-wielding Frankenstein monsters, down to the little character moments, like Broo instantly falling in love with Idie or Quentin Quire ending the issue totally content to see the school crash and burn. Great from start to finish. I'm so glad I stopped hating on the concept of Schism and decided to try this series after all.
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