TheCorpulent1
SHAZAM!
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2001
- Messages
- 154,474
- Reaction score
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- Points
- 31
Captain America: Reborn was lovely. To all those people bellyaching about how Cap wasn't really dead, I respond thus: 1) He totally was, read the issue, and 2) who gives a f***? Did anyone honestly think that a resurrection story would be perfectly sensible or logical in any way? They are, by their very nature, weird and awkward propositions that invariably require a heaping helping of suspension of disbelief. Just go with it.
Now, once you can get past the strangeness of how Cap 'survived,' the rest of the issue is pretty damned good. I'm looking forward to how the "unstuck in time" thing plays out for Steve. I hope we get to learn a bit more about his life pre-Super-Soldier Serum. That's an area we know precious little about, and the tiny hint of it we saw in this issue with his mother's death is something I'd definitely like to see more of (that sounds kind of bad but you know what I mean).
Also, PYM! And the Vision 2.0! I love that Sharon and the Falcon go to the Avengers for help. Between Bucky, the Falcon, Sharon, Nick Fury, the Black Widow, and occasionally Iron Man, Brubaker's Captain America has one of the best casts in comics right now, and Brubaker uses them to great effect. Secret Warriors made me kind of ambivalent about Nick Fury before, but I love him again after only a couple panels here. Oh, and I wonder how Sin's deal from the prologue will fit into this. I hope she appears later.
The art looks good. Hitch seems to have dropped the awkwardness of his early FF work. I wonder how much time he had to work on Reborn.
War of Kings is getting much more personal in these last couple issues. Gladiator's cleaning up the Shi'ar Empire one corrupted corpse at a time in the wake of Lilandra's murder and we've finally got the setup for our big showdown between Black Bolt and Vulcan next issue. I honestly can't say who I'd prefer to win. Both are being utter *****ebags in this war. Personally, I'd prefer to see BB and Vulcan murder each other, Medusa become a brain-futzed wreck after her hubby dies, Crystal and Ronan ascend to the Kree/Inhuman throne, and Admiral Ka'ardum take over the Shi'ar Empire as an interim ruler, at least. I've really grown to like Ka'ardum over the past couple issues. Not a ton of spine but he's sensible.
Anyway, Pelletier's art is gorgeous (although he draws Gorgon a little less fearsome than I'd expect) and I can't wait for the last issue. I'm looking forward to what the status quo will be for the space books moving forward and what new series may or may not arise from War of Kings like Nova and GotG did from the Annihilations as much as I am the actual conclusion of WoK.
Green Lantern Corps was pretty spifftastic. Guy and Kyle get some choice moments, Kilowog pulls the Corps together like no one else can, and the march to Blackest Night continues. The Daxam story feels a bit unfinished, but given that it was easily the weakest subplot filled with the characters I care least about in this arc, I don't really mind. The showdown between the Guardians/Alpha Lanterns and Kyle and Guy was excellent. Kyle I expected, but seeing Guy be a moral whistleblower on the entire Corps was kind of weird. Makes sense, though. He's a principled guy under all the bluster.
The Guardians really need to get offed and take the Alpha Lanterns with 'em at this point, though. I can't stand the lot of 'em. I'm sure Blackest Night's resolution will involve a restructuring of the GLC to embrace emotion rather than misguidedly shutting it out at all costs, but it's such an obvious principle that it's kind of tiresome to see it hashed out for this long. I got bored of it over the course of two hours when I watched Equilibrium, let alone the months we've already dealt with it in the Green Lantern comics and the months more to go through Blackest Night.
Agents of Atlas features both the blossoming and the end of Namor and Namora's relationship this week. From wedding bells to angst in under an issue. Crazy. I'm still not entirely certain why they split up. I mean, so what if their courtship was orchestrated by a shadow organization of Atlantean elders? Like Venus said, if they dig each other, who cares about all the other stuff? Oh well, I'm sure it'll mean more interesting things for Namora going forward. Pining over Namor seems to be all she's done lately.
The backup story with Mr. Lao's history was great, too. More organizations ought to have warrior scholars. I like that Atlas' founding has some ties to mysticism, too. Djinn are always fun and it's not often we see the Ancient One when he's still alive. My favorite part of the issue, however, was the smallest part: the subplot with Derek Khanata being recruited for the Atlas Foundation. I can't wait to see what his position is. He was a good character who I was sad to lose after the mini-series. Glad he'll be coming back. Oh, and the art on both stories is fantastic. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more of Hardman on AoA.
Ah, Exiles finally feels like Exiles again. This issue would've felt comfortable in Winick's run, which is high praise given how far astray of that early greatness the series drifted over the years. Plus, there's an air of levity to all of the characters that brightens the book up in the way only Morph could manage before. That's something I've been realizing over the past few months--I can't stand humorless characters. My favorite comics tend to be the ones with wry observation or witty rejoinders mixed into the action, like iHerc, GotG, etc., and now Exiles has that in spades, along with a back-to-basics approach to the premise that I appreciate. The Exiles were built on a very strong premise: explore alternate realities by having a small team of regular cast members attempt to "fix" problems in them. There was never a need to overcomplicate it with all the junk they added in later.
So, anyway, this series is getting back to that under Parker and I love it. We finally get confirmation that Blink is indeed still the same Blink we knew and I assume others loved (since I've always been indifferent to Blink, myself) because she compares the current machine-centric world to a previous Exiles team's jaunt through a Phalanx-infested world. She also has an odd exchange with the Tallus. Oh, and something unexpected happens to Polaris that I totally did not see coming. I just hope Parker gets around to revealing just what the hell is going on with all this stuff soon or he might be looking at a "who is the Red Hulk?" situation (i.e. he'll drag it out too long and I'll just stop caring altogether). There's also the revelation that the three "leaders" of the machine world are pretty clearly not bad guys, even though they spend most of their time in the issue beating the Exiles into submission.
Lastly, the interior art continues to be good and the cover art continues to not be good.
Secret Six: Come with me, dear friends, and imagine for a time a world both strange and wondrous where, for one goddamned arc, the Secret Six don't all turn on each other and fight. What a magical world that would be... Anyway, the issue's decent. I like the banshee chick (whose name I keep forgetting) more each issue. I hope Simone didn't really just kill Artemis, though. I was looking forward to seeing her rejoin the Amazons in Wonder Woman's comic. She's one of my favorites.
Now, once you can get past the strangeness of how Cap 'survived,' the rest of the issue is pretty damned good. I'm looking forward to how the "unstuck in time" thing plays out for Steve. I hope we get to learn a bit more about his life pre-Super-Soldier Serum. That's an area we know precious little about, and the tiny hint of it we saw in this issue with his mother's death is something I'd definitely like to see more of (that sounds kind of bad but you know what I mean).
Also, PYM! And the Vision 2.0! I love that Sharon and the Falcon go to the Avengers for help. Between Bucky, the Falcon, Sharon, Nick Fury, the Black Widow, and occasionally Iron Man, Brubaker's Captain America has one of the best casts in comics right now, and Brubaker uses them to great effect. Secret Warriors made me kind of ambivalent about Nick Fury before, but I love him again after only a couple panels here. Oh, and I wonder how Sin's deal from the prologue will fit into this. I hope she appears later.
The art looks good. Hitch seems to have dropped the awkwardness of his early FF work. I wonder how much time he had to work on Reborn.
War of Kings is getting much more personal in these last couple issues. Gladiator's cleaning up the Shi'ar Empire one corrupted corpse at a time in the wake of Lilandra's murder and we've finally got the setup for our big showdown between Black Bolt and Vulcan next issue. I honestly can't say who I'd prefer to win. Both are being utter *****ebags in this war. Personally, I'd prefer to see BB and Vulcan murder each other, Medusa become a brain-futzed wreck after her hubby dies, Crystal and Ronan ascend to the Kree/Inhuman throne, and Admiral Ka'ardum take over the Shi'ar Empire as an interim ruler, at least. I've really grown to like Ka'ardum over the past couple issues. Not a ton of spine but he's sensible.
Anyway, Pelletier's art is gorgeous (although he draws Gorgon a little less fearsome than I'd expect) and I can't wait for the last issue. I'm looking forward to what the status quo will be for the space books moving forward and what new series may or may not arise from War of Kings like Nova and GotG did from the Annihilations as much as I am the actual conclusion of WoK.
Green Lantern Corps was pretty spifftastic. Guy and Kyle get some choice moments, Kilowog pulls the Corps together like no one else can, and the march to Blackest Night continues. The Daxam story feels a bit unfinished, but given that it was easily the weakest subplot filled with the characters I care least about in this arc, I don't really mind. The showdown between the Guardians/Alpha Lanterns and Kyle and Guy was excellent. Kyle I expected, but seeing Guy be a moral whistleblower on the entire Corps was kind of weird. Makes sense, though. He's a principled guy under all the bluster.
The Guardians really need to get offed and take the Alpha Lanterns with 'em at this point, though. I can't stand the lot of 'em. I'm sure Blackest Night's resolution will involve a restructuring of the GLC to embrace emotion rather than misguidedly shutting it out at all costs, but it's such an obvious principle that it's kind of tiresome to see it hashed out for this long. I got bored of it over the course of two hours when I watched Equilibrium, let alone the months we've already dealt with it in the Green Lantern comics and the months more to go through Blackest Night.
Agents of Atlas features both the blossoming and the end of Namor and Namora's relationship this week. From wedding bells to angst in under an issue. Crazy. I'm still not entirely certain why they split up. I mean, so what if their courtship was orchestrated by a shadow organization of Atlantean elders? Like Venus said, if they dig each other, who cares about all the other stuff? Oh well, I'm sure it'll mean more interesting things for Namora going forward. Pining over Namor seems to be all she's done lately.
The backup story with Mr. Lao's history was great, too. More organizations ought to have warrior scholars. I like that Atlas' founding has some ties to mysticism, too. Djinn are always fun and it's not often we see the Ancient One when he's still alive. My favorite part of the issue, however, was the smallest part: the subplot with Derek Khanata being recruited for the Atlas Foundation. I can't wait to see what his position is. He was a good character who I was sad to lose after the mini-series. Glad he'll be coming back. Oh, and the art on both stories is fantastic. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more of Hardman on AoA.
Ah, Exiles finally feels like Exiles again. This issue would've felt comfortable in Winick's run, which is high praise given how far astray of that early greatness the series drifted over the years. Plus, there's an air of levity to all of the characters that brightens the book up in the way only Morph could manage before. That's something I've been realizing over the past few months--I can't stand humorless characters. My favorite comics tend to be the ones with wry observation or witty rejoinders mixed into the action, like iHerc, GotG, etc., and now Exiles has that in spades, along with a back-to-basics approach to the premise that I appreciate. The Exiles were built on a very strong premise: explore alternate realities by having a small team of regular cast members attempt to "fix" problems in them. There was never a need to overcomplicate it with all the junk they added in later.
So, anyway, this series is getting back to that under Parker and I love it. We finally get confirmation that Blink is indeed still the same Blink we knew and I assume others loved (since I've always been indifferent to Blink, myself) because she compares the current machine-centric world to a previous Exiles team's jaunt through a Phalanx-infested world. She also has an odd exchange with the Tallus. Oh, and something unexpected happens to Polaris that I totally did not see coming. I just hope Parker gets around to revealing just what the hell is going on with all this stuff soon or he might be looking at a "who is the Red Hulk?" situation (i.e. he'll drag it out too long and I'll just stop caring altogether). There's also the revelation that the three "leaders" of the machine world are pretty clearly not bad guys, even though they spend most of their time in the issue beating the Exiles into submission.
Lastly, the interior art continues to be good and the cover art continues to not be good.
Secret Six: Come with me, dear friends, and imagine for a time a world both strange and wondrous where, for one goddamned arc, the Secret Six don't all turn on each other and fight. What a magical world that would be... Anyway, the issue's decent. I like the banshee chick (whose name I keep forgetting) more each issue. I hope Simone didn't really just kill Artemis, though. I was looking forward to seeing her rejoin the Amazons in Wonder Woman's comic. She's one of my favorites.
