A + X #8

A + X #8 stars in story one is Spider-Woman and Shadowcat (Kitty Pride) and Lockheed the dragon.  Story two has Deadpool and Hawkeye and I kind of cringe considering both these guys are wisecracking heroes.  So when Spider-Woman texts the Lockheed Dragon to go on a mission with Kitty Pride the are searching for a meteorite of an unknown metal that has been stolen and about to be sold to bad guys.  Apparently Lockheed can smell the metal and they know this because he helped Spider-Woman in outer space once.  Somehow Kitty Pride does not know this story.   There is some amusing running commentary from a civilian in the subway car with the three heroes and Spider-Woman and Shadowcat talk about all this secret S.W.O.R.D / S.H.I.E.L.D stuff knowing that no one would believe the crazy homeless guy – even though he sounds perfectly sane at the moment.  The dragon catches the meteorites sent and the next thing you see is a huge splash page of the Absorbing man fighting a mob of AIM and Hydra agents.  At this point I went from so far so good to oh wow cool.  During this fight they use their real names in front of the bad guys!  Through some very clever dialog Kitty fights and defeats the Absorbing Man singlehandedly.  The AIM and Hydra guys surrender, the meteorite is recovered.  I have to say once again that the dialog in the A + X comics can be really clever and entertaining.  It is fun to have super heroes be smart once in a while.  The Deadpool / Hawkeye story will need to be amazing to beat that story.  The second story is Deadpool and Hawkeye, Hawkeye is driving a car through Grand Central station and down some subway tracks.  Deadpool appears to be more worried than the Hawkguy about them making it to the bad guys alive.  They of course make it to the bad guys in one piece and the fight against pirates begins.  Deadpool decides to also fight with a bow and arrow with of course hilarious results.  They win after even more cleverer arrow shooting.  While entertaining this story just cannot compare to the first.

Uncanny Avengers #8AU (Age of Ultron)

Uncanny Avengers #8AU (Age of Ultron) was a good story; unfortunately it was another Ultron story that happened without Ultron in another timeline that will most likely disappear. The least that could have happened in this story is to have seen at least one Ultron. Upon seeing this cover I was really hoping that Kang would do something interesting. Instead this story appears to just be filler and a training mission for Kang’s adopted children to hunt down and kill someone. But they are sent to kill Colonel America who just happens to be trying to bring Caliban of the Morlocks in to face trial for murder. But Havok, Rogue, Calisto argue with the Colonel until Kang’s kids attack. Lots of Morlocks die, Havok dies, Rogue dies all while there is a philosophical debate about the future of mutant kind. Frankly this story was even more pointless and meaningless than the main Age of Ultron story in this timeline. This is just another tie in for no useful reason as it has nothing to do with the main Ultron storyline or the Uncanny Avengers storyline – the Uncanny Avengers is a comic so bad I have stopped obtaining copies even to review. Bleh.

Deadpool #10!

Deadpool #10 was rather amusing; but first the sad part with the Necromancer and Ben Franklin leaving the group because they could.  The next guy Deadpool is to kill turns out to be some guy also being chased by Spider-Man.  So of course we get a bunch of Spider-Man’s second rate villains to fight.  There is a big fight with the Taskmaster, Lady Stilt Man (is that really her name?), Paste Pot Pete and the Leaper.  With a team like that you know they are going down quick.  There were some good jokes in this issue and I was amused when Deadpool manages to steal a web shooter.   This comic reminded me how much I dislike the “New Superior Spider-Man” just such a terrible character and insult to Spider-Man fans everywhere.  But despite that problem this was a good comic none the less.

The Fearless Defenders #4AU (Age of Ultron)!!

The Fearless Defenders #4AU (Age of Ultron) was interesting.  Unlike the other comics based in this alternative timeline the creative team did something interesting with the setting.  The story is based on Hippolyta getting revenge on the person who killed her and her people the Amazons.  We get to see Latveria in this timeline and it is interesting.  I especially liked seeing the Destroyer (the Asgardian super weapon) laid out dead across part of the capitol.  The story goes that for some reason Doom has been holding gladiatorial games since the end of the magic technology war.  It turns out this was a distraction as the real power behind the thrown was Aries God of War.  Lots of interesting otherworld stuff happens and the good god wins and rallies her Amazons to fight.  Though I don’t know what will become of this since these issues tend to be one shot stories.  I am starting to think this Age of Ultron minus Pym is going to be the next world / timeline that will dump characters onto the main marvel timeline.  Oh I should mention that Wolverine, the Hulk and Colonel America have interesting Cameos along with other characters from the regular Defenders story line.  So I give this comic a good rating.

Fantastic Four #8

Fantastic Four #8 was interesting.  Because Instead of returning to see his loved ones; during his day (for some reason the others kept saying week) of being human.  Ben Grim decides to visit the past and beat up the Yancy Street Gang who were shakedown loan shark type 1930s gangsters.  He meets some of his relatives and helps them out.  But this nice storytelling is ruined by some off stage event back on the time machine with Reid, Sue and the kids and now the Thing is in trouble.  Mind you he is not in trouble for going to beat up people in the past but for something else he might have done while attending college.

Young Avengers #5!!

Young Avengers #5 was good.  Loki feels guilty for abandoning the other young supers and in the end returns to the battle.  After displaying some cool looking magic allowing the good guys to do some smashing they escape to a deserted location to make some plans.  The plan appears to be stay away from crazy parasite mother from another dimension and become super heroes.  Then the comic ends rather dramatically as if the series was over which makes even less sense than any of the previous issues of this comic.

All Star Western #20

All Star Western #20 Featuring Jonah Hex and Booster Gold – The first story in today’s adventure is the Jonah Hex and Booster Gold story.  Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your point of view the evil gang that Hex and Booster were hunting are found dead.  Everyone is dead but the gun crazy guy who fits in the cage where they find him.  Booster in an effort to limit the body count for one day sneaks into a small town.  This is the town with the people who killed the evil outlaw gang.  The townsfolk are not good people and we first meet them when they are killing survivors of some sort.  Booster manages to get away even after being shot many many times.  The leader of the bad guys is not happy and swears he will shoot Booster himself.  This story was entertaining and had lots of clever dialog between Booster and Hex.  Booster it seems while not having all his memory is still more than a bit of a whiner.   The Stormwatch story was much better than in the previous issue but needs more space to fully develop.  They are hunting a vampire queen on the verge of taking over the world using magic (what again?).

Batman the Dark Knight #20!!

Batman the Dark Knight #20 ugh that was terrible.  The artwork was bleak and stark it would have been kind of cool and stylish but instead it just looked like a lazy artist not able to make one person look different from the other.  Then we are still dealing with the Mad Hatter unable to deal with the fact he had a bad high school.  The police and Batman are still unable to figure out where all the dead people floating in the river (or ocean or sewers) came from.  This despite Batman is able to have Alfred hack into top secret government files in just a few hours yet for some reason he can’t figure out where all the people died.  It is just so lame.  Frankly the big finally is lame I mean seriously lame and well frankly the bleak artwork foreshadowed the event that I was more disappointed that the creative team stretched out the torture and abuse of a woman so long.  The people who wrote and approved this story and artwork are just sick women hating fucks if they think this is somehow being creative or good.  They should be ashamed of themselves and I hope their parents never see this horrible evil work.  There is also the problem that there was such a long story block set up for the Mad Hatter and obviously there was not enough creative people on the team to stretch the story out this many issues and we are still not done.  Just Ick.

Batman Li'l Gotham #2

Batman Li’l Gotham #2 was much better than the previous issue.  The first story with Batman Nightwing and Mister Freeze was cute and heartwarming as a silly Christmas should be.  The second story was supposedly a New Year’s Eve Resolution / Revolution story of the three evil women of the Batman universe Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.  But frankly the story was rather week and a retread of what has gone before.  As always the artwork in this comic is lazy and sloppy looking.  At least I only have one more issue left to read.

Age of Ultron Book 8!

Age of Ultron Book 8 was a bit of a letdown.  I thought I had bought a book continuing the Age of Ultron storyline.  Instead all I found was another X-man with guest stars from a variant universe.  This was an entire issue that did nothing but introduces another timeline / universe and somehow hopes we care about character we had never seen before.  I know I said I was looking forward to the next issue but that was with the expectation that this new word and characters would advance the Ultron plot.  I was rather disappointed with the focus on Tony Stark / Iron Man ruling the future because if I wanted to read that comic book all I have to do is go buy the Civil War storyline and after.  I was hoping to see the Wolverines meet or Sue Storm meet her family, or Doctor Strange does something cool or any of the other variant heroes do something.  It is bad when one of the tie in comics is better than the core book.  This was a disappointing issue.

FF #7!

FF #7 was much better than the last few issues as in it made sense.  The entire problem the last few issues was Bentley 23’s father the Wizard.  Anyway much hilarity and confusion ensued; Leech actually got to use his powers that apparently are no longer area of effect.  I really do not have much more to say about this issue.

Iron Man #10 Secret Origin of Tony Stark

Iron Man #10 – The Secret Origin of Tony Stark Part 1 – wait last issue was labeled as part of the Secret Origin storyline.  Anyway, we do not get to see everything that Howard Stark and Recorder 451 said in their little movie.  Tony aka Iron Man does not believe it but we get a flashback where Recorder tells more of the story.  But in reality what we get is a caper job where Howard Stark plots with an alien and some human friends to steal Recorder  451 from other aliens living in Las Vegas.  The crew includes Jimmy Woo, Dum Dum Dugan and Thunderbolt Ross.  They manage to steal Recorder and make their getaway.  It all ends with another to be continued moment in the future.  This was a rather amusing and entertaining story.  I am interested to see what happens next.

Thunderbolts #9

Thunderbolts #9 was the aftermath of the bomb going boom in last issue.  We had a little retelling of the bomb from the other group of players.  The team ends up fighting a squad of Crimson Dynamos which is an interesting fight.  There is for some reason a flash to a C.I.A. outpost in Afghanistan where the agents worry for their lives because they ID people above their pay grade AKA the Thunderbolts team.  The plot continues to move along and at least this issue was less whiny.

Cable and X-Force #8!

Cable and X-Force #8 was good but I have missed some issues here and have no idea what is going on plot wise.  While confusion might not be unusual for this comic I need to try and find the missing issues to find out what is going on to give a better review.

Dynamite Comics Battlestar Galactica #1

Dynamite Comics: Battlestar Galactica #1 was really bad.  It started with a multipage recap of the first Battlestar Galactica movie.  It moved onto Adama having nightmares about the destruction of the colonies.  Then the Galactica and the fleet are attacked by the Cylons and they are losing badly.  So at the insistence of a young Doctor Zee the Galactica deploys temporal weapons.  Things go downhill from there and everything disappears.  I bought this comic because it had the true Battlestar Galactica characters and not the lame assed SciFi Channel Battlestar Galactica characters.  I figured how bad could it be and I found that really bad was possible.  Adama does not even look like either actor who has played him or the previous comic book versions.  The story set up is just stupid.  If someone cannot come up with a decent story without resorting to time travel it is truly a bad sign.  I am so very disappointed.

Avengers Assemble #15AU (Age of Ultron)!!!

Avengers Assemble #15AU (Age of Ultron) was interesting but in the end it felt more like a checklist or inventory of what happened to the super powered people in the United Kingdom – especially in London.  I enjoyed the Doctor Who reference coming from the Ultrons arguing with a civilian.  We had Captain Britain, Excalibur, the Black Knight, a second rate Hero called Computer Graham and a young lady with magic soccer shoes.   After introducing all the players the Heroes except for the Black Knight and Excalibur head off to fight Ultron.  It turns out that Computer Graham’s power is to interface with computer games and Captain Marvel and Captain Britain and the kid fight to get Graham close to Ultron.  They hope Graham’s power will help them defeat Ultron.  But they manage to only shut down an Ultron node while getting everyone killed.  It was rather a downer and while I am sure the creative group was hoping for some “triumph of the human spirit” feel, but all we really got was all the fighting heroes died.   These were the heroes that could hold off Ultron and gather not just survivors but supplies to keep the survivors alive.