Hawkeye Annual #1

Hawkeye Annual #1 where the young lady Hawkeye goes to Los Angeles to find herself.  The story is a little more disjointed than the regular comic’s storyline.  The story is actually good but there are large events that happen that make no sense.  She talks to her dad and things seem normal but did dad cut the credit cards or did the villain?  Considering Kate has won all kinds of target contests and been seen with large amounts of cash I find it hard to believe she has no money available to help her when needed in this story.  It is not just that but frankly it is unclear what exactly Madam Masque wants from Kate, she could just kill Kate.  But instead Madam Masque befriends her and invites her for lunch and wants to help Kate because Kate seems to need help.  While Madam Masque is talking the revenge is sweet talk her actions are less than evil.  She even just gives up the hunt and the story moves on to the happy ending as Kate watches the sun set in the West.  So I do have to say I liked the comic and the story was good there were issues with said story including several very wide plot holes.

Hawkeye #12

Hawkeye #12 continues the trend of this comic book being excellent.  But instead of following Hawkeye we end up following his brother.  We see flash backs to when they were kids growing up and the horrible conditions of their home.  The brother gets beat up by the Bro gang a couple of times and it seems to be a theme in their life.  Good story.

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.

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.

Hawkeye #10

Hawkeye #10 was alright and slightly interesting.  But the story was simply filler and a flash back with almost no dialog.  Someone was trying to be arty or at least pad out an entire issue of a comic book without having real dialog or action.  I was disappointed.

Young Avengers #4!!

Young Avengers #4 was a mid-fight issue but at least Hawkeye and Marvel Boy show up and rather dramatically save the group from the disco.   Marvel Boy’s parents arrive and the fight goes on air born and away from the city.  Loki finally talks Wiccan into giving him his powers.  Loki appears to run away leaving the group to fight the evil parental clones. 

Hawkeye #9

Hawkeye #9 was a really really really good comic book.  The writing was spot on and flowed well.  Things are not going well for Hawkeye our hero and the cover art is being ironic because he really gets no love inside the comic.  The story is broken up into vignettes from the point of view of the Black Widow, Bobbi aka Mockingbird Hawkeye’s ex-wife, Kate not the Hawkguy and Jessica.  None of these stories go well for Hawkeye or in certain cases for the Bro gang.  The story ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and if the subject of the cliffhanger does not survive I’m going to miss him.  While entertaining I hope things get better for the star of this comic.

Age of Ultron #3!!

Age of Ultron #3 was good.  This issue moved the story along as the Heroes have finally set on a plan.  She-Hulk and Luke Cage are going to try and infiltrate Ultron’s Headquarters and try to learn something about what Ultron wants and why there are survivors.  That plan has Luke Cage “Selling” or trading She-Hulk to Ultron.  They got the idea from Hammerhead and the Owl who until killed claimed to have bought safety from Ultron by trading (selling) it Heroes.  We then cut to Chicago where we see the Red Hulk, the Taskmaster and Black Panther trying to capture part of an Ultron Unit to examine.  This gives us a chance to see the Red Hulk have a big fight trying to buy time for the others to escape, unfortunately the Black Panther dies; it appears that the Taskmaster does escape.  We then return to Luke Cage and She-Hulk whom are brought to see not Ultron but The Vision (dun dun dun… cue dramatic music).  This issue was a great improvement over issue two as something happened. 

Age of Ultron!!

Age of Ultron Book One was good.  It was better than I expected or hoped.  The art is really good thanks to Bryan Hitch, Paul Neary and Paul Mounts.  I am a bit disappointed that the story begins mid disaster or post disaster which was Ultron taking over the world or at least Manhattan.  The world is in a post-apocalyptic state with Manhattan under what appears to be a giant spaceship or building (a dome?).  The action starts with Hawkeye attacking what appears to be a drug den or at least a place with bad guys running the show.  It turns out Hawkeye is trying to save Spider-Man (we do not know which Spider-Man yet) from Hammerhead and the Owl.  During the rescue the action attracts the notice of many Ultrons whom attack the hideout even though there was a deal possibly made between Hammerhead and Ultron that kept those bad guys safe from the big and powerful Ultron.  That deal seems to fail as the Ultrons the building and such explode.  The good guys get away and reach their hideout in the crashed remains of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier where we meet more survivors.  These survivors are not happy that Hawkeye has returned and run tests on Hawkeye and Spider-Man.  They are greeted by Luke Cage and She-Hulk followed by Tony Stark (Iron Man) who runs tests on Hawkeye and Spider-Man to make sure they had not been infected with a tracker of some sort.  We then get a quick look at additional survivors Emma Frost, Wolverine, Sue Storm and finally after some more plot exposition we finally see Captain America whom we are told is devising a plan.  First off Hawkeye?  We just had an end of the world mini-series that followed Hawkeye around while the world burned under the fist of Doctor Doom and the crazy zombie plague known as the Avengers vs. the Marvel Universe.  So we have been there done that with Hawkeye and considering the number of mid power super heroes it seems like Marvel could have gone with a different character to follow.  I was entertained, when at the beginning of the book Hawkeye continues to use his trademark arrows even if he has switched to hand crossbows.   Second the good guys are waiting on the good Captain America for a plan?  Even though they have Tony Stark one of the world’s smartest people available to make plans and fix stuff.  In the end I did enjoy this comic nitpicking aside it was entertaining and a good attempt to draw in the reader.

Hawkeye #8 !!!

Hawkeye #8 is the issue with the Target colored / James Bond inspired movie comic book cover.   The art work starts entertainingly like a bad romance novel called Doomed Love but actually it is rather serious story.  I am really enjoying the new book / comic book cover and story title.  Normally something this disjointed would be annoying but somehow it works here.  If you love the old style pulp books and comics you will just love this aspect of the story (art is really telling the story here).  I have to say again this is a really good story.  The comic book covers inside this comic actually tell another story and that was surprisingly well done.  Hawkeye gets in trouble again in such an interesting manner.  I really have come to love these slice of life stories being told in the comic.  It reminds me so much of the Marvel Comics I read as a kid the kind of stories that I loved even as I was confused by them.  But looking back those were good stories, it is one of the things I love about following the low power heroes in the Marvel Universe.  You can keep Iron Man, Thor and the Hulk – these are the stories of the lowbies that make for good comic books.  The Bro gang is pissed and they are going for broke even getting the Kingpin involved which should lead to some more interesting adventures for Hawkeye.

The Young Avengers #2!!

Young Avengers #2 and we are still in setup mode.  I don’t know why the writer decided to spend all that time on introducing the other characters if we are going to just be following these two around.  Though we do get to see this world’s version of the Avengers (apparently) and then the young lovers are saved by Loki.  This Loki is very entertaining and not nearly as evilly chaotic as his other forms.  I especially enjoy Loki’s insistence that Wiccan do something about his possibly offensive to Pagans’ name.  The three of them decide to do something about the evil unleashed on the world, but then for some reason decide to take Loki home to Asgard where they meet Loki’s father and as Wiccan says, “isn’t he dead?”  I guess you just cannot trust Frost Giants to remain dead.  Just to make sure it is clear I did enjoy reading this comic.

Secret Avengers #1

Secret Avengers #1 was alright with a disappointing ending.  Seriously Hawkeye is getting spread around more than Spider-Man at this point it is just stupid.  Not to mention the Black Widow while popular does she need to be in another comic?  Then there is the memory editor first Wolverine loses his memory if you look at him funny.  Marvel Comics and its writers really need to find something besides memory loss to create drama in a Comic Book.  Nick Fury is fine, this is his job he kills people and does the super spy James Bond thing.  But Phil Coulson I thought he was dead?  I guess Marvel / Disney realized he was the more popular character from the Avengers movie.  The actual story was just a bit disjointed apparently because of the memory editor thing.  The start of the comic was a classic Hawkeye story with Hawkeye in a bad way only to be saved by another Hero.  The bad guy was interesting and I was amused how he did not believe Hawkeye was telling the truth.  The whole story could have been a great stand up part for Hawkeye but in the end he was not a hero but just a pawn of greater planning.  This is why in the end I did not like the comic.  I’m hoping that an Avenger comic would be more than the heroes have no idea what they are doing because that never ends well.

Hawkeye #6

Hawkeye #6 or Six Nights in the Life of Hawkeye was good, a bit nourish and like many stories in this series told out of order.  While I normally complain about the art at least in the fight with A.I.M. it looked good though a bit video game like.   Hawkeye is still dealing with the Bro gang and with luck that will all work out.

Hawkeye!

Hawkeye #7 or Hurricane Sandy’s revenge was another good story.  Hawkeye just cannot seem to win for losing when trying to help people.  But both stories work out as you knew they would while showing that people are good to each other and try to help out even in disasters.  I would go into more detail but I just do not want to spoil the story at all.

Winter Soldier!

Winter Soldier #14 was alright, but the story was just stuck in the noir trap and was getting really old.  I was rather disappointed that after all the murders all the random killings, the killings of characters that were once major the bad guy does not get his just reward at the end.  The whole point up to then seemed to be this comic is different and people will die and suffer yet the bad guy lives to fight another day.  Not that Ed Brubaker has a large ego or had writers block to not fill the last page, but wow the dude has a large ego and as a buyer and reader of the comic I doubt his sincerity of loving the character he just fucked over.

Post #100!!

Marvel Universe!

Marvel Universe vs The Avengers final issue.  Well that was horrible.  As with the previous issues of this mini-series the title lied.  This had a limited number of Avengers, it was essentially a Hawkeye story, and they did not fight the Marvel Universe.  Heck they barely fought anyone with actual powers.  This was just another badly written and deceptively marketed zombie story.  It is very disappointing when such a brilliantly advertised title with so much potential is wasted.  Bleh.

Avengers Plus X-men

A+X issue #3 was not nearly as good as previous issues.  Part one was the #*#&&#$ Black Panther and Storm.  Apparently they got married at one time and this was the post-divorce all talking story.  The backup story was Hawkeye and Gambit fighting over a girl, not an original story at all.  They had to save an actress from what looked like a Murloc from World of Warcraft.  The good guys win the end.  Since both characters normally have great dialog (especially Hawkeye in his own book) but in this story the witty banter was very flat.  It just added to the disappointment in this issue of A+X.

Catching up a little

Iron Man continues to entertain with issue four.  Tony Stark after some snappy dialog with Pepper Pots goes to the Paris Catacombs in search of the remaining tech magic that will create supers.  He finds something much more evil and deals with it.  I continue to like this story.

Marvel Universe vs the Avengers while a great title lacks several things.  The most important of these is that the Avengers have yet to fight the Marvel Universe – it is just a Hawkeye told though his eyes.  It seemed to me from the previews this comic was going to more along the lines of Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe where we would actually see conflict among heroes.  But instead we get yet another bland zombie story.

Hawkeye continues to be very good and entertaining.  This is the end of a two part story line that started grim but ended up being a trick on the readers, but that is ok the comic and story was still excellent.

Fantastic Four number two was cute and entertaining, I hope that is what they were going for.  Two issues of setup and they are off seems like the setup could have been done quicker.

Comic Books!

I am going to cover four Marvel Comics here.  First up is Captain Marvel #7, this issue is an improvement over the last story line that was just a little over the top time travel silly.  Most of this issue is mostly story and character development between the current Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) and a previous Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau).  Their dialog is witty and well written.  The artwork for this issue was excellent and the underwater scenes were properly creepy.  I was happy to see the Monica Captain Marvel return as she was the first Captain Marvel I really remember from the pages of the Avengers.  I am looking forward to the next issue more than the previous story line.

Next was Hawkeye #4, this issue had a decidedly more serious turn in the story.  Though I am not sure if the writer wants Hawkeye to become the next Deadpool or Wolverine with this story, I still have issues with trying to take Hawkeye seriously as some super assassin.  I am happy with the story but will avoid a spoiler filled summary.  I still have problems with the artwork for this Comic Book.  I realize that they are going for a “style” but comics are supposed to be four colors and I would like to be able to tell the characters apart.  The cover is very different from a traditional comic and at first I thought it was a variant cover issue.

Then comes along the Indestructible Hulk!  I was somewhat dreading what was going to happen to the much misused Incredible Hulk.  Turns out that this reboot was well thought out and written, I even liked the art.  Not a fan with the Hulk’s haircut but can’t have everything.  I had enjoyed the previous attempts to make the Hulk smart or at least make Bruce Banner non-whiny.  So as I read I liked this story more and more.  (Spoilers)!

The Hulk or at least Puny Banner working with S.H.I.E.L.D. has great potential.  Quickly deploying the Hulk against security threats could be a great way to solve a problem if you do not wish to learn more of the villains after the fight. 

(End Spoilers) - So I am very interested in seeing how this comic turns out in future issues.

Then finally comes the comic Captain America #1 another in the string of Marvel Reboots.  We see that Steve Rogers comes from a broken house.  Then we jump in time for a short story.  Then we get the main story that has Captain jump dimensions.  This comic is weak; the story is stupid so far.  The artwork is good.   Disappointed and not looking forward to what is going to happen next.