MARVELAstonishing X-Men #29 - Warren Ellis & Simone Bianchi. I apologize, but I'm going to have to break out the internet cliche WTF for this issue. The previous issue came out January 21st. It took three months of waiting to get an issue that would have been skipped by a writer that wasn't being a wasteful jackass. On the last page of issue #28 it was revealed that Forge was somehow involved with creating the super-humans the X-Men found in China. This issue, this entire issue, consisted of them verifying that Forge was, indeed, well and truly, involved in the creation of the super humans through the course of drawn out interrogations and a lot of unnecessary and highly uninteresting dialog. This was a waste of $2.99. The entire issue could have been summed up in a line or two of dialog. They could have gone from the end of issue #28 finding out about Forge to, ta-da, meeting with Forge with someone saying, "Hey, Forge, we found some guys that said you created them. What's up with that?" Warren Ellis has demonstrated an ability to craft satisfying single issues that move an overall plot along in series such as
Transmetropolitan and
Planetary. He can do it, but he's not. It's either editorial direction ("Hey, Warren, drag it out as long as freakin' possible. People liked it when Joss did it, so why change?"), or Warren only has one or two story ideas for the X-Men so he figures he'll just drag them out for two years. That's easier than, say, putting some work into it.
Lazy bastard.
Avengers: The Initiative #23 - Christos N Gage & Humberto Ramos. The finale to the Initiative's Disassembled storyline leaves the camp a mess, lies revealed, and the black ops team cut off behind enemy lines as Norman Osborn shuts the Hammond Training Program down.
Daredevil #118 - Brubaker & Lark. DD's deal with the Kingpin is the final piece to drive a substantial wedge between Matt and Foggy.
Ghost Rider #34 - Jason Aaron & Tony Moore. After the war in Heaven, Daniel Ketch finds himself yet again cursed to transform into the Ghost Rider, the Spirit of Vengeance, when innocents are in danger. Like when the redneck trucker from Hell shows up.
Guardians of the Galaxy #13 - Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning & Brad Walker. The Guardians team up with the Starjammers to try to talk sense into Emperor Vulcan and King Black Bolt. Admittedly, the chances are slim, but they've got to give it a try because the fabric of reality, already damaged by the Annihilation Wave, could be rent apart with a full scale galactic confrontation. And that's the kind of scale the Guardians work on.
Hulk #11 - Jeph Loeb & Ed McGuinness. Sure, this issue had one of my favorites of the
Wolverine Art Appreciation covers, but I seriously feel ripped off paying $3.99 for this. That's right, Marvel has jumped a number of on-going series up a full dollar. It's not just the craptacular writing that makes me feel ripped off, but the fact that there are so few panels of art. For reference, a 22 page comic with, say, an average of four panels per page (a skimpy average as it is, in my book) would net 88 panels. This had 49 panels of story. Lame. Next issue is the last of the Defenders storyline, and it will be my last issue. Hell, I'm considering not picking it up since this has been so weak so far.
Immortal Iron Fist #25 - Swierczynski & Foreman/Doe. The tournament in the Eight City continues, and the series remains just as strong.
Incredible Hercules #128 - Greg Pak/Fred Van Lente & Dietrich Smith. Hercules versus the Dark Avengers. Still incredible.
Marvels: Eye of the Camera #5 of 6 - Kurt Busiek/Roger Stern & Jay Anacleto. The sequel to
Marvels winds down while demonstrating great ties to Marvel history as well as to the previous series.
Mighty Avengers #24 - Dan Slott & Rafa Sandoval. Not the best example of Slott's writing. The writing treats Loki like her manipulations are as brilliantly subtle as she believes they are, but it's as heavy-handed as anything written by Stan Lee. (Yes, Loki is a she now. What, you never heard of a transexual god?)
New Avengers #52 - Brian Michael Bendis & Billy Tan/Chris Bachalo. As I said last time, I'm finally seeing good in New Avengers again. That hasn't happened since before
Civil War.
Skrull Kill Krew #1 of 5 - Adam Felber & Mark Robinson. The never-thought-it-would-happen sequel to the Grant Morrison/Mark Millar/Steve Yeowell series of the 90s is both humorous and ultraviolent. So far, it's already beaten the original in both qualities.
Thor #601 - J.M. Straczynski & Marko Djurdjevic. Thor tries to deal with being excommunicated from Asgard, while the Asgardians look to move out of Oklahoma.
Wolverine: The Anniversary one-shot - This one-shot features two darkly stylistic tales that have to do with remembering the death of Mariko. The first, by William Harms & Jefte Palo, has art that reminds me of Jae Lee's early work, and a story that reminds me of a Wesley Snipes film - Logan has to take out some terrorists that have hijacked the plane he's riding to Japan. The second story is a short, violent dream written by Jonathan Maberry and wonderfully illustrated by Tomm Coker.
Wolverine: First Class #14 - Peter David & Roan Cliquet. Wolverine and Elektra battle the Hand, while Daredevil lends a helping, uh, hand. It's good, as Peter David always is, but I have to admit to missing Fred Van Lente on this title.
Wolverine: Weapon X Files - A one-shot full of files on various Wolverine and Weapon X related folks.
X-Force #14 - Kyle/Yost & Crain. Another comic I can't read right away, I missed
Cable #13 which occurred between the
X-Force/Cable: Messiah War Prologue and this issue. To make matters more annoying,
Cable #13 is sold out. Fantastic! I think that's all I feel safe saying right now because I'm still pretty miffed.
X-Men: Times & Life of Lucas Bishop #3 of 3 - Duane Swierczynski & Larry Stroman. We still haven't learned exactly what Hope did in Bishop's past (our future) but at least this tied things back to Bishop's already revealed history. Not a great miniseries, as the way it is told is so straightforwardly boring, but it was at least informative in offering more background for Bishop.
DCPicked up
Green Lantern Corps #34, which I missed the first time around, then read it and last week's
GLC #35 back-to-back. Have I mentioned how great this series is? This series is great. Really great. Stories, art, pacing, main and sub-plots, everything works together wonderfully. Peter J Tomasi and Patrick Gleason are doing a stellar job.
DEL RAY MANGA/BALLANTINE BOOKSWolverine: Prodigal Son #1 - Anthony Johnston & Wilson Tortosa. This isn't Wolverine in manga form, this is a re-imagining of the basics of Wolverine into a Japanese style story. He's still a violent loner with healing powers, claws, and amnesia that finds himself working with students and teachers, but, as is appropriate for the Japanese manga tropes, he's a teenaged student himself at a Martial Arts School in Canada. (At least he's still Canadian.) The world seems to be one without super-heroes or a general knowledge of mutants, which serves to make Logan even more of an outcast.
While the art displays the action wonderfully, the writing pulls a lot from the general tone and plots of various manga. I enjoyed it, but I still haven't decided if I'm going to pick up the next one. So far, they did such a good job of turning Wolverine into a manga that the story offers little to no surprise because everything is taken from the lessons of Japanese action manga 101, so much so that many points elicit an, "Of course," response. Of course the only student that does a decent job of standing up against Logan in the fight training is not only a girl, and not only a girl he has feelings for, but is also the daughter of the sensei. Of course the student he beat and humilated when he first arrived at the school would return later to exact his revenge upon everyone. Of course there's a secret organization out hunting him down to use him as a weapon. Of course, of course, of course...