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Comments
I don't mind the rainbow corps silliness, since it expands the scope of the Green Lanterns, but I do wish they'd actually explore the ideas behind them rather than making them set pieces.
Haven't done this in awhile.
Hawkeye 6: It’s Christmas-time and Hawkeye is reaping what he sowed! Picking up from what happened in the first issue, Hawkeye has to deal with pissing off a good deal of mobsters. What’s been true of this comic before is true now. Hawkeye seems to work best as a down-on-his luck shlub rather than as a part of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
Captain Marvel 8: This is the first issue I’ve read since the first that really captured me. It’s not particularly great, but it does have Captain Marvel beating the crap out of giant robot and in the end, isn’t that was Christmas is all about?
Sword of Sorcery 3: The other day I was complaining that too much fantasy these days is too much about people sitting around tables talking about their detailed world and having political talks rather than sword fighting orcs and shooting lightning from your hands. Well guess what my big problem with this comic is? Don’t get me wrong: It’s well-written and ends on a good cliffhanger, but the only action scene is a training session and there’s just too much sitting around talking about doing things rather than actually doing them. The back-up about post-apocalyptic cyberpunk Beowulf is still awesome though.
Wonder Woman 15: For a story about the female scion of Zeus combating the new gods, I should enjoy this a lot more.
Avengers 2: I’m reasonably certain people who go into this comic hoping for it to be like the movie are going to be disappointed. There’s some funny banter and character moments, but this comic is mostly about the big ideas and moves at a break-neck pace. Hickman seems to want to differentiate his run from Bendis as much as possible and I consider that a good thing. It’s big idea stuff and the art is beautiful. This book is a must-read.
Captain America 2: Spreaking of different runs, hoo boy. This weird sci-fi action adventure could not be more different from Brubaker’s super spy-style run on Captain America, with the good Captain trapped on an alien world with genetically engineered hate-monsters. The art by JRJR is great of course and it’s just overall load of superhero fun.
Angel & Faith 17: Angel & Faith is the best comic that’s leaving the least impression on me. There’s nothing technically wrong with this comic. Characters arcs are arcing, stuff is happening, and people are getting punched. On the whole though, I’m finding myself underwhelmed by this plot especially since the very beginning fake-out was pretty obvious to predict. After the insanity of the Quor’toth arc this feels like the wrong kind of step down.
Thor, God of Thunder 3: If you’re not reading this comic you’re cheating yourself. I mean it. This is a great comic about Thor looking at the ideas of religion and their mutability and how they can be prone to death. Of course, he also does that while going to a cosmic overgod city and slamming things in the face with a hammer so we all win.
Saga 8: Sage is on the other end of the fantasy spectrum where it’s more about the set pieces and characters than it is about the politics and intimate world-building and I much prefer the latter method for my fantasy. These are fascinating characters, brought to life from Fiona Staples’ fantastic art.
Hellblazer 298: This final arc is about death appropriately enough. It seems to be a pretty good send-off, and the idea of a mundane thing taking Constantine after everything he’s done is perfectly in line with the comic’s themes.
Dammit John. We’re going to miss you.
Honestly, Avengers 1 and 2 have just reminded me why I love comics so damn much. Mad space gods, assembling a communal machine of hope, poor Peter jokes? Hell yes.
So, haven't been keeping up with comics as much as I want to, but I heard about Spider-Man 700 and wanted to ask people if it's as stupid in the book as it sounds in a summary.
I'll tell you tomorrow provided the weather allows me to get to the comic shop.
I've read the leak: It's obviously polarizing but...you know it's well written, there's more to come (and given whathappens in Avenging Spider-Man 15.1 this isn't what people think) and it's not gonna be permanent obviously. I'd give it a chance.
It was set up and explained well enough and there was some great pacing and emotion and set pieces to it. And yeah obviously Spock isn't permanent and given that Spider-man comes out twice a month + Avenging, we have roughly 36 issues to explore the premise within a single year.
Roughly the same amount of time we had Dick as Batman and Bucky as Captain America.
If nothing else, the backup with Peter Parker from the future relaying the story of his adventures and life to his grandson is legit one of the saddest things I've ever seen.
(My personal theory is that Peter and Otto are gonna share that body, taking turns (usually when it's an issue for both of them) to control it. Because at the end of Avenging, Otto flat out calls himself "Peter Parker")
Amazing Spider-man 700: Well damn. That was actually pretty good. I’m still skeptical of this new era of Spider-man, but this is a pretty great send-off for Peter Parker, giving him a final triumph in instilling his morals into Otto and making him a better person. The backup didn’t leave as much of an impression on me, feeling more like a poor man’s Neil Gaiman, but it’s charming enough. It’s not the ending I want, but I guess there could never be a satisfactory ending for the wallcrawler.
Avenging Spider-man 15.1: As an introduction to Spider-Ock I found this pretty underwhelming. I like the idea of Doc Ock slowly beginning to understand why Spider-man’s morality and kindness were strong points, but on the whole there’s not a lot interesting going on here, besides hinting at the character development coming. And ye gods that costume.
The goggles and the new color scheme are cool enough. The claws and the weird shoes are just silly looking though.
Also, declaration - All further discussions about Spider-Ock shall be shortened to Spock.
The goggles are fine, but those stupid claw-talon things.
Man if I didn't know any better, I'd think he switched bodies with Adrian Toomes.
Gah, getting caught up with all the comics I was following before getting my job is going to be expensive T_T
So, caught up on Batman and grabbed Superior Spider-Man #1 just to check it out. Seems all right, actually, and makes it pretty clear that yes, this is actually just a story arc disguising itself as a new status quo in order to sell more copies.
Was Batman as fuckawesome for you as it was for me
Yes.
good
goooooooooood
But yeah, it's nuts. I could've sworn I was tired of the Joker and then boom! Death of the Family happens and I'm suddenly really liking him again.
Um...hadn't he been MIA for a year before that, or did I miss something?
Anyway, I caught up on Animal Man, Swamp Thing, and read Ends of the Earth. All three were good, though the Swamp Thing Annual continues the tradition of all side-issues in that series being entirely unnecessary retcons.
Well, I was tired of him from way before that, let's just say.
I think it's adorable each time a DC Character says "Joker was gone for a year". AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAH. No, no he wasn't. It was a year's worth of comics, but we all know that's not been a year worth of story line. It just hasn't.
Especially funny given that the entire history of the DCU before that happened in, what, five years? And then 12 issues per series of new content took an entire year.
Okay, caught up on Demon Knights. That was pretty awesome.
So...next issue, a time skip, new story arc, new writer. Hm. Anyone familiar with Venditti's work?
It does seem to make sense within the stuff that Scott Snyder is doing for a year to have passed. When you weight it against the whole DCU, though, then yeah, it's dumb.
Basically, every single time DC say something about continuity or time flow, I ignore them. Less so with Marvel, but still sometimes.
Time passage in comics is something you just need to ignore and accept that these characters are for all intents and purpose caught in a fixed timepoint. Because I don't care how many retcons you do Spider-man has been around for half a century and Batman for longer than that.
It'd be nice if the Big Two realized that.
In any case, Superior Spider-man thoughts tomorrow.
So, read the Ends of the Earth epilogue, as well as the Lizard arc. This is a dark period for Peter, but both were good stories. This is actually the first I've seen of The Lizard, because I haven't seen the movie yet.
Anyway...
BULLSHIT.
It's the size of like three normal issues though.
Ah.
Still.
Is it good?
That's Alpha's arc, IIRC. I'd say that's pretty skippable.