All New X-Men 07

   All New X-Men. I'm not sure if there has ever been a less accurate title for a comic. The premise here is that after the events of AvX, Hank learned that he was dying(from another mutation or something) and out of desperation tried to fix the shitstorm Phoenix Cyclops left in his wake. So he went back to the 60s?(Marvel's sliding timeline means events keep getting shifted. Cyclops of course isn't 50+ years old.) and gathered up the original team: Cyclops, Jean, Beast, Iceman, and Angel and brought them to the present so they could talk some sense into modern day Cyclops. Once they figure out what happened, including the whole Cyclops-killing-Professor X thing, they all begin to shun 60sclops, even 60sJean. 60sclops steals Wolverine's motorcycle, as Cyclops's are known to do, and left the school.

   60sclops goes to a bank he knows he has an account at, hoping Modernclops still has one there, hoping to get some money so he can stay on the run. He ends up finding a safe deposit box loaded with cash, eyeglasses, and an invitation from his and Jean's wedding. Some of the bank staff freaks out because, you know, there's a mass murdering mutant psychopath there, so they call the cops. Wolverine shows up and flashes his Avenger's card and gets him out of there, where it's revealed that Wolverine was Mystique all along. She talks 60clops into going back and setting things right with Modernclops, while at the same time convincing him that Wolverine isn't qualified to be headmaster of the academy. She gets out of there before the real Wolverine shows up to pick up 60sclops. Meanwhile, Mystique hops into a van with someone we can't see, and tells him that her plan all along was to sow chaos within the X-Men so she can accomplish some sort of plan. When 60sclops makes it back to the school, he gives 60sJean the invitation and walks off.

    I was really scared before All New X-Men came out. Time travel bullshit? Fucking Jean Grey again? It seemed like it was impossible for it to be good. The fact that it was announced during AvX made me think that it was going to be directly related to that, which made me fear how that was going to end. But I was honestly surprised. Bendis really brought this shit together, and earned back some of that faith he had lost during Secret Invasion and Siege. This issue continues this comic's trend of surprising me, with the character interactions Bendis is known for being the strongest point. Post AvX is a great point to jump back into X-Men if you've lost track of them, and this is absolutely a recommended read.

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The Superior Spider-Man #3

   Guess I should comment on this, seeing as how it's been a pretty hot topic among comic fans. Not issue 3, exactly, but the whole thing. If you're not familiar with what happened, here's the short and stupid version (as opposed to the long and stupid version. There is no not stupid version): Doc Ock was dying, so he switch brains with Spider-Man using a brainwave doodler. Spider-Man tried to switch back, but Doc-Ock planned for that and blocked it, and then Peter in Doc Ock's body died. However, when Peter tried to switch back, Ock got a look at all of his memories, which inspired him to use his new body to continue Spider-Man's legacy, and even improve on it, becoming the "Superior Spider-Man.

   In the first issue, we found out that Peter's mind still exists as a ghost or something, and he can see everything Otto is doing in his body, and even slightly control it, such as when he made Ock pull his punch. In the second issue Octo-Peter tried to re-kindle things with Mary Jane, but after frustratingly slow progress, he decided to give up on her and use his newfound youth to find someone new. At the end of that issue The Vulture attacked MJ's nightclub, and Octo-Peter of course saved her.

   This issue deals with Octo-Peter fighting The Vulture, while Carlie Cooper begins to suspect that he may not actually be Peter. The Vulture had been employing a bunch of little Vultures, which Octo-Peter traced back to his hideout. He was prepared to offer The Vulture a huge sum of money in exchange for him giving up villainy, flashing back to a conversation they had together in The Sinister Six where he said all he wanted was money. Vulture thought this was a trap and sicked the little Vultures he'd been using on him. Peter struck one, thinking it was a midget or something, but it was revealed he'd been using children. Another flashback(there's a lot of them, Peter's ghost even ends up stuck in one for a bit) shows Otto's dad beating him, so Octo-Peter was enraged when he was tricked into striking a child. He and The Vulture ended up fighting through the city, when Octo-Peter has his first encounter with the ol' "Imma outta webbin'" problem. The Vulture had the upper hand until Octo-Peter used a blinding light he had set up to turn the tide, and crashed The Vulture into JJJ's makeshift spider-signal, severely-injuring-but-of-course-not-actually-fucking-killing The Vulture while Carlie watched. She thought this was out of character for Peter, so Octo-Peter came up with some bullshit that she may or may not have bought.

   Not a bad issue, none of them have been really. Fairly basic Spider-Man stuff. The only problem of course would be whether or not you support Octo-Peter. I know many of my friends don't. But if you can get past that, I'd say this is worth a read, if not, just wait until they inevitably return to the status quo; the way things are going, it'll probably be sooner rather than later.

Invincible #100 The Death of Everyone!

    Spoiler: Everyone doesn't die

   Ok, now that we've got that out of the way, let's get to the meat of this. As I've mentioned before, I'm  huge Kirkman fan. Up until recently, he's been the only reason I walk out of the shop with anything labeled Image in my bag. Invincible and The Walking Dead are both stellar series, and I highly recommend them to anyone who likes comics. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Invincible, well, the rest of this post isn't going to making any goddamn sense. But if you're looking for a somewhat more realistic take on superhero comics(realistic in the sense that people react to things like real people, and there are consequences for actions, because people totally fly around in space and punch through planets and shit), check it out.

     So this is it. Issue 100. Anyone remember what happened in issue 100 of The Walking Dead? Seriously, fuck Negan. Nothing that crazy happens here, so long as you make it past page 2. Because that's where Invincible dies at the hand of Dinosaurus, who in issue 98 melted the polar ice caps and flooded coastlines around the world, killing only a million people due to the intervention of every other superhero. It's quickly revealed that Dinosaurus mastered teleportation technology and "killed" a lifeless clone of Invincible he had created months prior. In reality he had escaped back to his lab with the real, unconscious, Invincible. Dinosaurus wants his help to save the world, by whatever means necessary. That's what the global flood was about, thinning the population to reduce humanity's strain on the planet. Invincible responds by telling him that this isn't the way to save the world. Killing people would work, yes, but it's not really saving anyone. If you want to save people, you need to teach them, and things like this aren't the way to do it. Dinosaurus realizes he's been clouded by his pursuit, and always will be, so to prevent anything like this from happening again, he asks Invincible to kill him. Cecil, the head of the secret organization that polices superheros, and does pretty everything, shows up and offer Invincible a deal: work for him again, as an on-call superhero, or go to jail for freeing Dinosaurus weeks earlier and allowing all this to occur. He accepts and flies home to meet his parents and girlfriend, Atom Eve, who are glad to see it wasn't him who was brutally murdered on national television. On the last page, Eve tells Invincible that she's pregnant.

     Ok. That got kind of long, but given that it was the 100th issue, and a lot of ground was covered, I don't think it could have been compressed much more than that. So, my impressions? Good, but not great. Invincible not actually being killed was to be expected, since Kirkman doesn't take death as lightly as some other comics do. So his apparent death was extremely effective, and not really cheapened by the fact that he was alive, since that was what I was expecting. What did feel a bit off was the whole conversation with Dinosaurus. He seemed to accept Invincible's  argument too easily, considering Dinosuarus is considerably more intelligent than Invincible. So him being talked into letting himself be killed in such a short exchange felt a little forced. Cecil's reappearance also struck me as a bit of a backslide, since he'd been put through Cecil's shit so many times already. All of this seemed like a roundabout way to slip back into the old way of doing things, although I'll give Kirkman the benefit of the doubt on this one. The biggest event was of course the pregnancy reveal, which I am looking forward to. Sure, there was the previous pregnancy and abortion(?), but this is different, due to Mark actually knowing about it. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

     So, if you're an Invincible fan, well, you've probably already got this, so this review didn't really affect you too much. If you're not a regular reader, well, despite me spoiling all the major plot points, pick it up, along with anything else Invincible that you haven't read, because it's absolutely worth it.

Getting back in the swing of things.

    Alright folks, decided to dust this off again. I don't know why I stopped in the first place. I was writing, which I enjoy, about comics, which I enjoy. So, I'm shooting for 2 posts a week this time around, which is a bit more restrained than when I started, but hopefully it'll be a schedule I can keep.

And to show my commitment, and to prove I'm not one of those bloggers whose last post is "Hey guys I'm gonna start posting again soon. See you tomorrow!" dated 2/11/12, I'm going to follow up this post with a real one.

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors 11

Alright, total change of course and it's not even a classic comic critique. No Ultimate, no Marvel, just DC and it's Lanterns.

    Emerald Warriors is one of three ongoing Green Lantern titles DC is putting out right now, the other two being Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. This is essentially a one shot, a self contained story as opposed to being part of a larger arc. The writer decided to pull back a little bit coming off of the "War of the Green Lanterns" event, which lasted a couple months and spanned all the books.

    So what we have here is a bit of good old fashioned spacecopperey starring my favorite Green/Red Lantern: Guy Gardner. Now Guy can be pretty polarizing to GL fans, some hate him because he's too much of a dick, while others love him because he's too much of a dick. I think he makes a great foil for when all 4 earth lanterns are together, because he contrasts their seriousness excellently. Now about the comic. Basic stuff, Guy is going on vacation to rest after war, when he's called to assist a ship of alien dignitaries. He grudgingly goes and helps out, kicks ass, doesn't even bother taking names, and wines and dines the alien princess aboard ship; par for the course for Guy. Then there's a twist. Read the comic to find out.

All in all, a fun entertaining read. Not exactly important if you're worried about story development, so if you're tight on cash you can skip it if you'd like. You'd be missing out on entertainment, but that's all.

Ultimate X #5

Really wanted to get off this Ultimate kick I've been on, give you readers some more variety, but I just couldn't pass this up, especially since I condemned this same comic in my very first review post.

This is the last issue of a 5 issue mini. The first issue came out in February 2010. Nearly 17 months.

   Now, for my readers who are new to comics, I'm going to give you all a crash course on a man named Jeph Loeb, considering how important he is to the ultimate universe, and how much I hate him. A long long time ago, Loeb was known as a good writer. His runs on Batman, such as Long Halloween, are critically acclaimed. Then something happened to ol' Jeph. Maybe it was the death of his son. I don't know. But what I do know is that his writing went to absolute shit. 

    My first exposure to Loeb was on The Hulk. After coming off the incredible Planet Hulk arc, Loeb was given the reigns of the title. He chose to ignore all of Hulk's character development during Planet Hulk, as well as introduce a new, mystery nemesis for The Hulk: Red Hulk. Red Hulk talked like a badass and kicked everyone's ass and broke all the rules. Like punching Uatu the Watcher in the face while saying "Shut the *&%$ up!" or taking Thor's hammer and jumping with it into space. You may be asking yourself, "I thought only those who are worthy could lift Thor's hammer?" And you'd be correct. Red Hulk explained to Thor(And by extension, the reader) that it doesn't count as lifting if he just grabs it and jumps. Then he jumped into space. Then he proceeded to beat Thor's ass with his own hammer, saying it doesn't count as lifting in space because there's no gravity. Then he left a beaten Thor on the moon. That was all in like the first 6 issues.

   Ok, I went off on a bit of a tangent there. I'm going to make a post later this week about Ultimatum, Loeb's lobotomy of the Ultimate universe.

    There's not really anything to spoil about Ultimate X, and if you are upset that I spoiled something in it for you, then you're probably on the wrong blog, because you and I ain't gonna be friends.

    Ultimate X's cast consists of: Jimmy Hudson; Wolverine's son whom he gave up for adoption, has all of his father's powers, plus the ability to make his claws metal, which hasn't been explained to us yet. Karen Grant, AKA Jean Grey, who changed her name and went into hiding after the events of ultimatum. She dyed her hair, and, if the artist is to be believed, got a major boob job. But comic book boobs are neither here nor there, so let's move on. Derek Morgan, a mutant from Chicago who can grow wings and talons and sharp teeth and make his eyes turn red. If I didn't know better I'd say Rob Liefeld had something to do with him. Liz Allen, a former classmate of Peter Parker, who has Firestar's powers, basically being the Human Torch but not actually being on fire. And the Hulk. Loeb shouldn't be allowed within 100ft of any comic featuring the Hulk.

    At the start of this issue, Jimmy goes to buy some beer, but being underage, he is refused. He's then assaulted outside the liquor store by Sabertooth, who hates him on principle due to him being Wolverine's son. Sabertooth beats him savagely, and his wounds aren't healing at their usual Wolverine pace. This is never explained. Not once do they try and tell us why they won't heal, they just won't. So Jean decides they need some more muscle on the team, so she seeks out Bruce Banner, who is hiding form S.H.I.E.L.D, since he was supposed to have been executed following a rampage. Jean convinces him to join with them, and they're confronted by the remains of the Brotherhood of Mutants: Quicksilver, Mystique, Sabertooth, and The Blob.  The Hulk returns the beating to Sabertooth, Mystique points a stupidly big gun at the Hulk, and everyone agrees to disagree and goes their own way. Then they get back to their base(a hotel room), Jimmy wakes up, and Nick Fury comes in and reveals he's known about them since the beginning. Then Jean declares they're going to be superheroes, going places the Ultimates can't due to being government sanctioned. Basically they declare themselves the new X-men.

   I'm not okay with any of this. Nothing about Ultimate X has made any sense, and, despite most people not being thrilled with Ultimate X-Men, especially in it's twilight, I always loved it. And when I heard it was getting brought back I was psyched. Now, not so much. With Bendis and Millar trying very hard to rebuild the Ultimate universe after Loeb's meddling, I hate to see him have any say in it's direction.

Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates 5

Hmm. More Ultimate Marvel stuff this first week than I was hoping. Oh well, it's heading towards a big relaunch anyway, so I suppose this is to be somewhat expected.

    So, Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates(UAvNU). With Ultimate in the title twice it must be good! Actually it's just kind of okay. For those of you somewhat unfamiliar, this 6 part mini-series details a conflict between The Ultimates(basically the Avengers of the ultimate universe. Yeah, I know you'd think the Ultimate Avengers would be the Avengers, but they aren't.) and the Avengers(a shadow team created by the supposedly dead Nick Fury).  Both teams found intel that the leader of the other team, Carol Danvers and Nick Fury respectfully, are supplying superhumans to North Korea. This leads to an all out conflict between the two teams, with poor Spider-man caught in the middle(See: Ultimate Death of Spider-man).

Despite my previous assertion that I wouldn't say it anymore, I decided to be nice. Spoilers begin here. (Aeris dies, rosebud was his sled, etc.)

   To begin, I don't much care for Gregory Stark. He's a superfluous character, who, like much of the Ultimate Avengers, was created because Mark Millar didn't get to write the New Ultimates, so he invented a bunch of characters so he didn't have to alter his ideas much. Gregory Stark is basically Nemesis(Millar's terrible creation). He has plans within plans and they kick the crap out of your plans. So that tainted the issue for me. As did the revelation that The Spider was just an experiment of his. I was hoping for extradimensional shenanigans, so this wasn't much of a payoff for me. The thing with Cash was okay, except for everybody hulking out, that seemed a little silly. On the plus side, I feel Leinel Yu's art works better for something a bit grittier like this than it did for Secret Invasion.(I also didn't like his tendency to draw strong chins on everyone in a story involving aliens who had chins as a major defining feature).

Overall, the mini isn't bad, the issue is probably one of, if not the, weakest in the series. I'm just kind annoyed all this is needed to bring the universe back to something resembling it's pre-Ultimatum days. I hate Jeph Loeb so much. So goddamn much.

Graphic Novel vs. Comic Book

  After writing on Y:The Last Man, a work many may consider to be a graphic novel, I decided I aught to weigh in on my thoughts on the term. To put it simply, I hate it. I feel it's a weasel word people use to feel less ashamed about something they should feel no shame for, or perhaps to reassure themselves that they are mature adults. They do not read childish comic books, they read graphic novelizations of works that are of an adult nature.

   It makes me feel good to know that this attitude is shared by some of the greatest comic writers of all time, especially since they are the very same writers whose work are often called graphic novels.

Writer Neil Gaiman, responding to a claim that he does not write comic books but graphic novels, said the commenter "meant it as a compliment, I suppose. But all of a sudden I felt like someone who'd been informed that she wasn't actually a hooker; that in fact she was a lady of the evening."-from The Sandman Companion.

   Alan Moore also objects to the term, feeling it's used primarily as a marketing scheme by Marvel and DC,  claiming they just collect a six issue arc and put it in a hardcover, then call it a graphic novel and charge you double for it. He feels comic is an appropriate blanket term.



So, readers, remember, there's a reason this is Comic Critique.

Y: The Last Man

   Today I'm going to do a classic comic critique on one of my personal favorites: Y:The Last Man(henceforth to be referred to as YTLM). Set in the present day, YTLM focuses on a man in his 20s named Yorick Brown. Simply put, Yorick is the last man on earth. Due to reasons I won't spoil for the rest of you, every male creature on the planet died suddenly save for Yorick and his monkey ampersand(&). Y and & team up with 355, and agent of the Culper ring, a secret spy organization the reports directly to the president, and Dr. Mann, one of the planets leading biologists in order to protect and study Yorick. Yorick, not being content with living a secluded protected life, journeys to find his girlfriend Beth, who was in the Australian outback at the time of the event.

   YTLM is in my opinion one of the greatest comics of all time. The story and characterization are superb. All of the characters manage to always feel "real." They act realistically, and they are what propel the story, instead of the characters bending to serve the plot like what happens all too often in modern comics, televison, etc. The dialogue is interesting and always fitting to the characters, after a while, you could probably read just the bubbles and know who is saying what line. The story also takes place over 10 years and 60 issues, giving time for substantial character growth.

   The art, however, is..adequate. I'm not criticizing it at all, but it's simply nothing spectacular. It fills it's role perfectly, but this is simply not a graphics driven story. The most important function the art serves is showing us the post male world. I know many may thing the world would function alright without men, and yes, women are perfectly capable of running the show. But to simply remove all men in an instant, most politicians and CEOs in the blink of an eye, you can understand how the world breaks down. This is why YTLM excels as a comic not a novel. A novel would require descriptions and visualization of this altered world, whereas a comic can simply show you, panel to panel as the story progresses.

   So, in closing, read this comic. I give it my highest recommendation.

Ultimate Death of Spider-Man

Ok, so, my first one is going to be a doozy it seems. Wasn't planning this, but it didn't make sense to skip what is probably the biggest comic of the week. Spoilers ahead, and this will probably be the last time I say that in this blog, because, really, if you're reading a review of something you don't want spoiled, you're a stupid.

    I'm going to start by saying I've enjoyed this arc, and really, Ultimate Spider-Man as a whole, save for the art switch after Ultimatum, but even that I got used to once they ditched round head Spider-man. Sadly though, I found this issue...underwhelming. It wasn't a bad issue by any means, but if it weren't in a comic called DEATH OF SPIDER-MAN, I would just assume he was going to wake up in the hospital next issue and everything would be cool. Which I guess may still happen, but dear god I hope it doesn't.

   To break it down, beating all the other villains(especially Aunt May shooting Electro, that kicked ass) to leave this as purely an Osborn vs. Peter duel was a good decision on paper, but in practice it fell short. I think it was primarily due to inconsistent power match-ups. Osborn is stronger and is on fire. Peter can't trade blows with him, to win he needs to finish it with a few deft hits, such as MJ and the van, and Peter with the, uh, van. Waking up the Human Torch to have do to shit felt like a couple pages of filler, and the constant "Aunt May we need to leave oh but I can't he's my nephew oh but we really have to go cuz he told us to" also got to me.

   Still, like I said earlier, on the whole, a solid arc. Not my favorite, that's probably one of the Venom or Carnage ones(and I don't even like 616 Venom/Carnage), but still worth my time, and my interest is piqued for (sigh) yet another relaunch of the Ultimate line.

   Except for Ultimate X. Fuck Ultimate X.

Background

   I figured that if you're going to get opinions from me, you should at least get some idea of my comics background. I started in about '06, with Civil War. Maybe not a great place to start, but an excellent way to get familiar with lot of characters at once. I suppose because of this beginning, my tastes lie primarily with Marvel, although I'm currently loving anything Green Lantern (read from Rebirth up through Blackest Night and current arcs) as well as some of the stellar elseworlds DC publishes, Red Son and the like. Vertigo also has published some of my favorite series: Watchmen, Sandman(the 2 whores of favorite series) as well as Preacher and Y:The Last Man. I also want to say Image, but in reality, it's just Robert Kirkman.

Howdy Folks

   Howdy Howdy readers! The purpose of this blog will be for me to A: practice my writing, and to B: relay to all you fine folks information about comics. I will primarily focus on current comics, aka the ones that came out in the past week, although I will occasionally post regarding older, well known comics. I plan on updating around 3 times a week, so check back often!