Greetings Program!
Welcome to another edition of “Comix this week!” and a fine week it was. On to the goodies:
Worst of the week
Nightwing #3: While hardly a “bad” comic, when examined in the group of comics I purchased this week, it was clearly the weakest. With no action, this third issue of the rebooted Nightwing focuses on character as Dick attends the funeral of Mr Haley (of the Haley’s circus that Dick grew up in), tries to find out what “secret” Haley died to protect, all while nurturing another romantic attatchment. I had hopes for this title, but it has definitely moved down a few pegs this month. I will probably give it one more issue before I make a decision to keep/drop.
Average of the Week
Captain America #4: Brubaker delivers a mind bending episode as Cap is trapped in Johnny Jupiter’s alternate dimension as he sees what Codename Bravo went through as he lived in the dimension for 70 years. Not the best, but its all leading up to the finale of this first arc. Good stuff.
Fearless #3: Bunn delivers another knockout issue of this Fear Itself follow up. Is it bad that I like this more that the series it spawned from?? Valkrie fights the Secret Avengers and Vampires to continue her quest to collect the Magical Hammers, as SIN devises the ultimate doomsday weapon.
Green Lantern Corps 3: From a title that was not impressing me, I must admit I am impressed. Guy, John, and other Green Lanterns are stuck on a planet fighting some strange Alien army, who are nearly immune to their Rings! Some awesome cross-galaxy warping, and some battling later, we get John and others stranded and taken as POW’s to this alien threat.
Supergirl 3: Denying the truth about Krypton, Kara tries to track down the Space Pod that brought her to Earth, only to discover that it was stolen by and taken to an orbital space station, where she is tested in various attacks to see how powerful she is. By issue’s end, the is introduced to a little something called “Kryptonite”.
Best of the Week
X-Men 21: The border dispute, between the Eastern European nations who’s fictitious names I forget, heats up as a whole army of drone Sentinels are taught to kill regular humans in addition to mutants. War Machine jumps into the fray as the race to take out the Sentinels continues.
Avengers 19: This is it, one of those great moments where the world is introduced to the latest line-up of the Avengers! As Steve assembles his team, adding Storm and a rebuilt Vision, their great press conference is interrupted by Fugitive Norman Osborn! What he wants: Due process over his imprisonment without trial! Unexpected, and awesome.
Amazing Spider-Man 674: The cover says it all! The Vulture is back! Now operating a sort of Mob boss who is setting up a whole team of Vultures to carry out his crimes! For some inexplicable reason, Vulture is my favorite Spidey villain. i’ve always hoped they would cast Stan Lee as the Vulture in a cameo.
Incredible Hulk 2: Jason Aaron delivers again as this issue shows us how Bruce Banner dealt with being physically separated from the Hulk…going batshit crazy and creating his own Island of Dr Moreau! Hulk is enlisted to stop Banner, but he wants nothing to do with it, and jumps away- Just as 2 of Banner’s wild boar monsters break into the underground city Hulk has been living in, and starts killing the residents- to hurt Hulk’s friends. Great stuff.
Runners up of the week
Justice League 3: Johns and Lee deliver another terrific issue of the Justice League! As Darkseid’s Parademons invade the Earth “For Darkseid!”, Green Lantern, Flash, Superman and Batman are joined by Wonder Woman and Aquaman to face this threat! WW centric, we see a bit of what Diana did upon traveling to America for the first time, and it is great to see that Steve Trevor is still a part of that origin. This also presents us with the construction of the Hero we will come to know as Cyborg! A great issue.
Batman #3: This was a tough choice. I was inclined to make this my #1 comic this week, but it narrowly lost out. In the previous issues, we have seen a mysterious Owl assassin trying to kill Bruce Wayne. The killer supposedly works for a mythic secret society known as the Court of Owls. Batman thinks they are just a myth…until he discovers that hidden in the 13th floor(the hidden floor in buildings) of a whole series of skyscrapers in Gotham are hideouts for the Court! In them are weapons, suits, and photos dating back over 150 years! It blows our minds, and actually blows Batman mind too. A rare instance of seeing Batman a little scared that there could be this big giant secret in Gotham that he never knew of. Snyder is a great writer, and Capullo is perfectly suited to drawing this title.
Pick of the Week!
Wonder Woman #3: By Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang.
So few writers can do Wonder Woman well…Brian Azzarello is one of these chosen few. I have always enjoyed WW, but there were just no great stories that sucked me into the character, not for years. Azzarello gets it. In this issue, we get some expert storytelling as the Amazons prepare to have a funeral for the Amazons killed in the last issue. Diana has a talk with her mother over the revelation made by The Goddess Strife. Hippolyta admits that Strife IS Diana’s sister. She and (ZEUS!) were lovers and Diana came from that union. The whole backstory of Diana being fashioned from Clay and turned to life was revealed to be just a cover story to keep Hera from killing her. Diana swears off her alleigance to Paradise Island and lives now only known as Wonder Woman. Cliff Chiang does an outstanding job with the artistic duties on this issue. He brings a great Indie feel to the comic that to me is reminiscent of a lot of stuff I was reading about 10 years ago in the small press publishers. Now if they could only make a decent WW movie…
The Skinny from the Fatty 