Fanboy Fodder 9.4
This is about two weeks in coming, but I fell behind for a while and I am now catching up. This week was a heavy DC week, for me anyway (6 books), and it was the second week in a row I bought a ton of books.
Honestly, I’m a little bummed that it took me so long to read some of these books because it was a good week featuring the second installment of the new JLA series, Ultimate Spidey #100 and Ultimates 2 #12. On to the books!
Justice League of America #2
Since I didn’t lead the week issue one came out with its cover, I’ll give the honor to the second issue which features a Michael Turner cover. Kind of odd to have Turner handle the regular cover while the regular artist gets the variant version, but that’s the way today’s comics seem to work. Brad Meltzer celebrates being #1 (at the time) on the bestsellers list with his latest novel, The Book of Fate, with another excellent issue of this book. I’m not one to read novels anymore, but I’m guessing it is as good as his comics writing, no? Getting back to the point, it would seem this cover features the regular lineup even though they are still voting, without a final outcome yet, within the pages. I’m was pumped about this book after the first issue and this one didn’t diminish that feeling, but also did little to build on that excitement I felt. It does look like we are going to have a good fight in the next issue.
Batman #657
We find Batman/Bruce Wayne has brought his son Damien back to the Batcave. The kid is a little punk and won’t shut the hell up. He wears out Alfred’s patience and smacks down Robin after pulling the wool over Batman’s eyes that he’ll behave. Kid turns around to sneak out of the mansion to kill some second-rate villain named The Spook by cutting his head clean off. This is his way to fight criminals since that’s what daddy wanted. I’ll give Grant Morrison this, he’s built this story up well from his first issue and I am way more into it now than I thought after that first ish. Based on Damien’s actions so far, there seems little doubt that he is Batman’s son as he possesses many of the same skills wrapped inside a healthy serving of attitude and evil. What would you expect from the ninja grandson of Ra’s al Ghul?
Supergirl #10
This issue continues an earlier theme of Kara trying to find where she belongs on Earth. We find her trying out the secret identity gig by enrolling in a local high school as Claire Conners. It follows the traditional high school formula of trying to get in with a good crowd and finding out that there isn’t any such thing as a good crowd in high school. Where was this kind of manual back when I was in high school?
Legion of Super-Heroes #22
They continue along with the story of Supergirl being in the Legion’s future/present/whatever. Waid has everyone with a penis falling in love with her, and really, who can blame them? She’s freakin Supergirl! Anyway, he picks off two in this issue so the numbers are going down, but there still doesn’t seem to be any point towards which progress is being made. Finding out the deal with her being there some time soon would be nice. Most likely, they are content to do much of nothing while sales numbers are inflated by having “Supergirl and the…” in front of the regular title. I call this the Wolverine strategy…
Teen Titans #39
The Titans are still on the search for Raven so they can find out who is the traitor in their midst. From this issue, it may turn out to be Miss Martian, you know, the female equivalent of Martian Manhunter. Why does DC have to have male and female versions of every single hero they have ever created? This is one thing I have never understood. Anyway, Geoff Johns’ has been making slow work of building this up and it just hasn’t caught my interest. Tony Daniel’s pencils have my attention though, so at least one out of two ain’t bad. Oh, and Zatara is a little beeyotch.
X-Men #191
I again almost wanted to run this cover as the lead, but that’s just me enjoying Bachalo’s art again. Since I already run every Cassaday Astonishing X-Men cover, it is only fair to not do it with another X-book. Enough on the good art because with this issue, Mike Carey actually does a good job of explaining what the hell is going on by having Creed (Sabertooth) fill the X-Men in on what he knows about The Children of the Vault. This has Cable following up with some hardcore Googling to give us the skinny. I am now buying into what Carey is selling here and I am now as excited about this book as I am about Uncanny, which is still far short of Astonishing…
Ultimate Spider-Man #100
Richard Parker is alive and not a clone, but poor Gwen Stacy is a Carnage??? Okay, Brian Michael Bendis continues to prove why he is my favorite writer in comics right now. Yes, he narrowly beats out Joss Whedon for that title. Anyway, this issue reveals that CIA Agent Gyrich had recruited Richard Parker after everyone thought he died with his wife and the Brocks in the airplane crash. The rub is the CIA wants him to continue his work, which in this continuity led to the creation of Venom/Carnage, as a counter to anything Nick “Samuel L. Jackson” Fury comes up with while creating SHIELD. Fury shows up at the end and Aunt May has really, finally had enough and possibly has a heart attack. Let the smackdown begin next issue!
Ultimates 2 #12
The penultimate issue of the second series is titled “The Avengers” and features our heroes continuing to fight back against the forces that invaded and occupied America. Hulk trashing The Abomination in this issue was probably the most fun, but Hawkeye, Quicksilver and The Wasp had some good moments too. Quicksilver ran so fast to literally break down a fellow speedster at an atomic level. The chick basically liquidated due to friction her body couldn’t handle, but Pietro could. I dig this book and I wish that they’d get this series on a regular monthly schedule. Maybe that will be in the cards for the third series.
Eternals #4
Neil Gaiman continues to spin a good story about The Eternals and Celestials. This issue reveals how The Eternals came to forget who they were and it was at the hands of their youngest (looking) member. Sprite was tired of being an eleven year old boy for the last million years and longed to be human so he could grow up, have his balls drop and get laid. Well, it would seem he is unlikely to get there because we all know evil schemes always fail, but we’ll see. Maybe Gaiman will figure out a way to let the kid have his first notcurnal emission.
This week also had me purchasing the following books and not being able to read them yet due to Civil War behindness: Amazing Spider-Man #535, Cable & Deadpool #32, Civil War: Front Line #6 and Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #3.
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