Last Week’s Badassery
Another one! Another issue of Astonishing X-Men! And again with Armor! I swear I don’t have some sick fascination with her. She’s being written VERY well. And I could include her fight with Fin Fang Foom here, but I liked it better when she extended her shell around the Blackbird and dive-bombed a monster. Awesome.
This week’s bit of Hulk badassery comes not from something that happened in the comic, but in the badass way writer Jeff Parker tried to recycle Greg Pak’s wonderful Planet Hulk storyline. And I’m not talking badass as in the quality of work. I’m talking badass as in the audacity Parker must have to expect us to NOT raise an eyebrow of this copycat story. Hell, he even goes so far as to have Red Hulk admit that the Hulk went through this earlier. The whole thing seemed extremely lazy.
Secret Six is completely badass each and every month. Between Gail Simone’s tight script and excellent dialogue and Jim Calafiore’s clear and kinetic artwork, this is consistently one of my most-anticipated comics each month. It was difficult to pick out just one page to highlight, but I decided to go with the heart of gold surrounded by a quintet of morally ambiguous killers who we love anyways. Stripper Liana, after being held hostage and tortured for being a stripper, decides to have mercy on her abductor. In a book full of stone cold badassery, that’s one of the most badass things you can do.
Magneto has always been powerful. Even when his control over magnetism was decreased over the years, he still commanded power in his voice and his character. The last page of this week’s X-Men issue demonstrates not his power over iron and metal, but the power of his ego. It’s old-school magneto, in word, deed and appearance.
