What You Should Have Read #42

Last Week’s Comic Book Awesomeness

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 9 #1 – Oh, I miss the show. The comic is great, but I really miss the show. I liked how Season 8 started, but I didn’t really care for how it ended. I hope I don’t feel the same way about Season 9, because I enjoyed the first issue.

Journey Into Mystery #627 – Loki’s not in this one, it’s all about Mephisto…and his showing here is just as good as his showing in the last issue of New Mutants. It’s a smart and cunning Mephisto. I like that. From the beginning, the opening text/recap page, it’s all about Mephisto and his involvement in Fear Itself. On one hand, I like to think that the inevitable confrontation between Mephisto and Loki will be epic, but it might be epic on a small scale…two powerful entities out-snarking one another.

New Avengers #16 – Hmm. Daredevil in the Avengers. Is he a full member now or an associate, one they call when his special talents are needed? He’s not on the cover for the next issue, so the question is valid. I like him. I like Bendis writing him. But is he really one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes? Let’s see where this goes.

Ultimate Spider-Man #1 – I like Miles Morales. I like him and I like his family. He’s not Peter Parker and they aren’t Aunt May and Uncle Ben, but they’re good people and I like them. This is how you raise a Spider-Man. I hate that people are in an uproar about this. I hate that people are upset that this is a boy of color who becomes the new Spider-Man. I hate that there were ignorant people upset and didn’t understand a quote by artist Sara Pichelli and assumed the new Spider-Man was gay, and they had a problem with that. I understand that you’re introduced to a character and fall in love with him, but sometimes people die, and in this case, it was a fictional character named Peter Parker. This new kid isn’t Peter Parker, and he shouldn’t be Peter Parker. Peter Parker is dead. Deal with it. This kid has different powers and a different background. The origin, in general, is the same, but the results are different. That’s how it SHOULD be. If Brian Michael Bendis wanted to write more Peter Parker Spider-Man stories, he wouldn’t have killed Peter Parker. Now we get to read Miles Morales Spider-Man stories, and I’m perfectly fine with that. I trust Bendis to provide me with an entertaining and engaging story, and I so far haven’t been disappointed with this first issue. Also, Spider-Man’s uncle looks to be Deadpool.

Uncanny X-Force #15 – This is, by far, the best of the X-books at the moment. The action is there, the wit is there, and the art is there. It’s a good-looking book that is good to read. When this eventually ends, I would totally read a buddy team-up book featuring Deadpool and Phantomex.

DC’s New 52 Week 2

Deathstroke #1 – This must be the week of villainous books for me. I’ve never been a great fan of Deathstroke, but I’ve appreciated what he’s done and how he’s done it. There’s nothing here about the character that would keep me coming back to the book, but I’m curious as to what’s in the briefcase. I want to know if the eventual revelation will be a satisfying payoff.

Green Lantern #1 – Fuck DC and their reboot. Between this issue and Red Lanterns, what exactly was rebooted with the various Lanterns? I mean, I’ve been reading GL for quite a while now and I know what’s going on, but this was a not a new user friendly book. There’s SO much backstory that needs to be known. And from what I’ve seen and read, the Batman line is doing similar shenanigans. If you’re going to reboot, reboot. Push the button and start everything over. Now, that being said, I enjoyed this book and how it continued the story from before the “reboot.”

Red Lanterns #1 – I’m not totally sure this is a necessary title. This seems like mini-series material to me. It was good, but I don’t know if it presented enough…foresight?...to warrant a full series. I like the stuff with Atrocitus and the rest of his Red Lanterns, but the Earthbound stuff seems shoehorned in.

Resurrection Man #1 – I didn’t read this book the first time around. I ended up picking up the entire series on Ebay for cheap about 7 years or so ago. I remember thoroughly enjoying it, so I was interested to see what would happen here. I’m glad Mitch is back, and I’m really interested in seeing all the stories Abnett and Lanning came come up with using this wonderful premise.

Suicide Squad #1 – Great first issue. We meet the team, we see a bit of action, and we’re left looking forward to these six secret villains tasked to killing 60,000 people. I really miss Gail Simone’s Secret Six, especially after Batgirl #1, which I did not like, but judging from the first issue, I think I’m going to like this new Suicide Squad. And I’m really happy they kept on King Shark.

Superboy #1 – Well, this was a surprise. At it’s most basic level, the premise of Superboy is exactly the same as the original premise for Connor Kent. Replace Cadmus (who is apparently pretty active in the New 52) with N.O.W.H.E.R.E. and you’ve got a different character made up of the same building blocks. I like where this is going. I’m going to read more of this book. 

Probably for the rest of the month I’m going to whore myself out with an impassioned plea: click on the ads. PLEASE click on the ads. I don’t care if you exit it out of it immediately or actually look around. This isn’t some professional blog where I believe in the products I’m shilling. These are automatic ads placed by Google. But my experiment this weekend proved to me that I actually AM making a spot of cash whenever the ads are clicked. So I’m going to put this little disclaimer on the bottom of all my posts for the next month or so, and I hope you’ll take an extra 10 seconds after reading my blog to click on an ad. Thanks so much!

What You Should Have Read #39

Last Week’s Comic Book Awesomeness

DC Retroactive: Justice League – The ‘90s #1 – I realize that I don’t include many DC comics in these weekly write ups. Lately I’m just enjoying Marvel more. I’m hoping that’ll change next month with the New DC 52. I didn’t read Justice League when Giffen and DeMatteis were originally writing it. Morrison’s JLA is MY Justice League. But I really got into the characters and writing style when the team was revisited and before Max became an evil dick, so I thought I’d enjoy this issue…and I did. It’s the humor you’d expect from these guys and some clever nods to what will happen to the characters after this story. Good stuff here.

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights #13 – Since I saw the cover of this issue, I was waiting for this joke. I think it’s a requirement that the “one punch” mention has to be made whenever Guy and Batman are together. I also want to say that I’m horribly disappointed in the final issues of all of the DC comics that I’ve read. I realize DC is excited about this “new” universe they’re starting, but they’re letting this one go with no fanfare, no final battle…nothing. I guess they did this right before the Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot, too, but I wasn’t around then. This just disappoints me.

New Mutants #30 – The stuff with Dani in this issue is fine. Nothing wrong there. But the really good stuff comes with the rest of the team’s interaction with Mephisto. I love how easy and nonchalant he is. I’ve never really liked him as a villain before, but his attitude shines here, and that’s what has won me over.

Ultimates #1 – It’s a bear….drinking beer…with Norse gods. Read that again and look at the picture. There’s no text, no dialogue, just probably the most awesome panel of a comic book to come out this week.

Wolverine #14 – When the badguys drank the Kool Aid, I figured that the joke would be on THEM, that Wolverine wouldn’t give a damn…he’d just be happy they were dead. I totally did not see the big reveal. That…that was genius, and it made perfect sense. And something like that, it’ll stay with Wolverine and fuck him up. So kudos to the bad guys this time.

X-Factor #224 – Agamemnon is a…pleasant…sort of character, isn’t he?

X-Men #16 – Emma Frost is just a telepathic, diamond-hard ray of sunshine, isn’t she? Still, her ideas aren’t totally without merit, are they? I can say that because I’m positive that my ex does not read my blog, at least the Wednesday updates. And of course I’m talking about the mind wiping. And it’s nice to see Wolverine and Thing addressing powerful, world-dominating elephants in the room.