the_pull_list

May. 30th, 2009

10:33 pm - X-Men: Onslaught The Complete Epic Book 4

We’ve reached the end, well, at least the end of the Onslaught Complete Epic. There’s still Heroes Reborn and Onslaught Reborn but this is the end of one of the most convoluted Marvel storylines in existence, ranking right up there with the Spider-Clone tragedy which came out around the same time. It was just too massive a storyline to be worth anything, especially with all the tie-ins. This would showcase the end of what was a really long, drawn-out storyline, that even 10 years later I still harbor some ill-will about.

Thankfully this volume starts off with a two-page recap that can’t even begin to acknowledge everything that’s happened in the Marvel Universe.

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May. 26th, 2009

11:20 pm - The Pull List 05/26/09

Hey all, I hope you enjoyed your Memorial Day weekend. It is Tuesday so that means back to work for a lot of us, including me. Well, it was nice to have those days off (I actually had a 5-day weekend) and I feel a little more energized. I snuck in a trip to DC for the weekend (where I got all the reading done on the road). Anyways, we have 1 Dynamite title represented below, preceded by 4 DC titles and finally 15 Marvel comics which starts this review off. It’s interesting (to me at least) that I read the Marvel comics last, though they are the ones I review first on here.

Spoiler Alert

Marvel
-Agents of Atlas #5- The Agents draw the attention of the New Avengers so that the NA could intentionally destroy the stronghold of weapons the Agents are sending to Osborn. Spider-Man figures all this out and it seems tensions would be eased, until M-11 recognizes Wolverine as Logan and shoots him with laser beams. This causes a big fight to which the Agents flee. I love the twist of the Agents luring the New Avengers to destroy the weapons in order to get to Osborn. I love this title. 1/1.
-Amazing Spider-Man #594- 24/7 concludes with Spider-Man defeating the new Vulture in the new Yankee Stadium as the general public turns on him. He’s Spider-Man, what can you expect if not conflict? He also meets his roommate (Vin’s sister) who catches Peter naked, and JJJ Sr. proposes to May. Another well-crafted issue and storyline, and I always look forward to this title. 2/2.
-Captain America #50- This is a second stand-alone issue so a new arc can begin in next month’s #600. It is Bucky’s birthday and he remembers all his past birthdays, with most coming in the war and then not remembering any while he was the Winter Soldier. It’s a look at Bucky’s history more than anything, with a touching finale. There’s a Marcos Martin recap of Cap’s comic book history, too. Martin is one of my favorite Marvel artists at this point in time. 3/3.
-Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #3- Reed continues looking through all the alternate universes for answers on peace while Sue, Johnny and Ben are sent through alternate versions of themselves in weird timelines. Valeria and Franklin are stuck in the building and watch as Norman descends upon them, wanting to stop the FF from doing their experiments and their super-hero-ing. This is offbeat enough for me to really dig this title. 4/4.
-Fantastic Four #566- Doom’s master makes his long awaited arrival to Earth, and he’s not pleased with what Doom has done. Meanwhile, Reed finds a dead Watcher from another dimension. Kind of boring, but I actually like this new villain that is much more powerful than Doom and I hope the FF have an interesting way to defeat him. 5/5.
-Hulk #12- Rulk is happy that he’s won after killing everyone, but when he doesn’t get what he wants he kills the Gamemaster, forcing Collector to change things back to the way they were. Yeah, it was kind of Deus Ex Machina, but the action scenes make up for that tired writing technique. 6/6.
-Marvel Mystery Comics #1- This has been the best of the 70th Anniversary titles thus far, thanks to the fact that all the guys who were in the original Marvel Mystery Comics (Namor, Torch, Toro, Ferret and Angel) battle a huge robot named Blockbuster (a green flame cyborg from a previous issue of MMC). This was a lot of fun that really captured the feel of the anthology stories. 7/7.
-Planet Skaar Prologue #1- Skaar is on Earth and for some reason he’s able to draw all the gamma-irradiated beings to him, including She-Hulk and Hulk. There’s something of a battle that is stopped by Norman Osborn and a nuke, and Skaar seems to be gone, but we see that he’s actually become a human! This was subdued for a prologue, but it lays the basic necessities of the story. 8/8.
-Punisher #5- Punisher runs into Microchip, who was resurrected by the Hood. Hood also resurrects other D-List villains for Castle to kill during this series. Hmm, I liked the title and it was interesting for what it was, but I don’t think I will be keeping up with this for financial reasons. A good issue and a good intro story, but not enough for me to stick around. It gets a point for being good, however, as there’s nothing really wrong with it. 9/9.
-Skrull Kill Krew #2- One of the monstrous Skrulls is able to change back to her human form, and more Skrulls are killed. The racist Skrull is revived with a really cool ending about the new president. It’s enjoyable but I feel my lack of knowledge of these characters hurts my enjoyment of this title. 10/10.
-Thunderbolts #132- The Thunderbolts go through a lot of trouble to stage the death of Mister X only to recruit him to the team. This was a lot of fun, though it shows how comics have changed over the last 40 years. This would’ve been about 3 pages of story in a Silver Age book, stretched out to 20 here. It was good, but sometimes waiting for all the stories to conclude and get going can wear a bit. 11/11.
-Timestorm: 2009/2099 #2- Wolverine battles a bunch of Hulks in 2099 and runs into Ghost Rider. Punisher 2099 is still captured in the present, and one of Miguel O’Hare’s co-workers blames him for his son’s Scorpion like deformity. This was good enough for me, and I love seeing all these 2099 characters again. I’m still waiting for the X-Men and Spider-Man! 12/12.
-Uncanny X-Men #510- The X-Men battle the resurrected women and seem to defeat them, until Wolverine tells them that they stole a piece of Jean Grey’s hair to resurrect her. Why would he keep that? I love the story so far, though it goes before with what I said about stories being stretched. I have to say, Land’s art is just bothering me. Everything looks the same and you can’t distinguish between the women’s faces. 13/13.
-Wolverine: Noir #2- Wolvie meets up with Creed to look for his partner but ends up getting his ass handed to him by Creed. A pal that Logan met earlier (Yukio) gets beat up and put next to him, too. Not the best of the Noir series (Spidey and X-Men were far better) but it is an interesting take on Wolverine. I just hope they don’t lose steam with these, considering Luke Cage is coming down the pike soon. 14/14.
-Wolverine: Weapon X #2- Wolverine runs into the green-clawed super-healing Weapon X’ers and after fighting a few of them decides he should run the hell away and fight them individually instead of as a group. I like these green-clawed foes. This could be a great Wolvie book. 15/15.

DC
-Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3- Nightwing goes after Jason Todd and Tim Drake. Nightwing battles Todd one on one and learns that Black Mask is behind it all, but doesn’t know who the Black Mask is (and neither do we, yet). Tim is eventually saved by Damien and Squire. It is suggested at the end that Nightwing dons the cowl. That should make for some interesting stories in Batman when it comes back. Nightwing goes from the brink of death in Final Crisis to the new Batman. 1/1.
-Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #1- This story focuses on the Japanese heroes that Grant Morrison created specifically for Final Crisis that didn’t really do anything. So they are given a secret base 52 miles above the Earth (c’mon, 52 miles?) where they can continue to be televised and made stars of. They really want to be super-heroes though, and not just publicity whores. I tell you what, these characters are a lot more interesting now than they were in Final Crisis. 2/2.
-Superman/Batman #60- Superman and Batman show up in a city they don’t know. It is called Gothamopolis and the heroes of that city show up to take out Superman and Batman. The characters are all combinations of popular heroes here. For instance, we have Night Lantern (Nightwing and Green Lantern) as well as a host of others. They battle Doomstroke (Doomsday and Deathstroke) but don’t realize the true villain mastermind is Lex Joker. The last one doesn’t have a clever name but the Amalgamized DC Universe is a really cool concept. 3/3.
-Trinity #51- So far this is the best string of 51 straight comics I have read since the days of the Uncanny X-Men as written by Claremont. So, all the heroes band together to help save the world while the Worldsoul is putting it together. Despero spears Enigma, and Morgaine turns on Despero. She wants to World Soul’s power However, they are no match for the returning Trinity, who give up their power and return to the normal guys we know and love. Well, that’s it for the series, all tied up nicely. Well, except for the Crime Syndicate showing up ready for a fight! This was just awesome. 4/4.

Dynamite
-Black Terror #4- The conclusion to Black Terror sees BT and his fellow pals take down the president and the Patriots who sided with him. The Inheritor’s show up and Black Terror is relieved to see the Kid Terror alive, as well as a whole bunch of the other sidekicks. It was a decent conclusion, and I am stoked to see how this plays out in Project Superpowers 2. 1/1.

Awards
-Book of the Week- There were some great comics I read but the most fun I had was on Superman/Batman #60 with the Mash-Ups. It reminded me of the great Amalgam stories from 1996.

-Disappointment of the Week- I couldn’t find major faults with any of the titles, even low-performers from Uncanny X-Men and Fantastic Four turned in good performances this week.

-Cover of the Week- Superman/Batman #60 was an easy pick this week. The classic Superman/Batman poses with the Mash-Up city underneath was just gorgeous. Full props to Francis Manapal for the cover art (and the interior art, too).

-The Bottom Line- Well, I am literally finishing this at 11:20pm. It was a long (but great weekend). I took a bus over to Washington DC for Saturday through Monday and got a ton of reading done on the bus (these comics as well as two collected TPB’s) and I had to finish this by tonight in order to have it posted by tonight. I can safely say I did it. Next week should be interesting, since it looks like a big week based on the solicits with one less day to read the titles (thanks to the delay in shipping on the Memorial Day Weekend). I hope you enjoyed your Memorial Day weekend all!

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May. 22nd, 2009

08:26 am - X-Men: Onslaught The Complete Epic Book 4

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May. 19th, 2009

08:46 pm - The Pull List 05/19/09

We’re back on track and back on time! I have a short work week this week and I am really happy about that. I have only three days this week and a five-day weekend coming up, with a three-day trip to DC included in that. But that’s at the end of the week and this is Tuesday, and Tuesday is TPL day! Yep, I’m back with another batch of books. Three companies are represented, starting with Wildstorm (1 book), going to DC (with 6 books), and ending with Marvel (15 books) for a total of 22 books.

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May. 17th, 2009

12:16 pm - Marvel Masterworks: Avengers Vol. 8

This eighth volume of Marvel Masterworks Avengers collects issues 69-79, which spans October 1969 to August 1970. All of the eleven stories here are written by the great Roy Thomas, with art by John Buscema (#’s 74-77 & 79), Sal Buscema (#’s 69-72 & 78) and Frank Giacoia (# 73). Roy Thomas writes the introduction and he’s very insightful in talking about working on these 11 issues, including tidbits like the reason Giacoia worked on only one issue (he was too slow, and thus worked only on inking) and the Squadron Sinister being based on the JLA. Thomas always did great intros on the Golden Age books, but reading his insights on things he wrote is just awesome.
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May. 16th, 2009

11:18 pm - The Pull List 05/12/09

Sorry for the delay with this one. School was a real bitch towards the end of the semester and it totally threw me off the comic-reading game. Anyway, to save time I’ll keep this short. There’re four DC comics and 16 Marvel comics (for a total of 20 books), and two Free Comic Book Day books thrown in that my LCS was nice enough to save for me.

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May. 9th, 2009

11:33 pm - The Pull List 05/05/09

I doubt this will be on time, but at least I will done with St. Johns by the time you read this and I don’t foresee any delays in the future (save for maybe some vacation weekend trips I’ll be taking). Anyway, DC, Dynamite and Marvel are represented this week, with DC dropping 6 titles, Dynamite a sole issue, and Marvel landing 16.

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May. 3rd, 2009

09:50 am - Heroes Volume 2

The second volume of Heroes is here, and again I never read any of these online so these are all new to me. This features 46 complete stories inside, though some of these complete stories are part of a larger arc. Anyway, this volume is different from the first volume in that there is no introduction, foreword or any extras. I have to give the volume one praise before I start the reviews, the chapters and credits pages look like old 1960’s comics pages with the old ads and they look awesome. I won’t go through these issue by issue but rather story by story, and refer to each by their chapters. The chapters are broken up into blocks of four, with some of the four stories being complete arcs and some being 4 small single stories. Each of the blocks of 4 chapters have a Tim Sale painted “cover” shown before it.
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Apr. 29th, 2009

11:45 pm - The Pull List 04/28/09

This is going to be a tough one to do. First off I have a crap-load of work to do for school, including a take-home test and a 10-page paper I haven’t started yet. Couple that with a weekend of computer problems where my main computer was out of commission while I was fixing it and that’s why this thing is late. I’ve been terrible this year with lateness and I know this won’t continue. Anyway, only Marvel and DC are represented this week, with 5 titles coming from DC and 19 coming from Marvel for a total of 24 comics.

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Apr. 26th, 2009

12:21 pm - Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age All-Winners Comics Vol. 3

I can’t believe they’re up to Volume 3 for All-Winners already. I could believe 3 volumes of Marvel Comics, Captain America, and Human Torch, but not All-Winners. I am going to write this review a little bit differently than other Masterworks collections. Instead of writing about each issue I will write about the collection as a whole. So, what is in All-Winners Vol. 3? This third volume collects issues #’s 9-14 of All-Winners, with release dates spanning from Summer of 1943 to Winter of 44/45. Knowing what was going on in the world while these comics were written is important to the content of these stories. The US was now two-years into World War II, having entered on December 8th, 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result, almost all of these stories have the same theme.

The stories here have three main stars: The Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and Captain America. Cap and Namor appear in every issue while Torch is in all but the last one collected. There are two sub-stars; Destroyer (a blue-faced invulnerable being) and Whizzer (super-speed). Whizzer appears in every issue save #12 and Destroyer is in issues 9-12. It should be noted that since this was in the midst of the War, the regular artists on Namor and Torch (Bill Everett and Carl Burgos) were over in Europe and thus unable to draw their own characters. This leads to what could be considered back-up artists writing and drawing everything in here. The art and writing are not great, but they are good enough.

Like I mentioned, the stories all have similar plots and themes. A standard story will look like this:
-Nazi/Axis Power has diabolical plan
-Heroes must stop this
-the heroes either end up captured or having someone the know and/or love get captured
-the heroes prevail since good always triumphs over evil and we know how evil the axis powers are.

The time period this was written not only influences the story but also the way things are presented in the story. In the time we live in of political correctedness, the content in here will undoubtedly shock some people, especially in the way the Japanese are presented. If this were released today it would be just ripped apart in the press. However, we must remember what people in the time thought, that these people were just the absolute evil in the world and propaganda like this just enforced on young minds how evil and grotesque these people were.

The stories are a bit outdated if read in today’s mind-frame. Still, what is great about these collections is that they transport you back to a specific time in US history. They are a time capsule of a time back in 1943 to 1945 that may not be captured by something as banal as a textbook. There are some curiosities in here, too. The Sub-Mariner story in issue #13 features a gang that makes their base at the Green Lantern Inn, some 5 years after Green Lantern appeared over at DC. Another aspect of days gone by are the small prose stories featured every issue. These are always only 2 pages and the ones in this volume were pretty dull and uninteresting.

-The Bottom Line- So where does that leave us? As a new reader looking to read something fun and exciting, this isn’t the Masterworks for you. For those who really like history and history in comics should definitely pick this up, as no other volume of Masterworks has touched upon this specific time period yet. The other Golden Age collections are mostly in the early 40’s before USA entered the war. One of the big highlights of all these Golden Age collections is the awesome Roy Thomas introduction. They should just collect all his introductions as he offers great insight on these lost classics. This is an interesting collection, a time capsule if you will, and should be read as such. It’s not for the casual fan, but if you are interested in US history and how it is shown in comics, this is a high recommendation.

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