Onefinemess

re: Dark X-Men : The Beginning 3:

Once upon a time, a great creative team made Jean Grey interesting as the Phoenix, then killed her, ending that arc wonderfully.  Then Marvel thought it would be fun to do again, and again, and again.  Each time it is less interesting, and more likely to make me not buy whatever book is involved in it.

Once upon a time, a great creative team (or three) brought Emma Frost through a wonderful character arc, ending in marriage to Cyclops, after various struggles with non-heroic tendencies.  Now, Marvel appears to be starting that cycle over.  And each time I see this arc continued, I’m less and less likely to want to buy issues with her in it.

Oh, I also find it hilarious that the one person to get the best of Norman Osborn so far is Aurora.  Aurora.  WIN.

Blackest Night: Titans 01 – I’m sensing a pattern of bringing back un”valuable” characters only to kill them and resurrect them as Black Lanterns (Hawkman/woman, Aqualad guy, and now Hawk) in a vain attempt to ratchet up the drama.  *Yawn*

X-Force 18 : Wow, armless huh?  That’s pretty graphic, even for an x-book. I am pleased that all the almost-dead ex-New Mutants/X-kids from this issue are still alive though.  Kind of a miracle there.  And Necrosha is ticking away in the background… not horrible, not great, but decent.

New Mutants 4: Not stellar, but getting better at least (Sunspot coming on to Amara though??  Aren’t they all like brothers & sisters by now?).  I fail to see why Sam would try and send Dani away though – they’ve been through enough that he would know better.  Besides, Legion was obviously after her for one reason or another, and he can probably teleport….sooo…yeah.

Dark Wolverine 77: Yes, the “dark”-ness is dumb, but whatever.  They’re at least going out of their way to make Daken a character in his own right, which I do appreciate.  Not really my thing though.  Sadly I’m hooked into Marvel to follow certain characters, most of the new ones (especially Wolverine clones) just don’t do it for me.

Justice League of America 36: Wow, when has Vixen looked this ugly?  These issues just feel like filler to me, or like it should be a separate series or something.  Look, I’m not knocking Len Wein…but the story he’s writing does not feel like a good fit for the current run of this book at all.  Plus, the art is periodically horrible.

Wolverine Origins 39: Ok but, umm, Romulus’ 4th claw is really dumb, not to mention impractical and useless (looking).  Sorry Rommy, you have the least cool claws, goodbye!

Wonder Woman 35: Uh, this is the first “good” issue of Wonder Woman I can recall flipping through.  The whole arena/fight club bit is kind of silly but the Pele/whatshisname/Wonder Woman alliance arc is actually really interesting.

Dark Avengers 08: Decently interesting, mostly because it focuses on the X-Men.  Hah!  So I guess Emma wasn’t a traitor…this may counter my comment on Dark X-Men above, we’ll see.  I didn’t see Xavier in the pile of people rescued though, interesting.  Is this the first step in the Cabal’s breakup (finally!) with the only two ostensibly “good” characters defecting back to the angels?  It couldn’t be soon enough.

Avengers Initiative 27: Stellar story here.  It really shines in how much is crammed into one issue without making anything feel rushed. Reading the first “section” I was like “arrghhh is this gonna be the whole issue?”  But then, it wasn’t, and it worked just fine for what it was.  Not to mention that they quoted my favorite Petty song AND a classic Springsteen song…big points there.  The (non-Dark) Avengers books continue to swing for the bleachers.

Woah.  All four “Hulk” titles came out today.  … Little bit odd there Marvel shipping folks.

Hulk 14: If only I wasn’t so morbidly fascinated with waiting for this train wreck to end…yes I keep tuning in, no it doesn’t suck yet.  Nevermind that you get Domino acting horribly out of character, quailing and getting all  obsequious towards RapingHulk, or Wolverine telling X-Force to “Kill everyone” (including Electra, whom he just saved, and the Punisher, with whom he’s worked before).  Wait, no on second thought don’t forget either of those things – they’re just more examples of a what an ignorant writer Loeb is.

Son of Hulk 14: I still don’t get how this other kid is a Hulkchild too.  I mean, Caiera wasn’t even pregnant with him.  Huh?

Incredible Hercules 133: The origin of Amadeus Cho commences.  A little slower than the previous year or so of stories, but hey it’s only the start.  This is one book I’m torn about not buying every time I see it.  Bottom line, Pak is just a damn good writer.

So good in fact that two titles he wrote came out today!  Incredible Hulk 601 was also pretty decent.  We get to see Bruce using his brain (I wonder where he ranks in the “smartest person on Earth” thing that Amadeus is #7 on…I mean Richards must be in the top 3, Doom and Pym probably up there too…), which is nice for a change.  He says flat out that the Hulk will be back eventually (which makes me think, maybe not for a while :P), and now he’s helping his “son” train to kill the Hulk/him.  If only he could kill the Raping Hulk instead… well, there’s another big Hulk-over coming in a few months, so I have a feeling he’ll be back for that.  Who knows though, Pak’s got balls, so a Hulk-less Hulk-over… I wouldn’t put it past him.  Besides, they just imported a 2nd She-Hulk, and there’s a third (red…) one coming in another month or two.  Not to mention A-Bomb & Hulk’s 2 (!?) kids…so there’s Hulk-oids aplenty, we can get by without old green skin for a while.

Tags: Hulk, New Mutants, Wolverine, Wonder Woman, X-Force

This entry was posted by onefinemess on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 9:29 pm and is filed under Comics, pullbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.