It was a pretty big week for comics.  Several books that I was/am really looking forward too.  Basically everything except the X-Men Forever issue – which I expect to be decent, as usual, but not stunning.  I don’t think I’ll be picking up the second volume of that one, we’ll see.

Blackest Night 8 - Deciding which book to read first this week was tough, but I figured the “big” event book should go first.  Oi.  Lots of stuff here.  The resurrections are obviously the big thing folks will be talking about.  I’ll just say that I think they are all stupid.  I mean, we knew they weren’t going to leave big guns like Aquaman, Hawkpeople & Manhunter dead.  Bringing back Maxwell Lord just seems stupid – maybe as a way to semi-retcon Wonder Woman’s killing him?

And bringing back the original, boring, burnt out Captain Boomerang? ARGH.  His son was at least kind of interesting – until they filled him full of stupid recently and killed him.  I could care less about the Hawkpeople, their memories, blah.  Bringing back the original Firestorm: DUMB DUMB DUMB.  Leaving new Firestorm’s girlfriend dead?  DUMB AND CRUEL.   The whole thing is going to leave a nasty taste in my mouth – especially if they shuffle the new, non-white, Firestorm off to be replaced by the old school white Firestorm.  It looks like they will be sharing a body though… that actually has some potential.

Bringing back Jade… BLEH.  I liked Kyle + Sinestro’s Daughter.  Did we really need to complicated his life even more? I mean, I know this shit is all about drama but really?  Ugh.  Am I the only one who wants characters to be happy once in a while?  I admit, I have a soft spot for Kyle.  Oh, the art looked really good – especially the surprise fold-out splash page.

Oh, and someone actually says “I think from now on, dead is dead.”  AHAHAHHAH.  AHAHAHAHAH.   Ahhhhh hahahaha.  Yeah, right.

Oh.  This issue was bad.  Just in case my rambling wasn’t clear.  It was pretty, and somewhat entertaining, but just bad in pretty much every way.  Villain was hugeass phantom menace, tons of zombified heroes were completely ignored (for pretty much the whole series), tons of zombified enemies were ignored.  I guess, maybe the whole series was supposed to take place in like, 20 minutes or something? I dunno.  Bleh.  Bummed.

X-Force 25: The other big one this week I was waiting for.  And by “other big one” I mean “the end of the other crossover event that involves a bunch of dead people coming back and tormenting their old friends and people fighting a “dark god of death”"  ANnnnnndbreath.  How crazy that Necrosha & Blackest Night both ended on the same DAY?  Zombie zeitgeistnsnarfin.  So.  It was ok.  A little too easy I thought, actually.  Oh and evil Blink is still out there (but armless?) along with Lois London (Dazzler’s sister, to be in the upcoming Dazzler ltd).  I suppose she might make an interesting villain.  At least it will be something different, as we already have a “real” Blink out there with the Exiles who just may make it over to 616 someday.  Might as well bring “good” Sabretooth with her.  Oh right.  This issue.  Elixer, Wolfsbane, Warpath and X-23 are out of X-Force.  Leaving us with Crazyangel, Wolverine, Domino & Vanisher.  A decent issue.  Better than average.  Art was hard to follow, but that’s always been the way of this.  Compared to Blackest Night, I think this one came out on top – mostly because it avoided stupidtactular resurrections.  For the most part.  And killed a few villains.  Yay!   And one hero turned villain.  Yay.  Done with.  I hope!

X-Men Forever 20: Uhh.  Re: the reveal at the end: Umm?  This is still sort of set in 616… sort of.  So I don’t get this.  Alternate build-up to the Civil War maybe?  The issue was competent, if lackluster, as expected.  Still a bit much exposition, even for Claremont.

New Mutants 11:  Art: ugly.  Characters: horribly written.  Quite obviously not the normal writer.  Worst issue of this volume, hands down.  There were some decent ideas, but very poorly executed.

and in closing…. the beginning of another event:

X-Men: Second Coming -  A good start.  I’m not sure why Cable couldn’t just have stopped when he saw the X-Men taking out his attackers.  I mean… the panel seemed pretty clearly drawn to indicate that he saw the X-Men.  So that was dumb.  Resurrecting pretty much EVERY dead “human” villain in X-Force was dumb.  Using them here is still dumb and lazy, but the story is well written so.    Art was good, although the coloring was a bit too dark for my tastes.  Lots of wasted space in those shadows.  Seriously, resurrecting Hodge, Creed, Leper chick, and other dead annoying dudes was lame.  Hopefully they die somewhere along the way and we’re done done doooone with resurrections for a while.

X-Factor 50 delivered on at least 85% of what was expected – and there was a lot riding on it, so I’ll call it good.  It may actually be closer to 100%, but the final sequence with Doom and what?whereishe? left me confused.  If this was intentional, then OK.  Layla’s “power” is quite interesting, and I have to wonder if it’s come into play at all thus far in the series.  I like the explanation for her prescience (although the several of the early scenes from X-Factor don’t make  a whole lot of sense under this umbrella at all – the one that ended with the bathroom collapsing seems downright farcically impossibly now).  The preview for issue 200 – the “relaunch” looked really, really promising.  I bought 2 copies.  Just because.

Oh, and the majority of the people on the cover above did nothing in the story.  This was allllll about Madrox and Layla.  And Ruby and Trevor Fitzory (I know, right?) a little too.  And crochety Doom (where the hell did he go?!).

Necrosha & New Mutants 6 were pleasant surprises.  Although, …battleCypher is kinda like what/huh/ok/no/yes?  … and I SERIOUSLY doubt that the implied ending is in anyway true, but who knows, people have been dying left and right lately.  OK, not X-people.  In fact, pretty much everyone who has ever died in an x-comic was resurrected in the current X-Force run.  Except for the people I wanted resurrected (Synch!)…ok, yeah, there is only one (Synch!). Everyone else can stay down.  Please.

Speaking of dying left and right.  WOW.  Guardians of the Galaxy 19.  Wow.  Can they even call that a win with half the team dead?  Just wow, balls of steel on those writers I tell you.  And I’m not even mad about it – even though one of my favorites is gone – ?for good?.  If you like comics, especially cosmic ones, you should be buying this book.

Astonishing X-Men 31 was underwhelming.  Mucho.  But, who knows, maybe once it gets into gear…

Thankfully Avengers Initiative 29 continued to whelm in all 7 gears.  Komodo (I’m still holding out on the hope that her and Hardball work it out…) the paraplegic kicking ass with brains, Tigra continuing to just kick ass, Speedpenance getting his cat back (!) and… meeting the New Warriors, finally.  Lots of peanuts riding on the grinder heading into the 30s.

New Avengers 58 on the other hand… this plotline is dragging on way too long.  We know Bendis isn’t going to kill Cage (in fact, I’m pretty sure that the recent issue of Thunderbolts with Cage & Iron Fist takes place after this entire arc).  The Hood/Osborn stuff is moderately interesting, and the Ms. Marvel/Osborn smackdown was somewhat rewarding.  But still.  Finish this up and move on please.

Did I mention that you should pick up X-Factor 50 & Guardians of the Galaxy 19 (although neither will make much sense at all without a substantial reading and time investment in the rest of the series…but it’s totally worth it!)?

Blackest Night 4 was decent, although I think Green Lantern 47 actually beat it.  These panels are awesome.  I guess I’m a sucker for shiny lights.

I really hope all the shiny colored rings stick around.  It would also be handy if some of the current (and future, since we know Guy Gardner goes Red) non-green colored lanterns stick around.  I rather wish Hal had stayed blue – it would certainly make him more interesting.  I guess they’d have to rename the book then :P.

One note:  The colorist seems to have drawn the indigo light as more of a blue, but we already have a blue… sooo… yeah.

The bad news is that I’m totally not going to finish the Gathering Storm tonight.

Daredevil 500: Wow.  Shit actually happens.  One thing I give the DD crew props for is that they are not afraid to bend the status quo over and show it who’s the boss. Matt running the Hand?  In a country where Osborn is the good guy?  That actually has some legs.

X-Factor 48: Continues to be the best X-book.  Now that we’r drawing in on 50, you can kind of see where everything is going – but now how it’s going to end.  I have to say I wasn’t expecting the future villain to be who it is, but of course it makes perfect sense in the context of this X-Factor run.  Talk about tying up loose ends. I suspect there will only be one that gets away (the Rahne killing Madrox & Layla thing.  Not really addressable without Rahne….).

The cheap:

The required “death” in Blackest Night 03 was cheap.  C’mon – seriously?  Have some balls and kill a real hero, instead of yet another hero’s girlfriend.  Jesus Christ.  I mean.  REALLY?

Ultimates 3 02 was kinda cheap too, especially considering it was basically just one long origin issue.  I mean, the character concept for the Ultimate Red Skull is kind of interesting, but it’s not worth paying money to read a bout something so focused on it.  Especially considering there are exactly ZERO dimensions to his character, 2 issues in. Oh, he’s evil.  Why?  He was born evil, we guess.  MM kay.  Dumb.  Millar at his “best” of course.

Marvel Zombies is still going.  I guess there must be a desire to see our favorite Marvel characters get eaten and horribly disfigured.  Barf.

War of Kings – Who will Rule?: We all know how it was going to end, and it was kind of with a whimper but STILL.  Everything DnA are turning out in Marvel Cosmic lately is fucking gold son.  GOLD.

The meh:

Outsiders 22: I’m still not sure why this comic is being printed, but this issue was actually fairly decent.  It’s good to see Geo Force get some screen time, although I think he should change his name to something less 80s-Captain-Planetish with a quickness.  Still, nothing happening here worth $$.

Nomad, Girl without a World: This really didn’t need to happen.  Maybe it will tie back in with the whole two Captain Americas thing (maybe they need multiple layers of redundant sidekicks?) in a month or two but still, MEH.  Oh, and the Black Widow cockblocking the lead’s attempts to meet BuckyCap?  STUPID.  Really, really crappy writing.  Like an anti-Deux Ex-Machina.  “No, you can’t do the completely obvious thing that anyone in their right mind would do, instead you have to waste you time doing something else so we can fill up 3 more issues.” HUH? ( Yes, this should also be filed below).

Titans 17: Not particularly horrible but continuing a long string of one shots about the various titans, which looks like it will continue for at least another 3 months.   Where the hell is this title going with 3 of the “big” names heading to the JLA?  Some kind of merger with the Teen Titans?  I hope so.  Less books is almost always good.

The huh?:

Evidently one of the people with Selene in that Necrosha preview was Dazzler’s half sister.  Wow.  A character I actually had no idea existed.  I’m amazed that character sat dormant for so long.  Is that a limbo record for x-family?

War Machine 09: I guess Norman Osborn wins again?  Seriously?  Yawn.

The drek:

I skimmed the recent Dark Reign Punisher arc.  Wow, the art is horrible.   The skull on his chest is the only way I know which one the Punisher is.  And sometimes you can’t see the skull!

Magog 1: Why does this book exist?

Spider-Man 602: The new (?) Chameleon is kind of gross.  And the ending is silly, because we know he’s not dead.

Marvels Project 01: Actually not bad, will see how it goes, maybe the trade will be interesting.

X-Men Forever 05: Claremont ups the drama a bit, mixing and mashing up Decimation/Legacy Virus and Dead @21…where oh where will he go with it?  This issue was definitely missing a few beats, such as anyone reacting to baby Storm….and how everyone is suddenly calling her ‘Ro (Gawd is that a Claremont-ism or what?).  The buddy-buddyness with Sabretooth isn’t working for me either.  And why haven’t his eyes healed yet, seriously?  I’m hanging on mostly out of Claremont loyalty.  X-treme X-men, aside from the name, was a genuinely good comic imho.  Of course, at least 40% of that was Larocca’s stellar un-inked pencils.  Still, I know CC’s got some magic left in him, so I’ll wait and see where this goes for a bit longer.

UC Avengers 1: Meh, over it.  Red Skull is Cap’s son now, *yawn*.  Next.

UC Spider-Man 1: Wow, I really didn’t like the art here like, at all.  It made it difficult for me to enjoy what I’m sure would have been a decent story otherwise.  6 months later and Peter and MJ are broken up, Kitty is still around the edges, and Peter is making out with Gwen who now lives with them?  WAIT.  Gwen died…right?  So, this is Gwen/Venom clone thing or something?  I forget.  Anyway, throw the artist out and you might have something.

Blackest Night 2: Not much happens here sadly.  People fight, and talk, but I didn’t see much progress.  And evidently fire won’t kill J’onn now – not that  GL & Flash were shy about “killing” J’onn again.  Seems a little out of character for all these shiny-happy heroes, but maybe not so much if they’re thinking it’s “just” a zombie.  Really can’t wait to find out how “death” fits into the emotional spectrum and what the White Lanterns are.  I mean, you can’t have black without white right?  Just seems silly.

By the way, Norman Osborn is also dumb and obnoxious and annoying.  He’s racing Wolverine for # of titles appearing in, and has far outpaced (imho) the Civil War Iron Man’s douchebaggery levels.  Please die now, again, thanks bye.

Fantastic Four 568: Typical Millar dumbness of the uber, uber-bad.  Oh gawd he’s so powerful not only did he beat everyone, but he beat us a thousand times already – how will we ever beat him? Who cares?  Really?  Does anyone care about the villain from that weird ass 1980 whatever limited Millar put out a few years ago?  Yes, I know it ties in sidebar with Old Man Logan and all that.  Which is actually kind of cute… but the actual execution so far in FF is lame.

Iron Man 15: This storyline is still running?  Wow.

Cable 16:  K.  Whatever.  We’re aging Hope from 9 to 11, I get it.  Oooo 9->11. HUMMM.  And  Bishop got old – will he finally die now and be revealed as a skrull so we can get RealBishop back?

X-Men Forever 3:  The hell???  I mean, I would say the Shadow King, but I hope not because that’s too standard.  Someone should have commented about the Sabreooth/Wolverine’s dad thing…

Blackest Night 1: I actually bought this one – 1st DC book this year – because the Sinestro Corps War was pretty decent.  I have a feeling turning this thing into a company wide crossover is going to ruin it, but we’ll see.  The first issue definitely starts off with what “makes” an event these days: death and resurrection!  None of the resurrections go as usual though :p.  Curious if they are going to leave the two “big guns” (ok, not really, but they hung out with them a lot) who die at the end of the ish dead.  A wee bit gory for DC though.

New Mutants 3:  Slightly better than the last two issues, curious when/how they are going to repower Dani though – I’m guessing valkyrie somesuch.  Now I suppose I have to track down 1  & 2 in backissue bins.

Mighty Avengers 27: Not liking the “overkill” power levels of the villain so far, everything else was cool though. I think I prefer a “smart” villain plot to massive smash these days I guess.

X-Factor 46: Continues to build towards 50, not getting any worse.  A semi-revelation at the end, shows no signs of slowing down.