This week we have entries from the usual crew in Space Jawa and Was Taters, but also an addition by Luis, who gave me something from Amazing Spider-Man. When I discovered who that’s supposed to be holding the decapitated head, I let out one hell of a sigh.
Amazing Spider-Man #649
Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos
Avengers & The Infinity Gauntlet #4
Brian Clevinger, Lee Black and Brian Churilla
Welcome to another week of This Week. Not as many comics from my end as usual, but I have David tossing me a couple, as well as contributors Was Taters and Space Jawa. As I start these off in alphabetical order, I find myself asking: what tracks does Emma Frost have in her earrings?
Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #3
Warren Ellis and Kaare Andrews
Avengers #5
Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita Jr.
Welcome to a very special Too Much Goddamn Deadpool Edition of ThWiP. Why too much? Even though I didn’t even read Wade Wilson’s War this time around? Simply put, Deadpool #1000 has way too much going for it for me to choose a single panel, so I figured I’d give a spot to all eleven of its stories. Adding that to an already stacked week and we have a hefty set.
Avengers Prime #2
Brian Michael Bendis and Alan Davis
Avengers: The Origin #5
Joe Casey and Phil Noto
40 isn’t a very special number, but we got a lot on the plate this time around anyway, so let’s pretend it matters. Oh, and we also get three doses of Grant Morrison. Well… only two of them count, but whatever.
Amazing Spider-Man #635
Joe Kelly and Michael Lark among others
American Vampire #4
Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque and Stephen King
Welcome back for another week. It’s been a pretty damn good week for comics, even with that Rise of Angst miniseries. A really full week, too. Reader Space Jawa sends in one for Ultimate Enemy, which I heard was a pretty big letdown. Sure, it’s going to lead into the next miniseries, but there’s apparently no closure.
Amazing Spider-Man #632
Zeb Wells, Chris Bachalo and Emma Rios
Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #2
Grant Morrison and Frazer Irving
We’re a month away from the release of the two-years-awaited Iron Man 2 and only a week or so ago, the novelization came out. Like with all the other Marvel movies, I picked this one up. Surprisingly, this one isn’t written by Peter David, but by Alexander Irvine. You might recognize the name if you’ve read Daredevil Noir.
So what’s going on in the story? It takes place six months after Iron Man – although Irvine flubs that by referring to it as two years at least once – and sometime before Incredible Hulk. Tony hasn’t done too much in terms of righting wrongs as Iron Man, but he does flaunt it when possible and gets in trouble with the government because of it. They insist he should hand over the tech to them, which he totally disagrees with and points out that the rest of the world is 20 years away from reaching that level anyway. Also, Tony has a couple events marked off on his calendar and every one of them is a backdrop for an action sequence. Really, every action sequence can be summed up with, “I can’t wait for _______! I hope nothing bad happens! Oh, crap! Explosions!”
Let’s go over the characters, starting with our hero.
Tony Stark is getting ready for the Stark Expo (hey, guess what that means?), but at the same time is secretly disturbed by the realization that his arc reactor isn’t so perfect after all and it’s slowly killing him. He and JARVIS have been working on a way to reinvent the arc reactor, but so far nothing’s doing and things look grim. In response, Tony has been acting even more reckless than usual and becomes a grade-A asshole.
Mark Millar on the opening scene of Ultimate Avengers #5:
PS Wasp wasn’t raped. These guys were political torturers, but it wasn’t sexual. Sexual violence in Marvel books is a bit weird and I’ve avoided since I started (as far as I recall) as this stuff is all available to kids.
Political torture? What did they do, tie her to a chair and read her some Glenn Beck quotes? Did they get into a really, really heated debate over healthcare? Maybe diss her for voting Perot? Did they make fun of her for thinking that dead prez’s (bounce to this…) socialist movement was going anywhere?
Did they make her cry when they carefully explained that no one will ever spend as much on education as they do on war?
C’mon, son.
We don’t believe you, you need more people.
I usually never dress up for Halloween- didn’t as a kid, had no interest in it as an adult. This year, though, I was shanghai’d into it by Ron Richards of iFanboy and James Sime of Isotope. So, you know, I put on a costume. It wasn’t my fault, they would’ve killed me.
My buddy Star St. Germain also had a pretty awesome costume. We somehow managed to see each other once the whole night, so no pics of us together.
If you got costumes, let’s see ’em.
Yesterday, Jean Grey forced Magneto to see Nick Fury’s memories, which caused Magneto to repent all of his wrongdoing. Then Cyclops acted like a total hero by exploding the head of an old man who was no longer a threat. Good going, guy.
In the actual comic, Fury really showed Magneto how mutants were man-made in a laboratory, as part of Ultimate Origins. I’m still not totally sure why this caused Magneto to change his ways completely. Magneto’s war stopped being humans vs. mutants a while ago, what with him not only killing mutants by the score, but the fact that he was killing his own underlings for the hell of it. And yet this little snippet of information puts him into, “What have I done?!” mode.
Let us move forward.
I blame ManiacClown for that Burma Shave gag and the Wonder Pets thing. Give the guy a break on the latter one. He’s a father. It’s his business to watch that show.
We’ll continue with the X-Men insanity tomorrow, plus a little trip to Latveria.
Previously, Colossus and the Hulk smashed the hell out of stuff because blowing up pieces of Avalon is really important. How come? I guess they want to make sure that they destroy Magneto regardless, but I’m sure there’s some cool stuff the world could use from a big, floating island. It seems so pointless, you know?
Then Nick Fury showed up alongside Reed, Doom and Zarda. His ace-in-the-hole (or at least the one for this version of the story) is that it doesn’t matter that he has a metal gun on him. The way Magneto’s been fighting, it’s like he only strikes in the name of his own delayed defense. Valkyrie cuts his arm off and THEN he uses his magnetic powers on her sword. Captain America beats him around and THEN he uses his magnetic powers on his shield and the surrounding environment. Wolverine mauls him for a minute and THEN he uses his magnetic powers to tear his skeleton apart. Even this whole scheme is based on following up, “They started it!” I’m just trying to make sense out of what they’re giving me here.
Anyway…
Yeah, that’s about it for Magneto. Come back tomorrow, as ManiacClown and I start on the long stretch of epilogue. We still have two overly-violent deaths to go!
