Wolverine # 900 Review

Writers: Various
Artist: Various
Cover: David Finch

YES!!! After years and years of anticipation it is finally here!!! The mother of all Wolverine comics. The one where we get to find out what exactly makes Logan tick and what really did happen at the Weapon X project. We didn't even have to wait 60 years for this book to come out, because the wonderful folks at Marvel have even created a time machine to travel to the future and bring this piece of gold back in time to us. Fuck you Action Comics and Detective Comics we beat you again! First with Deadpool, now with Wolverine. It's amazing that comics 60 years from now are only five bucks and the stories are still pretty shitty.

What we have here is a collection of eight stand alone Wolverine stories. Six new ones and two recycled from previous comics. We have Logan going after some guy in the Hand, I think. Wolverine playing his role of leader of the Black Dragons to try and take out the Yellow Claw, a story that uses Logan as a surgeon, one where he gives words to live by to a fat guy he drinks with, helping a little girl find her daddy, a dynamic team-up with Spidey, dream sequence of a distant past or an Ultimate universe, and a silent story about Weapon X. Nothing really stood out to me. We didn’t add anything new to make the character more interesting or didn’t shed light in the character’s past.

The story that stuck out the most to me was the team up with Spider-man by Zeb Wells. It actually felt like I was reading a Wolverine story from back in the day. The others were just so bland and forgettable that they aren’t even worthy of talking about. But I guess for the sake of the review and all……David Finch’s art was a nice addition, but they story made little sense. The stupid bar buddy idea was a ridiculous situation where Wolverine takes an insecure nerd out that show him life is about going for it and getting laid in the process. This is Wolverine old as fucking dirt and a samurai and those are his words of advice?!!! I would like to see a follow up to the Yellow Claw story, but maybe just as a one shot. Worst There IS was a little hard to believe, but I guess it had a cute ending. The silent comic was a waste of time, unless Stephen Segovia is just trying to get hired at Marvel and using this as his portfolio piece. The Todd Dezago bit reminded me why I quit reading comics in the 90s and the Jeph Loeb story had some nice visuals, but was just nonsense.

I'm not sure what Marvel was trying to do with this. Other than cash in on the Deadpool Team up mild success. This could have been a solid story about an old man Logan that lost his way in the future......oh wait, fuck that idea we got Mark Millar working on that, let's make this a X-men Unlimited type of adventure. People love that stuff, that's why the series was cancelled twice! It’s a definite pass, unless you are a Wolverine completist and damn it… I happen to be one. D+

New Avengers Finale Review

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Brian Hitch
Inker: Butch Guice
Colors: Paul Mounts

The end of an era is here. It feels like it was just a few years ago that I was reading Avengers Finale; wait that was just a few years ago. Now, all that build-up since issue 1 ends here. All the questions will be answered! Who was behind the break out!!? Where did Sauron learn to breathe fire!!? When did Echo learn to read lips through masks and a helmet? For that matter what happened to Echo!!? Will we finally get to see the Hood being clever and deadly and not by beating the crap out of Tigra or killing D-list villains!!!? Why did Alpha Flight have to die!!? What happened to the Collective?!! All that shit and more: In this the final issue of New Avengers, until it comes back in June!

The issue takes place after the events in Siege 4. Hell, they even tell you that on the first page. So Jessica Jones is desperately waiting on a phone call from her husband Luke Cage to see if he made it out of all this. Funny enough when she is looking at her TV panel it is the same picture that they use as a splash page on the next page. So if she just looked a little closer she would have seen Luke, plain as day talking on the phone with her. The New Avengers take off because they still think they are wanted criminals and go after some real criminals like the Hood and Madame Masque. Count Nefaria wants to help the hood become powerful, as long as the Hood gives him all his money, but is interrupted when the New Avengers break in and save the day. The new Avengers save the day and are free to walk around the park for a nice stroll.

Yeah, as you could probably tell none of those questions were answered. As most of you know, I'm not the biggest fan of New Avengers. If I didn't have a website or podcast, New Avengers would probably never be read by these peepers. They took some heroic characters that fought huge villains like Ultron, Kang, Count Nefaria, Magneto, and Michael and gave them to a writer that wrote some kick ass noirish books and pitted them against Sauron, The Hood, and Wrecking Crew! These weren't the Avengers I knew.

Saying all that, this was actually a pretty good send off for the team. Sure, not much happened other than the Hood is finally taken down and even Count Nefaria shows up and gets his ass handed to him by Ms. Marvel. Man, it's a good thing this is a different Count Nefaria than the one that used to single handedly kick the shit out of the Avengers. It was still good to see an old villain return, since that was one of my biggest gripes with the book. Thank God that Obama saves the day again by tossing the Superhuman Registration Act out the window and the New Avengers are no longer wanted by government. The script was real nice and while I didn't shed a tear, it actually felt like a good ending to a really bad series.

While I have enjoyed Hitch in the past (I still prefer Alan Davis), that cover really does nothing for me. That is one of the worst Wolverine's I've seen in a long time and I'm not sure if the Avengers are jumping out of the cars' way or if they are jumping off a building. The inside however, is done real nice with some beautiful inks by Guice. The art showed a huge amount of emotion in facial expressions and was really fluid during fight sequences! Hitch is joined by some other artists on this issue as two-page spreads from what looks to be past issues or covers and are used to provide a visual history of the group, much like the ending of Avengers Finale, it's really a shame that the group hasn't done much in 64 issues. Overall a nice send off to a group of street smart Avengers that will get a relaunch in a month. A-

The Sentry: Fallen Sun Review

Writer: Paul Jenkins
Penciler: Tom Raney
Inker: Scott Hana
Colors: Val Staples

I waited a week to post this review up because I figured it would give people enough time to read the craptacular Siege 4 and find out why this book is called Fallen Sun. Very witty Marvel, Kudos to you for play on words like that. Yes, the Sentry dies at the end of Siege 4 and this is kind of a send off to the character written by the guy that created him. That cover really confused me, I'm assuming it’s supposed to be the characters touching the dead body of the Sentry, but I just saw the guy's body incinerate into the sun in Siege 4, so maybe it's symbolic. It actually looks more like a rock star stage diving and fans grabbing for a piece of memorabilia.

Alright, so onto the review. It seems that the Sentry wasn't that popular of a character in the Marvel Universe either, because only eleven people show up to the guy's funeral. That's really fucking sad; I mean sure the guy turned into a complete douchebag at the end of his life, but for fuck sakes he wasn't in control of his mind. Everyone shares a moment about Bob and how he impacted his life. Apparently he was the one that got Tony Stark to stop drinking, made Ben Grimm understand why killing bad guys is bad, and had time to the horizontal mambo with Rogue. What a guy! And the most depressed motherfucker at the funeral was Scout, his old sidekick with one arm, who hasn't appeared in anything in years. Everyone drinks a beer to the Sentry, well except for Tony, because he has a choice to drink Aquafina or choose to drink Dasani. I guess it kind of makes sense that only 11 people show up to the funeral of a guy nobody was supposed to remember, but I thought everyone remembered now.

You know I can forgive Jenkins for that whole Captain America being un-American because he didn't have a Myspace account, but the whole Rogue and Sentry hooking up bullshit that has never happened is just complete and utter bullshit. Way to destroy a character in just one panel. He was the only one that could hug me!!!?? Someone should tell Magneto! This is Rogue, a well established leader of the X-men who is breaking down and none of it has any impact on the reader, because we never saw any light of that happening and therefore could care less. I'm sure it was supposed to play at our heart strings, but just like the rest of the issue there is no damn emotion to play with.

The problem when you are trying to write an emotional story about a hero is that the guy didn't die like a hero, he was killed by Thor. He killed people, but unlike Hal Jordan, he didn't make it his choice to fly into the sun to save people's lives to make up for all the wrong. He was asked to be killed, turned into the Void again and was murdered. Well, at least Thor got to dance with Bob's grandmother again and then tell her that he killed her grandson. What the fuck?!!! Never send Thor to tell Mystique about Nightcrawler he might try to cop a feel. Another problem is that by the time he died in Siege 4 he had overstayed his welcome. It's not really Jenkin's fault; that blame goes to Bendis. For years he tried to make the Sentry cool and the badass of the Marvel Universe, but the more I read of the Sentry, the more I wanted him dead. Under the right creators, this character could have been a shining star in the Marvel U.

I think the only thing I enjoyed about the issue was Tom Raney's art. I've always enjoyed his art style and wish he had a monthly book instead of doing all these specials. But even Jim Lee couldn't save this book from such a suckass story. I don't even think fans of the Sentry will like this book....well maybe they might like the small hint that CLOC is going to rebuild the Sentry Watchtower and wait until his master returns. I really hope that's not the case, I hope this is the last that we see of the Sentry. I also wish the Sentry would use his power to erase the fact that he ever existed from my head. Now where the fuck is the funeral issue for Kurt Wagner a well established hero since 1975?!!!! F

Strange #1

Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Emma Rios

So for the first time in over a year, I willingly paid for a single from Marvel Comics. Only two reasons why I did this

1.) Waid (Flash) was writing it
2.) It was a Doctor Strange comic.

So, was this worth the close to 3.99 I paid for it? Almost.

The story starts out with a slight olde school insert from the old Doctor Strange comics whilest at the same time foreshadowing an event that looks to happen much later in the story (Stephen Strange looking as though he's being torturted) CUT TO ...a baseball game.

An angsty teen is twittering via her phone about having to sit thru said game, a fly ball she catches and throws back squarely into none other then Stephen Strange. The coincidence is of course not one as Stephen tries to get the girl to lead him to her Grandfather (the manager of the home team playing). Apparently the team is involved in some kind of deal with a demon and in losing the game all the souls in the arena essentially will get sucked into hell. Stephen is confronted by the dealer demon and you soon realize that Strange has become known as somewhat of a hack now, even in Demonic circles. There is more but, I don't wanna give the whole issue away.

The first issue of Strange is good but not great. Waid's storytelling an characterization is on point, the callback to the old Strange comic, the depiction of Stephen Strange as kinda a down and out master sorcerer, etc, etc, all of it is good...which leaves the artwork. Much of the artwork Rios does in this first issue is good and has a Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane / Miyazawa feel to it, until you get to the baseball game. Essentially at one part in the story Stephen Strange has to play in a baseball game with demons. In what should be some purely awesome panels of Strange rounding the bases I was left utterly confused about what the fuck was going on. Rios's depiction of the demon players was just too much or rather too busy as you had tentacles an the like flying every which way confusing me and likely every other reader on what actually was happening. I get it, their demons, they have tentacles and other weird appendages, you don't need to show ALL of them. You eventually figure out Strange is safe on home base only when the umpire says SAFE...and yeah...that's just not good. I am not trying to bash Rios here, she's a good artist, but those panels woulda benefited from a less is more strategy

Aside from the "too many tentacles" issue this first issue of Strange was interesting. I say wait for the trade to come out though and enjoy it then. With their being only 4 issues in this series and each costing 3.99 you might save more money reading this title that way.

B+

JSA All-Stars #1 Review

Writer: Mathew Sturges
Art: Freddie Williams II
Colors: Richard & Tanya Horie

Following the events of Justice Society of America 33 and 34 comes the new spin-off title that majorly focuses on the new team players and Power Girl and Hourman. With the suggestion by Magog and Power Girl the team with 20+ characters needed to form a military squad. This is it!

The first issue sets the new status quo for the characters. Magog tries to use his military background to become field commander and sets up three sub teams. Meanwhile Power Girl is still the chairman of this new Society. While they manage to hold their ground against a group of androids, the characters are trying to figure out which sub-team they are supposed to be on. After a brief meeting of trying to come up with names and some extreme training drills the team holds a press conference. It is during this press conference that the team is attacked by the Strike Force! It is during this attack that Star Girl gets kidnapped by Johnny Sorrow. Who happens to be one of my favorite JSA villains of all time.

Freddie Williams II provides the art here for this issue and he seems to have tweaked his art style a bit. There are plenty of more shading and more detail in each picture. To be completely honest Freddie really packs each panel with immense detail, beautiful backgrounds, and when given the chance; Power Girl's tits. Even when she gets her clothes torn twice in the issue we are still being teased by her. But not every detail is a good one because it seems he also fills everyone up with a strange sort of squiggle and swirl in both their outlines as well as the texture on their clothes. At times the sizes of the characters change. Particularly Wildcat's head and Damage's body. All the guys seem to toned-up as well; kinda reminds me of an older Bart Sears style.

Sturges establishes which characters he's taken with him to the new title. You get to know most of their personalities, their reason for being on the team, and how much growing they have to do to become one badass team on the battlefield. There was a nice mention of the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman that made me chuckle too. This was quite a bit to in one issue so he got the job done of establishing his new status quo. He really is proving himself to be a good writer. I'm glad they chose someone who’s got a very strong feel for these characters and their respective personalities. They all feel very much like they have in the past, when Johns or Goyer were writing them.

It's not a bad start for a new book and it does the job of setting up why this team has to exist outside of the main JSA book. The inclusion of two old villains showing up was a nice notch to the older readers and I'd like to see Magog develop into a character outside of his cookie cutter mold which was Cable (back in the New Mutants days).
B

Nation X #1 Review

Writers: Chris Yost, Simon Spurrier, James Asmus, & Scott Snyder
Artists: Mike Allred, David Lopez, Michele Bertilorenzi, & Leonard Kirk

I'm not really why Marvel insisted on canceling X-men Unlimited if they were going to keep comics like this, Divided We Fall, and Manifest Destiny around. But maybe these miniseries work better like TV seasons instead of monthly anthologies.

It is nice to see some of the characters that haven't been the spotlight of Uncanny or Legacy take light. It's also good to see the remaining cast of Young and New X-men come back and kick us off. So the idea behind this series is to show us how some of the other mutants who aren't Wolverine or Cyclops, or shit even Deadpool nowadays are dealing with this new Utopia that Cyclops has created for mutant kind. Unfortunately nothing really stands out in these four stories. Not to say that it's a terrible series, but nothing really shines like those Brandon Peterson covers, sorry horrible analogy I couldn't resist.

The Ghost of Asteroid M turns out to be the weakest part of the book. While then art is fine and get the job done; the story is bland and the dialogue is almost out of character for Magneto. Turns out the ghost was nothing more than a message by Magneto himself. Road Trip was probably the highlight for me because of Allred's art. It fit the story even if it was just a silly college humor kind of story. Cold Shoulder seem to go on a little too long to get the point across that Iceman does care, but he has to joke about everything to cover how scared he is. It was nice to see Stinger back, nice throwback to those classic X-factor stories. Testament was a solid story about Colossus not being able to leave the past behind and his resurrected sister treating him like a bitch. It was a touching tale and made me miss Kitty Pride even more.

Charging four bucks for stories like these is a little too much. If they had made it 64 pages instead of a four issue limited series it would have worked better. While it's not terrible it can be easily skipped and unless the next few issues bring something new to the table, the whole series can probably be skipped. C

Dark Wolverine #81 Review

Writers: Daniel Way & Marjorie Liu
Pencils: Giuseppe Camuncoli
Inks: Onfrio Catcchio
Colors: Marte Gracia
Cover: Brandon Peterson

I had to mention the cover artist because it's really weird to see Dark characters shine. While this works for the cosmic events like War of the Kings, I thought this title was supposed to be dark? Put Jae Lee or Bill Sienkiewicz on the job. I get the reasoning why they did it. It's a pretty cover that is supposed to show the false relationship between Daken and Moonstone, but Dark Wolverine should never be shiny.

Enough bitching about the cover, let's start bitching about the book. It's been a long time since I've reviewed a Daniel Way Wolverine book. I think I was burned out on repeating how much his stories suck ass and how he is destroying the character of Wolverine. Dark Wolverine or Daken is another matter though. He happens to be his own creation and for some reason Marvel is trying to make him a heavy hitter in their universe. As far as I'm concerned, I really could give a fuck about Daken and his mighty misadventures and this issue does nothing to intrigue the character.

Moonstone goes and looks for Daken and after flying around for half an issue she finds him and has some tea with him. Through a series of flashbacks we learn why Daken likes tea or doesn't like tea so much. We learn that he killed an old woman and he is a liar! What the fuck am I reading?!! I get that Dr.Karla Sofen is trying to psychoanalyze this douchebag that she has an interest in, but the execution is horrible. They spend half the issue answering questions with questions? Am I supposed to care about Daken, because shitty stories like this really make me despise the character even more? This issue is seemingly built solely to portray Daken as a misanthropic rogue a loose fucking cannon of the Dark Avengers. This is a fact that has already been shoved down our throats in other books; Making this series an instantly forgettable and unnecessary character study. You want an example of a good psychoanalysis issue; go read X-factor 87. Thais es a complete baste of time.

While I dig Camuncoli's characters, this book really needs a background artist. His style is a unique twist on the classic mangaesque look, but his buildings and setting really need some work. Perhaps a different inker and colorist to darken the feel of the book would help. To be honest I think they should replace the whole creative team or just cancel this useless book. I'm hoping someone will resurrect Sabretooth to come and chop this fucking hack of a Wolverine's head off. D

Ultimatum #4 Choose-Your-Own Verdict

So I thought I might write a review for this comic since y'know, that's sort of what we're supposed to do here, but instead I thought I would just tell you my case (it isn't good) and then, as if this were some sort of court case, give you evidence supporting it.

Verdict: Ultimatum is shock-gore horse-$#!% intended to make you THINK it's good because they're doing "CRAZY" things, when really, it's just superbly bad writing with people dying to make it look important.

EXHIBIT A:

Apparently, Ultimate Spider-Man is dead. Way to go, assholes. The only reason 90% of the readers pick up Ultimate titles is now Jeph Loeb-fodder.

EXHIBIT B:

BUNGHOLES?! Damn you, Loeb. Nick fury DOES NOT EQUAL Beavis and Butthead. It's the Ultimates, you wrote Ultimates 3 so "Edgy", why can't he just say assholes, or jerks, or ANYTHING BUT BUNGHOLES!?!?!?!?

EXHIBIT C:

Explaining why this is bad would be like showing you the a video of the victim (Comic Books) being stabbed by the defendant (Jeph Loeb) and then having to actually explain why that is bad.

EXHIBIT D:

He can't even write his own Evil Villain Dialogue. He has to borrow it from the Bible. Lazy and super F'd out.

EXHIBIT E:

Gore for the sake of gore. OMG THEY KILLED TEH DOKTOR STRANJJ!!!1

EXHIBIT F:

More gore for the sake of gore. So retarded. So so retarded. No fights, no characterization, it's like a kid playing with action figures. All that's needed is just the characters hitting each other and everyone's having the time of their life. This is so $#!%.

So there you go faithful readers. Make up your own minds. Is this not awful? Also, I love Finch as an artist, and this is some of the worst work I have ever seen him churn out.

Exiles # 1 Review

Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Salva Espin
Colors: Anthony Washington
Publisher: Marvel

I'm guessing that this is the fourth volume Exiles..if I don't include the original Malibu Comics run, just the one where Juggernaut, Reaper, and Siena Blaze were on....maybe I shouldn't count that one either. Anyway, this is a fresh start to a very very familiar story.

For some unknown reason Morph (assuming it's the same Morph from the original series) is now the Timebroker and has gathered six new Exiles to go on missions hopping from world to world. They are to fix what isn't supposed to be broken in these different Earths. I'm sure if you've read Exiles before this all sounds like the same idea. Well, it really is. Morph gives Blink, who doesn't act like the Age of Apocalypse Blink the Tallus that states what their missions are and they go off to find a world where Magneto rules and Wolverine drools...errr is dead.

The five new characters are Panther, Forge, Beast, the Witch, and Polaris. They all seem really bland and boring. Forge did die a pretty heroic death in his world though, so I have hopes for him. I think the problem I had with Parker's writing is that they all sounded the same. They read more like teenagers and I hate to say it, but they sound like they belong in the Marvel Adventures book series. I figure with a revamp that Parker would take this opportunity to introduce some new elements to the series and give us a fresh start. But, it's all the same just with new faces and different goals.

I can't say I loved the art either. Espin has a simple style that you can tell he is still perfecting. Characters vary in look and size from panel to panel and he adds very little to keep me interested in the already bland story. The cover by Bullock reminds me of Mark Pacella from the 90s and that isn't a good thing. The variant cover shown here really makes no sense. Since the only appearance Wolverine makes in the book is as a decapitated corpse. Way to boost those sells. I'll keep reading in hopes the stories and characters grow on me, but this is really a bad start since I had high expectations after reading Agents of Atlas. D

Wolverine: Weapon X # 1 Review

Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Ron Garney
Covers: Ron Garney, Olivier Copiel, Alan Davis, and Adam Kubert
Colors: Jason Keith
Publisher: Marvel Comics

It's been a long time since I've done comic reviews other than the manga with Melanie and Tommy. I guess I got really burned out on saying the same crap about Daniel Way fucking up Wolverine or Geoff Johns treating each character with love. So I figure let's go back to the drawing board and pump out some reviews again. After all it is partly the reason why Dan and I started the site. We just got tired of reading kiss ass review after kiss ass review. Why not start with a new ongoing series starring my favorite character: Wolverine?

Weapon X is a new ongoing series (hellz yeah! Wolverines needs more than 7 books a month!) by Jason Aaron and Ron Garney. The first issues introduces the idea of more people like Wolverine running around as killing machines. The twist this time is that it isn't the Weapon X program turning people into assassins, but Blackguard. All this information comes from ex-mutant and ex-badass Maverick. Now Wolverine, with a brand new costume has to search for these assassins.

Not much of a start, just a simple story that could have been told in Wolverine or better yet Wolverine Origins, since Weapon X is such a big part of Logan's past. But I'm not Marvel and I'm sure they have good smart people making the calls when the new Wolverine movie is about to come out. I see nothing new in this first issue; new Wolverine villains with claws! Apparently Blackguard thinks it’s a good idea to enhance the claws by making them glow in the dark. That would surely make it easier to sneak up on your target. What I did like about the issue is that it read like the classic stories of Chris Claremont or early Larry Hama. A self contained story centered around Wolverine without going too deep into his past or catching readers up with his current convoluted status.

I do like the way Aaron writes Wolverine, although I doubt Logan would chop a mugger's hand off; everything else sounded like the bub using Wolverine we all love. What I don't get is the Spanish line: "Me Cago en Diez" Which literally translates to "I shit on ten!" Not sure if the guy is counting down to his crap time or if he is shitting on Grant Morrison's Attack on Weapon Plus story, cause I'm with you on that one Spanish cannon fodder! The art by Garney reminds me of the late John Buscema. It's very sketchy but man he can really set the atmosphere of the threat that Wolverine will be facing. Stop buying Wolverine Origins and don't even think about pre-ordering that Dark Wolverine story; As far as good Wolverine stories are concern this is probably the only place you are going to find one. B