So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Rollo Tomassi]

Kup wasn't in the book that I could tell. And I didn't see Grimmy in the book either. Verity survived. Hmmm..Fort Max, I seemed to recall them saying he was okay too, but it wasn't more than a line toward the end. I didn't actually see him in the book.

[anarky]

I think Grimlock was in an earlier issue, since he was in the prison.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Amazing Spidey 632 I'm so glad BND happened to make ASM a lighter, funner book what with the domestic child custody squabbles of Harry"I was in Europe recuperating" Osborn and cute fun things like Doc Connors EATING HIS OWN CHILD.
Secret Avengers 1 I thought the line about the hubris of granting mining right on Mars was pretty funny. Because some day aliens are gonna land on Earth and show us the deed they bought from some other aliens and we're ALL gonna know how the Native Americans felt. Suckaz. Also, the last page was a great "shocker" twist, assuming that is who we're supposed to think it is.
Batman:Return of BWayne 2 Not as confusing as the first issue, but still totally wonky Morrison writing. part of me wants to wait until this wholse series is out and read it in one go, but I don't think it would help.
Fantastic Four 579 Hickman continues to put the 'FANTASTIC' in this book.
GIJoe: Hearts and Minds 1 Max Brooks writing trumps Chaykin's art (which thankfully was only half the issue) as we get stories about Major Bludd and Spirit Iron Knife. I enjoyed it.
Green Lantern 54Dex Starr is awesome.
GL Corps 48Ganthet becomes a Lantern.
Justice League: Rise of Arsenal 3 Because I would totally have 'up against the wall sex' with my dead daughters estranged terrorist mother and then go shoot some heroin when she dies. What a fuckin' travesty.
Justice League :Gen Lost 2 After two issues this is becoming the more interesting of the year long bi-weekly series put out. It also makes condescending asses out of the Trinity which I think needs to happen more at DC.
Secret Warriors 16 Hickman's other great Marvel book right now.
Thanos Imperative: Ignition One-shot The crossover series Guardians and Nova were cancelled for. Not much happened, but I like to see Thanos whuppin' ass.
Thunderbolts 144 I was kinda hoping for some fresh faces, but 80% of the team are from previous iterations. And some of the reasoning behind the choices and/or their agreement were odd. But the best part was that I get to add another number to my list of reasons why Charles Xavier is the biggest hypocritical douche in comics. "Thanks for 'listening' in on a conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with you, piping up mentally, and then offering suggestions that nobody asked for." I mean, WOW, what a douche. Seriously.
Transformers 7 Seeing what the Decepticons have been up to finally. And a cool Wildman cover of Megatron to boot.
Wolverine Weapon X 13 The page of Spider-Man 'stealing' all of Ben Grimm's catchphrases was probably the best page I read this week. Oh and seeing Wolverine and Captain America fighting armies of Deathloks is also cool.
X-Men: Blind Science One-shot Heh. Doctor Nemesis has the dumbest "hero" name in comics. But he's like if House (the TV doc) was an X-Man. But I wish they would stop making Madison Jeffries come across like an idiot savante.
X-Force 27 Second Coming continues. A few more X-men get maimed and wounded. And a chilling final page (even though we know it's not true). I also like Mike Choi's art. A lot.

[anarky]

Any Wildman cover is a great cover. Honestly, I can never understand why only Transformers fans appreciate that he's one of the most underrated artists of the past 20 years. Even Joe fans who aren't TF fans, or X-Men fans who picked up the adaptations of the 1990s cartoon, they don't appreciate how awesome he is.

Really. This speaks for itself.

[Rollo Tomassi]

what's the cover supposed to be?

[anarky]

Ah, shit, it was working earlier. It's Transformers #71.

Someone ought to come up with a way to prevent hyperlinking that actually shows a URL where you can see the original image. Seriously. That way everyone here isn't confused, and they get traffic to their site.

[Rollo Tomassi]

[Rollo Tomassi]

Amazing Spidey Annual 37 A "retconned" First Meeting of Spidey and Captain America which leads Cap to letting "criminals" like Hawkeye, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch to join the Avengers. I remember when Annuals were actually Annuals and not just One-Shots with inventory stories in them.
Avengers: Prime 1 I could have read more of the hard discussion between the three main characters (Iron Man, Thor, and Steve Rogers) without any of the "sucked into alternate dimensions" froofah. I mean, these guys have a LOT to discuss. It would make for riveting comic reading even if they were just sitting at a table for five issues. "oh look who's for civil rights all of the sudden." Ha. Steve zings Stark good. And Alan Davis' art is nice.
Brightest Day 3 Why the fuck does it take comic stories so long to get started nowadays? These first three issues would have been TWO PAGES of a Kirby/Lee issue of Fantastic Four. Seriously, decompression sucks.
Darkstar and the Winter Guard 1 I've a soft spot for Russia's Super Team. Although I wish there had been abit more explanation and history here. There have been like 10 Red Guardians and 20 Crimson Dynamos (a couple of which I think are supporting characters) I'm glad they addressed that the original Darkstar died during Morrison's New X-Men run and this is a newbie replacement. I guess Darkstar in big letters on the cover sells better than Winter Guard in big letters? Don't let the name fool you this is a team book.
Ender in Exile 1Probably not as excited about this one as I am future minis, but I don't want a damn hole in my Ender collection do I? And it was a decent adaptation.
GIJoe:Origins 16Decent beginning of a Zartan origin story that actually ties into Chuck Dixon's first issue of the regular ongoing in a cool way.
Moon Knight 9 Mediocre uninspired art and Continuity Pet Peeve #4: Frenchie has artificial legs, which apparently the editor nor the artist are aware of, since one didn't catch it and the other decided to draw him throughout the issue with normal fleshy legs.
Official Index 2 More Avengers, Cap, and Thor goodness.
The Stand: Hardcases 1 Wonderful adaptation continues.
Thanos Imperative 1 haven't read it yet, but skimmed it. Thanos had a nice moment with Drax where he thanked him for killing him.
Thor 610 Siege Epilogue with nice Braithwaite art. Had a good laugh when I saw a fullpage in house ad for Skarr:Son of Hulk ongoing in 2008. Ha ha. WHOOPS! Somebody fucked up there!!
TF: Ironhide 2 Another great issue with beautiful Coller art. Seems to be jumping back and forth between flashbacks and a confused present day Ironhide on Cybertron. (And apparently the Ironhide that's been running around the IDW-verse since Escalation is/wasn't really Ironhide?!)

[anarky]

Classic GIJoe Volume 8. I always recalled the Cobra Civil War being longer than just three freakin' issues!

(But if it were decompressed, it would be three years worth of monthly comics. Just like Dixon's current ongoing. I like it, mind you, unlike most, but, damn, not much has happened yet.)

[Diabolical]

The last 2 weeks:

Daredevil: Cage Match - Didn't realize this was a one-shot at first. Nothing special, but I'm sure it sheds light on the upcoming Shadowland.

Gotham City Sirens #12 - Catwoman looks for her crazy-ass sister. The creative team is a bit odd. Paul Dini has written most of them, but every once in a while someone else does (Scott Lobdell, Tony Bedard).

Punisher MAX #7 - Still enjoying the book, but it feels too much like Jason Aaron is trying to write Ennis' Marvel Knights book in a MAX Style.

Star Wars Legacy #48 - Almost done. Seems like they're ramping up a big story arc with only 2 issues left. Also, Artoo makes a poorly drawn appearance.

This Week:

Green Hornet #4 - Hey the Green Hornet FINALLY shows up!

I,Zombie #2 - The first issue was $1 and it wasn't bad; an interesting take on zombies. Same for issue #2 (except the price).

Serenity: Float Out - Written by Patton Oswalt. Three of Wash's old friends reminisce about Wash as they christen their new ship. The individual flashback stories are a bit confusing in terms of what is actually happening panel-to-panel and who is where and doing what at any given time. Not sure if it's the the fault of the writer or artist. The whole thing was almost a waste until the the last 4 pages, when...something...is revealed.

Franken-Castle #17 - Forgot to remove it from my pulls and didn't notice it in the stack. More crap. The most interesting part was two ads that caught my eye: Young Allies (no idea why, as I have no real interest in the individual characters) and the Shadowland ad with the (REAL) Punisher shooting Spider-man. All I know of Shadowland is that it's the big Marvel summer event (ugh) and Daredevil (and the other "street" heroes) is involved.

[anarky]

Like I said, Big Pun (hee hee) looks back to normal in Shadowland. The whole "Incredible Herc" bullshit on Hulk didn't last too long, right? So I doubt Franken-Castle will, either.

You mentioned Artoo made a poorly-drawn appearance? Is Duursema still handling the art, or someone else? I sometimes don't care for her faces, but it's more a stylistic thing than an actual skill issue, and I've never noticed anything with her droids.

Also, out of curiosity, and feel free to spoilerize the hell out of me because I don't want to read it, did they ever explain why Artoo is in the future but not Threepio?

[Diabolical]

Like I said, Big Pun (hee hee) looks back to normal in Shadowland. The whole "Incredible Herc" bullshit on Hulk didn't last too long, right? So I doubt Franken-Castle will, either.

God, I hope not. The completest in me wants to continue, but the other side says "It's OK. It ain't 'The Punisher' so won't be incomplete."

You mentioned Artoo made a poorly-drawn appearance? Is Duursema still handling the art, or someone else? I sometimes don't care for her faces, but it's more a stylistic thing than an actual skill issue, and I've never noticed anything with her droids.

She's still on board and her droids are usually pretty good, even her Artoos, but there is just a sloppy panel or two here.
It's rare to find an artist that can draw a decent astromech, which I don't understand. They draw massively detailed spaceships like Star Destroyers and X-Wings in massive dogfights, but totally give up on astromechs? WTF?

Also, out of curiosity, and feel free to spoilerize the hell out of me because I don't want to read it, did they ever explain why Artoo is in the future but not Threepio?

I had to look it up (I guess the Star Wars wiki is good for something). Back in issue 12, Cade went to a hidden Jedi Temple (under the ruins of an old Temple) on Ossus and the Whipid Jedi K'kruhk (who was in the Clone Wars) basically says "Here's your dead dad's lightsaber. Oh, and this droid here belongs to your family. I upgraded him to Windows 7 for you." And then Artoo shows up a small handful of times over next 36 issues and has nothing to do with anything.
Threepio has never been shown or explained. The only other real character to show up is Luke in ghost form.

[anarky]

And A'Sharad, although they totally fucked him over. A'Sharad retreated to Tatooine, where he died of old age, never knowing Obi-Wan or Anakin's son were on the same planet. That's how the EU works in my mind. After the end of the New Jedi Order, they all live happily ever after. Well, everyone who's still alive. Everything with the word "Legacy" in the title is really bad fanfic made official.

Really, Luke's ghost and Artoo I can see, if the main character is Luke's grandson, great-grandson, whatever. But the storyline here is just fucking insulting to K'krukh and A'Sharad, who were two of the better characters in prequel-era EU, even if they were both members of Unnecessary Apostrophes Anonymous.

[Diabolical]

Real Star Wars ends on Endor after the Death Star blew up. That is when they lived happily ever after.

By real characters, I meant theatrical ones, like Luke and Artoo. Threepio is the only other one that could have been remotely possible (or believable).
K'krukh and A'Sharad don't count as real characters, since they never appeared onscreen. But if you could them, you could also count the Wookie that appeared in the later Clone Wars comics (I forget his name) who made a 1-2 issue appearance in Legacy.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Hey! Don't be knocking the Incredible Herc book until you read it, 'nark. I think the character of Amadeus Cho (Herc's buddy) would be right up your alley. It was definitely way better than anything that was happening in the actual Hulk books, thats for damn sure.