the vynsane asylum

I'm not saying it's bad. But why not put Hulk on hiatus and give Hercules his own title? Seems a bit... gimmicky. They also didn't do the snigtarded-looking "red Hulk" story there so they could give Hulk a new #1.

Last couple of weeks worth

6/9/10

Avengers Academy 1 The cool "twist" premise on the final page and McKone's art made this a surprise hit on my list. Looking forward to issue 2.
Batman 700 What? Fuck You, Grant Morrison. I can't understand the shit you write.
Capt. America 606 I don't buy Zemo's "reasons" for reverting to villainy. Just because Bru wants him to be a bad guy again, you throw out 100+ issues of character development in Thunderbolts? By that resoning, you should make Hawkeye and Black Widow villains again, too.
Daredevil 507 Leading up to Shadowland. Daredevil as a super-villain has a certain attractiveness to it.
GIJoe Cobra 5 I was reallllly giving this one the benefit of the doubt, but it just didn't WOW me, and if you can't completely WOW me, then quite honestly the Serpentor Sucks factor trumps whatever you were attempting.
Iron Man 27 Mrs. Arbogast! Yay! This book continues to rock.
Justice League: Gen Lost 3 Much better than the other DC bi-weekly book. Now Blue Beetle is on the caper. I enjoyed it.
Punisher MAX 8 Bullseye continues to be a creepy fuck. And Kingpin gets shot by his own wife while they are fucking.
Secret Six 22 Awesome.
Transformers 8 A whiny Spike-centric story whee he gets revenge on a Constructicon for killing his friend during AHM. yawn.
Uncanny X-Men 525 Second Coming continues. This is a really epic story like the X-Men books of old.
Young Allies 1 Eh. Not as good as Avengers Academy. Arbitrary Teen Team book. Also tired of every villain having offspring with similar powers. Don't think I'll be getting issue 2.

6/16/10

Amazing Spidey 633 The finale of the Lizard story was not worth the second act. And they wrapped up that whole Aunt May subplot before it went anywhere. In retrospect, regressing the series for the benefit of having Peter, May and the rest in their old status quo was not worth it. She was infinitely more interesting when she knew his secret.
Amazing Spidey 634 Haven't read it yet.
New Avengers 1 Picking right up where the previous series ended, Cage buys Avengers Mansion from Stark for $1. Victoria Hand is the Henry Gyrich.
Birds of Prey 2 White Canary (ugh) beats up everybody. Penguin joins the team?
Brightest Day 4 This story is slowwwly starting to go somewhere. Bored with the Hawks story, but the Deadman/Hawk & Dove is getting interesting as is the Firestorm tale.
GIJoe 19 Awesome. Destro takes over the Gulag from Bludd.
Legacies 2 The Golden Age stuff is over. Entirely too much issue devoted to the Newsboy Legion.
New Mutants 14 Second Coming continues. Magneto gonna whoop some ass!
S.H.I.E.L.D. 2 I'm trying to like this and I know I should but can't really get into.
Web of Spider-Man 9 ooh! A great issue. I just read this series is ending with issue 12. too bad.
Wonder Woman 43 Gail Simone's final issues beofre JMS takes over.
X-Men Hellbound 2 Haven't read it yet.

Amazing Spidey 635 haven't read it yet.
Avengers 2 Felt pretty full after reading it. Lots of banter and action. Good stuff.
Batman Return of Bruce Wayne 3 Slightly less confusing than the previous two issues.
Booster Gold 33 Giffen returns to writing Booster. If only they could get Maguire to draw this book, it would be awesome.
Fantastic Four 580 Eh. I hate Arcade, but at least they wrapped up his story in less than an issue. Hickman is doing Fantastic stuff with this book, pun intended. In my Top Five from Marvel right now.
Green Arrow 1 Restarting the series yet again. Making Ollie an actual "Robin Hood" complete with a forest is kinda..on the nose for me.
Green Lantern Corps 49 Now that Bedard is writing this, it's gotten mediocre.
Hawkeye/Mockingbird 1 Took a chance on this one frm a couple weeks ago and its just fluff. The fact they had to introduce the granddaughter of the character Mockingbird killed and make her the new villain IN THE FIRST ISSUE tells me this writer doesn't have any great ideas and went for that one right out of the gate.
Justice league: Rise of Arsenal 4 This was not very good. Like the rest of this series. Glad it's over. Will NOT be following Roy over into the Titans book.
Justice Leage: Gen Lost 4 This is getting good and fun. Now Rocket Red is on board.
Secret Warriors 17 This book is ramping up for its big finale in a few issues. I'll be sad to see it go.
Superman 700 haven't read it, but it's Straczynski and an anniversary issue for Supes, so...
Thunderbolts 145 Kinda bummed the last page from last issue was a fakeout. And not thrilled with the art, especially when they draw Juggernaut. Also kinda bummed about what they did to John Walker.
Wolverine: Weapon X 14 Very fun issue with Deathlok(s) and time travel and whatnot.
X-Factor 206 Second Coming tie-in. Decent, but I'll be glad when PAD gets back to non-crossover stories.
X-Men Legacy 237 Only two more issues left in the Second Coming crossover. one of the best X-overs in a long time. Too bad after this magnificent storyline we go into "Mutants and Vampires" mode. Ugh. Gawd thats gonna suck.

Secret Avengers 2 I love me some old school Marvel with Serpent Crowns and whatnot and Deodato's art is always awesome. Pet Peeve: If you are on a planet with a hostile environment (like MARS, fer instance) you probably still can't walk around with your arms and legs exposed just because you are blue and furry. (ahem) Beast, I'm looking at you.
Captain America 607 Baron Zemo continues to wreak havoc in Bucky's world because...his father was the one who "killed" Bucky and since he obviously (retconned) failed, now Zemo Jr. must regain his father's honor. *sigh* It's just stupid.
Death of Dracula This lead in to the new ongoing X-Men vs Vampires BS was meh, but I had to buy a couple books to qualify for my fourth issue is free.
The Flash 3 Another meh issue. Barry Allen is one boring ass muthafuckah. Wallleeeee, commmme baaaack...
GIJoe Hearts and Minds 2 Max Brooks delivers another powerhouse issue, this one focusing on Firefly and Tripwire. The Firefly half was unfortunately drawn by Howard Chaykin (and Firefly is now black?) but the Tripwire story gave me chills it was so good. Plus, they kept yelling at him "Skoog!" throughout the story, which I thought was hilarious since Trip has one of the funnier civilian names in Joe lore.
Green Lantern 55 Atrocitus hires Lobo to "bounty hunt" him to gain favor with Hal, Sinestro, and Sapphire. Started slow, but gets better as the issue goes on. And a back-up tale featuring the origin of everybody's favorite Red Lantern cat, Dex-Starr!
Iron Man Annual 1 This was the issue Marvel was using to showcase their online presence. WOW! This is pretty muchthe best issue of the week. Even at a hefty $4.99 its a worthy read. And Iron Man isn't even in it! Mandarin kidnaps an acclaimed filmmaker and his wife and holds them hostage while the director makes a biopic of the Mandarin's life. This one isgoing to stuick with me for awhile.
Iron Man: Kiss and Kill And on the flip side, when Marvel has a couple inventory Iron Man stories that won't sell on their own, they throw them together in a higher priced one-shot. Feh.
Justice League of America 46 haven't read it yet
Thor 611 haven't been a big fan of Gillen's writing on Thor so far, but this issue was decent.
Wonder Woman 600 The issue of all the hooplah. The reboot is just a small part of the issue in a prologue at the end. The highlight is a tale by Gail Simone with pretty much every other DC heroine all reflecting on how they're inspired by Diana. good stuff. Also a bevy of pin-ups which were also very good.
Astonishing X-Men 34 The x-book that comes out like every four months. Love the interaction between Armor and Wolverine. "That's because you're like eight years old or something." Heh.
X-Men Curse of the Mutants Saga A freebie pertaining to upcoming stories like the X-Men vs Vampises BS, the new Wolverine, X-23, and Daken ongoings, etc. Hey it was free. I'm down with the free.

The Boys #44 - It's amazing how far comics have come. 10 years ago, if you had told me I'd be able to walk in to my local comic shop and purchase a comic with swearing, nudity, ultra-violence and a crucified black superhero Jesus on the cover, I'd have wondered what the fuck you were smoking.

Shadowland #1 - Marvel's next big "event," which so far doesn't feel that big. I've been reading DD for a while now and this story has been building for a while also, but his "turn to the darkside" seems rather sudden and a totally out of character.

Batman and Robin #13 - Everything from the past 12 issues starts coming together.

I, Zombie #3 - Haven't read yet, but I've enjoyed the first 2 issues.

Scarlet #1 - Haven't read this yet either, but Bendis and Maleev together on a creator-owned Icon title should be a win. The Icon line has been nice, especially with titles like Kick-Ass, Criminal & Incognito, and the art looks great, so I'm looking forward to reading it.

Diabolical wrote:Batman and Robin #13 - Everything from the past 12 issues starts coming together.

Please tell me this involves Dick saying, "I'm not qualified to be Batman," then him looking at Damian and saying, "You're certainly not qualified to be Robin, you fucking piece of fanfic," then Tim comes back and they both beat the shit out of Damian until he starts crying and says, "You're right, I suck ass" and jumps off a cliff, but, to be sure, Dick and Tim climb down and find his mangled body, which they cremate on a backyard grill and flush down a toilet.

No, not really anything like that.
But Dick does say, "I like to think I'm just keeping the costume warm."
So...that's a start.

Amazing Spidey 536. Aside from the killing off of what the editors no doubt see as extraneous characters Mattie Franklin and Kaine this has been a pretty good, if intense, arc.

Batman & Robin 13. Robin beating the Joker with a crowbar has a nice symbolism to it. I also like how the Joker knows Dick isn't Bruce and acts entirely different to him.

Brightest Day 5. This series is taking forever to get started. Why I'm so reluctant to drop it is unknown.

Darkstar 2. More Winter Guard shenanigans. Not a great book, but as a fan of the WG, I support them whenever they are lucky enough to get a title.

Ender in Exile 2. The adaptations continue. Not the strongest book in the series, but sets up the Speaker for the Dead mini. And I'd hate to have a hole in my Ender collection.

Fantastic Four Annual 32. A follow up to the Millar/Hitch written by Ahearne (Ahearne's the guy that finished Millar's run after douchebag bugged out when the royalty dividends didn't pay off) and the one book Hitch will draw this year. Its about Johnny getting some chick preggo at a nightclub, which sounds stupid but was actually entertaining.
G.I.Joe 20. Another rollicking issue where the Joes invade a submerged Cobra submarine. Awesome! Fun!

Moon Knight 10. Final Issue? Read like it because sales are down and MK is now a Secret Avenger.

Marvel Index 3. More goofy old issues of Avengers, Cap and Thor. Heh. The 60s were weird.
Secret Six 23. Stand alone issue by Ostrander where the Six kill a bunch of people on a rich guy's island. Huge sigh of contentment at a consistently good series.

Shadowland 1. If you have a huge event and John Cassaday doing your covers DON'T MAKE IT A FUCKING BLAND COVER.

The Stand: Hardcases 2. This adaptation is phenomenal and Mike Perkins is the best artist.

Thanos Sourcebook. Kinda like a primer/Saga and Handbook rolled into one. All the cosmic major players have entries.

Transformers:Ironhide 3. This book continues to rock with Alpha Trion showing up as well as the deceased Sunstreaker.

X-Force 28. The penultimate issue of Second Coming as well as the final issue of X-Force has the honor of best issue of the week. Whereas Nightcrawlers demise earlier in the series seemed gratuitous, the sacrifice of a major character in this issue fits perfectly, resonates on a dramatic level and opens up stories and conflict going forward. Wow. Well done.

Rollo Tomassi wrote:Shadowland 1. If you have a huge event and John Cassaday doing your covers DON'T MAKE IT A FUCKING BLAND COVER.

Agreed. Very boring cover. And it looks like something from the 90's - I'm thinking something along the lines of one of the numerous Venom mini-series.

Shadowland seems to be a clusterfuck from what I'm reading online. Punisher back to normal months before in his regular book, though other events stick it firmly in the present and not the near future. Daredevil turning killer seems to undermine everything that made him unique; what I always found cool about DD was that, though he looks on the surface like he should be the bloodthirstiest anti-hero of all, he refused to kill, going so far as to drop what he was doing to beat up the Punisher if they both were going after the same villain. And, on top of that, he felt they needed a fair trial even if he personally had caught them red-handed and beaten the shit out of them.

That said, though, are there any pics of the new costume? Whenever I search, I find the 1990s abomination that, for some reason, people now like to defend. (Okay, admittedly, in different colors, it wouldn't be too terrible.)

First off, I liked the Daredevil Armor from the 90s. I'm not 100% sure it was a costume right for Daredevil (an acrobatic ninja in armor) but the costume itself was cool. if they brought it back on another character, I wouldn't mind at all. And it's certainly not fair to lump it in with the Captain America and Spider-Man armor from the same era. Those majorly sucked.

And the new costume is just a black DD suit with red DD logo on the front. And red eyes.

I actually think the DD armor would've looked better with a black bodysuit with yellow and red highlights, and the armor itself in black with some silver highlights. Absurd, possibly, for a guy in his position, but a nice update of the original.

The DD armor would have worked much better if it wasn't intended to be a permanent change.

Here is an alternate cover for Shadowland #1 with the new costume.

Amazing Spidey 637 The Finale of Grim Hunt was epic. Cassandra "Madame" Web dies right after imparting her "sight" on Julia "Arachne" Carpenter. The returned Kraven begs to be killed by "The Spyder" only to have young Ana "Arana" Corazon and Julia stop Pete at the last second. Then Kraven goes to the Savage Land, breaks his wifes neck, and sets up shop with the kids. And Kaine is resurrected as the new Tarantula. A worthy successor to the original Kraven's last Hunt story and one of the better Spidey stories since the OMD/BND fiasco.
Young Avengers 1 Okay, I know this is technically titled Avengers: Children's Crusade but its really Young Avengers. The YA look for the missing Scarlet Witch with Magneto. The Avengers have issues with this, so natch a confrontation is brewing.
Avengers Academy 2 Spotlighting on Finesse, who may or may not be Taskmaster's daughter (sweet fuckall does EVERYBDY have to be a legacy character nowadays?!). This book is shaping up to be a fun read.
Batman 701 Picks up right as R.I.P. ended but before Final Crisis. It reads like Batman talking to himself. It's Grant Morrison, so that should tell you everything you need to know.
Birds of Prey 3 Gail Simone is a consistently good writer and the mystery continues. Who is the White Canary?
Daredevil 508 The tagline for Shadowland is "Matt Murdock dared evil. And lost. Dared Evil is just Daredevil with a space in it. If thats how and why they came up with this whole Shadowland crossover..man thats just insipid.
G.I.Joe Origins 17 Zartan's origin continues.
Iron Man 28 I like the idea iof Stark trying to start a car company that uses repuslor tech, but you know this story will end in disaster because nothing like that exists in the real world, and fundamentally changing the auto industry and the cascade effect that would have on the rest of the economy would change the Marvel universe into an unrecognizable entity. its the saem reason Reed Richards can't cure cancer.
Justice League: Gen Lost 5 Winick is really hitting his stride with this book. The death of Rocket Red was very poignant.
Superman 701 JMS begins his run as Superman walks across America. A suprisingly touching issue.
Thanos Imperative 2 havent read it yet
Transformers 9 After the Spike-centric shmaltz issue last minth, i was worried. But this one introduces a bit of political intrigue that I enjoyed.
X-Force Sex and Violence 1 Exactly what the title implies. Domino and Logan get in the middle of an Assassin's Guild and Hand ninja fued. And also bowchickabowbow.
X-Men Second Coming 2 The finale of Second Coming told in four parts. Says good-bye to Cable and Nightcrawler. Sets up the new X-Force series (with Wolvie, Angel, Deadpool, Psylocke and Fantomex on the team) and FINALLY new mutants start showing up on Cerebra. A great ending to a great crossover.
X-Men Hellbound 3 Having nothing to do with the man Second Coming crossover plastered all over the cover, this series was kind of a letdown. yet another foray into the world of Magik and N'Astihr and S'ym.
X-Men Heroic Age OneShot Three intertwined tales focusing on 1. Cyclops discussing the role of the X-Men with Steve Rogers in the new "Heroic Age" 2. Beast and Runaways' Molly discussing 'extinction' and 3. Hope getting a check-up by Reed Richards and igniting a curiosity to find who her parents were. She was born just a few months ago, Marvel U time, but her entire city was decimated on her birthday including any relatives she had and then she spent the next 18 years of her life time traveling with Cable. Not a bad read, but not spectacular.

Both Rollo and I checked all the booths selling new comics at Comic-Con (and I think there were maybe three, no joke, sad as that sounds) for GIJoe #156. We were repeatedly told, "We didn't bring it." Yeah, why would you bring comics to Comic-Con?

Anyway, I got some freebies at the Con, including American Vampire #1 from DC. (I later saw a booth selling it for $30. I didn't realize until that point that it wasn't a new issue.) I only went to the kiddie and Vertigo sections; the lines for the other areas were kinda long, and I didn't have a hell of a lot of time to spend in line.

From the Red Five booth (which was out of the FCBD Atomic Robo by the time I rolled in on Sunday), I got Volume 4 (5? the newest one) in singles, and trades of Neozoic and another series they tossed in for free. (Goofy name aside, and I really do think more folks would take them seriously with a different name, they seem like really nice fellers.)

And just now, I found Barnes and Noble's website has almost all the IDW Speed Racer trades for less than $4. I got four that I didn't find last year at Comic-Con (1, 5-6, and Racer X 1--not sure if there's a 2 or not for Racer X) to make up for free shipping. (They used to offer 10% off and free shipping on all orders placed through AAA's website. Now it's just 10% off, and you still have to spend $25 to get free shipping like everyone else.) I know that's not the entire Speed Racer series, since I recall seeing at least one other book at Comic-Con Sunday (but couldn't remember which ones I had). However, it looks like they've changed covers on some of the reprints, so maybe it is.