So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Rollo Tomassi]

Ohmigosh! Ohmigosh! WildThing 3?!? NO. FREAKIN. WAY. How'd you win the random book jackpot?! That book is like..its..I mean...like...


...The only reason I remember that series is because of the lord awful art. Its like if Rob Liefeld and Paul Pope had a baby and that baby drew anime.

[anarky]

You know that, like me, you were a pathetic Marvel zombie back in the day and bought at least four issues of Wild Thing.

Fuck me, it was awful. Even with my incredibly low opinion of Rob Liefeld (as in "my opinion of Rob Liefeld could not be any lower"), it is an insult to him to compare his work with that shit.

Were any of the 1990s Marvel UK books any good in retrospect? Death's Head II was fanwank bullshit that killed a popular British cult character to replace him with the love child of the Terminator and the Predator, eliminating everything that had made the original interesting. And it was the best, I guess. Motormouth actually had some potential, but the nonstop guest stars and almost immediate decision that the book really should be about Killpower destroyed it posthaste.

[anarky]

And I feel like we've had this conversation before.

[Rollo Tomassi]

And I feel like we've had this conversation before.

Probably. I wanna say Knights of Pendragon was decent, but I bet if I read it today, it'd be pretty meh.


Here's what I got this week.

Annihilators 1. Marvel's Cosmic Miniseries begins. A Spaceknight(as in ROM) named Ikon shows uo and (unbelievably) beats up Gladiator, Ronan, Beta Ray Bill, Quasar, and Silver Surfer. Then lectures them. Then Dire Wraiths attack. In the second story Rocket Racoon is a mailroom guy at a big intergalactic firm (after his gig with the Guardians ended) and he goes looking for Groot.

Avengers Academy 10. Speedball and the team go back to Stamford for closure.

Booster Gold 41. Dammit. Did it again.

Brightest Day 21. Martian Manhunter becomes the next victim of the White Lantern, but instead of being disintegrated like Aquaman, Hawkman, and Hawkwoman, he gets eaten up by the Earth.

Captain America and Falcon oneshot. Didn't read it yet.

5 Ronin:Wolverine. Didn't read it yet. But it takes place in feudal Japan.

Formic Wars 2.The bugs are getting closer.

GIJoe:Infestation 1.Taut thriller that just happens to have killer robot zombies in it. Psyche-Out vs Baroness. Wouldn't mind seeing more Joe stories from Mike Raicht.

Green Lantern 63. The War of the Green Lanterns is about to begin.

Heroes for Hire 4. Misty Knight figures out she's being bamboozled by the Puppet Master. And we find out PuppetMaster has a secret boss pulling his strings.

Incredible Hulk 622 and 623. Didn't read them yet. Bought them to round up the total to twenty.

Jonah Hex 65. Hex gets saved from the weather, wolves and then again by gunslingers by the man he's come to collect a bounty on.

Marvel Index 11. More mid 90'searly Y2K shenanigans from Thor, Cap and the Avengers. It's like they have movies coming out soon or something.

Secret Six 31. An excellent issue, but twinged with sadness. They pulled out the "Get out of Hell Free" card from the very first story arc. Which is a signpost to me that they are tying up loose ends, preparing for the book to go byebye. Me am sad at that prospect.

Secret Warriors 25. Flashback to the very very first Zodiac group, which was a bunch of 50s superspies like Fury, Dugan, Baron Strucker, etc. And it ties into Hickman's SHIELD book too, because DaVinci is at the table.

The Stand: No Man's Land 2. The series that continues to be awesome in both word and pictures.

Thunderbolts 154. Man-Thing gets a headline as Jennifer Kale breaks him out of his servitude as the TBolts "Quinjet". Didn't really buy the TBolts justification for keeping him there. "Look! We planted some trees in the basement! He's happy here!"

Wolverine/Hercules 1. Logan and Herc reminisce about their first meeting in WWII, and then Logan decides to go after Matsuo(who poisened Mariko way back in the 90s) once and for all. Better than I thought it would be.

X-Factor 216. Spidey and Jonah Jameson guest star in another witty clever issue from Peter David.

[anarky]

Why doesn't someone buy the rights to Rom?

Maybe Marvel, since they keep bringing up the character but can't use the name.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Why doesn't someone buy the rights to Rom?

Maybe Marvel, since they keep bringing up the character but can't use the name.

I've been saying this for years. The character is more famous for his Comic Run, then he is for the toy it was based on. And ParkerBros(who made the original toy) was bought out by Hasbro eventually. Hasbro sells the rights to Marvel. Marvel turns around and markets a new book and Hasbro makes action figures based on the book. Everybody makes money. But again, everybody is probably figuring out reasons why all of nothing is more valuable than half of something.

[anarky]

GIJoe: Special Missions Volume 3 came a few days ago. I thought this was the last volume for some reason. There's one more. It's not supposed to be out until July. I guess I'm going to go ahead and read Volume 10 of the regular series out of order; I really wanted to re-read the death of the Oktober Guard issue of SM first.

The new IDW-verse GIJoe: Cobra: Serpent's Coil (volume 3) arrived today. Thumbing through, it looks pretty freakin' cool.

And, though I didn't buy it, I found the library in the next city carries a fairly decent selection of graphic novels to be as small as it is (and is only a mile further from my house than the one in my city), and checked out All-Star Superman Volume 1 today.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I'm still missing the final issues of SpecialMissions. I looked them up on ebay a few months ago and was surprised they go for that much. I should start a Topic about back issues I'm looking for that are more expensive than I would've expected.

Anyway, here's what I got this week.

New Avengers 10. In a new Marvel History Retcon, there was an Avengers team back in 1959. Are you ready to hear the Roster? Get ready! Sabretooth! Kraven the Hunter! Namora! Dominic Fortune! Ulysses Bloodstone! And Ernst Sablinova (the original Silver Sable and Father of the current one). Yes, Sabretooth was an Avenger. And Somehow Kraven the Hunter was in his forties in 1959, yet was still a strapping young man fighting Spidey in the "modern" era.

Batgirl 19. Steph adds to her Rogue's gallery. And gets a sweet new batgirlcave set up. Truth, this is one of the funnest books DC has right now. All the other books are so damn heavy and serious and kinda downers with the killing and whatnot. This is the exception and therefore it gets my stamp of approval.

Batman & Robin 21. Somebody is killing the relatives of Arkham Inmates. Also, there is jut a BEAUTIFUL splash page halfway through the book of B+R against a backdrop of the batsignal. I turned the page and was just 'oh wow!' I would buy it as a poster.

Batman Inc 3. Not only is this book late by the third issue, its the weakest of the Batbooks. Considering that Morrison is the "architect" of the current Bat mythos, thats not a good sign.

Birds of Prey 10. Oracle fakes her death and decides not to be the DCUs phone operator anymore. She's going to try and put the genie back in the bottle and become an "urban myth" again.

Booster Gold 42. Booster does his five years of prison time in one off-page panel. Convenient. he also finds out he has a weird time-jumping cancer that gets exponentially worse every time he jumps. And he learns this from his psychopathic future self.

Captain America and the First Thirteen oneshot. Didn't read it. part of the 70th Anniversary Cap celebration. Also the Thirteen in the title refers to Agent 13 Peggy Carter, Caps first girlfriend. After Cap got unfrozen decades later, the cad started dating her younger sister Sharon, the new Agent 13. What a jerk. As time goes by, they have to keep retconning Peggy and Sharon's relationship. From sister, to aunt, to great aunt. Because WWII is peskily stuck in a specific time period, while the MarvelUniverse keeps sliding forward.

5 Ronin:Hulk. Didn't read it yet.

Hawkeye:Blindspot 2. Hawkeye's sight ciontinues to deteriorate, and he discovers his long thought dead brother is a new arrow slinging badguy named...wait for it....Blindspot! hence the title.

Incredible Hulks 624. Currently Hulk is in the Savage Land recuperating from a HUGE ass beating by Greek GodFather Zeus. He also got attacked by his former broheem Miek who implanted angry alien bugs in his heart. Hulk cannot catch break.

Justice League Gen Lost 21. the team deals with Blue Beetle's death. three issues left in the series.

PunisherMAX 11. After an epic showdown between Bullseye and Frank, the ending was weaksauce. Just to set up the next story arc of Frank in Prison.

Transformers 17. The new and improved Megatron confronts Optimus with a machiavellian scheme to make humans hate Transformers. The Optimus shoots Soundwave in the face and blows his head off!! And then Jazz shoots a human and seemingly disintegrates him. This bookis off the chain! I'm glad I stuck with it. Complete 180 from the beginning of the series.

Wonder Woman 608. I forsee this entire storyline being retconned and forgotten the moment it is finished. Epic fail JMS.

X-23 7. Laura and Gambit fight pirates (not the Jack Sparrow kind, the Somalian kind) and try to rescue some guy, but fail.

X-Men Legacy 246. Part three of "Age of X" Legacy(Rogue) escapes fromher teammates after fiding clues to suggest not everything is kosher in
Fortress X. More clues arise (telepathy has never been a mutant power?!) and Logan and Scott decide to start poking around themselves.

[anarky]

New Avengers 10. In a new Marvel History Retcon, there was an Avengers team back in 1959. Are you ready to hear the Roster? Get ready! Sabretooth! Kraven the Hunter! Namora! Dominic Fortune! Ulysses Bloodstone! And Ernst Sablinova (the original Silver Sable and Father of the current one). Yes, Sabretooth was an Avenger. And Somehow Kraven the Hunter was in his forties in 1959, yet was still a strapping young man fighting Spidey in the "modern" era.

How is this possible? I ask this on so many different levels. Kraven's age seems like the least of our worries with this. None of these characters has ever referenced this before. Sabretooth seems to be the biggest problem. These are good guys, right? It sounds like a mix of villains and mercs to me.

Transformers 17. The new and improved Megatron confronts Optimus with a machiavellian scheme to make humans hate Transformers. The Optimus shoots Soundwave in the face and blows his head off!! And then Jazz shoots a human and seemingly disintegrates him. This bookis off the chain! I'm glad I stuck with it. Complete 180 from the beginning of the series.

Okay, your continued and increasing praise is making me want to start picking this up again.

[Rollo Tomassi]

New Avengers 10. In a new Marvel History Retcon, there was an Avengers team back in 1959. Are you ready to hear the Roster? Get ready! Sabretooth! Kraven the Hunter! Namora! Dominic Fortune! Ulysses Bloodstone! And Ernst Sablinova (the original Silver Sable and Father of the current one). Yes, Sabretooth was an Avenger. And Somehow Kraven the Hunter was in his forties in 1959, yet was still a strapping young man fighting Spidey in the "modern" era.

How is this possible? I ask this on so many different levels. Kraven's age seems like the least of our worries with this. None of these characters has ever referenced this before. Sabretooth seems to be the biggest problem. These are good guys, right? It sounds like a mix of villains and mercs to me.

Its kind of a black ops team put together by Nick Fury and DumDum Dugan at the behest of the President. But its under the Aegis of the "Avengers Initiative" which they seem to be retconning into the Marvel Universe. Which is becoming more of an issue, considering the caveat that everything in the MU has taken place in the nebulous "last 11-13 years". Which means Reed Richards stole the rocket, and Peter got bit, and Cap got thawed out around Y2K. the only other concrete Time parameter we have is the Golden Age in WWII. And those two eras get further and further from each other, you have to assume/expect there were superpowered humans during those intervening years. Marvel has been sort of addressing that in fits and spurts over the years. John Byrne did a "Lost Generation" mini series a decade ago. The recent Agents of Atlas books are about a team of 50's heroes coming back to modern times. Hickman has been reimagining SHIELD and a lot of the spy business in his Secret Warriors and SHIELD books. And peoples origins keep getting retconned like Black Widow and others to account for the expanding gap.

Transformers 17. The new and improved Megatron confronts Optimus with a machiavellian scheme to make humans hate Transformers. The Optimus shoots Soundwave in the face and blows his head off!! And then Jazz shoots a human and seemingly disintegrates him. This bookis off the chain! I'm glad I stuck with it. Complete 180 from the beginning of the series.

Okay, your continued and increasing praise is making me want to start picking this up again.

Ever since they went into North Korea I've been loving this book. They aren't pussyfooting around trying to recapture the "nostalgia" of the G1 stuff from the 80's. They are charging ahead with new stories. Another thing that happened in this latest issue was Brawn rescuing Thundercracker from Starscream after TCrack turned down Scream's request to retake the Decepticons. Starscream isn't an inneffective sycophant in this book. he's badass. its just Megatron is more badass. And Thundercracker's reasons for not wanting to be a 'Con anymore are completely realistic and justifiable in the fallout of the AHM series. So for a moment you're taken aback like "Wha? Thundercracker and Brawn team up?" but overall its all just good narrative moving the story forward.

[anarky]

I'd prefer nothing from AHM actually have ramifications on the current series, but that's a moot point. Seriously, Earth is demolished and a year later the entire world is just like ours?

As for the Marvel Universe, another serious issue is that 9/11 is a concrete event with major ramifications. Little things like presidential cameos (even as major as Obama's in Spider-Man) can be fudged. 9/11 can't be. So every story from 1961-September 10, 2001 takes place in about a year or two. That's a busy year.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I'd prefer nothing from AHM actually have ramifications on the current series, but that's a moot point. Seriously, Earth is demolished and a year later the entire world is just like ours?

There is actually quite a bit of fallout from that going on. Not just rebuilding and whatnot. The political ramfications are actually what drive the current series, as most humans dont differentiate between Autobots and Decepticons. They just see them as the big robots the fucked our entire planet up. There's anti-TF hysteria all over the television. Part of the reason that Jazz zaps that guy is directly related to a post-AHM world.

As for the Marvel Universe, another serious issue is that 9/11 is a concrete event with major ramifications. Little things like presidential cameos (even as major as Obama's in Spider-Man) can be fudged. 9/11 can't be. So every story from 1961-September 10, 2001 takes place in about a year or two. That's a busy year.

Things like 9/11 are difficult to reconcile, but they're forgivable. Writers can't structure the entire narrative of the Marvel U around a real world event like that, no matter how impactful it was.
There are "in world" events though that act as signposts with a definitive before and after. Peter Graduating High School for instance. Or Franklin being born. Or Valeria being born. But yeah, the longer the real world timeline expands, while the MU timeline stays stagnant at a little over a decade, then all of those events and happenings get crammed closer and closer together. If you were to sit down and write up a timeline, I think New York city is probably the most truamatic place to live because its literally an alien invasion, or the Hulk trashing it, or Dr. Doom holding it ransom, or Magneto knocking down a building, or Venom Armies attacking it every other goddamn day. I know NYC prides itself on being resilient, but it strains incredulity...

[anarky]

Of course, I still say that, in the MU, when the Twin Towers fell, it should've been just another day at the office for New Yorkers. When Galactus walks down the street, likely killing hundreds or thousands; when Magneto (excuse me, "Magneto Impostor") lines up non-mutants to send them to the gas chamber; when there's actually an organization that does nothing but rebuild buildings in the wake of superhuman battles, then the people of that world would already have been completely desensitized to such a tragedy. It may be cathartic in the real world to see superheroes responding to it, but it makes absolutely no sense in-universe.

Why didn't Damage Control rebuild the Towers in a week or two? Sure, it'd be tasteless to tell that story, but, otherwise, it's kind of a major continuity fart--especially since Damage Control is still operating, right?

Of course, it's equally bad that Magneto (excuse me, "Magneto Impostor") strolls into town after temporarily disabling only the X-Men who were present at the Mansion, and is able to simply take New York the fuck over and get started on his genocide. It'd be an awesome story if set in a separate universe; New York of the MU is literally crawling with superheroes (and even supervillains who wouldn't take kindly to being killed off because they didn't have the X-gene), and there are approximately 4,638,927 other X-Men who aren't at the Mansion at any given time because that roster has become way too unwieldy. Even a seemingly low-level operator like the Punisher (sorry, DB, but Punisher makes for great stories, but he's not Avengers material) would know enough to shoot him in the head with a ceramic bullet. (But Wolvie can kill him, eventually. Because it's not like Magneto--sorry, the real Magneto with the same exact powers and less bloodthirst--hasn't used Wolvie's metal skeleton to his advantage many times before.)

It all boils down to, I guess, it'd be nice if books actually affected one another. I'm not saying there should be super-tight continuity, but if NYC is destroyed by Magneto, it looks like that'd be a big enough deal for Spider-Man or Captain America to acknowledge it happened.

[Rollo Tomassi]

As far as Damage Control is concerned, there are plenty of ways to reason why they didn't rebuild the WTC. Perhaps it wasn't covered because it wasnt a superhuman calamity. Or perhaps they consulted with the City and the city decided not to rebuild it.

And the Magneto thing is nowhere near as incredulous as the Avengers story where Kang literally took over the Eastern seaboard for a year and turned Washington DC and other major cities into concentration camps. Seriously, it took place from Avengers Vol. 3 issues 45ish up through 55 or so. And nobody ever mentions it.

[anarky]

That's worse than Ultron taking over an entire country.

Or Bludgeon completely laying waste to New York City. Seriously. Cameos by Spider-Man and Nick Fury, Circuit Breaker's involvement in the Secret Wars, the critical involvement of the Savage Land in the tale of the Dinobots, the way the somewhat bizarre origin of the universe in TF meshes seamlessly with the somewhat bizarre origin of the 616 universe, entirely every fucking thing to do with Death's Head--they exist in the Marvel Universe! Seriously!!!!!

Okay, it at least should've been acknowledged in GIJoe, which was a bit more involved with the Transformers, what with the whole Millville subplot ending in a Decepticon invasion, Dr. Biggle-Jones rebuilding Megatron, the Joes blowing up Bumblebee, the actual inter-title crossover between GIJoe and TFG2, and, most importantly, the Stunticons' graffiti that Snake Eyes walks past in one panel after his surgery. (Though it does make Ace or Slipstream or whoever it was giving a Jetfire toy, one that looks like Megatron for some reason, to the son of one of his ground crew members a bit strange.)

All right, all right. In all seriousness, though, it does get a bit confusing when Spider-Man has had full-on crossovers with TWO distinct Transformers worlds.