Amazing
Spider-Man #688
(By
Dan Slott, Guiseppe Camuncoli, Klaus Janson and Frank D'Armata)
So,
after finally concluding the Ends Of The Earth storyline, it's time
for Dan Slott to start steering the story towards a lizard-based
direction in preparation for the Amazing Spider-Man film. Honestly,
''Ends Of the Earth'' wasn't as great as everyone was anticipating so
its nice to move towards a much more simpler story. In this issue,
Spidey and Morbius hatch a plan to return Kurt Connors back to his
human form through the use of HUGE FUCK OFF NEEDLE SPEARS AND HIGH
VOLTAGE, because, you know, SCIENCE! Ignoring that, what we have here
is a really well paced and dynamic story, which is greatly needed
after the last story arc. Guiseppe
Camuncoli does a great job in this issue, and while his art isn't as
detailed as past ASM artists, its erratic and unique enough to give
it a distinct charm. Here's to hoping a solid arc before we move on to
,*Shudder*, the
Alpha storyline.
Spider-Men
#2
(By
Brian Bendis, Sara Pichelli and Justin Ponsor)
I
really want to love this series. Spidey's ma boi and I only want to
see him succeed in the comic world, but it doesn't help that both
versions of the mainstream Spider-Men are on a money grab title
like this. This issue takes off straight after Miles and Peter meet
for the first time and almost immediately Peter picks a fight with
Miles. It seems really out of character for Peter to throw the first
punch in a situation like this, especially since he knows that he
isn't the only webslinger around (Spider-Woman and kaine at least).
Considering this is only a 5 issue series, the pace is ridiculously
slow. For example, all that we achieve in this issue is that Peter and Miles fight
for a bit and that Nick fury meets 616 Peter. This series could have
so much potential, like Peter meeting Gwen and Aunt May of the
Ultimate Universe or the reactions of some of the ultimate villians
when they see Peter again, but it just doesn't feel like this series
is going to explore any of these possibilities. It has to be said
though that Sara Pichelli's art is
fantastic, even if the Spider fight really wasn't that dynamic. I
hope at least that she ends up on a Spider-Man book and gets a bit
more freedom to do what she wants, because I think that with the
right writer, she could make the best looking Spidey comic ever.
Before
Watchmen: Nite Owl
(By
J. Michael Straczynski, Andy Kebert and Joe Kubert)
Wait
a minute.......A Before Watchmen comic.........THAT I LIKED?
So
far, the Before Watchmen series has been really underwhelming. Minutemen just
went over things we already knew, Silk Spectre was really boring and
Comedian was.....really confusing (IS HE GAY FOR JFK, OR HIS SONS?),
and I was ready to write this off as another really boring comic, but
I'm really glad to be proven wrong on this one. BW: Nite Owl
focuses on the second Nite Owl and how he became the hero he
idolized. In a stark contrast to the other BW titles, SO MUCH happens
in the first issue. We see Daniel find Nite Owl's hideout, get taken
under his wing, take on the title of Nite Owl and the beginnings of
his relationship with Rorschach.
It's the last point in particular that I'm interested in since we
never found out what their partnership was like before the original
Watchmen comic takes place, and I believe that this is what will make this comic
stand out from the rest of the BW comics. It's a fair point to make
that perhaps the pacing was too quick (we span about 5 years
throughout just the first issue), but I think that it worked in it
favour and made the comic feel much more exciting than it really
should have been. It's odd that this might end up being my favourite
BW comic as this was the one that I was sure would be the average, middle of the
road story.
Ultimate
Comics: Ultimates #12
(By
Jonathan Hickman, Sam Humphries, Luke Ross, Ron Garney, Butch Guice
and Matt Milla)
Damn.
Just
Damn.
What
started off as one of the most interesting story arcs of last year,
has finally lead to one of the most unsatisfying ending to a story
ever (Legend of Korra go nothing on this). Without going into too much
detail, Tony's plan of tricking the city into working against Reed
(by using his sentient cyber tumor?) works and Thor and Sue Storm
charge into the city and slap Reed's shit. Reed is then locked away in some kind of super forcefield by Sue, Thor returns to Asgard to.......mope, I guess, and Tony decides to let the marines do their thing, go to a party and wait for this to all blow over
There's really nothing
more to say about this.No matter which way you look at it, you will be disappointed by this ending.
However,
if there's one positive thing to take from this issue, it's this
''IS
THE HULK AMERICA'S NEWEST THREAT AGAINST THE IDEALS OF FREEDOM? FIND
OUT AT 11''
So
how's that for a first blog post? I'll probably look back at this in
a couple months time and cringe at this......
''Fucks sake, That
Watchmen joke was way too obvious''
