Apologies for the late review, but what can you do? I'm here on my birthday writing a review of some comics for you shits, so deal with it. I'm joking, we're cool.
I only have a miniscule five comics to review today on account of Captain America: Reborn #5 being criminally late, as is that entire series. So, without further ado, review time!
Realm of Kings: Imperial Guard #2 of 5.
With The Fault becoming an ever-increasing threat to pretty much anything that isn't inside it, Gladiator's Imperial Guard are forced to team with their long-time enemies - The Starjammers - in an attempt to find out what The Fault is and get more information on it.
Flying into The Fault together, their ship is plagued by energy draining organisms and eventually comes face to a face with an organic spaceship many...MANY times the size of their own. Upon entering it, they discover that it is basically a corpse being devoured from the inside and the creatures dwelling within it intend them to be next.
It's business as usual for Dan Abnett; an excellently paced issue that leaves me with the desired effect of wondering what the Hell is gonna happen next and wanting the next issue as soon as I'm finished. His dialogue is well balanced and he manages to give all the cosmic characters their own sense of character without it seeming muddled. I particularly like how he keeps returning to the theme of Gladiator not being best suited to Shi'ar politics, it's very good. I was overjoyed to see him become the big boss, but ultimately it's really not what he loves. As much as he loves the Shi'ar, he loves serving it; not controlling it.
He is like Captain America in the sense that he loves serving an ideal or collective for the greater good, but would never want to run the show.
I must admit that I am curious as to what is going to happen in this series, in general. I'm wondering just when The Fault is going to push everyone into dire peril and the action will pick up. After the Realm of Kings one-shot, Guardians and Nova's respective series, I'm wondering how it's all going to converge together and coalesce into a cosmic extravaganza. If it doesn't, I'll be relatively disappointed, as this definitely needs to affect everyone and involve everyone to keep up the momentum.
As it stands, everything seems to be heading in the right direction and I'm very pleased.
Deadpool #18.
I'm saving my history with Deadpool for a massive Deadpool 101 that I'm planning, so here's the story so far in a condensed form.
Deadpool wants to be a hero, so after being in somewhat of a purposeless limbo, he runs off to join the X-Men on Utopia. They reluctantly accept him, but soon live to regret this decision. Why? Because Mercury's - an inhabitant of Utopia - Father has begun a slander campaign in the media, causing everyone to believe the X-Men kidnapped her. Deadpool reckons that the best way to solve this is...? Yes, that's right; to commit murder on him...or so we thought.
After Cyclops, Surge, Domino and Colossus all show up to stop 'Pool, Wolverine realises nothing is as it seems. Upon seeing Deadpool shoot a sniper who was aiming for the Father, not the Father himself, he decides to stay out of the ensuing fight. It turns out that Deadpool's plan all along was to do this all on camera so that the public see the X-Men save the guy, re-affirming their faith against the slander. The Father - who was put up to the lies by Norman Osborn - reveals the truth to the news crews while Deadpool is helped to the Blackbird by Wolverine, ultimately being kicked off Utopia with somewhat of a reluctant "Thank you" from Cyclops.
This was a relatively fun issue. It was a definite increase in what Daniel Way had been putting out for the last five issues, that's for certain. It had a fight! Deadpool actually had a fight and forced Cyclops to admit that he DOES have amazing skills. It's a start, I guess. I'm just so sick of the fact that all he does now is act crazy, talk to the two voices in his head (LOSE THEM MARVEL, FOR SERIOUS) and get beat up while being "funny".
I have said for a long time that I want the snarky, corrosive and lethal Deadpool back. The Deadpool circa-Sins of the Past or The Circle Chase, the Deadpool circa-Joe Kelly of the '90s. Hell, even Daniel Way of the first 12 issues! I just want...Deadpool's comics to feel like Deadpool comics again. He feels like a guest star and too much of his dialogue is cut back or not written well enough. There isn't much 4th wall-breaking, there are little to NO pop culture references. This is just not good enough for Deadpool.
Good issue? Fun issue, yes. Good Deadpool issue? Not in the slightest.
*Exasperated sigh*
Give me my boy back, Marvel.
Nation X #1 of 4.
This is going to be short because this comic was abysmal.
A few kids on Utopia claim that strange things are happening, involving ghosts, in underground tunnels on the island and Magneto goes to investigate. Simon Spurrier plays on the "Is he a bad guy or isn't he?!" thing a little too much; it was old already, but now it's just annoying. Eventually they find out that the "ghosts" were none other than Magneto's old, malfunctioning sentinels from his Asteroid M days.
Magneto finds an old message from himself and it's basically him ranting on about how there's no future for mutantkind in integration, that they must rule. Magneto returns and the kids ask him what it was, he said it was a sad ghost. They ask how he got rid of it and he says: "By giving it what it wanted.". I'm pretty sure this means he is implying that his goals are accomplished by some means, but I just...don't care.
Like I said, I'll ride this entire story out because it's only four parts, but I'm NOT impressed so far.
Dark X-Men #2 of 5.
Wow! Something with the X-Men in that doesn't have more sucking potential than Dyson vacuum blueprints!
This five part mini-series follows the re-shuffled team of Norman Osborn's Dark X-Men. Daken chose to concentrate on the Dark Avengers and anyone else who joined has left by now, leaving Mystique, Dark Beast, Mimic and Weapon Omega to masquerade as Osborn's public-pleasing mutant group.
In a nutshell, Osborn sends the three of them - with Mystique acting as Jean Grey - to investigate a number of cases in which people are being put into a trance-like state and referring to themselves as X-Men (Not really, but you'll see why this is quite clever). Upon meeting one particular case, Weapon Omega - powers of mutant energy absorption - is overwhelmed by mutant energy and goes nuts for a while, Mimic too. Eventually they burn out, and the patient rises up out of the bed.
Referring to Mystique as his Mother and saying that he's trying to get home, we see that it's none other than mutant shaman and near omnipotent psionic prodigy X-Man, otherwise known as Nate Grey. Nate Grey is the son of an alternate timeline's (The same one as Dark Beast) Cyclops and Jean Grey, for those watching at home, and is one of the most powerful mutants to ever exist. He's also someone I think is FUCKING AWESOME! So, YES?! Awesome.
This issue continues that immediately.
After almost killing Dark Beast with a glance, he burns out and the body reverts to the comatose patient it was before. Understandably, the Dark X-Men are a little perturbed and go to Osborn for ways to get around this. Osborn tells them to use his entire camp of psionic/psychic child recruits, under the leadership of Jarl. Mystique tells him she needs to tap into human consciousness itself - where Nate is residing/trapped - and find out what's going on and, perhaps more sinisterly, capture Nate!
Osborn wants Nate captured so that he can put him in a machine designed to harvest mutant powers from anyone, anywhere. Naturally, Osborn thinks Nate could be most useful if he became nothing more than a battery to power this thing. Frightening indeed.
No sooner has Jarl pooled the collective psychic minds into probing human consciousness when Nate physically grabs the manifestation of the psychic energy and drains them all. He drains literally every psychic of all their energy, which is a pretty fucking immense display of power.
Mystique runs off to find Dark Beast and discovers him experimenting on the brain of a psychic he just killed. His excuse was that they needed a psychic's brain to understand what Nate was up to, and that it makes for disturbing viewing; Nate hijacked and stole the energy so that he could get up to date on EVERYTHING that has happened recently. Upon discovering the Civil War, Secret Invasion and everything regarding Dark Reign...Nate becomes pissed. The last shot is of him looking at a vision of Osborn and screaming: "What have YOU done?!"
I LOVE Nate Grey. Let me state this right now. He's badass. He combines adolescent naivity with god-like shaman-esque wisdow, it's pretty cool (And so is he, google his picture).
I am thrilled that he is playing a part in this and I hope that his inclusion in Dark Reign isn't just a bit part cameo with no consequence. As Siege is coming up, they should be wrapping up certain plot points, not introducing more side-plots. We'll see how this unfolds, I'm certainly into it.
I recommend checking it out, I really do. It's only two issues in, so get on that.
The New Avengers Annual #3.
Oh man.
Clint Barton - formerly the Avenger known as Hawkeye, now Ronin - was captured whilst trying to assassinate Norman Osborn and this follows on from that event. What Dark Avengers Annual #1 did for Noh-Varr, this does for Ronin.
The story revolves around Osborn torturing Ronin for information on the hideout in which The New Avengers have made their headquarters. Ronin refused continually as, elsewhere, The N.A. make plans to rescue him. This is met with some reluctancy given the power that the Dark Avengers possess, but they eventually do so anyway.
As they do so, coincidentally enough, Osborn has Mesmero crack Ronin's mind through psychic torture. He goes to their hideout with the Dark Avengers and discovers they had moved on, aware that Ronin would crack under enough torture. Having left the tower unguarded, The N.A. bust in and save Ronin, bringing him back to yet ANOTHER hideout now that their old one is destroyed.
After Ronin makes his apologiees to the group and a newly recovered Luke Cage, Bucky - James Buchanan Barnes, current Captain America - says that he cannot believe he let this happen, that Steve Rogers is gonna kill him.
As soon as he says that, Steve appears off-panel and says: "Well, I'm ot thrilled, but I'm just happy that you're all ok. You're right, Hawkeye, the world HAS gone to Hell..." (Nice touch, referring to Ronin as Hawkeye again. At this point, everyone has a "What the fuck?!" look on their faces, and Steve Rogers is revealed in Captain America uniform, mask-less. He continues: "...but thank God The Avengers are here to do something about it, and we are. You ready?".
SO...EPIC. I probably will buy the remaining two issues of Captain America: Reborn, but it's so far behind schedule now that I pretty much know where it leads up to now that Rogers is back as Captain America.
I don't want to sound like a broken record here, but Bendis is the man right now. He has brushed up on his dialogue writing SO much that his comics are the most exciting ones I'm reading right now. Mayhew's art on this issue is patently gorgeous, with a real retro look about it. He draws Steve Rogers in a goofy, yet heroically-retro way. With his blonde-hair flowing and finger pointed while delivering such a rousing speech, you sort of think: "Ok, he has a total Mr. Incredible chin and he looks a bit ridiculous, but damn. Epic.".
Such a good issue and now, we can roll on with Siege. Excited? I am. 2010 is going to rule is this continues in the best way.
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That's all I have for now ladies and gents! Sorry for the delay, once again, and thank you SO much for reading.
I hope you enjoy these reviews as much as I enjoy writing them. It's unexpected how much I enjoy this, actually.
Take care, people.
Until next time, peace.
-The Mast
