What's happening? Yeah, cool.
I'm back, back with another skin-peelingly awesome edition of Thursday's Comics. The awesomeness in this week's edition will leave you more sore than if you took a hot bath with fresh surgery scars.
Although it's been coming for a while, and it SORT of started with the end of Siege, I'd say The Heroic Age actually kicks off now. Did it get off to a good start? You bet your life on it.
Haunt #7.
After...I don't even KNOW how many months of waiting, finally, we get Haunt #7. If you've never read a review of Haunt before and wish to get familiar, go read mine. They're great stuff.
#5 was essentially the end of the first arc, #6 was the first arc told from Mirage's point of view and now we progress. With Greg Capullo taking over as the main artist, a new story arc begins. To kick off, Capullo's art is really nice in this book. I think it bears a nice resemblance to the prior art, so it's not too much of a jarring difference, but it's also Capullo's. Clearly. I do want to see how he handles the more brutal scenes, but from the ones we got in this...he's gonna make me happy.
So, where were we?
Daniel is now part of The Agency, combining with his dead brother's (Kurt) ghost to become Haunt. This issue re-establishes the intentions of the characters now that we're heading into the next arc.
Mr. Kurg has Dr. Shillinger's notebook and has his scientists analysing it to great success. They experiment on all manner of animal, leaving them deformed and horrifying, while informing Kurg that they'll be ready for human testing soon. What are they working on? What was Shillinger working on? It's not clear, but purposefully so.
During the issue, Daniel goes to visit one of his old fuck buddies from his days in priesthood. Well, she's a prostitute essentially. He wants to spend time with her because he says that, outside of the monetarily reimbursed sex, he felt they had a connection. It's a bit out of the blue, but I can handle it. She's interrupted by her pimp, he hurls her to the ground and tells Daniel to leave. When Daniel asks her if she wants him to, she says no and he proceeds to burst through the door.
The next scene is genuinely quite wicked. Upon discovering he has burst in on four pimps with guns, he quickly transforms into Haunt. Dispatching the four pimps by detaching body parts from other body parts, leaving them bloodied and quivering on the floor, he frees Crystal (I think that's her name).
Daniel, along with Kurt's ghost as always, goes to visit Amanda. He tells her who Kurt was, really. She is stunned to hear of his secret job, especially since Daniel reveals the secret armoury in their pantry. Yet, this is eased by the fact that she receives a hefty sum of mega-life insurance. Kurt's pretty cut up about everything that happened to Amanda, but Daniel consoles him and the two have a long convo about their pasts.
I'm liking how Kirkman portrays these two. They will obviously form a totally successful union eventually, but right now, they still seem to be unsettled with each other's actions. It really gives a twist to the heavily dependent situation they're in.
When the issue ends, Kurg is at the bed-side of long out of action villain, Cobra. You may remember him trying to attack Haunt and getting his face caved in for his troubles. As they remove Cobra's bandages, the surrounding people try to stomach their disgust. Capullo really does make the dude look repellant. He has skin grafts all over his face, scars on his head and what appears to be a cleft-lip.
I mean, you have to see this picture to believe it.
Admittedly I did think they'd have revealed a little more by now about who they're dealing with, why etc. It's a slow-burning series that COULD damage itself without a decent pay-off. However, I think that it's a very nice series and I always have. The art is delicious and Kirkman is one of the best writers going. It's only the second arc, so I expect this one to start getting heavy.
If you want to get into Haunt, the first trade paperback is out now, and it collects issues #1 to #5. It's on Amazon and such, but your local comic book store should have it. Pick it up!
Deadpool #23.
Considering Deadpool #22 was honestly one of the worst issues in Daniel Way's THEN 22 issue run, I had no real hopes that this one would be better. Thankfully, it's not a continuing arc. It seems like the dire events of Deadpool #22 were not to be continued, but more on that later.
Deadpool #23 centres around our favourite merc continually trying to become a hero. As the word gets around that Osborn is down and everything's getting back to normal, the news covers a celebration party happening at a casino. One of the participants praises various heroes, but makes the mistake of dissing Deadpool.
Slightly perturbed, Deadpool makes his way down there to have some not-so-polite words with the guy. Almost intimidating the guy to death, Deadpool is satisfied with his night's work and goes to win some money. The owner, not fond of being punked out, sends someone after Deadpool. The hulking, mechanoid suit that Deadpool ends up combating seemed like a throwaway hero at first. Calling itself The House, he roughs Deadpool up a bit, seemingly aware of who he is, addressing him as Wade.
Confused, Deadpool asks if he knows him. It's revealed that The House is none other than Weasel! This admittedly shocked me, because Weasel is Deadpool's LOOONG term secondary character/best friend/abuse cushion. It's nice to see him being brought back.
They stop fighting and Weasel explains everything. He tells Deadpool to take off, to leave HIM to protect the city now. Deadpool doesn't like this idea and tells him he has a deal for him that he may like.
I'll take this opportunity to say that, yes, I do still love Barberi's Deadpool. I love how robust he makes him seem. Very nice, almost Udon-esque art.
The next time we see Deadpool and Weasel, they're fighting off an attack by Grizzly in their mechanoid suits (Deadpool's being red and black of course), having formed some kind of protection racket. Weasel addresses him as his sidekick, calling him The Wildcard, and I thought that was kinda cool...but Deadpool didn't.
Deadpool flies Grizzly into the air and reveals himself. Shocked at who's inside, Deadpool tells Grizzly to stop fighting because he has an offer for him. One he may like.
Now, Daniel Way did a lot right with this issue. It felt so much closer to the Deadpool I love than so much of his other stuff. It's STILL not entirely working for me, though.
I'm so tired of Deadpool's on-going series essentially containing one-and-done stories, or story arcs that have no damn substance. I guess what's critically missing is the fact that Deadpool is being written totally different nowadays; no pop culture references, hardly any violence, hardly any mission-based stories, no fourth wall breaking.
Even accepting all those, I wish the stories were better. Props to him introducing Weasel and giving Deadpool a SLIGHT mean streak again, but there's a lot of work to be done. I really, really hope he goes somewhere with this.
I don't want Deadpool to end up cancelled, because there are many who could write him well. At this point, though, I'm considering conceding that no Deadpool would be better than any we're getting.
X-Men Legacy #236 (Second Coming: Chapter 8).
Bastion's endgame becomes dangerously apparant. Shit gets real.
Trapped on Utopia, preparing for an invasion that has all intent of wiping out the entire mutant race, the X-Men have a job on their hands.
Bastion has imprisoned...not just Utopia, but the entire Bay Area in what looks like an impenetrable dome. Why? So they can't escape, but there must be more! Upon ordering Namor to check if they can dive under the ocean and swim out, he delivers the bad news. It's not a dome, it's a sphere. Bastion has psionically sealed them in a gigantic, inescapable sphere that has cut off anything outside of it.
Hope feels extreme guilt over what she is causing, but Cable tells her that his responsibility is to take care of her wellbeing. With one more time jump left, Cable offers to take her back to the future and let her see how this battle turns out. She declines, offering to give her aid in whatever way she can.
Cyclops and other X-Men, having failed to destroy the dome, go off to explore and hopefully find some explanation for it. Might I just add that I love how Greg Land draws Psylocke? I'm just saying.
The Avengers show up to help crack the dome. I'm not entirely sure how, but I'm gonna guess they were already in it. Thor has no success at first, with a single blow of Mjolnir, but prepares to put a lot more power into his second attempt. Meanwhile, on the Golden Gate bridge, there appears to be a portal. Beast, in radio contact with Cyclops, says that it's the source of the sphere...but it isn't radiating energy.
I love how tense this series is! I know I keep saying that, but it's so true. Every writer is upping their game on this. Mike Carey puts across such an intense feeling of impending danger and claustrophobia, it's all very cat-and-mouse. The scene where Bastion muses, almost sadly, over the fact that he'll be purposeless when mutants are gone, is brilliant.
Upon approaching the portal, a terrifying enemy is revealed. For any person who knows their X-Men history, this was a pretty big deal.
None other than a group of Nimrod Sentinels come through the portal and reveal their purpose is to kill and exterminate. Now...I often find my imagination to be dangerous.
Too many fans imagine where a story should or could go, and then blame the writers for it not being correct. I will try not to do the same, but if they're going where I think...then Second Coming is going to turn up the epic nature of itself tenfold. We'll see next week, I guess.
Seriously, I will keep telling you to get into this until you all tell me you have. Don't miss this, I swear. It's half way done, or so, but you NEED to pick the issues up. The trade paperback won't have the suspenseful feel that the issues do (Though it's an amazing story).
GET ON THE BOAT.
The Avengers #1.
Volume 4 of The Avengers. The reunion of a team that was split up seven years ago.
While the roster situation is still not entirely resolved, I feel, this issue was very...very good. At first I wasn't sure if I'd dig on John Romita Jr's artwork, but I really like it. It works well. I do think a few of the parts are off, and his facial structure leaves something to be desired sometimes, but it's generally real cool.
The issue opens with a fairly cryptic scene. In the pouring rain, Immortus has apparantly met defeat at the hands of The Next Avengers, an incarnation of The Avengers that, until now, was only in an animated movie.
Next scene takes us to Soldier Field, Chicago. Remember? Where Volstagg unintentionally destroyed the place, thus giving Osborn his reason to invade Asgard? Everyone is lending a helping hand to repair it, including Wonder Man. After being asked to return to The Avengers, Wonder Man (Simon Williams, for future ref. I may call him Simon) is not best pleased. He freaks out and blames The Avengers for everything that has gone wrong over the past seven or eight years. He tells Steve to reconsider his stance in reforming the team, then under his breath, suggests that HE will force him to change his mind if he can't do it alone.
Captain Rogers gathers the team to explain what their purpose is, why they're together and what to expect. His dialogue with Iron Man is especially good, given the things they've been through. There's a part where Stark asks who's gonna lead the team (He's initially reluctant), and Steve says he picked the best person for the job. Stark asks if this is him and Steve just laughs. It's a brilliant little couple of lines that essentially promotes Steve's position as being, "You're my friend, we're cool, but don't push it."
Bendis said that The Heroic Age is what happens if Steve Rogers is in control. We've seen the world according to Nick Fury, Tony Stark AND Norman Osborn. All of those people are contentious among the Marvel Universe. Steve isn't. Nobody says anything bad about Steve, and that dialogue really showed that he's taking his job seriously. That the same mistakes won't be made again.
The team over-seer is none other than Maria Hill! Steve said they are to report to her. I guess she's not leading the team, but they're now a team with higher authority. Not just a team with a leader who have nobody to answer to. Genius, really.
I must admit, I'm a little confused about how Iron Man will fit into all this, continuity wise. I mean, how can he be in THIS series and his own series? They can't take place at the same time.
Anyway, the group is interrupted by the arrival of Kang the Conquerer. No sooner after Kang shows up is he smacked by Thor and blown across the room, out of the building and onto the roof of an adjacent one. Thor is clearly not in the mood for Kang's shit.
Kang tells them that their children, The Next Avengers, have ruined the future timeline. Unless the current heroes stop them, the world will cease to exist. Kang's method of pursuasion here is a doomsday device. One invented by Stark, but not created due to it's dangerous nature. If they don't do what he says, and the kids succeed, he'll return to this time and use it.
What's also cool is that Captain America doesn't know who Kang is. Remember, Bucky is Cap now. He hasn't had the pleasure of being in The Avengers for longer than a day and dealing with Kang. This is evident also when he introduces himself to Thor properly, and Thor just replies, "I'm sorry, I have NO idea who you are." I'm very intrigued to see how those two get along, because Thor and Steve are VERY close.
Regardless, they need to get to the future, fast. Wolverine says he knows just who to call (He was just on Utopia, so again, I find the continuity a little odd).
The issue ends on a spectacular cliffhanger. Kang returns to the aforementioned timeline and is spoken to by an unseen master, with Kang telling him that everything is going to plan.
It's revealed that the Future Imperfect incarnation of The Hulk, known as The Maestro, is responsible. The Maestro, folks, is The Hulk on steroids...if such a thing were possible. Ridiculously and abnormally smart with it. I'm very much looking forward to how it all pans out.
All in all, this is a fairly exciting issue that doesn't disappoint. I'd definitely recommend it to people. Anyone, really. Knowing Bendis and his ability to carry books for a LONG while, I'd suggest grabbing an issue #1 now.
Tremendous stuff, I really do like it. Heavy recommendation.
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So, I've got a pretty chunkadelic post coming on Saturday. Tune in on Saturday for my huge catch-up post. For those of you who want to join in on The Heroic Age, or want to read Siege, this coming post will give you EVERYTHING you need to get up to speed, one way or another.
I will be telling you what story arcs you need to read, and where to go from there.
Don't miss it. For now, though, thanks for reading!
Until then, peace.
-The Mast
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