It occurs to me that I sort of miss having a lot of comics to review on a Thursday. For the most part it's been only three or four per week. That will pick up when The Heroic Age starts, oh yes. More on that next time.
Alex at Comicana Comics roped me in...again. Instead of waiting for the trade paperback of Blackest Night (DC's 2009/2010 eight part mini-series), I bought Blackest Night #1..#7 and #8. I read #1 and it's THE MAAAD NOTE. Oh man. Anyway, after Daredevil Month is over, I will have the remaining five issues and will review them!
With that said, THURSDAY'S COMICS UP IN THIS PIECE, YO!
Deadpool Team-Up #894.
Remember how I said this series is throwaway because the issues are self-contained, one-and-done stories that can either be good one month and bad the next?
This is one of the bad ones. I swear to you, this comic stinks so bad that I'm not even going to review it. I'm just going to tell you to steer clear of it.
I say this as a Deadpool fan, so there's a possibility some of you may desire picking it up. That aside, the art is disgraceful, the plot is patently absurd even for a one-and-done, and the patience I have with allowing this series to continue is at melting point.
New Mutants #12 (Second Coming: Chapter 3).
My problem with tie-ins is that they can too often be surplus to requirements. They cost money and in the event that they offer nothing legitimately new to the story, they can be a waste of said money. A lot of tie-ins just bear the banner of whatever arc is occuring, without actually being a tie-in.
Second Coming is not one of those. It's a singular, cohesive story that lacks a main series and doesn't suffer for it one bit. Each chapter takes place almost immediately after the next, but what's clever is that each chapter cleverly involves whatever team's series would be hosting the next chapter. For example: At the end of Uncanny X-Men #523, the New Mutants appeared by order of Cyclops and were about to play their own part in the battle. They're about to launch a separate attack on Bastion's underling, Cameron Hodge and his army of 100 men in robotic exosuits.
This is immediately where the third chapter picks up.
Cable and Hope are still under pressure from the Purifiers and the X-Men/New Mutants have shown up to extract them. A very large, exciting battle ensues whereby Colossus rages on some soldiers due to Magik (Illyana Rasputin, sister of Colossus) being incapacitated by them. Nightcrawler is taken out next, and it begins to show that the Purifiers have specific means of neutralising certain X-Men.
Cable and Hope escape and are both at a loss as to how they could have been discovered just 30 minutes after checking into the motel.
During the battle, Karma of the New Mutants had been mentally manipulating the enemies. She tries this with a mutated Cameron Hodge and is attacked for her troubles (Honestly the creepiest man ever, and the techno-organic mutation makes it worse), with her leg impaled to the ground by one of his legs. The issue ends with yet another cliffhanger!
There's a shot of Rogue in there somewhere, on Utopia, as she says she has something to tell Cyclops (I think). She's one of the main characters in X-Men Legacy, which is where chapter four takes place.
What I love about this is that due to the amount of series' involved, you're never more than a week away from the next installment. This is quite a good move from Marvel, simply because it will avoid the series dragging out. It IS 14 chapters long with about six additional one-shot tie-ins, so it's a big load. It ends, all being on time, in July.
Finally, an X-Men story arc that's packed full of quality. I'm so glad to see the writers meshing well, too. Zeb Wells continues the solid and suspenseful feel of this story in this issue, and the internal art comes courtesy of Ibraim Roberson. I want to give special mention to the art, because it's absolutely brilliant. There aren't many extravagant set-pieces to show it off, like you'd expect from someone like Coipel or Deodato, but he's a very good artist and draws these characters well.
Of course, how can I not mention that cover? I swear Adi Granov is an alien, because his covers are never poor. I love every cover he does. He appears to be doing all the covers to this story arc, too. He's done the first three, he's doing chapter four, so we can only hope! I love how he draws Colossus, man. So epic.
Anyway, I'd definitely advise getting onto this series. Get down to a comic book store and grab the first three installments of this. You won't regret it, I promise.
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The Siege one-shots began today (One-shots focusing on Loki, Captain America, Spider-Man and the Young Avengers). Spider-Man is next week, but I couldn't get the other three due to them selling out. As soon as I do, I'll update this post with the reviews.
Daredevil #506 came out today, and I had planned to have brought you all up to speed on the series by now. Alas, I haven't. Daredevil Month will continue on Saturday when I post Catch-Up with Daredevil, though. It will be a summary of all events from Daredevil #500 to my review of #506. Thereby allowing me to incorporate Daredevil's series into Thursday's Comics from now on.
Thanks for anyone reading this, as always. It's a pleasure.
Until next time, peace.
-The Mast
