Random Thoughts 23

I know it's been almost two months without a post...



I'm a terrible blogger.



It's not that I haven't been writing stuff for this blog. It's that I can't finish what I do write. Or that I'm not satisfied with whatever I do finish to post it here. So I've committed myself to do something for this weekend...and here it is.



A few news items first:



The leaks of Thor, Cap, X-Men and Spidey set photos- These have to be a marketing ploy to "test the waters" and get the public, or rather the geek fanbase, used to the look of the costumes so when the movie hits less attention will be paid to the them. A sort of desensitizing campaign, if you will.



The Dark Knight Rises casting- The news here for me was not so much as who the actors were, but rather which character they would be portraying. I trust Nolan to take Bane back to his strategic mastermind criminal roots instead of having him be dumb muscle. I also noticed that Anne Hathaway is credited as playing Selina Kyle. I wonder if the exclusion of the Catwoman name is significant or a fake out.



Fredrick Wertham spins in his grave- This week both DC Comics and Archie Comics dropped the long standing regulatory (censoring) commission for their comics in favor of their own ratings system. The Comics Code Authority was created in the mid-1950's by Marvel, DC and Archie (as well as others) to avoid being shut down for corrupting young minds. While the movies developed a scaled ratings system comics were stuck with a pass or fail stamp. Literally having a comic without a CCA on the cover was verboten (anti-drug issues aside). Loosened in the 80's (what wasn't) it remained a part of the industry. Marvel bucked the system for it's own ratings in the early 2000's. Now that its two other major supporters are out...it will most likely die.



Digital River(dale)- Archie Comics announced that they will offer their comics online same day/date as at retail. I must say that Archie Comics is really impressing me as a company. To have the "married Archie" and "student that happens to be gay" story elements as well as the modernization steps with new ratings system and same day digital releases ends my perception of the company as an out of touch stale entity.



FF Tuesday?- Well it's been a few weeks since retailers have been allowed to get books shipped on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. This was done with the implicit understanding that books would not be for sale until the next day. Marvel is now testing this new deal by allowing early sales of Fantastic Four #587. They say it's to stave off the spoiler of which member of the Four dies, setting up the next arc and relaunch of the team. This is just a test to see if certain books can be marketed like this as being "early".



Holy E-footnotes, Batman!- I grew up loving the comic book tradition of referencing past issues of not only the same title but other titles where the events had some bearing on what was happening in the issue I was reading. This habit was slowly phased out during the early 2000's. I was surprised when Amazing Spider-Man #652 had something that reminded me of those footnotes. Referring readers to go to the Marvel.com online OHOTMU entry for the old and somewhat obscure villain the Looter. I wonder how many people were unfamiliar with him enough to check out that page.

So that's all for now..... Glad I got that done as I've been "busy" reading the DC Showcase Teen Titans and watching all the streaming Tom Baker Doctor Who I can through Netflix.

Hopefully I will have another post up next Mon.

Random Thoughts 22

So this Thanksgiving brought some great food and some good toons. That's right, cartoons. Now, most people would be excited about the football games. Not me.



It was sneak peek week for the newest versions of both G.I. Joe and Transformers. They debuted on the joint venture cable channel between Hasbro and Discovery Networks called The Hub. Both were supposed to have been ready for the channel's relaunch (it was previously Discovery Kids) back in October, but were pushed back to Thanksgiving weekend.



As a fan of both properties you would think that I would be excited about this. I am, to some extent. I am very wary of getting too involved in these series though. More on that later, first let's take a brief look at each with minor spoilers.



First let's look at G. I. Joe: Renegades:



The title gives some clue as to the storyline right off the bat. Well, we join red-headed Army Intelligence officer Lt. O'Hara as she gathers various members of the military to escort her during an inspection of a Cobra Industries plant outside of Springfield. It turns out that she is not there to inspect with any authority at all and with only gut instinct telling her Cobra is up to no good [OK they are] means to infiltrate the plant and obtain proof of the evil nasty things Cobra is doing there. So these poor guys are dragged unwillingly into her promotion seeking move to impress her boss General Abernathy. Of course, things go badly when Cobra's personal security force try to stop them and open fire. In no short order, news of their "assault" is passed on to the military and the Joes are labeled as terrorists. It doesn't help that in the effort to get evidence to exonerate them they not only destroy the Cobra plant, but unleash a deadly Bio-weapon. Surprisingly one of the characters dies in the explosion that lays waste to the plant [something I wished would have happened to this character in the movie]. It was a bit surprising even if done off-screen. Needless to say, the Joes return to destroy the bio-weapon monster and sacrifice the chance to clear themselves by doing so. They vow to do whatever it takes to take down Cobra, thus setting up the very "A-Team" like premise for the show.



I liked the way the writer's came up with a new explanation for the Joes' code names, now they are just nicknames they call each other. A logical and realistic explanation. Aside from Scarlet, Duke, Roadblock, Tunnel Rat, Ripcord and Snake Eyes, Flint and Lady Jaye show up. Flint is now the "Col. Dekker" to the Renegades "A-Team". Showing up on the other side is the Baroness and Dr. Mindbender with mention of Destro and Cobra Commander shows up at the end. The animation was very much that "realistic" anime inspired and not bad. Snake Eyes kicks ass, of course.



I'm not too confident in Hasbro's commitment to the show. With Pursuit of Cobra figures still doing well and there's no news of a toy line supporting the show or an IDW comic even. Still the show doesn't officially begin until next year so there might be new developments by the New York Toy Fair in February.



Also on the Hub was Transformers: Prime. A CGI series:

Again focusing on a small group of heroes, this time the Autobots and their defense of Earth against the Decepticons. Drawing from Animated, the live action movies and the War For Cybertron video game for inspiration. The two episodes shown introduced the last Autobots (Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Bulkhead, Arcee and Cliffjumper) hiding their existance from the world as they remain on Earth to link up with any refugee Autobots and defend it against Starscream who rules the Decepticons since Megatron left three years earlier. After Cliffjumper is killed [again with a character's early death?] Arcee is spotted by several human teens who become wrapped up in the robots' war. Megatron has returned to harness the power of the Blood of Unicron or Dark Energon. Showing off it's power he resurrects Cliff as a feral berserker only to kill him a second time [C'mon kids are watching!]



Again, Hasbro's backing of this series is dubious. With the Generations/Universe/Reveal the Shield line and another Transformers live action movie coming this summer are they going to be able to do anything with this version toy wise? Again, I have to say Toy Fair holds the answer. It will be very interesting year there.



And over on Cartoon Network was Young Justice:

A great revamp of the Teen Titans concept. We get introduced to Robin, Speedy, Aqualad, and Kid Flash as they finally get a tour of the Justice League's HQ. Speedy walks off because the JL won't let them in. The others stick around as the JL gets word of a fire at Cadmus Labs, but a volcano eruption takes precedence. Robin hacks the JL computer and finds out that the League is suspicious of Cadmus. The teens realize that they have not been barred from going to Cadmus Labs to help and to poke around. They find out Cadmus is cloning biological weapons and among them is Project Kr, Superboy. Cadmus responds to their discovery and though they escape with the clone the lab is destroyed. The League is not happy, but impressed with their resolve. So they convert their old HQ (Happy Harbor) to serve as a base for the young heroes training overseen by Black Canary and Red Tornado. They will run missions that the League cannot take because of political or other complications.

I already like the animation and the tone of this series. It seems that they will, like JL/JLU, go into DC Universe lore. I mean, to see Guardian and Doublex as part of Cadmus in the first episode was cool. It also seems that they will forge their own way too as the "Big Bad" is the mysterious group known only as "the Light". The series starts in earnest this January.

So, that was a quite a lot of toons to watch this weekend. If you want to see them they will be re-aired in January. All except the Transformers series, which airs the first five part mini-series this week. The Hub will be running a new episode each night (along with all the previous ones right before it).

Happy Thanksgiving

Enjoy Turkey Day Everyone!

This Week's Comic Stack 10/20/10 plus 10/27/10

Combing last week's and this week's Stacks:



Last week



The Good:

• Chaos War #2- Pak and Van Lente continue their great work with Herc and Co.



• Steve Rogers: Super Soldier #4- An okay ending that obviously sets up a story in Brubaker's Secret Avengers book.



• Brightest Day #11- This issue focuses on Martian Manhunter and Fire(Death)storm. This is sooo much better when one or two of the arcs receives the majority of pages.



• DC Universe: Legacies #6- This issue deals with the fallout from the Crisis and is drawn by Jerry Ordway and inked by Perez. A great stroll through DC history. The backup is a riff on the Legion(s) Of Super-Heroes coming back in time to get Superboy that frankly falls flat. However, that does not ruin the main story.



• Green Lantern Corps #53- A new arc involving Qward and the Weaponer (now able to affect power constructs due to his studying the White Lantern construct left by Deadman) after revenge on Sinestro.



• Legion Of Super-Heroes #6- The Earth-Man character solidifies his place on the team this issue and a new vote for Legion leader is called for. In a nod to the Waid series the fourth wall is broken as the writers/editors appeal to the readers to vote for the new leader online.

The Alright:

• New Mutants #18- This arc about the Inferno babies grown up, while a cool starting point, is meandering and I'm losing interest in it.



• The Stand: Hardcases #4- Maybe it is the gap between last issue, but for some reason it just isn't as good as previous issues.



• Batman Beyond #5- Well, there is a bit of a fake-out with Dick there...[whew] Even with my fears alleviated this issue isn't as good as the last. I hope that #6 will pull it together some more and I still look forward to January's ongoing series.



• Justice League Of America #50- The great art and always cool Crime Syndicate story should make this a hit. Though, it just falls short.

The Bad:

• Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne #5- The great art by Ryan Sook (and Pere Perez) can't save this clunker. The time period is what confuses me. Drawn like it takes place in the thirties or forties(cars and the style of clothes worn) but mentioning the death of Thomas Wayne, it is set just after the murders of his parents. This is a key piece to the whole epic story that Morrison has been telling since he got involved with the Bat books. It ties in the Black Glove to the framing of Thomas Wayne and the Wayne family for several things throughout history along with Carter Nicols and his time machine. Having not read most of that though, I was lost until I researched it later. To be honest, I thought that Bruce was going to go back to the Golden Age Earth-2 time period or something similar and was disappointed to find out that wasn't the case.

This Week

The Good:

• Justice League: Generation Lost #12- Everything we know (about Ice)is WRONG! In a huge change for the character, Judd Winick gives her an all new origin and backstory. Supposedly repressed memories awaken when she went into a fugue state last issue. Is this real, or is it Max messing with her? Either way it's pretty interesting stuff for the character.


• Teen Titans #88- J.T. Krul reunites the Geoff Johns Teen Titans. At least that what the promos seemed to promise me. The team had gotten so far from what attracted me to the title in the first place. Now that the gang (for the most part, no Tim as Robin, Cyborg or Starfire) is back I wanted to check it out. Krul is not one of my go-to guys, but has done a few things that look favorable for the title and the characters. Unfortunately, he's also done some not so good thing with characters of late. So while this issue gives me hope for the future of the title, I'm not confident in it yet. Luckily they've paired him with a great artist in Nicola Scott so it will look good (although Gar's one snaggletooth annoyed me). The story is mostly the team dealing with the gang being back together and the teaser of Damian Robin [urrgh...] joining.


• Zatanna #6- After being stood up by his cuz Zatanna not coming to his show, Zach investigates her disappearance. He saves Zee from a fate worse than death... marriage [ba-dump-bum] and an eternity in hell. A nice end to this little arc. Zach comes off better than he ever has before because until this series he's kinda been an @$$hole, even to his friends.


• Captain America #611- Things look bad as Cap turns himself over because he's been outed as the Winter Soldier assassin. Meanwhile, there's endless meetings about this fact. The Avengers meet, Obama meets with advisers, Steve meets with Obama, Cap meets with some Nazis (to kick their asses) and finally Steve and Cap meet. Boy, all this meeting and talking you'd think Bendis wrote this issue. That said, I think that the way it's done adds tension to the story and pressure (even though he's unaware of most of these people discussing him) upon Cap. Oh, and Black Widow guests in the poor Nomad back-up.


• Captain America: Patriot #3- I am really loving this book. Karl Kesel starts with the existing continuity and adds a new depth to it while telling an original story. This is my favorite thing he's written. This issue fleshes out why Cap traded Bucky for Sun Girl as partners in the fifties. The art is simply wonderful.

The Alright:

• Justice Society Of America #44- Another new creative team, new direction for a title (see Teen Titans) this week as Marc Guggenheim and Scott Kolins take control of the JSA. Already in their first issue I don't think I'll be liking this much better than Willingham's run. The team has their asses handed to them by a new baddie (not even a classic JSA foe) and get all remorseful over the destruction of a chunk of a city. (ummm....Bludhaven is a radioactive crater...and god knows how many times the entire world has suffered damage from invasions, apocalypses and such in the DCU) This just seems to be done for dramatic purposes to amp up the guilt for JSA as a politician goes after them for the damage. [cleaning up and rebuilding after a big fight is half the fun in the DCU] Also one of the big three of JSA (Alan Scott, Jay Garrick, Ted Grant) gets injured. Green Lantern Alan Scott is now "permanently paralyzed" because of injuries sustained by fighting the big bad. Nice,...take out the best part of JSA and after what he just went through with the Starheart, jeez take it easy on the poor guy. Wait, that's not all...Jay wants to retire and Mister Teriffic is losing his smarts. I have a bad feeling about this. The Scott Kolins art is uninked which sometimes works for me, other times doesn't but is still very good.


• Time Masters: Vanishing Point #4- This title has increasingly less to do with finding Batman in time and more to do with Rip Hunter and Booster Gold. Most of the issue the motley crew of heroes are trapped in an illusion. Booster is trapped with Hal Jordan and has some great banter playing with the world's perception of him and Hal's being so judgemental of him. Jurgens may not be in top writing form this issue, but the art is great.


• Amazing Spider-Man #646- The Origin Of the Species storyline concludes with a happy ending. [not that kind..] Spidey saves the day and finds out the real father of the Goblin baby is...Harry, and he doesn't have any Goblin/Menace powers. This seemed a fairly abrupt conclusion, but still worked. It must be nice for Spidey to have the Avengers to tie things up that would have taken issues to resolve a while ago. Like those pesky kidnapping charges and all those lose villains running around. Oh, well! Next issue starts Dan Slott's run on Amazing...something I've wanted to see since he did that Spider-Man/Human Torch mini years ago.


• Uncanny X-Men #529- Half of the issue is set up for the Generation Hope mini, the other half is the White Queen being mysterious and manipulative with what to do with Sebastian Shaw and neither really interests me. For some reason the Portacio art seemed a bit rushed this issue too.

From a few weeks ago...

• Untold Tales Of Blackest Night #1- I missed this one when it came out. An anthology one-shot that has "deleted" scenes from Blackest Night. A framing sequence featuring the Sinestro Corps archivist, Lyssa Drak, trapped in the Black Lantern Book of Black bookends. Featured in the scenes are: Animal Man, Donna Troy, Scarecrow and Sinestro Corps member Karu-Sil. In a scene sure to be quite important later on, Lyssa is rescued by a mysterious figure she recognizes (the readers don't see him/her/it) who wants her to be a bookkeeper. None of the stories are incredible or horrible and the art is all very good.

Random Thoughts 21?

Just when I was getting a rhythm down to posting things, my computer decides to not boot up any more. A visit to the Geek Squad and three weeks later,...my baby's back and so am I!

I'm realizing just how long three weeks is in Internet terms. What with the 10-12 YouTube videos a day, the 6 weekly podcasts I listen to and the hundreds of comic book and toy news items posted on various sites it adds up to a lot of lost time. And it's not as if the sources stop and wait for you to catch up. No, they just keep churning out new stuff.

With three weeks worth of news to catch up on and comics to review on This Week's Comic Stack, I would never catch up. So, I'm just gonna start with the comics I bought this week and go from there. That should be up Sunday night or Monday morning.

So, till next week...

Random Thoughts 20

-I was in the grocery store and noticed that Hostess and DC have a deal. Batman and Superman appear on the boxes of Cupcakes and Twinkies. Green Lantern (Hal) turns Sno-Balls into green colored Glo-Balls and Flash gets his very own Flash Cakes (red icing on regular Cupcakes)





-Some interesting DC solicits for Dec:


Green Lantern/Plastic Man one-shot by Marv Wolfman should be worth a look.


Larfleeze Christmas Special that was teased by Geoff Johns for a while before being announced at SDCC


The Legion Of Super-Heroes Annual #1 reunites Levitz & Giffen who had quite a run on the Legion in the 80's.


The all pencil Batman: Hush Deluxe Hardcover seems cool to look at, but I don't necessarily want to buy this story again.



-The big moves at DC: The ending of the Wildstorm imprint and DC Entertainment moving to LA. The only Wildstorm book I've read was Planetary (when it came out) so I was not floored by this announcement. It seems that the various properties will be folded into other imprints (either DC or Vertigo depending on which is more apropriate) so content wise I don't think DC loses much. Besides how many start and stops has the Wildstorm universe had since 2000? Four,...five? As for the move to California....It really doesn't affect the Comics offices and jobs aren't going to be lost if people are willing to move with the company.

-Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning are trading cosmic level characters for street level ones. They will write the new ongoing Heroes For Hire comic. It will feature: The Punisher, the Falcon, Misty Knight, Paladin, Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, Silver Sable, The Shroud and Avengers Moon Knight and Black Widow. I'm sad that they're leaving the Guardians Of the Galaxy and Nova, but excited to see if they can drum up the same kind of interest in this new set of characters.

-It's premire week on TV this week. So far, nothing has really captured my attention.

The Event (NBC, Mon 9PM)- seemed like it was trying too hard to "be" the new Lost. None of the characters were particularly memorable...but the sci-fi aspect of the series is interesting. In the first episode the kidnapping of a family led to an assassination attempt ala 9/11 on the President of the U.S. by an airline pilot. The reason, he was going public about a group of people being held in custody in a remote base in Alaska. However, the plane disappears in midair before crashing. The spokesperson of this mysterious group says "They saved us". So we got this mysterious group, the conspiracy who wants the President dead for going public about this group, what happened with the plane and who did it to be answered. I'm hoping that episode two will be better.



Lone Star (Fox, Mon 9PM)- This is about a con man who is leading two lives, two cons and trying to figure out if he wants to run those cons or turn legit in either life. I'm sorry, but this kind of sounds like they said let's take a Sawyer [from Lost] "type" and create a show out of it. I don't think the lead has the charisma to pull it off though.



Hawaii Five-O (CBS, Mon 10PM)- Now, I really never watched the old show even in reruns, but I do know lots of the locations and the same production crew were used on one of my favorite shows of all time, Magnum P.I. and, I expect, Lost [do I obssess much?] So, while the lead isn't that solid , there are lots of familiar faces to keep me around for a few more episodes. There's Grace Park from BSG, Masi Oka (yet to appear) from Heroes and Daniel Dae Kim from Lost [of course]



Undercovers (NBC, Wed 8PM)- Okay, this show was fun, but I had to get over that awful "sex-pionage" promo. [I sincerely hope that's not a running gag] Watching this it could well have been "Alias: The Married Years". So the leads of Sydney and Vaughan have been recast/reimagined as two spies lured out of their five year old retirement after marrying each other. A Marshall "tech/support" type guy shows up. The female lead runs a catering business with her friend [oh, wait, Francine is dead I guess I should stop with the Alias connections] The emphasis here is on action, comedy and romance more than the actual espionage plots.


Returning favorites had strong episodes...



Chuck (NBC, Mon. 8PM)- Chuck is now looking for his spy Mom (played by Linda Hamilton) and ran into tough guy baddie Dolph Lundgren this week. This show gets some cool guest stars! I did groan when they brought back my least favorite part of the show... the Buy More. Yet, they did with a bit of a twist...so it could be interesting.



Castle (ABC, Mon. 10PM)- Nathan Fillion is back for more murder mysteries and flirting.



Fringe (FOX, Thurs 9PM)- Olivia is trapped on the alternate Earth...while her double is on the Prime one. If that's not bad enough, the bad guys on Alternearth have brainwashed her (geneticly?) into thinking that she IS that universe's Olivia.



Smallville (CW, Fri. 8PM)- Clark has a near-death experience with both Jor-El and Pa Kent, while Lex Luthor's clones are discovered. Lois knows the secret of the Blur [UGH!, hate that name] and we see the Superman Returns suit [Huh? Well I guess it was cheap]. Meanwhile, Oliver is being beaten by somebody for some reason. Chloe tries on Fate's helmet and then trades herself to free Oliver. Oh and one of the Lex clones tries to kill Lois with the good old "you're not fast enough to save the woman you love and these random innocents" trick. Spoiler alert...he is fast enough. Next episode looks killer...Lois with Carter Hall/Hawkman and Shayera and Deadshot in Metropolis...Yes, Deadshot.



I've yet to watch the last new show to pique my interest...Blue Bloods the CBS drama about a multi-generational NYPD police family starring Tom Selleck [Magnum himself] as the patriarch and NYC Police Commissioner. The other Wahlberg (Donnie) plays his eldest son, dealing with PTS from Iraq. His daughter is a prosecutor. His youngest son is a Harvard grad that gave up a career in law to become a beat cop having just graduated to the force. They are all dealing with the recent death in the line of duty of another cop sibling. The youngest is approached by the FBI to go after a secret society of crooked cops and learns his brother was working for them when he was killed. If that's not enough, there is a clue that points to the oldest brother being part of that society.

So that's it for now...

See you next week.

This Weeks Comic Stack 9/22/10

From DC:

• Flash #5- This is a manic issue. Manapul's art gets that across very well. The Rogues fight the Renegades and the Flash during which Captain Boomerang has a White Lantern induced freak out. He wildly throws his energy 'rangs. One hits the huge mirror that will bring out the Mirror Lords that spell death for Iris, according to the Renegade Top. Barry is knocked into the cracked mirror, breaking it and is bombarded by images of his mother alive and well. The rest of the Renegades take the distracted Barry prisoner for trial in the future, while the Top pays Iris Allen a visit...Great


• Green Lantern Corps #52- This is a great conclusion to the Alpha Lantern storyline and it looks like the end of Cyborg Superman for a while. The whole issue is told through the recently freed Alpha Lantern Boodikka. I liked her observations and comments on the other lanterns as they fight to free the robotic planet of Grenda from Hank Henshaw's control. Ardian Syaf does an incredible job with the art. He has become one of my favorite "new" artists. Great


• Justice League: Generation Lost #10- Max Lord sets Magog on Captain Atom. The "JLI" breaks into smaller teams to follow up on the Checkmate connection to Lord. Rocket Red, Fire and Ice find one of the three leads to be a robotics lab guarded by the Metal Men. While not as good as previous issues this one was still quite good. Winick is really on a streak here even without Giffen guiding him now. Good


• Justice League Of America #49- This starts out as one of those "what does a team do after a big fight" comics. Robinson quickly shows (with guest penciler Pow Rodrix) all the team members on their downtime. Poor Donna and Jade however run into Donna's old enemy Bogeyman (I don't know if he was a real old villain from the old Teen Titans series or just made for this story) and have to fight off his psychic assault. Not too bad...the art was pretty good too. Alright


• Legion Of Super-Heroes #5- A great issue with the Legion dealing with the Titan refugees. The xenophobic Earth-Man continues to reconsider his stance on aliens when he has to defend refugees from an anti-alien militia. It has a great "one man alone" stand followed by "a ____ member is never alone" moment. The cliffhanger page shows that Earth-Man may have had some very good reasons for rethinking his xenophobia. Great

And from Marvel:

• Amazing Spider-Man #643 [from last week]- I still don't like the art too much, but the story is great. A nice everyone is after him chase. This is a real nice way to end the whole One More Brand New Moment In Time phase of Spidey. Good


• Avengers Academy #4- Although McKone's art is pretty good, I just don't care enough about the kid characters to keep me reading. So I think this title might be gone from my pull list after next issue. Alright


• Secret Avengers #5- This issue has some great guest art by David Aja and Michael Lark. It also focuses on who the "Nick Fury" is that has been leading the team opposing the SA for the past four issues. Turns out it is NOT the real Nick Fury [SURPRISE], merely a prototype LMD (Life Model Decoy) with his memories and emotions and a body more like the Vision and Human Torch than the standard robotic LMD. For some reason they can't destroy him so SHIELD locks him up. However, being "Nick Fury" he keeps busting out getting caught when he foils plots to take over the world. So he his finally liberated by the head of this secret organization...I won't say who it is, but he will be familiar to readers of Brubaker's Marvels Project. Good


• Thor #615- Not the best first issue for Fraction. Mostly, it was conversation and premonitions about some vague threat to all of creation intercut with scenes of said threat wiping out the elves of Alfheim. One conversation is set up for a joke on the last page. A scientist is trying to explain to an unseen Asgardian his theory of why there is a threat coming. Asgard has come to Earth and wherever Asgard was, something is taking its place because nature abhors a vacuum. The mystery Asgardian is revealed on the last page but hinted at throughout the issue (pay attention to the type of analogies the scientist uses to explain his theory). Thor is really barely in the issue. The art was okay. Ferry takes getting used to for me, but he's fine after a couple of issues. Alright


• Uncanny X-Men #528- There's a lot going on in this issue. Storm and Hope go after one of the five new mutants [#3] in Africa, there's dissension among the Atlanteans, Dazzler and Northstar enjoy some of the new hero fame that the X-Men have now, Iceman hires a PR firm [Order fans might remember this character] to capitalize on that new fame and Emma deals with some personal stuff involving Sebastian Shaw's influence on her. {WHEW} All that makes for a pretty good comic. Good

Great: 3

Good: 4

Alright: 3

Bad: 0

Some Trades:

Essential Doctor Strange Vol. 4- Roger Stern wrote most of this volume, but Chris Claremont came on for six issues and a crossover to Man-Thing (included). The highlight, for me, is when Stern returned, he was joined by Marshall Rogers (famous for his small Batman run) as penciler.

Essential Captain America Vol. 5- This volume collects the end of Frank Robbins run as penciler for the title and the return of Jack Kirby to the character. Except this time he writesas well as draws. Now, Kirby would get into some goofy stuff during his return to Cap and Marvel, but you can't just deny how well he composes a page and handles action.

The Complete Clone Saga Vol. 1- Yes, I've committed myself to reading the "awfulness" that was the Spider-Man Clone Saga. This is a very unfamiliar period of comics for me. I stopped reading right before this and came back into comics when it had ended. I guess I caught the tail end of it with the "Sign of Five"(?) story which killed off Ben Reilly. Yes, I know the gist of the story, but I want to know if it is as bad as people claim. This volume starts off pretty good with some great art by Bagley, Romita Jr. and Tom Lyle (who I remember not liking that much). It deals with the clones life before returning to NYC and his becoming the Scarlet Spider.