Drunken Comics Rage

I'll admit, not the best title I've ever come up with, but I have a lot in here, so it fits.

New Avengers #40

When we last left our heroes, they were outside a crashed Skrull ship with the Mighty Avengers, and a whole heap of Skull heroes in their 90's costumes came piling out of said ship.

This comic has nothing to do with that.

I'm really hoping that there's not another comic out there that I have to buy that shows me what happened. I'm hoping this current issue is just the back story, and next issue picks up where the last one left off. There's supposed to be a twelve issue event called "Avengers Invaded" beginning this month though, and the ad says "The heroes of yesteryear vs. the heroes of today", so it's highly likely that I'll have to start picking that up, and the regular Avengers titles will be fallout, back story, and so on. Which bothers me a little bit, but hopefully it'll be good.

This issue is a pretty good one though, in that you get a good backstory on what all happened to lead up to the Skull Invasion. There's also a big reveal at the end, where they show you another hero who is a Skrull, and I'll actually let you read the issue instead of spoiling it here like I usually do.

Salvation Run #6 

This issue I think is actually a few weeks old, and between Vegas and all of that, I actually missed it. Which is odd because I was really looking forward to it.

Overall, I was kind of disappointed in it. In issue 5, Lex Luthor and Joker had a little bit of a fight, Martian Manhunter showed up, all the villains banded together to take MM down, and then at the end of the issue we find out that Parademons (Darkseid's minions) were going to invade the planet and attack the badguys.

In this issue, Lex Luthor and Joker fight, and at the end we find out that the Parademons are attacking. Kind of a waste of an issue if you ask me. It wasn't horrible or anything; much like the cover shows, the Joker and Lex get into an actual fistfight, and it's entertaining. I was just a lot more interested in the story taking two issues to resolve, seeing how #7 is the last one. Instead, they're going to wrap it all up in a single issue, and I think it's going to seem way too fast. Just have to wait and see though. 

The Mice Templar #4 

I really wish I was enjoying this series more than I am. It's not that it's bad, I was just expecting more out of it I think, and I'm not sure why. It's hard to put my finger on what exactly is bothering me about it. At first thought, it seems that each comic is a build up to an event, usually something bad, and then that event is taken care of in the first few pages of the next issue, and the process is repeated. Which is pretty much like every book and comic there is. You want to give people a story, and then leave them wanting to buy the next issue, or read the next chapter. It just seems like it's a little bit of a letdown each time. Whatever the problem is from last issue, it's taken care of, and then almost like it's forgotten. As if it's not really part of the overall story, it's just something that's happened to them along the way to get where they're going.

Yeah, I'm going to go with that.

I'm still going to stick around for a few more issues to see what's going on, but I'm starting to think that they really only have me for a few more at best. I think the series has a lot of potential though, so we'll see what the next few issues hold. 

Thor #8 

Nothing huge here. It was a pretty decent read, but exactly like I thought it would be, for the most part. There is a bit of a twist at the end, which I'm sure will play itself out at some point. The bulk of the issue is a long father and son talk about Thor not bringing Odin back to the land of the living, and Odin basically giving Thor a pass.

The other half of the book deals with Donald Blake and the Jane girl. I guess the back story there is she and Sif were once joined when Sif's spirit resided in her for a time. Sif is Thor's woman/wife/love or whatever, and he was a little bothered by the fact that she didn't come back with all the others. Blake thought that Jane might somehow be holding onto a piece of Sif somehow, and tracked her down to ask her about it. It seems her and Blake were hooked up for a time too, so she might be showing up again.

Good story overall, the little twist wasn't all that great, but it could have legs. Little bit of combat between Odin, Thor and Surtur. I doubt I'm spoiling much here, but Odin decides to stay in the semi-afterlife and battle Surtur once a day for the rest of eternity, which was a bit of a tired plot point for me. How many times have you read something where the hero agrees to be trapped forever, fighting against their worst enemy for the greater good of everything? I think there should be an Original Star Trek rule. If they did it in that series, you don't do it again. 

Annihilation 

I picked up all three volumes of the Annihilation trade paperbacks on Amazon for about $16 apiece, and it was worth every freaking cent. I really enjoyed all of the various characters, with each having their own stories and how they fit into the big picture of the war against the Annihilation Wave.

I'll try not to ruin anything for you. 

The story behind the whole thing is that there's a huge fleet of ships running around destroying everything. An unlikely mix of people all do their part to stop it. The group includes Ronan the Accuser, Super-Skrull, Gamora, Nova, Drax the Destroyer and Starlord with appearances by Quasar, something like 5 heralds of Galactus, Galactus himself, Thanos, Moondragon, Blastaar and a few others I'm forgetting.

Overall it was a great series, and I'm really happy I picked it up. If the second big series, a sequel of sorts called Annihilation: Conquest, is half as good I'll be damned happy about it.

I recommend that you go out and grab these. Best money I've spent in a while. 

Nova #4-9 

I had been picking these up for a while now. Like months. I had six issues sitting around, waiting for me to read. I hadn't read any of them yet, because I wanted to get and read Annihilation first, and then get to all of these, and I'm glad it worked out that way.

I sat down after the afterglow of Annihilation and pretty much just plowed right through these. The first few were part of Annihilation: Conquest, and those were a good read. I was a little worried that reading any of the issues after Conquest would be a bad idea, but the story in Nova pretty much just continues on it's own after the Conquest issues, and that worked out great.

It's a really good series, a LOT of imagination to it, well written, and really worth picking up. It's a little more sci-fi than your normal superhero stuff, but it does it very well. I'm looking forward to reading this on a monthly basis, and I'll probably read all of Conquest this weekend for sure. Though I think I'm missing Starlord #3, which is going to drive me insane.

Now, in other news…

I've added a cool little slideshow to the sidebar on the right. It's not perfect, but I like it. The pictures are of various people in costumes, booth babes, and so on from the 2007 San Diego Comic Convention. If you click on any of the pictures it'll take you to the picture page, where there's something like 100+ pictures from last year. I'm already looking forward to SDCC this year. Can't get here fast enough. 

Last order of business is DVO's comments in his article HERE. Dude says bad things about me, and then runs off to Disney World. How can you talk smack, and then run off to see a mouse? The most annoying thing about it is that he does have a bit of a point. I did say that I was going to work my way through all of those Ultimate X-Men issues, so maybe I'll have to get back to that.

I'm still sticking with the fact that DVO deserves the punkass award for this week though. Even if it might not totally be deserved, it's my award, and I'll give it out to whoever I damn well want. Plus, he's not here and can't defend himself for at least a week, which amuses me.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention it's Iron Man weekend. Go out, see the movie. Me, the Monkey, and a few others are catching it on Sunday at the movie tavern. Why the Movie Tavern you ask? Because I can have a burger and a martini while watching the movie, which is a damn good thing. It ain't called Drunken Comics Rage for nothing.

I should have something up about the movie Sunday evening. Unless I'm a big slacker, and post something on Monday. 

Filed under: DC Comics, Ghostshark's Rants, Marvel Comics