Drunken Comics Rage

I really need to think up a new title for my weekly wrap up of stuff. Really, who says "hodge podge"?

A few random things before I get started.

Sorry there wasn't anything up yesterday, but it was a holiday and all.

You'll all be glad to know, I'm sure, that I finally have a pull set up over at our comic book store of choice, The Laughing Ogre. Hopefully I won't miss a bunch of stuff now, and you won't have to hear me bitch about it.

The Batman: The Dark Knight web site has been updated. I'm not positive how long ago, so if you've been checking it daily I'm sure you already know about it. Or maybe read one of the dozen or so sites that are more up on that kind of thing than I am. Anyway, it has a new trailer, or at least one that I haven't seen yet, as the intro. I haven't played around with the rest of the site yet, but it seems it has all the usual stuff on it. Wallpapers, downloads, and so on. You can hit the site HERE if you want to check it out.

Lastly, I have no idea where the lady in the shirt to the upper left here is from. I randomly found it in a search at some point for something else, but thought it was damn funny. If anyone knows where it's from, let me know.

 

Fantastic Four Secret Invasion #1 of 3

In Secret Invasion #1, we saw a Skrull turn itself into Susan Storm, and do something to the top of the Baxter Building. They mention it in SI #2 also, where the Young Avengers are standing there staring at it, along with the rest of New York. I guess giant balls of light sucking up the top half of a skyscraper does that to people.

Anyway, this is the mini-series that explains what exactly happened to the building, and what's going on inside the glowing light.

To give you the basics, hopefully without ruining anything for you, it explains what happened to the real Sue Storm, and why the Skrulls pulled the top of the Baxter Building into the Negative Zone.

The Thing and the kids spend some time running from the bug things that inhabit the Negative Zone, and Torch talks to the Sue/Skrull thing. There's a little bit of a twist at the end of the comic that I thought was decent, but I won't tell you what. It's not earth shattering or anything like that, but I thought it was a nice touch. Overall, I'm not sure this series is going to be all that exciting. In SI and this comic, they mention that all the bad guys are also in the Negative Zone, from the super prison created in Civil War. I think that's going to be some forshadowing on how Torch, Thing and the kids get out of this mess.

I'm calling it now, Dr. Doom will save the day. I hate it when they have him do that.

Titans #2

I guess a lot of people were really critical of the writing for issue #1. I didn't really see it, in that I really didn't think there was enough writing in the first one to freak out about. I can kind of see what they were all upset about it here in issue #2, however. It's not that it's really horrible, it's heart seems to be in the right place, but it just doesn't pull it off. Kind of like a joke that either someone can't keep straight while trying to tell it, or maybe tries to explain way too much.

The second thing I have to say about this issue is how freaking pissed off I am that I apparently needed to have read at least one or two other titles to know what the HELL is going on. This issue opens up with Argent strapped to a chair, and about to be tortured by some bad guy. The Titans show up to save her, naturally.

The problem is, between issue #1, when they just figured out it was Trigun, and this issue, they've started tracking down all the former Titans, and enlisted the help of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman. Also, Cyborg, who was only half a body in the last issue, is up and running around. It's like I missed out on at least two full comics worth of stuff. I can't stand that. They didn't even say "from Blah issue Blah" anywhere to let me know where the hell the rest of this stuff might be. It's like they just assume that you're reading every DC title, and they don't need to explain anything.

Lastly, I'm not sure why in the hell Changeling suddenly looks like a green elf reject from Lord of the Rings, who has lifted way too many weights. He looks totally different from #1, and it's a bad, bad change. Trigun also looks stupid. Even when they try to make him look all fierce and evil, he still looks like someone's weird uncle, just red with an extra set of eyes. Which is all a real shame, because I actually liked the art in the first issue.

Overall, Titans is on an incredibly short leash. If the next one is even half as bad as this one, I'll ignore it until there's a different person/team writing the book.

The Last Defenders #3

I'm somewhat glad I stuck around for issue #3, but not really for the reasons I thought I would. I was hoping for a little more in-depth story, and really, there isn't one. There's still a lot of foreshadowing about things that are supposed to happen, and maybe those will pop up soon. That part is starting to feel a little bit like season 2 of Lost, stuff happens, but you never really find out all that much more about anything.

For the rest of the comic, well, they wrap up what happened in issue #2, and then he puts together a whole new team. Really, they're mercenaries Nighthawk hires just so he *has* a team to respond to a distress call that he gets right before they pull the last of the plugs on his base. He picks up Paladin, Junta and Atlas. Hilarity ensues.

Really, it seems like this whole series is about Nighthawk's obsession with putting together a Defenders team, and just flat out having some fun with it. I think they are officially on the third plot to take over world, story wise, and the second full team of people. Pick it up, don't think too much about it, and just take it as the fun read it is. I'm along for the ride until the end.

Annihilation: Conquest #1-6

I really enjoyed the first Annihilation series, and was actually just hoping this one would be half as good. I was worried that it might end up being one of those deals where the first one was planned for a year, and well thought out, then sold really well, and the second was just thrown out there in a few months to capitalize on the success of the first one. Sequels just usually aren't that good, and the first series was excellent, so they had a lot to live up to. This was reinforced by some of the individual mini-series that I thought were just ok, like Wraith and Quasar.

I shouldn't have worried at all.

Annihilation: Conquest was excellent. Probably equal to the first, or maybe even a little bit better. Mostly because of Starlord's group being just downright fun to read. The Starlord mini-series was great, and that whole tone just carried over into Conquest. It pretty much has everything going for it. It still feels like it's on a huge scale, there's a lot of stuff going on all at the same time, it was just damn good. If you can get all six issues, go out and do so. Or wait for the graphic novel to come out, which should be soon. (ed: The Monkey waits) There's a huge amount of stuff I could talk about here, but I really think if I'm going to dive into it, it's going to need it's own post at least. Possibly two or three posts. I might have to hand it all off to the Monkey, as he likes that kind of stuff, and I know he'll like this series.

Regardless, go out and buy it. You won't be disappointed. Which of course brings us to….

Guardians of the Galaxy #1

This is officially my new favorite comic.

This comic starts off where Annihilation: Conquest ends, and has the same writing team. If you read the Starlord mini-series, or Annihilation: Conquest, and liked them (which you damn well should), you'll love Guardians.

The team is made up of Starlord, Quasar, Rocket Raccoon, Adam Warlock, Drax and Gamora (or the "green 'n' means" as Rocket calls them) and Mantis. The group is working with Cosmo, the talking Russian dog, and out of the giant severed head of a Celestial that's floating in a place called Knowhere. If you've been reading Nova at all, you'll have a little background on that, but you don't need to know all the details.

The issue keeps the same giant outerspace feel to it, there's all kind of things going on in the background, and the humor in the book is laugh out loud funny. I get that not everyone might like the whole scifi feel to the book, and like their super powered guys to leap tall buildings and all, but if you've liked any of the Annihilation stuff at all, or even if you didn't read any of that and just want a fun book to read, this one is it. I might start buying copies and handing them out to people to read.

This first issue is more of an introduction to the team, for those coming in new, and how the team was put together. Most of that is told in flashbacks, since they're in the middle of making sure a giant Templeship doesn't run headlong into a fissure in space, which would explode, wipe out a few star systems, and create a hole in space that very bad things could get though into our universe.

I'm telling you, this book has eveything in it.

Alright, that's all for now. I didn't get my new pull last Wednesday, so I should have a good little collection of stuff this Wednesday to go through. Until then…well…probably nothing until then from me. Damn. Now I have to come up with a title and a tag line. 

Filed under: Ghostshark's Rants