Guardians of the Galaxy #5

Written by Brian Michael Bendis

Penciled by Valerio Schiti

Cover by Arthur Adams and Jason Keith

Released Feb 10, 2016

   As the imperial gangster Yotat arrives on Spartax to finish off Drax, Peter Quill begs him for mercy/distracts him long enough for Rocket to blow him away. The shot isn't lethal though, and as he lays recovering, Drax decides he'll get some licks in. Yotat manages to get the upper hand again as Ben Grimm slugs him and Venom takes his weapons away, finally incapacitating him. 

   Star Lord asks Kitty Pryde who this guy is, and through a flashback she explains that they came across him in Knowhere while showing Thing around space. Yotat appears as a bully beating up various aliens he's shaking down, and Drax and Thing of course take exception to it. Rocket blasts him and just when he's about to get up, the Knowhere Corps show up and take him into custody. He swears revenge, and yadda yadda yadda, the Guardians fly away.

   Back in the present, the Spartax Royal Guard show up to apprehend Yotat and King Quill tells them it's more important to find the Last Accuser before she escapes. She ends up with guns pointed at her head, and we see Gamora and Groot healing in the hospital. The Spartax Council reveals to Quill he's no longer King because they all hold HIM responsible for all the damage Yotat caused. Pete and Kitty phase through the building, and the Guardians take off, fugitives once more.

   The issue ends with the Brood Queen and Anhilius in the Negative Zone planning a raid on the Galaxy. We gotta wait till issue 6 to find out what's gonna happen.

This description is accompanied with a video complete with artwork HERE.

Batman #5

Written by Tom King

Penciled by David Finch

Cover by David Finch, Danny Miki, and Jordie Bellaire

Release Date: Aug 17, 2016

   Gotham City's newest hero Gotham (and his sister Gotham Girl) have completely lost it, thanks to the Psycho Pirate and Hugo Strange. Now Gotham is seemingly on a mission to destroy Gotham City, and Batman clearly isn't going to stand for it. Being too far away to intervene, he tells Alfred to put on the batsuit and run over him with the batmobile. Alfred complies and distracts him, just long enough for Batman to show up and try to kill him/talk Gotham out of it.

   Meanwhile back at the Batcave, Duke works on Gotham Girl trying to get a reason for the brother and sister's rampage, and how to stop them. Gotham Girl explains that they're infected with fear from the pirate, just as Batman prepares to crash the Batwing into Gotham. Still fighting to the death and coming up short, Batman tells Alfred to call up the Justice League while Gotham Girl goes nuts back at the cave and trashes all of Bruce's monitors and Duke's Robin suit and all this other bullshit.

   Superman, Wonder-Woman, Cyborg, Flash, and Aquaman show up to help and Gotham pretty much starts kicking everybody's ass. All the while Duke tries to get answers from Gotham Girl who finally reveals that their powers are limited, using years off their normal lives in exchange for credit to be super-human. Finally, just as Gotham is about to kill Batman, Gotham Girl appears out of nowhere and kills Gotham. Immediately. In like 4 super quick comic panels... it's all over.

   

If you liked this review, check out my accompanying video for it HERE

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Every blog begins small, and this bad boy you're looking at is no exception. So let's try something - join my email list, lemme send you updates, and I'll enter you in for a MONTHLY DRAWING to send you a free comic book anywhere in the continental United States. Like... a good one. Probably Marvel but got some DC in there too. Seriously.

No questions asked.

This week I'm giving away a copy of Uncanny X-Men #488. Released Sep 2007, this piece features Warpath, Nightcrawler, and Storm on the beautiful Salvador Larroca cover, and inside also includes appearances by Caliban, Hepzibah, Professor X, and a whole lotta Morlocks.

Pretty good book and you can get it absolutely free.

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Justice League #3

Written by Bryan Hitch
Penciled by Sandu Florea, Tony S. Daniel
Covers by Mark Morales, Tony S. Daniel
Release Date: Aug 17, 2016


   As the Kindred beings begin to slowly appear and take shape on the different corners of the globe, Wonder Woman heads to Russia to engage one of them. Demanding it release the people it holds captive, she stabs it in the head with a lightning bolt and is pulled inside with the horde of it's prisoners, calling her to "join them".
   The massive beings begin walking towards each other from Japan, Russia, and Australia while the Green Lanterns fight the insect like projectiles being hurled to earth and attempt to locate their source. Flash and Cyborg continue to fight them from their locations as well, as Batman interrupts Cyborg to tell him he's needed at the Kent Farm to try and convince the increasingly reclusive Superman that they desperately need his help.
   Simon and Jessica begin to destroy the weird insect planet thing while Cyborg and Batman work out a plan to send Superman to the center of the earth with my favorite quote literally being "So all you need to do is travel to the earth's core and take out these extinction machines..." I mean, that's it?
Superman struggles with the molten core's intense heat while billions of the insect things swarm out, completely covering Cyborg whom is emitting some sort of high pitched noise to confuse them. Obviously it doesn't work.
   Meanwhile the fourth Kindred arises from Atlantis, baffling Aquaman with it's continued crystal singing noises which stop suddenly as the massive supernatural being begins its long walk to join the others. Wonder Woman remains in a strange limbo world and appears to be blasted with some sort of strange light, while we finally see the 4 humongous humanoids united horrifyingly together. The issue concludes with Superman finding one of the sources of the killing machines at the earth's core. He attempts to blast it with his heat vision which doesn't work, and he's left standing there wondering what to do...

For an accompanying video of this review including artwork, etc, please check it out HERE.

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Amazing Spider-Man #16

Written by Dan Slott, Christos Gage
Penciled by Giuseppe Camuncoli
Cover by Alex Ross
Release Date: Aug 10, 2016


   While Jay Jameson sits in a hospital bed recuperating, doctors and guests surround the room telling him his prognosis. Jonah blames Peter Parker's jet setting ways as the reason for his father's illness, as Dr. Clarkson from New U Technologies walks in and explains that there's an experimental way to save Jay although it's expensive. Pete offers to pay any price but Jonah refuses, saying his father doesn't deserve to be someone's guinea pig.
   Pete is flying to a meeting on the west coast and reviewing the remarkable New U internal organ replicating technological advancements as Anna Maria breaks in and tells him the Parker Industries Plant in Oklahoma has mysteriously exploded, trapping some of his employees inside. Pete orders the plane be turned around immediately and heads to the plant to save them. Meanwhile it's revealed that the culprit behind New U is the Jackal, working with The Lizard and his scientist daughter and using Electro as a willing test subject. Spider-Man safely rescues the trapped employees including critically-injured Jerry Salteres, who he whisks away to a hospital where he finds out he needs multiple organ transplants to survive. Pete calls Dr. Clarkson and tells her to get to work on whatever it will take to save the man, and the Jackal silently orders her to do it, giving him a taste of the "magic" that New U can perform.
   Jerry makes an astonishing recovery and while visiting him, Peter's Spider-Sense is triggered, indicating some massive danger that he can't seem to pinpoint the reason for. Meanwhile, Jonah agrees to Dr. Clarkson's life saving procedure, willing to pay any price. Dr. Clarkson reveals that she's prepared a demonstration to show Jonah, to prove that New U has virtually no limitations by bringing in Jonah's long dead wife Marla, to which he is clearly shocked and amazed.

To see my companion video review for this issue, please click HERE.

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Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows 1-5

Written by Dan Slott
Penciled by Adam Kubert
Covers by Adam Kubert, Justin Ponsor
Release Date(s):
Issue 1: Jun 3, 2015
Issue 2: Jul 8, 2015
Issue 3: Aug 15, 2015
Issue 4: Aug 19, 2015
Issue 5: Sep 9, 2015


   Written by Dan Slott and pencilled by Adam Kubert, this entire series takes place in Battleworld during Secret Wars. Peter is semi-retired and trying to keep his past quiet since it turns out he and Mary Jane's daughter Annie is a mutant who inherited her dad's spider powers at birth. Also as luck would have it, just after a super scary bad guy named Regent has killed most of the Avengers, there's a prison break at Rykers, and Pete makes it back to the apartment just in time to find Venom on the couch with Annie and MJ.

    Regent gets word that the Avengers are on the way to help, and fights them using all the X-Men's powers whom he's presumably already killed. As he summarily defeats them one by one, Pete runs away to go after Venom. He corners him in a burning apartment building and for the first time (in this timeline anyway) allows a villain to die. As he and Annie later happily walk down the street together, the Vulture flies overhead with a stolen purse and Pete just watches him fly away.

    Years pass, and as Pete and MJ walk their daughter to her first day of school, Shocker, Rhino, and Boomerang fight Demolition on Regent's behalf outside the school front door. Mockingbird and Prowler monitor it secretly for S.H.I.E.L.D. and are ordered to stand down. As Pete goes into the Bugle to turn in some pics of the earlier melee, he finds out a Regent team is on the way to confront the Power Pack at Annie's school so he and MJ book it over there but end up blowing Spider-man's secret cover. Defeated, Regent deploys the Sinister Six to dispose of SpiderMan, and Pete at the apartment decides it's time to one again break out the classic black Spider-Man suit.

    Needing to buy some inhibitor chips to build tech to mask Annie's powers, Spidey is ambushed at the tinkerers workshop by Doc Ock. He essentially mutilates him, scaring the Six into realizing this isn't your father's Spider-man, but revealing to Kraven he's got a kid at the school he's trying to 

protect. Regent orders all children be scanned and while the Parkers make it through thanks to the inhibitors, one mutant child isn't as lucky. As he's being detained, Pete can't sit idly by so he ends up engaging the Sinister Six. 

    Mockingbird and Prowler grab MJ and Annie and take them to a SHIELD base for protection. While Spider-Man continues to fight, Sandman appears and mentions that his family is safe at a secret SHIELD location, however Spider-Man doesn't believe him, and his lenghty explanation allows both of them to be captured by Regent's forces. During SHIELD debriefing, MJ explains that Pete has used inhibitor chips to mask their powers in the past, which gives Hawkeye and what's left of the Avengers to put together a plan to defeat Regent. All they need is some of his DNA.

     Regent reveals that his killing of every superhero in this particular realm and sapping their powers is so he can fight Doctor Doom, whom has figured out a way to rule all of the Secret War realm. Overhearing this, Sandman reveals that he's concealed one of Spot's teleportation holes inside himself and opens a portal into the SHELD HQ allowing the rebellion to come out and have a final showdown with Regent. 

     Mary Jane and Annie teleport into the lab and take out the scientists working on Regents behalf to keep him powered up, while Hawkeye fights him outside. Realizing that there's something going on with his powers in flux, he realizes he's being distracted and goes back to the lab. Meanwhile, Annie scales the stasis tubes to find her Dad, who breaks out and leaps on Regent, knocking him out the side of the building and plummeting some 30 stories to the ground.

     Annie shows up and hits him with an "inhibitor arrow", disabling his armor. All three of the Parkers fight him and Peter tells him a terribly corny joke, distracting Regent and allowing himself to be incapacitated. He's put into cuffs and lead off to prison, telling them all that they've all essentially killed themselves now that there will be nobody to make a stand against Doom. Finally, we see the Parkers sitting and enjoying breakfast, talking about what all went on and how they basically introduced Annie's powers in epic fashion, and everything is great and right in the world. But oh what drama is about to unfold as the Secret Wars are about to launch. And Doctor Victor Von Doom will show the universe that he's certainly something to be reckoned with.

If you liked this description, please see the companion video review HERE. Thanks for taking the time to check this out. If you liked what you see, please subscribe to my blog and Youtube channel.

Superman #3 (2016)

Written by Patrick Gleason, Peter J. Tomasi
Penciled by Mick Gray, Patrick Gleason

Cover by Kenneth Rocafort
Release Date: Jul 20, 2016

   While Clark and Lois' son Jon-El has superpowers, and as the previous 2 issues in this series  have been explaining how they're trying to hide that, Jon is finding his powers more and more erratic despite Superman doing his best to train him. In issue #2, Jon falls and hits his head, knocking himself out. Desperate to find answers, Clark and Lois bring him to the fortress of solitude to begin to search for a reason his powers seem to come and go.

   Upon walking inside, they find the Eradicator. In issue #2, the Eradicator absorbs Jon's blood, allowing him to enter the fortress because he now has Kryptonian DNA. It begins to assimilate more of the Kryptonian genome, putting a plan together to save Krypton. After fighting Superman, but then saving Jon and Lois from falling rock, the Eradicator proves that it really is there to help. Clark allows it to scan Jon in order to find a way to help him. Asked about why it's here, the Eradicator explains it was part of a secret protocol created by General Zod to draw out all the "lawbreakers" on his list, put them in stasis until their trials, and return them to Krypton. As they got back though, they saw the planet exploding with one lone rocket leaving. At that point, their only mission was to find that lone survivor. 

   The more his explanation drones on, he finally lets it slip that he has to "eradicate" half of Jon's DNA - the human half he got from Lois, in order to keep the Kryptonian bloodline pure. Obviously this is unacceptable to Clark, and as the Eradicator is gearing up to fry the human guts out of Jon, he obliterates Krypto in the process. Superman flips out and starts absolutely beating the crap out of the Eradicator. As this is literally the second animal which has been killed in this series' 3 issue run so far, it looks like Jon catches the big time redass, picks up Krypto's cape, and walks away infuriated. 

   Sadly we're left to wait for Issue #4 to see what happens.

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Amazing Spider-Man #15

Written by Dan Slott
Penciled by Giuseppe Camuncoli
Cover by Alex Ross
Release Date: Jul 6, 2016


   Another Dan Slott penned chronicle in the life of Spidey with Giuseppe Camuncoli artwork and a framable Alex Ross cover, this issue wraps up the "Power Play" storyline in epic fashion. Mary Jane and Jarvis find themselves struggling to help Iron Man and Spider Man after seeing them both taken down by Regent. Luckily MJ remembers her not-too-distant superhero past, dons the Iron Spider suit, and fairly unbelievably rushes off to help. Meanwhile, Regent brings the incapacitated duo to the Cellar while Pete's best friend and Parker Industries COO Harry Osborne breaks out of his tube and messages Peter, waking him up from stasis. 

   Mary Jane distracts Regent which allows Iron Man and Spider-Man to both attack him. While the trio continues to battle, Spidey slips into the prison where nearly every superhero in the Marvel Universe is being held hostage, and breaks Miles Morales, aka "Spider Miles" out of hibernation. With Harry in tow, they run through and break all of the heroes out of the stasis tubes, beating up Dr Stillwell in the process, and later uniting all of the Avengers, The X-Men, The New Warriors, and everybody else, to finish quadruple teaming Regent.
   The issue concludes with the villain in his own jail and Spiderman playing nice with Iron Man which was a good change from the sniping the two had been doing previously. As he, Miles, and MJ kind of patch things up, you can tell a certain sweetness between Mary Jane and Peter still vibes, which transitions into her getting dressed for a night on the town. The dialogue between them leads you to believe she's talking to Peter but you discover it's actually Tony Stark. Meanwhile Peter has a family reunion with Aunt May, Jay Jameson, J. Jonah Jameson, Harry, etc when mysteriously, Jay Jameson ruins the party in some bizzare, coughing up blood and collapsing type of deal. The cliffhanger hinges on Pete and J.Jonah rushing to his aid while Aunt May screams for help.
   Amazing Spider-Man 15 gets a 9 from me for the action, and appearances by Aunt May and MJ which knows how to pull at my nostalgic heart strings. I only wonder what's next for everyone, and especially wonder how long we have until Doc Ock finally figures a way out of that robot.

Check out my accompanying video for this review HERE

Thanks for reading!

Uncanny X-Men #10

Written by Cullen Bunn
Pencils by Ken Lashley

Cover by Greg Land
Release Date: Jul 20, 2016

   I've read my fair share of X-Men comics in my day. Back then, it was easy to keep up with your books because there was a limited amount of titles dedicated to a character (or characters) at any given time. That's apparently all over with. DC and Marvel have launched their flagship books a million times just in this last decade alone. I had a real problem with the first time I saw this when in 2011, Uncanny X-Men #544 said "Final Issue" across the cover. I was like "WHA?!" This cannot be! Apparently the New 52 over at DC was ready to do the same thing. Only over there, they at least kept Action Comics and Detective Comics, the two landmark books in the DC realm with their original numbering... or at least close to it anyway. Marvel - not so much :( The next issue that came to me in the mail was All New X-Men #1. I was pretty mad. I'm not gonna lie. But then, I discovered the stroytelling of Brian Michael Bendis, so everything was forgiven. And I've been pretty happy ever since.

   Written by Cullen Bund and penciled by Ken Lashley, this issue cuts right to the action. Fresh off the heels of Psylocke telekinetically calling out to Archangel, she instead signals thousands of clones that Apocalypse's son Genocide has been creating using pieces of Angel's wings. They show up and just start killing everybody in this quaint little Bible thumping town in Colorado. She finds a way to warp into Warren's mind where she sees fragments of his memories sitting around this freaky church, under this huge Apocalypse statue. Meanwhile, Genocide is fighting with Magneto and Mystique, whom in my opinion they end up killing a little too easily. Next finds Monet and her weird, freak brother Emplate (who last issue you discover has been living in the sewers eating Morlocks) being merged secretly together right before Sabertooth shows up to save the day.... Eventually, the REAL Archangel flies down in this Judgement Day type affect, and he and Warren transfer into one another, becoming some kind of zombie Archangel who can control the voices. Fantomex and Mystique run off, and leave Magneto with some explaining to Betsy about why he's running around with these secret X-Men. The issue ends with Psylocke able to go to church in Angel's mind with all these old school versions of him in the pews, listening to Warren be able to do his best Pat Robertson impression. 

   I enjoyed this issue and look forward to #11 - the teaser panel in the back alludes to Monet's hand with the Emplate mouth, and all the other Uncanny team posing fiercely and about to fight a dinosaur. Savage Land time? One can only hope...

 
If you like my review, check out the accompanying video HERE