Week In Review: Blogcast 1

So I got a chance to sit down and make a quick little video recapping everything I read this past week. Including but not limited to:

All New All Different Avengers #6
All New X-Men #5
Spider-Man #2
Superman #5
Invincible Iron Man #7
Old Man Logan #3
Deadpool #8
Batman #6

Check it out HERE!

Guardians Of The Galaxy #6

Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Penciled by Valerio Smith
Cover by Arthur Adams
Published Mar 9, 2016

   Peter Quill and Kitty Pryde find themselves on a Badoon Prison Planet looking for a "high risk political prisoner", while Star Lord is in the depths of depression over losing his recent kingship of Spartax. Kitty tries to cheer him up when they're interrupted by guards doing sweeps through the prison. As he boldly decides to engage the enemy instead of following the plan, he finds himself on the swift end of a badoon fist - twice.
   The two Guardians discover that the Badoon are actually running a concentration camp, and seeing as how Kitty's grandfather was in a concentration camp during WW2, she's clearly unnerved. She shoots the super high powered pistol through the guard tower, creating enough of a diversion for the prisoners to escape. It's unfortunately not enough to save Peter, who the issue hangs on staring down the badoon executioners for crimes committed during his Spartax presidency.
   This issue was pretty devoid of story, which unfortunately a lot of comics have to deal with while setting things up and moving things along. It's interesting seeing Kitty and Pete share tons of dialogue dealing with what they're all lost, but almost all of it was unnecessary and obviously just a tool to set up Quill being captured. Bendis loves to be wordy and hip, and you certainly get his knack for quippy banter like you've come to expect from all of his stories. The artwork was crisp, but they could have cut out 50% of what Kitty and Peter were going on and on about and worked in a few more personal strorylines but they can't all be winners. 7/10.

If you liked this review, check out the accompanying video review HERE!

Thanks for reading.

Batman #6

Written by Tom King
Penciled by Ivan Reis
Cover by David Finch
Published Sep 7, 2016

   By Monday, Gotham Girl has completely lost it. After the death of her brother Hank, aka Gotham, she's pretty much a walking basket case, talking to herself, shaving her head, etc. She breaks through the back window of Colonol Blimp's zeppelin as he's on his PA demanding 30 million dollars for the submarine he's apparently stolen, which is also interestingly, attached to the back of the blimp. She drops him off in front of a police station, and quickly breaks back into flight to fight more crime, with Batman in pursuit.
   On Wednesday, Duke calls Bruce over the intercom to let him know that once again, Claire has escaped the Batcave and is out fighting crime. Since it was deduced that the Gotham twins lose some of their life force everytime they use their powers, they figure out she's obviously trying to commit suicide. On a tear, and defeating random undervillains Captain Stingaree, Kite Man, and presumably several more before Batman is finally able to talk to her. He removes his mask, and reveals himself to her as Bruce Wayne, explaining that like her, he knows a few things about personal loss.
   The issue hangs upon what he's going to need to do to get a cure for her... The Psycho Pirate is in Santa Prisca with Bane, who worked with Hugo Strange just to exchange the pirate for the venom that created the fear in the Gotham's to begin with. Now it's up to Batman to work on some sort of plan to get the antidote from one of his most lethal villains of all time - and the tale continues in the Night Of The Monster Men, in the next issue.


Until next time, stay dirty, stay nerdy.

Thanks for reading!
 

Deadpool #8

Written by Gerry Duggan

Penciled by Matteo Loli

Cover by Mike and Laura Allred

Published Mar 2, 2016

   The mercs for money all seem to be enjoying their time away from Deadpool, and being well compensated by his new controller, Scott Adsit. As they all wrap up some solo hits and are back at headquarters, Adsit explains to the group that Deadpool is out on a personal matter. We catch up with him entering a shady and abandoned medical supply business, and as his hallucinations are still raging in full force, has to deal with his deranged alter ego Madcap's comments from the peanut gallery. He picks up a print and sets off on a mission to find out who it belongs to.

   After some persuasion with the bouncer, ala a sword through the shoulder, Wade enters a strip club looking for one man: Michael Logue. He orders everyone else out of the bar and as he's interrogating Logue, the guy falls down having an apparent heart attack. Deadpool calls an ambulance and explains to him on the way to the hospital he needs every detail, especially hits he performed in Canada. Logue mentions that there were two of them at the they'd previously met. A flashback points to him and Sabretooth working together some time in the past, and this is all the proof Deadpool obviously needs. He heads back to his HQ, gets Creed's whereabouts from Jarvis, and sets out on his way to kill the guy he thinks had something to do with his parents.
   Deadpool finds the X-Men doing some sort of mission and waits until the time is right. Seeing Magneto in the picture, he realizes that a bullet isn't going to go very far against the master of magnetism and a mutant with a legendary healing factor. So he instead opts to stretch a piano wire across the road and clotheslines Sabertooth as he's riding away on a motorcycle. As Creed lays lying and bleeding with his neck nearly completely severed, Deadpool pulls out his katana and tells Sabertooth he finally remembers - it was HIM who killed his family... What happens next? Guess we gotta wait till next issue. 

If you liked this description, check out my video review HERE.

Until next time, stay dirty, stay nerdy.

Old Man Logan #3

Written by Jeff Lemire

Penciled by Andrea Sorrentino

Cover by Andrea Sorrentino

Published Mar 2, 2016

   Logan wakes up in a Brooklyn apartment staring down the arrow from the "other" Hawkeye, Kate Bishop. She asks him why he looks so ancient now, and he explains he's from the future. She doesn't seem surprised and tells her for the X-Men, time traveling seemed to be old hat. She asks him about the "grocery list" on his arm. He explains he has to kill them before they kill everyone else. He gets up to leave, and collapses into a flashback.

   We then find him on a vacation of sorts with his family during the crazy Secret Wars timeline, when his daughter makes a discovery that scares her. He swims down into the surf and see's the skeletons of the dead X-Men. He promises she'll never be hurt by anyone, and sadly wakes up after a 36 hour passout session on Kate's floor. She agrees to help him find the next person on his list, Mysterio, and they're out the door.

   While on the way, Kate asks him if he can reveal some easter eggs from the future, but since Dr. Doom has completely mixed up everyone's bizzaro timelines, some of his stories don't seem to add up. She tries to get him to calm down and think it through, but Logan bursts through the door, yells "WHERE'S MYSTERIO?!" to which clearly these people have no answer for, and just starts hacking people's arms off.

   Obviously this is too much for Kate, who is completely convinced Logan's timeline is off and stalls him long enough for the apparently now amputee non-bad guys to run away. He tells her he'll just go it alone until he can do it his way, steps out into the alley and smells something. As he tries to jump out of the way of some impending and immediate danger, the unmistakeable shield of Captain America knocks him to the ground, and an old and grizzled Steve Rogers orders him to stand down....

If you like this description, please subscribe to my blog. This review is also accompanied by video which can be found HERE!

Thanks for reading.

Invincible Iron Man #7

Written by Brian Michael Bendis

Penciled by Mike Deodato

Cover by Mike Deodato

Published Mar 2, 2016

   After writing the always hilarious "memo" described on the title page about "NOT being late", the always unpunctual Tony Stark shows up 40 minutes late to interview his new, potential life organizer, Mary Jane Watson. Stark introduces her to his AI operations manager, Friday and between the banter between them, realizes Colonel Rhodes has not checked in from Tokyo. Tony asks who he can get to help look for him while he's on his way there, and Friday mentions Peter Parker's bodyguard, Spider-Man, but he doesn't seem to be answering the call. MJ calls Pete from her "emergency line" and next thing you know, our favorite international webslinger is scouring the streets of Tokyo looking for War Machine.

   After falling victim to some tech-ninjas in the previous issue, War Machine comes to, tied up in some warehouse looking spot. He tries to power up but the suit appears non-operational. After some minor questioning, the woman holding him hostage pulls all of his armor off, leaving him in a rather fragile state just as the mega tech beast Tomoe stands before him, ready to interrogate him for what appears to be a long, painful time. Iron Man appears to be on course to help save him, but only time will tell if he makes it there quick enough.

   The issue ends with a cameo of Riri Williams in her MIT apartment apparently banging away on a new experiment. Her older dorm mates are quick to object, trying to get her to quiet down. The final page reveals her tearing down an old Iron Man suit, but what her intentions are wait to be revealed in the next issue.

If you like this description, please subscribe to my blog. This review is also accompanied by video which can be found HERE!

Thanks for reading.

Superman #5

Written by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason

Penciled by Doug Mahnke

Cover by Patrick Gleason

Published Aug 17, 2016

   Superman takes Jon and Lois to the moon in an attempt to bring the fight between himself and the Eradicator to a more secure location, and stashes them in one of Batman's secret bunkers. Unfortunately for them, and after an interesting quote mentioning the Disney owned, Star Wars property Obi Wan Kinobi, the Eradicator of course pops up out of nowhere and the fight is on.

   Eradicator is still on a mission to eliminate the human side of Jon-El, who stays out of the fight until it seems Superman is beginning to find himself on the losing end of the battle. Eradicator accuses him of holding back to avoid destroying the Kryptonian spirits that reside in him, and eventually absorbs Superman, leaving Jon to heat blast him in an attempt to save his father. 

   While a frightened Jon runs all over the lunar batcave trying to avoid being seen, Lois knows that she's going to have to do something to stop him without Superman there to intervene. She frantically knocks over a bunch of crates and luckily happens upon the Hellbat Suit; some sort of awesome tech that Bruce Wayne must have been saving for a rainy day, puts it on and of course immediately knows how to use it. She begins beating him mercilessly but the more the fight goes on, the more futile it seems she and Jon will be able to beat him without Superman.

   Inside the Eradicator's conscience, Superman talks to the souls of Krypton and explains that he needs their help to win this fight. He urges them to back off and stop powering the mystic supervillain, and instead power him so that good can prevail and evil can be vanquished... We're left to wait to see what happens in the next issue.

If you like this description, please subscribe to my blog. This review is also accompanied by video which can be found HERE!

Thanks for reading.