What I Bought 7/26/06

Weird day. Saw a car with a password I've used in the past for a liscence number, and Paul Jenkins used the lyrics to Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon" in his historic-themed piece for this week's Civil War: Front Line, which I just happened to have playing in my CD player when I got in my car.

Yes, I listen to Billy Joel. Stop laughing! Anyway, slow week for me, only two books, so let's just get started, OK? You know by now to watch out for spoilers right? Oh, and I flipped through New Avengers. I loved it when Luke Cage compared Iron Man and the SHIELD forces to living in Mississippi in the 1950s. It's not what Len's waiting for, namely, Captain America calling Stark "Adolph", but it's a start.

Amazing Spider-Man #534 - Reviewed by me, so you don't spend your money on it! I believe this is what's known as "plot-hammering". Read how Peter feels lousy about beating up on other super-heroes. Hmm, you seemed to enjoy smacking people with Cap's shield in Civil War #3. Also, see Tony Stark insist he's not the one making them do this. That's true Tony, it's SHIELD. Or Congress, I'm not sure which. But you are the schmoe that said on live TV Spider-Man would be part of the task force, which really left Peter with no choice.

So, the pro-registration heroes are escorting the captured anti-registrators to the shiny new prison Reed Richards designed. Yay? Peter finds out that he's riding with the convoy because his spider-sense will warn them of any approaching danger. Except Peter is sure he never told Stark about that, that only May and MJ know about it. So Peter decides he wants to examine this suit a little more. Hmm, ominous.

So Peter detects danger below. They start trying to take alternate routes, but the first one is blocked by an angry mob. The second backup route goes down. . . Yancy Street. I think JMS likes using that rowdy bunch a little too much. Either way, someone uses them as cover to launch missiles at the convoy. I assume the plan was to damage the military vessels, and not blow up everyone, including the captured heroes, but who knows with the way Marvel is now?

Spider-Man redirects the last two missiles, and finds himself fighting Captain America. And he also finds himself getting schooled. I don't know. Cap's a great fighter, but Peter's reflexes are forty times better than an average human's. He's got to be at least five times faster than Cap. I'm just not sure Cap could play him that easily. Then again, Cap is the one who criticized Peter for being too reliant on instinctual movements, so I guess he knows how to handle him. Of course, Peter's response is to fight more instictually, fighting "man-to-spider" as he puts it. Not sure how that works, but he does better at that point, though he's fighting like a wuss. I mean, scratching Cap with those goofy robot arms? What are you, a six year old? What's next biting? Oh wait, you did bite Morlun. Nevermind, forget I said anything.

Something explodes, Cap takes off, Spidey leaves his shield webbed to the wall for him later, while giving himself a little internal speech about following the law. But now Spidey has doubts about what he's doing! Hmm, I wonder if he'll play turncoat? Oh yeah, and Peter apparently has at least four spinnerets on each wrist, based on how many webbing strands he fired at Cap. *rolls eyes*. I'll give it a 3.6 out of 5, because neither Cap or Spidey came off like a jerk, and honestly, I'd guess JMS is doing the best he can writing a story that's ending has been mandated for months in advance. And neithe character really seemed to like fighting each other that much. The art was kind of weak. There's a page where the anti-registrators stage their attack and I assume Daredevil and Dagger are leaping into battle together, but honestly, it looks more like DD is kicking her in the face. Um, DD? I know you're blind and all (or not), but dude, Dagger is on your side. Iron Man still comes off as a prick though.

Exiles #84 - If the Spider-book was "plot-hammering", I'd describe this as a "face-fault". What I mean is, in animes you'll sometimes have a character say something that's either so absurd, or so stupid, and say it so casually, every other character falls face first on the ground. That's the feel this book gave off. Which isn't bad. I usually find face-faults hilarious.

So to kick things off, the Exiles are taking a bit of a break. Blink is at Mimic's funeral. Heather Hudson goes home to visit her husband. Spider-Man of 2099 goes to see his brother. And so on. All this has the side effect of annoying the bugs, because there are still realities they damaged out there that need to be fixed, and these damn Exiles won't get back to work cleaning up the bugs' mess. So the bugs get to planning. Soon, we find there's a threat endangering Heather's reality, courtesy of desperate Communists. They're going to summon Chernobog from the Darkforce Dimension. Man, those Commies are either very tricky, or very stupid.

So the Exiles team up with Alpha Flight to save the day. Except the bugs keep saying things are going poorly, and so Exiles that were waiting in the Crystal Palace, keep getting sent to battle. Right about the time that Morph and Longshot have been sent down, clearing the tower, the problem is resolved by Snowbird. Hurrah!

But the bugs have had enough of the insubordination, and rather than say so and drop the Exiles off in a reality they might want to live in, they're just going to leave them in Heather's. So even though it was obvious the whole issue the bugs were planning something, I hadn't quite figured they'd clear the deck entirely. Seems like a bad idea to have to bring in a completely new squad and explain it all from scratch, you know? Still, it was a fun issue, gave me a better understanding of some of the characters (like Sabretooth), so 4.3 out of 5.