What I Bought 5/3/08

Home again, home again, jiggity jog. If there was one type of organism on this earth I would eradicate forever, given the opportunity, it'd be ticks. I really despise ticks. Fortunately, I think I'm safely away from them for awhile. It gives me time to perfect my mass tick eliminator device, as soon as I get some funding, and a clue how to build it. With that odd opening out of the way, let's discuss a couple of comics.

Immortal Iron Fist #14 - I feel slightly cheated, because I didn't get to see more fights between the Immortal Weapons. On the other hand, I did get to see all the Immortal Weapons stomp on HYDRA real nice. I don't quite understand what Xao is going on about near the end there. He says he isn't looking for a victory, or even to survive. So what was he after? He clearly has some sort of power (he's descended from the Lightning Lords, right?), why not go all out at Danny and see what happens? I suppose that's where the 8th city comes in, which I assume will be the focus of Year 2 (and probably half of Year 3) of Immortal Iron Fist.

The big explosion/collision of the issue lacked, force somehow. It didn't feel like a massive explosion as I was reading. I did enjoy the first panel on the next page, as Danny stands amongst the wreckage. He looked suitably imposing, given what he just did, and I wonder if the color of his eye was foreshadowing of something. I do wish Aja could have been the artist for the issue, but he had some personal life stuff come up, and I know how that gets, and all the others gave it a good effort, so can't really fault them.

Ultimate Spider-Man #121 - I didn't believe it when Sally told me, but it really is a done-in-one story in Ultimate Spider-Man. I'd suggest Bendis was replaced by a Skrull, but I think the Skrulls do a little better job of imitating their targets than that. It's all about Peter trying to explain why he shouldn't get a massive "F" on the parenting project, just because his baby is a charred mess. The excuse involves Omega Red.

It's nice to see Peter at the Bugle, since it seems we only really see he works there whenever he's trying not to get fired by Jonah for, uh, not being there. I don't have any Bagley drawn issues handy to compare, but I'm pretty sure Immonen gave Jonah a more pronounced receding hairline than Bags did. Which is fine, as Jonah's a pretty high-strung guy, his hair could be going that way, though a noticeable bald spot might work better. It's a decent enough issue. Little action, little humor, not spectacular, but fun. I did enjoy the differences in Peter and Kitty's reactions to their grade, though Pete really ought to know when to shut up. However, I'm still confused by Kitty's insistence she got kicked out of the X-Men, when I distinctly remember her leaving when Xavier bought it (as that was the last issue of Ultimate X-Men I bought). Ah well, such is the world of comics these days.