Wednesday, February 14, 2007

What I Bought 2/14/07

So it's another Wednesday. Which means comics for me to review. Sorry for the low key intro, but maybe I'll get more energetic as we go along. As usual, there are probably spoilers, so you know, watch your six and all that.


Amazing Spider-Girl #5 - Well, May's tug-o-war between her student council run and web-slinging reached a breaking point, and she's decided there can be only one, and it has to be the position where she can do the most good. In the meantime, the Black Tarantula is starting to make his presence felt in the New York underworld, and the Hobgoblin's getting closer to taking an active role in things as well. No suit over the costume this month. I have to say, as much as I enjoy seeing Hobgoblin play at being Kingpin, I'm ready for him to hop on the glider and wreak havoc.

Spider-Girl finds herself in the middle of a firefight between the forces of the wannabes, but she got a little help, so it's all good. To switch gears considerably, the end of the issue contains what I can only conclude is a gift to me, as we see that Gene Thompson is not to be trusted. Also, Ron Frenz' artwork is really reminiscent of John Romita Senior's work, especially his Spider-Girl. She looks considerably different than how Frenz had been drawing her in the past. Smaller eyes on the mask for one thing. Not sure why that is, possibly it's his normal style, he was just rushed before, or maybe it's his inker? All in all, not a bad issue, but not really good either. I need some Hobgoblin blowing stuff up. 3.1 out of 5.

Exiles #91 - Psylocke has history with Sabretooth. Not this Sabretooth, but she doesn't know that, and so they fight. And in the process, likely screwed themselves over concerning Morph (to be determined sometime in the future I'm sure). Psylocke takes a couple pages to explore the Crystal Palace, meets Morph, and finds out what she's doing here. Curiously, she's invisible to Heather's devices, which I assume has something to do with the mojo Jamie Braddock used bringing her back to life. What it has to do with that, I have no idea.

In the meantime, Blink, Longshot, and Spidey of 2099 are having their own difficulties. Hand ninja difficulties. Which makes perfect sense; after all, it requires entire Avengers teams to vanquish Hand ninja, how were the three of them gonna pull it off? I must admit, I was thrown by the identity of the leader of the Hand. I was sure it was Storm, but never mind. So it looks like we'll be seeing three Exiles against three Exiles here in a month or so. Should be interesting. I'm either starting to get accustomed to Claremont's writing again, or he restrained himself this issue. Don't know which but either way, 4 out of 5.

New Excalibur #16 - New artist this month, Scot Eaton. His style has a bit of a Greg Land style, in that sense that his Pete Wisdom looks like someone I've seen on TV, I'm just not sure who. Does action scenes more smoothly than Land I'd say. Less posing, more suggestive of actual movement. Anyway, the issue begins with Excalibur breaking up a hostage situation at a bank. And Dazzler dies... again. And revives... again. I think Claremont has been watching too much Excel Saga (where the main character dies four separate times in the first episode). Still no explanation forthcoming, and there probably won't be for awhile because...

Nocturne had a stroke. Buh-wha? That is what we call "out of left field". The issue from there is the team trying to help her, first by trying to contact Nightcrawler, seeing as he's probably closest to her physiologically, but they're out of luck. Thanks a lot Brubaker. You just had to write your X-Men space epic, didn't you? Anyway, guess we have to wait and see where the next episode goes, but that was really abrupt, and the tension that was present at the end of Tieri's fill-in (with the team uncertain of Juggernaut, and possibly not happy Wisdom told them Marko was staying no matter what) has evaporated. Huh. Ummmmm, 3 out of 5.

Ultimate X-Men #79 - It's the funeral of Charles Xavier! Please pretend to be sad for now, we'll have the party after the kids stop bawling. The loss seems to be breaking up the team. Kitty's out, Colossus is contemplating transferring, Sabretooth shows up to tell Logan to go find his wife, I'm sure Jean is about 3 seconds away from Dark Phoenix time (which really means she's just about normal for her), and so on. There really isn't much more to say, other than Nick Fury is very sure that Xavier's death won't have adverse effects on human-mutant relations, or the 'Legacy Project'. Uh-oh.

Oh, and Magneto's still up to something in the Savage Land. How nice for him. That's pretty much it, other than the confirmation that Xavier has been quite the player in his life. Moira, Emma, Lilandra, Jean. Oops, disregard that last one. 2.1 out of 5.

No comments: