Agents of Atlas 1-11 - Started in February, done by September. At least Marvel's still trying to give the team a push, adding them as a backup in Incredible Hercules, giving them plenty of mini-series, and of course, if Jeff Parker's writing a title, they're going to show up at least once. Over the course of 11 issues, we meet the team, see them establish a relationship with Norman Osborn, fight the New Avengers, deal with the results of some of Atlas' more questionable enterprises, and staved off the attack of the Jade Claw and her Great Wall organization.Jeff Parker was the only writer for the ongoing, but over 11 issues, they had 5 different pencilers, most of the work done by Carlos Pagulayan and Gabriel Hardman, but Clayton henry also drew parts of 2 issues, Dan Panosian drew an issue and a half, and Benton Jew drew half of the first issue, detailing the 1950s team encountering Agent Logan in Cuba.
High Point: The New Warrior fan in me appreciated the scene in #3 where Namora reflects on coming back to life right as her daughter was killed to feed the Civil War monster. For an entire issue, #5 where the Agents battle it out with the New Avengers. It was a nice knockdown, drag-out fight, and Parker wrote a Spider-Man who was actually smart. Plus it established that there's going to be a ongoing feud between Wolverine and M-11.
Low Point: Issue #4 I suppose, since a lot of it seemed to be spent inside Bucky's head or in the past dealing with a Captain America and Bucky cryogenically frozen by the FBI. I'm guessing those were the Commie-Smashers Cap and Bucky, but it wasn't terribly interesting to me.
Amazing Spider-Girl 28-30 - The title ended, which was just as well, since I was not pleased that Norman Osborn became an active presence (albeit one running around in Peter Parker's body), plus the "Which May is the real one" stuff was getting tedious.
The creative team was basically the same one it's been since roughly Spider-Girl #70, with Tom DeFalco writing, Ron Frenz penciling, and Sal Buscema on inks, although Buscema was credited for "finishes" on these issues as well.
High Point: Mayday convincing her parents to sort of adopt the other May. I wasn't happy with all the clone stuff, but that's pretty typical for Spider-Girl. She wants to give people the benefit of the doubt, be more than a hero who solves the problem by punching the villain. The compassion route doesn't always work, but it's the way she operates, even when the person she's dealing with tried to steal her life.
Low Point: Norman Osborn running around in Peter Parker's body. I preferred Norman being completely dead, where he's simply a specter whose past actions loom over everyone, but isn't taking an active role. It was a nice change of pace comapred to 616-Marvel where you can't hardly get away from Norman.
Amazing Spider-Man #589 - Only issue of the title I bought this year, and I picked it up because the Spot was in it, and it was basically a one-shot. Fred van Lente wrote it, Paulo Siqueira penciled it, and we got to see Spidey not only punch himself in the face, but see him try and use the Christian Bale Batman voice. Granted, a voice gag isn't ideal for comics, but since I have seen the recent Bat-flicks, it worked for me.
Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter 1-3 - Kieron Gillen write it, and Kano drew (and partially inked) it, as Beta Ray Bill decides that as far as Galactus is concerned, enough is enough. The series raises the question of how being worthy is measured, at least by Odin, and how far Bill is willing to go to achieve victory. And you get to see Cyborg Horse Thor throw down with not one, but two Heralds of Galactus, all with the help of his ship Skuttlebutt. Skuttlebutt's actually quite a bit of what I like about this mini-series, as the ship has a bit of the wry humor that I liked so much about how Skeets was written during the first year of Booster Gold. Also, each issue included the first three issues of Walt Simonson's Thor run, which double as the first three comics Beta Ray Bill appeared in, so Marvel provided some extra content to go along with the $4 price tag.
BloodRayne Prime Cuts 3 and 4, Revenge of the Butcheress - The two Prime Cuts issues consisted of several short stories taking all over the globe, some focusing on secondary characters' past, others involved time travel or investigation of alleged mystical artifacts. Revenge of the Butcheress I reviewed last week.
Chad Lambert wrote all the stories. Pow Rodrix drew three of the six Primce Cuts tales, Oscar Bazaldua drew two of them, and Chase Conley drew the other. David Miller was artist for the Revenge of the Butcheress one-shot.
High Point: I was fond of "The Infinite", the 3rd story on Prime Cuts #4. Rayne meeting up with a well-meaning time traveling cyborg vampire, misinterpreting his actions, and getting them both in hot water was a nice concept. I think it could have used more pages, but it was amusing as it was.
Low Point: The story preceeding it "Love Like Winter". It wasn't bad, focusing on Rayne's assistant, Severin, and his past associations with one of Rayne's enemies/relatives, but the story was so short, there wasn't time for Lambert to really establish the depth of feeling between the characters, so that we could understand the importance of it to Severin.
Booster Gold 16-22 - There was a multi-part story of Booster chasing after these knives, teaming up with a Booster from earlier in the series against Chronal Energy Rex Hunter. Then he traveled to the 1950s to team up with Frank Rock, then tried to stop the Black Beetle from eliminating the Wolfman/Perez Titans. None of that interested me, so I dropped the book. It was an extra dollar by then, with the Blue Beetle backups, which was another reason to save so long.Dan Jurgens wrote and drew all the Booster Gold stuff except #20, which was written by Keith Giffen and drawn by Pat Olliffe.
High Point: The run-in between Booster and Dick Grayson Batman was pretty interesting, though Grayson came off more abrasive than I'd expect of him. He's supposed to be the Batman with people skills, after all. It was funny how casually Booster doped out who was wearing the cowl, then says "Grayson" likes it's no big deal. Clearly, he wasn't impressed.
Low Point: I was pretty bored by the whole deal with the chasing of the knives across the timestream. Not sure why, it held no interest for me.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer 24 - I bought it in the hopes of more Faith and Giles fun, like the Brian K. Vaughn arc from 2007. Jim Kreuger wrote it, and Cliff Richards penciled the story about Faith and Giles following a young Slayer to a supposed Sanctuary for Slayers, which ends up not being that at all. It was OK, but I was hoping for more interplay between Faith and Giles.
Deadpool: Games of Death - A one-shot written by Mike Benson and drawn by Shawn Crystal about Deadpool traveling to an island that's the site of a violent game show to rescue some rich guy's kid. Deadpool ends up competing against a bunch of action hero homages/rip-offs, who die in gruesome or hilarious ways. Or both. And, of course, things are not as they were advertised to Wade, but that's OK, he's the star so he can handle it.
It wasn't laugh out loud funny, but I had to smile a bit, and Shawn Crystal's art makes everyone look odd and kind of freaky, which is fine, since you'd have to be odd and kind of freaky to be involved in this whole thing.
Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth 4 - I didn't order this, it just got sent to me by my comic guy for some reason, so here we are. Deadpool's suppsoed to be helping AIM retrieve a Zombie Deadpool head from the Savage Land before HYDRA gets it, but keeps running afoul of a Zombie T-Rex, which was somehow not as cool as I thought it would be. Maybe a Werewolf T-Rex would have been cooler. There was nothing about it that made me really want to buy the next issue.
Deadpool: Suicide Kings 1-5 - I really hoped this would be better. It involved Tombstone, and I have kind of a soft spot for him. Plus, Mike Benson wrote it, and this started right after Games of Death had come out, so I was reasonably confident he could write a Deadpool story I'd enjoy. Not so much as it turns out. Carlos Barberi is the penciler, and he keeps to a monthly schedule, which is nice, but I thought anatomy was skewed too much, especially when it came to Outlaw's chest (too large), and Spider-Man's head (too small). Punisher as a matador was kind of a nice visual, but Barberi doesn't alter his style for the hallucinations, which hampers it.
High Point: There were two things in this series I found funny. One was Spider-Man and Deadpool trading insults until Daredevil gets fed up and leaves. The other was when Tombstone tries to escape Deadpool, leaving his fat cousin behind. Said Fat Cousin tries to run from Deadpool, but gives up in exhaustion after about 10 feet. Yeah, it's a cheap joke, but I needed something to laugh at.
Low Point: I think the story could have done without one of the three heroes they had guest-star. Probably Spider-Man. Daredevil has run into Tombstone before, and if you want to have fun with Deadpool getting really thrashed by a hero who thinks he's guilty of blowing up an apartment building, well, the Punisher's a better choice than Daredevil or Spidey.
That's all I have for today. Tomorrow, I'll try and get through the rest of the Deadpool stuff, and move into some other letters in the alphabet.
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