up to speed

Ok lots of books to catch you up to speed on, though most of you have more than likely read them by now . Last i got the first installment of the Hulk of Arabia, it moved the back story got a little drawn out , i can appreciate this fleshing out Ross out , but lets not take away from the smashing, the lead up to him squaring off against the secret avengers. Then Mighty Thor 6 , which wrapped up the Galactus confrontation, the sliver surfer Thor fight was maybe 4 panels total and Thor really falls for the to me my board , i mean he is trained with weapons that have a mind of their own so he would anticipate that .
Finally got Aqua-man one , the entire issue was lets get all the ways you wanna make fun of Aqus-msn out of the way , the art was great though .
Swamp thing 2 is an homage to the Alan Moore days , i like how Abbie Arcane came back even if you saw it a mile away.
then i got the final two books of the Hulk vs Dracula fight , while the book was pretty close to being entertaining, the drac vs hulk fight was two panels , i mean an amped up Hulk is going to be no contest , the end was a let down , as they used mesmerism or jedi mind tricks on him to turn him to banner , how many variations of we can't resolve this so turn into Banner can we have ?

with a whimper

Remember art ? it still happens , i have seen New Avengers, collected the book from my pull, list to empty it out , and didn't find much along the lines of what i consider great art in the books i got , two dc 52 titles , Swamp thing and Frankenstein agent of Shade, Hulk and the avengers , i found a bunch of rough blocky pencil scribbles . Some good writing in the mix but overall 4 out of 4 titles there was some sort of disappointment over the art work, thought comics were supposed to be a visual medium?
First offender , Swamp thing 1 , this books primary purpose was to reestablish , Alec Holland in the universe proper and give Swamp thing a human alter ego, the problem being that Swamp thing only appears on the last page. My Problem with the art is a little nit picking in some ways as of the 4 books was at the top of the pile in terms of the pencils, but Super-man was drawn witha jay leno chin looking very little like super-man , i have seen impressive Clarks in the early days of the Superman/ Batman comic and i think those should be the template .
Frankenstein agent of shade, the art was scribbled pencil, nothing as clearly defined as it could have been , the story, was what you might expect with the twist of the microscopic , ant farm head quarters , the new creature commandos and father time now in the body of a little girl, none the less fun.
Hulk 41 , the Art in this book has been a gripe for sometime, the story, is zero/one giving Ross a this is your life and the a rip off conclusion to the big fight when Ross turns back to human form. we'll see where parker takes the books from here , rather anti climatic arch.
Avengers 17, the art continues to be the signature big and blocky , didn't mind it as much in the incredible hulk, the new avengers sweep in , hawkeye, and ms. marvel , feel like the only ones who belong in this book, the activation of the spare armors was cool, Sin teleports away and fear itself trudges on, one of the better fear itself storys.

Comics, comics and more comics

Hold on i have really been catching up,So We are going to hit the ground running, first off Hulk 40, the art still blows, the story is so-so, i have lost my steam on this Omegax guy, the book is filled with fighting so that alone isn't half bad, Fortean is growing on me , the Ross Hulk, is what he is, hopefully the next issue gets on course because the writing is really ambitious , it's not a dull read just didn't connect with me.
Hulk vs Dracula...a Fear it's Self title, Hulk gets knocked to Romania, i guess this was due to Thor, the artwork gets the job done, the character introductions are a little heavy handed but over all a good read, will buy the other titles as ...well it's Banner Hulk.
Avengers 16, this is pretty much Captain America's response to Bucky's death, he doesn't waste time in taking the fight to Sin's door with the Howling Hussies backing him up, this should have been in the Cap book , it's not an avenger's story aside from Bendis little , behind the music interviews which have been stale now for some time and her is getting trapped in using that format.
Action Comics 1, this is the first of the Dc 52 i have bought, Swamp Thing and Frankenstein agent of Shade are in my hold book and Aqua-man will wind up there as well, i think Hawk-man is on the list too, anyways, this plays out like a Small ville episode, Grant Morrison is writing , so should be good with it though he did in my opinion drop the ball on the end of the bruce wayne returns series, it's an every man Super-man in jeans and work boots, how long do we have to endure this look is my first question, more than tend issues and i will more than likely drop the book, no secret Super-man is one of my favorite Dc Characters, if you are going to like a character he might as well be the most bad ass, and Super-man if nothing else represents the dawn of Super-heroes into my childhood, Spider-man holds a similar affinity, all the major players, Lex and Lois Lane are present of course, Lex is working for the government to bring Super-man in who is seen in a similar light as Bat-man , this Super-man is fighting against the man , kinda Robin dish, thus the jeans, the book is solid costuming and the back ward glance story line aside , i guess this different look at the SUper-man story is not unlike the Bat-man through time arch in Wayne returns.
Other dc 52's i read in store , the best of the bunch the interesting take on Suicide Squad, Bat-man and robin was ok not awesome, demon knight's felt like a comic strip from the back of a dungeons and dragons manual, though it had great artwork. Also read the fear itself New Avengers featuring Dare Devil, i have made my thoughts pretty clear on the fact if he were going to be on a team it should be heroes for hire , neither he nore luke cage, ben grimm, wolverine, or spider-man are avengers, if you want avengers , bring back, Vision, or even Star-fox for that matter .

mean while

Last night i had the chance to read new avengers annual and detective comics number one, my first read of the new dc 52 , though i have action comics and swamp thing waiting for me in my hold box .
New Avengers annual, the title will always be approached with prejudice as it's an avengers team where the only real avenger is ms marvel, i might be able to handle one non-avenger if you wanna go for the novelty, maybe jessica jones , i think her being on the team and her husband not would be interesting you could get some luke cage in the periphery, but they need to go over to heroes for hire though i will accept him as a defender. this story is about wonder- man ..simon williams revenger team, so lets get this straight during drak reign williams cracked up and left his hollywood lifestyle to become the one man ethics committee for the avenger a man who got his start in the masters of evil? doesn't add up for me but a team of misguided super villains attacking head quarters ... the masters of evil have been there and done that , two giants on the team is uh... well the tromp the new avengers , some ben grimm a guy who holds his own with the hulk for longer than he did these b-listers phuuuuulease, if the avngers proper don't wipe the floor with these guys then we have problem in the bull pin.
Dectective comics feels like i expect the tone of the next nolan movie, with the cops at odds with the bat and gordon having to run interference . this joker is little darker especially crazed when you see what him and doll man come up with at the end , won't bomb you with spoiler's like i did with avengers up there , but the plot was the crux of the problem , ths relaunch didn't feel drastic no origin story the bat-man is who he is, little more of a vigilante feel which i think is an improvement, the art was spot on so a good first impression for my first read of the 52 , now lets see how swamp thing and super-man hold up.

Comics and Dragon-con

This is the first of a three part dragon-con review series of blogs the other two parts will in appear in the respective horror and music blogs. First off for those of you reading who do not know what dragon-con is , imagine Comic-con as fan run and less of a trade show, with an emphasis on private hotel parties and fan performance based entertainment. Where Comic-con is in a convention center Dragon-con is spread out over 5 hotels.
While Stan Lee is a featured guest , the emphasis on Comics in the panels is less than say Firefly , or Star trek, this year's comics panel seemed to be mainly academic studies , the one i attended was a study of real life super-heroes like the ones in hbo's recent documentary, if you didn't see think a more humanitarian version of kick ass. Their was a dc animation panel as well as one on the dc universe mmo, i did meet Peter David at a writing panel, and got the chance to talk to him afterwards about the DC 52 , which he thought was a roll of the dice on their part.
As far as Cosplay goes it seemed there were more dc characters than marvel, though a noted lack of Green Lantern Characters , especially from the new movie . A very busty Aqua-woman , yes you go that right it wasn't mera but a female version of the aqua -man costume, though i did see a pretty good mera, several robins and cat women and harley quinns. On the marvel front alot of dead pools, a m.o.d.o.k, a few black cats and iron-men as well.
A genre convention not just a comic -book convention , i can only hope super heroes play a larger role .. or could this be the first symptoms of a hollywood imposed spandex burnout .

post -con comics

Ok, catching up with the books i missed pre- dragon-con, Mighty Thor 5 and Incredible Hulk 635. Thor is in typical Fraction style , the Odin Galactus throw down was about as eventful as Surfer vs Thor , which do you really think - the to me my board boomerang move is going to work twice on some one whose weapon returns to them as well? the Volstagg on earth story line is weaving back in with main story, Fraction run seems uninspired , i think Thor just isn't his thing and marvel was desperate to get some on in their. the art is much improved , the space battles have more flare from an art standpoint , but the story wanders around unsure of its direction.
Incredible Hulk 635, is the last book of the Pak run and is about par for the course for where this title has been going , continuing to lean to heavily on supporting cast as the tone for the title character seems less sure of it's self , the crux of the silly wishing well, dimensional muckity muck, builds to a climax but with all the talk of the Hulk cutting loose like never before , we never see much but him radiating gamma energy, fing fang foom, eats a bunch of nuclear war head to turn into a ogdzilla of sorts and gets stomped on my a huge Hulk and Betty, rick jones A-bomb, a character name it feel silly to type and she-hulk, who needs to replace ben grimm in the avengers , the get their powers back and go into an ultra hulk out of sorts , the whole this will change the hulk and shake you to the core is like Metallica saying this is our heaviest album yet, i guess i fell for it to an extinct to think they might kill the hulk off even after i saw the future solicits. there's a mini story meant to ties up lose ends but proves more confusing given what we know about the Hulk title to come , banner and hulk are separated Banner goes bad and Hulk has to stop him sort of thing . But first we get Hulk vs Dracula, which i am going to have to buy for better for worse.

Conan the Barbarian

The bar is set pretty high on this one. You have what i consider the epitome of fantasy characters this side of Bilbo Baggins, so a failure to fully grasp the concept of Conan when he is the paradigm epic fantasy warrior the we have a problem. After we get past the pitiful baby Conan puppet, the movies two best performances come from Ron Perlman and the kid who plays little Conan, as bad ass who shows up at field day with the heads of five warriors in tow in what is the best combat sequence of the movie, then we go to adult Conan, a smiling charmer not the grim warrior who has endured the worst the world has to offer.
This movie is a remake in title only and i am fine with that . Conan's best depictions are in his creator Robert E Howard's depictions of him and i would follow that with the Savage Sword of Conan books from the 80's and Robert Jordans' take on the character. If you haven't guessed along side the incredible Hulk and Frankenstein's monster Conan is my favorite literary character. So i went in set up for disappointment. Jason Momoa 's casting in the lead role , drew my ire because he looked almost to black in some of the pictures i had seen, the followed by his lack of size . Then came game of thrones and his role of Khal Drogo, which revitalized my hope for this movie. where he went wrong was straying from Drogo's demeanor, the only time Conan should be smiling is when he is drunk or just finished bedding a princess, as with most humans who learned to become guarded to survive what life has thrown at them these are the only times the wall come down. Arnold's depiction of Conan came off as a witless meat head and his lack of acting chops he came off as emotionally flat , which if given the context of someone who is very guarded would work for me though , make no mistake about it Conan is very street smart.
The Movies only depiction of barbarism was shown in how he treated women, a very small scope , Conan is a thief and a mercenary , while critics decried the fact he was not a clear cut good guy as in the lack of values , i thought he could have stood to be more amoral. He should make the punisher and wolverine look like boy scouts as he kills with no qualms and it is part of his survival instinct.
The other characters were cut and past color by number side kicks and villians, rose mcgowans' performance the most disappointing , like Conan she was much more interesting as a child . But i can say in the scope of the 80's sword and sorcery films.... beast master, death stalker, the sword and the sorcerer, red Sonja ,barbarian queen etc, this movie sits well if not head and shoulders above them. I feel there were alot of missed opportunities , the awesomeness it could have encompassed was pass by, the bright red blood shed lost the edge it had in the first 20 mins, we needed more limbs hacked and heads flying. this was the golden moment for cinematic violence passing us by.
Measuring it up i would say it surpassed the clash of the titans remake and pathfinder, but lacks the bite of Valhalla rising, though the latter went more for realism and conan is a epic fantasy, the grim tone should have been realized, well made in it's construction,on a film making scale would say most comparable to the scorpion king, but there is the problem as it should have been darker and bloodier.

all things Hulk

OK picked up books today and browsed through others, namely the most recent issue of fear it's self with the thing/hulk/Thor throw down, spoilers right here ..... Thor put a hurting on the thing who was i'm guessing i only thumbed through to see the result of the hulk fight ..is purged of the worthy energy when thor throws his hammer through him.
Now the Hulk fight was typical no clear cut winner, however i think Thor still put up a little too much of a fight if this is a amped up banner hulk he is fighting , Thor knocks him in a ulta blast of fire ball lighting that didn't make much sense , some where else which will be either where the vs dracula series picks up or issue 1 of Incredible Hulk starts
Next Hulk 39, which , parker falls back into matt fractionville by giving us too much back story, the omegaex fight is off to a good start , though this black mist person the are trying to create for red hulk's rogues gallery seems very forced, there is not much chemistry between the characters, the book needs better art to live up to parkers potential for greatness on this title
now comes what i thought was going to be the last issue of this silly, trying too hard for epic final pak run, but no we have another coming, magic jumbles things up into almost a dc feel casserole , of fighting with no conclusion or purpose, these last few issues have really in my eyes tainted his legacy with the character who had strong moments with world war hulk and planet hulk. Sure we have dr strange dressed for the ren faire, which i think should be his standard costume, the art is what saves this book.

more smashing

Ok catching up now we have Thor issue 4 and Avengers 15 , it still baffles me how Thor isn't tied into Fear Itself , anyways the art work is stellar in this space battle , while there is much more action than we have seen in some of the dragging issues preceding this , the Thor vs Silver Surfer battle hasn't delivered the goods as it needs to here, i was also wondering where the hell is beta ray bill in all this seems like it would be up his alley, anyway Odin vs Galactus battle was more a mind game with night mare asides , the scene with Thor laying into galactus was pretty cool, from this and what i have seen of the impending Thor showing up to the battle field in fear it's self he is going to get a better display of his powers.
Avengers was like the bizzarro version of the dynamics of the book composition, as the artwork was awful reminding me of the Maxx from the nineties . We get even more of this dull telling not showing avengers interview , placed in at points where it made the story drag , now the fighting was an improvement , spider-woman vs a souped up serpent power Hulk, wasn't realistic, ms marvel represented herself well, this protector guy, whos a Kree, i assumed to be more captain marvell , came across like the video game character mega-man crossed with vision . Hawkeye was well played and seemed to be the only character who bendis nailed in tone . Fear itself , pales in comparison to Siege seems to lack forward momentum which is becoming a trade mark for the hit or miss fraction and bendis team the so called architects whos buildings seem to hold up as well as the ravaged city scape we see here, remember before this event how they said every punch count every loose brick counts ... uh remind me not to believe you as it like every metal band saying its going to be there heaviest album yet before they sell out

Smashing

ok getting a little caught up here , with Hulk 37 & 38 and Incredible Hulk, 633 , The Hulk issues were focused around fear itself and the beat down Ben grimm handed him, shown from M.O.D.O.K's perspective , the inter between him and zero who ever she is shows go interplay and Ross Hulk is more of a back ground , if done any different than how parker handled it might have seemed like filler , but i was entertained as I was Pak's issue , which felt like the what if Hulk had become a barbarian , once again Banner hulk was in the back ground and the supporting cast , Cho, Betty Ross etc. This is a trend i think need s to be broken on the Number one issue of returning it to the incredible hulk post fear itself . Because you are telling me nby writing these other charactr you are switching the point of view from the primary character because you are afraid to get your hands in and really write him, we see this as well in fraction's Thor run, he gets loki more than he gets thor, here clearly pak relates to cho rather than banner who more often than not he is trying to cast in a disparaging light , and the Hulk is overly aloof rather than strong and silent but still imposing and bordering on being a bully because he can .

are you serious

i know i am due to get caught up on my books here and i will this weekend. the big new that is annoying me , is this whole black spider-man thing ,and i'm not talking about the symbiotic suit, if you are into comics and follow them at all online you are going to know what i am talking about .
Who cares ? lets get some things straight here , number this is in the ultimate universe, do you think with a movie coming out next year they are going to screw with their Super-man?? it's the Ultimate universe , i can't tell you the number of the earth it is but i can tell you it's not earth 616 where marvel continuity is based. my thoughts are if it doesn't happen in continuity it didn't happen , they might as well bring back what if ? , because the ultimate universe, is Brian bendis' masturbatory fantasy where he can make things as modern or real or pc as he wants , i mean really world war 2 happened way before the civil rights movement so do you think nick fury would have been a black man in charge of intelligence information on the highest level of government security, so really brian how realistic where you being ?
Secondly it's not like they are screwing with peter parker and making him black . it doesn't matter even in your little other world who is parading around in a suit , if it's not peter parker it's not spider-man, if it's not steve rogers it's not captain america, we already saw that in the real world with bucky , it boils down to gimmicks to sell books because due to a lack of creativity .
JUST LOOK AT HIS AVENGERS RUN , he is falling back on boring tricks the whole interview issues of the character narrating avenger history, yawns . he already screwed up the concept of the avengers as a team , so my other posts for that , he has his moment i will give him that but the ultimates secure his job, as the well runs dry on creative ways to tell the story in the mainstream continuity , dc does this as well , they don't want to take risks ,and anger the fans in this economy , well the pc thing is being to go a little too far .

Captain America Vs Wonder-Woman

Now in a fist fight i would go with Wonder-woman, throw in the shield vs her bracelets mmmm its going to make my head hurt , now the pilot episode of the tv which didn't get picked up vs the capt america movie, steve rogers wins , ok maybe thats not a fair fight, but watching the wonder-woman pilot made me itch for what she might have been like in different hands not that this take was that bad , really i would recommend it to a fan of the character, though the tweaks to make her a celebrity bad girl, who ran a company that kept it's self afloat just selling action figures , there are some flaws that needed to have been tweaked before it got green lit, it came across like a syfy movie,
Captain America is another story, while i am glad it didn't do the box office Thor did which is a little puzzling, i think it might be a marginally better movie , thor i had a hard time getting past the costuming, i think if they had gone more lord of the rings cut out some of the weird science it might have not been a contest, but back to steve rogers , i can't really find many faults with the movie sure it fall's into some blatant hollywood cheese like the forced romance , but it's the action formula, Steve Rogers has a lot of heart , chris evans is more than likely as jerk in real life but he sells you on the character, by the end there was an element of me wanting it to hurry up so i could see the avengers screen post- credits, i would have given a tad more of an inglorious bastards grindhouse style wink to the time period, like the spirit did but better... i didn't think the spirit sucked it was just pulled off better as sin city, every one in captain america did their jobs, avengers aside i don't have any real emotional connection to the character i think his brand of military gung -ho for his country attitude is shit and hope marvel gives this a closer look now he is back in the costume, it had to be easier as just steve rogers the secret avenger than as captain america and what comes with that , how is it explored in the movie well, Steve often takes matters into his own hands and ends up being a better soldier for even it it means playing outside his orders , like to see how the character develops in avengers and the subsequent sequels, it keeps the comic book tone , not leaning too heavilly on the kirby years or the ultimates a nice balance , i like the scene where he wakes up and think the modern beat will be fun for him to continue down. the howling commandos were like the warriors three in Thor , a little to magnificent seven side kicky , sure they could have brought the invaders in but i can understand why no namor , and a robot who catches fire , i guess would have brought up evans other role the 3-d was disposable , and pointless, perfectly fine in 2-d i want to see it online in 2-d now , hope it's box office picks up it deserves if nothing else to beat transformers ,

fifty fifty

is the way i feel when i pick up my books every week, the balance flips but i always have one book that leaves me cold and one i re-read, in this economy it might make a casual reader re-think his or her buying, and the industry wonders why its having problems.
Bad new first is journey into mystery 625 , and it's a mystery why i made the journey to the comic book shop for this one we don't even get the naked sif. We get loki who when it comes to action, isn't much of a fighter in this teen-age Amadeus Cho like incarnation. The soap opera builds in Hel, is the premise and it could have been told as the first half of the issue, the art continues to look like a sketch book.
Now Incredible Hulk - 632 is a different story much, improved pak gets a better reign on the magic mish-mash the focus is on one of hulk's old foes who pushes all the wrong or right buttons , we see a Hulk -out like we want to which is always at the end of the day for the pay off - we want to see him cut loose and show us why he is the strongest one there is .Pelletier's art work remains close to perfect the mass he gives the hulk makes sense , i like the veiny look for the hulk, going back to Cho, he served as banner's jimmeny cricket and i could do with out him shouldn't he be helping hercules these days , other than that pretty much all i could want from a comic .
Comic con weekend i think i have some fear itself titles coming up, and captain america . continuing onto hack n slash omnibus 2 , the vs chucky issue i thought was a little silly, the books continue to be a good read the archie issue was the weak point and the villain battle royal in the laboratory was meh , the supporting cast filling out give cassie a wider range to work with as well and i will give udates as i finish volume 2 tomorrow

Something Different

Veering off the course of the big two spandex, after i started reading the first volume of the Hack n Slash Omnibus. I enjoyed and plan to read the other two volumes , the evil ernie crossover issue , was an un-needed side step and while the content can and will be covered in my horror blog , the art differed from issue to issue the evil ernie inks the weakest and some of art is outstanding above and beyond most of the stuff going on in the big two.
The tone is very buffy, granted cassie hack is more of an anti-hero , in the fact she is a misanthrope where buffy wants to blend in and have a normal life, she lacks buffy's powers, though her mother was a slasher an undead killer like jason vorhees, the 3rd wall often comes down and the book winks at it self not unlike the sensational she -hulk book.
the t& a is defiantly a tease , but i guess most books of this ilk are , and i am over half way into the first omnibus, but it could change though i don't see major boobage in it's future. i know there are impending cross over's with bomb queen coming up another teaser
i will have to keep a closer eye peeled on images other titles as epoch looks worth reading as well... and check out my horror blog where i will discussing the medium of comics in horror

Hulk and such

OK , getting back on track with my pulls , The Hulk has started to eclipse the incredible title, jeff parker used his noggin and relaxed to write an issue which the number i don't have on me i will come back and edit it in but it has a zzzakk hulk on the front , it was very fun read hearkened back to the days of the 80's hulk, remember back when it was just a fun title to read - sure peter david had his moments, but got too much into the path which ang lee took of the self help hulk
anyway ross is starting to feel more like his own person here .
the hulk annual that is a cross over with the spider-man and dead pool annuals was some alternate universe gobbly gook worthy of sucking an egg like it was written for legion of super heroes and waste of money.
i was very impressed with uncanny x-man 439- shame they are switching writers for schism , or the x-civil war - all the x's are going to live in text as they are hyping it as some thing that is going to change the x landscape - whatev- the art was iffy on uncanny but writing stellar even if it just boiled it down to hope and wolverine

summer simmer

have comics to pick up this week , but from solicitations thus far , the only thing to get excited about are fights two of them to be exact. I'm a sucker for hero on hero brawls , we have a Thor Vs Surfer, fight coming up in Thor. One thing about fear itself is i think it's making it evident how Matt Fraction works on build with little pay off , so we will see if the song remains the same in the pages of Thor, really all we have seen on the surfer 's end is he was able to catch one of Thor's Blows and his main offense is doing a board boomerang , so it that's how he is being written Thor should mop the moon with him.
Then a Hulk vs Thor vs Thing, these guys are amped up by the secret Skull or Skaadi or whatever they are calling her , unimpressed thus far would be my nick name for her. The Red Hulk amped Thing beat down , was bleh... the fear hammer or worthy hammer have powers that are un-defined so it sets up bad writing as they can do pretty much whatever you want them to do , now even Thor's hammer has certain definable properties and abilities that way you the character's boundaries developing your mythology .
but no such luck would have taken too much thought that is being wasted elsewhere

Holy Hal Jordan

I saw Green Lantern , we know by now it lost 66 percent of it's box office in the 2nd weekend , word of mouth travels fast, i literally thought i was watching a throw back to the eighties, like dark-man or buckaroo bonzai, i thought it would be more along the lines of tron legacy, but know most of the ring constructs seemed like something from the mask, the race track ....uh come on, the entire movie was telegraphed a mile away, it was entertaining fluff and i watched it just like i would watch a cartoon, it's out to strictly sell action figures, if you were offended by the pre-quel star wars you know episode 1 through 3 then skip it and hold your breath for captain america

Summer books

Ok here's an update on the past few weeks , books, the Hulk title concluded its planter red hulk arch, it was ok nothing great liked the art,
the Avengers now deep into fear itself, red hulk takes on thing who is amped up by the serpent, this story is going to be retread in the next issue of hulk, the avengers tower gets destroyed and red hulk puts up a pretty good fight against the now god like thing who can now fly and shoot blast of some untold form of energy which i am guessing never gets explained , i like the big fight , the avenger narrative section was good for one issue already it could have been left out
next up the 2nd part of the heart of a monster story - in incredible hulks, the art is great the story is silly , maybe pak should go write for dc , as it all action with magic and the silly wish fountain the only explanation the jumble, the giant versions of wendigo and bi beast, what's the point ?
next mighty thor 3- the best of the bunch , finally some pay off to these boring builds fraction was doing , thor vs surfer, very breif but a well thought of fight respecting every one's mythology, the best part of the book is the banter between volstagg and a Oklahoma preacher, where Volstagg tell hims Jesus is really nothing special the wholes resurrection thing has been done before , glad marvel had the balls to print that , we get a naked sif and the gods suiting up to throw down with galactus what more do you need, the art is most improved please keep this artist its what the book needs , look forward to the next issue

marvel 52

comic book resources asked what 52 marvel titles would i pick if they were doing a dc reboot so here are mine with more of an explanation when needed
1-the Incredible Hulk
2-the Mighty Thor
3-West Coast Avengers-Mocking Bird, Tigra, Wonder-man, Shroud, Spider-Woman, War-machine -reality tv show about being an Avenger
4-Web of Spider-man- darker than amazing
5-the Avengers -Thor,Capt America, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Vision
6-Alpha Flight- Northstar, Puck, Vindicator, Snowbird, Shaman, Sasquatch, Wild Child
7-Tomb Of Dracula
8-Were-wolf By Night
9-Fantastic Four- reed , sue, ben, Johnny
10- Sensational She – Hulk- more serious than past incarnations
11-Dark Avengers -norman, moonstone, daken, bullseye, loki, Venom
operating underground
12-Uncanny X-men- logan, storm, cyclops, Emma, Ice-man, colossus
13-the Defenders – dr strange, Valkyrie, Moondragon, Luke Cage, Son of Satan,
handling supernatural and inner dimensions
14-Invincible Iron-man
15-X-Force- daken, mystique, dark beast, angel, deadpool
almost like the thunder bolts for x-men - less covert than the old one , they are trying not to kill but doesn't mean they succeed
16-Wolverine
17-Thunder-Bolts- constrictor , songbird, mr. hyde, diamond lil, the hood ,madame masque- hood tries to get the team to relapse into villany
118-Dr. Strange
19-Ms. Marvel
20-Punisher
21-Venom
22-Power -pack
23-Captain America
22-Marvel -Team Up
23-New Mutants -Cannonball, Longshot, Rockslide, X-23, Magma, Hope
24-Rampaging Hulk
25- Man-thing
26-Dare-devil the man without fear
27- Champions – Hercules, Black widow, Dazzler, Iron-fist , black knight, brother voo-doo
handle supernatural stuff for the sheild more conspiracy oriented
28-Namor
.
29-Kazar and the savage land
30- Project Annihilation -Sliver-surfer, Beta-ray Bill, Nova, Adam Warlock, Agent Brand
31-Sentry- returns from the dead, to fight the void in his mind
32-Brother-hood of evil Mutants- Magneto, Rogue, Juggernaut, Quick-sliver, Pyro, Toad
33-Black -Cat
34-Gamma Corps- original line-up plus Lyra- tracking down red- hulk and red she-hulk as well as other gamma spawns- like leader- abomination ,a-bomb
35- Warbound – the warbound plus Skaar
36-Beta-Flight- Marina, Heather Hudson, Aurora,- wendigo
the 2nd string of defense
37-Inhumans
38-Howard the Duck
39-X-factor- Beast, Kitty Pryde, Psylocke, Sunspot, Havok, Cable
40-Taskmaster
41-Rom- the space knight
the middle man in galactic wars
42-Avengers Academy
43-Gambit
44-Squadron Supreme- Hyperion , Whizzer, Nuke, Lady Lark , Power Princess,
Amphibian, Nighthawk
try to find their place in europe
45-Hulk-red
46-Marvel two in one
47-Nick Fury -agent of shield
48-DeadPool
50-the Horror of Frankenstein
51-agents of Atlas- Namorita, Gorilla-man, Machine-man, Sliver-Sable, Paladin
52-the warriors three- tales of Asgard

don't get me started

...On this end of the incredible Hulk, we'll start with the beginning arc of the books end , which was not listed in the sept solicits, though Hulk vs Dracula was. Incredible Hulks 630, this heart of the monster arc starts off with Betty Hulk still running around with Tyrannus, an agent or head of aim who was banner's girlfriend back in the 80's creates a wishing well- one of the more stupid ideas ,and betty drinks from it and starts making monsters and summons the wendigo and bi-beast , though i like bi beast from the 70's hulk years , he isn't the most threatening villain to summon, oh yeah Trauma and some s&m chick are in the back ground along with fing fang foom, it's an ok all around effort the art being better than the story , next Hulk 34 , i was skeptical of this planet red hulk , but its not bad , the art is great and the story though we have seen it before it's only two issues so it a more hurried run through, there's no war bound , looks like it's only going to be king for a day with Rulk, are we still calling him that or ross , hulk, saw he is also going to be in the avenging spider man title , which is overkill , looks like marvel team up with a different avenger , well since every hero in the mu is an avnger these days i guess it is like marvel team -up, which was one of my favorite 80's spidey books, i liked web of spider man -
i was a book short so i got journey into mystery 624 , it was ok still not as fan of this art , very dulled colors , it was just blah

x-men first class

hmmm, if you are looking for a movie that sticks to the books , skip this one , i think the choice of mutants in the film would have been better served if they had stuck to the source material and maybe thrown mystique in darwin and their version of angel as well as banshee - would have been better served as ice-man -warren worthington and jean grey , if would have accepted scarlet witch and quicksliver as well as they could have better served the early version of the brother hood of evil mutants, i team the books could stand to re-visit perhaps under new leadership,
this movie left me feeling nothing , it was praised by rotten tomatoes and i would argue even with it's faults thor easily still rains and thunders over this film, i never really connected with the characters , xavier at times seems petty and magneto is the Daniel craig version of bond, gold finger maybe, from the comice the only two characters i have any affinity for are beast and emma frost, january jones gets more of the props here , she was a very hot white queen, riptide and Azazel , could have done with out, the real hell-fire club would have been fine with me , the wolverine 5 second cameo was cool , pretty much the only easter egg or universe tie in, on ascale of one to ten it rank as a five very mediocre,
next up green lantern which will either suck or be awesome don't see it hitting a middle ground worse case scenario it comes across like a cross between buckaroo bonzai and tron
cap could be good if it is not a rocketeer indiana jones rip off

We Need Real Talk

the post flash point news - is new big news , and big publicity , it will initially sell some books, and the fandom press , like comic book resources is acting like they are ok with it, i'm not really a dc reader , but i balked at years of continuity being flushed down the toilet to make the books more marketable, and truth be told comic book fans , it's up to us to speak out , not that it is going to keep it from happening , but you will see back pedaling it's a dangerous trend , that devalues the reason we buy into either of the big two spandex universes, because it is a mythology we have grown up with , relate to , you wanna market it to a different audience , great keep the continuity, if some one isn't smart enough to jump into a story i have got two words for you Star Wars, sticks you right in the middle of the story and you figure it out as you go along , if you can't figure that out , it's time to thin the herd and we are creating kids that are too god damn stupid , they don't have the smarts to watch brave and the bold much less worry about them reading a comic book or reading anything , i mean come on do kids really read, this so called kid market does it exist? they buy the action figures and video games, but i have never seen a kid in the comic book store since i was one
if you wanna get me started on something how about the s on kent's costume, i'm cuss you out like kat williams , you mess with super-man
ok do i think the whole thing is going to suck - no
am i going to buy any of them - mmm we'll see , prolly aqua-man , super-man and swamp thing
i do think it's cheap tricks anything for a buck no Layamon to what makes the characters work in the first place , you don't know how to make super-man hip to kids today with out this crap - hire a new god damn writer who does , marketing isn't going to save your ass in the long run , if it's not broke don't fix it , when a character is older than you are chances are it's working , no matter what geoff johns tries to say

all over the place

hang we are about to cover alot of ground , as i hit the comic book shop and borders did a little reading , lets get the green out of the way , dead pool 37, consistently so ridiculously it hard to believe its canon, boils down to a silly dead pool hulk fight , the high being when hulk flicks him away, the how did he get those grenades in the hulks mouth panel absurd, guess hulk is going to pound him into the ground
incredible hulk 629, am i correct we only have 3 more pak's after this ? not a bade book the art was spot looks like the artist who started stronger than the books finished just did not give a fuck after a while , the story ok tyrannus now my favorite villain for the hulk , might be more interesting maybe fighting the ff or kazar , the betty chapter looks like it is still open, i guess , from the solicits magic is going keep playing a role , i take it from when the hulk inhaled pandoras box , seem lately in pak's book the hulk gets knocked around a little too much for my liking ,
mighty thor 2 - pretty much filler , the lead in to the surfer show up, odin seems to be cutting some deals and bringing heimdall to his heels for some future treachery he suspects , little dynamic with the loki, sif relationships, feel like hogun the grim could have been doing his laundry
checked out daken and venom, daken a snooze fest , venom was alrite liked the art and the fact spidey showed up
also read the green lantern trade of blackest night , it was the normal dc jumbled action , lets trade rings switch colors whatever, half the time you don't know where these fights are taking place it's a cosmic royal rumble , while entertaining at times when it didn't get to bogged down in the ring -gibberish , not enough mera, i'll say that , and sinestro was never likeable , but i guess he's not supposed to be, the lex luthor writing was way off didn't seem like him

a tangled mess

just read the trade paperback of the maxium carnage saga , which has to be the most cartoonish , mess of jumbled action non sense i have read, i can see why at one point i stopped reading spider -man when this is what it fell into , between this and the clone saga which along with one more day is what was done to royally fuck up one of the greatest super heroes created . i like heroes crossing over into other books to give the universe a feel , but if you were bringing firestar into the story for no reason might have well brought in ice-man because it felt like something from the amazing friends , which i found engaging at six and seven years of age, bat man brave and the bold follow similar silliness and i can only take that show in increments, death lok was another pointless addition and it became apparent how worthless cloak is, i would kill him off if given the chance
more modern books like new avengers - which i caught up with the whole flash back sabertooth avengers arch is a distraction , from the rest of the story which is not bad , feat considering this is the avengers team we could do with out , i preferred the dark avengers over them .
then the fourth installment of the war of the green lanterns, i found to use some restraint , which is abnormal for dc titles that just seem to happen, the -spoiler - end with all the human lanterns choosing their rings was a cool moment, does it make me feel any better about the movie which looks like a really cgi'ed buckaroo bonzai - nope , but i hope other dc writers take note, wonder woman is kicking ass and super man 711 with live wire - the other title i read was pretty decent, i enjoyed it as i would like to enjoy super-man but rarely get the chance to
this weekend i will pick up my incredible hulk and mighty thor and yes be a little more prompt with them
i did see a thor preview which looked promising as it had thor kicking the surfer's butt as he should be
can't say this is the most exciting time for comics , fear itself it a fizzle compared to siege
avengers academy is the only new title to get excited about , lots of book i am blah about - what would i do to spice it up you ask?
well it's about time for steve roger's to crack the whip on the x-force, could be a good post schism arch and lead to seeing where every one's loyalties lie if it came down to avengers vs x-men- i think between all the titles you have enough avenger's teams to take out the mutant collective- you could go kinda civil war with it
spider-man , this is a tough one - i say something test peter - something has to happen post - spider island- which is stupid in and of it's self, peter need to be back on the outside looking in, something to the effect of when he lost his shit on firelord and beat him in front of the avengers to me that had been a defining spider-man moment and truth be told there haven't been alot of those since back in black where he handed king pin a beat down
ff- get spider-man out they need some one with a little more fire power - the surfer - would be too much , namor redundant ,an inhuman might work , another chick - ms- marvel might be an interesting fit or storm
capt america- his rogues gallery is stale - i would like to see him fight the sinister 6 , the mole -man, the leader somebody out of his comfort zone or take him off us soil- the mandrain could be cool as well
same thing for iron -man , the stane stark war is played out , i liked him against doc ock, throw him against maybe a ff big bad , diablo , or annihilus
Hulk- get the family out loner hulk, look at hulk the long term implications for sampson messing with his head merging personalities the break downs an every thing he has been through needs to get worse every time something like a world war hulk happens, hulk needs to have some of his gallery given a gauntlet treatment , make them care about guys who have fallen by the way side particularly during the david run- speed-freak, piece-meal , mad-man all need to see comebacks , and then throw these red -hulk villains his way on top of that, lots of gold in them hills pak has over looked
-x-men - well see the avengers - they lost the sense of being outsiders as well
alpha flight would be well worked into x-force or any team wolverine is on - give me one streamed down -x-men, in uncanny-pick 7 mix it up- old and new - lets say
Wolverine, Armor, Emma, Ice-man , Gambit , Colossus and Magneto as the leader - angel stays in x-force-, rogue into her little team with hope, cyclops on x-factor with kitty, that team is a mess -
then you have your wolverine , x-23, dead pool and daken solo titles
i think that wraps the x world
give us a dr. strange or defenders book, defenders would be a good place of all the magic character that don't fit other places, not the classic line up - but say strange , luke cage , nighthawk, dagger- because i killed cloak, black cat and son of satan
marvels fixed

post thor comics

been catching up on dark horse's buffy season eight but back in the land of spandex - we see the hulks , a red one whose last issue vs the black fog the newest addition to the hulk rogues gallery comes into play, reminded me of banner fight with speed freak , a villian i would personally bring back , the cured the sleep problem and shot him off to start the planet red hulk, redundancy is the middle name here
The spy plot of banner hulk , was not the espionage fest they tried to make it out to be , fun 80's hulk reminds me of the secret war - yes the one with the beyonder - smart hulk,
the fear it self avengers tie in a classic this cover has nothing to do with whats inside as the entire issue of dialogue took place- while i have a problem with comics where zero punches are thrown , it was at least well written filler
journey into mystery is similar boredom
from the shelfs, i have perused new avengers, eh nothing great , need to catch up with bat-man super-man - this x-men schism could be fun as i love the hero on hero action
mean while buffy season 8 is much more engaging than i thought it would be though the kitchen sink of fantasy is thrown in - come one dawn goes from a giant to a centuaress

Smallville Finale

the redundant dialogue didn't say anything that hasn't already been beaten into the ground , less talking more flight , more cape, did welling not want to work out so the suit would fit ? alot of the plot threads were properly wrapped to segue into the comic book, but the show was about super-man and i feel i was owed a little more of him than i have been teased the past few years and honestly sucker punch has me scared as to what Snyder is going to do.
the wedding was weird because the church was filled with people who were just extras and looked to be total strangers to the show, when most wedding i have been to are a collection of people from the couple's life.
i can live with the cgi super-man , it might be the way to go when you need him to do things humans can't , will miss the show, with nbc dumping wonder-woman that leaves a slim reast of the year and 2012 for the hulk and jessica jones

Thor

ok , saw the long awaited Thor, today , i am one of the guys who was checking superherohype religiously on this one so the build up in my head vs what could be put on screen was two different things, really i had to anticipate the worst so it set me up to be pleasantly surprised.
Definitely one of the better Super hero movies,For the most part it ranks along side Iron-man, and Punisher Warzone and Bat-man Begins. my complaints of the movie are due in part to the comic book looking glass of my brain, weighing it against what meets up with code, such as The things i have said prior to the movie, too much flare to the costume, the black Heimdall and the missing powers in the middle bulk of the film. All the above proved only to be a minor distraction, along with the destroyer being too tall, thor's lack of helmet and such . iron man and bat-man are well within the realm of suspension of disbelief ,aside from Ghost Rider or Hellboy, which played out like a campy horror movies, Thor is the first superhero who blatantly is rooted in the super-natural or other worldly, his status as a deity was only alluded in half a winks, if he announced himself as the god of thunder as he does in the comics it slipped past me. Instead the film is a mix of fantasy and science fiction harkening back to the days of journey in mystery .
Helmsworth exceeded expectations in the role, playing into the sword in the stone metaphor, as a younger version of the character not a regal as the comic book depiction. Loki, was not a menacing , and could have stood , to have dialed the brooding back and been more of a sinister trickster. The warriors three and sif, did their roles proud , Hopkins and Portman did their jobs and seemed to have fun in their roles .
I disagree with reviews saying the plugs leading into the avengers were heavy handed, a statement reserved for those who have not read the comics to become aware how intertwined the comic mythos is. i found the action sequences to be fun and suitable depiction of thor's power set, not as campy as reviews going into this read.My favorite being when he busts through the back of an ice monsters head. The side hammer spin looked just like it is drawn, those are the right notes that need to be hit when making a genre film.
I don't for see , the summer's other comic book movies being worthy to lift Thor's hammer, the space world of green lantern is going to look thin in comparison to the lush world building of Asgard.Most importantly this movie for all the little comic kinks took itself seriously in honoring the character.

Making up Ground

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Ok kids we have alot of ground to cover so hang on. First off lets hit this entry point thinking the big two have. My argument is if you have half a brain and have at least watched a comic or two , you can jump in at any point negating the tendency to keep re-starting a series at number one or in the case of marvel doing these point one issues. Or maybe people are that stupid and would be better off ready super hero squad or marvel adventures . First on the witness Avengers 12.1 , while it was an enjoyable read and pulled from alot of different directions in the marvel u, though this was a so called starting point , it referenced back to most recent skrull war series , the intelligencia , from loeb's Hulk run and a more current nod to the time line tony stark came across in this title a few issues ago . The over abundance of avenger was over kill, moon knight had no business or purpose in the book, the teams should have gone their separate or bendis could have shared the wealth and let this story go to the secret avengers and had thor guest in it . Instead its an avenger jambalaya and their are too many spices in the pot, ms marvel, beast , iron man , thor , and steve rogers should have done the trick , wolverine was of no use and is in 6 other books already.
don't have book numbers for on the ones that follow so we can say most recent as i read them on the wall today - and they go perfectly well with the theory it waqs just putting to and two together for me to jump in and see where it was going, action comics 900, super-mans return , the build on the doomsday plot we have steel , kara and connor fighting the cyborg super man and dooms day, outin space lex luthor had got a hold of the tech of all techs which has made him god like and he is slugging it out with super-man - easy connect the dots. The art was ok not great, would have like to have seen super-man un-load on lex a little more , but it was what it was, next up black panther - the god awful art was a distraction the cover billed it as a vs luke cage , which last two pages and the scrawniest luke cage i have ever seen, one kick to his steel skinned knee is all it takes for a de-powered black panther to put him down , uh yea right . i will never read that garbage again. Brightest day- followed enough to know basic developments, was stoked to see swamp thing return if i find more money than i need i will go back and pick it up just to have it , it sets things straight , and brings back hawk-man and aqua-man to where they need to be in the dcu proper, three of my favorite characters in one book. Read secret avengers and was under whelmed after the hype. also came across the first part of the war of the lanterns, not a big gl fan but it was well written and a good example of well balanced story that let me jump in with out having to dummy down. Now for the normal titles a re- numbered mighty thor starting at one , this one needed an explanation as to where it was supposed to fall in the continuity of fear it's self, other wise well drawn, and more action than you expect from fraction who bored on his last run in thor, he's starting to redeem himself.
As for the hulks, the last issue of the red hulk title was a snooze fest focusing to much on the origins of the rulk's new rogues gallery and not moving the story forward i think it could have been done in an easier manner and not taken the focus of the books character. in incredible hulks , now trimmed down to banner hulk- the green one and betty as the red she hulk, from the adverts its being dragged out into four issues to tell as story that looks like it can be told in the two issue, maybe pak will prove me wrong but it looks like that's the case, the first issue if this hulk spy arc which isn't as 007 as they were leading us to believe it would be not that i mind , tyrannus is back , in tux instead of his roman get up, in some ways i like him but he seems to be a poor fit for the hulk but i guess the tale of the tape would say the same thing about the leader , so i applaud pak's one smart move in having betty hook up with him as now there's more of emotional connection which wasn't there before , he felt like a pretty mole man

Fear Itself ...

Even though i have been leery of Fraction's writing after a redundantly boring Thor run, i will admit , there's nothing to fear in buying Fear Itself one. It proved worthy of the four bucks i invested in it and for the most part kept me happy, though i doubt Odin can school Thor in a fight like he does here. Take away the power of his hammer yes but not school him in fisticuffs, the red skull's daughter seems to come into this power rather easily, not even a raiders of the lost ark level of booby traps waiting for her, just nazi's easily shot down. Any ways , an entertaining read makes me less afraid of investing in this event.The art work was outstanding, as is the art work coming up in the red hulk series previewed in the back of the book which looks to be some of the best art work i have seen in some time even if the idea of trying the red hulk on planet hulk seems a weak idea to me .
Next up was Avengers issue 11, the weakest of the three title i bought this week, it seemed like Bendis wrote Fear Itself and Fraction wrote this issue as it dissolves into a comic amorphous soup. The scene where they are fighting on a shore of an island, hero's are ko'd in the desert then every one is in a stand off in an urban environment, with no teleportation shown just willy nilly scene changes. it was a distraction am i am going to need a re-read of this book to make sense of it , the red hood seems a transitory villain for another big bad , who i am not up to date on the cosmic characters so the flow of his appearance seems forced, of course Thor and Ross Hulk getting to share the spotlight with Stark is cool for me .
Next Skaar in the savage-land mini, seems promising, proves you can lead into a series and set up the danger with out having to skim on the smashing . Not familiar with the writer but , the pacing is excellent.

recently

We are going to get caught up, with my two normal titles this month and then maybe a few words about new from wonder- con. We'll start with Thor 621, which is hopefully the last of the Matt Fraction run on the title as his story line is best described in one word... obtuse. The build up as slow as it was had little pay off , did Thor hit anything with his hammer ? Did this right the Asgard on Earth , no but i have feeling that is going to be address further in Fear it's self . This makes me a little leery of that series .
Incredible Hulk 625 ending Greg Pak's Planter Savage, less fizzle than Thor, but i expected more from Pak , the end is a mish mash , with smashing set to stun. The shedding of Skaar, who picks up his own savage land title, Miek has gone crazy or was he sane at the end of wwh? In some ways it reminds me of classic 70's hulk , maybe in the sense characters are portrayed more like cartoon characters, in others not so much a mixed bag not sure how i feel , about two more story arch's from pak and he's off the book. The art work in this issue was a particular disappointment reminded me of those little comic books which use to come with masters of the universe figures back in the day.
Wonder -con we learned Hulk is getting a vs dracula title in fear it'self , Drac can only lift 4 tons so it's not going to be a slug fest, and we have seen how easily red hulk took care of vampires , so more to be revealed . Also no surprised Steve rogers is reclaims the cap america costume, not a shocker , you know they weren't going to let bucky be capt when the movie comes out .

Going into Fear Itself

Fear Itself is of course the big event of the summer , to coincide with the Capt. America and Thor movies , the Hulk looks to play a large part along side Juggernaut and if i am going to call it on the third person from the teasers I'm going to say that's Dracula, there have been speculations as to it being the Grey Gargoyle but i would be surprised to see him in that big of a role. though he is in the teaser art along with the Absorbing man. Anyways since we are going to get that crammed down our throats i'm going to look at titles i have looked over that are not related.
The first being the New Avengers, a title which doesn't need to exist, but the last issue was very well executed and if you can't get your fill of characters who hav e no business being together it's a must. For fans of Dr. Strange and Ms Marvel it's a must as you can't catch those character's else where. I the roster needs to be re thought , it worked best back in the Sentry days or during Dark reign, but with Thunderbolts, Academy and the Bendis book is it really needed .
Wonder Woman has been surprising well written as well, the pacing of the action making more sense than alot of the Dc titles , it's all about the balance folks , while Matt Fraction bores me with the Build up and Loeb was insulting with all fists and no story a common occurrence of Batman/Superman title, the perfect blend we got in the 80's is rare but it happens .
Invincible Iron man- here Fraction gives us three issues that could have been two, the Dr. Ock dynamic with Toney Stark, is a one trick pony, best delved into way back in Marvel Fanfare which is winked at here. The sinister six would have been a better inclusion, it would have given Fraction the same chance to build off family, i'm guessing his was fairly co-dependent as his heroes are too defined by the supporting cast. A lesson in Spider- man could be well learned whose supporting cast fleshing out the gaps but he isn't reliant upon them.

state of the union

Decided to post a little something looking at where comics are heading as comic cons are popping up so is new and reveals for the upcoming year - this maybe spoilery as are most of my blogs so if you don't know this then oh well

Hulk- while the red hulk is in good hands - we now have heard the first few bars of Pak's swan song , which i have been predicting - the Incredible hulks will no no longer be plural , focusing on the hulk proper, I think Pak would really be best suited for a team book, the defenders and alpha flight both would be excellent choices or even the west coast avengers . This year we are going to have a hulk spy store , spies are the new zombie, not sure how i feel about this as mr fixit i could see this working as the hulk mmmm... i dunno i feel like his current incarnation is getting back into the same mode as when he was in the pantheon in the peter david run, the pantheon however i could see Pak doing well with and if i was doing a Hulk arc, i would defiantly include a pantheon arc. After the spy thing is his last arc this heart of a monster thing where we know the big bads are wendigo, bi-beast, fing fang foom and trauma .
Thor- this galactus eats asgard could be fun with the surfer fight thrown in am i sure. He is a big component of feat its self with bunch of bad guys getting thor hammers and running around for the new girl red skull. i think thor need to really be reestablished as lets face it a god . looking like from the teasers he is going to take some perhaps unneeded lumps , as for fear it's self , will get the hulk tie ins not sure if i can get every thor appearance, warned the local shop of the inevitable thor rape coming with the movie.

Also Spider -man is looking like it's turning into a vehicle to sell action figures and lets give him a new suit for everything rather than be creative for him to use the powers he has .
Avengers -heard line up changes i could join the chorus of do we really need a new avengers or any luke cage for that matter outside of thunderbolts , avngers academy is fun but there needs some shake ups for this team there's a space knight arc and i think ultron is coming back - big whopee

that's how it's done

Congrats Jeff Parker on Hulk 30.1 ,the Paks,and Fractions take note , we have got character development and plot build here but the right balance of smashing to make it a worthwhile and fun read , basically to sum it up this is what i want in a comic book, the art is on the weaker side but the panel placement is smart and it looks like parker and the artist really got their communication nailed down , not sure if this is all due to parker's scripting or not , the rogues gallery for the red hulk is really what is being focused on to let this character come into his own rather than just be the cranky villain Hulk, maybe file this away in the story ideas but at some point you got to think Ross , isn't going to let the schooling he took at the hands of banner before this run go unanswered, not saying he can kick the banner hulk's ass when he is at the top of his game but seem like that needs to be addressed though we get a look at some one else developing a oppression of there , the whole i don't tolerate my behavior in other people sums up the plot .

Incredible Hulk is at the other end of the spectrum , taking up back into loeb land though , i think the marvel hand book is throw out the window , no explanation on what happened to Banner's healing factor , we are talking about a guy who quickly regrows his skin after one of the u foes flays it off. Skaar's head moves after getting punched by Kazar , uh shouldn't that have broken his hand ? we got an ow. the bugs are all over the place popping up randomly when called for , or not and we end u with ok i'll warn you on spoilers , some sort of brain washed world breaker , with a bugged heart . Shouldn't hulk have gotten angry and speed up his metabolic healing rate ? Skaar seems lost most of the book losing his leaping ability it appears , maybe he doesn't do well in temperate environments i am going to re- read it and see if it has any more cohesion . Pak started off on a good run but all good things come to an end , let him have a kazar and devil dinosaur book, he might do a mean Conan, get dark horse on the phone , maybe even thor could work for him or taking over submariner .

here we go

Several books to hit first off i will go with the one fresh in my mind Thor issue 620. Before getting into this book, writer Matt Fraction , who was hyped as a glorious savior of the book is underwhelming me and to be frank makes me skeptical of the Fear itself hype. When finally something does happen after the boring build up, it is scattered and senseless , the art which was first redeeming seems to lack similar focus , it's a as much of a mess as the sill intergalactic blood bath pitting Odin and his army of pokemon, who hold no explanation and seem random, i mean really magic can make alot happen particularly when you are a god but this doesn't flow with his character i don't buy it and its a travesty of continuity .
Next up Hulk 30 well the Impossible man is in the mix , the art is great , the story is silly, the two Hulk merging , is back to the kind of kindergarten writing i might expect from a cartoon, think animaniacs more than brave and the bold or young justice, ok is guess dc at least has marvel in the cartoon dept.
Next Avengers, the theme seems to be balance, as this book now lacks it as if Bendis is taking cues from the Matt Fraction school of writing , all the teams are dispatched, Red Hulk kills a sea monster , there is the moment when namor doesn't trust ross to give him the gem and hands it to Thor , which i will give Bendis that one , and it leaves us with the Thor vs the amped up Hood , and i guess the Red hulk will be in the mix as well
ok best of the batch is Greg Pak's Hulk 623 the savage land is the new vampires for marvel , he does need to explain ,how i dinosaur could hurt the hulk ? i'll re read it but are we saying it's because he wasn't healed yet ?
any way the writing aside from that is good but it feel like , when a band is trying to re create a success ful album than making fresh songs, it feels like we are going back to planet Hulk which tells me its time for pak to move on , i know people want him to be the next peter david , and world war hulk , planet hulk was a good run but it ended there is the looks of it, and now we are going back to remember our former glory

Catching Up

I feel pretty caught up on the Marvel U at least , this week have done some intensive reading , but lets see where we are with the staples first. Spoiler Heavy if you aren't caught yourself.
Hulk- the Art continues to be good awful but over the years i have weathered bad art so i keep buying , red hulk's absorption power being defined a little more is something i of course enjoy as it brings in the fantasy realism to adhere to with his myth. i am not sure what the fascination is with the savage land and monster island these days , or the island of olympus if we are going to jump over into incredible hulks which is rather entertaining and continues to be the dominate Hulk title thanks to greg pak , we shall see how this Skaar in the savage land story goes the whole chaos war thing really seem a st reach to work the Hulk into didn't seem like the story flowed into very well, but after such horrid things as hulked out heroes i guess thats no longer a concern.
Ok read the Second Coming trade and was very entertained , felt like it wrapped up ties on some stuff and made the xforce make sense -in a similar fashion to how the Illuminati's chickens have been coming home to roost in avengers -if i was writing x-force or avengers- i would say it was time for the x-force to come up on steve rogers radar, i could see it crossing over into secret avengers after all hank mccoy is working for steve so is that a key fact he managed to not bring up with his boss after he took offense in the kind of force cyclops was having them use in second coming. Speaking of which i guess i'll use this time to say - i hope steve upholds his word and expels Iron Man from the team , though with the movie coming out of course it wouldn't stick - until then i think the best team would be
Thor, Bucky Cap, hawkeye, Ms Marvel,RED hulk Spider woman- never any need to have spider man and woman on the same team however scarlet witch and Vision would be on board in place of spider woman and red hulk if it was up to me , which is saying alot consider i'd kick the ross hulk
SPIDER MAN - ok caught up on this big time thing i was missing an issue inbetween which fleshed things out with Kingpin, black cat, Octavius and co- mmm think the avengers thing is better handled in new avengers and left as easter eggs in amazing- still spider man as a team player doesn't work for me , nor thing or wolverine as an avenger - the art is better than hulk but a lil calvin and hobbs for me.
Avenger's academy - maybe its Tigra but is feels like west coast avengers to me , not to say its not a fun book,
thunderbolts - has its moments vs hyperion could be fun i don't think the squadron supreme really belongs on earth , i would have as show to get them off the planet but think they would be a great addition to make the cosmic brand more fun, they need some good old spandex fun out there in all there kree malarky
Brightest day - same complaint i have read in other places and then again we run into the problem i often have with dc which is a cosmic mish mash you can't follow -the hawk people story line lost me on the love dragon- the aqua man segment is the strongest hands down , i didn't see black manta cutting off Aurthur's hand even with the redundancy aside -would like to see more done with some of these characters in a more cohesive fashion, i similar problem with green lantern-so far with dc teen titans might be the most approachable book, i need to plow into some green lantern trades , flash never does anything for me , young justice even seem more cohesive than alot of the parallel universe crap they con volute things with

broad scope

ok yet to pick up this weeks incredible hulk and avengers, but i did read some other comics this week , the big times , spider man and girl , i have to say the spider girl was a little more fun but it could be due to the fact the red hulk was in it , she didn't fight him as much as run from him in hopes to survive though he was under some sort of spell speaking gibberish , he beat the ff's but pretty quick like , and don't get me started on the johnny storm death. Spider-man wasn't bad , i did question the sonic basis of hobgoblins powers and how he mopped the floor with spidey requiring him to make the new stealth suit, black cat's appearance was well placed , i guess it's a similar take on when spidey made the suit to fight electro , it was fun not as enthralling as the am azing use to be for me back in the 80's , the whole Puma saga , firestorm getting his butt kicked etc,
trying to get hooked into the cape its a little slow to draw me in mainly because you know how i feel about super heroes with no powers .

2011

well having seen the over view whats being published - hulk is going to get silly by April, skaar is getting his own series focusing on him in the savage land . this looks like it is heading in the much needed direction of having banner fly solo, the whole entourage of Hulks is getting silly. Thor is really getting messed up, similar to what happened with the Hulk title when it got turned into the incredible Hercules, but the title is changing back to journey into mystery focusing on Loki, and thor getting a new solo book .

Ok most recent comics , the chaos war Hulk tie arc, ends a show down with his day Jarella shows up, all action goes to show unlike thor things can be smashed and you can still tell a story and last time i checked that was the reason i started reading comics in the first place, if i wanted dan brown i would read dan brown , or david icke for that matter, Thor another issue and nothing gets hit with a hammer , sure Tyr and balder slice up red inter dimensional guys , who when built up this much was rather anti climatic, ok they killed Balder with a special gun , if odin comes back and gets shot with the same gun , the book will go into the nearest trash can , the story has inched forward seems like it could have been told in two issues and moved along , going to do a reread on it when i am bored and want to take it to the next level to see if i missed something that hasn't been brought out in the other issues - oh yeah loki gets scared and jumps in a car to high tail it out and ends up on Thor's shoulders to face more sci fi castles - talk at the comic book is asgard is full of aliens in the movie not gods- if this is so , whats the point of being a thunder god really, with hulk lots happened and i got the action by it felt busy and redundant maybe with to many players on the field and not in the good siege way , and thor continues to drag , i would rather have it like hulk than what fraction is doing but balance seems to be the key here

first of the year

got a little catching up to do as writing in other forms has drawn me away from this page . ok thor creeps along they bring Loki back , it makes sense gods don't stay dead but the recent chaos king arch marvel seems to be using it to clean up their mistakes, killing off character can it really be taken seriously in comics if so can we not keep some one in their grave , just when i thought it was safe to mourn the abomination and doc sampson we get them back as a result of the chaos king doing a darkest night.fora new abomination maybe caused rick jones to mutate and go bad ? but the matter at hand is the recent incredible hulks has been more entertaining than the hulk, red hulk has yet to get a fair shake , parker might have a better chance than loeb, the art work in the book is distractingly bad , maybe heavier ink might be the answer , the art work in the incredible i'm a big fan of , though a bulkier hulk is due ,after all he is the hulk. avengers is now part of mu pull list because a the red hulk is now sort of a member , and of course there's thor , the most recent issue seemed to be filler for the bigger arch with the hood getting a hold of the infinity gems ,the art work continues to be a not to my taste, every one looks rounded off like a lego , the story could go either way .

in other shelf glances and quick perusals , the new dark knight book is off to a good start , the art superior to the story , but alas it was in my i have been reading comics forever speed read, avengers academy and thunderbolts seem to have some promise , where she-hulks is a little juvenile, like the art the story is a scorched earth clean up picking up the last big world war hulks pieces , which in looking back at 2010 looks to go down as the year i tried to forget hulked out heroes existed, though the character as a whole seems to be taken a little more seriously, . in reaching further back i have been reading a few trades to play catch up on titles i neglected , which as most of you know would be most , i read x-men utopia - the x-men's part in dark reign , i liked the dark avengers vs the x-men, we had sentry vs namor which i think would have been a shorter fight on land , where colossus vs venom should have had the russian dominating , daken vs the girls was ..eh , the whole ares thing with gambit was silly as well, and i thought the iron patriot would have done better - though magneto would have made him a mute point
overall entertaining , super man the year one or whatever - was good art - meh story - this whole alternate universe thing is a cop out and that goes for ultimates as well- if you want to give your spin on classic story lines do it the way true grit was a re-make rather than let me in , it can be done in continuity with a tip of the hat, comics have spun variations of the major stories with the major characters thats why the greatness in adding to the myth is such a work of art when it is done right - so lets not take the hollywood route