Wolvie: 1st class #6 - Rated 9 - This is just good fun stuff. Really harkins back to classic X-men. Wolvie is trying to watch Hockey while Kitty is having a sleep over. Great fun.

Wolverine #68 - Rated 8 - So Hawkeye and Wolvie go to recue Hawkeyes daughter "Spider-#####" from the new Kingpin. They bust in and free her and she immediatly kills Kingpin... and then smacks the heck out of her dad. Seems she wants to run the place! Wolvie prepares to kick butt...

Avengers Init #16 - Rated 8 - Skrull Kill Krew! 3D man joins them as they go to track downand kill Skrull. It's hilarious. I mean.. Skrull Burgers.. Meanwhile, Ant-Man learns Pym is a skrull!

Ult Spidy #125 - Rated 7 - Good Bendis dialogue again. I fear this book would suffer if he ever leaves it. Venom escapes and Spidy fights him. The symbiote then leaves Eddie and rebounds with Parker! Both are not happy. Plus Beetle is up to something.

Runaways #1 - Rated 9 - I've been looking foward to this. I think the art is just to cartoony. It takes away from the seriousness. Anyways, the kids come back to LA and stay at another Pride house/base. Chase is made to go get a job so they have cash and he gets a job with a radio personality. Who may have powers and is bad. Also Karo's alien race people come to find her and do more bad things. Good stuff, needs new art.

I really enjoyed Avengers Init this week.

This is the other stuff I've read so far -

Ultimate Fantastic Four #57 - Rated 7
"I refuse to be rescued by you, Reed. At least if Sue does it there's kind of an erotic frisson."
So Agatha Harkness and the Salem Seven have kidnapped Johnny so they can use his heat to spawn their multiplication and hatch the other Hydra eggs. Namor has rescued Sue and takes her back to the Baxter Building, where they get some supplies and pick up Reed and Ben. Namor doesn't understand how Sue likes an inferior being like Reed (even though they're broken up right now). Josie and the other kids at Nursery Two try and fight back against the Seven, but lose and get captured. Sue and Namor and Reed and Ben show up and mount a rescue. Sue uses her scientific knowledge to save Johnny and activate a catalyst in the Seven that will cause them all to explode. And it's going to be a big explosion. Everyone runs, but Sue can't find Reed. Namor says Reed ran ahead already, but he's actually unconscious behind them. He wakes up as the Seven begin to explode, but somebody has seen gone back and found him. The explosion is huge, but there's a bubble in the middle of it that goes untouched. Sue and Reed are making out inside one of her force fields.
A good end to an okay story. Still not feeling the art.

Kick-### #4 - Rated 7
"These two were the real deal... and I was just a prick in a Halloween costume."
Kick-### watches as the 10-year old girl with the swords (Hit-Girl) kills everyone else in the room with them. He then tries to follow as she leaps from rooftop to rooftop, meeting up with her partner Big Daddy. The two then swing to their escape vehicle. He's in awe of their performance, but also really freaked out about everyone who just got killed. He decides to give up being a superhero for good, and is relieved when the news doesn't connect him with the killings at all. He keeps pretending to be gay to try and get close to a girl at school, and finds out a kid at the comic store is a mobster's son. Big Daddy and Hit-Girl are seriously affecting the mobster's business, and he wants them taken care of. But they've already caught another of his men and gotten the info they need from him. Then they crush him in a car compactor.
The series started great, but this issue just feels like an exercise in violence.

Immortal Iron Fist #19 - Rated 8
"The Ch'I-Lin seeks out every Iron Fist. Some die keeping the beast away from the egg. Others simply... die."
In West Texas, 1878, at the age of 33, the Iron Fist of the time fights a man with a monster head and gets his heart ripped out. In the present, yesterday was Danny's 33rd birthday and now he's fighting a man with a monster head in Central Park. He gets his butt kicked but has time to page Luke, Misty, and Colleen, who manage to save him. The monster man escapes, and regroups. He calls his contact inside Rand Corp. to find out if Danny has returned yet. In the present, the egg of Shou-Lao, being watched by Davos the Steel Serpent, stirs. It knows there is a disturbance. In another flashback, this time to 1934, Orson Randall runs into the beast. He runs. Since it can track his chi wherever he goes, he suppresses it by living in a heroin-induced stupor for a while. Back at Rand Corp. Danny tries to meditate and read the Book of Iron Fist for more info. But his secretary interrupts because there's a disturbance at the School of Thunder Danny runs in Harlem.

A good week so far, and I still have more to read.

Black Panther 40: "Lay Down Your Weapons or The Queen Dies!"

The first issue was great, so was this, There are Skrulls that Black Panther didn't detected and they kidnap Storm. Black Panther spends the first half of the issue Battling the Bullseye, Hercules, Ironfist, Wolverine Skrull, he eventually does a flip over him and pulls out his eye. Good Fight, Afterwords Panther is Confronted with Thing/Hulk/Juggernaut and Asgardian Super Skrulls.

Thunderbolts 123: "The Avengers, Fantastic Four, All the big hitters can't trust each other, they are probably crippled with fear, but we have an advantage, we don't trust each other in the first place."

Norman turns Captain Skrullvell to our side, and then leads the Thunderbolts to Washington DC to defend the Capitol, Sense Starktech is disabled and Oscorp products are still fuctioning, (The Zeus for example) Norman declares they are the best hope. They start out well, but The Skrulls had planned for them playing to their weaknessess and mistrust, with a "Classic Thunderbolts" Super Skrull to clean up the party. The Issue ends with Moonstoon attempting to sell out to the skrulls.

I don't see why SI is such a problem as we're reminded that Black Panther can easily demolish beings so far outside of his power class it's not even a challenge to him. I mean, they should just be able to have him go straight through to the Skrull Queen and win the day while the heroes gape in awe.

Mighty Avengers #17 - Seems there has been problems with the Hank Pym Skrulls. The Empire seems to have had to replace the Pym model a few times. This issue we get a taste of what happens when the programmee begins to not agree and sees weakness within the agenda. Felt like a bit of a throw away but I am guessing Mar-vell over in Thunderbolts isn't enough to show some of the chinks in the Skrull mind meld.

OK, up until this week Secret Invasion crossovers weren't really bothering me, even though I have no interest in the main series. Black Panther wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be with Jason Aaron, the Initiative had way too many elements continued into comics I'm not reading, and even Nova was a bit of a let-down. I guess the notion of Super-Skrulls with any combination of Earth hero has already gone from a cool alternative to a lazy overused gimmick that feels like something I would have made up when I was 12.

I'll try to do some full reviews some time tomorrow, but I can tell you that I wish I would have just skipped most of them this week.

No Nova anyone?

I'll give it an 8, but it is because I like Richard dealing with the fallout of the Worldmind being offline. Also, he falls prey to a trap and is rescued by an awkward ally. The final page looks a little predictable... but I know Darkhawk is coming into the mix, so I really couldn't be happier with DnA right now.

I got 5 Marvel comics this week. Three were Secret Invasion crossovers. Two would have been helped by an invasion of new artists.

Daredevil #110 - rated 7.5
"As far as traps go, this is a good one."

Cruel & Unusual concludes. Daredevil's trap-escape efforts are interposed with the EMT response to the shooting from last issue. This makes for a great intro to the story. The action is less intense for the rest of the issue, but drama and suspense abide. Big Ben Donovan gets a jailhouse visit and Sam North's motives are revealed.

Nova #16 - rated 6.5
"The Skrulls have gone to war, Rider. You shouldn't trust anyone."

Secret Invasion unleashes a wave of interference in otherwise great titles this week. Of the ones I picked up, this was the best. With the wave of endless Super-Skrulls, the original pops up in this issue. We find out what he's been doing and how he views the invasion. K'lrt fans ought to check this out if they haven't. We get deeper yet into his role in the new Skrull empire and learn significant things about his character.

Avengers: The Initiative #16 - rated 6
- "You've never seen Star Wars? The greatest movie of all time? What, were you living in a cave?"
- "Possibly a bunker."

Once again, a Secret Invasion crossover. How much longer is this going to be? Anyhow, 3D Man's glasses start working again and he hooks up with the Skrull Kill Krew. Their new mission: kill the Initiative skrull infiltrators. Afterwards, maybe a barbeque. War Machine's story arc in this comic ends awkwardly as he flies off into the Iron Man: Agent of SHIELD comic. Another fight in Times Square (or is it the same one?) pops in giving Crusader an opportunity to step up. Ant-Man spies on people, Blitzschlag says creepy things, and Komodo gets more practice regenerating body parts. Even though Secret Invasion is seriously starting to get on my nerves, Dan Slott keeps the familiar characters fun to read.

The Immortal Iron Fist #18 - rated 5
"I've had 75 years to study his weaknesses, master. And I'm looking at the greatest ones right now."

I can't tell if I like this story. The art is so terrible that it makes even Misty's afro hard to look at. Iron Fist is being hunted by some mysterious foe who kills all Iron Fists when they turn 33, Danny's current age. The hunter has a creepy visual gimmick that neither Russ Heath, the flashback artist, nor Travel Foreman, the regular artist pull off well. For what its worth: we find out a bit about what Davos has been doing and we also find out why Orson Randall survived past 33.

Black Panther #40 - rated 4
"These creatures do not deserve a death at my hands. And yet...I am a generous Skrull."

This comic has the worst of both worlds - a Secret Invasion crossover and terrible art! Actually, the art is serviceable in most parts until the Black Panther has to deal with the Super-Skrulls (yes,...them again), whose legs are all teensy-tiny. If I had shape change powers, I'd make my legs at least remotely proportionate, but maybe that's just me. Oh, and I have to throw this one out there, even though it might be more of a complaint about the overall direction of the title than a criticism of this specific issue - is anyone else annoyed at the stylistic decision to have Black Panther swinging a sword around all the time?

Yet at the end of the issue, he still loses...

Thats what I like about whats going on in Black Panther, Fighting is not how that problems are being resolved.


it doesnt matter who you kill, Combat is not the answer.

They are compensating for Lucas Little's long leg/short body sculpts. It all averages out.

New Avengers #44 had one of the more gratuitous scenes I've seen in a comic for a few weeks. A clone of Mr Fantastic is forced to watch a clone of the Invisible Woman get killed in front of him and then watch a clone of Franklin get threatened. An unnecessary scene in a comic that wasn't necessary at all. It fills in how the Skrulls figured out how to get past Reed's tech. I can see why Mighty Avengers actually had a purpose to the ongoing story, but this one feels like it's spinning its wheels.

Amazing Spider-Man #569 was actually sold out this week at my local comic shop. Thankfully a friend of mine nabbed a copy and I got a chance to read the next part in what is shaping up to be the first great BND story. While its pace is somewhat slow, it's great to read a comic that's actually starting to pull together all the threads in the BND stories. Anyway, this one has Peter being threatened by Norman Osborn to call out Spider-Man. Peter decides to take the fight to Norman and invades his new residence while the Thunderbolts are searching New York for him. Spider-Man threatens Norman and is called away when he finds out Venom is near the homeless shelter where Eddie Brock is hanging out. Since Aunt May works there, Peter heads out to stop Venom who has decided to attack Eddie. It looks like the symbiote is going to reattach itself to Brock until he suddenly turns into Anti-Venom. Lame name aside, it was a fun read.

Also, Runaways had awesome art and an awesome beginning. Hopefully it'll wash out the horrible taste of Whedon's. Also, Marvel Comics Presents finished off in a story I can only assume was written specifically for me and it basically told me to go **** myself. I'm glad that title is over

So... what you're telling us is... you have a thing for the Man-Thing ? And he spoke to you and told you to **** yourself ? Man, last week it's Orin and the Hulk in drag at a singles bar, now this week it's you and Man-Thing.

Who said anything about Man-Thing? I was talking about the Weapon Omega story. You've just got Man-Things stuck in your head. :speechles

8-28-2008...Mr_JTR gets owned! ha ha

Leftover book madness!!!

X-men Legacy Xavier still tries to find himself, while Rogue has a heart to heart with Mystique (who's personality is within her). Xavier puts a mental "suggestion" in Cyclops to have him at a secluded place to talk. Cyclops is still angry with Xavier for "rearranging" the furniture in his and his' fellow teammates minds whenever Xavier wants to. We are shown the hellfire club where they seem to have some cheesier new members (having 2 spots left open): Black Queen Mercedes and a man named Castlemere? Xavier goes on to tell Cyclops how Sinister had been watching him and jean since they were kids and must of influenced cyclops big time since he named his first born Nathan. With Cyclops now knowing that Xavier had Mr. Sinister in his mind after his "death" he decides to use his "ace" that he brought with him for a nasty mind battle: Emma Frost!


X-force Archangel is still on a rampage, killing all the other "angels". Bastion and Mathew's fight gets interrupted as Bastion gets clawed by Wolvie. Meanwhile Rahne still tries to make piece with her stubborn father. He still says he doesn't love her yada yada and makes the unfortunate mistake of talking #### while standing in the shadow of Angel's feather wings. This triggers Rahne's berserk mode: yummies! Risman runs away while Wolvie is fighting Bastion, where he finds Eli "draining" (or killing) the phalanx. Eli dennounces his god in which Risman shoots him (bullets pass right through him). Eli rushes Riseman and turns into this montrous creature (Think the enemy in the movie Blade 2), but gets interrupted by X-23, who has shot at both men (killing riseman, but the bullet passes through Eli). Eli goes on to beat her ### , but shes saved by Warpath. Eli turns to dust and leaves, 3 angel creations get away and Wolverine comes face to face with the phalanx controlled mutant killers (Grayton Creed, pierce, etc.) All the baddies in the book escape and Angel lays atop a mound of bloodied soldiers: his feathered wings restored. In the aftermath Rahne's mind is shattered as she has to come to terms with eating her dad and Angel struggles to keep his Metal wings in check. Despite this Cyclops wants to keep the team together to go after the phalanx infected humans!