Hey all, welcome again to another installment of my weekly comic book reviews. This is a jump from last week. Instead of four issues, its once again 6 issues. That seems to be my motif, its always either 4 or 6 issues. Lol . Anyways this was a such a great week for releases. We see Spidey's past coming into light, The Avenger students on a field trip, The Brightest day entering a new darkness, Power Girl's secret discovered, Steve Rogers in a new epic look, and The THUNDERBOLTS in the most epic issue to date. With that lets get started.
Amazing Spider-man #640
Story: The third part of the One Moment in Time event. Parker and MJ talk more about the events at the hospital. MJ goes back to see her aunt and is attacked by a killer, and Spider-man rushes to save her life. He finds the killer and MJ with a bullet in her head. Spidey goes see Doctor Strange and he heals MJ as Spidey makes a plea to D.S. To make it so that he never revealed himself during the events of Civil War. Doc leaves and seeks a council with 2 familiar Illuminati to decide Parker's future.
Review: This is by far the best issue of the event, its finally getting to the best part..the revelation of what happens to Parker as well as MJ, Aunt May, and everyone else in his life. The best part was seeing the dramatic alternate reality of what happened if MJ was in trouble rather than aunt May. There is a person in red which seems to have some influence over what is occurring, will it be all revealed in part 4, lets hope so.
Art: This is much like the last issue where the parts of the present are done nicely and the past is done with another artist. It actually works in this case considering these events have taken place, so the imagery of it would be more or less skewered. I loved the coloring of Spidey in a few shots, very well done with this issue.
Grade: I give this issue an A-
Avengers Academy #3
Story: The students go onto a field trip to the RAFT. They are taken there by Hank Pym and the other teachers for a “scared straight” program. Three of the characters find this as an opportunity to seek out Norman Osborn and get out answers from him or kill him. We get some more back story with Hazmat's origins and how Osborn made her to who she is now. We see the kids interacting with a few members of the Thunderbolts and a quick cameo Valkyrie talking to the girls, which is a funny moment. The issue actually co-incised with the issue of the THUNDERBOLTS. The three kids find Osborn and are about to ask him questions.
Review: This was a very great issue, we are getting a much more focused story line, we are getting more origins of each students, so far issue 1 was Veil, issue 2 was Finesse, and now 3 is with Hazmat. So by issue 6 we should have all the characters origins told. I read this after reading THUNDERBOLTS and there was this really interesting point where having another writer doing the same characters but done with in another title. The use of the THUNDERBOLTS in this was spot-on and we do have a great cross-over.
Art: This is another was of those colorful titles. Every character has such a distinct style and color set, leaving no two characters the same. When they are in the raft, we do see some great looking villains in their cells. Although Juggernaut does seem a tad “slimmer” in this issue, and Moonstone does seem different. All in all this is a very well done issue.
Grade: I give this issue a B+
Brightest Day #8
Story: I find it amazing to believe that this issue has to compete with issue 7, which to me is by far the best of Johns Lantern works. This issue does a focus on J'onn and M'gann finding out who this mysterious green martian is. Also the issue deals with Hawk-man discovering the history of hawk-world and he has gained an army of lion men. Also we get Hawk-woman reuniting with her mother, but not in the best of circumstances. That's all I'm gonna say for now, the ending is too big to spoil
Review: As I mentioned, this is a hard issue to follow up on after the greatness of issue #7, that issue had all the resurrected seeing that all their new life objectives/mission. Johns work is very well done with this issue by allowing us to keep focus on a few rather than more. We get only 3 characters to have a focus on, rather than giving us 5 or 6 per issue. I can't wait to see all the big revelations come to past as we get closer and closer to this “BIG” event.
Art: Its spot on as always. The colors of each character are amazing and the look of each new character we meet. There are moments of “violence” but its over the top, its no Superboy Prime gore.
Grade: I give this issue an A
Power Girl #15
Story: Continuing the fight with the giant purple man, Power girl asks for the assistance of a member of her offices, known for his renowned hacking skills. He discovers that the thing is only programmed to only last for 4 hours and then power down. Power Girl gives it her all and holds out for all 4 hours. She is unable to claim her prize as a Man takes the giant purple guy away. The Man is shown to be Max, most likely Maxwell Lord. As Karen is on the Phone, the man who helped knows her secret and tells her up front leaving us on a cliffhanger
Review: I really liked this issue and I'm getting a much better look and feel of the new team behind Power Girl. I liked how we do get a quick history of who P.G. Is fighting. I liked the banter she has with the male cohort in order to defeat this new foe. The twist that Max is apart of this series was a good turn in it all but he is more of a shadow figure at the moment. Which its funny that Max seems more like his older version rather than his black shirt and super agent look, but more of the business man he was before. A minor complaint but still, I can't wait to see how he is gonna be implemented in the future installments.
Art: As with the other series, this is another well done issue with its art. The characters have real human expressions. The body frames aren't out of proportion, which for Power Girl, it feels very “spot-on” in all the right places*wink*. The giant purple dude was huge and looked like a real menace and his two forms are great contrasts.
Grade: I give this issue an A+
Secret Avengers #4
Story: The epic finally of the Mars Mission. Steve Rogers must takeout the corrupted version of Nova. The only way to do that is for Rogers to put on Nova's worldmind helmet, he turns into CAPTAIN NOVA!!!!!(unofficial title). He and Corrupted Nova duke it out, while O'Grady is out to stop kamikaze bombers going into a warp zone and blow up Mars, to prevent the evil coming out. As the fight comes to a conclusion Steve Rogers comes to discover that Nick Fury is behind it as well.
Review: this is truly an epic of epic comics, you can't say anything negative about it. We see Steve Rogers wielding a cosmic force and a new outfit, which is only temporary, but still it was super awesome. The characters are amazing in this. Everyone has great interaction with one another. The main focus is Ant-man and Rogers saving the day in their own special way. Brubakers work here is top notch and gives such gravity to these characters and they can still into a joke every now and then.
Art: Deodato's work here is a true service to the concept. The series is like a super hero noir, covert black ops style. We see the characters and yet we do get moments where even in close ups, we never see them all the way. We never get a 100% view of the characters. They are always in the shadows and the coloring really shows that off really really well.
Grade: I give this issue an A+
THUNDERBOLTS #146
Story: The second half of the “scared straight” tie-in, this time with the THUNDERBOLTS(yes I must use all caps..they are that awesome). The first half gives us a finish to what occurred in the caves. Crossbones, Man-thing, and Ghost possessed Mach V take out all the mutated agents. Crossbones follows one and gets way to close to some of the terrigen crystals and huffs a huge dose of its mist. As they return to the Raft it gets blasted by an EMP and it causes the prisoners to break free. Juggernaut sees two creatures trying to rip a guard in two, but he leads them to an “escape”. Luke Cage and the Warden do the most EPIC THING OF EPIC EPICNESS!!!!...all I can say is that they tear S@#T up at the RAFT. We do see that Troll girl helping out. The prison is back to normal and we prepare for the THUNDERBOLTS to head into the SHADOWLAND!!!!!
Review: OH MY GOD THIS IS THE GREATEST ISSUE I EVER READ IN MY LIFE!!!! I loved this issue, by far its strongest, with every mention of the world. It reminds of it being a pure fist pumping, balls out insane battle royale this series seems best fit for. The scenes with Cage and the Warden are the best thing to see put on paper. If this is how they do the characters before SHADOWLAND, OH MY GOD its be amazing when they enter and leave.
Art: The art is just amazing. Every aspect of this issue is spot on. We have moments of pure violence and gore in the caves to the Cage and Warden scenes that are reminiscent to Old boys hallway battle. The character art is amazing at how BRUTAL they make the characters look, the big guys are huge and bulky while the smaller characters are much slimmer and well proportioned, whereas Cage fits into both, hes best considered to be a middle character. This an issue to behold, its not Alex Ross, JRJR, or even Dave Gibbons....but hey for this series, its just.....AMAZING
Grade: I give this issue an A++
Well that's all for today folks, We got some great issues this week. Next week is only 3 or 4...depending on if THOR releases both #613 and #614 on the same day, so they can prepare for Fractions run. Well til next week, Aki87 OUT!!!!