Ex Machina came out. Good stuff. Very very interesting ending. Anybody else?
Yeah, I read that last week. Seemed okay; I might buy it, especially now Stormwatch: Team Achilles is off the list (without issue 24 
).
She-Hulk: My favorite book this week. Spidey sues the Bugle for defamation of character. Some great lines in it, and I’m actually starting to feel sorry for Pug. And I’m waiting with bated breath for some Mayhew covers 
Captain Marvel: Nice wrap up to the final story arc. I sort of saw the ending coming, but thought it would take place a little earlier in time. If you read it, you’ll know what I mean.
Ultimate Spider-Man: I don’t remember where Curt Conners learned Pete’s ID, but that boy better watch it. Everyone and his brother is figuing it out.
Ultimate Fantastic Four: Ellis gets full credit for writing from here on. And actually I found it a little dull. Doom is thus far not as interesting a character as his Marvel 616 counterpart. But time will tell.
Amazing Spider-Man: Glad to see this story line wrap up. I prefer Spidey’s origin tied up in science, not mysticism. Still it was a pretty good ending.
My comic shop is having a 20% off everything in the store sale Saturday! I expect to be broke for the following week.
My main store never has sales more than 10% - and that, rarely.
**She-Hulk ** was excellent, as you say. I’m torn on the art inside… but the writing is top-notch.
**Captain Marvel ** - I liked it… but I’m supposed to care about Magus taking Moondragon? shrug Where’s Adam Warlock these days, I wonder?
**Ex Machina ** - As previously indicated, an excellent book… I’m not sure I like the Tarantino-esque sequencing of events, but it achieves a powerful twist at the end without feeling cheap.
**Ultimate FF ** - See, I really like this issue. Revelations about Reed’s stretchy anatomy or lack thereof; insight into the new Doom character…
One of the issues I bought this week just floored me with a line… but I can’t remember which. Oh, well… I guess I’ll have to re-read them all. Shucks!
Could it have been in She-Hulk when a lawyer asks Spidey “Why do you think Jameson hates you so much?” and her replies “I’m not sure but I think it might be…because I’m black.”
I laughed loudly when I read that, then had to hide my comic under my desk before anyone came around to see what I was laughing at (being at work and all)
That was a good line, Max… but I don’t think that was it.
Ultimate FF–Good but jeezus the pace is glacial. C’mon guys, it took you 7 issues to do 22 pages worth of FF #1. Let’s pick the pace up a tiny bit, 'k?
Ultimate Spidey–An ethical scientist (Doc Connors) in a comic! Wow! I like that! Good issue andthe last image is creepy.
Wolverine–A) I hate that Sabretooth isn’t Wolvie’s dad anymore. B) I love Rucka. He’s the main reason I’m buying this.
Thor–Ok, the dialogue is um…not good…and I liked the old storyline dammit.
Runaways–That was a surprise! :eek: (It also doesn’t make sense. Why would that character have been the traitor?)
Academy X–I’m enjoying this a lot. It’s mindless fluff, and that’s fine!
FF–I like Waid and Kessel, and they’ve outdone themselves here. I really like their take on the Wingless Wizard.
Daredevil–GOOD stuff. If Bendis ever leaves (and I hope he doesn’t) I’d like to see Rucka’s take on the character. But Bendis rocks.
Whichever Super-book just came out-Loathed it. But I’ve always loathed the “relevance” movement. Rucka is not an appropriate writer for Superman, IMO.
Captain Marvel–There are so many ethical problems with this that it’s not even funny. Also, if that method works, Cap was unnecessarily brutal. Why didn’t he envision teaching/training/raising the kid differently as opposed to his solution? Bah.
Amazing Spider-Man–1) Dammit! I liked him. 2) That was it? Whadda letdown. Well written and everything, but it was too quick and I just wasn’t satisfied. Plus, I liked you-know-who.
Another Nail–I have no idea what’s goin’ on. But isn’t it purdy to look at?
JSA Apparently a large part of this arc is to explain why Hal doesn’t just snap his fingers and fix things over in Identity Crisis. That said, it’s good.
Here’s the biggie question.
I liked Mary Jane a lot. The writing was excellent, the dialogue was natural and the art beautiful. I can live with the fact that it’s set more-or-less in the present, rather than in the Sixties (a-la the way Marvels was) even if I think it’s a mistake to do so. I understand their reasoning. And I like the writing, I liked the art. But…there were so many huge contiuity errors that it was distracting.
I’m not talking minor stuff like the writer saying Peter can’t eat wheat, when in Amazing Fantasy #15, Peter eats wheat-cakes. No one cares about stuff like that. But…Harry didn’t go to Peter’s high-school. Harry and Gwen went to some other school and first met Peter and the gang at ESU somewhere around Spidey #25. Ditto with MJ. Peter didn’t meet her until after his first semester in college, in Spidey #39–and it’s one of the most famous panels in Spidey history (“Face it Tiger! You just hit the jackpot!” ). Liz was looooooong gone by the time that Peter met MJ. Current continuity (and I have a problem with this too, but it’s currently cannon) says that MJ knew that Peter was Spidey long before their actual meeting which is why she avoided him for so long.
I accept that I have a weird memory for conituity. I don’t expect most people to remember that Myxtzpltk turned a US Submarine into a giant banana in Superman #154 (give or take). But these problems are much bigger than that. It would be like having a Superman story set in the mainstream DC universe that showed Clark and Lois having grown up together.
At what point should continuity be jettisoned? SOME contiuity is necessary, but at what point do you think it should be jettisoned? To me, there were just too many story foul-ups in Mary-Jane. It kept distracting me. Opinions?
Fenris
JSA # 62 - I was a bit disappointed. First of all, I found it overly trite that Mister Terrific is
Sorry, I accidentally hit reply too early…
as I was saying, I found it trite that Mister Terrific’s lack of faith is suddenly “cured” by a near-death experience. I also wasn’t crazy about Hal Jordan giving into the spirit of vengeance. I guess it’s sort of heroic because he did it in order to save his friends, but it pretty much negated whatever therapy Reverend Cramer was attempting to perform, and that had seemed like an important part of the story. I can’t help but think that this was a last-minute change in order to set up the Hal-returns-as-GL thing that’s supposed to happen soon. In addition, the parallel story at the beginning of these issues, essentially re-telling the origin of the Jim Corrigan Spectre, doesn’t appear, in retrospect, to have had anything to do with the current story.
In sum, a disappointing ending to a story that started out quite interestingly.
Who can tell me about subscriptions? Marvel currently has a fantastic offer for Ult. X-Men and Ult. Spidey ($1.54 an issue). But how do they get it to you without, as Newman once said, “crease, crumple, cram”?
And I just learned about Y: The Last Man, and I’m off to read everyone’s reviews of it in the last couple weeks - that’s a book that seems right up my alley.
I stopped my last subscription four years ago, I believe.
They were typically mailed with a lightweight cardstock board, and in a plastic wrap. There was occasionally some curvature (since the whole thing’s a bit too large to fit in a conventional mailbox) but usually no major damage.
Complete purchase list :
Transformers : Generation One #5
Cable and Deadpool #3, #4
Ultimate FF #7
She Hulk #4
Captain Marvel #24
Ex Machina #1
Seaguy #2 - the classic bit I remembered this week was form here. Seaguy randomly stumbles on the ruins of Atlantis… and says to himself “There must be a tourist information office somewhere.” The next panel shows him reading a typical foldout tourist map … other discarded ones floating in the water around him.
Dr. Blink : Superhero Shrink #0 - mostly reprints from the Dork Tower backup feature, but all good stuff.
Birds of Prey #68
Outsiders #13 - Didn’t Lexcorp lose the Metropolis office? I thought Bats mentioned in S/B that Waynetech had bought it. Another classic exchange here (this is an extremely well-dialogued book) between Jinx and Psimon as they head out of the Metropolis Lexcorp building.
Justice League : Another Nail #2 - Phantom Stranger - set up to look vaguely villainous? Oooh. I like.
And from the back-issue box :
Son of Ambush Bug #3 of 6. - I’d been missing this issue for a while.
I mention it only to raise the awareness of those philistines… er, new comic book readers that may not be aware of the illustrious bug.
Because he was the one you least expected it to be! Going back over the issues though, it was pretty obvoius, esecially when we see the first few pages of issue #1, just like his parents, he gets everything through cunning wihtout need any powers/equipment. What’ll be interesting is to see what he does now that he’s got it all.
Just a footnote here, everyone … I’ll be out of town this Thursday, so I won’t be able to start the usual thread on the proper day. I’ll leave it to other worthies.