All-New Wolverine #5

Wolverine and her clone sisters Gabby, Zelda, and Bellona are on the run from Alchemax Genetics, which created the clones and wants them back. Zelda is dying as the nanites in her bloodstream start to tear her apart, so Laura breaks everyone into Hank Pym’s lab so she can steal one of his Ant-Man suits. The Wasp shows up soon and agrees to help — she and Laura are shrunk down to microscopic size so they can go beat up teensy-weensy robots. But Alchemax has finally managed to track the clones down, and someone isn’t going to walk away from this.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The action was, ehh, okay — I’d be fine with a moratorium for a few years on the fairly tired trope of getting shrunk to fight nanobots. But this is all wonderful just for Laura wearing an actual fer-realz Ant-Man suit and for Janet van Dyne calling Dr. Strange clear in another dimension just to bawl him out for teleporting crazy people onto her property without asking permission first.

The Ultimates #4

The giant monster fight on the cover does not actually appear in any shape, form, or fashion inside the comic itself.

The Ultimates have made it into the Neutral Zone, and the Blue Marvel has discovered an old friend waiting for them — Conner Sims, former friend turned crazed supervillain. As Anti-Man, Sims had enough power to hold off most of the superheroes in the world, and he’d been responsible for the death of Adam Brashear’s wife. So Adam, Captain Marvel, and Monica Rambeau head out into the void to — kill Sims? Save him? Not even our heroes are sure. Meanwhile, someone is recruiting the reborn Galactus to stop the Ultimates — and it may be someone far too powerful for anyone to resist.

Verdict: Thumbs up — but mainly because I always felt the Blue Marvel vs. Anti-Man confrontation needed more oomph to it. The rest of the story is, well, adequate.

The New Avengers #6

The Avengers from the future have traveled to the present to stop Moridun the octopus space wizard, who has secretly taken over Wiccan’s mind. In the future, after he becomes the Demiurge, Moridun is able to use Billy’s powers to take over or even destroy the world. Can the future Avengers stop him now? And will the present Avengers let them do it? Or does Billy still have a chance to save himself and to save the future?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The future Avengers are really pretty cool — we’ve already met Danielle Cage, Luke’s daughter, as the future Captain America, but we also have a merman in Iron Man armor, an older Teddy Altman, and a tiny Nova. But the best stuff in this comic takes place inside Billy Kaplan’s head — and in the new revised future. If they wanted this to be the last issue, the last couple pages would make for a great ending.

Bitch Planet #6

Last issue, Meiko Maki was murdered by the guards on Bitch Planet. In this issue, we learn who she was and what she did to piss off the Powers That Be. Her parents were secret rebels against Earth’s male-centric corruption. Her mother is a violin teacher — but her violin lessons are just a cover so she can teach girls forbidden subjects like math. And her father is a spaceship engineer who’s just made a not-so-accidental error on his latest design that would fatally sabotage a spacecraft. Unfortunately, his latest error has been caught by a colleague who plans to blackmail the family — he’ll help cover up the error in exchange for having sex with his daughters. But Meiko has her own plan to save her family, even if it dooms her to an early death on Bitch Planet.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story is really wonderful, the characterization is great. I love the violin lessons as cover for secret math class. And I must say, I’m becoming more and more amazed, happily amazed, by the devotion the series is shown by fans. Women getting the “NC” (Non-Compliant) tattoos from the comic in real life? Do you know of any other independent comic series that inspires fans like that? And I love the way the comic is now including short articles on feminism and related topics in the back pages. This comic is something special, and while I want to learn what happens next in the story, I also want to learn what happens next with the fandom.

The Totally Awesome Hulk #2

Amadeus, Maddy, She-Hulk, and Miles Morales meet up with Lady Hellbender, the Monster Queen of Seknarf Nine. She and her giant lizard mostly knock the Hulk around, mainly because Amadeus is a sexist dweeb. Maddy settles most of the problem, Amadeus loses control of his temper, Lady Hellbender reveals that she collects monsters to take them to her homeworld, and we catch a glimpse of next issue’s Big Bad.

Verdict: Ehh, thumbs down. I didn’t find myself particularly entertained, and I’m starting to wish this comic had Banner in it as something other than a flashback.

The Ultimates #3

Fresh off their success in evolving Galactus into a being who brings life to the universe instead of death, the Ultimates have just found out that the Shi’ar Empire is good and angry about the change in the Devourer. Meanwhile, it’s been discovered that too much time travel has caused severe damage to the space-time continuum, and in order to diagnose how bad the problem may be, the team will actually have to travel outside the universe in order to get a look at time from the outside. And once they make it to the Neutral Zone, the Blue Marvel discovers an old friend waiting for them.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Outstanding superheroic sci-fi, with wonderful characterization and art.

Alabaster: The Good, the Bad, and the Bird #1

Dancy Flammarion, the Southern possibly-crazy monster-hunting albino girl, is back. No, wait, actually, she’s not back. She’s dead, and apparently in Hell, which is an infinite blank space inhabited only by Dancy and, occasionally, her furious, vengeful angel. Dancy doesn’t want to be in Hell, but she’s also not too keen on the angel telling her that her life was worthless or a betrayal or something that should be renounced. And while Dancy is dead, shady underworld characters in the South, including a wealthy fixer and a couple of psychos wearing cute animal masks, celebrate her end. Good times are here again for the forces of evil…

Verdict: Thumbs up. I was so excited to see this. I got so much joy out of Caitlin R. Kiernan’s amazing Dancy Flammarion stories, and it’s great that, even with a new artist, the series is still maintaining the extremely high quality we’ve come to expect from it. Y’all get in on this one early, okay?

Harrow County #8

Emmy now knows for certain that her “sister” Kammi is thoroughly evil. She’s rousted up all the most evil of the haints in Harrow County and set them after Emmy to kill her, while she plans on killing Emmy’s father, just to hurt her a little bit more. Can Emmy and the few friendly haints on her side manage to get the better of Kammi and her ghostly army? And where does the girls’ mother come in?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Less low-key creepiness this time and more out-and-out supernatural war — but there’s still a lot of good to say for this story. A confrontation between the two sisters and their contrasting views of the world probably couldn’t end any other way…

All-New Hawkeye #2

In the future, Clint Barton and Kate Bishop have been betrayed by SHIELD and imprisoned by the Mandarin. And he’s also captured one of the super-psychic kids who’d helped cause the massacre of Mandarin’s people — and he wants the Hawkeyes to get the psychic to work for him so he can use him for his own weapon of mass destruction. But Kate has an ace in the hole — her ex-boyfriend and Kree superhero Noh-Varr, who’s much better equipped to deal with hordes of robots and the Mandarin’s powers. So what’s the Hawkeyes next move?

Verdict: Ehh, close enough to a thumbs up. I like the look of the Mandarin, but a lot of the story was just kinda nowhere. The surprise appearance of Marvel Boy was my favorite bit.

The Ultimates #2

The Ultimates have a plan to neutralize Galactus. It involves obtaining the giant mechanical “cradle” that originally transitioned Galen, the last surviving being of the previous universe, into the Devourer of Worlds of this universe. While the Black Panther keeps Galactus distracted with monologuing (the only attack that all supervillains respect), Monica Rambeau and America Chavez obtain the birthing chamber and teleport it to Galactus, then the rest of the team blast him inside the cradle — and what emerges, transformed, may look like Galactus — but it definitely doesn’t act like him anymore.

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s all fairly standard proactive superhero fare — but the final splash page certainly does sell the issue. It can’t last, of course, but it’ll be fun seeing how it all goes wrong.

Spider-Gwen #3

Gwen travels to the regular Marvel Universe because she’s stuck in adamantium handcuffs she can’t get off. Once the extremely pregnant Spider-Woman of our universe gets her free, it’s time for Gwen to head home, where Officer Ben Grimm has just been inducted to the NYPD’s anti-Spider-Woman task force. They suspect Captain George Stacy of being one of Spider-Woman’s assistants, because she’s rescued him twice — and others are suspecting there may be a connection, too, as Matt Murdock, blind attorney and rotten lieutenant to Wilson Fisk, pays Captain Stacy a visit.

Meanwhile, Gwen goes to see friends from school and runs into the long-lost Harry Osborn, one of her best friends, alongside the late Peter Parker. Unfortunately, Harry blames Spider-Woman for Peter’s death, just like everyone else — and he has plans for what he means to do about it.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent story, fun art, all kinds of great complications getting thrown into the blender. I still think Spider-Woman being pregnant is a bit out of left field, but her scenes with Gwen are really fantastic.

Starfire #7

Dick Grayson, Agent of SHIELD — um, Spyral or Spectre or whatever he’s an agent of — is in Florida tracking some bad guys. He disguises himself to get aboard a yacht — and as it turns out, Starfire is on the same boat, so he enlists her to help out. Will they be able to stop the villains, retrieve the secret package, and discover what kind of being is stalking Kory?

Verdict: Thumbs down. Sorry — I thought it was more than a bit dull.

Well, thanks to getting a ton of comics last week and being just plain bored with blogging lately, I’ve gotten way, way behind on my reviews. So let’s see how fast I can do a bunch of reviews…

Starfire #6

An alien bounty hunter pursues Starfire and isn’t shy about killing humans. Can Kory stop him, or is her head going on a pike?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good humor and action, very pretty art, and that cover is a solid winner.

Spider-Gwen #2

While tracking down the Lizards, Spider-Woman meets up with a much different Captain America than we know. Can Gwen handle the Lizards and Cap — while handcuffed?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun story. Loved the new version of Cap — complete with a full backstory! Now I want to read more about her adventures, too…

All-New Hawkeye #1

Another new number-one issue! MARRRRVEL! (shakes fist at sky) Most of our story is set in the future. Clint Barton is a washed-up old coot, and Kate Bishop is rich and bitter and pretty damn good at her job. They’re trying to make up for the mistakes of the past — and that means they’ll run afoul of the Mandarin.

Verdict: Ehh, good enough for a thumbs up. Artwork and personality conflict are what sell this story the best.

All-New Wolverine #1

Laura Kinney, better known as X-23 and Logan’s gender-switched clone, has taken over the mantle of Wolverine. She’s trying to stop a sniper atop the Eiffel Tower — but she doesn’t have an adamantium skeleton to bounce bullets…

Verdict: Thumbs up. I wasn’t expecting to like this one so much. The art is cool, the action is excellent, and the dialogue and characterization are fun. I reckon I’ll be picking up a few more issues of this one.

All-New All-Different Avengers #1

Man, they’re gonna run out of Avengers titles before long. The members of this team include Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Vision, Ms. Marvel, Nova, and Spider-Man. Ahem, that’s the Sam Wilson Captain America, the Jane Foster Thor, and the Miles Morales Spider-Man. Not all the characters have even met yet, but the stories around them are plenty fun.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to seeing Mark Waid writing these characters. This is probably one of the new Marvel titles I’ve been looking forward to the most.

Illuminati #1

Titania has been released from jail and plans to give up the criminal life. She’s doing her best, but it’s hard for ex-supervillains to get jobs anywhere. She-Hulk is willing to help her, but they’ve been rivals too long, and Skeeter rejects her aid. She manages to get a crap job as security at a pawn shop, but a robbery attempt ends with Luke Cage and Iron Fist assuming she’s the villain. And then she gets “rescued” by the Hood, who’s putting together a new gang of under-the-radar super-crooks.

Verdict: Ehh, it’s not bad, but I’m not sure I’ll be picking it up. We barely meet any of the characters aside from Titania and the Hood, and though Titania is a fun character, I don’t think there’s enough here to make me feel like I need to keep reading.

The Vision #1

In an attempt to be more human, the Vision has created his own family — his wife, Virginia, and their twins Viv and Vin. The entire family is deeply weird, terribly ominous, and they’re all utterly, utterly unhuman.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Wow, this one was amazing — an astonishingly creepy comic about robots pretending to be normal human suburbanites while actually being skin-crawlingly weird. It is so, so good.

The Ultimates #1

Yet another branch of quasi-Avengers, this team consists of the Blue Marvel, the Black Panther, Captain Marvel, America Chavez, and Monica Rambeau. They’ve got an extremely ambitious and wide-ranging plan to neutralize Galactus — and it’s not what anyone expects.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Another comic where I love all the characters — and at this point, I’m willing to read almost anything Al Ewing writes. And lookit, a comic book without any white male characters — and with that many serious powerhouses on the team, they may be Marvel’s toughest badasses…