the vynsane asylum

And now for some comments.

Civil War 2 was fine, but like I posted elsewhere I feel like I missed something. I think I need to read New Avengers, and all will be okay.

Ms. Marvel 4 - quite good. 1st of a 2 part Dr. Strange story and it was handled very nicely. Should make for a good issue 5.

Astonishing 15 - Kitty Pryde rocks. Always did, always will. Peter's Peter is a lucky little fella.

Uncanny 474 - last Claremont issue.... again. I love the X-men, but this book just pales in comparison to the awesomeness that is Astonishing. Maybe Brubaker will ramp it up starting next month.

All-Star Superman 4 - very good. Not as good as 1-3, but this title is way up high on my list right now. Of interest, the in-house ads in this issue made both Batman and Superman seem very buyable starting next month - Carlos Pacheco on Superman and Morrison on Batman are very, very interesting concepts to me.

Wolverine 42 - start of the Civil War tie-in 3 parter. Shocker of all shockers - Wolverine is going to play a major role in Civil War!!!! Looks like he's going to be the hero who hunts down the baddie that started the whole push toward registration.... Wouldnt be like Logan to sit on the sidelines, though, would it?

Wolverine Origins 3 - When he's not busy being scared by Beast at the X-mansion and/or hunting down the murderer from Civil War, he's busy beating up Nuke and getting jumped by Cap. Dude must have the BEST dayplanner on his PDA.

Cap 19 - I'm still way back at #7, so I won't have comments for this issue for awhile yet.

The Punisher #35 - "Barracuda" part 5 - Lots of talking and a little dark humor before the shit hits the fan next month's final chapter of the story.

Dark Horse 20 Years - Can't go wrong for a quarter. Various Dark Horse artists drawing various Dark Horse characters in basically a pin-up book. It would have been nice if the artists had drawn their own characters, but this is kind of cool too. Usagi Yojimbo by Frank Miller, Hellboy by Adam Hughes, Conan by Sergio Aragones, ect.

jjreason wrote:Civil War 2 was fine, but like I posted elsewhere I feel like I missed something. I think I need to read New Avengers, and all will be okay.

and you'll still feel that way after you read it... the "tie-ins" don't tie in very well, unless they're showing peter unmask... again...

All-Star Superman 4 - very good. Not as good as 1-3, but this title is way up high on my list right now.

i thought it was just as good as the first three issues... although i don't understand why "bad superman" sounds like bizarro...

Wolverine Origins 3 - When he's not busy being scared by Beast at the X-mansion and/or hunting down the murderer from Civil War, he's busy beating up Nuke and getting jumped by Cap. Dude must have the BEST dayplanner on his PDA.

i like how they're weaving wolvie's backstory... he was really just a huge asshole. maybe he deserved all the crap he was subjected to? although i can't tell where/if this coincides with civil war - cap's underground now, so that wouldn't make sense that the government can call him up...

all in all, i had a huge "catch up" visit to the store, that ended up costing $66. i got the three mentioned above, plus

civil war 2
civel war:frontline 2
ASM.533 (yep, i finally actually got to read the unmasking...)
new avengers 20, 21
fables 50
BPRD - the universal machine #4
invincible 33
ex machina 21, and special 2
FF.538
savage dragon 127
moon knight 3
sensational spider-man 27
ultimates 11
daredevil 86 (probably one of the coolest comics ever published)
y the last man 47
spider-girl 99
spider-man loves mary jane 7 (i had no idea he was such a pothead...)

Star Wars Legacy #2 - Still a bit slow going, but it's still better than that KOTOR bullshit.

Wolverine Origins #4 - Good fight betwen Wolverine and Captain America. Wolverine is an asshole.

The Escapists #1 - I'm about 3/4 through The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and loving every page of it. This is a modern story of a guy that is able to buy the rights to the now long forgotten Escapist and decides to start creating new comics. Only $1 and a Frank Miller cover!

Well I blew the proverbial load this week - over $100 on new comics, bags and boards.

It had been 3 or 4 weeks though, all the extra money's been going into the final house clean-up-to-sell jobs (which I FUCKING HATE doing, btw).

Good thing, our cheque from the insurance company got here today which opened up the door for me to empty out my stack ye olde comic shoppe. Here's the breakdown:

Eternals 1,2
Civil War Frontline 2,3
Civil War 3
New Avengers 19,20,21
Uncanny 475,476, Annual 1
FF 538
ASM533
DD 86
Hulk 96
Wolverine Origins 4
Sensational Spidey 28
Friendly Neighborhood Spidey 10

I've pretty much decided I'm opting out of the following books:

Moon Knight
Ms. Marvel
Squadron Supreme

Back Again....assume that I haven't been on a fast these past two months. I'm still getting my weekly dose, but to go back and give my thoughts on every individual issue would just be too time consuming. So here's what I got this week.

Civil War 3. Is it just me or was the marketing/media blitz on this thing more resounding than the actual execution? You would think the Death of the New Warriors, Spider-Man unmasking, the Return of Thor, etc would be more epic, but I feel like the whole thing hasn't even kicked in yet. Meh. Some of the Tie-Ins are very good. Especially the Speedball story in Frontline. And Emma Frost telling Iron Man/Ms. Marvel to fuck off with their registration in CW:X-Men and New X-Men. It doesn't mesh with how shes behaving in Astonishing but it was cool to see her shut them down.

52 Week 12. This one lumbers along. The problem with this series is you can't have huge reveals or cliffhangers because by its very nature it picks up after the moment has passed. It has to. So yeah, its lumbering along. Not bad, but nothing spectacular .

Flash 2. So what differentiates Bart from Wally or even Barry. This book needs to focus on that and soon because right now, I feel like I'm rereading the early Wally West issues where hes coming to terms with his legacy. Been there. Read that.

Justice League America 0. This was a really good story. Kind of like Superman/Batman but with Wonder Woman thrown in. Metzer really makes these three relate to each other and it makes for a good core of the new JLA. One of the best books this week.

Runaways 18. To be honest, I only read this sporadically and I picked this up because one of them dies. Wanna know who? The chubby glasses wearing one what talks to dinosaurs takes a knife in the chest. So now you don't have to buy it...

Superman/Batman 28. I was gonna drop this after Loeb's confusing last story arc. But Van Sciver's art made me change my mind. Unfortunately Verheiden doesn't really get the parallels between Clark and Bruce like Loeb did. so the story is kinda weak. Which puts it back up on the chopping block.

Transformers: Stormbringer 1. I wasn't sure if this fell into continuity with the Infiltration series, but a few discarded lines of dialogue indicate that it does, so I'm in. Plus Simon Furman brings back the baddest badass Decepticon never to have a G1 figure: Thunderwing. Applause now. : )

New X-Men 28. I'm a huge Nimrod fan. Seriously. And for them to bring him back and make him the main nemesis is downright awesome. So forget all that crap i said about dropping this book. I'm back into it. Also, I love how they spent three+ years and two series ( New Mutants and Academy X) fleshing out these characters and now they are dropping them like tic tacs into halitosis. Icarus AKA Jay Guthrie AKA Cannonball's lil bro gets a cranium vent made out of lead in this one. Whoo hoo! Die New X-Men! Die!!

X-Factor 9. haven't read it, but it's a Civil War tie in and I'm a sucker for crossovers. Shame on me.

Civil War: X-Men 1. Ditto.

Uncanny X-Men 476. Huzzah! The drought is over! Brubaker and Tan craft the next great Mutant extravaganza!!! Actually Tan's artwork is a little shoddy as he gets his footing drawing so many new characters. But the Bru is enough to make up for it.

First, Thunderwing did have a G1 figure. I bought him and Bludgeon, though both figures blew chunks, just because they kicked such ass in the original.

Second, Bart's Flash now? You mean semi-retarded (but in a funny way) Impact Bart, right?

Third, I bought at Comic-Con:

Savage Dragon Vol 1
Savage Dragon Vol 15
Cerebus Vol 7
Cerebus Vol 8
Megaton Man Collection 1
The Mask Collection

Yeah, they're out of order, but that's what the 50% sales had. I can get the other five dozen or so of each later, I suppose.

Daredevil 87 - End of a great arc. Granted, it's the first arc I've read in years and years. SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD The only thing I didn't like was the ease of Frank and Matt's escape. It felt glossed over. Would have beeen nice to see Fisk or Bullseye return (but considering how the last issue went, I understand why they didn't). Maybe it should have been a double issue. Since I haven't read before this arc, I had no idea who the alternate DD could be, so that was a fairly cool surprise.
Oh, and a killer last page too.

Civil War Frontline 4 - I thought I would like the "Embedded" story, but it just isn't doing anything for me, but those last few pages of the story were pretty cool and it actually surprised me (somehow I didn't look at the cover before I read it). The art is pretty weak also, IMO. Ramon Bachs has the feel of a 90's artist on a D-list title.
"The Accused" is the bizzaro version of "Embedded" - thought I'd hate it, but it's growing on me. Not as good of a prison story as DD, but it's coming along.
"Sleeper Cell" - Haven't decided yet. Could turn out really cool or really lame.
The Poem things they've been doing at the end have been pretty lame. Comparing Civil War to past real wars? *sigh*

I'm underwhelmed to say the least. If this was an ongoing series, I'd have dropped it after issue #2.

Whose side is Sleepwalker on in the Civil War? That's what I want to know.

No hide nor hair of Sleepwalker, Chux, at least in the books I've read. I'd assume he's in there somewhere, though - everyone else seems to be popping up.

This week:

Avengers 22
Wolverine 44
Cap 20
DD87
Amazing 534
X-Men: Civil War 1
Frontline 4

What was Sleepwalker's alter ego? I think Sleepwalker would come down on the side of Government Sponsored Naptime.

Civil War: X-Men #2 - For some reason, there is an Iron Man looking Gundam on the cover...
The story itself is pretty underwhelming (along with the art). Not sure I'll finish the series. How long is it, 4 issues? The only cool thing is the semi-reunion of the original X-Men team.

Also had my comic guy order "Sparrow #1: Ashley Wood" - a small hardcover book of artwork by Ashley Wood. It's the first in a series created by Wood that'll focus on a different artist in each book.
Wood is easily my favorite comic artist out there. His work blows me away. He does aton of stuff, mostly for IDW.

Double post - eat me Grimlock.

Astonishing X-Men 16 - after a slow start, this story really (finally) stats cooking.
Just in case...*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Kitty kicking Emma's ass was great.
The revelation of the hooded chick (I think they called her Perfection?) as the old style White Queen was a great WTF moment.
The other revelation of Colossus as the destroyer of Breakworld was cool too.

Daredevil #88 - Unnecessary fill-in issue. Everything we needed to know about Foggy Nelson was revealed at the end of last issue.