things i liked this week

X-Men Second Coming one-shot (Marvel)
Craig Kyle/Christopher Yost/David Finch/Matt Banning/Peter Steigerwald/Joe Caramagna (cover: Adi Granov, variant cover: Finch with Jason Keith)

has Finch been around too long that i think of this dirty rough-edged work with old colleague Batt kind of a throwback? is Hope Summers a positive or a negative? also, see X-23 make a point!

Blackest Night #8 (DC)
Geoff Johns/Ivan Reis/Oclair Albert/Joe Prado/Alex Sinclair/Nick Napolitano (variant cover: Doug Mahnke)

did anybody notice that this was released leading up to the Easter weekend? the conclusion, although nothing totally surprising, has mixed results with the fan base. certain characters were brought back for a reason (and the reason being "we can have more events with them!" - they weren't randomly pulled from a bag). and i can certainly agree with Geoff Johns that Ivan Reis is a god - imagine drawing all this craziness for eight straight issues. we need to give him a White Lantern ring. wait, that's totally gay.

X-Factor #203 (Marvel)
Peter David/Val De Landro/Pat Davidson/Jeromy Cox/Cory Petit (cover: David Yardin/Nathan Fairbairn)
Monet goes to rescue her father in South America. probably kidnapped by Nazis hiding there. anyhoo, look who's got a mad-on for her! woooohoooooo!!!


Gotham City Sirens #10 (DC)
Paul Dini/Andres Guinaldo/Raul Fernandez/Ian Hannin/Sal Cipriano (cover: Guillem March)
listen, there's only one Fable that works - its that book by Bill Willingham. anyway, Doctor Aesop? pffffft. also: the girls' relationship with Riddler? pffffft.


Realm of Kings: Inhumans #5 (Marvel)
Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning/Pablo Raimondi/Tim Seeley/Victor Olazaba/Adriano Lucas (cover: Stjepan Sejic)
say what??? this is all a sham? oh, wait till Thanos returns. and the real Maximus comes back.


X-Force #25 (Marvel)
Craig Kyle/Christopher Yost/Clayton Crain/Cory Petit

Attack of the 50-foot giant, blue, goth goddess sexbomb! hey, question: doesn't anybody question why certain mutants show up in Cerebra as Colorado visitors every so often? do the Cuckoos mindwipe those who notice?

Cloak and Dagger #1 (Marvel)
Stuart Moore/Mark Brooks/Walden Wong/Emily Warren/Dave Sharpe
riddle me this, Batman! are Tandy and Ty doing what they do as a woman and a man?

Green Hornet #2 (Dynamite)
Kevin Smith/Phil Hester/Jonathan Lau/Ivan Nunes/Simon Bowland (covers: Alex Ross/John Cassaday/Joe Benitez)
out with the old, in with the new. one thing sure, Southwest Airlines is not a sponsor of this book.


Punisher #15
Rick Remender/Roland Boschi/Dan Brown/Lee Loughridge/Joe Caramagna (cover: Mike McKone/Morry Hollowell)

Frank versus dead Nazis, samurais and Hellsgaard! what more do you want? oh wait, is Frankencastle concept ending?

The Sword #23 (Image)
Joshua Luna/Jonathan Luna

you know that line that goes 'that the greatest trick the devil played was to make everyone believe he never existed' or something like that? well .... kinda something like that.

snaps: Realm of Kings: Inhumans #3

... where a secret villain is revealed. really, nobody saw that coming light years away? also, it looks like Crystal+Ronan just may not just be a publicity stunt.

dude, its more, like, a whole barrel. word.


ok, stop teasing us. that's a Skrull. (actually no, its just an afterimage).


yes, drop him a line at gorgon@inhumans.hala, gorgeous.gorgon on Facebook, and @stomper on Twitter.


Pietro is gonna watch this on YouTube and he is soooooooo gonna be pissed.


does this mean Magneto is going to follow?

drive-by readings: Guardians of the Galaxy #17

Guardians of the Galaxy #17 (Marvel) "Adam Magus" Dan Abnett Andy Lanning Brad Walker Victor Olazaba Scott Hanna Jay David Ramos Joe Caramagna Daniel Acuna (cover)

just after the War of Kings, half of the Guardians need to take care of the aftershocks of Black Bolt's suicide bomb gambit. simply put, the resulting explosion opens a hole in the fabric of space and its widening every second. Rocket Raccoon takes his half of the team to lay the law down on the surviving Inhumans, but some Japanese tentacle shit starts pulling Attilan inside, forcing them to deal with that emergency. solving that, there's the matter of that hole. Warlock makes a last ditch attempt to hook this timestream onto another unused one (don't ask), but at what cost? ahh, the initial tally so far is a skewered Phylla-Vell (who it turns out, had her own agenda), a Gamora with potentially a snapped neck, and the terrifying Alice Cooper impersonator below:


Warlock, by grafting the current timeline to another (mentioned as one he's familiar with), he sacrifices himself as that other timeline is the one where he went nutso. my head hurts. please consult with Reed Richards, as i am sure he and his ilk would find a solution to this. not. nothing's ever easy for this team and so it should be.

by the way, one thing i enjoy with the whole Guardians revival is the comedy part, mostly revolving around Rocket Raccoon and his wisecracking. also, DnA cleverly explains why Groot keeps saying "I am Groot!" and it took the who-knows-when-he's-sane Maximus to make us understand. holy crap, that made sense.

first blood

with the Inhuman king Black Bolt returning home after being replaced by/tortured by/rescued from the Skrulls, there's no other time but payback time. its kinda how abused boys could eventually become serial killers when they grow up. you can't hold back that kind of thing.

"i don't wanna ... talk about it."

breaking out a cache of banned weapons, Blackagar pulls up his race's roots and heads off into space (i assume at some point, that massive liftoff from the moon will be noticed by the guvmint scientist types on earth?) to pursue (and terminate with extreme prejudice, natch) the remaining Skrulls, which is just the short-term goal. in pursuit of this goal, they encounter three Sh'iar (ex-pals of our merry mutants) warships who do not take kindly to this chase across their territory. Blackagar, already the most powerful weapon in the universe and connected to an asskicking amplifier musicians would kill for, has only one response.

"fuck you, Simon Cowell ... i can sing!"

so now you understand why during the opening salvo of World War Hulk, Black Bolt couldn't rip the Hulk to shredded green wheat - that was the Skrull-Black Bolt and it was faking his powers. the real deal can obliterate starships at the minimum, as experienced by the Sh'iar military and the fugitive Skrulls.

Cowell, Abdul and the rest of the AI judges get blown away

short term goal accomplished. now for the long-term: the Inhumans have been weapons created by the Kree (those trigger-happy humanoid aliens), but were left ignored and unused. now the weapons have come back to take over the whole Kree race. easily getting past their defenses, the Inhumans confront Ronan Keating, who was planning to put back Boyzone for a new tour. sorry, i meant Ronan the Accuser, who's currently the caretaker of his race because no one wants to.

Medusa actually insults Ronan with both the American and British variations of the finger

Ronan just actually wants to accuse; that's his day job. no more administration shit. hell, yeah, let's give it to the Inhumans.

and thus Blackagar consolidates his position in the universe.

end of story?


nope, you're forgetting the three Sh'iar warships obliterated during the course of these goals.

when Ed Brubaker crystallized the "third Summers brother" three years ago, we didn't think the character would become the "most annoying Summers brother ever" (and that includes Shatterstar, nyuknyuknyuk). Vulcan, currently in charge of the Sh'iar in his demented quest for revenge and is really the biggest asshole in the galaxy now that the Skrulls, Annihilus and the Ultron/Phalanx are gone, is quite bored with being emperor just presiding on colloseum games. he needs a challenge, and he's found one.

kudos to DnA for cranking out terrific space opera within the Marvel Universe, which had gone stale prior to 2006's Annihilation.


ok, let's say after this War of Kings, the Inhumans/Kree come out on top (and that's assuming even the Guardians of the Galaxy or Nova won't be able to get everybody to smoke the peace pipe), will war against Earth be next? hmmm ...

-----
Secret Invasion: War of Kings one-shot

checkmates

with Secret Invasion winding down, we look forward to next summer's crossover. this seems to be more along the lines of Annihilation, so am not sure what happens to the more-Earthbound heroes (a.k.a. Spidey).

as this poster suggests, it seems to boil down to a showdown between a revitalized Black Bolt and the Sh'iar emperor (and third Summers brother) Vulcan. this means the Inhumans rescue Black Bolt from the Skrulls, although will he still be their king, as his batshit crazy bro Maximus sits on the throne?

among other players, we have the Starjammers leading the resistance against Vulcan. The 'Jammers current leader is Havok, who took his dad's place after being killed by Vulcan/Gabriel. Alex is doubly pissed because he's no longer the youngest child, who always gets all the privileges.

there's also my favorite space cop Nova (sorry, Green Lanterns - his job is much harder because he's all alone policing the universes), who'll likely oppose Vulcan. i hope the Guardians of the Galaxy follow suit.

the family that stays together ...

... gets out of trouble together.

which will happen next month!



did i mention this was my cliffhanger of the week?