how to treat your future father-in-law

especially if its Sinestro (duh).

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Green Lantern Corps #53

worming up

drive-by readings

Action Comics #891 (DC) "The Black Ring Part 2" Paul Cornell Pete Woods Cafu Bit Rob Leigh Brad Anderson David Finch/Matt Banning/Peter Steigerwald (cover)

what we learned: Mr. Mind is much more cuter than you think, and i hate caterpillars or multi-legged creatures (even Spider-Man has only two!). and turns out he's the son of the original and he almost got Lex trapped in a state of mind. but "almost" doesn't count with Luthor.
oh shit moment: Superman as an outlaw in Sheriff's Luthor's mind? i smell a mini-series!
what's next: who put up the worm to this? suddenly i want Lex Luthor to kick his ass. Paul Cornell got me hooked. in the absence of Captain Britain and MI:13, this will do for now.


aaaaawww, isn't he cuuuuute??

heart of darkness

drive-by readings
man, with the LeBron James reality show, fighting Burning Maniacs and Spiderants in Borderlands, the oppressive heatwave in the East Coast, and this little thing called the day job, i didn't have time to do anything with the funnybooks. trying to correct that ... right about ... now.

Shadowland #1 (Marvel) Andy Diggle Billy Tan Batt Christina Strain GuruEFx Joe Caramagna John Cassaday/Laura Martin (cover)

just like the Stark Tower before it, a new skyline attraction has sprouted up in Manhattan in the Hell's Kitchen district. the Stark Tower, despite being built only a few years ago has been destroyed and rebuilt several times already, probably at a rate not even the original Avengers Mansion endured. will Shadowland go through the same thing?

not if the Avengers have anything to say about it. the Big Three thinks its a blight on the landscape and on the Heroic Age they're trying to establish. Luke Cage and Danny Rand, more of street-level heroes than most and with stronger ties to Matt Murdock, prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt. considering they don't really know what the devil Matt's doing with it (or whatever his endgame is), that's pretty much a big leap of faith, and this series will explore how that's going to turn out.


welcome to this summer's crossover du jour (Second Coming is ending, so what else is out there?). Andy Diggle puts his stamp on Daredevil by placing him in Punisher territory, with the difference being he didn't start out like Frank Castle did. it certainly intrigues the fans as to how this thing will end - has The Hand really changed Daredevil, and will he turn a heel for the foreseeable future? or will he make a last-second turnaround, make the sacrifice play and destroy the Snakeroot once and for all? for Daredevil followers like me, it does make me happy to see the Snakeroot back, and to see Bullseye get the royal asskicking he richly deserves since getting a bullseye carved on his head back in the Bendis run. the last page is an obvious homage to the Frank Miller era. their costumes, now eerily similar, poses the question of "what's the difference between them now?".

not a big fan of Billy Tan, and this reminds me why. he's mostly competent, but there are times when things seem off (like long limbs and weird faces?). that's fine though; it won't dissuade my interest. i'm going to follow Matt down this dark path, and see where it takes him.

aaaaaaaaaaand ... she's back.

and here it is. the closing chapter of the Messiah trilogy in the X-books, billed as the return of Hope Summers in the 616 universe and determination of her role in the future of the X-Men. she was born during Messiah Complex, and spent the rest of her life so far surviving in multiple timelines in the company of her foster father, Cable (whose own trials as a time-tossed baby she's echoing), and dodging her would-be murderer, Bishop. having Lucas Bishop turn into a caricature villain may have made sense with the X-writers, but it always bothered me. he just simply turned into an unkillable and unlikeable cockroach whose sole purpose in life was to put a bullet into a little girl's head. my fondest memory of Bishop was in a '90s sort of way, a cop out of his time, colorful, scarved, long flowing curly hair, and also single-mindedly out to find the X-traitor that presumably betrayed his boyhood heroes. his struggles to fit in were somewhat endearing. past that, he's been yo-yoed around the X-universe, and now he really struggled to find his place. i can get his being a cop for Mutant Town and being the resident mutant detective (remember him trying to find who shot Emma Frost into itty bitty diamond bits?). but shacking him up with Deathbird? being a flat out government stoogie during Civil War, putting him at odds with rest of his friends? and now a bald headed angry stereotype, like if Michael Clarke Duncan suddenly became this raving mass-murdering lunatic? good thing for me he's stranded in 6700 AD (but am sure there's a storyline being written as i type this, bringing him back to unleash holy hell on his former friends).


but back to Hope.

the first mutant born after that crazy stunt pulled by the Scarlet Witch ("oh hey, am crazy, i hate my kind, let's just wipe out everyooooooooone!"), Hope seems like the idea born out of "hey, we need a Jean Grey back, how do we do that?" well, first they send Rachel up into space to be part of the new Starjammers (speaking of which, how come no one's been talking to each other - imagine all the stories missed? Gabriel's probably dead, and Alex doesn't even bother to tell Scott.). now we get a new red-haired young telepath/telekinetic who's sure to rile up Emma, for starters. Cable, by virtue of his raising Hope, is sure to keep her under his wing (hey, watch those young mutant boys in Utopia go after this new bombshell). Cyclops, de facto leader of all the mutants (probably annoying the hell out of Xavier and Magneto), has faith that Hope will be the, well ... savior of the beleaguered mutants. Bishop believed otherwise. if that's true, Cyclops would be doing some kind of twisted Kool Aid commercial, shown below:

well before and after Necrosha, writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost have been (not-so-quietly) assembling all of the old X-villains in the pages of New X-Men and X-Force. despite the annoying style of resurrecting comic characters, i like the fact that they put in touches where the new generation of actual readers can learn through the reaction of the new generation of characters. here we see Pixie making an observation of a Right soldier.

the Second Coming crossover will also deal with the repercussions of the (re)formation of X-Force as a mutant black ops team, and this will presumably split the X-ranks. right in this issue, we get X-23 staking a Sapien Leaguer in the head with a claw during interrogation. the pro-life Nightcrawler takes exception to this. i expect lots of yelling and screaming and punching in the coming days, and that's within the X-Men.

sidebar: the Simster thinks Kurt has the highest odds of not making it through the summer alive.

and there might still be a higher body count. i wasn't really sold when he first appeared, and not even when they brought him back, but now i feel there isn't any better villain out there who fits in this whole storyline than Bastion. Scott Lobdell, take a bow.

they've always been able to beat this Nimrod/Master Mold combo before, but they need to ground him to a fine dust this time around. or else there's no hope.

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X-Men: Second Coming

Thor needs a spell-checker

the Karate Kid needs to have his annual eye checkup. wait, its not that Ralph Macchio.


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Thor #605

in one ear, out the other

drive-by readings

Dark Reign - The List: Daredevil one shot (Marvel) Andy Diggle Billy Tan Matt Banning Justin Ponsor Joe Caramagna

like we need another excuse for a DD/Bullseye mano-a-mano. i like better when DD pwned Bullseye back during the Bendis run. here its just ... Osborn wants to send DD and the Hand a message, so he sics Bullseye (in real costume) on him, people die because Lester the Molester likes it like that, and ol' Hornhead decides to send him and Osborn ... a message. end scene.

what was the message? and how come no one listens?

rumor has it that EEEK Joe Quesada nixed a sequel to this called Dark Reign - The Message: Daredevil.

is Lady Bullseye still working covertly for Yoda/Pat Morita Master Izo, as she does Kingpin's bidding? and why the sudden turnaround, Wilson? oh, ok, life in DD Land is not complete without the Kingpin scheming somewhere, somehow.

i'm much more looking forward to the regular series where we'll have Matt as full-time Hand CEO and how his superhero pals will deal with this new development. add to that Matt being angry about 107 dead people and you know its on his shoulders. despite what Izo keeps drumming into his head (that man knows how to paaaar-taaaaayyy!).

one thing to note is now all Hand ninjas sport horns as per new regulations. imagine if Warren Worthington became the uber-boss (wings). or Tony Stark (helmets). or Rocket Raccoon (tails).

Remy? Remy, is dat you?

Gambit is now the new Sorcerer Supreme!



actually, no ... that's Brother Voodoo. who's actually Remy LeBeau in blackface.

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The New Avengers #53

godot never arrived

after you tease us with this:


you end up with friggin' press con:


and they never even fought! yeah, because the Dark Avengers went over to Latveria to get their asses handed over to them by Morgan Le Fay. that wouldn't have happened if they got roped into fighting the real Avengers. that's the explanation! way to go, Bendis!

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New Avengers #50

stop teasing me, Clint

once there was this circus performer whose talents in archery landed him on the wrong side of the law. falling in love with a Russian spy (and landing oh, around #135th on her list of conquests), he once mixed it up with an armored Avenger, which was fortuitous, as that made him walk the straight and narrow again.

having served the Avengers with distinction (which included challenging Captain America for control most of the time), he was rewarded by having him lead his own Avengers team over by the left coast. everything was sunny and coming up roses, not the least was having also found the love of his life. and then everything fell apart when his wife died. yeah, we couldn't believe it either.

rejoining his east coast buddies, he shocked everyone when he took over the Thunderbolts, an are-we-or-are-we-not group of villains trying to be heroes (well not at first). that meant hooking up with a lady villain (sounds familiar). when it got boring, where else would he run to except back with his fellow Avengers?

and that may have been a mistake, because he died when his teammate Wanda goes batshit insane and remakes reality. oh, at that time, he was being a pig, boning another teammate (who just died recently as a suicide bomber for those green shapeshifting aliens), and fantasizing about another lady villain named Viper. oh, and he actually died twice.

with his second resurrection at the hands of aforementioned insane teammate, he thanked her by ... yes, boning her too.

the recent invasion by also aforementioned green shapeshifting aliens messed with his psyche more than we know ... it turns out his dead wife was alive! and held captive all this time! but prior to learning that fact, he promised that every single green alien should die. he even made that promise while wearing the uniform and identity of yet another teammate (who's actually deaf) that he was ... yes, boning.

and oh, did he even shed a tear for Jan, now that Bobbie's back in his arms?

promises, promises.


we also haven't forgotten that YOU could have made the kill shot that would have taken down the Skrull Queen, yet you botched that simple task and now Norman Osborn is the man of the hour.


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New Avengers #49