snaps: Avengers - The Initiative #34

... where eyes are finally opened, friendships are renewed and broken, and the New Warriors reunite! no, really. and pompous Taskmaster is taken to ...task (hey, wasn't he hired by the good guys once?). the issue focuses mostly on the Initiative guys until the latter part where they switch to Asgard only because we need to see Taskmaster get taken down (or not). and lest we forget that ex-Cap gal pal Diamondback is indeed an Initiative member (but as a spy, natch!), this is the part where she loses it when she sees her blond stud ex alive and well. well, poor Constrictor.

hey, here's a thought: what IF Dwayne wasn't in heaven??


look who's calling the kettle black, Mister Former-D-Lister. (you're still a D-Lister to me, brah)


Cap giving it to the castle grey skull.


Frank can forget about tapping that ass. and Rachel apparently forgot about Agent 13.


so is he gonna go back to being Speedball now? is he? is he? considering he's sort of directly responsible for all of these 7 years ago?

cherry picking

cherry picking: stuff i double-clicked read. will try not to spoil. i said try.

World War Hulk is NOT the end of the world!

as we can see here, Jen got a haircut, lost her powers and is back to lawyering. which means the world survived World War Hulk. now if only we could learn in advance what happened. Recorder, speak up!!! oh, he blew up?! dang.

Marc Ecko supports the New Warriors

that's all you need to know. oh, and Stark Tower (and Tony Stark) are still/again upright. which corroborates the statement we made above. this officially makes all plot threads running in the Marvel Universe entangled - what happened when?


'Cuda, Woulda, Shoulda.

guess who's back ................! yep, its your friendly neighborhood gangsta Barracuda! mayhem ensues. and Frank's all tied up. and is possibly a pappy?

oi!!!

things that made me go Colin Cowherd-whoa! for the week.

1) the return of ... Night Thrasher?!

right. this is why i don't read Wizard or other solicitation publications much. i like being surprised once in a while. that better not be Dwayne Taylor underneath that mask. oh i know ... its Dwyane Wade!!!

New Warriors #1
Kevin Grievoux, Paco Medina, Juan Vlasco

2) Mandarin steals fire from the gods ...

... as head of Prometheus Gentech Inc. through the (underhanded) efforts of U.S. Sec-Def Jack Kooning, Maya Hansen (responsible for Tony Stark's Extremis) gets pirated by Prometheus. yeah i know, i should have chosen the death of Sal Kennedy (hey this is Marvel; he'll be reborn as a powerful zombie later, along with Happy Hogan). but the Mandarin-as-CEO is just too good to resist.

Iron Man #18
Daniel/Charles Knauf, Roberto De La Torre, Jonathan Sibal

3) Beta Ray Bill gets wrecked

aw, c'mon!!! who had the bright idea of imbuing these losers with Thor-level powers anyway? Bill used to pimp slap gods and world-beating aliens. now he's being slapped around by 4 drunk rednecks. and the cruelest cut of all from the Wrecker: "ain't nobody told you, horse head? Thor knockoffs have a short shelf life nowadays." wait till the real Thor comes back, asshole.


Omega Flight #3
Michael Avon Oeming, Scott Kolins

and for the knockout ...

4) Mary Marvel goes to the dark side!

'nuff said!


Countdown #47
Paul Dini, Sean McKeever, Tom Derenick