Want to keep up with the ever-advancing continuity porn of the DC and Marvel universes, but simply don’t have the time or money to buy every ongoing? We’re here to help. The Weekend Week In Review aims to give you ((usually) very) brief synopses of what happened in a select few of DC and Marvel’s titles – with a helping of sarcastic commentary – so that when some nasty old writer wants to punish you by heavily referencing a title you didn’t pick up, you won’t be left in the dark. Of course, that means that spoilers are in abundance, but I figure that you could figure that out.
Grant Morrison returned to his Bat-Epic this week with the relaunched “Batman Incorporated,” and it would not be a Grant Morrison comic if a lot of comics were not being asked right from the start – in this case, whose grave was Bruce standing at when he told Alfred that the Batman idea was over, and when he was arrested? Don’t let me past tense confuse you, though; this is a Morrison comic, so you can be assured that this was in the future, compared to the rest of the comic. Back in the past, Batman and Son pursued some goat-masked individuals through a beef slaughterhouse – you know how Morrison loves his satanic imagery – up until a far-off sniper nearly picked off Damian from afar, and the two realized that this was all a setup to assassinate Damian. Even worse, though, was Damian’s terrible decision after going through this ordeal:
I am talking about him becoming a vegetarian – I actually dig the Bat-Cow idea. As the sniper managed to get away, we learned from his handy-dandy internal monologue that his mother, Talia al Ghul, had put out a hit on her own son, and that this sniper had picked up the contract in order to provide for his own son. Talk about tough love. While Damian was, understandably, a bit worried, Bruce tried to look on the bright side: if every assassin in the world was after the very pretty penny on Damian’s son, that meant they would all be in Gotham, and within his reach. Is anyone else unsurprised that Bruce is pretty much the worst dad ever? Sure enough, after using this great opportunity to stop some mutants that lost their way en route to the “Dark Knight Returns” paperbacks, the same sniper from earlier took another shot… and plugged Damian in the head. Boom, headshot.
Here is the solicitation for today’s issue of “Fantastic Four,” #606:
The Fantastic Four travel to Wakanda.
The Return of Black Panther to the pages of the F4.
What happens when the world completely runs out of Vibranium?
First of all, let’s note that the assistant editor, or whoever is in charge of putting these together, was too lazy to write out “Fantastic Four.” I suppose that is a bit much to ask when they usually cannot write their bullet points in anything close to complete sentences, so maybe we should be applauding them for finally overcoming this massive milestone. Secondly, let’s look at the inside of this comic:
Yeah, we really aren’t in Wakanda anymore. Now, the whole issue was already one of those that involved the reader being left in the dark as per what exactly was going on until the last page or two, but for those devoted fans like myself who read solicits when making our pre-orders or when writing up their CSBCs – you guys do that, too, right? – the situation was made even more confusing. It was obvious from the very start that the first family was in either someone’s body or on a planet resembling the human immune system, and that those scary things were white blood cells or their equivalent, but you know Mr. Fantastic had to have had something up his sleeve.
Wait a minute, this seems a bit familiar…
My god, Hickman. The family made their way closer and closer to their mysterious target destination, until we finally found out that it was a supposedly incurable brain tumor – one that the four were able to cure, having been shrunk down to its size. And who did that tumor belong to? Why, none other than Willie Lumpkin! You know, the Fantastic Four’s mailman? Come on, he’s older than Galactus! Hell, he’s been around longer than the Four themselves, technically.
Continued below…Okay, so maybe that issue wasn’t the most continuity-relevant.
Nick Spencer continued his trend to bring back familiar faces and not really have much happen – besides having the reader go “Wha–? Huh?” – in “Ultimate Comics: X-Men” #16. A mysterious man who had that terrible skin condition that you always see in movies – you know, the one where they can’t help but have their face constantly in the shadows until a crucial moment – walked his way through a mental institution, his very presence enough to make people age and drop like flies… well, rapidly aging ones, at least. The man without a face eventually found his way to a crazy Alex Summers, who seemed immune to the man’s anti-charms. How do we know Alex is crazy? Well, he was seen talking to his brother, and it isn’t like Spencer has been bringing back dead characters left and right, is it? I didn’t think so. After recovering Alex, the shadowy man made his way to the Roxxon corporation and mumbled something to Layla Miller about recovering “the fourth one” – certainly not a big clue when the mysterious man appears to be the walking embodiment of death – following that by walking into a room and revealing both himself and his equally mysterious boss.
…oh yeah, I’m shaking in my booties.
“Secret Avengers”, this week’s one and only “AvX” tie-in, opens with a point of clarification, assumedly because nerds like me have been badgering it to so hard. This issue states “This story takes place before the events of “Avengers” #26-27″, which offers up some sort of explanation as to how Remender and Bendis are telling such different stories starring the exact same characters. Granted, it seems a little bit improbably that we’d get this Kree-related story of the honor and religion of the Kree followed up with another story about the honor of the Kree, but, hey, the Marvel U is a busy place. It happens.
The book opens by asserting Captain Marvel’s new policy: to exist as a puppet for a brainwashed Kree nation. The Protector bows to him, Ms Marvel swoons for him and every other Kree follows his word as religious doctrine. Of course, the issue shows that he and, in turn, the Supremor, are puppets of other characters, so it accidentally offers up another continuity stumble between this and “Avengers” which features the Supremor as an autonomous character. But hey, who’s tracking? Besides us. He also reveals that he still has cancer, but the Phoenix force inside him that resurrected him is keeping it stable somehow.
The Avengers, recouping from their battle with the Phoenix, get thrashed by the Marvel family (Captain, Ms. and Boy i.e. Protector). Valkyrie, Captain Britain and an unconscious War Machine are brought into custody while Thor, Vision and Beast escape with their lives. After licking their wounds ever so slightly and leaving time for Captain Marvel to have some exposition about how cool the Phoenix probably will be, the remaining secret trio show up to help un-brainwash the Kree, save their lives and take down Captain Marvel. They do this by having the Vision tell everyone that the Phoenix is bad on a specific frequency while Thor throws his hammer around and Beast shoots off a few solid kicks, which just goes to show you that words can be used instead of weapons, but they’re infinitely less cool.
It all comes down to a sad finale when Captain Marvel realizes that the brainwashed Kree soldiers are committing genocide on the non-brainwashed citizens, at which point he realizes, “Oh. I’m the bad guy.” You’d think all the grand-standing and the punching of his friends would’ve given it away, but nope. Oh, and the Phoenix is coming too. Guy comes back to life and he just can’t catch a break.
This week’s “Mighty Thor” features three storylines, none of which seem to intertwine. Then again, if it was all obvious right off the bat, that wouldn’t be any fun, right?
It opens with Jeff, a young goth kid who lost his friend Cyrus, and who gets beat up at school and gets in trouble for bringing a taser to school to defend himself. He decides to rectify his situation by running away from home, hailing Satan every step he takes. That’s about it. There is no ostensible connection to the rest of the story beyond that, and if you know what I would imagine there is some resolution next issue. For now, though, I hope you like seeing goth kids get picked on, because that’s what you’re getting.
Continued below
Meanwhile, the cover story — Donald Blake dealing with the Enchantress — opens with Donald waking up in her bed after a night of passion. Apparently, after asking her for godhood back in the last issue, she decides to throw him a quickie before his life turns to crap on his quest for godhood (I’m not assuming here — she literally says this), and she feeds him one of the golden apples of Idunn that keep the gods forever eternal. Blake eats one and is immediately twisted and contorted as a strange black substance oozes from his pores and Enchantress bats him around like a cat does a mouse. She then hacks his head off with a sword, chants some unknown dialect and picks up Blake’s head to show him the creature forming out of the weird black substance that oozes from his corpse.
The moral lesson here? Be happy with who you are, and don’t get into bed with people named Enchantress.
Meanwhile, in the Thor story, we get a Ghostbusters-esque tale of Thor and his new friend Hreidmar being trapped in a shared dreamworld after opening a cave sealed by Odin in the previous issue and freeing a race known as the Mares. Hreidmar informs the impetuous Thor that whatever he thinks of will appear, and that for all intents and purposes they should be thinking of nice things like “soft pillows and pelts of the finest furs”, as opposed to “horrible things.” So Thor, much like Ray Stantz, thought of something that would only bring destruction and doom: his father.
That’s probably going to go over real well.
The Mare, meanwhile, make their way to the World Tree, so that’s probably a horrible thing waiting to happen next issue. I wonder how it’s all going to tie together?
In the other Thor title, “Journey into Mystery,” the five-part ‘Exiled’ crossover with “New Mutants’ continues as the D-I-S-I-R rage havoc on the city:
Oh, the abject horror! You know it’s bad when there is no time for narrative captions and slutty characters.
While they reign terror on the streets, Loki figures out how to get his memory and identity back, breaking the curse placed by Sigurd — by being brutally attacked. He then takes this strong tactic to Hela’s house, who reawakens as the Goddess of Hel and deputizes Valkyrie to be her valkyrie and capture the remaining D-I-S-I-R. All hope is not lost! Although most of the Asgardians still have no idea what is going on. Upon killing or capturing the remaining D-I-S-I-R, they find Brun about to kill Sigurd and manage to stop her before she does. While interrogating to try and find out what happened, however, the terrible truth of their story is told.
Back in the olden-timey days (as they say), the Shieldmaidens of Bor, father to Odin and grandfather to Thor, were left along in Bor’s keep when he went out hunting. While they waited, they were approached by Sigurd and his mercenaries, sworn into the service of Bor who were seeking a place to lie their heads in Bor’s keep. Shieldmaiden Gondul convinced Brun to open the gate, and Brun is in turn seduced by Sigurd the Slutty (as mentioned earlier), who in turn decides to open the entire sisterhood up to a giant sexy party with all the mercenaries. Bor returns home a cuckold and slays the mercenaries, but when Sigurd escapes Bor curses the Shieldmaidens with an eternal literal hunger for flesh (as opposed to the sexy variety). They in turn become the D-I-S-I-R and will remain cursed when Sigurd is killed or married to the Shieldmaidens, which Bor says in jest considering Sigurd would rather flee than marry, forcing Brun to have to kill her love should she get the chance.
Valkyrie, hearing the story, decides she knows how to fix this. She goes to Hel and finds Bor (previously slain by Thor in “Thor” #600), and tells him that he needs to come to Earth to stand over Brun and Sigurd’s marriage. You’d think Marvel would give some press to a zombie/Asgardian wedding, but I guess that marriage over in “Astonishing X-Men” matters because it’s more culturally relevant. Oh well. Hard to argue with that logic, I suppose.
Continued belowStill, looks like somebody’s getting married! Do you think maybe Brun and Sigurd will do the “He’ll Make Me Happy” duet from Muppets Take Manhattan? … No, I don’t either. They should, though.
This Week’s Contributors were:
Walt – “Batman Incorporated” #1, “Fantastic Four” #606, “Ultimate Comics: X-Men” #12
Matthew – “Secret Avengers” 27, “Mighty Thor” #14, “Journey into Mystery” #638
Anything we didn’t get to that you’re interested in? Email me at the link below! This also applies for if you read something that we didn’t and want to share it with others, as I, too, have only so much money and time to spend on comics. Don’t worry, we’ll give you credit.
