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The Weekend Week In Review (5/30/2012)

By and | June 2nd, 2012
Posted in Columns | 4 Comments

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.

This week’s “Batman” Annual – and, for that matter, this month and this year’s “Batman” Annual – focused on one of the more sympathetic, to an extent, Batman villains, Victor Fries. Yeah, yeah, get all of your “Ice to meet you” puns out of the way. The issue began with Mr. Freeze breaking out of Arkham Asylum yet again, with one goal in his mind: killing Bruce Wayne. Why is that, you ask? Well, as Freeze made his way to Wayne Tower, we learned that, in the history of the DCnU, Fries had originally worked for Wayne Industries as an expert on cryogenics, until Bruce fired him shortly after traveling around the world for bat-training. How heartless of Bruce! Surely, Bruce must have known that Victor’s wife was preserved cryogenically, and that, by pulling the plug on his cryogenics program, he was condemning poor Nora to eternal stasis? Ah, read on, as good readers do. After unsuccessfully trying to locate Nora’s body in Wayne Tower, Freeze was cornered by Nightwing and Robin, and quickly incapacitated them. In the post-Flashpoint universe, it seems that Freeze is able to chill people to the bone with a touch. How… cool.

Sorry, sorry. Anyway, before Freeze could put Dick and Damian on ice – sorry one more time – Bruce summoned him to the top of the tower via the intercom system. You would think Bruce had his hands full with this whole ‘Night of the Owls’ business, wouldn’t you? As the two fought it out on the top floor, we learned the truth behind Fries’s sacking – the Norah of the New 52 is not Victor’s wife at all, but the subject of his doctoral thesis, one of the first humans to be cryogenically preserved. While writing his thesis, Fries became obsessed with the frozen woman and devoted his life to curing and marrying her. Man, that is creepy. Of course, this comic’s sole intent was to present Freeze’s new origin, so he was soon defeated by Batman, and the main plot of ‘Night of the Owls’ was wholly unaffected. Well, that’s not completely true; the comic did mention that the Court used Fries’s cryogenics to preserve their Talons, but did we really need to know that? No? I didn’t think so, either.

The “Animal Man” Annual that came out this week details one of supposedly many instance where the Red, the Green, and the Rot were at war with one another. Like the current situation in “Animal Man” and “Swamp Thing,” the one detailed in the annual was one where the Rot had attempted to shift the scales and the Red and the Green had to stop it. In the late 1800’s, the Canadian community of Stone Lake – yes, Lemire, we get that you are proud of your nationality – experienced a plague like no other. Cattle and grain dropped like flies, and flies dropped like… heavier flies. In this community, a certain farmer by the name of Jacob Muller set out with two members of the Mounties and a few other local volunteers to explore the nearby woods and burn out the plague from its core. After setting up camp and going to bed for a bit, Jacob was woken up by a vision of something coming – get your mind out of the gutter – and his eyes began to bleed a la what happened to Buddy in the first issue of the relaunched “Animal Man.” There was no time to puzzle about it, though – one of the Mounties who had left camp to take a leak soon stumbled back in a misshapen form, subject to the rule and hunger of the Rot. Even the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are not completely incorruptible. Everyone other than Jacob was killed in seconds, and Jacob would have been next had that generation’s Swamp Thing – though, I suppose in this case he was more of a Forest Thing – had known shown up to save him.

Continued below

When Jacob woke up, he was in the run-down house of Native American – err, Canadian? – trapper Jack Crow, the man lucky enough to be the first killed by this uprising of the Rot and also lucky enough, no sarcasm this time, to be resurrected as the Green’s newest avatar. After giving Jacob a hallucinogenic vegetable that allowed Jacob to see the destruction the Rot would wreck on the modern-day DCU, Jack informed Jacob that he was the Red’s avatar. Would you tell someone tripping out on acid that they could channel the abilities of all the Earth’s animals if they actually could? You and Jack are far more trusting than me. The rest was pretty predictable: the two teamed up, headed into the now destroyed community, and tackled the agents of the Rot until nature was once again stabilized, though the Hunters were sure to give one last “I’ll get you next time!” The most noticeable thing, though, was that Jacob’s vision showed him Buddy, who was lamenting the loss of his family. Wasn’t Morrison’s one rule for Lemire “Don’t fuck with Buddy’s family?” Does he want a curse placed on him or something?

In “FF” #18, Johnny Storm filled in as the kids’ substitute teacher while Reed and all of their “normal” substitutes were unavailable. Surely, there must have been someone free who was more qualified than Johnny? Class began awfully enough: the kids asked Johnny about what he thought was the birds and the bees, but turned out to be the birds and the why-didn’t-daddy-love -mes. And what do you do when kids ask you a question you don’t know how to answer? Why, you take them on a “field trip” to the incredibly dangerous Negative Zone, of course. As soon as Warlord Storm set foot into the Negative Zone, though, he was beset by bad news: the population of a local city was revolting, led by some of his former generals. Of course, with kids in tow, Johnny did what any rational adult would do:

When the group of humans showed up at the revolting city, they found out it was for a rather rational reason: the bugs of the Negative Zone wanted free elections. How hard could that be?

Despite the seemingly difficult obstacles, the first free election of the Negative Zone took off without a hitch – well, technically. The ballot had Johnny on it, of course, as well as his three different revolting generals, but it also had space for a write-in. In this case, the old ruler of the Negative Zone, Annihilus – you know, the guy who destroyed a major percentage of the entire universe – won by literally trillions of votes. Democracy in action, folks. Don’t blame me, I voted for Durp the Worm.

This week gives us but two “AvX” tie-ins, one that clarifies a continuity error and one that creates a new one. Let’s start with the second item first.

In “Wolverine and the X-Men” #11, all the familiar fight groups are re-hashed that were established in “AvX” #4 remain true (at least, to what I can see when comparing my notes), which leads me to believe that there is probably a board at the Marvel office somewhere designating who goes where, even though the dance partners keep getting switched around. Then again, this is a brawl which, in dance, is most similar to a rodeo. Pick whichever partner you like of the moment and just go for it!

But that’s not the continuity error part. No, that comes later. This issue seeks to establish the moments between Hope and Wolverine that happen in “AvX” #4 we don’t see in between when he is picked up by her and when they raid an AIM base to fly to the moon. (Admittedly, just writing that right now, I realize how silly comics are sometimes.) In this story we find out that Wolverine and Hope are waylayed by the Death Commandos, who have arrived on Earth to kill Hope before the Phoenix arrive. Their inherent logic is that by killing the assumed host they can save lives while conveniently forgetting that the Phoenix just destroys whatever is in its path indiscriminately. It’s ok, though; great planning like this shows why the Shi’Ar is still such a powerful intergalactic organizatioh wait a minute.

Continued below

Suffice it to say, Hope and Wolverine beat the tar out of them while other X-Men beat the tar out of Avengers, leaving a massive influx of stock in the tar industry. Hope and Wolverine win in a different way, though; they win because Hope manifests the Phoenix force for a brief enough time to knock out and burn all of her enemies, as well as singe Wolverine. Wolverine debates killing her, but instead decides to call Captain America and tell him where they’re headed, thus establishing a timeline and screwing it all up since Wolverine said he called Captain America while Hope napped. Clearly there was no time for naps here. Oops.

But hey, that’s why these tie-ins aren’t necessary reads, right? Right.

Oh, and there’s also a brief subplot thing about how Kid Gladiator is brought by Warbird away from the planet, but he returns to Earth to punch Rulk in the face over in Wungadore while his father arrives at the mansion to pick him up from school.

Then there’s “X-Men Legacy” #267. Last time we talked about this issue, I noticed that there was a continuity error in that Iron Man arrives at the school despite implicitly being “benched” for this event so he can develop a technological way to stop the Phoenix. As it turns out in this issue, it’s not Iron Man who arrived but a drone. Whew! Glad that got cleared up. Now the only continuity errors here are Gambit and She-Hulk being around when they should be in the Savage Land and Tabula Rasa respectively.

Outside of that, this issue is largely just a big punch-up. Rogue punches not-Iron Man, Falcon punches Mimic, not-Iron Man punches Cannonball, Rogue punches She-Hulk, Rogue punches Falcon punching Mimic, Rogue punches She-Hulk some more, Rogue punches Frenzy… Ok, really, this issue is about Rogue punching. She absorbs She-Hulk’s strength and Moon Knight’s insanity powers (accidentally), but it all comes down to her spouting one-liners while destroying not-Iron Man, then bragging about how she took down the Avengers.

For the record, she didn’t take down the Avengers here. She beat up a man suffering with multiple personality disorder, a woman suffering anger issues, a black guy and a robot who showed up originally to be peace keepers during a global conflict. There is literally nothing to brag about here.

Tie-ins. Am I right?

Let’s keep this mutant train rolling.

“New Mutants” #43 saw the finale of the ‘Exiled’ crossover with “Journey into Mystery.” In it, Sigurd and Bor’s former handmaidens-cum-brothel/current Disir are about to get married in order to break their curse, but Bor’s archaic world views and generally sexist behavior pushes Valkyrie over the edge, who in turn breaks up the wedding and causes an all out brawl between the New Mutants, the Disir and Thor’s grandfather while Loki and Hela split. All things considered, this still isn’t the weirdest wedding I’ve ever attended.

Bor, overwhelmed by the enraged Disir, flees to Hel to return to his home amongst the darkness, but unfortunately for him Loki is on guard duty (or what is also referred to as “Plan B”). The Disir, aka god devours, are closing in on Bor, and the only way Loki will open the gates to Hel and save him is if he ends the curse (which, really, should’ve been an idea in Bor’s mind since the beginning, but he’s kind of stuck up). Bor ends the curse, the Disir becoming Valkyrie and are enlisted by Hela, and the curse is broken. All the Asgardians get to be Asgardians again, the Disir are as happy as one could be in this infinitely grim situation and Sigurd is left to drink his life in a way while Brun and her friends taunt him about the knowledge of his death.

Really, there’s just one little problem: Mephisto, who had ownership of the Disir before all this, is a bit pissed that Loki screwed with his possessions and ruined his chances to date Amara. Now who is Mephisto going to go to Hell Prom with?! Mephisto promises revenge on Loki and everyone who ever made comments about how weird it was that Mephisto in “New Mutants” was a seemingly nice guy now gets the closure to that storyline that was always subtley implied when the devil took a girl on a date and wasn’t a jerk about it. (For those who don’t catch my drift: he was going to use her for something bad.)

Continued below

Still, 4 out of 5 things ending on a happy note isn’t that bad, right? All things considered, this is literally as close as an “All’s Well That Ends Well” finale for a story about cursed cannibalistic women and the god of mischief.

Finally, in the only other X-Title this week, Victor Gischler wrapped up his run in “X-Men” by having Pixie teleporting repeatedly until she manages to solve their problems (their problem being one rogue Skrull in a crew of Skrulls trying to destroy the Statue of Liberty). Oh, and this little kid is an idiot for a while:

For the record, that controller is in charge of the flight path of the ship which contains a bomb. The little brat doesn’t seem to realize he’s only making things worse in between a Skrull pointing a gun at his head and the opportunity to hit buttons arising. What are they even teaching kids in school these days?

Still, not a bad finale all in all. Especially if you like Pixie teleporting.

This Week’s Contributors were:
Walt – “Batman” Annual, “Animal Man” Annual, “FF” #18
Matthew – “Wolverine and the X-Men” #11, “X-Men Legacy” #267, “New Mutants” #43, “X-Men” #29

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.


//TAGS | The Weekend Week in Review

Walt Richardson

Walt is a former editor for Multiversity Comics and current podcaster/ne'er-do-well. Follow him on Twitter @goodbyetoashoe... if you dare!

EMAIL | ARTICLES

Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

EMAIL | ARTICLES


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