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The Weekend Week in Review (7/4/2012)

By , and | July 7th, 2012
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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.

“Before Watchmen: Ozymandias” #1 began with a framing sequence of Adrian shortly prior to enacting the great plan that ‘Watchmen’ was all about – of course it does, ‘Watchmen’ is filled with multiple chronological juxtapositions, any spin-off would be remiss in not doing the same. Of course, though, we soon cut off, relocating to the very beginning of Veidt’s life. You remember that lie that you would tell your friends about how you were actually really smart, but had to pretend to be dumb in order to not attract unwarranted attention? Well, Adrian was the same way – never mind that a bunch of other fictional characters were, too. After scoring too high on an aptitude test, and accused of cheating, lil’ Veidt’s father forced him to play it cool.

Gee, I think that poster could be a little less subtle, don’t you? Of course, even when trying to play down his intelligence, Adrian was still picked on by other boys. Like the intelligent little devil he was, though, he soon learned some kind of martial art that taught him how to shatter one of his would-be bullies’ knees. So that’s how Nite Owl did it in the film. You know where it goes from here: kid graduates high school earlier, college even earlier, then loses his parents while taking a Harvard post-grad program at 17. Typical teenage years, you know? The rest occurred as explained in ‘Watchmen,’ with Adrian undertaking the same path that his hero, Alexander the Great, took, honing his body and mind like a more philosophical Bruce Wayne, until a wild night with a ball of hash made him think that Ramesses II was totally groovy, man. The only really new thing that this “Before Watchmen” issue offers – which is more than can be said about “Minutemen” or “Nite Owl” – is motivation for Veidt that wasn’t originally present (unless I am remembering incorrectly). According to Wein, Adrian put on his Ozymandias persona for the first time in an attempt to find vengeance for his [female] lover who overdosed on heroin, provided by that fiend Moloch, who is probably going to appear in every issue of this prologue cycle, since he was the only old-school villain to get much attention.

Yep. That totally sounds like Adrian.

The ‘Totally not a Cash Grab to Tie-in with the Movie’ arc of “Amazing Spider-Man” continued into issue #689, with a surprised Lizard consciousness in Curt Connors 100% human body, thanks to Morbius’s cure. I’m still not sure I follow Morbius’s logic on this one, by the way; even though they are completely different kinds of monsters, the cure that turned Connors into a human – never mind not completely – should work on Morbius? I don’t have a 616 PhD, but that just doesn’t sound right. Trying to seek a way to be alone, Curt Lizard feigned tears over the exhumed corpse of his son, and asked to be left alone. While Peter, Morbius, Max, and the rest of the Horizon staff were debating the morality of Morbius’s actions in digging up Billy, the Lizard released a mist of blood through the lab’s vents, causing Morbius to reflexively snap at the nearest scientist. As you might expect, after the crap he had been through already that day, it was enough to make Peter snap and go on the offensive, turning down monster hunter Uatu’s gear and making a bold declaration:

Oh really, Pete? While Web-head beat the tar out of truly apologetic Morbius, Max attempted to help Connors perfect Morbius’s vaccine so that the monster-man could soon become just a man, sans monster. Of course, Connors was actually doing the opposite, figuring out a cure to his own fleshy condition. Taking Max by surprise, the lizard in human’s clothing tried out his formula on the unsuspecting super genius, turning him into a similarly scaled creature, and celebrated his success quite tastefully.

“Earth 2” #3 had the newer, gayer Alan Scott waking up in the wreckage of his train from last issue, greeted by a writhing, talking green flame. Surprising absolutely no one, the flame informed Alan that his partner, who Alan was about to propose to last issue, had died in the crash, but that he shouldn’t be bummed out because he was going to be the next guardian chosen by the Green. Even Alan was not surprised, instead asking the flame why it had lain dormant, why him, and yadda yadda. A few countries away, Jay Garrick had just run into Earth 2’s Hawkgirl, who made some “subtle” hints about Fate before challenging Jay to a friendly scuffle, just to see what the speedster was worth in a fight. They soon figured out that there was probably a better use of their time, though, when everything around them was… well, dying. Back in China, Alan decided that, yeah, having nearly limitless energy provided by the Earth was a pretty sweet deal, and gave up his most treasured possession as the next energy conduit for the Green: the ring he was about to give Sam. How sweet. While Alan used his newfound powers to assist his fellow crash victims, we saw the decay that was originally in Poland spread across the globe, until we finally saw its source – the zombie and classic Green Lantern villain Grundy!

…who still wants pants.

Over in “Animal Man” #11, it was Buddy vs. Buddy…buddy. The Rot had taken over Buddy’s original body and left the real Buddy somewhere in the ether without one. This issue opened immediately in The Red where he was getting a new body from what looked like some moloids/Impossible Man…people who scrutinized everything about him. Would he stay blond or become a brunet? Who cares when you could just cause him as much pain as possible?

Meanwhile in the real world Boots, our totem who protects Buddy’s family from The Rot but apparently not enough, as The Rot decided to talk to Buddy’s son Cliff in ways that would make even the predators Chris Hansen catches blush.

JFC, what creeps.

After his body was remade with action figure-ready shape-shifting action (convenient!), he went to take on the fake Buddy. Will Slim Baker Please Stand Up? The real Animal Man hit the fake Animal Man with a stiff uppercut that quite literally knocked the fake Buddy’s block off. His head flew off…and grew some legs out of his neck like a creepy spider and talked trash AFTER being beat up. Buddy tried to get the information about who The Rot’s avatar was but the BuddyRot basically taunted Buddy as he was squished by our hero. Everyone was happy! Well, maybe except the cat.

(can I say Buddy enough?)

Then Cliff passed out saying one word: “Arcane.”

I wonder who that could be…

Oh that’s right, he’s over in “Swamp Thing” #11 trying to kill his niece Abigail!

Fat chance he has though, since she’s the living embodiment of “cool people don’t look at explosions archetype.

Clint Eastwood couldn’t have said it any better himself.

Anton Arcane, however, wasn’t impressed. He sent his Un-Men after Abigail and tried to kill her. The Rot’s Avatar continued being an absolute creep. He eventually got the best of Abigail, unfortunately, and that’s when we cut to our hero Alec Holland.

He woke up after being seemingly killed, saved by a newer, younger, Parliament of Trees. Turns out they Guardians of the Universe’d it up after Kyle re-ignited the Lantern (oh wait, that never happened…or did it? I’m never sure anymore). They discussed facing The Rot, who had taken “his witch” (Abigail) with him. Alec told them not to call her that and threatened to cut them down and make KFC buckets out of them.

Continued below

Swampy eventually reached Abigail and Anton and proceeded to beat the not-so-living snot out of him. The Un-Men tried to stop Swamp Thing but eventually succumbed to the might of the Non-Toxic Avenger. Anton and Alec fought each other in their inhuman forms until Abigail shot her uncle through the temple.

But he’s dead so that didn’t exactly work out of the best, now did it? It got him to leave though, and Swamp Thing and Heather Locklear lived on the fight another day. That is until she had a vision of what The Rot looks like on the other side of the door she escaped to and she said she saw a nightmare. Swampy did what everyone WOULD do and get the eff away from it, but someone showed up with other ideas.

FINALLY!

This week in “AvX” was a small but big week, as we had the main “AvX” title come out but with only one tie-in. You’d think that this would make “my job” easier, but really, it doesn’t.

So what happened in “AvX” #7? Well, we know from tie-ins from the past week that the Avengers are now Public Enemy #1 (minus Flava Flav) and that the X-Men are hunting them down fairly mercilessly (Fear of an Avenged Planet?). Namor has taken their mansion, Cyclops has taken the Avengers Tower an Colossus has gone after Avengers Academy (wait, isn’t Emma doing that over in “Avengers Academy”?), all the while Emma Frost just poses. However, it’s Magik that finds them, with her team of X-Man, Warpath, Polaris, Havok and Gambit, who discover the Avengers team in… well, it’s never really said. An unidentifiable room with no features, apparently. However, battle ensues between Magik’s team and Iron Fist, Vision, Captain America, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye and the Scarlet Witch, who were apparently just sitting around.

(Compare this with the scene from “Wolverine and the X-Men” #10 and try and place it in your own form of continuity.)

The fight mainly comes down Magik vs Scarlet Witch. Wanda is apparently the only mutant who can do any kind of damage to the Phoenix Five because her powers are inherently chaos, so while Tony Stark scans their battle from afar to try and understand how he messed up back in “AvX” #5, Wanda somehow manages to take Magik out, which leads to Emma Frost stopping her posing and joining the fray. (If one were to make a particularly bad joke, they might say “Where were you, Emma?” But I like to think I’m better at jokes than that.) Emma goes all Phoenix all over everybody’s asses, and while she means to take out Wanda she only ends up burning Hawkeye alive, because Hawkeye has notoriously bad luck in Marvel events (see: Avengers: Disassembled and House of M, also illustrated by Coipel). The Avengers retreat to another base, and Emma says “oops.”

The Phoenix Five convene for a meeting to try and figure out where they went wrong (while Hawkeye’s burned body floats near them, as he’s apparently not dead and is getting better). Cyclops seems to still believe that what they’re doing is “right,” while Namor demands that the X-en march to war as they should’ve been doing all this time. Scott won’t have any of it, though, because he’s got his god complex going, and while he hates the Avengers he still doesn’t believe in murder.

The Avengers, on the other hand, convene a meeting of their own, which consists of (ready for this?) Doctor Strange, Daredevil, Black Widow, Spider-Man, Giant Man, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Beast (hey, didn’t you quit??), She-Hulk, Agent 13, Falcon, Mockingbird, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Valkyrie, Thor and Hope, who has suddenly de-aged from half a woman grown to a pre-pubescent girl in some odd twist of fate. They split into (undefined) teams and Doctor Strange gives everyone an Enchantment of Ikonn (I like the name!) which will allow a certain member to appear like the Scarlet Witch in order to throw the X-Men off their trail. Apparently when you almost wipe out an entire race, you become the stuff of nightmares even for godlike entities.

Oh, and apparently Black Panther, who wanted no part of this in “AvX” #6, is now back and is helping Tony Stark rebuild his giant block robot. Er, Phoenix Buster. Apparently what Tony Stark did wrong was “not enough magic.”

Continued below

So they split. Here are your fight breakdowns.

  • In New York, Captain America leads a team of Agent 13, Luke Cage, Daredevil and Spider-Man against Colossus, Magma, Sunspot, Psylocke and Danger.
  • In the Ukraine, Thor, Falcon, Quicksilver, Wolverine and someone playing Wanda fight against Emma, Velocidad, Warpath (who just keeps showing up to get hit in the face, apparently), Boom Boom, Surge and some unidentifiable mutant.
  • In the Arctic Circle, Giant Man, She-Hulk, Beast, Rulk and “Wanda” (revealed to be Valkyrie) square off with Cyclops, Magneto, Dr. Nemesis and Cyclops.
  • In the Pacific Ocean, Doctor Strange, Mockingbird, the Thing and the real Wanda face Namor, Polaris, Iceman and Transonic.

Magik is apparently still resting, even though she was up and about in an earlier sequence.

Everyone proceeds to punch and kick, but the main focus of the fight is where the real Wanda is. Doctor Strange teleports everyone out and accidentally grabs Transonic in the chaos, while Wanda blasts Namor all the way to Utopia. (The other fights just “end.”) This infuriates Namor and pushes him off into a tantrum, at which point Emma Frost comes after him and uses her feminine wiles and a well-placed smooch to push him off the deep end (GET IT?!) and send him raging all the way to Wakanda, where the Avengers are all currently hiding and holding Transonic captive. Apparently, besides the X-Men taking every Avenger they can find prisoner and burning Hawkeye alive, this is a big deal.

The Avengers, meanwhile, are conferring with Lei Kung the Thunderer of K’un Lun (thus bringing in the Iron Fist element teased in “New Avengers”) as they begin to evacuate Wakanda over to the celestial city. However, the “Oh, shit” moment comes when Namor shows up amidst a tsunami outside their door. Imperius Rex!

Over in “Uncanny X-Men” #15, the only other “AvX” tie-in of the week, quite a few little things happen, most of which seem to be either little seeds planted or little seeds blooming.

We begin with a dialogue between Psylocke and Magneto about the sheer improbability of their current situation. The two try and figure out why the old Utopia (Asteroid M) is being kept floating amongst the new and improved Utopia, with both agreeing that it seems odd to keep it around, now that it — like them — is a bit outdated in the face of the Phoenix Five. However, they are interrupted by Danger as she calls them to a meeting and is forced to tell a joke due to her still being under UNIT’s spell. It’s not as good of a joke as “What did the one robot say to the other robot?” “011000100110010101100101011100000010000001100010011011110110111101110000.” But, hey, they can’t all be winners.

In the meanwhile, Colossus tries to convince Cyttorak to release him from bondage. Now that Colossus is part Phoenix, he doesn’t want to be the avatar of Cyttorak’s rage and destruction anymore. However, Cyttorak points out that he is now an extreme bringer of destruction and chaos that there is no way Cyttorak will let him go, so he kicks him out of the Crimson Cosmos and leaves Colossus to go mope around. Oh, poor baby. He has the powers of a god but he can’t get rid of a lousy demon who is a fan of his work. ALL OUR CREYS R 4 U, CLAWSUS.

At the meeting, Cyclops reveals that he finally cares about “the Sinister situation.” Apparently the Phoenix Five are under the impression that Hope was told about the Phoenix by Sinister (with the twist being that UNIT told her everything), so rather than deal with the problem on their doorstep they’re going to deal with the problem some hundreds of feet underground Anchorage, Alaska.

In Sinister London, Sinister notices the psychic prying of the Phoenix to suss out his location and begins to build up his massive army, donning his fanciest gear and preparing for war with the Phoenix Five.

War, that will come next issue, mind you. That’s all we had time for in this installment! Tune in next issue for some fun and fanciful slaughter as only the X-Men can bring you!

Continued below

Wait, this is in Alaska now? Huh. I wonder if the 4 Color News and Brews team are hidden in Sinister London somewhere?

This Week’s Contributors were:
Walt – “Before Watchmen: Ozymandias” #1, “Amazing Spider-Man” #689, “Earth 2” #3
Gil – “Animal Man” #11, “Swamp Thing” #11
Matt – “AvX” #7, “Uncanny X-Men “#15

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!

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Gilbert Short

Gilbert Short. The Man. The Myth. The Legend. When he's not reading comic books so you don't have to, he's likely listening to mediocre music or watching excellent television. Passionate about Giants baseball and 49ers football. When he was a kid he wanted to be The Ultimate Warrior. He still kind of does. His favorite character is Superman and he will argue with you about it if you try to convince him otherwise. He also happens to be the head of Social Media Relations, which means you should totally give him a follow onTwitter.

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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."

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