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
The second-worst of the Before Watchmen books, “Nite Owl” — “Rorschach” took the lead in the span of only one issue — returned this week with issue #3, no matter how much you wish it hadn’t. Dan and S&M Miss or whatever her actual name was were on the lookout for disappearing call girls, and while they were able to find the provider, the recipient was still completely unknown. It’s alright they didn’t crack the case, though; Nite Owl’s piss-poor impersonation was enough to get The Twilight Lady out of the little clothes she had and… well, you can fill in the blank. Afterward, we learned that The Twilight Lady recognized Dan, though not vice versa. Yeah, she’s totally going to live. Meanwhile, Rorschach was shown doing some volunteer work at a church with a suspicious pastor. That couldn’t be important, could it? Fade back to the morning, and Dan was given a typed up confession of some kind by Hollis:
Because what we all wanted from Before Watchmen were startling revelations about certain characters’ pasts that would completely change how we looked at them… right? Finally — thank god — Rorschach found a secret panel (read: apparently unlocked door) in his church, which led to a room holding the dozens of dead and/or dying call girls Dan and Ms. No-Name had been looking for, as well as one disgruntled priest.
I know, the ha-has aren’t there, but there is nothing about how terribly mediocre this comic is.
This week in Zero Month, we saw the release of “Justice League” #0. Wait a minute — an origin for the Justice League? Wasn’t that their first arc? Well, Captain Marvel Shazam is the back-up for the book, so… okay, no, I don’t follow it, either, but I guess it could just be very obvious foreshadowing. This story wasn’t even a one-and-done, like many of the other #0s. Instead, we picked up where the back-up in #12 left off, with Billy in a similar wizard’s den to the one he had been in through multiple origin stories before, with the wizard — now black! — on his death bed. This time, though, Billy isn’t the nice little kid he normally is portrayed as — he’s a total dick!
This wizard, it seems, had been waiting many, many lifetimes for someone of pure good to show up and assume the mantle of Shazam, but somehow it took until now for him to realize that no such person exists — and, even worse, it took an explanation from a kid for him to realize this! Seems like a really wise mentor, doesn’t he? Deciding “Fuck it, why not?” the wizard gave Billy the powers we know and love him for today, and zapped him back home, where he immediately put his powers to good use.
For $20 I can get Shazam to smack someone around for me? It’s all I ever wanted after misinterpreting the title of that show Bully Beatdown! There was also a brief story at the end revealing that, yes, Pandora is that Pandora, only the nature of the box has changed. And here I was worried that Geoff Johns was going to try to effectively use subtle symbolism!
The crossover no-one really wanted but didn’t really care enough to say no to, “Spider-Men,” reached its finale in issue #5 this week. Sure, it was fun, and revealed that, yes, 616 and Ultimate Mysterio are the same dude, but boy does it not take long to summarize:
Continued below1) Our assembled good guys find Mysterio.
2) Our assembled good guys beat up Mysterio.
3) Mysterio’s portal collapsed, giving Peter barely enough time to say some parting words before being locked off from the Ultimate Universe — forever! (yeah right)!
So, really, it ended just how everyone expected, only two or three issues later than it should have. And what kind of parting words did Peter leave? Why, only the most subtle, delicately crafted words Brian Michael Bendis has every penned, of course:
Brian, buddy, I love you, but “See? Look! Peter approves!” is definitely not going to win the Miles-haters over. [Insert thinly veiled jab about racists that I’m too lazy to write]. At the end of the issue, Peter’s otherworldly adventures inspired him to hit the web and do some research.
Ominous, eh? I refer you here. Let me break character for a bit and say you heard it here first: the Superior Spider-Man is 616 Miles Morales.
See, the nice thing is that if I’m wrong, I can just say “lol, satire column.”
This week marks the second to last week of “AvX” tie-ins (I think) as “Avengers” #30 comes out, marking the end of Walter Simonson’s run on the book with Brian Bendis. Like most of this arc, though, it has little to do with anything, offering the tiniest bit of connection to the main action in a way that Marvel can justify — by their logic, not mine or assumedly yours — calling it a tie-in.
How do they do that? By an opening two-page spread of the final battle of X-Men and Avengers fighting Scott and Emma. We then immediately transition to a warehouse being infiltrated by Mr. Negative, who mentions that he is using the opportunity of Avengers fighting X-Men to get some new hardware. That’s it. That’s where the tie-in ends. It basically proves that tie-ins are a useless entity in this day and age, because hey, I might as well say Cabin in the Woods is a tie-in to the Avengers because at least they both have Chris Hemsworth and Joss Whedon.
BUT ANYWAY. The issue is dedicated to the relationship of Hawkeye and Spider-Woman who, in light of “Fear Itself”, started getting intimate. (I should also mention that this warehouse is full of leftover Nazi robots from “Fear Itself,” which is what Mr. Negative is after.) As the battle rages, Hawkeye and Spider-Woman don’t really banter so much as they argue. You see, Spider-Woman talked to Scarlet Witch on the ride home from the epic battle for existence against Crazy God Dark Phoenix Cyclops and hears that at one point years ago, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye had a bit of a relationship. Oh. My. God. HOW DARE HE! Doesn’t he know that he was never supposed to date anyone before he met Spider-Woman?
Relationships, am I right?
Anyway, as the battle dies down, Spider-Woman dials down the crazy and realizes, oh yeah, that shit doesn’t matter. Iron Man, Thor and Cap show up to help too little too late, and decide to ask how they got tipped off to the attack in the first place. Spider-Woman mentions that her old pal Madame Hydra called to let her know, and as it happens used this opportunity to pull of a heist of her own… of stuff from “Secret Invasion!” Oh snap, y’all! First Bendis tries to rob Fraction’s event, and then he robs his own, that big one he did! I guess when Bendis kept saying he had plans to tie all of his Avengers run together, he wasn’t kidding. We can only hope it doesn’t meander as much as all these “tie-ins” did.
It also, curiously enough, features a picture of Iron Man drawn as Apocalypse:
Does anyone else remember this? No? Well, ok.
This Week’s Contributors were:
Walt – “Before Watchmen: Nite Owl” #3, “Justice League” #0, “Spider-Men” #4
Matthew – “Avengers” #30
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.
