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 after the cut, but I figure that you could figure that out.
Fear Itself ended this week with issue #7. Well, you would think that it was over, but there are still issues .1, .2, and .3, as well as The Fearless… but who cares. The issue opened up with Cap holding the line against the mechanazis, or whatever you want to call them, until Stark arrived with the magically-powered Avengers (plus Red She-Hulk). I still think Dr. Strange’s staff makes him look like a Sailor Moon character, but that’s neither here nor there. Thor attacked the now even more serpentine Serpent with both sword and hammer in hand, but lost the hammer in their struggle. You know that whole “whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy” deal? Yeah, Cap was worthy. As the heroes fought on, Odin prepared to raze Midgard and destroy the Serpent, but Thor beat him to it, dying in the struggle. The Serpent defeated and the Worthy’s hammers de-powered, Odin took his son’s body with him to Asgard, banishing the other Asgardians to Midgard so that he could mope in peace. The en– wait, no, there were a bunch of epilogues for the upcoming spinoff series, but that’s boring.
The new Justice League continued into its second issue, throwing Barry Allen into the mix as well. Turns out, DCnU Barry has a new talent that pre-Flashpoint Barry didn’t have.
That’s right, Allen now has eye-disappearing powers. You never know when that could come in handy. After being called on the phone by Hal, Barry showed up for no reason other than to job to Superman and show how fast the Kryptonian menace is. Somehow, Batman was able to get Clark to stop beating the hell out of everyone else – and just in time, too, as the military showed up to put a stop to everything. I’ve had parties like that, too. As the newly formed quartet skedaddled, we were given a brief scene where Vic confronted his dad – who was studying a similar box to the one that Bruce and Hal found last issue – about not showing up to his football games. But no one cares about that, so Johns quickly cut back to the pre-Justice League as they tried to figure out the alien artifact. Their questions were soon answered, though, as it opened up some kind of portal to summon hordes of Darkseid’s minions. The same thing happened in Dr. Stone’s office, and the resulting blast terribly deformed Vic. That’ll teach you to confront your father in his own office.
The “final” issue of Uncanny X-Men focused on the fallout of Schism, particularly in regards to Scott. We saw him part relatively amicably with Bobby, who was all jokes as usual, and not amicably at all with Hank. But wait, you say, Hank had been long gone, hadn’t he? Well, yeah, but he came back just to leave again as one big “fuck you” to Scott. Classy. In what I guess you could call retaliation, Scott removed all the pictures of the old guard from the walls of Utopia. Mature. There was also this interesting bit:
And by “this,” I mean nude Mr. Sinister, not that board.
Batman #2 took the cliffhanger beginning approach, opening with an assassin knocking Bruce out of a Wayne Tower window. Oh the suspense! Backtracking to the previous day, we saw The Bat-Man thwarting some kind of art heist on his swanky new bat-cycle. That isn’t the only new toy, though; next, we saw Bruce conducting an autopsy of the corpse from the previous issue through a security camera, while he stayed nice and cozy in the Batcave. With the help of Jim Gordon, Bats deduced that the John Doe was a fighting trainer of some kind, and found an Athenian Owl on one of his molars that matched those on the knives in him. Shortly after all of this, Dick arrived in the Batcave as well. Recognizing the corpse, he said that the guy had approached him at a Wayne-related event, and grabbed onto Dick’s arm while babbling some sort of nonsense. Thus, the DNA under his nails. We then cut back to Wayne Tower shortly before the attack, where Bruce talked with Lincoln, from the previous issue, before being interrupted by the previously mentioned assassin. How rude. Saying something about how The Court of Owls had sentenced him to death, the assassin kicked Bruce out the window. Of course, Bruce caught himself on a gargoyle, and lived to figure out what this Court of Owls was. Physics, shmysics.
Continued belowBefore heading east to Westchester, Logan had some business to take care of in Wolverine #17. After saying goodbye to Melita, Wolverine returned to Chinatown for his dough – wait, you didn’t read Wolverine: Manifest Destiny? Long story short, Wolverine took the Daredevil approach and became the kingpin of San Francisco’s Chinatown (because it worked so well for Matt Murdock. Of course, he’s been too busy doing X-Men things, so that plan to keep order didn’t really work – and, more importantly, his cash was gone. Alongside his new partners in kinda-but-not-really crime, Wolverine busted up a Jade Claw warehouse full of heroin. But that’s not all! Also in the warehouse was Gorilla Man, of the Agents of Atlas! As you would expect, they did the whole fight for a bit then decide to team-up routine, finding a secret passage further down, where – holy shit that is a two-headed dragon in a tunnel that leads all the way to China. To be continued, true believers.
As one might expect, Nightwing #2 didn’t open with Dick being killed. Rather, the would-be-assassin blew up a car in an attempt to distract Nightwing so that he would be free to kill… Dick Grayson. What a sucker. Later that night, Dick was woken up by one of his former circus-mates, Raya, who needed Dick to fly her to Atlantic City. Except not really – turns out, Mr. Haly is on his last breaths, and actually wanted to see Dick one last time so that he could give him the deeds to the circus. Drunk on power – okay, not really – Dick hooked up with Raya on the way back. The guy loves his redheads. A while afterward, Dick received a call from the same assassin as before, naming himself “Saiko.” Clever. Following Dick’s trail, Saiko had tortured Haly and found out about Dick’s identity – you think Dick’s former employer wouldn’t be able to recognize his moves? Dick turned the plane around, and the two fought it out in Haly’s warehouse until the place fell to the ground. Dick managed to escape with Haly, and the old man muttered something about the secret of the circus before finally passing away. Manly tears were shed.
Anything that 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, I’ll give you credit.
