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.
Schism ended this week in a little bit less than climactic fashion. As we saw in the previews, the issue opened up with Wolverine and Cyclops beating the crap out of each other, but they eventually stopped and joined the younger X-Men when they saw that they were doing the sensible thing and, you know, attacking the freaking giant Sentinal attacking Utopia. After Scott and Logan joined the fight, it only took the span of four pages of punching and blasting, without any deaths or serious injuries, for the hulking behemoth to be destroyed. In the fallout, Logan told Scott that he was through with Scott’s vision, and left with Bobby and the kids – the same kids that took Scott’s side and fought for Utopia, but you know how kids change their minds these days – abducting Quentin Quire in the process. After Idie had a little bit more time for some self-loathing, Logan revealed their destination: the ruins of the old Westchester academy. Enroll your kid in Mr. Logan’s “Be the Best at What You Do” program today!
In Animal Man #2, Buddy Baker was struck with a hideous tattoo-like deformity. His family was deformed, too, but I think that’s just what being drawn by Travel Foreman does to you. I don’t recommend it. Buddy’s daughter revealed herself to be – to quote our resident grump, Patrick – an “innocent, vulnerable little girl who nonetheless harbors encyclopedic knowledge of crazy paranormal bullshit, which just happens to be revealed in the course of direct contact with said bullshit.” Playing to the trope, Maxine demonstrated this by turning a freaked-out neighbor’s arm into the leg of a bird. When she turned it back, it was just a misshapen mass of flesh and, assumedly, bone, and Buddy just kind of… let it be. Parent of the year, there. Father and daughter then took a little vacation to what Maxine called “the red place,” after taking directions from a variety of wildlife, and the two entered The Red through a tree. Somehow the scenes of hippos bursting in the zoo and of the “totems” eating people weren’t near as terrifying as Buddy’s face as he was sucked into the tree.
We began Action Comics with a lovely little torture scene with Clark strapped to an electric chair and repeatedly getting juiced. Do I really need to tell you who was in charge of his interrogation? A certain Dr. Irons – hint, hint – objected to Luthor’s practices, but Luthor made the claim that it wasn’t wrongful to torture Superman due to his alien nature. He was the debate team’s secret weapon. Of course, though, this was news to Clark, and so he had no idea what the man was talking about when he brought up Krypton and rockets, or when he brought in the corpse of some terribly deformed creature – Krypto? – and claimed it to be Superman’s natural state. Then again, I didn’t know what he was talking about then, either. Laughing at Luthor’s silliness, Clark used his microwave vision to fry the station’s computers, and busted his way out of there – grabbing his cape and saying hello to the infiltrating Lois first, of course. In the aftermath, John Corben, one of the soldiers that was pining after Lois, decided to take down Supes with a prototype metal exoskeleton – which, as we all know, is always a great idea – and Luthor’s source of information regarding Clark’s origin was revealed to be some kind of alien. I guess the weird goat thing was some kind of extraterrestrial joke.
Continued below“Hulk of Arabia” began in Jeff Parker’s Hulk #42. In it, Thunderbolt Ross, a.k.a. Red Hulk had yet another scuffle with the armored Hulk hunter Fortean, but after only a few blasts and smashes, Fortean received a message and left Ross without a word. He left the sink running! You know how much that can add onto a bill. Okay, it actually a message from his air base, informing him that a certain Krugauer was killed in action by separatists in a military action in Qatar. We learned that this Krugauer was a former friend of Ross’s that broke off from the military to function as a mercenary, making this personal. Ross bounced his way to Qatar, confronting a group of separatists, but soon got his ass kicked by War Machine, Black Widow, and Valkyrie. You know, of the Secret Avengers. They began to let them know who they were, and how secret their team was. Notice they are not the Bright Avengers.
There was a lot of talking in Swamp Thing #2. The swamp thing that had appeared at the end of issue one was revealed to be a member of the Parliament of Trees that had uprooted himself to send Alec Holland a message: the lord of the death and The Other, Sethe, is coming, and he’s going to make everything icky and gross. Or something like that. Even though Alec doesn’t need to become the Swamp Thing, he still has a tie to the Green, and will probably be on Sethe’s hit list. In fact, after leaving the shriveled up swamp dead thing and returning to his hotel, Holland was attacked by a horde of those backwards-head things from Alan Moore’s run. Cue old man rage in 3… 2… 1… The issue ended with Holland being picked up by a mysterious female biker, revealed on the last page to be… Abigail Arcane! Hooray! Except she is going to kill Alec. Oh no!
Issue number six of Moon Knight didn’t have too much action, but that’s alright. Echo showed up at Spector’s apartment, and the two kissed and made up. Well, there was no kissing, since that’s what got Marc punched – a few times – in the first place, but you get what I mean. Shortly afterward, the Avengers showed up, due to Moon Knight’s new right-hand-man Buck Lime calling them, but before all this we were given a scene where the kingpin of L.A. fucking fried the Night Watch holy shit this guy gives no fucks. Ahem. The Avengers showed up, but after a long conversation they decided that, sure, they could let Moon Knight keep doing what he was doing. Um, excuse me, guys, I just hope you know you are leaving an Ultron head with a schizophrenic that is imagining another set of you guys as you stand there and talk to him.
Finally, I hope that Tony Daniel keeps up the trend of being able to know what’s going on in his Detective Comics run by just reading the solicits and the last page.
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.
