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.
Walt is away on business this weekso I will be taking over as resident sass-master until next week.
In the first issue of FF now only starring the children, our assorted youngsters find themselves teleported to Latveria to hang out with their favorite uncle, Victor Von Doom (see Fantastic Four #600 for the beginning of said teleportation). The kids find, however, that Uncle Doom is a) a prisoner in his own country with a bomb collar around his neck, and b) under watch the watch of their grandfather Nathaniel and an alternate dimension evil version of their father! If this isn’t a recipe for some kind of future family-based scarring, I don’t know what is. We also learn that all of this was pre-ordained by Nathaniel Richards, the “Future Man” referenced from Hickman’s SHIELD book (which also features him as a main character), who told Valeria what to do some time ago. As the final page roles around, we learn why the Future Foundation went to Latveria in the first place: its time to send the evil alternate Reed home. I feel it stands worth noting that we are now reading a book where an alternate Reed, who is a version of one of the seven smartest people on the planet, can’t send himself home — but a bunch of children who are still developing can. Not so smart, are you, Mr. Richards?
In the final issue of Marvel’s Herc, Hercules and the mortal/slothful version of his father Zeus take some tips from the Kingpin to go find Baba Yaga, a vicious witch from Russian folklore who I got to hear all about as a child growing up in a Russian household. The old witch has hired Elektra (appealing to her anti-Kingpin sensibilities) and assembled a group of children to worship her, because when in doubt, surround yourself with children. (Cue Chris Hansen popping by and asking Baba Yaga to “take a seat over there.”) Herc and Zeus travel to do battle with Baba Yaga, but are intercepted by the much more clever Elektra, who steals their toys, realizes that Baba Yaga is holding children hostage and leaves. Herc tracks Yaga to the Floyd Bennet Field in Rockaway, and after Zeus is captured (due to being an idiot), Herc and Elektra accidentally team up to defeat a now powered Baba Yaga by stabbing her in the back and cutting her head off. Zeus reattains his godhood by siphoning of Baba Yaga’s leftover energy, stops being such an idiot, and offers to return Hercules to Olympus for his acts of bravery. Herc remains mortal, however, because he likes living in Brooklyn. Why? I have no idea. I’ve been to Brooklyn and.. I mean, it’s ok. A nice enough place to visit in parts, and the Park Slope Chipshop is great, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
We also learn that Zeus loves chocolate and hates children, as most intelligent gods assumedly do.
This week saw three books bearing the Regenesis banner: Wolverine, Uncanny X-Men and X-Men Legacy.
In Wolverine, we finally get the missing link between the end of Schism and Wolverine and the X-Men. It turns out Wolverine got his fortune by stealing it from an underground opium banner, and thanks to the help of Fat Cobra and Guerilla Man. After freeing all of the underground opium farmer slaves thanks to the help of Master Po and his knowledge of dragon warfare, Wolverine cuts off the remaining hand of Soulstriker, that guy who punches people in the soul with the really creative name, whose attacks don’t work now because, as Wolverine puts it, he quote “got a girlfriend, buried one of (his) closest buddies, went to Hell and back, had a buncha demons run wild in (his) head, was tricked into killing (his) own damn kids, had (his) face blown off by another of (his) friends and became headmaster to a school full of mutant teenagers” (which did wonders for his core). The Jade Dragon is literally chased from San Francisco to China by some dragons, Fat Cobra opts in to be the new Black Dragon, Melita gets a job at the Daily Bugle to be near her boyfriend, and Wolverine manages to save Harry’s Hideaway, which hasn’t been seen since 2003. Oh, and we learn that there is yet another evil cabal planning a massive strike against Wolverine. The Red Hand just weren’t good enough for the hundred-plus year old man.
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The second issue of Uncanny X-Men gave us the revelation that everything really is Sinister. In an idea that seems to play off some old Morrison threads, it turns out that Sinister is now “a system… a species.” This means that no matter how many times the X-Men kill a Sinister, he isn’t dead because his conscience is spread out through about.. oh, a thousand different bodies! It would be an easy and fantastic way to stay alive — except there is an armada of Celestials on their way to raze the Earth. It turns out that the whole “stealing a sleeping Celestial head and turning it into a giant egotistical monument” stunt Sinister pulled from the first issue hasn’t played out very well, but that’s fine because Sinister wants everyone to die. Looks like it’s up to the X-Men to stop Sinister and fix things on planet Earth, which they do by smashing and shoot various Sinisters in a very futile manuever. If only Sinister wasn’t psychic and hadn’t figured out how to telepathically incapacitate everyone anyway. Oh, how are the X-Men ever going to get out of this jam?
And, speaking of jam, now that Sinister is the Englishman to end all comic book Englishmen, how do you suppose he likes his jam? On toast? We’ll probably find out next issue!
Mike Carey’s final arc of X-Men Legacy begins as Rogue attempts to decide who she stands with in the battle of Wolverine vs. Cyclops, but is unfortunately derailed from this internal quest by the realization that there is a psychic stowaway hidden throughout the various characters who just returned from the previous space-based arc. As it turns out, Korvu’s sword began carrying a mysterious energy reading after passing through the wormhole that brought Rogue’s X-Team back to Earth. After briefly considering that it could be Jean Grey (because come on, guys, in an X-Men story, when is it not Jean Grey’s fault, am I right?), it is revealed that Ariel — last seen maybe dying in X-Men: Second Coming in a scene that I think everyone completely forgot about — did not die in that scene, but is rather trapped in an interdimensional limbo. All things considered in X-History, there are much worse places to get stuck in. One can only hope that by saving Ariel, Rogue is somehow able to see much more clearly in the internal struggle of Utopia vs. Westchester, although — Spoiler Alert! — we know she’s going to Westchester because of all that promo stuff Marvel put out months ago. Ah well, Mike. It’s not your fault you don’t get to reveal that.
On the plus side, though, looking at Mike Carey’s run from when he started writing Legacy (back when it was called X-Men) and now is quite interesting, given that his first story featured Rogue in Westchester forming a new team and now we’re ending with her returning to Westchester alone. It’s a nice arc! (This comment has a sass factor of absolute zero, but I hope you’ll appreciate the light commentary regardless.)
The last issue of Greg Pak’s historical-based origin story of the Red Skull: Incarnate sees Johann Shmidt’s story finally coming full circle to mix with the original origin story given to the character by JM DeMatteis and Paul Neary back in 1984. As Shmidt and his friends finally made their way to assassinate Hitler, Shmidt ended up betraying his best and only friend, getting him sent off to death, and in turn getting on Hitler’s cool list, which would later allow him to become the Red Skull. …of course, we don’t actually see that. Unless you already know how Shmidt became the Red Skull, this won’t help you out too much. In fact, this book should have actually been called Johann Shmidt: Incarnate. Or, if the Red Skull bit was really necessary, I think Red Skull: My Time As A Teenage Jerkwad would’ve been a tolerable title as well.
THUNDER Agents v2 #1 was one of two books released this week “in continuity” from DC, and it saw the team acting as a protective detail for the royal family of the Subterraneans. If the Subterraneans seem unfamiliar to you, then don’t fret — this is yet another re-imagined villain from the original run of THUNDER Agents that writer Nick Spencer is just now bringing into the book. Just imagine a more developed version of the mole people and you’ll get it. However, because things can’t just go right, hell breaks loose, NoMan gets shot in the face and a villain named Demo “returns” (I assume) to kill the rest of the team, starting with Dynamo. Things would have invariably gone better if team manager Colleen and Menthor were around…
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But they went on a date to see Breathless, or as it was originally called in French, À bout de souffle, which is a great film by Jean Luc Goddard that you should go get a copy of on DVD or Blu-ray. There’s actually a great version of it available from the Criterion Collection that — … you know what? Screw it. Stop reading about comics. Go watch a good movie, get yourself some culture! I’m not going to try to convince you anything in regards to the movie, because the movie very much speaks for itself. Here’s a link to the DVD on Amazon.com; order now, and thank me later. (Netflix is also an acceptable option.)
I would tell you about Legion: Secret Origin #2, but truth be told I didn’t read it. I jumped ship on the story of the Legion of Super-Heroes quite some time ago, and the one Legion book I tried from the New 52 didn’t do much to convince me otherwise. But hey, Brian gave it a 7.8 out of 10 along with a “Buy” rating, so take that for what you will. Maybe you can still get a Legion ring if you pick it up now?
Walt asked me, amongst all the books that I wanted to talk about, to please include Batman: Odyssey v2 #2 in the collection of books I talk about. This is not a book I have ever read, although I’ve heard a bit about its interior insanity. I couldn’t think of anything effectively snarky to say about the book, though, because the book essentially speaks for itself. With that in mind, I a going to describe to you exactly what happened in the book with zero commentary, if only to prove that point:
In Batman: Odyssey Part 8, Batman — apparently in the “Underworld”, some miles into the Earth’s interior — teams up with Bat-Man and Primus, two half-human half-dinosaur mongoloid-esque creatures, and they ride on the backs of giant Bats after stealing them from trolls in order to catch up with the villainous Sensei. The trio chase after a bunch of villainous punks riding on the back of T-Rex’s, and a vicious firefight ensues. Batman manages to get on the back of one of the T-Rex’s, but is quickly thrown into a rock. He rebounds, and runs after the T-Rex, thinking, “I don’t like this. I don’t like this. I don’t like this. I don’t like this! I don’t like it. I really don’t like it.” Once he hops onto the back of the T-Rex, however, he exclaims for all the world to hear, “I LOVE IT!” Batman rides the T-Rex back to the primate village, who immediately threaten to kill him until Bat-Man arrives and vouches for the Dark Knight. Batman, Primus and Bat-Man attempt to celebrate their victory, but after sensing the influence of Ra’s Al Ghul amongst the village in the form of two moles, Batman goes on a monologue about stopping evil, which he assumes goes over well. It assumedly does, until Batman notices the villagers murdering the two moles. “I knew this wasn’t going to be a good day,” thinks Bruce.
Yup.
Yes, I did have to make fun of Batman. Again. Walt will return next way to bring the bwa-ha-ha back with his usual sense style and panache, but we at Multiversity hope you’ve enjoyed this brief interlude of wry humor from yours truly.
