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.
The ongoing summer blockbuster that is the relaunched Justice League continued into #5 this week, filled with enough explosions and VZZZEEOOOs to please even the most discerning Michael Bay fan. After making his grand entrance last month, Darkseid took out Superman with one of his homing eye-beams, while Barry was able to use Speed Force shenanigans to avoid the same fate. After watching Superman being taken out in a single blow, you’d think the other heroes would fall back and come up with a strategy before mounting a second attack on Darkseid, but they wouldn’t be the best of the best if the weren’t quasi-suicidal – as evidenced by the four pages of Hal throwing himself at Darkseid and repeatedly getting his ass handed to him. That’s what he gets for the stupidest battle cry ever:
What does one need after a solid whooping? A Bat-pep-talk. For a moment Bruce showed that he was the only sensible member of the team by suggesting that they regroup, but any boost to his ethos was undercut by him trying to tell Hal that they, a man in a batsuit and a guy with a magic space cop ring, were the two normal guys of the team. Apparently once you have been struck with a lightning bolt, you no longer count as a person. Sorry, Barry. As if that wasn’t enough, Bruce removed his cowl and revealed his identity to a guy he had just met in an effort to win Hal’s trust, or something like that. Thankfully, the rest of the would-be league had just kind of… disappeared. Stripping his costume of any Bat-iconography, Bruce let himself be captured and brought through a portal to Apokolips, while the rest of the team – surprise, surprise – regrouped and mounted a new attack. All together, everybody!
As is often the case, Mighty Thor #10 began with Heimdall seeing something foreboding – namely, the assassination of the All-Mother. As is often the case, Heimdall wasn’t sure who would be doing the assassinating. Meanwhile, Tanarus was crass and rude to Sif, proving himself to be a better Thor than Thor himself. His “wooing” was interrupted by the entrance of Heimdall, whose remark that he couldn’t see Tanarus was enough to make the new thunder god beat the hell out of the seer. Temper, temper. While Tanarus was busy being extra norse-y, kid Loki and the now pants-ed Norrin Radd regarded the mysterious hammer of someone named “Thor.” Apparently those are some special pants that Norrin found, because he was back to being all silver and powerful with no real explanation. That’s the only explanation I can think of, because it certainly isn’t something really obvious being missed by editorial. No sir. Norrin pulled and tugged on Mjolnir for a while, and somehow that was enough for it to dislodge and go flying through dimensions to where Thor was about to be devoured by the dead-god-eating Demiurge. That didn’t take long.
Fantastic Four #602 opened with the reunited first family fighting off the Kree with the help of the Avengers and Johnny’s Annihilation Wave. In an attempt to turn the tides, Reed and Sue went to the back of Johhny’s ship find and activate a mysterious device they had been holding onto, but before they could get there the hull was breached by Kree kommandos, briefly taking out Reed in the process and leaving Sue to fend for herself. A walk in the park for a bunch of highly trained warriors, right?
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Okay, maybe not. Once Reed regained his bearings, he activated the mysterious device in question, which summoned the big purple planet-eater of the cosmos himself, Galactus. Galactus warned Reed that this wasn’t what he was waiting to be summoned for, but nevertheless began to absolutely decimate the Kree fleet. Then, in a blinding flash, the real reason for Galactus’s aid appeared: A host of mad Celestials. Wha-huh?
For an explanation, we head over to FF, where Valeria, Franklin, Nathaniel, Doom, and the rest of the Future Foundation fought to close the Bridge to the realm of said mad Celestials. A flashback with Nathaniel and Valeria revealed that the whole point wasn’t to stop them entirely, as they would always break through no matter what, but to delay them enough so that they wouldn’t arrive at the same time as the Kree fleet, but not so much that when Reed summoned Galactus to crush the Kree fleet, the guy with the funny hat wouldn’t leave before the Celestials arrived, as he would be necessary to defeat them. Is this Fantastic Four or Doctor Who? In the efforts to slow the Celestials down, Evil Reed used his Ultimate Nullifier, but ended up being fried, while Doom made some magnanimous speech before falling himself. The kids tried to close the gate, but the celestials inevitably – literally – broke through and headed of to Fantastic Four #602… after twenty-eight minutes had elapsed.
I would tell you what happened in the finale of the Alpha Flight miniseries that was originally an ongoing that was originally a miniseries, but I have a deep-seated hatred for all things Canadian – especially Multiversity contributor Josh Mocle. Instead, Gil will give you the dirt on those filthy Canucks.
If there’s one thing that’s always been true about Americans, it’s that we don’t care about Canada. Even when a massive political change overtakes the country directly to our north and turns them into Xenophobic hate mongers, we don’t care about them, and xenophobia and hate mongering are the United States’ primary exports!
The shit really hit the fan in this, the final issue. The team fought back against a despotic government and saved Moose and Maple Syrup-Land from evil alien supervillains who wanted to turn Canada into the seat of their new intergalactic empire, which is kind of like saying Justin Bieber is your new overlord. It just doesn’t mesh. But while that happened, some little-known Canadian named Wolverine made his splash against Unity and stabbed someone in the eyes. He immediately apologized and they went for poutine. By the end of the book, There was True Unity, the team was back together (except for the Mac’s wife who left him for the second time in eight issues), Aurora’s split-personalities reformed, and Northstar’s boyfriend got his toes back. Apparently it’s NOT normal for Canadians to have lost their toes to frostbite. Who knew? By the end of the issue the nation was like a Robin Sparkles music video again.
Anyway, I’m going to mourn the loss of a good title from the Great White North by drinking some Canadian Whiskey, listen to some Bryan Adams, followed by a Degrassi marathon. Bless you, Mac and company, we lost you too soon.
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, I’ll give you credit.
