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.
Spinning out of Fear Itself – well, somewhat – Defenders began this week like most of the great things in life do: With regret-filled sex. Oddly enough, that’s how a lot of the great things in life end, but that’s neither here nor there. The busybodies in particular were Dr. Strange and a nameless grad student, who was trying to get him to help her with her thesis. So that’s what the kids and the middle-aged occultists are calling it these days. After being left by said student and spending a bit of time moping around, Strange was visited by the now Bruce-less Hulk, claiming he needed some help. What followed was your standard “Team assemble!” sequence, with a few pages showing off each character without really furthering the plot. Interestingly enough, with each character, there was one more page than the one preceding: Namor had one page, the Silver Surfer two, Red She-Hulk three, and Iron Fist four. In a book that’s supposed to be about the big secrets and conspiracies in the Marvel Universe, could this be a sign of some kind? Well, probably no– holy crap the next segment with the team as a whole is five pages long! Ahem. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The team teamed up in the first place to confront Nul, Breaker of Worlds, the entity that possessed the Hulk in Fear Itself, and took one of Danny’s swanky new plane to Wundagore Mountain – of course that’s a real place in the Marvel U – to track him down. As tends to happen in comics when anyone is taking a new plane anywhere, the team’s transport got shot down, and even though everyone was okay after landing, Danny got shot by cat-people led by Prester John. So much for being the head of Multi-Religious Studies.
…Cable & Deadpool? Anyone? No? Okay.
Clark’s new origin continued in Action Comics #4, to much controversy. By much controversy, I mean in a sampling size of my apartment. Why, you ask? Clark changed his costume! I mean, it’s still pretty much the same, but instead of a plain blue shirt, it’s white with the standard Superman logo on it. Only a few months in, and we’re already subjected to a costume change! I, for one, am appalled that DC would pull such a cheap stunt in the wake of –
…hold on, I am being told that this was part of the plan all along. Thus, you know, the outfit in Justice League and Superman. How embarrassing. Anyway, the issue opened with the mechanized John Corben, mentally controlled by who we know to be Brainiac, going on a rampage trying to find Clark. Clark, though, was in a nearby factory, where the machines were being manipulated by Brainiac into humanoid figures named Terminauts. Guess who they were looking for? These guys had the ability to mesh with other machines, leading to my favorite scene from the comic so far:
That’s so awesome I don’t have a joke for it. The rest of the comic was what you’d expect, with explosions, mass hysteria, and robots stealing from jewelry stores and ATMs for reasons I’m not quite sure of. Lane tried to appeal to Corben’s human side, but his destroy-Superman side prevailed won out. Distracted by Corben, Supes was unable to stop yet to be revealed Brainiac from bottling up a portion of Metropolis, including Lois and Jimmy, even though Dr. Henry Irons stepped in to take care of Corben in a battle so great it could only be… part of the back-matter, and not as part of the main narrative.
Awkward times with exes continued in Amazing Spider-Man #675, as Pete and Carlie broke into police headquarters. Clearly these guys don’t know ex protocol at all: First you hang out awkwardly with a shared group of friends, then ask what the other has been doing, even though you don’t really care, and so on and so forth. Committing a felony is near the bottom of that list. The two checked out the corpses of the supposed suicide victims, and found that they each had an M or a W stamped on their wrists, as well as traces of a magnetic charge. Across town, Vulture planned a midair heist with his uniformly gothic/emo (they’re the same thing, don’t you know?) minions. I’m sure that their appearance is only a coincidence. Before heading out of the Vulture’s club to actually perform the heist, the quartet of goons roughed up one of Mary Jane’s friends. Not the kind of thing you want to do to someone who used to date Spider-Man. As you might expect, MJ called Pete to tell him about it, and that the perpetrators were – and I quite – “super villain-ish.” After MJ gave him the name of the club, Peter was able to catch up with the Vulture and his band of miscreants in the wake of the heist, right before Vulture almost made another kid eat pavement for pocketing two gold coins for himself. With advice from Carlie, Pete used his magnet-killing webs to drop the other three wimps, but the the Vulture himself got away after throwing a water silo in Carlie’s direction. The issue ended with Carlie and MJ meeting to talk about Peter’s secret. This can only end with the return of that weirdo who was all over the internet and talking about how Peter must “logically” have a small penis. Please tell me I’m not the only one that remembers this.
Animal Man and Swamp Thing came one step closer to their crossover with their respective #4s. In Swamp Thing, we learned about William’s powers, the ability to take any bodily ailment and turn it into something horrific, which he demonstrated on the inhabitants of a diner in the middle of nowhere.
Yummy. Alec and Abigail arrived well after William, and camped out on the side of the road before hitting the trail again. While asleep, Alec was visited in his dreams by the Parliament of Trees, who let him know that he is the chosen one, destined to bring balance to the – wait, wrong franchise. They also told him that Abigail would be the death of him, but if you ask me, I think those old fogies just don’t care for strong female characters. Alec woke up in time to find Abigail trying to leave him, but even though the Parliament told him to leave her, Alec convinced her to let him come with her. Can you blame him? Hot biker chicks, man. Meanwhile, over in Animal Man, the agents of the Rot nearly killed Buddy, but Maxine made them disappear in a puff of blood, and was able to use her control over the Red to fix up her pop. Turns out Maxine is the new avatar of the Red, and that the Rot wants to get its hands on her and pervert her power for its own purposes. Oh goody. They won’t have to face it alone, though; not only did the totems mention a certain Alec Holland who is struggling with the Rot, one of the faces dislodged itself to become a kitty. The primal forces of nature have never been so adorable. Meanwhile, Ellen and Cliff Baker were driven by a detective, one of the agents of the Rot in disguise, to Ellen’s mother’s house. When Ellen realized that her son and the detective had disappeared, she grabbed a gun and went looking for them only to find…
Jesus, I just threw up in my mouth a bit. It’s like these guys are trying to out-disgust each other.
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.
