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| Awww…I want a demon puppy |
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.
Within the first two pages of Secret Avengers #22, Rick Remender and Gabriel Hardman make it abundantly clear they know what puts the “Secret” in the “Secret Avengers:” EXPLOSIONS. This rockin’ explosion and the eating of said explosion by a random woman in a market triggers an assortment of super badass adaptoid guys heading her way. You can tell they are badass because they look angry.
Meanwhile, Captain Britain takes a break from persecuting Fantomex to brawl with a dude who is controlling a giant mass that is made of people. Captain, the puppet of the lords and ladies that he is, takes a siesta midway through to apologize to the Queen of England for getting his ass handed to him. If it was up to me, I’d fire him, but the Queen simply tells him to go beat the guy up. Softie.
What follows is a mixture of Britain going to Otherworld to drop this guy off, failing at being their leader, going to the new (AND TINY!) Secret Avengers base and bro’ing it up with Beast, making an ass out of himself by assuming he’s the new leader, and then getting served by Hawkeye who clearly has the Secret Avenger Matrix of Leadership. Poor form, chap.
It’s cool though, because a mission pops up. Avengers! Terrorists! Adaptoids! Lil’ Avengers! Woman who eats fire like I eat breakfast burritos! Things go poorly for the most part for the new team of Secret Avengers (much to the joy of Captain Britain), who lose a fight and then lose the prize (fire eater woman). Even worse? It turns out that they are up against the Brotherhood of Evil Cyborgs! Including a Sentinel in a cape! You just can’t make this up, people.
Meanwhile, over at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning in Wolverine and the X-Men #5, that lovable little tyke Kade Kilgore continues to give Wolverine ulcers by lawyering up and getting all of the newly crazy and uber-angelic Angel cut off from his (and the school’s) cash flow. Not cool Kade. Not that Angel cares, because he doesn’t care about much of anything these days besides resurrecting puppies and getting naked.
Back at the school, Beast takes the X-Kids (including Idie, Broo, Kid Gladiator, Quentin Quire, and Genesis) on a field trip. Into Toad, the school’s janitor. Many amusing things happen. Kid Gladiator punches things. The usual.
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| Doop is a fantastic substitute teacher |
Of course, not every teacher can be a grade A gem like Hank McCoy, as Doop subs for the missing Kitty Pryde in her “Introduction to Religion” class by going to sleep and telling the class to watch Monty Python’s Life of Brian, The Exorcist III and Ghostbusters. Come on Doop, we know you’re better than that. How did you not include Bill Maher’s Religulous into the curriculum? Bad form. Back to camera duty for you.
Continued below
All hell breaks loose in the rest of the issue, as it turns out that a) Kitty is pregnant with thousands of Brood, b) Kid Gladiator, shamed by being bested by white blood cells, shrinks down to go into Kitty so he can fist fight all infinity of the Brood, c) Quentin Quire and Wolverine are going into space to solve the school’s cash flow problems, and d) Angel gleefully tells everyone who will listen “I was declared mentally unsound today!” Good for you Angel. This school is one hell of a mess. Thank god there isn’t some massive beast jumping from outer space with a pack of brood to come beat up the whole school.
Oops.
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| Thanks for bringing back the 80’s, Team X-Men! SMELL YA LATER! |
Over in (Adjective-less) X-Men #24, it focused solely on Vampire Jubilee and her vampire brethren as they had an AWESOME time drinking AWESOME shooters, listening to AWESOME music, and then sat around soaking up each other’s AWESOMENESS. The vampires in the Marvel Universe are better than any other vampire created since the creation of the modern vampire; mostly because they have a power that makes them mutant vampires, so to speak. They have the unique power of sucking the life out of the book they happen to appear in. Somehow kidnapping Jubilee from Storm and company in the middle of Bumfuck, Eastern Europe to train her to not drink human blood! Trust me; it’s as exciting as it sounds!
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| That Mephisto knows how to impress! |
Also within the X-Men Blue-niverse, the New Mutants, who are six friends who were picked in a house to have their lives drawn, so you could see when mutants stop acting nice, are start acting real. How real you ask? Well, Magma went on a date with the Devil in Issue #37. How’s THAT for realism in comics? The Devil ended up being a mussed hair having, skinny-tie wearing hipster (I KNEW they were evil!) who ended up being something of a nice guy? Anyway, the date itself was really adorable, and I’m calling it now, Roberto will sell his soul to this Hipster Devil to win Magma’s heart. He’s in ~love~ after all. But this devil is a baller, baller, shot caller for sho. Rolling up in a cherry red Lamborghini because a “Phaeton made from adulterer’s hearts pulled by horses from the Abattoir of all Pestilence” would have been too much, he took her on the date of her afterlife.
Switching to the DC nUniverse, Batman and Robin #6 continued its quest to be the angstiest book on the market. I’m fairly sure it wins the title, even if tomorrow a crossover between One Tree Hill, Dawson’s Creek, 90210, and The Vampire Diaries hit the newsstands tomorrow. Bruce and Damian are both a…sour taste by themselves; but if you put them together, it’s a whole lot of man pain up in here! Bruce angsted looking for Damian, who was angsting while working with Bruce’s old acquaintance Morgan Ducard, who angsted over competing with Bruce over the affections of Morgan’s angsty father, Ra’s al Gh–I mean–Henri Ducard.
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| Nothing says angst like…human feces angst |
Surprisingly, the character with the least amount of angst was Commissioner Gordon, but you know how he is. Formerly paralyzed daughter, psychotic son, working in Gotham; life must suck for him. Can’t you imagine the commute? It’s probably telling if I care more about Gordon’s presumed commute than the story at hand, huh?
Continued belowBut speaking of angsty douchebags, in Green Lantern #6, Hal seemed to be adjusting really well to not being a Green Lantern anymore, and even looked like he was getting in good with his lady love Carol Ferris all over again. Hal had his swagger back!
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| Oh Hal, you cad |
But then Sinestro went on a journey to find a former nemesis of his who he beat into submission. He beat this guy Starstorm (who sounds like a mash-up of Storm Shadow and Starscream, possibly for one of those epic GI Joe/Transformers crossovers) SO BADLY, the guy was afraid to be a hero. Somehow Hal is better than this guy. I DON’T SEE HOW. As is par for the course in Geoff Lantern books, there’s a huge prophecy that foretells what kind of asshattery the Guardians are planning in the future. There’s more teasing for a future event, which I’m certain no one cares about anymore by this point, the 5th (or 6th?) event since Rebirth. I lost count. I’m fairly sure even Hal said “WHY?” Especially when he’s about to get laid. Or just got laid. Or something. THE POINT IS Sinestro is a huge cockblock. Oh, and Sinestro will be in the Indigo Tribe soon and Black Hand will be a Black Lantern again. Second verse same as the first!
