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, but I figure that you could figure that out.
Man, life for young Dan Dreiberg was so hard. “Before Watchmen: Nite Owl” #1 began with a teenage Dan sitting down for dinner with his family, while his dad ranted about there no longer being such a thing as a free lunch. Dan only had one thing on his mind, though.
Sure, it’s easy for you to say that – you’re being written by someone who lives in the future! Going up to his room, we saw that Dan was one of the world’s biggest Nite Owl fans, with his room decked out in all kinds of cool memorabilia. Yeah, you bet he’s rolling in pussy. The story then cut to the man himself, Hollis Mason, beating on some crooks, and his early morning, post-beating talk to the press.
Okay, how can anybody not think this guy is as lame as lame can be? As you can see in that last panel, young Dan planted a portable microphone on Hollis’s… Owl Car and followed him to his… Owl Cave. Alone in Mason’s basement, Dan left a message on Hollis’s typewriter to meet him at a certain bench in Lincoln Park, but not before trying on the man’s cowl. Man, Dan is just kind of creepy. The rest of the issue covered as much ground as it could in twenty pages: in fifteen pages, Hollis said that, yes, he was fine with Dan being his sidekick/resident techno-geek, Dan’s abusive father died, Hollis trained Dan, Hollis retired and passed on the Nite Owl mantle, Dan met Rohrschach, and the infamous Crimebusters meeting from “Watchmen” proper occurred. Nothing new of note occurred besides Dan remarking that he felt that he and Laurie were destined for each other, which isn’t really of note after all. Aren’t you glad I’m reading this for you?
The second of “Spider-Men” went just about the way that everyone expected it to. After meeting each other for the first time in the final pages of issue #1, the first half of the issue was dedicated to the titular Spider-Men being bewildered by each other’s presence, and then duking it out. Yep, standard superhero team-up fare, here. I would like to point out, though, that the first blow was attempted by Peter, who could clearly tell that Miles was, at the very least, a kid, and one who was excited to meet his hero. Way to be a grumpy old man, Pete. Surprisingly, Miles actually won out the bout by using his venom sting on a web that both he and Peter were standing on, knocking the veteran Spider-Man out cold. When he woke up, Pete was on the wrong side of the bars of a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier cell, faced with a Nick Fury who seemed a bit more Samuel L. Jackson-y than usual. Asked the simply question of whether or not he was Peter Parker, 616 Spidey responded with an equally simple question.
These are the problems of the common man, my friends. Sammy J Fury took these crazy ramblings as enough of a sign that Peter was telling the truth, and had him go on a helicopter ride with Miles while he figured out how Pete could have ended up in their world, expecting Miles to tell 616 Peter all about Ultimate Peter. How do you break “Yeah, you’re kind of dead here” to someone, though? Luckily, Miles didn’t have to worry about this, because their helicopter was shot down by Ultimate Mysterio. Man, you have to thank super villains for routinely breaking up awkward situations.
Continued belowWhen we last left “The Ultimates,” Tony had been given over to Evil Reed as a peace offering of sorts. Because, as we all no, nothing lets evil megalomaniacs get all their aggression out until they can safely readjust to society like letting them torture someone. While preparing to wreck Tony’s body – not like that, sickos – Reed noticed that Tony had a tumor, and made a bit of gallows humor of the fact (never mind that gallows humor is typically made by the person who is worse off):
This, children, is what we call foreshadowing. Meanwhile, the sentient hub of the City was confronted with some ethereal, somewhat holographic vision of a child who asked the whole cliche “Hi! Do you want to be friends?” while the City responded with the equally cliche “What… is… friends? 0110100010.” I’m paraphrasing a bit, here. Reed was about ready to begin on Tony, when his own City began to reform into the shape of a giant Iron Man armor and attack him. What’s this, you ask? Well, apparently the kid from earlier is Stark’s… sentient tumor, and that tumor had taught the City the meaning of friendship: stand down while your creator is under attack and, in fact, aid their attacker in their attempts.
This was only the distraction, though; while Reed and his hulking ally dealt with the giant robot, Thor arrived with a mysterious helmeted individual who turned out to be Sue Storm. All it took was a force-propelled helmet through the eye and a hammer blow to the head to take out a Giant-Man-serum’d Hulk, and a ball of force to contain Reed, and the day was won!
God, I can hear the Evil Reed fans crying from here and it sounds beautiful.
There are only two “AvX” tie-ins this week with “Wolverine and the X-Men” #12 and “X-Men Legacy” #269. They both feature the post-“AvX” #6 anti-Avenger world, but only one major continuity error between the two of them! Can you guess which title holds it? It’s the one we’re discussing first…
If you said “Wolverine and the X-Men,” written by Jason Aaron (one of the architects of the event), then you’d be right! Starring Rachel Grey, her past (but our future!) as a mutant hunter returns as she’s charged with attempting to hunt down Wolverine and Hope after the duo absconded at the end of the previous issue. She tracks Wolverine and the merry band of Avengers on the run, which feature Giant Man, Spider-Woman, Thor, War Machine, Captain America, Quicksilver and Beast — who quit the Avengers in “AvX” #6 due to not agreeing with their plans to kidnap hope and combat the Phoenix Five. Uh… oops?
Suffice it to say, a battle ensues as Rachel reveals her crew: Kid Gladiator, Iceman , Angel (who is, for the record, mentally as naive as a pre-teen) and Iceman. Oh, and super-powered Phoenix member Namor, with all his ab glory. The battle sees friend fighting friend as Beast battles (and partially eats) Iceman and Angel develops a new power, while Kid Gladiator runs around saying “HEY, EVERYBODY! LOOK HOW COOL I AM! I’M SO COOL! HA HA!” which goes well until Wolverine stabs him in the gut.
To be fair, he totally had it coming.
Generally speaking, it all goes about as well as could be expected until Rachel finds Hope, choosing to let Hope get away rather than bring her into custody for Cyclops. If she had, “AvX” probably would end a lot sooner. It’s at this point, though, that Gladiator finally arrives to pick up his son. Yeesh. That whole “it’s coming” marketing campaign should’ve been about Gladiator in this book, as the Phoenix showed up much quicker than his slow alien butt.
Over in “X-Men Legacy,” Gage once again continues the morality play of the month motif he’s been using for “X-Men Legacy” and “Avengers Academy” with a story about the dangers of not listening to your friends and trusting Russians. Magik, Iceman (wait, wasn’t he in– … forget it) and Rogue are out irrigating barren lands by creating ice tracks to melt and help create an ecosystem. Everything’s going OK until Ms. Marvel shows up and asks to talk. Rogue responds about as rationally as she’s been responding in the book since, oh, forever, and has her fists do the talking:
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Muhh indeed! The rest of the issue basically consists of Ms. Marvel and Rogue punching each other back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, all the while engaged in a perfectly reasonable conversation that could’ve been had by two rational people sitting down and treating one another like adults. The conversation basically consists of Ms. Marvel telling Rogue that absolute power corrupts absolutely, with Rogue responding, “Nuh uh! You’re just jelly!” and punching Ms. Marvel in the face again. When she eventually defeats Ms. Marvel, Rogue entraps her using borrowed ice powers and hands her over to Magik, assuring Ms. Marvel that it’s all going to be ok and that this is just a temporary thing.
Then Magik throws Ms. Marvel into the bowels of Limbo via a volcano portal she created in Russia.
Over in “Amazing Spider-Man” #688, which was in no way a blatant grab at the attention the new movie is getting, Peter has to take on The Lizard in the sewers of New York City. He’s been running around with an group of acolytes who worshipped him or thought he had cool skincare tips…or something. That I was never clear on.
Then he ate them.
Whoops. Peter’s “no one dies” mantra seems to have taken a turn for the worse lately, huh?
Conveniently titled “Eight Hours Earlier,” the Horizon crew went on their floating laboratory for a press conference to announce they’re going to celebrate their win by going to Disney World! OK maybe not really, but they also discussed the fact Morbius was working at the lab too, and you know how everyone feels about vampires. It’s not like he sparkles or anything though.
Also, MJ owns a night club, for no reason. So MJ invites literally everyone Peter has ever known short of The Beyonder or Thanos, and he’s miserable. He’s still beating himself up over Silver Sable’s apparent fridging. MJ, however, knocks some sense into him, telling him he can’t save anyone because, you know, it’s not like he’s Superman or anything!
Meanwhile, Eight Hours Later, Spidey and The Lizard fought more, and Peter pulled out a shiv. It’s prison rules now!
Then, Four Hours Earlier (what is this? LOST? So many flashbacks!) Peter was at that nightclub when he got a call from Carlie. Billy Connors body was gone! For those of you who are not in the know, Kurt Connors has a son who the Lizard killed. The Lizard also happens to be Kurt Connors. This is so needlessly complicated at this point.
Anyway, Morbius illegally exhumed the body to try and get a cure for The Lizard’s condition and also in an attempt to fix his own Twilight Princessness. This got him fired. Makes you wonder if a vampire has legal standing to sue for wrongful termination.
Back to the present, Morbius and Spidey team up with the rest of the Horizon crew to disable The Lizard and de-reptilize him. Which they succeeded in doing, but now The Connors is now a psychotic Lizard mind in a Human body; which is kind of the least scary villain you can think of.
Meanwhile, back in the DC NUniverse, Superman was outed! That’s right, in the previous issue; his secret identity was revealed as some dude named Spencer. That’s right, the DCnU retconned Clark Kent out of existence! OK, I’m joking.
While Superman was taking on a really upset woman named “Anguish,” who has similar powers to The Avengers’ Vision; she “found out” Superman’s real name was “Spence” and had a family in the suburbs.
So of course she went to go kill them because he broke her jewelry (seriously). She beats him up a little and then flies off to go kill Superman’s “family,” while the poor shmuck who everyone thinks is Superman is at his wit’s end, worried for his family and, well, himself.
As it turned out, he was NOT Superman, and Anguish felt, well, anguish because her non-descript locket was destroyed when she powerbombed Superman into next week; but Clark, being the best nice guy in the world, fixed her locket with his heat vision and replaced the photo. What a guy!
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And then in Russia someone with a hook killed some security guards. This would be funnier if I could think of a good IN SOVIET RUSSIA joke.
Finally, in “Justice League” #10, we opened with another flashback (seriously what is with all these flashbacks?) with an old guy climbing in the Pamir Mountains in someplace that’s not America so it doesn’t matter (I’m kidding world, they’re in Central Asia, but I still don’t care). He stumbled upon what Celestials might look like if they were Hindu stereotypes. Graves, the old guy, was dying, but these Hindu Celestials basically told him to get the freak up and get in this mysterious temple.
Cut to today! A blond soldier named Steve who is NOT named Rogers but rather another first name last name “Trevor” was strapped into a chair but slid out by breaking his hands and stumbling out of the room. I can’t wait to see how he opens a giant steel door with broken hands! But then was sucked in by someone wanted to feed off his pain and anguish.
Am I flashing back to “Superman?” There are far too many flashbacks!
Back with the actual league, Aquaman, not content to feel angst because no one likes him in his own book, feels that same angst in this book as well! You’d think both books were written by the same guy or something. He meets up with the rest of the League and they get angsty with each other because they still don’t know each other very well; except the fact Cyborg knows EVERYONE. This is when we see the relationships form. Barry and Hal are bros, albeit ones with issues of being the worst bros ever.
Somehow, it came out that Superman was a reporter, and everyone freaked out about getting outed with their secret identities, not really realizing that he would be risking his own secret identity. But then Batman stepped in and told them he trusts Superman implicitly because they do work on the side.
But Superman is a MUCH better bro than Green Lantern. Clark just continues being perfect in all the right ways, am I right?
While they were bickering, it was the Justice League we all know and love, or loathe, depending on your opinion of this book. Then the fire nation attacked.
OK, not really. Graves, with his new powers of feeding on people’s grief: attacks and first feeds on Wonder Woman; and then works his way through the entire League with no problem at all. Then he proclaims the Justice League killed his family–which was essentially the plot of “Aquaman” #10, which also came out this week.
GEOOOFFFFFFFFFF…ಠ_à²
This Week’s Contributors were:
Walt – “Before Watchmen: Nite Owl” #1, “Spider-Men” #2, “Ultimate Comics: Ultimates” #12
Matthew – “Wolverine and the X-Men” #12, “X-Men Legacy” #269
Gil – “Amazing Spider-Man” #688, “Superman” #10, “Justice League” #10
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, we’ll give you credit.
