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.
When it isn’t talking about how excited it is for Multiversity editor-in-chief Matthew Meylikhov’s “Detective Space Cat,” the comics blogosphere is talking about one thing: Before Watchmen. As expected, some people have decided to boycott the whole thing, but, come on, you can’t expect me to believe you aren’t even slightly curious about what happens in each issue, can you?
Please tell me you’re curious, because I wouldn’t be interested otherwise.
The first miniseries of the bunch, “Before Watchmen: Minutemen,” brought us up close and personal with Hollis Mason shortly after writing Under the Hood – Hollis Mason is a pen name of Judd Winick, but that’s entry-level comics trivia – and we had a little bit of a flashback of how the gang got together: as the various first superheroes slowly popped up across the United States, a certain Captain Metropolis extended an offer to form a superhero team. He started by contacting Sally Jupiter’s agent, and…
…wait a minute, this first issue was pretty much all things people who actually bothered to read the back-matter for each issue of the original “Watchmen” would know, isn’t it? Well, I guess if you can’t stand reading words without accompanying pictures, you might as well read this issue. Me? I’m not going to bother with things that are already comic book common knowledge. Perhaps “Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre” will be more interesting – or, perhaps it will just slightly flesh out scenes that were referred to in the source material. Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!
In “Animal Man” #10, someone finally had the guts to do what had to be done – and that someone was John Constantine.
Seriously, the first thing my roommate said when reading the first issue of this series was “Yeah, it was cool… but that kid’s mullet has to go.” Anyway, in this issue we learned that Constantine had showed up with Zatanna and Madame Xanadu due to a vision that M. X. had seen: one where the world had ended, and the only remaining humans were Mrs. Baker and Maxine. Even worse, this whole apocalypse was somehow Ellen’s fault. How not PC of Xanadu. Outside, Cliff found what he thought was his father, who claimed that he had a special mission for Cliff. Of course, we knew that this supposed Buddy was actually one of the Hunters Three, inhabiting Buddy’s body while he was in the Red, but even so, I would be a bit wary to follow my shirtless dad into a dark alley while he said something about it being “top secret.”
Out in the depths of the Red, Buddy and his goat guide ran across minions of the red – sure, they were tiny little things, but there were enough of them to qualify for a full-on Zerg rush. Kekeke, and all that. The two were rescued by the warrior caste of the Red, who conveniently flew Buddy straight to the head honchos of the Red. The Lords of the Red informed Buddy that his body had been stolen, but, after some deliberation, decided they could make him a new one. The last time I read something along these lines in a DC book, Swamp Thing had sex in Constantine’s body and there was some weird m-preg shit going on. Please don’t let that happen again, DC.
A grand total of three things occurred in “Swamp Thing” #10, as follows: Abigail brought the wounded Alec Holland to her family’s former abode; Alec rested with the essence of the Parliament of Trees that he had tried to recovered; the long-thought-dead Anton Arcane burst into Abigail’s room, claiming to have killed the titular Swamp Thing. That isn’t even enough to make a good joke about, but I’ll try:
Continued belowThat’s one Rotten family!
…you see, it has a capital “R,” like in “The Rot,” the primary antagonistic force in both “Animal Man” and “Swamp Thing.”
Man, I drew the short end of the stick for write-ups this week. Let’s hope next week is more interesting for me.
Alright, fanboys and girls, it is time for your weekly look at all things “AvX!” This week brings us three entries into the “AvX” saga with “Avengers Academy” #31, “Uncanny X-Men” #13 and “Avengers vs X-Men” #5. Let’s look at them in assumed chronological order.
“Academy” #31 begins with Shaw’s appearance in front of both the X-Kids and the Academy kids at the end of last issue, assumedly in a menacing fashion. However, the twist is that it couldn’t be farther from the opposite: Shaw isn’t here to hurt the children! That would just be so unlike Sebastian Shaw, now wouldn’t it? No, he’s hear to free the children from the forced protection of the X-Men. How noble.
Unfortunately, the kids are impulsive, so rather than stop to listen to him speak there is a bit of a punch fest. Mettle punches Transonic, White Tiger refuses to mate with Primal and Reptil morphs into a giant snake and captures Shaw in his grip. Of course it stands for X-23 and Finesse, two characters who operate with cold hard logic alone, to put some sense into everybody — including the teachers. As Tigra, Hercules, Rao and Jeffries show up, X-23 delivers an empassioned speech about choice and freedom because apparently we can’t get an issue of “Avengers Academy” that isn’t, on some level, an after-school special.
So what do the teachers do? They challenge the students to a fight. But don’t worry: it’s just a fake fight because there are cameras everywhere that have never been mentioned before nor seen, and Tigra doesn’t want to look bad in front of Captain America. It’s generally ok to punch the heck out of these teenagers. It would be way worse to let these kids make their own decisions.
Never the less, the entire fight is stolen by Hercules dramatic acting.
In the end, the kids “win,” Shaw dives into the ocean and the X-Kids are teleported out by Pixie. X-23 chooses to stay with the Academy as well as Loa, and it all ends with the kids going surfing.
No, seriously. War? What war?
We hop over now to “Uncanny X-Men” #13 where Pixie, assumedly having teleported every other X-Kid to wherever they want to go, brings the Four Lights to Utopia. Apparently, before beating the tar out of them in “AvX” #2, Hope left Velocidad with a note that read “Sorry. Ask UNIT.”, which leads the kids down to the dungeons of Utopia to converse with the bastard. Oh, I’m sorry — that was a biased remark because UNIT lacks what we judge as morality and ethics based on his willingness to sacrifice all life so he can just see what happens. Sorry about that!
So what does UNIT tell the kids? Well, he admits that he told Hope all about the Phoenix and reveals that the reason the Phoenix is coming to Earth (which had heretofore not been officially stated, although heavily implied) was in fact to fix the mutant situation. Given that it is a universal constant and it “dislikes having anything interfere with that,” the Phoenix is on its way to Earth because of Wanda’s “no more mutants” stunt from a few years ago. UNIT notes that it would appear that Hope is the logical choice for the hostess of the Phoenix because he’s seen what happens when the Phoenix gets its way on a different planet where a Hope-esque entity and her five acolytes led an uprising. Our Lights realize what he’s getting at here and believe they need to rush to Hope’s side, at which point UNIT points out his purpose of being: to watch things happen. He’s already seen what happens when the Phoenix and her host get what they need. Now he’s going to see what happens when they don’t. Ooooo, that basta– er. Sorry.
Continued belowSo UNIT brings in Danger, under his control, who beats the Four Lights unconscious, then they erase the kids memories and leave them on the beach outside. Meanwhile, in space —
Wait! Wait. No. We’ll get there. Let’s rewind. There’s a second story here.
Magneto, Psylocke, Storm and Dr. Nemesis sit around in some X-Stronghold and recover from their various wounds: Nemesis from his defeat at the hands of Black Widow and her neurotoxin, Psylocke from a broken arm given by the Red Hulk, Storm being punched unconscious by her husband and Magneto — actually, it never implicitly states who beat Magneto. He just didn’t get to go to the moon, I guess. Regardless of this slight, everyone but Nemesis (who is dizzy with intoxication via neurotoxin) have a toast to the team who went to the moon and make plans to ask Danger politely to turn into a ship to fly them there, unaware of the events that will transpire in “AvX” #5 and the end of this issue. However, Psylocke receives a massive psychic blast, which basically tells them not to bother, at which point it’s revealed —
Wait! No! Not yet! You wouldn’t want to be spoiled, would you? Well… Ok, spoiled early.
As “Avengers vs X-Men” begins, a battle wages on the moon between the Thing, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Rulk against Colossus, Cyclops, Emma, Magik and Namor, with Hope and Wolverine (not quite) in the middle. Hope manages to break up the fight by manifesting the Phoenix force, but it’s only here, after everything that’s happened, that she realizes — “Hey. I don’t think I can control this.” Well, that’s what the whole story is about, isn’t it? She begs Wolverine to kill her, but Cyclops blasts Wolverine in the face. As if they don’t have personal problems and bad blood between them enough problems as it is.
Meanwhile, Iron Man is finally shown unleashing the monster he’s been off-panel designing. Alongside Hank Pym, fresh from a stint kicking ass in the Savage Land, Iron Man dons the Phoenix Buster armor, which is essentially just a big giant block. It kind of looks like Voltron if Voltron didn’t have a head and was also like Megatron and could turn into a giant gun. So there’s your visual: the Phoenix Buster is Voltomegatron, and he does this:
As the Phoenix approaches, we’re also shown three scenes which will assumedly have pay-off later. We see Professor Xavier and Legion in Spain (wait, what?), we see the Mystical City of K’un Lun and Lei Kung making a remark about history repeating itself (which explains the “New Avengers” Iron Phoenix storyline) and Wanda freaking out in what I suppose is supposed to be her apartment. You know, given “AvX” #0, you would assume that Wanda would have a much bigger role in all of this, but apparently that is yet to come. It’s only really Xavier, Legion and Kung showing up that is ostensibly “weird”, and I’m using that word in which a giant block gun is used to shoot a fire bird on the moon.
But hey, none of that matters, right? Because the big reveal here is who the Phoenix chooses as its host. And if you thought it was going to be Hope, boy howdy were you wrong! It’s not just a host, kids. It is hosts, plural:
That’s right: Cyclops, Namor, Emma, Colossus and Magik are now collectively the Phoenix Host together, and you know what they don’t give a crap about? The Avengers. Because when you’re a universal constant with infinite power who can destroy planets on a whim, who gives a crap about a guy who wears a flag and throws a shield? The Phoenix also totally gives the Extinction Team a brand new and firey (pun intended) sense of style, with Namor bearing his chest like a mofo and Cyclops sporting a sweet new visor. Now Cyclops’ constant frown is turned from “pouty face” to “bad ass grimace.” Who knew the Phoenix was so fashionable? I thought it just made your green suit red.
Continued belowSo the Phoenix Hosts fly off with Host towards the Earth and leave the Avengers on the Moon, and, long story short, the Avengers are totally boned. This is what we call in the biz “turning the tables.”
If you hadn’t heard, and god knows what rock you were under if you hadn’t, “Earth 2” #2 (the second issue) revealed that Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern, has been reinvented as a gay man.
Now that the headline grabbing stuff is out of the way, let’s get to the rest of the book. Mr. Terrific showed up on Earth 2 because he used the portal that was mentioned in World’s Finest and I guess it was also in Mr. Terrific’s ongoing solo series but I can’t read that even for the sake continuity, so there you go on that. However, as soon as he go there, he was ambushed by a guy who claimed to be the smartest man on the planet, and seeing as how Mr. Terrific is the THIRD-Smartest Man on the planet, this meeting of the minds left our hero in a pile of hurt that was all his own. Poor guy.
Meanwhile, Jay Garrick met with this Earth’s Hermes (or rather, Mercury) which makes him the only god so far that’s appeared in the two universes so far (as “Wonder Woman” had Hermes as well, only as a bird-like being). Garrick didn’t really understand that the god was dying, so he kept trying to convince the deity to go to the doctor when that’s not really feasible. Stupid mortals. Anyway, even though this guy clearly isn’t too bright, Mercury gave him the ability to run at super speeds, because YOLO, right? Jay even got a new costume out of the deal, and didn’t even have to go to that little lady in The Incredibles! As it turns out, however, The World Army, which was probably put together after the threat of Apokolips, discovered this little meeting of god and man and thought something bastardly was going on, so Jay had to run! While learning the ropes, he ran into Apokorats attacking an attractive white couple (an you thought New York had some tough vermin!). After that he attempted to run as fast as he could to see what would happen, and he ran all the way to Poland! And he met Hawkgirl! This JSA is really coming together.
As I mentioned earlier, Alan is gay and he has a boyfriend to whom he wants to propose, so he offers the guy an engagement RING that looks just like a wedding RING that is obvious foreshadowRING (had to) to the next issue when his magical Lantern decides he likes it so much he wants to put a RING on it.
And then their train crashes. See ya next month, Alan!
Over in “Action Comics,” there’s a hunter who claims he’s killed everything that has ever lived, which is kind of awful if you think about it because that means he’s probably snuck up on a penguin or something and snapped its neck for no reason other than “IT WAS COMIN’ RIGHT FOR HIM!” This guy, who goes by Nimrod, was doing research on the Man of Steel and happened upon the Kent Farm which is now the Fry Farm. He followed the trail to Metropolis, where our hero was taking care of a horrible kidnapper/murderer who killed a 12-year-old girl. I have no snark to add here, it was just awesome to see them give Superman his teeth back as a social crusader. If only he didn’t rely so heavily on the old t-shirt n jeans look.
This murderer also happened to have some hamsters named Jack and Bobby (this guy Irish?) who Clark took in and got really upset over because no one wanted to take care of them. Like usual, Batman took the event a little TOO seriously. Because that’s what he does. Clark ended up brining Jack and Bobby home with him to take care of. Lois and Jimmy, his two best friends scrapbooked and reminisced, and Nimrod followed them. They eventually ended up at the Daily Star, Clark’s current place of employment, which was promptly blown up by a suicide bomber. The bomber even took Clark with him! Or so we think anyway. Or so Nimrod thinks. Or something. This is the second time in a month there’s been some sort of mix-up with Clark’s identity and I can’t find it in me to figure out what’s going on anymore.
Continued belowIn a scene that feels as added in as this upcoming paragraph, there was also a bit about a guy who was from Earth, but left and came back because he wanted to take over. The truck driver he kidnaps (there’s a lot of kidnapping in this issue!) takes him to the…mayor. Not the president, just the mayor of Metropolis. I think this guy failed his civics classes in High School, personally.
Anyway, unbeknownst to Nimrod, who was tracking Clark, he was “dead.” So the trail technically went cold, but he tried to attack Superman anyway. The man said Clark has withstood rocket shells, but for whatever reason, he decided to shoot a gun at Supes. Clearly this hunter guy isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. Well anyway, he burns his face on the very gun he brought to shoot Superman with, and ended up in the hospital with the same mask Ben Grimm had when Wolverine made his face look like hamburger in “Infinity War” during the 90’s. Glen Glenmorgan offered the guy all the weapons he wanted, but for the price of a commitment to join his Anti-Superman army.
In the epilogue, the journalism community held a memorial for Clark Kent, who they believed died in the explosion (how far does this cover go?!) and told stories about hwo great he is. Turns out Clark is pretty great. But we all knew that.
Clark is awesome and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
This Week’s Contributors were:
Walt – “Before Watchmen: Minutemen” #1, “Animal Man” #10, “Swamp Thing” #10
Matthew – “Avengers Academy” #31, “Uncanny X-Men” #13, “Avengers versus X-Men” #5
Gil – “Earth 2” #2, “Action Comics” #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.
