Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Avengers vs. X-Men, Comics, dc, hulk, marvel, new deadwardians, new mutants, spider-man, wolverine

Last Week's Comics In Fourteen Pictures

Everyone loves Dr Manolis Vamvounis. This is what he read last week… as soon as the comics got to Greece.

This week in panels:

SNIKT ME ONCE SHAME ON YOU

Is it even possible to plot out Wolverine's timeline through all these AvX tie-ins? In WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN #11, he and Hope experience a surprise attack from the Shi'ar Death Commandos on their way to the AIM base (from last week's AvX). Wolverine's agenda in this crossover has been all over the place. Only one month ago (or what, 2 hours in story time), in AvX #2, he was VERY eager to snikt his way through Hope without even a second thought, now he seems to be back in his senses, experiencing a very touching flashback to the original Dark Phoenix Saga.

ROGUE SMASH!

Rogue is one tough-ass muthah. And Christos Gage won't let you forget anytime soon, practically writing the thesis on her bad-assery in the pages of X-MEN LEGACY #267 as the Southern Belle absorbs the powers of She-Hulk and goes on to single-handedly stomp the Avengers… again. Rogue had a shining moment like this since the first issues of the Mike Carey X-run, it's so good to have her back.

DALLIANCE (AND A MOVIE) WITH THE DEVIL

Amara and Mephisto, it was fun (and creepy) while it lasted. NEW MUTANTS #43 wraps up the crossover between this book and JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY with an unlikely botched polygamous wedding between an Asgardian hero and an army of zombie valkyries! It's been an entertaining self-contained little story, successfully incorporating elements from both books and managing to keep a unified voice and look thanks to all the writers working together and only one individual handling the art chores on both books these past two months, the rather dark, twisty and talented Carmine di Giandomenico. People should have no trouble enjoying it and following the plot without ever having read either of the books. I'll say this though, that was way too much of that annoying Asgardian speech font, even with all the fun nonsense the writers managed to get away with while using it.

MILD-MANNERED MONSTER

THE INCREDIBLE HULK #8 test-drives Jason Aaron's new status quo for the Hulk: a level-headed green monster who has to stay angry all the time so that he doesn't transform into a vicious human mad scientist. Steve Dillon always had a few issues with drawing anything too superheroey, like the huge figure of the Hulk, it usually ends up looking like a bad 90s TV make-up job, his figure work is just too realistic for this sort of book.

CRUISING WITH MY BITCHES

Dillon still makes up for his shortcomings with the way he embraces the ultra violence and the ridiculousness of the plot once the Punisher shows up and they start hunting human-shaped dogs driving cadillacs and shooting heroin out of a revolver. Now it really feels like an Aaron book.

WONDER WHORE

The main reasoning behind the all-new weekly digital AME-COMI series of books was to create new stories featuring the manga-influenced ridiculously sexy and girly (and awesome) designs of the Ame-Comi figure line. You can't fault Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray for trying to poke some innocent fun at the ridiculousness of some of the designs while they're at it. AME-COMI WONDER WOMAN #1-2 just could be the best substitute for the much-delayed All-Star Wonder Woman series. Or it could be so much better than you'd expect, reading like an ideal Wonder Woman animated movie and featuring glorious art by an artist who was born to draw Wonder Woman, Amanda Conner. Plus, it's 22 pages each week for only 99 cents on Comixology.

LEAP OF FAITH

GRIM LEAPER #1 is yet another of these funky twisty concept new comics series from Image that gets you hooked from the very first issue. The creepy sleazoid who keeps killed in freak accidents each day and wakes up inside random new people, falling in love with a random stranger under the same mysterious curse. How do you keep the romance when you're both different people every day?

MIND THE SPOILERS

UNCLE BOO HOO

Any time-travel/revisionist/what-if story that sees the adult Peter reunited with his Uncle Ben is an instant guarantee for a geek tear jerk moment. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #39 introduces a scenario where Spidey has been erased from existence. There's no real explanation why the world is now a better place for it and nothing to balance Peter's understandable anguish over this revelation other than a hug from his father figure. And maybe that's just enough sometimes. And look how sharp Lee Garbett's art is now, more like a younger Mark Buckingham than a shabby Frank Quitely.

WHY ISN'T HE "DOCTOR" FREEZE AGAIN?

BATMAN ANNUAL #1 establishes the deadly DCNu Mr Freeze and he's a startlingly cold bastard. I found myself actually gasping at some of the violence in this book, and I'm someone generally unaffected by illustrated violence and horror. Scott Snyder takes the famous origin from the Batman animated series and gives the tragic figure of Freeze's wife Nora an even more chilling twist while still working inside the margins of the previously established continuity.

STRENGTH OF THE BEAR

Even back in the time of the early 1900s Animal Man, the avatars of the Red had this unhealthy fascination with blood and gore. ANIMALMAN ANNUAL #1 flashes back to a creepy little story of an earlier Swamp Thing/Animal Man crossover to set up next month's War against the Rot (W.A.R. for short).

TASTES LIKE CHICKEN

I won't spoil the big death in WALKING DEAD #98 here. It wasn't the identity of the victim that was the big shocker, but the manner of the death, and the insanely tense sequence that followed with mullet-boy biting down and holding on to his assailant's crotch for dear life, with the rest of our survivors letting loose all sorts of hell on the latest batch of "villains". We're so past the "zombie apocalypse" theme by now, it's man versus man in the end of days and it's one of the best single issues in the title's history. Only two to go till the big one double oh.

IS IT VENEREAL?

You're probably too busy contemplating the yeast-like crystal growths on Vega's vagina (Vegina) to even notice the flaming preacher in the backdrop of BLOODSTRIKE #28. There's not a single weak book in Rob Liefeld's relaunched line of titles, could he be headed for publisher/editor of the year? #2012

We've discovered the most shocking twist of the NEW DEADWARDIANS premise from Vertigo. It's not just the gentleman vampire detective investigating the apparent normal death of other vampires or the armies of ghastly zombies piled against the gates outside Victorian London. This vampire, unlike any other undead creature in the entire modern pop culture, DOESN'T GET HORNY.

What a great week. Not many reads, surprisingly, but not a single dud amongst them. Even the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL manages to get a free pass for that awww-inducing final act.

Which ones were the best of the best, though?

Thriller of the week: WALKING DEAD #98

Drama of the week: BATMAN ANNUAL #1

Best new book: LEAP OF FAITH #1

Best use of bitches: INCREDIBLE HULK #8

Sleeper Hit of the Month: AME-COMI WONDER WOMAN

AvX MVP: Rampaging Rogue in X-MEN LEGACY #267

Best AvX match-up: Red Hulk vs the Icemen in WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN #11

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