wktf
11-05-2009, 11:48 AM
Sam Wilson’s Reviews
Black Widow: Deadly Origin #1 (of 4)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Paul Cornell
Drawn by: Tom Raney
Covers by: Adi Granov, Tom Raney and Greg Land
The Black Widow, aka Natalia Romanoff, has been more or less a major player in the marvel universe in the early days. For those of you who don’t know, she first was introduced in the 1960’s as a cold-war antagonist for Iron Man, and eventually reformed. Her next big splash was as Daredevil’s partner (for quite awhile actually, at one point DD was renamed “DD and the Black Widow”). What followed was nothing regular, but nonetheless made her a player in the Marvel Universe. For a minute she was even the leader of the Avengers, joined SHIELD, and became a major player in the recent “Civil War” and “Secret Invasion” crossovers. My favorite recent Black Widow series was “The Things They Say About Her”, written by science fiction writer Richard K. Morgan and drawn by the legendary Bill Sienkiewicz. That series touched a little bit on Natasha’s origin, touching on her time spent as a ballerina and training in the KGB’s legendary Red Room. This new series is supposed to touch on her origin, and give us some insights to her past (which we recently have learned involves Bucky Cap aka the Winter Soldier). So, how does it start?
Our story opens in true Bond fashion, Natalia mixing it up with an enemy spy over a stolen stealth plane, and yeah, it’s pretty awesome. From there we move on to some Russian guys mulling over a computer that initiates the “icepick protocol” on one Natalia Romanova. This leads us to Natalia getting a panicked phone call from an old friend, and then that friend being blown to pieces. In a flashback, we find out that Nat is older than she looks, and Logan (aka Wolverine) taught her Japanese martial arts in the ‘40’s and Bucky Barnes (aka Captain America aka Winter Soldier) had a really funky looking robotic arm back during the cold war…
Hell yeah this book kicks ass. Tom Raney, in my opinion one of the most underrated artists of all time. Big fan of his since his “Stormwatch” days, and Paul Cornell keeps in on point with a kick ass spy story and the origin of one of Marvel’s most beloved leading lady’s. So yeah, down with this book, down with the eventual trade, and total down with the Black Widow.
Psylocke #1 (of 4)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Christopher Yost
Drawn by: Harvey Tolibao
Smoking hot sweet ass cover by: David Finch
Psylocke first showed up on the scene as Betsy Braddock, the sister of Brian Braddock aka Captain Britain and she had telepathic powers. Until she became ninja Psylocke though, no one really cared, and let me tell you, when Jim Lee reinvents your look as a ninja, damn. People notice. The whole ninja thing though, well, that’s a bit hard to explain. It originally happened during during the “Acts of Vengeance” storyline way back in the early ‘90’s. Marvel had switched villains in all their titles, and the X-men ended up tangling with the Mandarin. Anyway, the Hand leader at the time wanted to resurrect his brain dead girlfriend, so he had Spiral put Betsy’s mind in her body and bam. Ninja Psylocke, who was first known as “Lady Mandarin” (so not going to explain that one). Anyway, she joined the X-men and kicked a lot of ass until she died. Then she was recently resurrected in Matt Fraction and Greg Lands new run on the Uncanny X-men, and now she has a limited series. So what’s it about?
Our story opens with Betsy palling around with Allison Blaire on Utopia, the new island home of the X-men. She’s been putting off a fairly daunting task for awhile, and with some convincing finally decides to take care of business. The task? Burying her old body, the one destroyed recently in Uncanny X-men (during the storyline which brought her back a few months ago). She heads to Japan to bury the body (with Wolverine mysteriously hitching a ride) only to be attacked by the hand, whose agenda she doesn’t see at first but it becomes clear soon enough. Something she thought she settled long ago comes back in a big way, and Betsy decides today she’s going to settle things for good (yeah, old boyfriends are a VMVMVMVMVM)…
I don’t do this very often, but I’ll come right out and say I bought this series because of the cover. Damn that Dave Finch can draw smoking hot foxy chicas. After reading the book though, gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised. I’m not familiar with Harvey Tolibao, but his art is decent and Christopher Yost defiantly spins a good story. The A lot of homage’s were paid to the ‘90’s Lee/Claremont X-men with a slight tip of the hat to the Silvestri days even and I gotta say, I’m cool with that. This book is off to a promising start and I’m defiantly going to stick around to see how it plays out.
Wktf’s Reviews
Purely by accident, all my reviews happen to be Marvel side-event stories outside the regular comic book titles of the primary characters involved in these stories.
Assault on New Olympus Prologue #1 (One Shot)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente
Drawn by: Rodney Buchemi
Cover by: Adi Granov
As usual, Pak & Van Lente’s Incredible Hercules series is a hoot and a half that also happens to involve a smattering of fun, relevant Greek mythology and genuine danger either to the titular character or mankind in general. I’m not sure why Marvel felt the need to put this story in a one-shot comic outside of Hercules’ regular title. Maybe doing so signifies it’s an event and this is a marketing tactic to pull in new readers and migrate them over to Herc’s title. If so, I hope it works. Incredible Hercules is one of Marvel’s best regular comics, despite its rotating artist roster, and it needs all the support it can get.
In the last issue of Incredible Hercules, Amadeus Cho had solved the mystery of his parents’ murder and became the mortal champion of Hercules’ sister, Athena, goddess of wisdom and war. Cho had discovered that Hera, Hercules’ step-mother and millennia-long hated enemy of the demi-god, has developed a scheme to destroy all life on our planet. While the evil Hera had formed an alliance with Normal Osborn, of course, Athena is looking to secure the help of the other Olympians scattered across the mortal plane since Zeus’ death and Olympus’ destruction in Ares’ mini-series a couple of years back. We can pause just a moment here and applaud Rodney Buchemi for drawing an incredibly sexy Aphrodite (but is he having a little fun making her face resemble Sarah Palin’s?). As Hera’s machinations and seeming betrayals become more and more clear, the manifestation of the chaos that existed before the gods in the form of the Japanese god who murdered Zeus, Amatsu-Mikaboshi, is bearing down on the Olympians. And Hera’s plans to deal with this, and potentially threaten all of mankind in the process, cause Athena once again to engage Hercules to go into action. Of course, not before the Prince of Power engages in a not-so-friendly tussle with the ever Amazing Spider-Man and the entrance of several nifty guest star comrades in arms.
This one-shot provides enough back story so that even people who’ve never read Hercules’ book before should be able to come right on board with no problem. And for regular readers, speaking as one myself, this back story is a great catch up on events that’ve transpired the last few years leading up to this storyline. Pak and Van Lente do their usually masterful job mixing humor and buffoonery with excellent storytelling and a serious, viable threat. The actual assault on New Olympus begins in a couple of weeks in Incredible Hercules #138 and I, for one, will be on board.
Captain America Reborn #4 (of 6, even though the cover says it’s of 5)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Ed Brubaker
Drawn by: Bryan Hitch with Butch Guice
Covers by: Bryan Hitch, John Cassaday and Joe Kubert
The now lagging sales rival to DC’s Blackest Night has passed the half way point. And an incredible turning point it is. Steve Rogers is still spinning through his own history, disconnected from time and present reality itself. Brubaker leads us to believe that this indefatigable hero is getting relentlessly worn more and more down as he’s forced to relive battle after battle and one personal tragedy after another. Bryan Hitch’s art is as breathtaking as ever. As much as I still wish Steve Epting was on this series, whether depicting brutal battle scenes, tense meetings between Richards and Pym, Cap spinning through time, or the union of evil forces in Latveria, Hitch’s work is stunning.
Par for the course in this series, Bruabaker moves the reader through multiple plotlines all of which circle tighter and tighter until such time as we know they’re all going to come together. The Red Skull, trapped in a narrow mechanical body with glowing eyes and wearing the trappings of a Nazi officer, has never looked more evil as he travels with Crossbones and Sin to meet with Zola and Dr. Doom in Latveria. And, of course, Norman Osborn’s involvement makes what Doom is performing for The Red Skull all the more possible. Reed Richards and Hank Pym’s Mighty Avengers are working to understand the link between Sharon Carter and the missing Steve Rogers. And finally, the new Captain America, Black Widow and Ronin have planned their own assault on HAMMER to find Sharon Carter. Unfortunately, while all the heroes working to secure Captain America’s return are working as fast and hard as they can, Doom and The Skull’s evil machinations appear to have moved faster.
I have to admit this series is beginning to slow down a bit for me. And now it’s been extended one more issue under the pretense of tying into the upcoming Siege storyline. Still, it’s been one of the best written, drawn and overall produced series on the market the last several months. And Captain America’s return, made bittersweet only by how well Bucky’s filled Steve’s shoes, alone is cause for celebration. While I’m thoroughly enjoying the ride, I’m just ready to move on to the main event.
Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire #4 (of 6)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Jason Aaron
Drawn by: Roland Boschi
Cover by: Dustin Weaver
The single most ambitious story in comics today continues here. Yes, yes, Blackest Night is all the rage and all that, but it’s here that Almighty God himself appears to have been cast from Heaven whose very gates were breached by the mad angel Zadkiel. Zadkiel also was the force behind the creation of the Ghost Riders, divine instruments of vengeance as it turns out. Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze at first wanted vengeance on Zadkiel for ruining their lives but now they have a bigger purpose in stopping him, especially Ketch who was used as a pawn in Zadkiel’s great design.
The Ghost Riders have been joined by the Son of Satan and Jane Cutter, an occult terrorist, in search of the anti-Christ who is supposed to bring about the Apocalypse of the scriptures. But with this creature gone, Zadkiel can do with reality as he pleases. So, ironically, saving this evil and salacious creature is one way to put a kink in Zadkiel’s plans. With this issue we see the little beast traveling with the new Caretaker, sexy nun and daughter of the original Caretaker, as well as Hellstrom and Cutter. The Ghost Riders, themselves, actually get only a single panel of comic relief in an issue that begins to look very bad for the, eh, good guys. Zadkiel’s minions are out in force and the ending of this issue leaves very little hope for our little slice of creation.
Jason Aaron’s producing the most amazing high concept horror comic I’ve ever read. Never have the stakes been this high and the threat so dire. Boschi’s art is surreal, warped and supernaturally eerie. Perfect for this reality bending story. Unlike Captain America Reborn or even Blackest Night which have felt a bit dragged out at times, the tension simply begins to build in this series with each issue and I have a feeling Aaron’s got quite a show planned for us over the next two issues. My pick of the week.
Black Widow: Deadly Origin #1 (of 4)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Paul Cornell
Drawn by: Tom Raney
Covers by: Adi Granov, Tom Raney and Greg Land
The Black Widow, aka Natalia Romanoff, has been more or less a major player in the marvel universe in the early days. For those of you who don’t know, she first was introduced in the 1960’s as a cold-war antagonist for Iron Man, and eventually reformed. Her next big splash was as Daredevil’s partner (for quite awhile actually, at one point DD was renamed “DD and the Black Widow”). What followed was nothing regular, but nonetheless made her a player in the Marvel Universe. For a minute she was even the leader of the Avengers, joined SHIELD, and became a major player in the recent “Civil War” and “Secret Invasion” crossovers. My favorite recent Black Widow series was “The Things They Say About Her”, written by science fiction writer Richard K. Morgan and drawn by the legendary Bill Sienkiewicz. That series touched a little bit on Natasha’s origin, touching on her time spent as a ballerina and training in the KGB’s legendary Red Room. This new series is supposed to touch on her origin, and give us some insights to her past (which we recently have learned involves Bucky Cap aka the Winter Soldier). So, how does it start?
Our story opens in true Bond fashion, Natalia mixing it up with an enemy spy over a stolen stealth plane, and yeah, it’s pretty awesome. From there we move on to some Russian guys mulling over a computer that initiates the “icepick protocol” on one Natalia Romanova. This leads us to Natalia getting a panicked phone call from an old friend, and then that friend being blown to pieces. In a flashback, we find out that Nat is older than she looks, and Logan (aka Wolverine) taught her Japanese martial arts in the ‘40’s and Bucky Barnes (aka Captain America aka Winter Soldier) had a really funky looking robotic arm back during the cold war…
Hell yeah this book kicks ass. Tom Raney, in my opinion one of the most underrated artists of all time. Big fan of his since his “Stormwatch” days, and Paul Cornell keeps in on point with a kick ass spy story and the origin of one of Marvel’s most beloved leading lady’s. So yeah, down with this book, down with the eventual trade, and total down with the Black Widow.
Psylocke #1 (of 4)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Christopher Yost
Drawn by: Harvey Tolibao
Smoking hot sweet ass cover by: David Finch
Psylocke first showed up on the scene as Betsy Braddock, the sister of Brian Braddock aka Captain Britain and she had telepathic powers. Until she became ninja Psylocke though, no one really cared, and let me tell you, when Jim Lee reinvents your look as a ninja, damn. People notice. The whole ninja thing though, well, that’s a bit hard to explain. It originally happened during during the “Acts of Vengeance” storyline way back in the early ‘90’s. Marvel had switched villains in all their titles, and the X-men ended up tangling with the Mandarin. Anyway, the Hand leader at the time wanted to resurrect his brain dead girlfriend, so he had Spiral put Betsy’s mind in her body and bam. Ninja Psylocke, who was first known as “Lady Mandarin” (so not going to explain that one). Anyway, she joined the X-men and kicked a lot of ass until she died. Then she was recently resurrected in Matt Fraction and Greg Lands new run on the Uncanny X-men, and now she has a limited series. So what’s it about?
Our story opens with Betsy palling around with Allison Blaire on Utopia, the new island home of the X-men. She’s been putting off a fairly daunting task for awhile, and with some convincing finally decides to take care of business. The task? Burying her old body, the one destroyed recently in Uncanny X-men (during the storyline which brought her back a few months ago). She heads to Japan to bury the body (with Wolverine mysteriously hitching a ride) only to be attacked by the hand, whose agenda she doesn’t see at first but it becomes clear soon enough. Something she thought she settled long ago comes back in a big way, and Betsy decides today she’s going to settle things for good (yeah, old boyfriends are a VMVMVMVMVM)…
I don’t do this very often, but I’ll come right out and say I bought this series because of the cover. Damn that Dave Finch can draw smoking hot foxy chicas. After reading the book though, gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised. I’m not familiar with Harvey Tolibao, but his art is decent and Christopher Yost defiantly spins a good story. The A lot of homage’s were paid to the ‘90’s Lee/Claremont X-men with a slight tip of the hat to the Silvestri days even and I gotta say, I’m cool with that. This book is off to a promising start and I’m defiantly going to stick around to see how it plays out.
Wktf’s Reviews
Purely by accident, all my reviews happen to be Marvel side-event stories outside the regular comic book titles of the primary characters involved in these stories.
Assault on New Olympus Prologue #1 (One Shot)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente
Drawn by: Rodney Buchemi
Cover by: Adi Granov
As usual, Pak & Van Lente’s Incredible Hercules series is a hoot and a half that also happens to involve a smattering of fun, relevant Greek mythology and genuine danger either to the titular character or mankind in general. I’m not sure why Marvel felt the need to put this story in a one-shot comic outside of Hercules’ regular title. Maybe doing so signifies it’s an event and this is a marketing tactic to pull in new readers and migrate them over to Herc’s title. If so, I hope it works. Incredible Hercules is one of Marvel’s best regular comics, despite its rotating artist roster, and it needs all the support it can get.
In the last issue of Incredible Hercules, Amadeus Cho had solved the mystery of his parents’ murder and became the mortal champion of Hercules’ sister, Athena, goddess of wisdom and war. Cho had discovered that Hera, Hercules’ step-mother and millennia-long hated enemy of the demi-god, has developed a scheme to destroy all life on our planet. While the evil Hera had formed an alliance with Normal Osborn, of course, Athena is looking to secure the help of the other Olympians scattered across the mortal plane since Zeus’ death and Olympus’ destruction in Ares’ mini-series a couple of years back. We can pause just a moment here and applaud Rodney Buchemi for drawing an incredibly sexy Aphrodite (but is he having a little fun making her face resemble Sarah Palin’s?). As Hera’s machinations and seeming betrayals become more and more clear, the manifestation of the chaos that existed before the gods in the form of the Japanese god who murdered Zeus, Amatsu-Mikaboshi, is bearing down on the Olympians. And Hera’s plans to deal with this, and potentially threaten all of mankind in the process, cause Athena once again to engage Hercules to go into action. Of course, not before the Prince of Power engages in a not-so-friendly tussle with the ever Amazing Spider-Man and the entrance of several nifty guest star comrades in arms.
This one-shot provides enough back story so that even people who’ve never read Hercules’ book before should be able to come right on board with no problem. And for regular readers, speaking as one myself, this back story is a great catch up on events that’ve transpired the last few years leading up to this storyline. Pak and Van Lente do their usually masterful job mixing humor and buffoonery with excellent storytelling and a serious, viable threat. The actual assault on New Olympus begins in a couple of weeks in Incredible Hercules #138 and I, for one, will be on board.
Captain America Reborn #4 (of 6, even though the cover says it’s of 5)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Ed Brubaker
Drawn by: Bryan Hitch with Butch Guice
Covers by: Bryan Hitch, John Cassaday and Joe Kubert
The now lagging sales rival to DC’s Blackest Night has passed the half way point. And an incredible turning point it is. Steve Rogers is still spinning through his own history, disconnected from time and present reality itself. Brubaker leads us to believe that this indefatigable hero is getting relentlessly worn more and more down as he’s forced to relive battle after battle and one personal tragedy after another. Bryan Hitch’s art is as breathtaking as ever. As much as I still wish Steve Epting was on this series, whether depicting brutal battle scenes, tense meetings between Richards and Pym, Cap spinning through time, or the union of evil forces in Latveria, Hitch’s work is stunning.
Par for the course in this series, Bruabaker moves the reader through multiple plotlines all of which circle tighter and tighter until such time as we know they’re all going to come together. The Red Skull, trapped in a narrow mechanical body with glowing eyes and wearing the trappings of a Nazi officer, has never looked more evil as he travels with Crossbones and Sin to meet with Zola and Dr. Doom in Latveria. And, of course, Norman Osborn’s involvement makes what Doom is performing for The Red Skull all the more possible. Reed Richards and Hank Pym’s Mighty Avengers are working to understand the link between Sharon Carter and the missing Steve Rogers. And finally, the new Captain America, Black Widow and Ronin have planned their own assault on HAMMER to find Sharon Carter. Unfortunately, while all the heroes working to secure Captain America’s return are working as fast and hard as they can, Doom and The Skull’s evil machinations appear to have moved faster.
I have to admit this series is beginning to slow down a bit for me. And now it’s been extended one more issue under the pretense of tying into the upcoming Siege storyline. Still, it’s been one of the best written, drawn and overall produced series on the market the last several months. And Captain America’s return, made bittersweet only by how well Bucky’s filled Steve’s shoes, alone is cause for celebration. While I’m thoroughly enjoying the ride, I’m just ready to move on to the main event.
Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire #4 (of 6)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Jason Aaron
Drawn by: Roland Boschi
Cover by: Dustin Weaver
The single most ambitious story in comics today continues here. Yes, yes, Blackest Night is all the rage and all that, but it’s here that Almighty God himself appears to have been cast from Heaven whose very gates were breached by the mad angel Zadkiel. Zadkiel also was the force behind the creation of the Ghost Riders, divine instruments of vengeance as it turns out. Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze at first wanted vengeance on Zadkiel for ruining their lives but now they have a bigger purpose in stopping him, especially Ketch who was used as a pawn in Zadkiel’s great design.
The Ghost Riders have been joined by the Son of Satan and Jane Cutter, an occult terrorist, in search of the anti-Christ who is supposed to bring about the Apocalypse of the scriptures. But with this creature gone, Zadkiel can do with reality as he pleases. So, ironically, saving this evil and salacious creature is one way to put a kink in Zadkiel’s plans. With this issue we see the little beast traveling with the new Caretaker, sexy nun and daughter of the original Caretaker, as well as Hellstrom and Cutter. The Ghost Riders, themselves, actually get only a single panel of comic relief in an issue that begins to look very bad for the, eh, good guys. Zadkiel’s minions are out in force and the ending of this issue leaves very little hope for our little slice of creation.
Jason Aaron’s producing the most amazing high concept horror comic I’ve ever read. Never have the stakes been this high and the threat so dire. Boschi’s art is surreal, warped and supernaturally eerie. Perfect for this reality bending story. Unlike Captain America Reborn or even Blackest Night which have felt a bit dragged out at times, the tension simply begins to build in this series with each issue and I have a feeling Aaron’s got quite a show planned for us over the next two issues. My pick of the week.