Amazing Spider-Man #695
And the end begins. With just a couple of issues before the "final" issue of Amazing Spider-Man, #700, the future of Marvel is revealed, at least a bit. The issue starts off with Spidey and Hobgoblin going at it, with Tiberius Stone in the wings, ready to jam Spidey's spider sense. However, that backfires and helps Spider-Man defeat the Hand ninjas, forcing Hobby to flee. What Phil doesn't see when he flies away is that the original Hobgoblin, Roderick Kingsley, is watching him. Julia Carpenter, the all seeing Madame Web, sees this but get interrupted by her daughter, who is leaving to go to her grandparent's house in Colorado, sent there by her mom so she is safe from the impending doom. Peter, believing that Stone has something to do with the Hobgoblin, attempts to talk to Max about the situation, only to be reunited with Daily Bugle reporter Sally Floyd. Sally tells Peter that some of his coworkers have blabbed, telling the reporter about his relationship with Spider-Man. Peter begs her and, eventually, Robbie to kill that part of the story. Now back at the Bugle, Peter runs into Norah and Phil, the later immediately triggering Pete's spider-sense. Back with the Kingpin, Stone works on his jamming device, hoping that it will work. However, it does not, as it amplifies not only Peter's spider-sense to extreme levels, but it also causes Julia to get a massive overload on her visions of the future (more on that in a bit). Julia sends her celestial being to find Peter, delivering him an emergency warning about the future. Peter stumbles away only to be jumped by Hobgoblin, who might possibly outed Peter as Spider-Man.
Written by the team of Dan Slott and Christos Gage, "Danger Zone" starts off with a bang. I'm really happy to see Hobgoblin (both of them) again, as he's (Phil) been missing for far too long. Also, Norah returns to the book, another character who has been missing for awhile (though she has made appearances in Punisher). I also really liked the progression with Peter's spider sense getting super charged. The little arrows telling what the "threat" was was actually pretty witty. Art-wise, the issue is drawn by Giuseppe Camuncoli, returning after taking an arc off. He does a masterful job of illustrating the story, even though most of it was dealing with Peter's out of costume life. However, the page that will get the most attention will be the double page spread where the future of Marvel is shown. Almost every snippet shown deal with a Marvel NOW! book, so it was pretty interesting to see the new art. It also caught me by surprise, as I was not expecting Marvel to do something like this, especially as Avengers Vs. X-Men had their final issue released the same day. For the majority, I was interested in the panels, as they dealt with the future of Spider-Man (especially the Peter/Hydro-Man....thing? and the shadowy Peter/MJ scene), books I'm already reading (Captain Marvel and Daredevil), or NOW! books I'm interested in (Avengers Arena and Deadpool). This was an excellent start for the end of Spider-Man, and I'm pumped to see where it goes (also, a little bit afraid).
Grade: A
Avengers Vs. X-Men #12
Ah, the finale of Marvel's big summer event has finally arrived, ushering in the Marvel NOW! era. I won't talk about the story or my feelings for the overall event here (see my next post for those). I will, however, talk about my feelings for this issue. Written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Adam Kubert, the finale is a double sized book of awesomeness. The stakes were raised to extreme, as the Avengers and the X-Men teamed up to take down
Grade: A-
Avengers Academy #38
Guest starring Wolverine and the X-Men, this is the first issue to deal with the outcome of AvX. And this has been the issue many Avengers Academy fans have been waiting for: the flag football game between the two schools. It was actually a clever issue, as it kinda sorta dealt with the outcome of Avengers Vs. X-Men, but very subtly. The only time that AvX is mentioned is when Logan and Hank discuss their little scuffle on the Quinjet during issue #3 and when the teachers leave the game, making the Avengers Academy kids be on the teams with the X-Men kids. Though little football is actually played, when it is played, the scenes are hilarious, a couple involving Jocasta and a taser. AvX isn't the only subject discussed, however. X-23 and Finesse also discuss the end of "Final Exam", seeing as X-23 still believes that she killed Jeremy. Finesse tells her that it was actually her that killed him. Another sore subject brought back up is the "relationship" between Finesse and Reptil, with Reptil getting advice from the ladies man, Gambit. However, the kids and teachers are shown getting along and having fun, with Hank getting an idea for the future and the kids admitting to needing to do this (the game) more often.
This is the penultimate issue of Avengers Academy, which makes me really sad. Though I jumped on after the Amazing Spider-Man issues where Spidey taught the kids, I've followed the books religiously, picking up the trades and every issue (minus two which I'm still hunting down). This is an issue which proves why this books was so popular among comic fans. It was just an overall fun issue, right after the issue where the AA kids have their arch enemy killed and so soon after the devastating events of Avengers Vs. X-Men. This was just an issue where two schools, both devastated by the events of AvX, meet up for some fun. It's issues like this one that made this series so much fun to read. Christos Gage gets major props for taking a series this far, as I'm sure not many saw this title, with a cast of new characters and B-listers, lasting 40 issues. Also, sometimes you read a crossover comic and realize what you are missing out on, in my case with Amazing and AA. Well, this issue did it for me with Wolverine and the X-Men. I typically avoid anything X-Men like the plague for whatever reason. However, this AA issue might have piqued my interest in the book. I will definitely look into getting the trades in the future to see how it is.
Grade: A
Detective Comics #13
With an all new writer and artist team, why not check out the first issue of their run? It starts off with Batman cracking some skulls as a sniper takes aim at him. As Batman gets into the Batplane, the sniper is called off. The sniper is then shown to be working for the man on the cover: the Penguin. However, the target is not Batman; it's Bruce Wayne. Bruce, preparing to arrive late for a ceremony for a wing in a children's center named after his mom, gets sidetracked when he takes down a couple of thugs who are robbing an apartment. After Bruce gets the info he needs, he radios to Nightwing, telling him to look into the situation. Just as Bruce starts going towards the ceremony, he gets distracted once more, this time by the sniper, and the two get into a tussle. While Bruce deals with the assassin, Penguin bribes/threatens his way into getting his name, not Martha's name, on the children's wing, just as Bruce arrives. Before Bruce even has time to react, the assassin arrives, ready to take down Bruce.
For a first issue of a new direction, this was done really well. I've never read anything by this team, either art or story. So it was interesting for me to do that. But that might be a problem within itself. I've been wavering on whether to add Detective Comics on my pull list, as I'm pulling way too many comics for my own good now (even more complicated with all the new MarvelNOW stuff coming out soon). I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with this title, because the first storyline looks really interesting, as it looks to delve into the world of Batman's villains, including Poison Ivy and a tie-in with "Death of the Family". John Layman and Jason Fabok do a fantastic job on this issue, as did Andy Clarke on the backup art (he needs to get more work, as his stuff is amazing). I'm going to be pulling this title for now, and we'll have to see what the future holds.
Grade: A
Minimum Carnage: Alpha
Here we go again: another Spider-family mini-event that looks really promising. The issue starts off with Venom, fresh off his situation with Daimon Hellstrom, helping out the military hunt down Cletus Kasady aka Carnage, who has escaped from his prison cell. At a security checkpoint, officers discover Cletus, but the cops get killed by some unseen force. Venom checks the footage, finding something really odd and really small on the bodies. After calling the Avengers, letting them know to be ready on a notices call, calls Katy, his reporter friend. She gives him information about the Prometheus Pit, which happens to be located in Houston. Speaking of Houston, its resident hero, Scarlet Spider, jumps into a burning building and discovers a horrific scene with only one survivor. Kaine goes looking for the man's wife, who gets a visit from Carnage himself. Kaine arrives and takes on Carnage, who believes Kaine to be Spider-Man initially. However, after noticing Kaine's more brutal behavior and stingers, determines that he isn't actually Spider-Man. It doesn't matter to Cletus, as his friends attack Kaine. With Scarlet Spider immobilized, Cletus grabs Katy, who was in Houston to interview the doctor in charge of the Prometheus Pit, and heads into the pit with his friends. Kaine tries to stop Carnage, but Carnage destroys the machine just as he jumps in. Just as he does that, Scarlet Spider meets Venom, as they both threaten to either kill or shoot each other.
The start of another Spider mini event, this issue is written by both Cullen Bunn and Chris Yost, the normal writers of Venom and Scarlet Spider, respectively. Overall, the story was done extremely well. I definitely enjoyed the way the two stories were written separately and then brought together in the last panel, setting up the beginning of Scarlet Spider #10. Though I did find it interesting to bring in Katy for this story, everything else was a-okay by me. Also a-okay was the art. Done by ex-Venom artist Lan Medina, the art was nicely done. However, it made me miss Lan's work on Venom just a wee bit. This was a strong first issue for the next Spider mini-event and I'm definitely looking forward to the next issue.
Grade: A-
Alright, these reviews are done. As you read this, I am working on between five and six other posts at the same time: Avengers Vs. X-Men wrap up, another weekly review post that may spin off into two separate posts, a "10 Things" post, a Marvel NOW post, and a couple of "30 Day Challenge" posts. Needless to say, I'm going to be busy over the next couple of days. Look out for the majority of these posts in the next week, with the "30 Day Challenge" starting in about a weeks time. Here's a little tease about the next review post: one issue gets the elusive A+ grade... Gotta go for now. Lots more to write and not a lot of time to write it.
Thanks for reading!!
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