Comic Book Moments of the Week for 04/09/08

It's hockey playoff time. I'm a Canadian. I had to watch it last night and with the size of this week's Moments of the Week, there was no way I could do both. Since this is coming to you on Saturday, you can guess hockey took priority. If it's any consequence, this is a huge list of moments to make up for it. Enjoy!

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #556

"My webshooters don't work under these conditions."

Actually, they don't work at all. If you've been keeping score, and we all have, the webshooters have broke, malfunctioned, jammed or just plain didn't work in every single issue of Brand New Day. He knew there was a blizzard, but because Peter is such a loser this days, he couldn't be bothered whipping up a new batch of webbing, webbing that Ben Reilly made for $30 back in the 90's. Damn $2000 webbing inflation. I hear this new arc is actually pretty good, but I guess there's some kind of moratorum from editorial that the webshooters must break every single issue to show how much hard luck Peter has. After eight or nine issues of it happening, though, it's just getting ridiculous now.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #3

"It's well past time for me to put you down."

What? What is Superman, with heat vision red eyes, telling Darkseid it's about time he finally killed him? Don't believe the ridiculous claims by Carlin in interviews passing this off as Superman just overexaggerating and he's just going to knock him out and put him in jail, as if it's even possible to do to Darkseid. This is just bad anyway you look at it.

"WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP"

That's the collective sound of every reader banging their heads off the wall after reading this. Let's overlook the over-the-top nature of Mary beating Donna with Kyle, literally. Look at the top two panels. Left leg of Kyle is held. Look at the bottom panels. Right leg of Kyle. QUALITY.

"God save us all."

Darkseid vs. Giant Turtle Boy Jimmy in a Godzilla remake gone bad is what we have to look forward to next week. I probably shouldn't have a right to complain since I keep buying it, but it's like looking at a gruesome car crash now. You want to look away, but you can't help but keep staring.

FANTASTIC FOUR #556

"Kiel?"

Okay, CAP is a big giant robot. I have a normal gun. I'm not firing on the giant robot. EVER. Especially if I live in the Marvel Universe, where I know giant robots of doom are immune to bullets. Still, look at what CAP does to these guys. Disintigration beam of Mars Attacks! level. Now, watch what he does to heroes.

"Skrulls?"

I'm guessing these guys are Skrulls. Hard to imagine half of these guys in the Arctic or on SHIELD's speed dial. Hitch was probably told to just draw "a bunch of heroes" and picked whatever ones he felt like. Half of these guys aren't even registered. Let's not forget that CAP just defeated the Sentry, the most powerful being on the planet, Iron Man, who interface with any electronics and is pretty damn powerful himself, the Vision, who's merged with Kang's 30th century tech and can phase through machinery, and the myriad of other heroes he defeated. Where was this CAP at when the Hulk destroyed New York last year? And why didn't CAP disintigrate the heroes he defeated? He was designed to stop heroes and military. Why didn't he finish them like those humans above? I know the scene was designed to show what a threat CAP is, but this should have been toned down a bit.

"Pym Particles?"

Did CAP just grow? He was 10-15 feet high, maybe, when he towered over the humans in the first moment. Now he's like the freaking Anti-Monitor.

"I'm on my way."

I loved this panel and the brief panel on the previous page with everyone worrying. Reed coming in to save the day all nonchalant-like was my favourite part of the book.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #23

"SNORR"

Everyone else gets dragged off from something important. Guy's busy sleeping and doesn't even wake up as he's pulled along by the ring. Not sure when the rings started doing the whole "control the Lantern, regardless of what he's doing" thing, but this scene put it to good use.

"What's the sound of one arm clapping."

That's one way to remove a Sinestro Corp's ring from its owner.

"Ion Punk'd!"

First time back in the sattle since the Superman Prime fight and Ion jobs to a freaking flower. Ugh. Don't make god-like characters if you don't want to use them. This is basically how Sentry is treated in the Marvel Universe. Can't have a threat if one guy can take care of it instantly, so take him out of it in a contrived manner at the onset. I'll wait and see how this plays out, but disappointed in his use if this is how he'll be treated.

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #14

"A little crowded in here..."

There's a lot of little details that make this simple introduction scene so good. We've got Mr America sitting on a lawn chair, Mr T is on a simple stool and Starman is in the back, lugging in a living room lounge chair and bumping into Superman, causing him to spill his tea. Many would have did a simple head count, slapped the name plates on each of them and called it a day.

"Next: Someone gets beat up. Bad."

There's some debate over whether this is our Alan Scott or the KC version, like the Superman that crossed over. Considering he calls Obsidian his son in the previous page and the fact our Alan went missing after the initial outburst over Gog attacking their (the JSA's) children members, I believe he was busy forming the armour and preparing with his son for this splash page. Whether he absorbed his lantern into his chest like the KC version and is a powerhouse now or if this is just "cool armour" remains open to debate. Alan wasn't wearing the eyepatch this issue. He had the domino mask, similar to this image, at the start, too.

"Ouch?"

On second viewing, this doesn't look as clear cut a kill shot as the first time through. It's hard to tell if it's just in his shoulder or if he's pierced through his chest. Considering the nature of Sandman, he's probably not going to die either way, but still a cool image.

DC NATION

"Manazons..."

I don't want to know what the Manazons are. I just hope it has nothing to do with that Countdown tie-in with the male version of the Amazons or Amazons Attack. I don't think I could handle that much fail. Other noteworthy listings are the Kingdom Come sequel and The Dark Side Club. Not sure what the latter is, but KC had a sequel already. It's called The Kingdom. Hopefully, this new one means a painted version by Ross, maybe with Johns or Waid back on it. The rest are all events we already know about, so not worth mentioning. Any ideas on what The Dark Side Club is?

NOVA #12

"@#$% YEAH!"

It's about freaking time is all I can say about Nova being back to full power and what an amazing splash page to commemorate it. For those out of the loop, he had a techno-organic virus from the Phalanx that was requiring almost all his power to hold in check. He was at his limit and about to die when Warlock used all his lifeforce to remove the virus, resulting in this return to form image.

"They look like they could use some destroying."

Drax's destroying line never gets old, no matter how many times I hear him use it. The only other thing worth mentioning here is that it looks like the Phalanx is screwed when Nova, Drax, Gamora, Warlock and the adult Technarch body'd Tyro get back to Kree space.

TRANSFORMERS: ALL HAIL MEGATRON PREVIEW

"We come in peace."

I'm not sure where these images came from, maybe a backup in a random Transformer comic this week, but they were posted online and I'm actually considering picking up All Hail Megatron when it comes out now. As a child of the 80's, Transformers is the pinnacle of cartoon goodness and childhood dreams for me, but, aside from the Dreamwave relaunch nostolgia, I've always found them pretty much restricted to big robots with Stormtrooper aim - ie they can't hit the broadside of the barn and no one dies.

So, seeing the Constructicons show up and start killing everyone, along with the next moment, was a real shock. Now, killing humans doesn't make it better by default, but it made no sense that they've been trying to take over Earth for so long, but have never killed a single human or they fight Autobots and retreat without ever finishing a battle in a Saturday cartoon style episode. I'll probably pick this series up when it debuts based on this 5 page preview or, at least, the first issue to see if they are taking a more serious approac, or as serious as giant talking robots can be.

"As always Starscream, you talk big, but everything about you is small."

What's Transformers without Megatron verbally berating Starscream, all while doing some serious human killing and building destroying. As the long diatrab above stated, this could be the first "grown up" Transformers story ever. Really pumped for this as of right now. Younger readers might wonder what the big deal is, ahaha.

WOLVERINE #64

"Ouch"

This was the scene I was talking about in the reviews this week. I've seen many a Wolverine mutilated scene, but this one just looks nasty for some reason. Garney did a great job showing all the muscles and tendons in various states of regrowth.

"Dude...Mrs December just stole our truck."

Not sure how Mystique stole the image / pose of Mrs December that the guy was looking at, considering she's in front of him and not over his shoulder and couldn't have seen it, but the scene was funny, nonetheless.

"Nekkid."

There was a lot of cheesecake going around in comics this week, this Mystique shot included. I think the point of this nude gun shot was Mystique saying she's coming at Wolverine with no tricks or hidden surprises this time. A sort of "no more hiding or running" statement from someone that's usually shapeshifted to avoid him. Or someone thought naked Mystique would sell books. I'm not complaining, either way.

WONDER WOMAN #19

"Why would an alien manifest an Earth based ram?"

Well, it does have sharp teeth, so I guess it's an alien ram. However, this was a pretty good fight between Wonder Woman and a Green Lantern. Makes me wonder how she'd far against Hal or Kyle.

"Take my hand Lantern."

I know Wonder Woman is supposed to be a peace emissary of sorts, but it rarely ever gets shown. That's why I liked this scene from Simone. The look on the GL's face after he realizes she was sincere really made the scene. Shame the rest of the issue after this went to hell.

"Unisex showers?"

Man, are these guys all gay? Some hot blonde is standing to the side naked in the shower and not even the slightest hint of a sideward glance. Considering the team shot in the first panel looks to have only one female, you think they could have sprung for her own personal stall or something.

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