Weekly Crisis Quick Shot Comic Book Reviews for 04/16/08

To make up for the handful of reviews from yesterday, I've put together a rather un-Quick Shot-like set of reviews for today containing the rest of the books from this week's pulllist. If you didn't pick up X-Men: Divided We Stand, I suggest heading back to the shop and grabbing it if they still have it. It was easily one of the best books I've read in a long while and I've wrote a rather extensive revew of it. I'll let you guys work your way through these reviews, so hit the jump and feel free to let me know what you think or what you bought this week!

BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS #6
Written by Chuck Dixon
Art by Carlos Rodriguez and Bit

While I'm digging the cast of characters Dixon has assembled, I'm a bit disturbed by the choice in storyline. These are street level characters in a black ops-like team. They aren't the JLA and this very cosmic-like turn in the story has me a bit leary of continuing with the book. These guys shouldn't be stealing rockets and flying to secret space stations that are building giant rockets and so on. Also, Batman is almost non-existent in the book and I assume his name is on the title to sell more copies.

The entirety of this issue is devoted to Metamorpho informing the team he's alive and at a secret space base and the rest of the team mounting a grand theft rocket mission so they can make their way into space. This involves invading China and getting captured, ending the issue with Batgirl the only one still free.

Verdict - Check It


CAPTAIN AMERICA #37
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Steve Epting & Jackson Guice

I felt a little cheated with how Brubaker handled the Steve Rogers reveal from last issue. I expected it to be followed up on early and a little more thorugh than what we got here. In fact, he ended this issue with pretty much the same cliffhanger as last time, with Sharon confronting the Steve Rogers clone as it wakes up.

Did I say clone? Well, it's not confirmed, but Sharon says it's not Steve, yet he says he's Steve Rogers. It doesn't look like our Cap, at least not the way Epting has typically drawn Steve.

The rest of the issue revolved around Bucky getting more approval from the super-hero community, mainly Hawkeye and Falcon, one after the other, as they visit his apartment to have words with him. We also see the Red Skull setting up his own candidate for the presidency by manufacturing his "solutions" to all the chaos the Skull initiated, winning him a great deal of public approval.

Personally, I'm getting a little impatient with this storyline. I understand why it's being done and I know this will read so much better in a trade, but aside from one or two issues, ever since Bucky took over as Cap, it feels like we're watching paint dry.

Verdict - Check It


CAPTAIN MARVEL #5
Written by Brian Reed
Art by Lee Weeks

Well, this didn't explain anything. We still don't know why Captain Marvel attacked the Thunderbolts base in Secret Invasion #1 and his allegiances are even more muddled.

Basically, Captain Marvel is, indeed, a Skrull sleeper agent. However, during his reprogramming, where they applied the real Cap's memories and brain patterns to him, along with a trigger word, the process goes haywire and the trigger effect, which was that painting he's obsessed with, doesn't stick.

This leads to Captain Marvel believing he is the real Captain Marvel and killing all his Skrull allies and fleeing the complex. I didn't understand exactly how he came to be in the Negative Zone, back during Civil War, though.

Even though Cap knows he's a Skrull now, he still feels like Captain Marvel and is dedicating himself to hunting down the Skrull's in the Marvel Church and killing them, all while staying hidden from SHIELD. I can only speculate that he's under the impression a Skrull is in the Thunderbolts and that's why he attacked them. Nothing here really syncs up with what happened.

While this was a better issue than the last one, the series, on the whole, feels completely unnecessary and only the first issue really made me wish Captain Marvel was back.

Verdict - Check It


CATWOMAN #78
Written by Will Pfeifer
Art by David Lopez and Alvaro Lopez

Pfeifer seems to have just given up on the Salvation Run tie-in, as this issue features a great deal of time spent on Slam Bradly, Selina's daughter's grandfather (that's a mouth full), and his quest to find out what happened to his grandchild and her mother, Selina. It was good just to get back to Catwoman related stuff for a change.

The rest of the issue dealt with getting Catwoman back to Luthor's camp to tie into the end of this week's Salvation Run and gives us a rather simple fight scene. The cover should give you a guess as to who she fights.

Considering this series is going to end in four or five months, I'm a bit disappointed it's going to wallow in these tie-ins instead of giving us a satisfying conclusion to the series, but, hey, it was fun while it lasted.

Verdict - Check It


INCREDIBLE HERCULES #116
Written by Fred Van Lente & Greg Pak
Art by Rafa Sandoval

I fail to see the reason for the Eternals appearing here other than to have a forced fight between them. Ikaris was able to tell who was or wasn't an Eternal in the Gaiman penned mini, yet can't tell whether Hercules is the Eternal Gilgamesh or the halfgod we know him to be.

Ignoring the obligatory fight scene, there was some funny dialogue here, specifically with Herc's desire for "eye beams" if he had been an Eternal. I loved the opening map of the groups journey, too. It listed Athena's home and where the fought SHIELD and then a line towards San Fran where the Eternals live. However, the line had dots every couple centimeters with pit stops labelled simply as "Beer" stops. Herc and Cho also had a nice bonding scene and Cho has been slightly less annoying as of late, so that's a plus.

The biggest surprise of this issue was Athena's reason for calling a meeting of the various pantheon's of the Marvel Universe, mainly telling them that they are the protectors of Earth and humanity and that they have been invaded by Skrulls, as she holds a severed Skrull head that she pulled out of her bag. Definitely got the message across for me in a powerful bit of imagery. I have my doubts about the whole "God Squad", but can't help but be curious about it.

Verdict - Check It


X-FACTOR #30
Written by Peter David
Art by Valentine De Landro

I'm not much of a fan of Arcade, so this arc has left me a little underwhelmed, simply due to my bias against him. I read this book for the characters, though, and PAD didn't disappoint on that front. There were several great scenes in this issue, such as Jamie's "brilliant" deduction on the mastermind behind their current troubles or Monet's "shocking" hairdo after a run in with one of Arcade's traps. She was so out of it, she started calling people random names, like Cyclops or what have you.

As this is an Arcade story, we get Murderland-lite with this booby trapped Mutant Town attack. The Purifier that recruited Rictor hired Arcade for payback, as the Purifiers were his life and saved him from his drug addiciton and gave him purpose. Now they have cast him out for recruiting a traitor like Rictor and that leads us to Arcade. After a series of attacks, the team finally catches up to Arcade, but a moment too late as he made his escape. Monet took off after him, but the rest were left to deal with the ex-Purifier, who has all of Mutant Town rigged to explode if he dies and he just committed suicide by poison, ending the issue ominously with the empty glass hitting the floor.

The character moments helped sell this issue to me. If it was any other book, I'd have been fairly disappointed with the storyline, but this managed to have enough good stuff and wasn't dragged on too long, either. Still not up to pre-Messiah Complex standards, but it's a good X-Factor, nonetheless.

Verdict - Check It


X-MEN: DIVIDED WE STAND BOOK 1 #1
Written by Mike Carey, Matt Fraction, Craig Kyle, Chris Yost & Skottie Young
Art by Brandon Peterson, Jamie McKelvie, Sana Takeda & Skottie Young

It might be my love of New X-Men talking, but I thought this issue was the best bang for your buck this week. It had something for everyone and, with the exception of the Cannonball story, were all great stories.

As I said, this is a NXM fan's wet dream, as it features not one, but three NXM centric stories from the former creative team, one by Yost and Kyle, one by Yost alone and the other by artist Skottie Young, a long time collaborator on NXM.

The first by Y&K featured one of the "background" characters from their run, Nehzno. He wasn't featured very often, but he's easily recognizable, as he's the black boy with the vibranium tattoos all over his body. This story was easily my favourite of the bunch and is just a quiet story that added a great deal of depth to a relatively unknown supporting character. If you've been upset with Hudlin's Black Panther treatment, you'll enjoy this story's use of him, as it makes me wish Yost and Kyle would do a Panther mini or ongoing based on their understanding of Wakanda, Black Panther and Storm.

In the end, this is a tale of isolation and xenophobia. While Nehzno is used to mutant prejudice and hatred, the Wakanda people have no problem with them and openly accept them in their culture. However, Nehzno's father is a Russian and Nehzno's tattoos make him stick out like a sore thumb, leading to him to the inner monologue about how he hated the noise and distractions of the New X-Men and only wished to go home and, now that he's home, he's completely unwanted and he longs to be back with the people he tried so hard to distance himself from. It's an excellent story and I would have paid cover price for this one alone, as you can tell by how much time I spent describing it.

The remaining NXM related stories follow how Hellion and Anole handled the disbanding of the X-Men. Anoles is a great little story where we see how the X-Men lifestyle, where they faced mortal dangers, death and military-like lifestyles every single day has made it almost impossible for him to return to his loving family and accepting small town. The X-Men's "school" barely taught him anything and he was way behind his classmates when he returned to a normal school. He also punches Northstar in the face.

Hellion, on the otherhand, woke up from his near death experience in Messiah Complex to find everything taken from him. No more X-Men, his friends are all scattered to the wind, his teachers have put him up in a hotel and left him to fend for himself. He's angry and upset and seeks out Magneto in an attempt to try and make the X-Men love him by joining their greatest enemy and lashing out at them. I was a little upset with how easily he found Magneto, but his rejection of Hellion and pointing out the things I stated above capped off a nice short story that gave us a little heads up on what he's been up to lately.

Finally, there were two other stories in this issue, one showing Cannonball brooding and angry over the disbanding of the X-Men, leading to a barroom brawl in his hometown and him flying off angry, and the other featuring one of the creepiest depictions of Nightcrawler I've ever read. He's disguised as a priest and tracking down Scalphunter, of the Marauders, who is working in a diner in the middle of nowhere. I assume he's after others as well, but he stalks Scalphunter for a week or so, constantly spouting religious beliefs and views, before attacking him in his trailer. What follows is Nightcrawler putting a beatdown on Scalphunter and then verbally berating him and telling him he forgives him, as he's just a clone of a clone of clone and has no soul and isn't worth killing. It was an interesting take and I'd like to see this aspect of Nightcrawler explored more. Scalphunter is seen at the end of the issue embracing religion with a crucifix necklace and some script written on his trailer.

All in all, this was a great book and if this Divided We Stand series can keep this up, it'll be on my pulllist as long as Marvel publishes it. Seriously, buy this book if you have any interest in X-Men.

Verdict - Must Read

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