Comic Book Moments of the Week for 06/18/08

While doing up the Moments of the Week, it came to my attention that I forgot to do Ultimate X-Men and X-Factor reviews for this week. I'll post them tomorrow to make up for it, as both books were excellent and Must Reads for me. For now, you'll just have to enjoy their presences in the Comic Book Moments of the Week!

BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS #8

"Batgirl should have a katana more often..."

For some reason, Batgirl, above just about everyone else, even Katana, seems like she should always have a katana in hand. Even back when she was with Batman and DC hadn't trampled her character into the ground, I always felt she should have gone the Snakeyes silent ninja with the sword.

"You made the sandwiches!"

I can only imagine what the Great Ten members are thinking as the giant asskicking robot starts mimmicking the good doctor's movements as he gives props to Alfred.

"Are you like Batman's butler?"

Hardly, my ass, Alfred. That's exactly what you are. I did find it odd he showed up in the cave like this, though. Seems he'd be "famous" or at least semi-recognizable to anyone that follows gossip rags as pretty much the only hired help Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, is ever seen with. The doctor in this scene reminds me of the first time I played the Wii and was flailling about and sweating up a storm in boxing.

CATWOMAN #80

"Revenge."

I'm not sure if these next two moments are examples of Selina going a bit too far or not. The poor Thief gets thrown threw a pane of glass, shot a couple of times, punched, kicked and curb stomped by Catwoman before she goes on to blow up his apartment and all his belongings as the cops show up to arrest him.

"A dish best served cold."

As I said, Catwoman really took Thief to town this week and she's not even halfway done with these two panels.

DREAMWAR #3

"Where is your preptime now, Batman?"

Okay, is anyone even reading Dreamwar? Anyone? I don't know what's going on in it and I have no intention of even wiki-ing (doesn't have the same ring as googling) it to find out, but Wildcat member, who's name I can't even remember, just killed the goddamn Batman. Should there be a million fanboys crying out in rage over this by now?

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #2

"Kettle, meet pot."

Cosmo needs to go on adventures and I mean starting next issue. In fact, we should drop the rest of the cast, save Groot, and just keep Cosmo and Rocket Raccoon as the new Guardians team. I hope DnA have a spotlight issue on the two of these characters planned for in the future or an annual.

"C-c-c-cold....sh-sh-sh-shri--shrinkage."

This is the old Guardians of the Galaxy team leader and he was somehow frozen outside of time. He is from the future and is actually the future version of Justice, of New Warriors and Avengers fame, and picked Cap's shield up in the future. Funny enough, he battled the Stark, a technological alien race that is named after Iron Man. You can find a full Wikipedia summary here.

"You're fired Bucky, we've got a weapons specialist on the way."

I vote Rocket Raccoon to replace Bucky as the new Captain America.

"Welcome to the World of Warcraft, er, Church of Universal Truth!"

I loved the designs for the cardinals from the Church of Universal Truth. Nice blend of traditional Catholic and cosmic space entity look. However, it's hard to judge how powerful or even what their powers are or what kind of threat they'll be to any of the Guardians. If they're all Warlock level, the team is royally screwed. If they arent' Warlock level, they should get the floor mopped with them in seconds. We'll have to wait and see what happens next month.


INCREDIBLE HERCULES #118

"Collecteth All VI!"

Marvel's marketing needs to get on these cards, stat. The Aurora one made me laugh. Obviously, the Canadian one gets back bacon, maple syrup, hockey sticks and a mountie hat. They forgot to put an igloo, though. Maybe that'll be one of the rare, 1 in 25 packs cards.

"Kirby is watching you."

Hercules is the man, er, god, er, half god. There's exactly one female on this trip and he managed to score with her in record time.

"Skrull pup?"

So, is Kirby a Skrull coyote pup? Did Nightmare do something to it? Athena? Or is this just another fake out like the Athena green eyes thing from last issue?

SECRET INVASION: FANTASTIC FOUR #2

"I mean, the guy's huge."

Oh, god, this was so bad, but so good at the same time. Nothing like a Galactus dick joke to make me laugh.

ULTIMATE X-MEN #95

"Maybe he just has a bowel problem?"

There's really no excuse for this, Cyclops. I see why Jean doesn't want to marry you in the Ultimate Universe.

"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! I SWEAR"

I'm not sure if this is how Cyclops' powers even work, as they are concussive force blasts, not projectiles that can burn or shred someone, but it was still another pretty cool bit of backstory fleshing out by the new creative team on this title.

"Looking kinda Blink-like there, Nightcrawler."

Did Nightcrawler just teleport Rahne's (ya, Sasquatch is Rahne Sinclair on Banshee) arm off or did it just cause an explosion? They never showed the follow up scene as to whether the arm is gone at the shoulder or if it's just a flesh wound. Either way, I approve of this Blink-ification of Nightcrawler.

"Flyclops? Is that you?"

There's some running jokes on message and image boards about Cyclops using his eye blasts to fly and calling him Flyclops. I can only imagine the new UXM writer reads those boards and has just made this meme into canon. Cyclops is hopped up on Banshee. That's why he can fly in this image.


WOLVERINE #66

"Where's my snikt at?"

I was a little confused when there was no snikt for the claw popping. I guess it was either from the claws being sheathed for so long or the fact it ended up being a dream sequence that the lack of a snikt will be blamed on, but that doesn't matter since this scene has me dying to see McNiven's fight scenes coming up in future issues.

"A little blind spider took the wheel..."

I think the Presidents of the United States' Dune Buggy song is very appropriate for this moment and can only imagine it playing during this scene if this was every made into a movie. Millar could have chosen any vehicle for their cross country tour. It's a really nice touch that he settled on the Spider-Mobile.

"Paste Pot Creek"

I love these imaginary maps. Whether it's in anime, like Code Geass, or comics, like this issue or in Age of Apocalypse, I think something as simple as an imaginary map of the altered future world adds so much to a story from the obsessive fan standpoint. It just makes such great discussion fodder and conjures images of how these new territories came to be or what adventures the heroes will end up in.


X-FACTOR #32

"The hair still creeps me out, though."

X-Factor was great this week. Scenes like this one or the team sitting around listening to, "Had a Bad Day" (I don't know if that's the actual song name), or the "return" of Layla all reminded me of the older X-Factor issues. Definitely an improvement on all the post-Messiah Complex issues to date.

"I'm Jaime. I know stuff."

Layla isn't actually there. It's a figment of Jaime's imagination, but it's still interesting to wonder what she means about the wrong stuff. Also, not sure why Monet is randomly flying in the last panel. Guess she's happy to know Siryn is pregnant?

"When did Val become such a bitch?"

Seriously, I didn't read a lot of the Decimation books or many of Val's O*N*E* appearances, but she's always been at least a friend to the X-Factor gang. This was like the Lana Lang heel turn with all the kryptonite at Lex Corp over in Superman / Batman, it just came out of nowhere. I don't particularly mind Val's more evil government lacky personality change and look forward to seeing this new direction for X-Factor, but some build up to it would have been nice.

Related Posts