Comic Book Moments of the Week for 08/01/12

 

It's the dog days of Summer as we welcome another edition of Moments of the Week to the site. This week sees the debut of Hawkeye's solo series by Fraction and Aja, Avengers vs. X-Men moves into the third act, and Beasts of Burden return with a one-shot of tales. We also have a pesky Frenchman in Ultimate Spider-Man and the first issue of the new Image series Harvest. All this plus skeletons in Daredevil's closet after the jump!

Action Comics #12

It seems like Morrison is taking a bit of the old Smallville TV show into account for the other Superman, as Clark's rocket seems to have done something to Adam Blake that made him ripe for future alien possession/bonding. With Lois' niece helping Supes out, Blake and his alien buddies are defeated, leading to one of the more super moments in recent history:

Now Superman can remove tumors from brains as he flies around. It would be a cool piece of continuity if Superman can help fix certain injuries while fighting with the Justice League.

Animal Man #12

Cliff was injured by the Rot brother that possess Buddy's body, and is left behind as the family tries to meet with Swamp Thing to put an end to Rot for good:

Animal Girl could be a nice addition to the Teen Titans. Again, we see foreshadowing of something bad happen. Well, this crossover is called Rotworld.
 

Cliff wandered off rather oddly, he probably is still infected with the Rot. No need to wait for next week to see the second part of this crossover, head on down to Swamp Thing below to see the big reveal of Alec and Buddy's trip into the Rot.

Avengers Vs. X-Men #9

Emma's letting the power corrupt her, and she seems to recognize it's beyond her control. Cyclops still seems to be in control, as he left Emma when she told him where the Avengers are hiding Hope.

This is a real jerk of a move by Black Panther, probably as a way to give him a clean slate for the upcoming Marvel NOW! relaunch. Storm and the X-Men didn't even attack his country, which he acknowledged last issue. Marvel's aversion to straight out using divorce is really noticeable now, as there is no way I could see this marriage being annulled if T'Challa wasn't pulling a Henry VIII. Storm helps the Avengers sneak into Magik's volcano prison to rescue some people, and Spider-Man tries to distract them while they get them safely away:

 

That last panel with the complete face smash, panel of the week.

Peter's words make the two turn on each other and in a rather anti-climactic decision this fight is shown off panel (it won't even be in the VS mini) and the Phoenixes knock each other out, transferring the power to both Scott and Emma.



Beasts of Burden: Neighborhood Watch

One of the short stories in this one shot sees the Beasts stopping a goblin from raiding a chicken coop. You also get a tale of the first learned war dog from the Dark Ages and a rather Sixth Sense inspired story, but it's more lovely work from Dorkin and Thompson, everyone should check out this book.

Daredevil #16

In a weird twist of fate, Matt's brain still carried with it radiation from when the chemicals spilled on him, and with Hank Pym running around to take out the nanobots they have a merging of the minds, sharing memories and the radar sense.

Nine days away, Matt heads back to the office, but he's not prepared for what Foggy reveals:

It could be a setup, yet Matt has so many breakdowns he could have done this too and just repressed it. We do know Matt is out of day job for the time being, he got his name scraped off the front door and everything.

Defenders #9

Parallel Universes, Concordance Engines, and retro worlds where sexy assassins and LMD's reign. It's also a place where the Defenders team up with SHIELD against Hydra in a great splash page:

I've never seen that jingo before, but it needs to be SHIELD's new slogan.

Come on Danny, some people like to fight with their ancient weapons a certain way, it's all good.



Earth 2 #4

Everyone has converged in DC to stop Grundy from spreading rot all around the world, and there's more superheroes to come.

Welcome the Atom to the group. Hawkgirl knows Al and seems to have gone AWOL from the World Army Council, as Al immediately apprehends her. Who will show up next issue to join this JSA? 

Harvest #1

Meet Benjamin Dane, a surgeon living a life of booze and coke, ultimately having his addictions cost a person her life on the operating table (those kids are her children). After losing his license and being cast out, he's at the bottom of the barrel until some people show up to his apartment:

And so we begin Dane's journey into the underbelly of back alley surgery. This is a novel story being told here that is dark but not Walking Dead levels of dark, and the art by Colin Lorimer is very strong, give the book a shot, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Hawkeye #1

And while you're picking up Harvest, check out Hawkeye's new series, bro.

Clint tried to play nice, but dudes in tracksuits just don't take a hint. These mobsters are such jerks they pushed their own dog out into traffic because he helped Clint. A dog that helps you out is your best friend, so Clint stops the butt kicking to get the dog to surgery:
 

Happy ending! Arrow can follow Clint around with a quiver of arrows, think of the possibilities. This is genuine Iron Fist storytelling Fraction and Aja are channeling, so if you liked that series, chances are you'll like this too.

Swamp Thing #12

Holy timeskips! I don't know how truthful Arcane is being, since it seems odd to jump ahead a year when we just had a reboot a year ago, but it looks like Poison Ivy is to be protector of the Green and a poor giraffe got taken down by the Rot. The two series split up next issue.

Ultimate Spider-Man #13

Can you believe we've gone nearly 13 years without the ecclectic Frenchman making his Ultimate appeareance?

And just like the Shocker, Batroc is taken down rather painlessly by Miles. Miles was actually on his way to meet someone pretty important, the moment you're been waiting for.....

Pretty nice of May to straight up accept what Miles is doing, and she probably has Peter's web shooters to help make Miles' life easier. But who knows what Cap will have to say.

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