Stuff I Read This Week Episode 14 or Mommas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be James Franco Characters

Dream Thief #1: Each week, I make a consorted effort to pick up a book either non-superhero related or at least something unassociated with the Big Two. That means I often end up grabbing something from Dark Horse which, in turn, means I am left unsatisfied not unlike Nick Lachey was in his marriage to Jessica Simpson. But there's still always hope (unless you're still trying to get Obamacare repealed).

That's probably why I picked up Jai Nitz's unconventional anti-hero fantasy about an unlovable protagonist who is thrown into an awful set of circumstances. Nitz's does a good job of throwing us head first into a day in the life of John Lincoln. When I said "unlovable," I was underselling it. Don Draper is a douchebag character. Jack from Lost is a douchebag character. Herman Cain is a douchebag character. If this comic were a movie, John Lincoln would be played by James Franco. Anyway, after douchebagging pretty much everyone he comes into contact with, he stumbles onto some special dream related abilities that do more harm to his life than good. I can't help but think that if Greg Smallwood weren't innovating on every page, making the panels so interesting and different with every turn of the page, this story might feel more run-of-the-mill than it actually is. All in all, this blend of American Psycho, Pineapple Express and The Twilight Zone makes for good read thus far.

Bottom Line: Very well handled "out of the box" approach to a possibly awesome suspense fantasy. 8 out of 10



Doomsday.1 #1: I honestly thought this was going to be a slow month in comics where I'd just be a). waiting for Daredevil: End of Days, b). waiting for Man of Steel in June and c). eagerly anticipating Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories." However, this month's pleasant surprise comes in the form of legendary super scribe John Byrne's return with this "end of the world" disaster epic. Basically, astronauts in a space station witness the majority of life on Earth get wiped out. I'm always worried about such a large cast of characters in such close narrative quarters, but Byrne seems to have a decent handle on them so far. They're just diverse enough that he has a lot of room for conflict and development. Still, with John Byrne work, although you appreciate what it is, you can't help but wince slightly at what could have been. The draw back here is that there's never a moment in which I'm shocked at what happens next. Despite being evenly paced and tightly built tension, the moments that should leave me saying "holy shit" still leave me just saying "Well...yeah."

Byrne's pencils don't beat around the bush either, getting straight to the point much like his script. In fact, there are storyboards for television shows that could stand to learn a little something from this book about being direct instead of being artsy for art's sake. I wish we could have been left a little more of an ending to bring us back, but it was still a stronger start than several books out right now. After all, Superior Spider Man is still going, so this is worth a shot.

Bottom Line: It's not perfect John Byrne, but it's Byrne-tastic enough to pick up again. 8 out of 10.



Avengers- The Enemy Within #1: One of the awesome things about Marvel NOW is that we get more Captain Marvel. Not only that, we get Captain Marvel taken seriously (my kingdom for a woman with hair like that). The first issue in this mini series doesn't necessarily give us the feeling of scale that would justify a mini series event. In fact, the title is pretty misleading since this is basically just the next issue of Captain Marvel. We get some LOL moments during girl chat between Carol Danvers and Spider Woman, we get a beautifully penciled fight from Scott Hepburn, and most importantly, we get dinosaurs. I always approve of dinosaurs in comics. If comic book were run by the government, I'd be a dinosaur lobbyist. This seems to have all of the working parts necessary to be a good run. I suppose time will tell soon enough. For what it is, on its own, it's solid.

Bottom Line: Despite a deceiving title, the latest issue of Captain Marvel is a decent jumping-on point for a decent title. 7.5 out of 10

Why People Should Suck It Up and Get Over the Iron Man 3 Thing (SPOILERS AHEAD).....

Seriously, there are SPOILERS in here. Last chance.

Well, Iron Man 3 has finally come and, as I predicted within 15 seconds of seeing the big Mandarin reveal, the entire internet fell on the floor kicking and screaming like children (Bell Biv Devoe calls that "the crybaby"). For those of you that don't care about seeing this movie, but want to know what I'm talking about, here's the breakdown.

The movie version of the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) is the (white) supposed head of a terrorist organization known as the Ten Rings, the same group that held Tony Stark captive in the first movie. Stark infiltrates the Mandarin's home only to discover that he is actually a drunken, drug addicted British actor named Trevor Slattery, who is just a front for Aldridge Killian (Guy Pearce) and A.I.M.'s war profiteering scam. At some point throughout Killian's final battle with Iron Man, he screams "I am the Mandarin!!!" Denzel Washington Training Day style.

As a result of this twist in the narrative, as I said before, the internet lost its collective mind because they didn't get a RDJ/Ben Kingsley superpowered slugfest even though the slugfest they got instead was FUCKING AWESOME. The thing about comic nerds is that they're very random about how and when they decide a movie's handling of the source material is careless. X-Men First Class was taken seriously, the Scarecrow got beaten up by Katie Holmes, Dr. Doom was basically portrayed as Donald Trump with superpowers and Ghost Rider got two movies. But somehow, THIS is just too much to handle. To understand why this is a silly grievance, you have to understand who the Mandarin is in the comics.

Depending on the writer, the details have changed slightly over the years, but basically the Mandarin was a Chinese man, oppressed by Chairman Mao, who stumbled upon alien technology in the form of ten powerful rings and used them to become an evil would-be conqueror. An evil Chinese would-be conqueror who looks, dresses and talks like a villain from a Shaw Brothers kung fu movie.

In other words....this guy.

Over the years, they've changed his clothes and motives for hating Iron Man, but as far as his goals and ideologies, long story short....this could be considered pretty fucking racist. In 2013, with the borderline xenophobic political climate, there is just no way in Hell you can market this to a worldwide audience with children in good conscience. None. Granted, I'm not saying that you HAVE to characterize the Mandarin this way to do it justice, but it IS racially problematic for Marvel and, ultimately, Disney. If they cast a Chinese guy, the Asian community would quite possibly maul the studio and rightfully so. If Ben Kingsley's version (dressed the way he was) had been a superpowered badass, the movie would have been accused of "whitewashing" a Chinese character and we saw how that worked out for M. Night Shaymalamadingdong with The Last Airbender. Or you can write the Mandarin out altogether, but then you have C-List Iron Man baddies like the Living Laser. Sorry, but outside of comic book, no studio exec in the universe thinks Living Laser is a good name for a movie villain.

My point here is that Shane Black handled the "Mandarin" issue in the most realistically feasible way possible. So suck it up.

Crowd Participation or Happy Free Comic Book Day

Craig "BBC" Long from Houston, TX wanted to hear my thoughts after reading the Walking Dead comics since I saw Seasons 1 and 2 first.

Well, Craig, I can say that the comic delivers better than I could have hoped. With the direction Swamp Thing and I Vampire went in, The Walking Dead is definitely one of the ONLY mainstream titles in comics that can truly lay claim to being a horror comic. One thing that is well preserved in its own way is the dichotomy of Rick and Shane. Not only do they define each other, they define the theme of the series as a whole. In the moments when it's not an epic zombie saga (easily one of the best of all time), it's essentially a morality play that constantly questions whether or not humanity is a biological or ideological state of being. Rick and Shane seem to be constantly at odds with themselves as well as each other standing on respective sides of the argument. I see where some fans take issue with the things altered in the the tv adaptation, but I think it's the aesthetically reasonable compromise network television could probably muster. No matter how iconic a comic is or how powerful a panel is, the sad truth is that there are just some things that look good in a comic that won't translate as well on television or on screen. That's why I like that geeks are actually being consulted about geek culture. Robert Kirkman works very closely alongside the production team on Walking Dead, George R. R. Martin is reportedly consulted often on the direction of Game of Thrones and Joss Whedon has more than enough nerd credit in the bank at this point to be trusted with The Avengers. At some point Hollywood decided that instead of being satisfied with the receipt for the intellectual property they bought as a stamp of approval, it might be better to actually ask the creator what they think about their work. I stand behind the "for nerds, by nerds" approach.

Johnathan Marroquin writes via Facebook: I need an honest opinion on the Amalgam universe circa 96-98. Potential or not?

For those of you who have no idea what he's talking about, in the late 90s, DC and Marvel were real fiends for cross pollinating their titles because...let's face it...nerds will never stop arguing about who would win in a fight between Superman and the Hulk ("...and then Superman threw the big green monkey into the sun and went back to work. The End."). So, they finally had a Marvel vs. DC miniseries where the best...at the time...of each company had a big slugfest because of some patchwork excuse like "the universes are colliding" (a writer's way of saying "for no good goddamned reason"). Anyway, somehow after the heroes kept the universes from colliding by beating the shit out of each other, the universes collided anyway. The result was a universe full of mashup characters. Sometimes, they made sense like how the "Challengers of the Fantastic" was a combination of the Fantastic Four and the Challengers of the Unknown....both Jack Kirby creations. Most of them, however, were shitty like putting Batman and Man-Thing together to get Bat-Thing. This was indicative of what the mid to late 90s was in the land of comics: a reason to sell cool covers instead of cool books. Assuming Johnathan's question is asking whether or not this same imprint would be a viable venture now, it's enough that DC treats their own artists like the mail room interns you steal ideas from without their knowing. It's enough that Marvel would hold their writers at gunpoint beneath a vat of battery acid and force them to write a "You Got Served" comic if they thought there was money in it. I shudder to think what the Big Two would do to each other.

Batman: No, Logan, I never would have guessed it was you under there.

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 13 or Occupy DC Comics....Because Somebody Should

Notes from the Writer: Some of you will notice that I'm only reviewing two books this week. Well, do not fret. To make up for the slight decrease in content for this post, you will be receiving a special Free Comic Day post tomorrow and another bonus on Monday. Why? Because I love you. But I must rest. Until then, enjoy the reviews and thanks for reading.


Thanos Rising #2: I thought I'd reached a point in my life where if a book, movie or show looks awful. I can just go with my gut, not watch it and be content that way. It usually works out. It worked out with Liam Neeson vs. Board Games (I think they call it Battleship). It works out with reality shows like Bet My Baby. It should have worked out after reading the first issue of the Mad Titan's origin story. After one issue of one of Marvel's most awesome, time honored foils getting the Anakin Skywalker treatment, I should have had enough.

However, like some comic book adventurer, I stood there at the shelf of new releases, saw the second issue, shrugged my shoulders and said, "It can't hurt." I mean, with Jason Aaron and Simone Bianchi working on it, there's no reason it shouldn't be able to turn itself around. After all, there are only so many feelings you can pack into one title. And, ideally, the first issue of any title should be considered experimental like a television pilot. The CW's Arrow took several hints and improved upon the obvious weaknesses of the inaugural episode. In other words, I assumed this issue couldn't be so bad. This was a flawed hypothesis.

A few years have passed from the events of the first issue to the second issue which I was certain would cut down on all the kiddie angst. Of course, that didn't stop Degrassi from happening so that makes me 0 for 2 on my guesses for this week. Thanos has gone from whiny outcast to teen prodigy. The time jump feels out of place and the pathos still feels contrived, but it's less so than the last issue. Still, this isn't what really takes away from what could have been an awesome story. The trouble here is that for a story that takes place in space, it doesn't feel very...space-like. I've mentioned before that a fun part of Brian K. Vaughn's Saga is the fact that the dialogue feels natural because they don't talk like ex-communicated Dune characters. The other side of that coin is that it's a book where big spider with a battle axe can have a conversation with a guy who has a television for a head. In Thanos Rising, two high school kids were making out and got abducted. There was no difference between this happening on ANOTHER PLANET and this happening in any movie Jennifer Love Hewitt or Sarah Michelle Gellar was in before the turn of the century. All in all, this book has several opportunities to be awesome, but to to properly show out....you have to show up first.

Bottom Line: 30 gorgeous looking pages of disengaged drivel. 5 out of 10



The Movement #1: The fun thing....or the thing that was supposed to be fun about the DC reboot was that it doesn't necessarily have to stick to a time honored script laid out by years and years of tradition (no matter how much fans actually LIKED that script). The part where it has failed in this regard is that we're getting the same things that we found stale in the first place except some people are younger, some people aren't married and...oh, yeah...there's a Muslim Green Lantern. It's like Domino's Pizza "making better pizza" even though you liked Domino's just the way it was, but they give you the same pizza and call it new and relevant because now it's Muslim.

Well, now we're getting some variation in the DC universe with Gail Simone's story of superpowered residents of Coral City standing up to the corruption eating away at their neighborhood Occupy style. One problem with this premise is that it would have been a bit more resonant with the Occupy sympathizer audience back when the Occupy movement took up more media attention. Simone's script is somewhat balanced and manages to introduce a fairly large cast without the book feeling crowded or rushed. Freddie Williams' pencils seem to convey the gritty vibe that Simone seems to be going for. Of course, some of the heroes feel a little...silly. There's a guy who controls rats. That's it. That's his whole power. There's another member who looks sort of like steampunk Hawkgirl. This has the potential to be a decent addition to DC's ranks because it's a universe from which we don't receive as much street level action. But we need a better reason to care about these characters than "people are broke and mad."

Bottom Line: Gail Simone gives us a serviceable start to book with a premise that seems relevant and irrelevant all at once. 7 out of 10.

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 12 or You Don't Have Superpowers Because You Wouldn't Do Anything Constructive With Them....

A Note From the Writer: I am more than grateful that my little dog and pony review garnered the attention of such a writer as David Mack. However, I am thankful, first and foremost, to you all for continuing to read it. It was really just a side project (at first) that decided, through force of will, to stick around. To thank you all, I wanted to do deviate from the usual schedule for Free Comic Book Day. Doug E. Fresh would call this "crowd participation."

Basically, send me comments, requests, questions on all things comic nerd and I'll talk about them. You can ask them here in the comment area, inbox them, email me or....you know....whatever. I'll try to keep this as fun as possible. Thanks in advance. :-)

Email: letsgetfree13@gmail.comTwitter: @letsgetfree13



And Now.....To The Reviews!!!

Uncanny X-Men #5: I'm just going to start off with the simple truth of what I've gotten from the past two issues. This book is getting weird. Since the events of "Avengers vs. X-Men", Magik has become the wild card of Cyclops' outlaw revolution squad. We haven't seen the full extent of what's she capable of since the Phoenix screwed with her abilities, but it's been suggested for a while that she's the Uncanny team's Thor. Here is where we see her dealing with the ramifications of her unpredictable abilities in a fashion not too unlike how the Scarlet Witch went wrong (or, depending on your point of view, how she was never right to begin with). Brian Bendis, while not making too much of a detour from the ongoing plot, is making a bit of a rest stop to flesh Illyana Rasputin out since she hasn't gotten much focus aside from the occasional "I might be batshit crazy" one liner. We are reintroduced to an old unexpected villain which seems like a "make-up appearance" after a semi lackluster third act battle during Bendis' run on New Avengers. Here, he is given the "holy shit" factor that a baddie of his caliber deserves. One of the high points for this book was the S.H.I.E.L.D. meeting in which Maria Hill groans in the wake of the the X-Men "dropping the mic on the Avengers like it's 8 Mile." I have to appreciate Bendis' ability to make the Avengers either look like jackbooted thugs or spoiled punks who tuck their collective tails between their legs and "don't feel like talking about it" when they get owned. It's good to be able to handle characters realistically while still letting the reader know who's boss in their book.

Frazier Irving's art come across as a sudden, slightly out of place change for this book. The switch itself is already a bit distracting, but his style feels a little messy and too all over the place for my tastes. I also take issue with nobody being able to decide on a baseline set of characteristics for Cyclops' face with the mask off.

Bottom Line: This book suffers no illusions in the fact that it's semi filler. But it's good filler. 7.5 out of 10

Jupiter's Legacy #1: I was going out of my way to not pick up a mainstream superhero title when I bought this and winced when I figured out it was one. But I shouldn't have. Mark Millar has an interesting penchant for being able to introduce superhero archetypes into a world closer to the one we live in. It's a theme he seems to have gotten progressively great at as times goes on and this title, thus far, is the proof. 

Whereas Spider Man will break off a date to go fight crime with little remorse, many of the superpowered people in this world are more likely to wait until their iTunes download of Scandal finishes before running off to beat up on the alien would-be conqueror. And let's face it. That's about right. How many times have you asked someone to do something first thing in the morning and received "Not until I've had my coffee" as a reply? That's just taking out the trash or putting WD-40 on the door hinge. I shudder to think how fucked we'd be if a planet sized meteor were hurtling towards Earth.

This book centers around a generation of Golden Age heroes with a stiff moral code that seems to be getting left in the dust. The setup seems to be leaning towards questioning whether or not the current generation will be up to the responsibility of fighting for good. So far, Millar's answer seems to be a "No" so big, The Rock couldn't lift it. To his credit, doesn't just judge the Twitter era from the cheap seats like an old codger shaking his fist from his porch. He goes behind enemy lines and asks, "Can you blame them? You guys had Hitler to deal with. They have Justin Bieber." Frank Quitely's artwork is, as usual, a godsend to compliment Millar's story appropriately, stirring realism and a powerful sense of the unbelievable into an alphabet soup that's hard to ignore. Though it seems to make you wish for a slightly stronger action beats, it seems to do everything right as far as inaugural issues go.

Bottom Line: Mark Millar is definitely at the top of his game while making you wish you had superpowers and hope your roommate never does all at the same time. 9 out of 10.


East of West #2: Jonathan Hickman is certainly swinging for the fences with this one. He brings a fresh, unapologetic voice to the pantheon of dystopian future visions with his unconventional saga of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War, Famine and Conquest are still on a bloody tear through this brave new world, jumpstarting the end of civilization as we know it. Meanwhile, Death, their fourth, goes on a similarly bloodlustful revenge run. This is the kind of sci-fi/fantasy work Hickman was born to do and the kind of quirky, badass characters he was born to write. The body count's still pretty high, but the story seems to be getting slightly more coherent as pieces of the endgame peek out from under the cracks of maiming, mauling and lush environments that keep your eyes bulging out from their sockets thanks to Nick Dragotta's masterful artwork and shrewd coloring. The first issue was ambitious and slightly experimental, but the sophomore effort is coming across more of a uniformed venture.

Bottom Line: All there was to appreciate last time has been magnified more as the plot begins to come together. 8.5 out of 10.

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 11 or May I Carry Bendis and Mack's Books to School?

Age of Ultron #6: I've intentionally stayed away from reviewing Age of Ultron issues for a while because, honestly, I was only going to have the same things to say about it as the last time I reviewed it. Before I get into this, let me say I've decided that Marvel has been pushing biweekly books more often because they're going to make more money from 1). selling more books in a month and 2). charging more money when the big crossover events go to print as hardback graphic novels. Yes, I'm looking at you, $75 Avengers Vs. X-Men (sorry, but there are hookers that don't cost that much). I can already see the mainly one-shot tie-ins to Age of Ultron occupying a mammoth hardcover that takes up more space on a shelf than a Robert Jordan novel. Because rain or shine, Marvel would make a pinata of Ray Bradbury's corpse if they thought someone hid a bag of nickels in it.

Anyway, this book is starting to pick up speed. The first half of this event was more of a survival drama asking "Where Were You When the Evil Robot Finally Evolved Past Windows Vista?" while portraying its distraught characters more like the superhero version of The Walking Dead. Now, the players seem to be mostly assembled with purpose and a bad guy to go punch though there seems to be some debate on who that actually is. Captain America has taken a team of big guns to go for a last ditch, head-on conflict with Ultron while Wolverine is elsewhere being Wolverine to the shock of noone. By splitting up the team to fight the good fight (using that term loosely) on two fronts, Bendis' characterizations and conversations have gotten noticably stronger. There are some characters he just has down better than most and Wolverine is definitely one of them.

The most obvious change is Carlos Pacheco and Brandon Peterson tagging Bryan Hitch out on the artwork. Just as our heroes have split up, so have the artists. Pacheco draws the events taking place in the past while Peterson handles the fight in the future...which becomes more of a sidenote than I would have assumed. Peterson's digital renderings tend to result in subjects slightly more lifeless and rigid than Pacheco, whose intimate scenes don't have much difficulty bringing you into moments that have a great deal more gravitas this issue.

Bottom Line: A strong change of pace and plot that will surely put the "it's moving too slow" whiners to rest. 8 out of 10.




Daredevil End of Days #7: The problem with a comic title this good is that if you review it's hard to review more than once because it's so goddamned incredible, you're almost afraid you're going to run out of good things to say about it. There's one more issue left and I'm almost sad to see it go. This is less of a series and more of a master class into how mini-series are supposed to be done. Dare I say...this is the Breaking Bad of Marvel's existing titles with Matt Fraction's Hawkeye running a very close second. If your comic can't be this good, you shouldn't be doing it. With the grade-A artwork Klaus Janson did during Frank Miller's legendary run on DD, it's more than appropriate that he be the one to draw what is essentially the Man Without Fear's eulogy.

Brian Michael Bendis and David Mack have become like two halves of the same DNA strands that make the tension that drives each page. They have a very unique understanding of what makes the world of Daredevil turn as well as what fans of ol' Hornhead want to see from a book that, until recently, we see very little of the titular hero in. I mean....the Punisher versus ninjas. I'm just going to leave that little tidbit there. Also, I am convinced that Bendis and Mack should be teaming up to write a Punisher series. There, I said it. Make it so, Marvel. That little piece of advice is on the house.

P.S.- I'm not very good at the internet, so I don't know what proper writer/blogger/Twitter fan protocol is, but I have to give extra special appreciation to David Mack (@davidmackkabuki) for actually interacting with his fans with all the respect and humility I would expect from someone of his caliber. Thanks for all of the replies, retweets and favorites and all that internet stuff.

Bottom Line: There will come a day not too far from now when this title is required reading for any serious comic reader. What Dark Knight Returns did for Batman....End of Days is doing for Daredevil. 9.5 out of 10.

Danger Girl Trinity #1: Remember that Pamela Anderson show, VIP, where a bunch of kick-ass women kicked ass and Pamela Anderson was Pamela Anderson? No, I didn't think you would and this book is a stark reminder of why. You know, I was a fan of the Danger Girl series back in the day. Then again, "back in the day," I was 13 years old so VIP was awesome to me, too. Besides, J. Scott Campbell was working on it back then. Without him, Andy Hartnell's thin story seems to come across as Dwight Howard without Kobe Bryant: he can only fake it on his own for so long before everyone realizes this patchwork won't make it out of the playoffs. I can't tell you much about the story because there isn't much of one aside from a small ripoff of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that didn't hit any of the right notes.

Bottom Line: Big boobs, big guns, tight clothes, thin plot, sloppy artwork....and here, I'd almost forgotten what the 90's was like. Oh, well. I'll keep trying. 3 out of 10.

Stuff I Read This Week Episode 10 or SweetLittleBabyJeremyRenner This Book is Good!!!

Hawkeye #9: The Avengers movie is probably the best thing to ever happen to Clint Barton. He's in most of the team lineups in the comics as well as the most recent cartoon series and now his solo series is, appropriately, one of the best things to happen to comics right now. This book is a nigh-perfectly crafted tutorial on how an evenly paced superhero character study should be done. In this installment of "what Hawkeye does when he's not being an Avenger," we get a hilarious look into his relationship with the women in his life while he has what is easily one of the worst days ever. Seriously, I would have called this issue "It Sucks to Be Me." I laughed and cringed all at the same time watching him reap what his facepalm-inducing, bad opposite sex decisions sow. Matt Fraction seems to have this character almost down to a science, balancing fun, witty dialogue and kinetic action on a proverbial tightrope. One of the best gems this book has to offer is Clint Barton's bond with Kate Bishop (aka Hawkeye with Boobs). It's hard not to fall in nerd love with the sailor mouthed, Vespa riding, comic heroine version of Ellen Page. The mod look of the art David Aja lends to this title makes this one of the strongest projects Marvel has to offer.

Bottom Line: Funny dialogue, lively artwork and tight pacing.....if comics can't be done this well, they shouldn't be done at all. 9.5 out of 10.



Saga #12: You know, I'll never understand the logic behind what constitutes as a "controversy" in comics. You have a comic that's been going strong for a year now that's featured a giant ogre's herniated nuts and at least two sex scenes in it by now (all comics should have at least one panel of TV-headed robot sex so I can make a collage and send it to Rick Santorum). Yet, when we get a small flash of gay sex, everyone throws their hands in the air. Grow up, people.


Anyway, with Hawkeye and Daredevil: End of Days running a close second and third, Saga is probably THE BEST thing happening in comics as we know them. The fact that something that didn't even take up an entire panel on a page could piss people off so throughly (albeit for about ten minutes) is proof of how visually arresting Fiona Staples gets throughout this title. This issue of the critically acclaimed unconventional space opera focuses mainly on Prince Robot IV, the royal foil pursuing Alana and Marko across the stars as he engages in a verbal tug o' war with an incendiary author we could grow to love if he lives long enough. The first pages of this issue, after all, serve as a warning from Vaughn not to get too attached to any one character too soon. It's surprising how easy it is to connect with this faceless villain. One would think trying to relate to a guy with a television for a face would be more difficult a prospect, but it's a testament to Brian K. Vaughn's characterizations married with Staples' visuals. Together, it makes for a book that throws vulgar, bizarre images and platitudes in your lap and nonchalantly says, "Deal with it, motherfucker."

Bottom Line: Another solid entry to a fantastic series unlike any other in comics right now. 8.5 out of 10.


Uncanny Avengers #6: I'm not going to try and wax poetic about this title simply because, going from the last issue to this issue, I now have no idea where this book is going anymore. Rick Remender seems to have caught Damon Lindelof's "Lost" disease and decided to either hold or abandon his Unity Squad infighting/Red Skull/Onslaught storyline and go into some time traveling mayhem. Apparently, Apocalypse has a bone to pick with Thor....for some reason. The resulting romp is pretty entertaining, but the book's sudden shift in tone and focus leaves us scratching our heads. It literally feels like Remender was in a rut and said to himself...."You know what this book needs? A Thor/Apocalypse fight." Forturnately, Daniel Acuna's pencils are dazzling enough for nobody to mind this new plotline. His face off between Thor and the Four Horsemen is worth its weight in gold. If you didn't like the story as it was before this issue, you'll probably like where it seems to be going now. If you like coherence....I don't know....learn to let go.

Bottom Line: This was a decent issue. It would just be nicer if I know what was happening or why. 7.5 out of 10.