Once again, after a busy weekend, I reach Sunday evening and find myself with a pile of books I haven’t read yet.\u00a0\u00a0(And as will be fairly\u00a0obvious, they include most of the non-Marvel books I bought this week.)\u00a0 But such is life.\u00a0 Let’s bash through the X-books and a couple of others regardless…<\/p>\n
Amazing Spider-Man<\/em> #618<\/strong> – Is there actually any unifying theme to this “Gauntlet” stuff other than doing a string of stories in a row featuring old Spider-Man villains?\u00a0 Not that I’m complaining, mind you.\u00a0 This is the start of a Mysterio story by Dan Slott and Marcos Martin, so you know it’s going to be well written and beautifully drawn.\u00a0 Martin in particular is\u00a0doing really exceptional work on this series.\u00a0 Now, Mysterio was originally a gimmick villain based on sixties-era special effects, and given the march of CGI, he can easily come across as terribly dated, much like the Circus of Crime.\u00a0 But Slott’s found a decent angle for him here: Mysterio helping mobsters to fake their own deaths (or, possibly, faking their return from the grave).\u00a0 It may not be a revelatory comic, but it’s precisely what I’m looking for in a Spider-Man book, and extremely well done.<\/p>\n Dark Avengers<\/em> #13<\/strong> – Notionally a “Siege” crossover, but it’s actually an issue banging on about the Sentry’s back story.\u00a0 Apparently he might be Jesus or something.\u00a0 Or maybe not.\u00a0 Um.\u00a0 It’s really a bit of a mess.\u00a0 But to be honest, the real problem here is that it’s trying to delve into the psyche of the Sentry, and the Sentry’s psyche isn’t very convincing, and never has been.\u00a0 It’s just too contrived.<\/p>\n Dark Wolverine<\/em> #82<\/strong> – Another “Siege” crossover, and this one actually does cover the Siege story from Daken’s perspective.\u00a0 The story seems to be pushing the idea that this is the big pay-off where everything is going to go wrong for Norman Osborn, and Daken is waiting to take advantage of it all.\u00a0 Fair enough – for a while now, the book’s been pushing the idea that Daken’s got longer-range plans in mind.\u00a0 And this is a pretty enjoyable issue.\u00a0 There’s not much plot to it – it’s just the Siege from Daken’s point of view – but the interaction among Norman’s oddball band is entertaining, and I like Giuseppe Camuncoli’s art a lot.\u00a0 The ending is certainly a surprise, but maybe too<\/em> much of a surprise – it defies belief that such a major plot point would happen in a minor tie-in book, so it’s almost too obvious that it’s going to be an illusion or something.\u00a0 But yeah, good issue.<\/p>\n Joe the Barbarian<\/em> #1<\/strong> – Grant Morrison returns to Vertigo with a new eight-issue miniseries.\u00a0 This is a set-up issue, and to be honest, it’s all pretty familiar stuff – kid is bullied in real world, escapes from real world problems with toys, toys come to life, adventure.\u00a0 You know the schtick.\u00a0 Actually, at times the story openly acknowledges that these are stock elements, so there may be more to it when we get further into the series.\u00a0 But for the moment, it’s basically one of those stories.\u00a0 The real selling point on this first issue is Sean Murphy’s art.\u00a0 Not only does he have a wonderful eye for detail and an ability to set a scene in a single panel, but for the most part Morrison gets out of the way and lets him do it.\u00a0 Even with the standard Vertigo palate of orange and beige – and to be fair, the scenes with the toys are more colourful than that – this is worth getting just to gaze at.<\/p>\n Thunderbolts<\/em> #140<\/strong> – One half\u00a0suspects that Jeff Parker may be treading water here waiting for “Dark Reign” to end so that the title can move into its next phase.\u00a0 For the last couple of issues, he’s been using his favourite guest stars the Agents of Atlas so that the two teams can fight, as is traditional in these circumstances.\u00a0 So, yes, perfectly okay.\u00a0 But the book really comes together in the last couple pages, which are just a brilliantly executed sequence.\u00a0 I’d explain it further, but that’d be a bit too spoiler-y.\u00a0 Suffice to say the book sets up something earlier in the issue and then casually pays it off in a really clever way when you’re not expecting it.\u00a0 It’s my favourite scene of the week by a mile.<\/p>\n Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #520<\/strong> – “Nation X” continues, as three of the X-Men team up with Fantomex to fight a monster in the sewers, while Magneto somehow manages to get a great big pillar built under the X-Men’s island without anybody noticing.\u00a0 Not really sure how that works.\u00a0\u00a0 Since Scott’s now saying that they can’t go back to San Francisco while Norman Osborn is still around, I think it’s pretty safe to say they’ll be back there in the spring, so this whole island thing is looking like a bit of a detour.\u00a0 (Then again, perhaps the idea is that Magneto sets up shop on the island.\u00a0 Or maybe it’s going to be the new Atlantis.)\u00a0 It’s an okay issue; there’s quite a good scene with Scott and Magneto, and otherwise there’s some acceptable fighting, even if Wolverine’s sense of smell is being pushed in a way that would have seemed stupidly over the top during the Silver Age.\u00a0 Art is from Greg Land, but it’s actually one of his better efforts – though he still seems utterly flummoxed by the idea that women can have facial expressions beyond “grinning” and “sultry.”<\/p>\n Wolverine: Weapon X<\/em> #9<\/strong> – The concluding part of “Insane in the Brain”, although as it turns out the story sets up Dr Rottwell as a recurring villain.\u00a0 I’m not sure I’d want to see him that often – this storyline has been a great change of pace, but it would get wearing after a while.\u00a0 That said, there’s certainly something compelling about Rot as a sort of low-rent maniac whose powers happen to let him punch above his weight.\u00a0 And the whole thing is so cheerfully absurd that the over-the-top hyperviolence comes across as black comedy rather than as outright silliness.\u00a0 Even so, Aaron’s managed to keep that balanced with a really firm grip on writing a famliar Wolverine.\u00a0 It’s been a strange storyline, but I think it’s worked well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once again, after a busy weekend, I reach Sunday evening and find myself with a pile of books I haven’t read yet.\u00a0\u00a0(And as will be fairly\u00a0obvious, they include most of the non-Marvel books I bought this week.)\u00a0 But such is life.\u00a0 Let’s bash through the X-books and a couple of others regardless… Amazing Spider-Man #618 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}