Rating System:
5 Stars: WARNING: Too Much Awesome.
4 Stars: Top of the Pile!
3 Stars: Read it on the can.
2 Stars: Why is this on my pull list?
1 Star: If you like to cut yourself…
Ultimate Spider-Man 119 ***
Last issue, Bendis tossed out the start of the “Amazing Friends” arc and introduced us to the Ultimate version of Firestar, the mutant-phobic Liz Allen. OH, the irony! Usually, I love love LOVE these types of Ultimate Spidey arcs, the ones where we get to see the kids hanging out and just being kids with all their silly high school problems? Super-Villain fights are cool and often exciting, but rarely poignant. And they can be tiresome, acting more as filler than real storytelling. Thankfully, last issue was just the right amount of Fast Times. This issue… OH, THE HUMANITY! Liz flames on and proceeds to freak out and say a bunch of stupid nonsensical shit and Spider-Man, being the goody-goody annoying ass that he is, tries to calm her down and teach her about responsibility. Midway through, I’m begging Bendis to swing this crashing comet in the opposite direction… Oh hey, it’s Magneto! What was Peter saying about burning people? Seriously, wouldn’t it be cool if Liz turned bad and Spidey had to fight one of his friends? Been done before? Green goblin, sure, but this is Liz Allen! She’s so, so, so hateable. Come to think of it, I don’t even think they are friends? Please Bendis, make her a villain!
Captain America 35 ***
Okay, let me be the first person on the internet to shout this from the top of the secret sever hubs in the central part of the US: THIS ISSUE OF CAPTAIN AMERICA IS MEDIOCRE, IF NOT JUST PLAIN BAD. Yes. You read that right. The man that owns every silver age issue of Cap ever printed, the man who has a replica of Cap’s shield hanging on his wall, the man who rigged the VsSystem.com polls to make Cap the super legend for Marvel Universe… Sorry. It sucked. Nothing happened. The cover is awesome and nothing happened to pay off that promise of awesomeness. They should have just put Faustus’ beard on there with little forest creatures crawling out of it. Not only did the story barely move forward an inch, we had to deal with the inferior talents of a fill-in artist! OH, THE HUMANITY!! No, you’re right, Butch Guice is not a bad artist. In fact, in the past, when I was young, and less learn-ed, I enjoyed his work on things like Nightwing and whatever else it is he used to do, but that man is no Steve Epting. Perkins and Lark are the closest replacements in my book. Both are busy. Le sigh. It’s just hard to accept mediocre from a book that has been on my Top 5 since the first issue.
The most interesting thing to happen this ish, was Brubaker reminding us of Falcon’s wacky powers and a pointless revelation about their limitations. Birds don’t have the same concept of time?
“Yo’, where my birds at!?”
The Amazing Spider-Man 551 **
This issue brings us to the end of the second arc of Brand New Day. Yes, we all hated OMD, but so far, BND has been admittedly less than great but bearable. Dan Slott is awesome though, and deserves a shout out… YO SLOTT, keep up the bad work, baby. Anyway, the best thing about ASM 551 was the anti-climatic but chuckle-worthy ending. Good going, Spidey. You let the bad guy get away… OH, THE HUMANITY!!!
The Mighty Avengers 9 **
The first few pages penciled by Marko Djurdjevic reminded me that he’s going to be drawing an upcoming issue of Thor. Make sure you guys check that out. Moving on, as far as the plot goes, I think Doom sums it up best. And Tony Stark’s reaction to his new four-color home was mirrored by the thousands of readers who read this usually pretty okay book. That reaction? OH, THE HUMANITY!!!!
Hey, time travel… never seen that in an Iron Man/Dr. Doom story before.
Marvel Zombies II 5 *
The fad that wouldn’t die (hehe) is back and decidedly dead (heh). Their insatiable appetites are finally curbed by, well, how does one usually stop themselves from eating everything in the fridge? Oh, you’re cured!? Okay, great. Couldn’t someone have thought of this 2 years ago?
Robert Kirkman… OH, THE HUMANITY!!!!!
Hulk 2 *
Say what you want about Jeph Loeb… no really, spit all the negative hate you want, the guy has honestly lost his shit. Fallen Son was decent but his Onslaught mini with Liefeld and Ultimates 3 have been simply awful. His style grates on my face. Except… I like this book. I liked the first issue, as hokey as this murder mystery is (and it is hokey), and it can’t be helped. Hold on now, it might have a lot of something to do with the return of the godly Ed McGuinness to a monthly book… I don’t know. Further analysis required. We’ll just put that down as the reason for now, because after reading the latest chapter, I don’t think it will matter. There’s really nothing left to be said…
OH, THE… just click the link.
read/RANT! 
LOLZ. if i had known that everything you were reading today was going to be blah, i wouldn’t have punched you that second time in the kidneys. sorry about that.
“we don’t need to eat them…i think we’re cured.” yaus. put that on a t-shirt. sang.
the emperor has no clothes, Kirkman!
I liked all those comics. Loeb isn’t my favorite author, but he is good, and he has done some amazing things. While Ultimates 3 is getting to be bearable, Hulk is actually good. Kind of convoluted, but good. Marvel Zombies didn’t end on a high note, but it was more somewhere in the middle as opposed to just being bad. It wasn’t that they were suddenly cured, it was part of the plan. It didn’t work a long time ago because by the time they got a specimen to examine, the zombies had become cosmic. This time around, they realized what they had to do and did it. Mighty Avengers doesn’t have the best storyline, but it is fun, and I felt the issue was completely for Bagley and for Bendis to show Bagley off, hence the 3 2-page spreads in a row. Once I got over OMD and looked at BND, I realized that it was exactly like the Silver Age Spidey comics I loved. I like BND because it mirrors what I liked about Spider-Man in the first place. Yeah, Cap was mediocre, I’ll agree with you there. Ultimate Spider-Man was awesome. I really like this arc and think that it is being done well. Did this issue, with Liz completely freaking out the entire time, need to exist? Yes. Otherwise it wouldn’t be believable. Mutant-phobe sets herself on fire and is then suddenly okay with it? No, there would be freaking out and things would happen more the way that they are. Meh, I read all of these, and reviewed them all, so I’m just sharing my opinion in response to yours. I almost completely disagree with you on things.
Hey, thanks for posting your thoughts! Usually, ULT_SM is one of my favorites. It’s been consistently good for the entire run. This issues was just “blah” to me. Bendis has a tendency to play out an idea ad nauseum, like Liz Allen freaking out for the entire issue. Really, that whole thing have been 2 pages of story, max. It just wastes time. The thing that bugs me about Mighty Avengers, is that Bendis said that he was going to take this Doom story to a place that Doom stories have never been. Doom/Iron Man time travel has been done before, not only that, it was done well and is one of the fan favorite Doom stories. And somehow, I don’t think Doom would ever say “Damn It”… I’d rather he said “Blast!” or something. He must be a Skrull. Okay, I have hated the entire Zombies 2 mini and feel like it has no reason to exist. Just because it all went according to plan, doesn’t make it good story. Hulk is tons better than his other work, but when I got to the two page splash I wanted to rip the comic in half. Does Loeb make it cheesy on purpose? Anyway, thanks for being the Yin to my Yang!
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