Every comic you've read in 2013


Missy

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The first 20 issues of Marvel's GI Joe pretty much suck, but then Hama gets going and hoo boy, does it get incredible? It has to be the biggest shift in quality I've ever seen in a comic with essentially the same creative team, though the art does get better. Cobra Commander's monologue on how Cobra has infected America at a rally in Springfield is awe-inspiringly ridiculous and badass. It's also true. It might as well be a meeting of corporate interests today.

I forgot how much issues 20 onward is basically building to a climax in issue 50 (which in my mind is one of my all-time favorite single issues).

I'm so jazzed, I might write something for the site about it.

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X-Men: Supernovas - Finally something that doesn't suck. Not saying that this is amazing, but it is a breath of fresh air. Actually having what feels like a team for the first time in forever. I have never been a fan of Bachalo, and this did nothing to change that fact. I think if I liked the art better I would be fully behind this book. Also, seems like a bit of a disconnect between issues 187 and 188. Change of writers will do that, but this left me feeling like I missed something. I don't like that feeling.

Comics - 54

Graphic Novels - 6

Trades - 12 (67)

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X-Men: Blinded By The Light - Good, but holds true to my 'X-Book Hate List'. There is no team by the end of this. After Supernovas, which introduced the team, I was looking forward to seeing this team go forward with a 'crazy' Rogue. But no, we have an event to get ready for. Such a shame. Also, random heel turns that, while make sense, came a bit too early. Is it too hard to have an X-Team together for more than twenty issues?

X-Men Legacy: Divided He Stands - This was enjoyable, which is surprising, since I have little love for the Xavier character. Although, I can already see how this can/will get old as it goes along, as I have heard.

Comics - 59

Graphic Novels - 6

Trades - 13 (72)

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The Spider vol 1 Terror of the Zombie Queen: Dynamite Comics wins again. David Liss, who did the pretty great Mystery Men mini at Marvel a couple years back, writes a tight five issue story with a ton of action and terror. Then there's a really great single issue story in it too. All of it is pulpy as fuck. Colton Worley's art is digitally painted. If you squint, it's almost fumetti. But it's like fumetti with the layout and storytelling of JH Wiliams III. Great,

Comics: 180

Trades: 8

Omnibus: 2

Graphic Novels: 1

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Spider-Man: New ways to die: I enjoyed it, a few things that annoyed me though, such as Mr Negative being a terrible villain, and the other thing, during this time, when he ran the Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers didn't Norman Osborne denounce the Green Goblin outfit for the Iron Patriot armour? Other than that, it was fun.

Teen Titans: Childs play: This started off slow, but then it featured the death of a titan, which sort of just happens, and feels like an editorial mandate more than anything, but the interactions of the team of B-Squad level titans was cool. I do think Beast Boy came across as a really unlikable dick in this. The best issues were the ones focusing on Deathstroke and Ravager, and didn't actually feature the rest of the titans.

Walking Dead Volumes 9-10: Filler volumes. I'm sure something good will happen in volume 11, Rick with the phone, and sharing war stories were both good, and the call back to the first volume, were all interesting, but this just all felt like set up for something bigger to come down the line. The art was enjoyable as always.

Volume 11 of Walking Dead made up for the filler volumes 9 and 10. This was full of interesting action and character development, and the villains for the story were interesting and different, in that you could understand their deplorable actions, and how they were likely good people, before the world turned to shit. I'm looking forward to reading volume 12, to see what happens next.

Trades: 22

Comics: 6

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X-Men Legacy: Sins of the Father - I will quote myself here. "I can already see how this can/will get old as it goes along". It did. Fast. Xavier is just a heaping bag of douche. And the Emma/Xavier confrontation just comes off a two five year olds fighting about the rules in their action figure battle. "Bang, I shot you. You're dead." "Nah-uh. I was wearing a bulletproof vest." "Were not." "Was too." Just shut the fuck up.

X-Men Legacy: Original Sin - If the point of this series is to redeem Xavier, then it fails. Every time they reveal another hidden flashback, he becomes just a little more unlikeable. This was better than the last trade, but still nothing I would recommend.

X-Men Legacy: Salvage - Liked the Rogue bits, but I am done with Xavier. Also, I went back and read the X-Books, starting at the New X-Men era. How many times has Rogue had a change in powers. Uber-powered, no powers, re-powered, fire-power, death-power, original-power, control-power. Just seems like she is the only one to have powers that constantly change. The reason this bothers me? It took me almost this entire trade to figure out which version I was dealing with. It shouldn't be that hard.

X-Men Legacy: Dark X-Men Tie-Ins - Nothing issues that add nothing to the crossover and seem out of place in this book. Completely as expected.

Comics - 61

Graphic Novels - 6

Trades - 16 (88)

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Supergirl: Way of the world: Supergirl promises a 5 year old boy she'll cure his cancer, being naive she thinks she can do it, and when she fails, she has to try and grieve and get over the fact that even with superpowers she can't save everyone. Awesome, it was a simple story, but it worked so well, and quickly told you everything you needed to know about Supergirl.

The New Avengers Volume 2: The first three issues were pretty dull, the team just sits around talking about getting salaries and finding a babysitter for Luke Cage's baby, and then they fight a Doom-Bot which is never properly explained why they are fighting it. Then there's back and forth story between the current Avengers, and the 1959 team, which is pretty fun. Howard Chaykin can only draw three faces, and everyone seems off, but his style seemed to fit the 1950's series, so it worked here. An interesting read. Not fantastic, but enjoyable. Also, the only things Spider-Man says are dull puns, which are annoying after about two pages.

Spider-Man: Blue: Peter really is a bit of a dick, he has a loving wife, and rather than being with her, he reminisces about how awesome Gwen is, and how she'll likely be the only girl he'll ever love. Other than that, this was enjoyable, the villains seem to be shoehorned in, just to get as many recognisable Spider-Man rogues as possible in each issue, which is a theme for Jeph Loeb books, but Tim Sale sort of makes it work, and his distinctive style really works here. So, not bad.

Trades: 25

Comics: 6

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The last time I was on here I wrote about Annihilation, I'm gearing up to read the War of Kings saga so I thought now was a good time to catch up.

Annhilation Conquest again similar to Annhilaiton was made up of a bunch of mini's before the main event.

Minis:

Quasar - My least favorite of the minis, it's dense, and feels like it was written in a different time. Nothing is subtle, everything is overt, and the relationships between the characters feels flighty. I like the idea of Phyla-Vell coming to terms with her new powers but I didn't like the execution here at all.

Nova - I'll talk more about this series later but for some reason they only collect the first half of the tie in in the Conquest book, that presentation issue kind of bugged me.

Wraith - I know a lot of people didn't like this, but having just watched the Man with No Name trilogy, I really liked that character and Wraith is very similar in his characteristics. Very solid space western story that connects to the larger world due to Ronan and Super Skrull showing up here as supporting characters.

Star-Lord - My favorite of the minis and may be the stand out story in the whole entire cosmic event. This is basically a precursor to the Guardians of the Galaxy ongoing with many of the same characters and it is such an enjoyable magnificent seven, dirty dozen, ocean's 11 story, full of humor and expert pacing.

Annhilation Conquest: Overall this event didn't stand out as much as the previous one did, it's still a good story with fantastic elements (Star-Lord and his crew), it's kind of odd that Nova who was pretty much the main star in the previous event is pushed to the fringes only making an appearance in the climax to save the day. The rest of it while good, falls a little flatter than the previous event.

Nova vol 1-4: Nova pretty much spun off into his own series after the original Annihilation event. It's one of the most solid books I've read, but it has a hard time trying to stand on its own two feet as it keeps setting itself against the background of constant events. It deals with the following situations: Annihilation fall-out, Civil War, Annihilation Conquest, and Secret Invasion. It's identity is tied into setting itself against these events, and like usual it really excels when the writers are given a little freedom to play with madcap cosmic ideas (Nova vs. Surfer and Galactus is an absolute highlight) and zooms it's focus on the Richard Rider character. It's probably the most solid series I've read from Marvel even with all the interference by events.

X-men Emperor Vulcan: As a lead in to the War of Kings event, I find it strange that the Shiar and the Inhumans played no part in the previous cosmic events and now are at the front of this new event. Anyways, I hate the Vulcan character, he's a big child and annoying as shit. He's not any less annoying here, unfortunately, and this seems like a big page-filler. It wasn't that great, and the X-team available here isn't the most interesting roster. The biggest point played with is the age-old Havok doesn't have the leadership or confidence that Scott has. Really it's just bringing you up to speed with whats going with the Shiar.

Secret Invasion: Inhumans - Another one that wasn't that enjoyable, felt like a page filler, and another one that just feels like it's bring you up to speed with a character group. Felt like a typical superhero story, of course Inhumans aren't typical and that's why I like them (especially the Paul Jenkins maxi series). But this plays with that line and the typcial superheroics that you may expect. It's held with a nice balance but I prefer a more political take on the whole situation.

Next up:

Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 1-3

War of the Kings and all of it's tie-ins (Warriors, Darkhawk, Kingbreaker)

Nova vol. 5

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RE: Carey's X-men

Really? My only real complaint was the switching of artists. Ramos and Bachalo sorta fit together so they were ok, but then the issue with Choi threw me. Not that I mind Choi but it was a big switch.

The story just never grabbed me, just seemed so inconsequential. The art wasn't my favorite either. I much preferred the focus of the Professor Xavier arc, even if it painted Xavier as an asshole, I quite liked it. Didn't like the Rogue stuff afterwards either.

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Wolverine: Return of the native: I had no clue what was going on half the time, and some of the characters, such as Logan's girlfriend in the first two issues, just sort of disappear, never to be mentioned again. I've never really enjoyed Greg Rucka's writing, and most of the time find to bland and middle of the road, and sadly this was no different.

GLC: The Weaponer: This was not bad, the Weaponer who originally designed Sinestro's yellow ring comes back for revenge against Sinestro for ruining his life. Wasn't the best GL story I've ever read, but far from the worst, was enjoyable for what it was, and the ending was a nice twist on the usual revenge plot. My only complaint was the weird brightest day tie-in where Firestorm shows up, and then just says "I need to carry on my story"

Ultimate Avengers 2: Crime and Punishment: I've finally found a Mark Millar story I enjoyed, mental, balls to the wall action, without stopping for breath. This featured the Ultimate Ghost Rider, who's story is pretty much a rip off of The Crow, but still was cool seeing him fight the Avengers, and the final line from Frank about what the Ghost Rider told him was just awesome.

Trades: 28

Comics: 6

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Dark Avengers: The End is the Beginning-This is the continuation from Thunderbolts from Jeff Parker, Kev Walker, Declan Shalvey and crew. And thusly, it kicks ass. It isn't the change I was expecting. The next trade will be that. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I will buy the trade out of respect for the ass that was kicked over this Thunderbolts run. Fucking awesome. I have no idea who the new Dark Avengers are besides Skaar. Oh, and I hate that a brother no one knew about shows up and happens to have the same amazing skill as the hero brother (Trickshot) but I trust Parker.

Manhunter: The Special Edition-I read this every year or so, but haven't in a couple years. This is the Archie Goodwin/Walt Simonson back-up from Detective Comics in the 70s. It is quite literally genius. If you want to know what storytelling is in comics, read this. Perfection.

Comics: 180

Trades: 10

Omnibus: 2

Graphic Novels: 1

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Catwoman: Nine lives of a femme fatale: This compilation of Catwoman stories was hit and miss, the first several stories, were misses, they just seemed so stupid, and the cat puns were all horrible. In one story, Selina goes straight, but returns to a life of crime, because a paper says Batman knocked her straight, even though Batman comes to tell her the paper lied, she still decides to go through a life of crime, the story sucked. In the next story, she turns Superman into a cat, and Superman still has his superpowers, and can talk to Lois through a typewriter because, well, why not. This was a stupid story, but was actually fun, for how odd it was. Next Catwoman gets jealous of Batman and Batgirl, so turns back to a life of crime, so's that Batman will marry her, and not Batgirl. Then Catwoman finds 8 convicts and trains them to be her to obtain a rare gem, however they are easily defeated by Batman. Then there's the story of the night Batman and Catwoman wanted to just have sex on the rooftop, but they couldn't because crime doesn't take a break for nookie. Then the story of Catwoman stealing a rare diamond, for the challenge of "Can you top this?" with herself. Then a story of Selina saving cats being abused by a cosmetic company. And finally, a one issue story from Ed Brubaker's run.

The book was dull and cheesey and filled with awful cat puns for the first half, but got interesting during the "Batman and Catwoman want to do it" issue, and started to be enjoyable from there.

Super-Dragon Volumes 1-2: This was the stupidest idea for a comic I've read in a while, but it was so fun. A t-rex is shrunk down to 9 feet tall, and is given a mech suit to fight over dinosaur villains, and a ten year old sidekick who uses a hoverboard called "Wheels" A great fun comic, with an interesting super villain, and I'm looking forward to finding volume 3, if and when it comes out.

Trades: 31

Comics: 6

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Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper-This is the adaptation from IDW by Joe and John Lansdale with art by Kevin Colden. I remember reading the first issue when it first came out and being unimpressed. I remember it perhaps being a mixture of art that wasn't to my tastes and a plodding start. I gave it another go because it was offered through DCBS for like 3 bucks or something a couple months back. I'm glad I did. It actually is a very tight and faithful interpretation of the original while allowing for a lot of wiggle room. The art is astounding. Tiny thin lines and heavily cartooned characters are things that don't often go well together or with horror stories at all for that matter, but it works here. Check it out!

CBGB OMFUG-an anthology series from BOOM! about the legendary club. Like with any anthology, the stories are a little here a little there. There's a nice mixture of slice of life, science fiction, magical realism and gonzo horror across the board. Many of the writers appear well-versed in the era and legacy as well, which is nice. Even nicer, is seeing that Richard Hell gets the respect he deserves at least in the comic book history of punk if not in the many dusty tomes that should have.

Comics: 180

Trades: 12

Omnibus: 2

Graphic Novels: 1

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Young Avengers: Sidekicks: The debut of the Young Avengers, and it was awesome, I've never read anything featuring the YA before, but by the end, I cared about most of the members, outside of Patriot, who they tried to make a young Batman, for some reason. The story was interesting and different enough to keep me entertained, each young Avenger had a distinctive voice, which was good, and the art by Jim Cheung was nice as well.

The OMAC Project: Good, but nothing special. This tried to come across as a serious epic story, but because half of the story took place in another book, and had to be explained in a recap page, and the OMAC's are dull villains, I just couldn't really care about anything that was happening.

Trades: 33

Comics: 6

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Simpson's Comics: Barn Burner: Fun one in done stories, harmless in the grand scheme of things, and as standard for most Simpsons stories, the status quo is returned by the end of each issue.

Teen Titans: Beast Boys and Girls: Was interesting reading a story based about Beast Boy, who I've never cared for. But now, he's not so bad, not a top tier Titan, or very relatable, but still interesting now.

Teen Titans: Death Trap: A crossover between the titans, teen titans and vigilante, with all three wanting to take down Jericho. Was interesting, nice to see that years of Jericho using his meta powers to control people has left completely insane, but the actual story itself, was just ok at best.

Superman/Batman: Torment: This entire book felt like a poor commission piece at a convention for Dustin Nguyen, I love his art, but it just doesn't fit the world of Apokolips, or Darkseid. The story itself was ok, but sort of lacked any tension, with everyone just plodding along, for no real reason, and like with the Simpsons comics, the status quo returned to exactly where it was before the end of the book.

Trades: 37

Comics: 6

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X-Men Legacy: Emplate - Meh.

X-Men Legacy: X-Necrosha Tie-In Issues - Best issue is the last, when they slow down and show Rogue with the children.

X-Men: Second Coming - About 3-5 issues too long and your typical shit piling on the X-Men. Cyclops goes from being dickish but with a point, to downright unlikable. Death/Maiming for no reason other than 'to make this one count'. I think this is about to get turn for the better, but I am not holding my breath.

Comics - 80

Graphic Novels - 6

Trades - 17 (92)

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Batman: Broken City: Pretty dull. A detective story, that just sort of goes on and on, then ends Columbo style. I usually enjoy Eduardo Risso's art, but here, it felt either lazy or rushed, as everything looked just bland.

Simpsons: On the road: Fun, but suffers the same problem as nearly all Simpsons stories, returns to the status quo. The art was good, and felt like the show, and although the stories returned to the status quo, was still fun.

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Volume 1: Fun, but the problem was, every issue has a last page resolve to the story, which sort of sucked, but enjoyable. It's aimed at kids who enjoyed the show, not me, so I can understand some of the issues, but it was still a fun, but short read.

Trades: 40

Comics: 6

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Batman: Life after death: Tony Daniel is a great artist, and a god awful writer. The dialogue feels stilted. and the conclusion to who Black Mask is just comes out of nowhere. If I hadn't read Jeremy Haun's Arkham Asylum story, none of this would have made sense, and The Riddler story at the end was just confusing.

Wolverine: First Class: Class actions: The one issue about The Multiple Man here was one of the best single issues I've read this year. It brought up and answered the question of what happens when a multiple man clone, decides he doesn't want to be absorbed again. The rest of the issues are not dull, either. Most of the issues are one and dones, but that doesn't stop them being enjoyable and making me care about Kitty Pryde.

Avengers VS X-Men:It's coming: This was just a preview book, telling the back story of AVX, but at the same time, just being a preview for other Marvel trades, so, not really a trade, as much as it is just a nice little preview of the previously important stories for the X-Men.

Trades: 43

Comics: 6

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Carnage: I read the first issue when it came out, and found it to be a bit slow, and the art not to my liking. After reading the trade, the art started to grow on me, it was fun, and entertaining, but yeah, Carnage still sadly feels like a one note character, which is a shame, as I've always loved his look.

Avengers: Fear itself: Half of this is people talking to the reader, about the events of fear itself, and their team mates for a book about the Avengers, that is not properly explained. My only complaints are that Spider-Man is incredibly annoying in this book, and the page after page of talking to the reader. I never bothered with Fear Itself, the event, so some of the events in this book were confusing and not really explained, so yeah, a book to miss.

Green Lantern: Brightest Day: Yeah, this book should have really been called "Green Lantern: Prelude to the war of the green lanterns" as most of the book is just Hal meeting the rest of the other corps, and finding out that someone is stealing the entities. That's not saying it's not good, Doug Mahnke is a great artist, and the story is interesting, but reading this all at once, really just makes this book feel like a preview story, for the next Green Lantern event.

Trades: 45

Comics: 6

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X-Men Legacy: Collision - Forgettable and rather inconsequential. Sorta set up a few characters (if I squint sideways), but they are forgotten immediately next issues.

X-Men Legacy: Aftermath - Small stories that are nothing and look horrible. I really don't like where they are going with Julian. He showed growth in New X-Men and this seems to be character regression.

Age of X - An average What If..? tale. But since this is not a What If story, it is below average. This rather disjoints whatever flow the book had. And I really do not see why this involved New Mutants, other than to have the story over faster.

Comics - 95

Graphic Novels - 6

Trades - 17 (92)

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X-Men Legacy: Lost Legions & Five Miles South of the Universe - Shockingly, I really liked this. I got a team of X-Men using some lower tier characters. This team had interesting dynamics that seemed to be leading somewhere good. These stories had nothing to do with the end of the mutant race Utopia or Cyclops. I was happy. Then I get the big "FUCK YOU" known as an X-Event (in the case Schism. I think. It really isn't all that defined.) and it takes away my happy.

I'm done. I'm just done. I looked ahead. I would get six issues to introduce me to the new status quo before the next event. SIX! At this point, I think I am done with all X-Books for a long, long while. I gave Spider-Man a chance with the Brand New Day stuff. And what made me like it was the fact it set up a new status quo and it stuck with it for 150 issues. I can't find an X-Book that lasts more than 15.

Comics - 95

Graphic Novels - 6

Trades - 19 (103)

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