Posts tagged Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk

New Comics 4/[13,20,27]/09

June 3, 2009 · Filed under New Comics · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Three weeks of comics! Separated for you by character(s) starting with our pal Wolverine:

Wolverine World:

Oh man, geez louise! All I can say is Wolverine # 72, part seven of Old Man Logan is bad ass! What a good comic, really. Any doubts about this run were totally washed away as I read this superior issue.

Wolverine #73 is also awesome, now going back to Wolvie in the here and now (Old Man Logan wraps up in his own Giant-Size One Shot). In this issue, we get two stories, each part one of two part tales. The first story is written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Adam Kubert, it addresses Logan’s hectic work schedule, shuttling between so many titles every month. Jason Aaron is a writer to keep your eye on, he’s coming up in the world, I also read his Ghost Rider #34 which was very good. The second story is written by Daniel Way and drawn by my main man Tommy Lee Edwards. I didn’t care for this tale as much, but it is still pretty good, and it looks great.

Wolverine Week

Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk number #6 wraps up this mini. After a long wait (last time I’ll mention it) we see the end of this saga. Pretty good ending, great art. I haven’t read any Ultimate Wolverine stories, but this run makes this alternate Wolvie seem pretty cool.

While not as centered on our clawed friend, Wolverine is certainly in the mix in Uncanny X-Men #510. Here the X-Men continue the good fight, and lose against the newly formed Sisterhood of Evil Mutants. While I wasn’t originally thrilled with the idea of the Sisterhood, I have to admit they’re growing on me a little bit.

Batmanville:

Battle for the Cowl #3 wraps up a mediocre mini. Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive? One Shot was pretty good. Fabian Nicieza seems like he’ll be hanging around the Bat U for awhile and you could have worse writers on your squad. I picked up Batman in Barcelona: Dragon’s Knight One Shot because I think Mark Waid has been writing some pretty cool stuff lately. This is a solid, self-contained comic that was enjoyable to read, especially because we haven’t seen Bruce Wayne in his bat-duds for a few months now. The art by Diego Olmos is reminiscent of old Neal Adams Batman, pretty cool.

Fantastic Fourland:

I just read the first three issues of the five part Fantastic Four Dark Reign mini. This is written by Jonathan Hickman, who will be taking over Fantastic Four proper after the Millar/Hitch run wraps up. I liked these comics, they have a good FF feel with no pretense, just the Marvel Manner as you like it, complete with alternate universes. Speaking of alternate universes, life goes on in Nu-World with Fantastic Force #2 of 4. I’m withholding judgment on this one while still being modestly interested in this fledgling alternative Marvel Universe. It does, after all, have Wolverine in it. Finally, get ready to bow down to the Master of Doom in Fantastic Four # 566!

Stand Alone Standouts:

Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos One Shot was really cool. This comic shows up Fury at his best, in the trenches in WW2 fighting for the US of A, his way. A few weeks ago I expressed a desire to see some cool Captain America WW2 stories and here we see how it can be done.

Fury

Booster Gold holds it down in both Booster Gold #20 and The Brave and the Bold #23. Booster Gold is guest written by Keith Giffen with art by Pat Ollife while the series’ regular writer Dan Jurgens guest writes and draws Brave and the Bold. How crazy is that? These are both in fact solid comics, the Booster Gold mythology is one I’m growing to love in the DCU.

Another DC minor mainstay gets a six part mini, The Last Days of Animal Man #1, complete with awesome Brian Bolland cover. This series is written by the legendary Gerry Conway. If you don’t know, Conway is one of those child prodigy comic writers who started in his teens. He took over the reigns of Amazing Spider-Man from Stan Lee, he killed Gwen Stacy, co-created Punisher and Man-Thing, and was even briefly Editor in Chief of Marvel in the mid seventies. Conway hasn’t done anything in the comic world since the early nineties. The first issue of Last Days introduces us to Buddy’s life in the near future. Buddy is older, he and his wife, Ellen, are still together, their children are grown and gone, they both have new jobs, Buddy as a movie stunt coordinator and Ellen with an eco-vacation travel agency. I like seeing Buddy in the near future like this, it’s a cool concept. I’ll be keeping my eye on this title for sure.

Finally a quick roundup of the goods that are staying good or still sinking up the joint:

Secret Warriors #4 stinks. New Avengers #53 was unremarkable. Big surprise. Captain America #50 rocks. Do does Green Lantern #41. X-Factor #43 is another awesome comic I really have nothing to say about, read it. Same goes for the Psychedelic masterpiece that is Godland #28.

Next Week:

Batman and Robin #1.

Seaguy the Slaves of Mickey Eye#3 (OF 3).

Amazing Spider-Man #596, part two of Native Son.

Mighty Avengers #25.

New Mutants #2.

OFFICIAL INDEX TO MARVEL UNIVERSE #6.

Man, I am so on top of that Batman and Robin #1, I can’t even believe it!

Until then,

Ronald Rosebud.

Leave a comment »

New Comics 4/8/09

April 11, 2009 · Filed under New Comics · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What swear word is this?I’ll start with Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #4 since that is what I read first this week. This is a pretty fun little book. It’s nice to enjoy Leinil Yu’s art without worrying about a Skrull popping up to ruin everyone’s fun.

Hawkeye #1 features Bullseye, who is posing as Hawkeye in Norman Osborn’s Dark Avengers team. This five part mini is being written by Andy Diggle. Diggle is also taking over Daredevil after Ed Brubaker’s final storyline, Return of the King. It looks to me like this storyline will be freeing up Bullseye from his current status as a government stooge so he can get back to being the worlds finest assassin. Once Bullseye ditches Osborn, it’s a pretty sure bet he’ll head straight to Hells Kitchen to menace Daredevil just as Diggle takes over the title. I’m just guessing on the direction of this book, but there is the potential for some good stuff here.

Green Lantern #39. Green Lantern continues to rock the house. This issue introduces us to the Orange Lanterns, a bunch of greedy jerks from the forbidden Vega System. As Michelle Tanner would say, “You’re in trouble, dude!”

Batman: Battle for the Cowl #2 features the various heroes and villains of Gotham rushing to fill the void left by Batman’s recent departure. Whether Batman is dead, on an Omega Sanction trip or stuck at the beginning of human history, I hope he comes back soon, we need him to save us from these mediocre storylines.

Well I saved the best for last, another number one in my unending quest to score new titles to read. This one is Ignition City #1, written by Warren Ellis with art by Gianluca Pagliarani. I haven’t read anything I really liked by Warren Ellis for a while now but I do like a lot of his older stuff, so I was happy to see that this title returns to his more science fiction-type stories. The world we see here reminds me of Joss Whedon’s Firefly with a healthy dose of Victorian adventure thrown in for good measure. The art by Gianluca Pagliarani is pretty darn awesome, it looks a lot like a more relaxed version of Geoff Darrow’s work. I highly recommend this book, a fine addition to the many cool independent titles by top rate talent coming out from Avatar Press.

Ray gun.

Next Week:

Green Lantern Corps #35.

Captain America #49.

Incognito #3.

Uncanny X-Men #508.

X-Factor #42.

X-Men Legacy #223.

Have fun,

Ronald Rosebud.

Comments (1) »

New Comics 3/4/09

March 6, 2009 · Filed under New Comics · Tagged , , ,

I’ll start off by saying that Superman: World of New Krypton is not by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. Instead it is written by James Robinson and Greg Rucka and drawn by Pete Woods. So, I’m not reading it, because I’m not reading any more Superman stuff.

Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #3 came out, after a three year delay. I’ll just say that it reads pretty good and it definitely looks good. I didn’t realize this was supposed to be a six part series, so I guess we’ll see how things pan out over the next three issues.       

David Aja Kingpin 

I almost mentioned Daredevil #116 on the list of upcoming comics last week but I didn’t since I don’t read Daredevil at all. Then I remembered that this was a good jump on point, the return of Kingpin. Also, the team is Ed Brubaker and David Aja so I picked this up. Now, I’ve really never read Daredevil at all, I only have the vaguest idea of what’s going on with him, so I really am a new reader. This comic, though, draws you right in. It looks so good for one thing, David Aja’s work on Iron Fist was amazing and so is this. One thing about this comic, and Iron Fist too, is that they don’t really read or look like superhero comics. Iron Fist looked like Chinese scrolls and this comic looks like old pulp crime comics. I’m pretty jazzed on this book, I’m glad to have a new title to look forward to each month.

That’s it! Next Week:

Booster Gold #18. I have to admit I’m getting pretty tired of Booster Gold, I may have to skip it.

Green Lantern Corps #34.

Invincible Iron Man #11. Now we’ll see the follow up to my jock-a-lot pick from last month!

Official Index to the Marvel Universe #3. Man, I love these, awesome bathroom comic.

Yours,

-Ronald Rosebud.

Leave a comment »

New Comics 2/18/09

February 22, 2009 · Filed under New Comics · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This week one of my favorite comics came out, Godland, with issue number twenty six, written by Joe Casey and drawn by Tom Scioli. Godland tells the story of Adam Archer who, in a space flight gone wrong, gains cosmic powers. Sound familiar? Well I’ll tell you this book is very much influenced by Jack Kirby, especially his Fantastic Four work, with dialogue that doesn’t so much copy Stan Lee’s style, but has a consistent absurd quality to it reminiscent of Marvel comics from the sixties. Godland is a lot of fun to read and seems to be going strong. For a while there were rumors of the series being cancelled but that doesn’t seem to be happening. There were some delays, but the last few issues have been coming out more frequently.

The last issue of Robin came out this week (#183). Written by Fabian Nicieza and drawn by Freddie Williams II. I’m not always a fan of Nicieza, especially his jokier Deadpool type stuff, but this is a good issue. Like Nightwing last week, this final issue keeps things simple, and just tells a basic story of Robin adjusting to crime fighting life in Gotham without Batman around. On the topic of Batman, I keep swaying back and forth over whether Battle for the Cowl will be any good. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. I had a flash that Dick Grayson would become Batman and Grant Morrison would write the story for a couple of years. Whoo! I gotta stop thinking crazy thoughts!

Dark Avengers #2 came out, with more Secret Invasion fallout. In this issue Osborn’s impostor Avengers rescue…Dr. Doom?! Well what do you know! In the most recent Fantastic Four issue, Doom is still in prison following his capture in a recent issue of the Mighty Avengers (Osborn has since  let him out in the Dark Rein one-shot). Does that mean that the big bad (Dr. Doom’s mentor) from the Mark Millar’s FF run has already been dispatched by the time this issue of Dark Avengers came out? I don’t know, and this is one of my big gripes with the Marvel editorial staff.  In old comics, you would get some note like, “this issue takes place before/after that issue.” Current Marvel continuity really needs the re-establishment of this method. I’ve said before that exposition is essential in any comic, and I’ll go on to say that continuity is king. Without a comprehensive way to know how characters from different books interact and what has and hasn’t happened, I tend to get annoyed and slightly confused, and it diffuses the importance I may place on any given event.

Uncanny X-Men #506 is written by Matt Fraction, whose recent Iron Man issue I loved so much. Well I have to be honest, I’m not too happy with the current state of affairs in X-land. This issue reads well enough but I just don’t feel like it’s very X-Men-like. Does that make sense? I know some people who felt like Ed Brubaker didn’t have a very good handle on the X-Men during his run either. As much as l like Fraction, his work can be a little uneven, and I’d like to see some better pacing in this title. As a side note, Fraction has made some pretty silly errors in regards to the Bay Area while he’s been trying to have the X-Men fit in there. Stay outta Oakland buddy!

I’m skipping X-Men Legacy #221 because I couldn’t finish it and it stinks.

Now on to my favorite X-title, on it’s 40th issue, X-Factor! I just have to say again I love this title and I think this is some of Peter David’s best work. In the last two issues David has specifically asked readers not to post any spoilers on the internet so I will continue to honor that request. If you want to read good recent X-stories, go buy the collections of this series, it’s a great run.

That just leaves Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #2, which is a reprint and Spider-Man #587, which I’m not reviewing until the four issue run by Marc Guggenheim and  John Romita Jr. is done. So lets have a look at next week:

Green Lantern #38

Justice Society of America #24 which I have not been reading but have almost all of the issues of this Geoff Johns series. I need to start reading these, I hear it’s good.

Superman #685. I am officially not reading any more Superman titles not being done by Geoff Johns. He has an upcoming mini-series with Gary Frank of Action Comics fame. I’ll read that but nothing else.

Captain America #47. Yes! This comic is coming out like clockwork and it rules!

Fantastic Four #564. Let’s hope something cool happens.

Hulk #10, which I also am no longer reading.

Individual reprints of Kick Ass #1-4 seem to be coming out this week. If you need them, get them.

Mighty Avengers #22

New Avengers #50. Again, like the X-titles last week, why do these related comics all seem to come out at the same time? Doesn’t that seem weird?

See you next week!

Ronald Rosebud.

Comments (1) »

New Comics 2/4/09

February 6, 2009 · Filed under New Comics · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Well I said last week that this looked like a pretty spare week for comics, yet when I got home I somehow had a pretty good size stack of comics. My buddy at Comic Relief in Berkeley talked me into taking a look at some new stuff that came out this week. So let’s check it out, first I’ll get the stuff I mentioned last week out of the way.

Cable #11 is a story that comes directly out of the Messiah CompleX crossover from last year. Cable continues to run through time with the all important messiah baby, who is now seven years old. This title really illustrates one of my main complaints about Marvel lately; titles are disrupted to accommodate some big shake up to the status quo, and the end result is some throw away mini series or unimportant new title. Examples of these unnecessary titles in recent history would be Avengers: The Initiative, the Emperor Vulcan mini series and some but not all of the recent Inhuman minis. The most recent addition to this list would be Secret Warriors #1. Now there’s no reason that any one of these titles couldn’t be good, they do after all represent new ideas and status quos in the Marvel U. The problem is, more often than not, these titles are almost willfully unimportant or poorly executed. Ed Brubaker spent twelve issues of Uncanny X-Men setting up a space opera with two of the three Summers brothers, Havok, and the newly discovered Vulcan, fighting it out with millions of lives in the balance. In the mini series to follow all the momentum is gone, and this storyline only seems to be getting worse. Plus at the end of the day, the threat that Vulcan poses remains firmly in space and has no bearing on what’s happening back on earth where all our other characters are. I say poo on that!

I don’t want to complain too much, but dammit, what’s up with this Secret Warriors crap? The idea is that this is Nick Fury’s backup team in case something ever happens to the other heroes. Guess what? None of these kids could hold a real hero’s hat. How many stories have you read over the years where the hero was the last, only, line of defense against total disaster? Oh, that’s right, that would be Every Superhero Comic Book Ever! So what the hell? Secret Warriors should be called The Initiative, Vol. 2., it is, after all, drawn by the same dude. Without even going into the writing or art though, it can easily be argued that the A-List heroes have a lock on the last line of defense gig, look for a different angle. Speaking of that, if you did want to read something that had a new angle on the Marvel Universe, you should read Brian K. Vaughan’s Runaways 1-24. Runaways was a nice little (mostly) self contained story that occupied its own unique niche in the Marvel U.

Amazing Spider-Man #585 came out this week. Since this is a weekly book, I’m going to wait until it is done to talk about it. It’s the second issue in the second John Romita Jr. run on the Spidey weekly.

I wrote all the stuff above before I read The Invincible Iron Man #10. I haven’t been too into this book but I have to admit, this issue is pretty good. The story deals with Tony Stark in the aftermath of the Skrull invasion. He’s on the run, Osborn is hot on is trail, and suddenly I’m rooting for Tony again! What the heck!? Is this the same Tony Stark that’s been messin’ up my beloved Universe for the last few years? It is, but I gotta admit, he’s lookin’ good, he’s doin’ cool stuff, I’m laughin’ out loud, and it only takes one issue to turn you around on a character and make you want to see what happens next. This goes to show that a good creative team can make the best of a bad situation. If Matt Faction and Salvador Larroca stay on this title for a while, it could get pretty good. Faction has been coming up as the heir apparent to Ed Brubaker and this could easily be his Captain America if he does it right. Is that a little over optimistic? Maybe so, but lets wait and see.

So that’s my previously stated list, except for Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds #3 of 5. To write about that, I would have to read the first two issues and I can’t find my copy of the first issue, so I’ll have to come back to that later. Now on to stuff I did not list last week:

This week I got four new titles, a one shot, and a reprint of a long forgotten number one from years past: Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk #1. This reprint heralds the coming of the last two issues of this mini series that’s been delayed I don’t know how long. Hey guys, all is forgiven. This comic still looks good and I’m ready to see what happens.

Dead Irons #1 is a four part mini series published by Dynamite Entertainment. As a publisher, you gotta respect Dynamite’s efforts, they seem pretty smart. They got Garth Ennis and Alex Roth doing some decent work for them, and John Cassaday, of Astonishing X-Men fame, is doing the covers for Garth Ennis’ upcoming title, Battlefields. A good cover artist can definitely generate some interest.   As for this particular title though, it’s not really my thing. The art is good, (the covers and art direction are by Jae Lee with the interiors by Jason Shawn Alexander) and the story seems interesting enough, I’m just not into gothic cowboy horror, which is what this is.

I just noticed all these #1s are by different publishers, from Image we get Bad Dog #1. This title is about a werewolf bounty hunter and his slobby partner. I checked it out, there are a few pretty good beats in here but it’s not for me. Also, it’s four bucks!

From Vertigo we get Bang! Tango #1 which, like Bad Dog, is written by Joe Kelly. What a weird comic! Really, this comic is about some dancer guy, and no thanks.

Coming back Marvel to close out the week, we have Agents of Atlas #1 in their new ongoing series. If you don’t know, a little while back we had a pretty good mini series re-boot with these characters, a superhero oddball team from Marvel Comic’s days as Atlas Comics, B.F.F. (Before Fantastic Four.) These characters are pretty cool, a human turned ape, an alien, a robot, a goddess, a fish girl, and the leader, a…Asian guy. No really though, James Woo is cool, this is a pretty cool team and we see them sparring here with (guess who?) Norman Osborn. We shall see how this title develops. Also, there is a pretty cool backup story with Wolverine and the Agents of Atlas back in 1958.

Lastly, I got an X-Men vs. Hulk One Shot written by Chris Claremont. I only got it because as a back up it has a reprint of the Hulk fighting the original X-Men from X-Men #66 written by my boy Roy Thomas and drawn by my personal hero Sal Buscema. Workaday lettering by Artie Simek.

Whoo! That was a lot more work than I expected! Here’s what I’m keeping and eye on for next week:

Action Comics #874

Booster Gold #17

Green Lantern Corps #33

Nightwing #153

Amazing Spider-Man #586

Incognito #2 Oh Boy! I liked the first issue, a new Ed Brubaker title to keep you eye on. If you missed the first one, don’t worry, a reprint of #1 comes out this week too.

I feel like I should mention that Thor #600 is coming out, only because it is an anniversary issue. I’m not planning on reading it though.

See you next week!

-Ronald Rosebud.

Leave a comment »