3.17 (747) Power Pack vol 1 #62 ... #PowerPack ... #MarvelComics ...

[Posted on 27th Nov 2017]

This is the final issue of this particular run of the series and it is odd. As we start reading comics from the 70s and different era, it seems like in the past, Marvel started a new series on bi-monthly status. And when there are legs in terms of sales, then they switch to monthly. And then there are those where a comic has two main characters until one is proven to be able to carry an ongoing ... but somewhere along the line everything became monthly. And the trend is reverse so if sales drop, it becomes bi-monthly and then they put crap artists onboard ... pretty much trying to kill the series, eh?

If you just check this cover and compare to earlier ones, you will see, even for a cover, Marvel didn't want to pay someone to do it attractively. So this mega downward slide ran for nearly a year in the life of the Pack

The good thing is since its cancellation the Pack did come back as cute cuddly kiddie comics as well several times and then Alex made appearances in New Warriors and Julie and others popped up in other series. So it seems that there is interest and just need someone to take a risk on them

Here, basically we find out that Alex due to something going on with the Pack inheriting Powers from Kymaellian horse like aliens transforms into a horse (what the fuck). And with the rest of the kids worried too. The parents finally found out over the course of the past issues and there is really no other choice but for the Power kids to get their alien craft, Friday to take them to the Kymaellian world to find a solution. And that's the end of this ... so basically leaving room open for what comes next ... and as part of the farewell, the kids say goodbye to Franklin as Franklin has to stay on Earth with his parents in FF ... bad artwork, rushed storyline, crap cover ... bad ending ... sigh!

And we used to be such fan even joining a fanclub!

Ratings: 1/10

746. Defenders vol 1 #41 ... #defenders ... #marvelcomics ... #hulk ... #magic ... #drstrange ...

[This is reviewed on 5th Dec 2017]

This is the infamous non-team but in actual fact if you managed to read this online or from the various compendiums, you will note that there are some who try hard to keep them as a sort of team and their only challenge is the desire to fight against evil but have no resources ala Stark of the Avengers even though with the arrival of Richmond, things improve but not much

And in this issue we continue the primary focus on Richmond aka Nighthawk who is having a tough time but with the Defenders support he is trying to put his life back together after having his brain removed (long story). Here he tries to track down his ex-girlfriend who lost her arm in a car bomb accident and arrives at the place where she has been holing up only to find that there is yet another mystery

So it is a good thing Richmond didn't go alone but have Strange along with him (Sal Buscema and Klaus Janson make Strange looks like Stark though) ... and BANG they heard that his ex Trish was using the occult to find some sort of meaning to her life! Hello-oo-o-o-o-o-o ....

So obviously since Richmond brought Strange along (how fortunate) ... things turn for a nasty turn as they found Trish now distant and apparently trapped and being used by the "demon" who has plans for her and Earth (as always) ... again thanks to Strange and now Kyle's new affiliation with the Defenders who came to their aid, they quickly proved that demons here are merely ugly thugs and the Hulk especially puts a beat down on them (hey these are stories from a simpler time)

Long story short, everything ends happily in the sense that the demon is banished once more but Kyle would not be with her

Ratings: 5/10

745. X-Force vol 1 #29 ... #Mutant ... #X-Force ... #Marvel ...

[This is reviewed on 6th Dec 2017]

Cover looks okay as it is an early Tony Daniels but interior has guest pencils by an early Mat Broome waaaaaaay before he became good. So in short, the work kinda ... sucks? Hahahaha! For us anyway, the book is really bad especially he tries so hard to give us what was the trend then i.e. posing and snarling figures and his facial features on characters are just plain bad ... inker Bud LaRosa was no help either especially when the normal speech moments if you know what we mean

For storyline, as the cover has spoiled everything, it is back to Arcade which means Murderworld which means either Arcade has a contract on one of the members of X-Force or he has a vendetta which predictably means he is kidnapping them direct or kidnapping someone else to get their attention. See? Very predictable and no longer a relevant threat to the world of X because honestly Murderworld makes no sense even if you have bucketloads of money and as an assassin, his fee must be astronomical and the X-Men must have realized that to keep his operations running, he must have a few successful hits ... which would mean the X-Men can let murderers run wild? Hmmm ...

On a more personal character development moment, we see Terry aka Siryn is becoming a regular drunk owing to personal issues and Warpath is falling for her except that he has problems expressing himself. And so typically he makes a mess of matters everywhere!

Ratings: 3/10

744. Avengers vol 1 #261 ... #Avengers ...

[This is reviewed on 7th Dec 2017]

Well, the cover says correctly that this has ties to Secret Wars 2 but more importantly this issue while one full book length reads as if there are two stories and the first is the end of the fight against Nebula when Skrulls and Avengers combined. In short, this issue deals with the fallout ... and we see that Starfox, as he is the brother of mad Thanos, decides to say farewell to the Avengers ... as he needs to seek out Nebula to determine if she is who she says she is (granddaughter of Thanos) and to stop her since they are then family

And joining him is guest star Firelord who still have problems being on the side of Skrulls. In addition, for those unfamiliar with Nebula or Starlord, apparently she has decimated his people in the recent past and thus he too seeks justice

With that, the remainder of the team heads for home ...

And that's when they encounter the Beyonder in his guise as a  superhero wearing some funky armor costume. He desires experience at this stage and meets up with each team or rather duo or sub team of the Avengers separately only to find out that they while limited in their abilities when compared to him can still put him out of action rather fast if he doesn't use his unlimited power ... example Wasp stings him to catch his attention and giving Captain America the time to catch up and with a swipe of his shield brought the Beyonder tumbling to the ground ...

At the end of it all, Jan aka the Wasp took a huge risk by offering the Beyonder a place with the Avengers! WOW! I mean, the guy has everything powers. So for every challenge, he can more than overcome the villain du jour and basically all the Avengers need do is tell him the problem and what they want him to do (so he doesn't make a mistake in his godly type of interpretation of our more humanly events) and he can accomplish it. Nothing is beyond him. Damn!

Ratings: 5/10 (pretty ho hum issue sorry!)

743. Wolverine & The X-Men vol 1 #39 ... #wolverine ... #NickBradshaw ...

[This is reviewed on 8th Dec 2017]

The best thing to happen with this series is artist Nick Bradshaw and if you are fortunate to get the first issues of this series, then you will know how awesome Nick is. His artwork is very energetic with clean lines and a touch of Arthur Adams thrown in. And in this series it works. However, towards the end of the run, he is doing covers while another person does the interiors and whatever publishers can claim, the truth is comics is every bit the visual medium thus you need the right fan favorite artist to pair with a great storyline for success and hence this volume has to "end" ...

Anyway, in this the penultimate chapter to the volume, we see an ongoing twin thrust in terms of the storyline. First up are the seniors where at this juncture, Cyclops and Wolverine have split up once more and hating each other once again with each setting up rival camps. However, the government is trying to set them up by using Sentinels as a lure hoping Cyclops will come out of hiding to thrash the robotic nightmare and Wolverine is there to kill Cyclops!

Do note that thanks to the various issues before, Cyclops at this point is labelled a weapon of mass destruction and dangerous to the general public

However, as both men met on the field of battle and realized they were set up, regardless of how they may feel about each other, Cyclops call for a truce to which Wolverine agrees readily but stresses that this be a temporary truce and as we see the fight progresses, we quickly learnt that both men are now performing in diminish capacities especially in view of their powers with Cyclops unable to do one of his devastating full power wipe them all out blasts while Wolverine isn't exactly healing

Now a while back we did mention another thrust of this story and here we found out that the other thrust is happening at Wolverine's school where there are a couple of new students who are not what they seemed to be ie they are spies sent to find out what is going on at the school. While we are not told their backstory and why they owe a favor to the organization that sent them thus, we are shown that they were injecting themselves with mutant growth hormone to have their powers while learning about their fellow students ... and the boy found himself actually liking the life here while the girl remains steadfast to their initial objections ... until the end when their secret is uncovered ... and ... cliffhanger! Wait for next issue! Hahaha!

Ratings: 7/10 (would have scored a 9 if Nick was doing interiors)

3.12 (742) X-Factor vol 1 #84 ... #X-Factor .. #Mutants ... #MarvelComics

[Posted on 28th Nov 2017]

This is part of one of Marvel's mega-crossover projects that span all the mutant titles for a few months dealing with the topic of why did Cable shoot Prof X? And as the X-teams go scrambling about to find Cable, other villains pop up to confuse the matter including people like Apocalypse thus leaving all X-teams wondering what the heck is going on

SPOILER ALERT

Basically the prime villain is Stryfe who looks like Cable because he is the clone of Cable raised in the future and coming back to exact revenge on the past or some such nonsense but the tale is well-told and it shows how disjointed the heroes are especially in the way justice is meted out because if there is no death penalty or life imprisonment, then these characters will come back again and again to give others grief

In this chapter, which is still early, to find out the truth, X-Factor being a government sanctioned mutant strike force working with Valerie Cooper sets out to hunt down X-Force and bring them in for questioning because at this part of their convoluted timeline, X-Force has aligned themselves with Cable. Of course none knew that X-Force has kind of lost Cable in its own series a few issues earlier because by then, X-Force has walked away from the main world of X

So a fight ensues and while X-Force give it its all ... is it enough?

Some nice fight scenes but the artwork does take some getting used to though

Ratings: 6/10

741. Blue Beetle Ted Kord #3 ... #DCComics ...

[This review is posted on 9th Dec 2017]

Once in a blue moon (no pun intended), we are actually capable of reviewing a DC comic as well. Hahahaha! And here we are doing a Blue Beetle because while we started immersing in the universe of DC late, we actually enjoyed this particular 24-issue run so much that we bought all of it and for some reason, while not always on the top of our reading to-do pile, yet we enjoyed it

Here we see the start of a major villain (not the people on the cover). However, in order to get the power source to "activate" himself, he goes out to recruit the Madmen i.e. the people on the cover. And while we are not sure what these idiots are supposed to do, all they seemed capable of when they appear is dressed in those horrid coloured uniforms and face paint and jump and cause low-end thuggery. Heck a regular human who is composed can knock them out. So we are guessing their real power is nearly non-existent?

Anyhow, on other fronts, we see the Beetle returning after his long fight in the first two issues and trying to learn from it while upgrading his own machinery and "bat cave" for want of a better word. As this is still early stages in his tale, we are given a whole host of sub plots from a girl who is going to do something bad for someone, to his own team having their own secrets that may have an impact on Ted to a few more.

In short, a lot goes on including police investigation to keep us turning the pages until the final panel with the introduction of the main villain! Alchemy!

Artwork, it is clean lines, enough fluidity and facial expressions to make the comic an easy read although it is also apparent that there is some room for improvement for the artist as well and he does in the days to come especially when doing quieter or civilian scenes

Ratings: 6/10

740. Fantastic Four 2012 #1 ... #FF ... #Marvel ... #Thing

[This is reviewed on 9th Dec 2017]

There was a time, not sure because of sales or overconfidence on the part of Marvel comics, that the FF actually had two ongoing titles to tell the tales of the actual FF (not like the last round where it was Fantastic Force with future Franklin) so we have a title called FF and another called Fantastic Four and this review concerns the latter as it has writer Matt Fraction who did an awesome job on DD and artist Mark Bagley who did an amazing run on Ultimate Spider-Man and both, we are pleased to say, acquit themselves well in this opening issue

At this juncture, the FF was back to the original four and they had a gaggle of weird alien and local and what-not children living with them ... and we open the tale with Franklin waking up from one of his dreams and cautioning his mom not to take a near trip to space ... and where are his parents at this juncture?

In the past stuck in the jaws of a dinosaur ... don't ask. Best you read to find out

Suffice to say, they came back but Reed was hurt which was impossible as his body has stretching properties. So being the brain of the group, he analyzed and found out that for some reason his power is not only in remission but perhaps fading and causing molecular what-ever mumbo jumbo and so what does he do? What he does best ... figure to go into the unknown to explore further for a solution to heal himself and potentially his family if they are going to suffer from the same problems as him except of course, like any good husband and father, not to worry the family he doesn't tell them the problem truthfully

While this is happening, we get slice of life stuff from people like Ben as he goes to his old haunt, Yancy Street only to be set upon by the kids there and ... again you have to read to find out ... it is quite hilarious and not something we were expecting

And of course all the hijinks of the other kids in the building does make for some enlightening moments but that's not all because we see Johnny Storm dating his gal in the place where he is currently ruling ... and doing something in-Johnny Storm ...

Great opening issue

Ratings: 7/10