Between The Staples

Welcome to my Last of the Best Bang for yer Comic Buck. For over 10+ months, I have been doing the Best Bang, week after week and I only missed a few weeks. Sure the initial idea for the Between the Staples website was based on the reviews I wrote for the Happy Harbor website eons ago. Later I decided to make those reviews into its own website. It has been a great run and I would like to thank those at Zeros 2 Heroes for allowing me the Best Bang to be featured on the their blog website. I do feel that the Best Bang has lost its charm. Everyone and their dog are now blogging the bite sized reviews along with the old classic long ranting reviews. I feel it is time for a change so I plan to start putting my mind into other ideas for the website. I also will be directing my energy into other venues like my writing. I have spent much more time worrying about the Best Bang each week than doing my web work that pays for my addiction. That has to change so for now… this is the last Best Bang until it rises from the ashes in its new form.

So all that said, I am going to spotlight only a hand full of great books this week as I found that there was not much to be excited about. Batman, Might Avengers and the final wrap up for The Death of the New Gods (which obviously is being overlooked in Countdown which makes no sense). Given all the New Gods are gone and the Fifth World is close to coming together (or has), I find it fitting that their heads will be the ranking for the Last of the Best Bang. Comics from Hourglass Comics as I did not have time to make it to Elfsar Comics & Toys this week.

Death of the New Gods #8 (DC) No. It can’t end like this! I have to agree with Superman’s statement on the cover. How long have the New Gods been apart of the DC Universe and for them to end in a mini-series that really is not apart of the DCU canon as whatever happened in this series over in Countdown Darkseid was defeated by Orion which MAKES NO SENSE! Bah. This was a very good and solid series with mind blowing crazy stories just like those of the original New Gods books. Was it a fitting end to a great array of characters only to be replace, remade and redone in Final Crisis or whatever comes afterwards? I really don’t know but I did enjoy this series for the nice standout of these larger than life characters.

Batman #675 (DC) The prequel to the big upcoming Batman R.I.P. seems to be foreshadowing the fact that Damien “The Son of the Demon” (Batman’s flesh and blood son unlike his adopted children of Tim and Dick) will have a large part of the future of Batman. I also think that Nightwing will be the big twist, either he goes bad or sacrifices his life for Bruce and the Bat. I believe that Jasson Todd will come back into the fold and become the new Hush as that just makes sense and somewhere along the lines Bruce Wayne dies but Batman lives. Perhaps I need to stop taking so many meds when reading Grant Morrison’s stuff of late. I did enjoy Morrison talking the Bat here on a Newsarama vid:
http://www.newsarama.com/nycomiccon2008/video/grantmorrison.html

Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos… I mean The Might Avengers #12 (Marvel) So finally The Fury is back in the Marvel U but I have to ask why in Mighty Avengers? Just because it is a Bendis title he is already writing? I guess it is better than having to put out yet another book and it does fit into the whole storyline that Bendis is writing of late but it still seems as filler for the title to get up to speed as it seems as the crutial story we have all wanted to know and see of Nick. I hate that the cover has the Skrull Avengers homage whereas it really has almost nothing to do with the Avengers themselves directly. I hate misleading covers like that, it pisses me off but not enough to hate the book, just the cover. The story itself was very slow, creepy and car wreck feel to it. You cannot turn away. This is Nick Fury and what he has done, what he planned and what he has been doing… to a point. This is the issue I wanted to see and wanted to see more of so the teaser of more is nice and it ends on a “Things that make yah go hmmmm”. I did love the Maria Hill scene and the tip about using the Life Model Decoys. Classic Nick Fury.

Star Wars: Legacy #22 (Dark Horse) I really do enjoy this series as it bring some great John Ostrander writing together with some unique artwork by Alan Robinson, great coloring by Brad Anderson and very decent lettering by Michael Heisler. A very decent story to help build the big coming war between the new Darth Krayt and the new alliance also brings the Mon Calamari back into the fold of the war which was interesting. Enjoyable but bring back Skywalker!

The Secret History of the Authority: Hawksmoor #2 of 6 (WildStorm) I am really enjoying this series, it is a fresh new take on Hawksmoor who was one of my favorite characters until Warren Ellis made him into the asshole of the team for his run. The artwork is so beautiful and fresh, I need to reread it again and again just to get a taste of that work into my veins. Take a gander when you have a chance, Fiona Staples work is nothing short of breathtaking! I just wish The Authority were given this much attention to detail with a great writer and artist as such.

Number of the Beast #2 of 8 (WildStorm) I am enjoying this book but not because of the “Stirring The Honeypot” reference but the fact that this book sets the tone and future of WildStorm to be a very different world than the DCU whereas their future will be an apocalyptic world with heroes in it. A very enjoyable book and I look forward to where this will go for the limited series, the characters and the future of WildStorm.

ESSENTIAL: The Defenders Vol. 2 TPD (Marvel) Where else do you find The Hulk, Doc Strange and Nighthawk all in one book? Add in the likes of Hellstorm, Luke Cage and the Thing is this is a great romp of the wild fun stories that this title held close to its soul. A great read!

Ms. Marvel #26 (Marvel) Glory to the Empire! Ms Marvel is the Marvel’s Wonder Woman and after being brought in by her own Lightening Strike Team, she goes toe to toe with a Skrull impersonator, same one I am betting from New Avengers who tried to take out Echo I am betting, and takes it down. Nice to see Aaron from NextW.A.V.E. Agents of Hate in the book although seeing the Monica in her Captain Marvel uni was disappointing.

Justice League of America #20 (DC) Wonder Woman and the Flash issue where Mom sets one of the kids on the straight and narrow for the sake of the family. Throw in the Queen Bee as villain of the week, some Black Lightening for extra characters and you got the issue in a whole. A filler issue if I ever read one and sad since the next issue ties directly into Final Crisis, you would think that this issue would have had more weight leading in. Ah well.

Checkmate #25 (DC) Is this book Rucka’s swan song from the title? Did he and Eric Trautmann need to bring in the rooks? I thought that Checkmate had their heavy hitters and were kinda proud that they had pawns who did not have to be heavy hitters to get the job done? This seems like a very strange twist on the story and overall concept of Checkmate unless this is to be leading someplace? Not a bad intro book for the Rooks but lots of things got wrapped up way to fast and even I am wondering who all the Rooks were or are. The story seemed very rushed while the artwork was not bad.

The Uncanny X-Men #497 (Marvel) Why do the Russians in the big two only have super powered armored robots or super power armor? I know in the Marvel U that they had Soviet Super-Soldiers but I think that they have successfully killed off and made the team a joke of late. So they resort to the Russians having flying mechs as their defense. I don’t know how boring that is, anyways, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Colossus make short work of them while Scott and Emma trip out in San Francisco in search for Angel and Hepzibah. *yawn*

X-Force #3 (Marvel) This books hurts my brain. I must like punishment to read this sh*t. So the new Bastion is making up a force of the worst former X-Men villains with the help of Warlocks daddio, Magus, for his new Techno-army of mutie haters. Alright. The team finds Rahne and thankfully she is all messed up so at least that is correct ’cause you can’t just OD someone on heroin and they bounce back next issue. I mean this is comics but f**k that would be lame. So the team brings her back and since when does Angel listen to Logan? Wait, doesn’t / didn’t Angel have healing powers?! Like WTF? This book, much like all the X-Stuff these days, is all over the place. Painful to read.

Countdown to Final Crisis #1 (DC) Or Countdown is Finally Over. The End. Do we need to say more? I mean this was bad, thank the comic gods that this hell is done. I dread that Trinity will follow suit.

Next week… there won’t be a next week for the Best Bang but we do have the big two battling it out with Final Crisis #1 & Secret Invasion #2! Iron Man movie hits the theatres and I am sure more gems will come out in this addiction many call a hobby.

It has been a blast from all the great comments to the guest reviewers to the Skrulls taking over for a week. Thanks for reading!

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.