Punisher War Journal #6(Marvel, W: Matt Fraction, A: Ariel Olivetti)
Overview: This is kind of the B grade Punisher book thats out right now. Matt Fraction is a good writer and all, but it's closer to the cartoony punisher than the Ennis Punisher. I started reading it because of the whole Civil War hoo-hah, and it's decent enough to stick with it, except the art is really gay.
Current Storyline: This White Power/America For Americans typ group is trying to start a racewar and is down on the mexican border killing Mexicans. Punisher is still being chased by S.H.I.E.L.D, and he kind of becomes the "new Captain America" in this issue. Kind of.
All-Star Superman #7(DC, W: Grant Morrison, A: Frank Quitely)
Overview: Grant Morrison does the whole "break-the continuity"/"start over-ish" thing with Superman. Now, for the record, Superman really blows overall. One of the most boring characters with the corniest shit going on. But pretty much any character, when a good writer is given a little freedom, can be turned from shit into Gold.
Current Storyline: Superman had to fight off a whole bunch of bizarro's that were attacking earth, but ends up stuck on the Bizarro planet, which limits his ability to fly and shit. SO HOW WILL HE EVER GET HOME????
Fell #8(Image, W: Warren Ellis, A: Ben Templesmith)
Overview: The only thing that gives Punisher Max a run for it's money in terms of best all around comic. This is basically a Warren Ellis sideproject, where each issue is a short (16 page) stand alone story about Detective Fell of the Snowtown PD. Snowtown is basically Detroit, the South Bronx, the crackhead-run part of Memphis, and every other shitty run down city in the country rolled into one, and 10x worse. Fell was a detective from "across the bridge", the city which is the San Francisco to Snowtowns Oakland, until he got demoted to Snowtown for undisclosed reasons. All the stories are different, but all revolving around various fucked up crimes and criminals Fell has to deal with. I can't stress enough how well written this book is, and the art is so good that I actually give a fuck about it. Ben Templesmith does the whole painting/drawing that looks like painting thing, and its perfect for this. It's actually so good that I read the comic he writes and draws, "Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse" for awhile, which is pretty surprising considering the fact that it was pretty sucky except for the art. Fell is the one comic I would recommend to absolutely anyone, even people with zero interest in comics in general.
Current Storyline: Fell doubles up on shifts and deals with a variety of typically fucked up events/crimes, but keeps getting drawn back to a routine shooting that seems less than routine.
Iron Man #16*(Marvel, W: Charles and Daniel Knauf, A: Roberto De La Torre)
Overview: Iron Man, aka "the shitty weiner who won the Civil War" is now also the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm not even entirely sure why I still buy this now that the Civil War is over, as I don't like the character and the guy who writes it is kind of a jobber. (In the AAA backup catcher way, not the hand/blow-jobber way. JUST FYI).
Current Storyline: Tony Stark is still kind of a fuckup when it comes to running S.H.I.E.L.D. There's also something going on with some guy going to find the mandarin. After this story arc is done, I'm not buying this anymore.
Loveless #17(Vertigo, W: Brian Azzarello, A: Werther Dell'Edera)
Overview: My memory sucks such a cock that in the month that it takes for a new issue of any given comic to come out, I often have a hard time remembering what happened in the previous issue. Most times my memory will be jogged by the time I'm part way into the current issue, but because of the timeline and the way the plot jumps around with Loveless, I seriously never have any fucking clue what's going on. But it's really well written, about the old west, and people being really gnarly, so I keep buying it. I should probably sit down and read all of them at once eventually.
Current Storyline: People are killing people. Some are more happy about it than others. I think?
New Avengers #29(Marvel, W: Brian Michael Bendis, A: Leinel F. Yu)
Overview: After the Avengers disbanded, they kind of randomly got back together with a different lineup after someone broke a zillion supervillian prisoners out of the Raft, a special prison or something. The new team was Captain America, Iron Man, Spider Man, Spider Woman, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Daredevil, the Sentry, and maybe some other people I'm not remembering. It doesn't really matter. They did a whole bunch of kickin ass and takin names type shit for awhile. Then the team split up during the Civil War, Captain America "died" (still not really buying that as they don't even REALLY ever kill the most bootleg and minor characters), and Iron Man started up another Avengers. They have their own book now, "The Mighty Avengers" which is the corniest shittiest shitty shit I've read in awhile, which is weird, because Bendis writes that too. I'm assuming he's making it extra queer because those are supposed to be the "nice" Avengers, while the team still in New Avengers is the "badass/gritty" Avengers. I guess that's because they're the outlaw team as they're all unregistered, and Wolverine still kills people and shit.
Current Storyline: It keeps going back and forth between America where they're fucking with the homo-vengers, and Japan where they're trying to save/find Ronin, some girl ninja I don't really know jack shit about, and getting Elektra to help them out. And the Hand is involved, so there's all sorts of quasi-zombie-ninja-killing going on. While this is the most straight cornball superhero book I read, it's also one of the better ones I read, as Bendis has nailed the formula for writing Super Hero comics that don't suck big dicks. See next week's bit on Ultimate Spider Man for more along those lines.
Wolverine Origins #13(Marvel, W: Daniel Way, A: Steve Dillon)
Overview: Set in the current "time" of the Marvel Universe (I think?) but outside of the continium (i.e no Civil War, etc) this book follows Wolverine on a quest to find out more about his origins. Decent writing that I give a pass to for the most part because, well, it's Wolverine. AND HE IS TOTALLY BAD ASS AND COOL. And I'm a sucker for any kind of "discovering my past" type stuff.
Current Storyline: Wolverine faces off against his son, who really hates him, less in the "you took away my pot and heavy metal records" way and more in the "looking forward to killing you really violently" way.
Thunderbolts #113(Marvel, W: Warren Ellis, A: Mark Deodato Jr.)
Overview: This definitely falls into the category of "book I buy 95% because of the writer." I mean, yeah, the Thunderbolts are a cool idea, especially now that their job is to hunt down un-registered costumes, but with the exception of Venom and Bullseye, they're all really beat B-grade villians. One of them is some D&D'ish sword guy, then there's a few chicks who's powers or whatever I have no clue about, they might just be like "squish big tits into spandex-girl" and "pouty face-woman." As a side note, the creeps who whack it to comic books must have just given up on landing any real-live-woman tail for the rest of their lives, which is just too depressing to even think about. Anyway, Norman Osborn is in charge of the team and totally insane, so that helps keep things spicy. But if it weren't for Warren Ellis, this probably wouldn't be in my bin.
Current Storyline: A plot to overthrow Osborn develops and general dissent arises amongst DA TROOPS.
After the Cape #2*(Image, W: Howard Wong, A: Marco Rudy)
Overview: I have no idea. I grabbed this because it looked kind of different and I generally enjoy the whole "Super Hero's who are fuck ups/aren't Super Hero's anymore" kind of thing. But I read it really quickly because I was almost back to the New Brunswick train station, and it was pretty lackluster, I'll probably buy a few more issues to give it a shot but it better really pick up.
Current Storyline: Oh, the one thing I remember is that the guy is a drunk, and when he gets loaded he starts using his powers like an asshole, which is actually awesome, because that's probably exactly how I'd be if i had any kind of super powers. Considering how I conduct myself when I'm drunk normally, there would probably be giant cocks painted everywhere and lots of holes in peoples houses from where I crashed into them trying to fly. So, there's that.
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I also bought Madman #1 (the new series) and New Universal #5 this week, but I haven't gotten around to reading them yet because I've been busy L-I-V-I-N. Or some of the time just W-H-A-C-K-I-N. So those will be up with next weeks batch.
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