August 01, 2012
- Hawkeye 001 - Got a minute, so let's get this done shall we?
Here's the thing. For what it's worth, on paper Hawkeye sucks. You know it, I know it, the world knows it. Here is a guy who is on a team with pumped up soldiers, gods, superscience and such, and all he really brings to the table is a goofy outfit and a quiver of even goofier arrows. The biggest difference between Hawkeye and Green Arrow is the lack of Boxing Glove Arrow, though admittedly I haven't read enough past issues with Hawkeye to outright rule that out yet. There's truly no way to make him seem like a badass when he's surrounded by people who scrape more badass off their boots at the end of the day. So, when you've got him hanging around the Avengers, you can't help but feel bad about him. At least Black Widow has super spy training, all arrow boy has is is that he was trained by a bunch of carnies.
I say that to say this: Get him away from the people that make him look impotent and you've got a potential awesome character. Keep him street level, like say Daredevil, and out of the fights against things that destroy planets during bowel movements and you can really get him to grow to a fan favorite.
And this book is a perfect vehicle to do that. He's not fighting a super android, or a mutant god, or a cosmic force of nature. In the first book his enemy is against tenement rent and to save a dog. It's good. This Hawkeye I enjoy, and if the first paragraph of this review didn't clue anyone in, I'm not that much of a fan of the "archer" powerset in comic books. They're usually goofy as all hell.
- The First X-Men - Now for this week's crap. Dear sh*tpickle do we really need another book with Wolverine in it? The truly worst part about this book is that it's almost entirely retcon and trying so hard to, for whatever reason, conform to the recent X-Men movie. Actually, even worse than that it doesn't even succeed at that. I'm not sure what the hell the objective of this book is, but in only one volume it's annoying. It turns out that it wasn't Xavier's idea to gather mutants for safety, but Wolverine's with Sabretooth's help. Wrap that around your mind for a few minutes. Let the hate sink into your skin. 50 years of history? Screw that, we gotta make Wolverine freakin' god. This book's premise is so bad that it loops back over to good and hits awful several times before settling on festuring pile of crap.
Go to hell, Wolverine. Or, you know. Stay there this time, because that was a stupid storyline too.
- Amazing Spider-Man 690 - Another good book to even out my absences. Interesting turn of events here. Parker is on his obsession to save everyone which is basically killing him, but he's the less interesting character in this storyline. The last book was where the Lizard was turned back to Curt Connors, in body at least, against his will by Morbius, who in turn pretty much punked him into attacking an innocent and having both the vampire and the spider out of his newly grown hair. Of course, the Lizard wants to be the Lizard and not the weak monkey that is Connors, so he sets out to do just that, experimenting on the other super scientists at Horizon. They each help him unwittingly work out the process that's keeping him from being big and green, but at the same time share with him minor human things (like video games and nachos) which makes him actually consider the idea and, at the end of the book, question whether or not he wants to go back to being the cold blooded sewer dweller. It's well written (I find Dan Slott to be a good Spider-Man writer, if somewhat annoying user of Twitter) and a great character development piece.
And, you know. It might have something to do with my Spider-Man fanboyness, so take that with a grain of salt. I found it to be great, but there is a bit of bias involved.
- Xtreme X-Men 001 - And for the "bad" book for the week like I promised. Guess freakin' what. ANOTHER WOLVERINE! At least the book where he's running a school is whimsical and interesting, and best of all he's barely in it. Not only is it a Wolverine, but it's an "alternate dimension" Wolverine who is immune to mind reading and such because of unobtainium in his skull or whatever. It's like adamantium plus, but for the life of me I can't make myself remember, or look up, what the exact name of it is. Anyway, it was some weird dimension jumping storyline to birthed this mess, and it's almost a ripoff of "The Exiles," which were dimension hopping heroes who set things right where they once went wrong and hoped that each leap was the leap home or some nonsense. No surprise Wolverine was in that at some point, too.
Anyway, I hate Wolverine. Do the world a favor and support Hawkeye and not this tripe.
- Deadpool 058 - Quick bonus review: Deadpool beats someone up with an exploding toilet. We chalk this up to the good column. I generally dislike Daniel Way's writing, but since the "Deadpool loses his healing factor" storyline, it's been pretty good. Enjoyable in fact.
Edited, Aug 7th 2012 6:50pm by lolgaxe
