Prompt
delivery this week and thus some ramblings.
Loki:
Agent of Asgard #10
Let's be honest: I like this issue in equals parts for
being well-written, dripping with character, filled with poetic turns
of phrase and because we might finally be on the verge of seeing the
end of those bloody “I am the crime that cannot be forgiven!”
bits. Anyway, the whole things picks up from Axis with Loki
apologising to Verity for being such a dick under the influence of
heroism, Thor: The God Of Not Much These Days comes round for a heart
to heart and then the truth spins out of control at a fantastic rate.
Ewing's latest idea is that somehow during Axis, and
even Loki isn't sure how, Loki lost the ability to lie. He can't even
tell a joke and he can't remain silent when asked a question so when
Thor asks him what happened to the young, innocent boy he used to be
it all comes out. It all hits the fan there with a nice mid-book use
of the recap page which in itself was beautifully written. This has
very much of a season finale feel to it and I'm looking forward to
seeing how it all turns out.
All-New
X-Factor #20
Not
sure if commitment or hubris...
Okay,
so Peter David says on the recap page this is the final issue but he
hopes there'll be more in the future and he even positions this issue
as a pitch to make readers demand more and I'm not sure how I feel
about that. David makes some links between this series and the rise
of Alchemax in Spider-Man 2099 which isn't a series I'm following so
I don't much care about tying up that storyline. On the other hand
there are some very nice talky bits between various members of the
team on their plane which set up new dynamics I want to see play out
but probably never will.
It
isn't that this is a weak issue just that it might have been better
repositioned to foreground Warlock's meditations on the soul rather
than the tease for stories that may never come.
Batman
Eternal #42
Now
we're finally getting to it and by “it” I mean the plot points
from the teaser issue of Batman last February. This is a big issue
for Harper and Steph, the two characters I'm frankly reading this
series for, which is a definite plus. Harper in particular gets a
great speech owning her decision to enter the life of a costumed
vigilante when it could very well have been positioned as an act of
grim necessity. She also tells Tim he's being a prick which, much as
I love the boy, he needs telling sometimes.
Powers
#1
I've never read an issue of Powers and all I knew were
the basics: a procedural crime series about police who deal with
superpowers, written by Brian Michael Bendis and that was all I had
to go on. From this issue I'm getting that there's a lot of backstory
I don't know but Bendis is being good enough to fill the reader in as
he goes with just enough to be comprehensible but not so much as to
be indigestible.
Anyway, a bunch of the city's wealthiest and most
influential citizens are murdered on a yacht and Detective Deena
Pilgrim is sent in complete with snarky partner and crazy pants
medical examiner who views the wholesale slaughter with almost mad
scientist levels of glee. I like her, I want to see more of her.
Talking of seeing more of women this is one of those “mature
content” comics so there's lots of swearing and a two-page spread
of a strip club complete with breasts flopping about everywhere which
I suppose is at least better than how breasts are usually portrayed
in comics. These ones actually seem to be influenced by gravity.
Wolverines
#3
This one took a hard right at the corner of Fifth and
Bananas as only two issues in we have an issue not featuring any of
the Weapon X survivors or the “Wolverines”. Instead we have
Fantomelle (who I think is the female Fantomex clone Psylocke was
sleeping with a while back but I'm not sure, I don't think she was
black) running a business where she steals bits of superhero
memorabilia for an underground auctioneer. In this case she's trying
to pinch the Punisher's skull shirt and that turns out about how
you'd expect: there's a massive number of bullets.
Still not too sure about this series as a weekly
proposition but this issue certainly shows more promise than the
first two did.
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