Weekly Pick-Ups 1/01/14

Sorry everyone, the comic store was closed on New Years Day and then Deanpool got a little sick so it took a while to pick up the issues that came out for the week of New Years. But we finally got em! A balanced plate this week with Deanpool continuing The Flash and then picking up a Justice League Dark issue, which isn’t normally in the pick ups but we’ll see why. From the Marvel side Deanpool continues New Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Justice League Dark #26-

Blight. All the evil in men's
hearts given life and form.

From the cover alone, we see the return of the Sea King. The Sea King is Aquaman’s Crime Syndicate/Earth-Three parallel who died at the climax of the Trinity War when the Crime Syndicate jumped to this Earth’s dimension/universe/whatever. So seeing the possible return of the Sea King made Deanpool jump on the issue instantly despite not following the last 2 or 3 installments of the series. For those who are unfamiliar, Justice League Dark is a new series that came out in the New 52 with DC’s powerhouse supernatural characters teaming up to deal with the magic-like, supernatural, otherworldly problems. With members like John Constantine, Zatanna, Deadman, Black Orchid, Madame Xanadu, Frankenstein, and occasionally Swamp Thing has been assisting them (perhaps leading up to him joining the team). Definitely a darker series, pun intended, in both its drawings and stories. Anyways, this evil bad guy Blight has been causing havoc for the Justice League Dark causing Constantine to work with Swamp Thing, Phantom Stranger, and Nightmare Nurse in order to find his missing teammates. This group essentially plays possum using some spell to make it seem like they all have died. In this state of mind, we see Deadman’s consciousness reach out to Constantine and urges Constantine to find the team in order to stop Blight. When Constantine wakes up from the spell, he is determined to find out how the missing Deadman was able to reach out to him. Once again enlisting help from Swamp Thing, Nightmare Nurse, and Pandora, they do some tracking spell crap and the search leads them to the an ancient abandoned city even older than Atlantis. 

Sea King bringing Nan Madol back to life. 

The lost city of Nan Madol (Fun Fact: Go wiki Nan Madol. It’s quite real, but used a lot in fiction. Awesome!). Turns out when Sea King died as the Crime Syndicate arrived to Earth, his body drifted deep into the oceans until the oceans (or the remains of Nan Madol) claimed him. All the remaining souls and spirits of this lost civilization used the Sea King’s body as a host in an attempt to revive their underwater kingdom. With a couple twists and a very significant spoiler that we’ll save for the very end in case readers want to read for themselves, the group was able to stop the Sea King and managed to find Deadman, or at least his spirit. So, the return of the Sea King was somewhat of a tease and may still play a key role in the Forever Evil story, but only time and future issues will tell. The Blight character makes a bit more progress as far as development with a twist at the end of the issue, but aside from that still stands simply as a generic villain that will require the entire team in order to be brought down. Not very engaging as far as what his purpose is (other than taking over the world or making the whole world dark or something of that villain-like nature) or what deeper connection he may have with this group of heroes. Though there is some amazing ink work as we have battles both above and below the water that are worth checking out. Not sure if the issue had enough for Deanpool to continue picking up the following issues, but he admits he does have a lot of interest in how their story will progress and ultimately tie-in to DC’s big Forever Evil event. Deanpool adds that Justice League Dark does a good job of catching his interest every now and then but not so much on a monthly basis. Nevertheless, a solid 7/10 from M. Deanpool.

Spoilers: Don’t read this part if you’re going to read this issue! Turns out Constantine’s group and their spells led them to Nan Madol for a reason. At the climax of the Trinity War when the Crime Syndicate arrived on this Earth, Deadman thought it would be wise to hide in the body of the dead Sea King when all the action went down. Too bad the Sea King’s psyche was so messed up that Deadman had become overwhelmed and basically got lost inside Sea King’s head. So with some handy magic by the great John Constantine, a severing spell was able to separate Deadman’s consciousness from the Sea King’s. However, with no idea where Deadman’s actual body is, Constantine left Deadman trapped inside the Sea King’s body for the time being. How will this play out in the bigger scope of things? That’s the interesting part! Also we see at the very end that the Phantom Stranger, known to act only if it’s to his benefit, has sided with Blight?! Is it all a ploy or has he really jumped ship?

Read the spoiler if you want to know. 

Flash #26-

Fun Flash Fact: Flash can run on clouds for short periods of time
(because altostratus clouds are composed of ice crystals).

In The Flash series (Deanpool’s most consistent pick-ups and just for fun, the first series he started as a comic collector), we’ve seen Barry Allen aka Flash tackle The Rogues, Gorilla Grodd, and more recently the New 52 version of Reverse Flash. Issue #25 was tie-in to Batman: Zero Year where we see more of a Barry Allen story as it takes place before his little accident. But that’s sooooo 2013. It’s a new year for Barry and even a new creative team: Christopher Gage and Neil Googe! Though they have some giant shoes to fill because Deanpool loved the 2-year run from Buccellato and Manapul. And they start the new year with a lovely, standalone, no need to worry about previous stories or universe-wide crossovers or tie-ins, single issue. That means no long wordy introduction or background from Deanpool! Sorry M. Deanpool. Weird to say that it’s rare to see a self-contained narrative limited to a one single comic book but then again, it’s all about giant crossovers or lengthy story arcs since the relaunch with all the reboots. But nonetheless, we get a nice one here. Although it seemed quite predictable (almost formulaic) as we see the cynical villain Spitfire collecting deadly diseases and it’s up to The Flash to stop Spitfire and her deadly plans. It also seems that the narrative had a tendency to dominate the telling of the story rather than the artwork. Didn’t take away too much, but did become apparent to some point that the text would serve to explain the plot away. The artwork looks promising within the confines of this single issue (and Flash being the only superpowered character). It was very safe, but Googe did make The Flash look good. Not a terrible start to their Flash run, and as a standalone, it serves well to introduce the new creative team. But with this being Deanpool’s favorite superhero, he’s expecting big things this year from The Flash after consistently putting out amazing issues for the last two years. Gage and Googe get a respectable 7/10 to their start in The Flash.

Silly Spitfire, no place to hide from the Fastest Man Alive!

New Avengers #13.INH- 

Incursion Point.

Don’t worry about the INH thing. It’s not as much of a Inhumans tie-in as advertised. If you’ve read anything Deanpool has said about New Avengers, you’ll know there’s this secret team called The Illuminati in the Marvel Universe. Its current members: Iron Man, master of machines. Black Panther, king of the dead. Black Bolt, celestial messiah. Beast, mutant genius. Namor, imperius rex. Mr. Fantastic aka Reed Richards, universal builder. Dr. Strange, sorcerer supreme. Quite a team right? At the end of Infinity, we hear about Black Priests and Ebony Kings, and this issue helps further explain about who these characters are and set up what their purposes are in the Marvel universe. First off, Hickman shows an alternate universe with an alternate Illuminati group that consists of Mr. Fantastic, two Black Panthers, Magneto and Professor Xavier, Captain Mar-Vell, Iron Man, and Black Bolt. Shouts to Prof Xavier and Captain Mar-Vell who are currently dead in our Marvel universe. Makes this issue so much better seeing these characters revived for a brief time.

Alternate Illuminati features
some familiar faces.

This engages the reader from the get-go as we are again introduced to this idea of world incursions. From what Deanpool tells me, world incursions occur when there’s an event on Earth that leads to the early death of a universe. So this is a multiverse type of an event. Because of this unnatural event, the multiverse contracts, or things start dying slightly earlier than intended. Because of contraction, two universes smash together at an incursion point where the original event began, Earth. The two Earths touch which destroy each other and their respective universes that they inhabit. You can imagine that this leads to further contractions. Now there’s a catch, of course. For a short period of time (8 hours), the two Earths can be in harmonic alignment and occupy the same space. After this period of time either both Earths are destroyed (along with both universes), or only one Earth is destroyed and spares both universes by eliminating the incursion point. Confusing, yes. How do the Illuminati know it? Just accept that it’s explained in earlier issues from this series. Hickman does a hell of a job keeping all this information relevant and interesting without it simply going over readers’ heads. Anywho, back to the story. So we see this alternate Illuminati group fight for their universe’s survival at the brink of an incursion point. Let’s save the spoilers for the bottom of this. Also, Dr. Strange is seen removed from the story and in deep meditation as he reads from a blood bible… how will this play into the bigger storyline and will his presence be missed? Ultimately this issue sets up the tone for this series in its follow-up from the Infinity stories. Looks like our Illuminati will have their hands full fighting for our Earth’s survival, and Hickman is setting up another bold storyline post-Infinity. As far as the artwork, the word muddy comes to mind. A lot of the characters seem poorly defined and emotionless in the conservative, simple panels. I suppose the Inhumanity tie-in readers are supposed to absorb from this story is that the dropping of the Terrigen bomb and revealing all the Inhumans around the world (which occurred during Infinity) may possibly be the incursion point for our Earth. Definitely worth following up to see where Hickman takes this story. Deanpool says 8/10 for seeing old heroes and setting up an interesting post-Infinity storyline.

Spoiler: Stop reading here if you decide to read for yourself! So we see the alternate Illuminati doing everything they can to stop the invasion coming from the Earth that is crashing towards them. And this is our introduction to the Black Priests. Similar to the Avengers’ introducing the creators and engineers of the universe, these Black Priests are some ancient world-traveling group/species. Despite their best efforts from this All-Star Illuminati group, they are obliterated by a mere chant from this group of priests. Not sure what our Illuminati can cook up to fight off this group, who made it clear that they’re goal is to destroy all Earths. Did we mention that with the help of a character named Black Swan, who is somehow an expert on these incursion points and the Marvel multiverse, the New Avengers were able to construct a machine that allows them to look into other universes. So yeah, they witnessed the destruction of this alternate Illuminati group and the rest of that planet Earth.

How will our New Avengers stop the Black Priests?

Guardians of the Galaxy #10- 

Arguably two of the deadliest females in Marvel.

With all the hype behind, the upcoming Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy, this was easy choice for a new series to follow from Marvel and it has been consistently pretty good throughout the first 10 issues. If you’re curious about what to expect from the movie this summer, this is definitely a great way to get exposed to the team and what they’re all about. You can guess from the looks of it, they’re Marvel’s sci-fi adventure team, so this can easily attract fans of Star Wars and/or Star Trek. Also, there’s a talking raccoon that carries big-ass guns. Now you have to pick up these issues. But this issue is basically an issue dedicated to the two female characters of this series, Angela and Gamora, kicking ass. For the record, Angela actually isn’t apart of the original team, but has been helping the team since her sudden arrival in the Marvel universe. The hunter/warrior supposedly cam because of a time-space continuum accident and is now trying to find her place in the galaxy. With some playful dialogue between the two in the beginning, they spend the rest of the issue attacking the alien planet Moord, homeword of the Badoon, with the purpose of a) finding out where Thanos has hidden post-Infinity, b) freeing those enslaved on the planet, and c) Deanpool is pretty sure it was just fun for them.

Before the action started.

Overall, it’s a great artistic issue for Kevin Maguire. Lots of action, and Maguire shows off his talent on every page and even the characters and their expressions are done well too. Sorry couldn't decide on a picture to show off the action panels, just trust Deanpool and pick up the issue for yourself! Bendis (who was the writer of one of Deanpool’s favorite Avengers run) had fun with some of the dialogue towards the beginning but really let the art and action tell the story. At the end we see the rest of the Guardians join the party and escort the slaves out of the city. Wouldn’t consider it a standalone as we see one of the aliens reveal that there was some sort of agreement between the Badoons and “Angela’s people.” Angela is already lost enough as it is with no recollection of how she arrived in this galaxy or where she’s even from, so you can imagine her “over-eagerness” (she killed the alien while interrogating) when she thought she might finally have a lead on where she’s from. Will this start a story into the origins of Angela and why she was brought to the Marvel universe? Or will the continue their search for Thanos (as one Badoon claimed he was still on Earth)? This series really has been solid and the action scenes were very fluid. Add the funny scenes where Angela and Gamora continue their conversations mid-fight and you get a pleasant action-filled issue that’s fun to look at and fun to read. It also takes home this week’s Pick of the Week and a rating from Deanpool of 8.5/10.

Next Weekly Pick-Ups has a lot of comic issues coming out so we'll see how Deanpool decides to review them. But stay tuned for those and check out what the Comic-Cave is doing this month!

Because we didn't see enough Rocket Raccoon in this month's Guardians of the Galaxy.