My relationship with comics is so weird these days. I’m loving pretty much everything DC is putting out, I’m very very lukewarm on anything Marvel is attempting, and I’ve all but given up on the Energon Universe. I’ve got a vacation coming up, and I think I’m gonna try to get caught up on all the comics I’ve let fall to the wayside so that I have more review options. Anyway, here’s Captain America and the Ultimate Spider-Man finale.

Comic Book of the Week goes to Absolute Batman #17, which delivers another absolute banger as it introduces Absolute Poison Ivy.

Meanwhile, I finally finished Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. It was a solid, enjoyable RPG that wasn’t as deep as I might have preferred, but it was a fun play. Now I’m on the search for my next game to play, and I don’t want to spend much money…I’m also rewatching all of Star Trek: Lower Decks to finish my recent Trek binge. The show absolutely and wonderfully holds up. I hope to see these characters again someday.

Comic Reviews: Absolute Batman #17, Captain America #7, Ultimate Spider-Man #24, Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon #1 and Wonder Woman #30.

Absolute Batman #17
Writer: Scott Snyder
Artist: Eric Canete
Colorist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Clayton Cowles

Here comes Absolute Poison Ivy!

This issue jumps around through a lot of different stories. The main story is Batman fighting his way up through a building that has been taken over by Poison Ivy’s plant/hybrid biome. Batman fights through all sorts of different plant/hybrid monsters, with Alfred in his ear, until he reaches the time and faces off against Absolute Poison Ivy, who is a real trip. Meanwhile, we get flashbacks to Ivy’s origin as a biologist trying to cure her mother’s illness (cancer?) and the lengths she went to try, only to be cut down. We also get flashbacks to a week prior, as we see Bruce Wayne tr to stay in touch with his friends and allies, while also grappling with Batman’s new, post-Bane impact on the city…as well as how other characters are reacting, like Harley Quinn and Dick Grayson.

Also, Martha Wayne has a secret…

Comic Rating: 9/10 – Great.

Another great introduction to a classic Batman rogue! The issue was a little jarring in how it jumped around so much to the different storylines, but they were all important to the ongoing narrative, and they all worked to move the story forward. The assault on Poison Ivy’s tower is the main focus, and it’s pretty damn awesome, in all the ways Absolute Batman has set itself to be. There’s action, humor, humanity, growing stakes and the big reveal of just how gnarly and wild this new take on Poison Ivy is at her roots (pun intended). She’s wild, y’all, and fits perfectly with this comic. Her origin story is also solid. I like that she’s not just plants, she’s spliced herself (or something) with DNA from all kingdoms of creature. It’s a good take. And I liked how Snyder and Canete teased us with the sexy Poison Ivy we’re familiar with before going wild with the real reveal. That was a nice touch.

The rest of the issue was great, too. It’s important that we see Bruce Wayne’s personal life, because he’s just as important as Batman. I liked reading how he’s reacting to Batman’s impact on the city, how they’re making merchandise and rallying behind him. Everything is still very focused on his other friends, and that’s a slow burn, and I’m confident that will all pay off in the long run. It’s nice seeing all the ways Bruce remains human. And then this issue also throws in a bunch of teases going forward. Harley Quinn will still be a factor, her organization changed by working with Batman. Dick Grayson is going to blow up in a big way, with issue #20 teased as the Robin issue. And then Martha’s secret is, ultimately, not surprising in the grand scheme of things, but definitely a worthwhile addition to this ongoing series.

It will be rather neat to see Snyder redo his own Court of Owls concept.

TL;DR: Absolute Poison Ivy arrives with all the flair and madness of all the other Rogues Gallery reveals, in a jam-packed issue that effortlessly balances Batman action, character backstory and Bruce Wayne character building.

Captain America #7
Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artists: Delio Diaz and Frank Alpizar
Colorist: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna

I think I’m gonna try to stick with Captain America. I’m vaguely interested in this upcoming Armageddon crossover…but then I’m not reading the other titles connected.

After Fury gets Red Hulk to back down because of his insider knowledge of U.S. operations, Captain America and the new SHIELD head to Castle Doom to try to recover any weapons. They’re greeted by Salvation, leader of the True Latverians, and current head of state. Turns out he’s the rebel leader from the first story arc. Various scenes happen and various people have conversations and we learn a bunch about the True Latverians, the Latverian Liberators and the Homeland Party. Buncha people rushing to fill the power vacuum. One of them, Alina, comes to Cap for aid and reveals a startling secret!

Comic Rating: 6/10 – Pretty Good.

This issue is just really dry. It’s a whole issue spent talking dryly about politics without getting into the nitty gritty that might make that interesting. The Red Hulk confrontation is settled immediately with jurisdictional hand-wringing, and then we spend the rest of the issue being told about the various political parties…but I couldn’t tell you anything that makes them unique. And none of them do anything in this issue other than talk, so it’s not like we get a really strong look at who is gonna be a dictator and who wants free and open democracy, because talk is cheap. So I’m not solidly built into the overall story of Latveria at this point.

It also doesn’t help that the new SHIELD remains pretty bland. Fury Jr. remains such a try-hard character, and him walking around like a fashionista doesn’t help. And then the trio of new SHIELD agents are barely characters. They’re in this issue, and they have dialogue, but they don’t really add anything to the story and they don’t really work as foils for Captain America either. They’re as generic as the special ops soldiers that rounded out the squad in the first storyline. So they don’t add anything to the story, and the setting doesn’t add anything to the story. It’s just Captain America going around talking vague politics with people.

TL;DR: Very dry issue that attempts to start filling in all the political strife that’s going on in the story, without making any of it particularly exciting.

Ultimate Spider-Man #24
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artists: Marco Checchetto and David Messina
Colorist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit

It’s probably not fair of me to review this final issue of Ultimate Spider-Man, considering how completely I’ve given up on the new Ultimate Universe. But it’s the final issue, so what the heck.

Spider-Man fights Kingpin for all the marbles, while his son and Black Cat try to plug a security device into the Kingpin’s security system, and while Ben and Jonah expose Kingpin for all his criminal activity. Suffice to say, the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and we get a deep look into what makes this version of Spider-Man tick. It has a lot to do with his awesome, supportive relationship to Mary Jane.

Comic Rating: 7/10 – Good.

As far as I’m concerned, all of the wind is out of the sails on the Ultimate Universe. I think Ultimate Spider-Man got too complicated, and focused too much on everybody other than Peter Parker, and that really brought it down. This issue features a lot of Spider-Man and Peter, and I did enjoy the bits where he and Mary Jane connect, but the rest of the issue felt pretty rote. Spidey has a big fight with Kingpin, in which they argue the nature of good and evil, or some such. He wins with a magic device that was introduced this issue…or he doesn’t win, because he rushes off to save his son, who manages to save the day on his own. I dunno. Nothing that happened in this final issue confrontation felt like the series was building to this. Second Ultimate Spider-Man is not going to go down in any history books as a grand, interesting or memorable take on the character, I’m afraid.

I think the universe was just too damn complicated. And then the storytelling linked itself to that time jump concept, where every issue was a month into the future. That really hamstringed it. The comparison to the Absolute Universe is obvious. That universe may have been created by Darkseid, but that doesn’t impact the stories at all. Whereas this Second Ultimate Universe is set in some weird world where governments and heroes and countries are redefined on the whims of The Marker, who I’ve never felt was all that interesting of a villain in the first place. But I suppose none of that really affects this final issue, since it’s really just focused on the interpersonal relationships between the heroes and the villains, mostly. Richard Parker and Black Cat just fight some vague nanobot security system. And Harry, who has been a real focus of the series, is mostly off to the side.

I dunno. The issue jumbles a lot of plot threads together, ties them all up nicely enough by the end, and delivers a solid testament to the strength of this Peter Parker and this Mary Jane, and then promptly ends, having accomplished nothing of note in the bigger picture.

TL;DR: Ultimate Spider-Man comes to a nice little ending that ultimately doesn’t feel like it matters all that much to anything.

Shorter Reviews:

Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Luca Maresca, Jesus Aburtov and VC’s Joe Sabino

I heard this builds into Armageddon (obviously), so I decided to give it a shot. It’s a fine little Wolverine story setting up a fine little Wolverine adventure. There’s hints of Weapon X. Nuke shows up, because he’s part of all this. There’s some new young mutant that some scientists are trying to turn into a new Wolverine…and for a second, I thought he was Jimmy Hudson, from the original Ultimate Universe, who I’m pretty sure was transported into the mainline 616? I dunno. It’s mostly all set up, with a solidly written Wolverine, but it’s also all a bit dry, like Zdarsky’s Captain America. At least David Colton shows up in the end, and he’s a character I’m very excited about moving forward.

Wonder Woman #30 by Stephanie Williams, Jeff Spokes and Clayton Cowles

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to this issue, especially not as a second part to the previous issue. Last time, everybody was at each other’s throats due to Strife, and they figured that out in the end…but in this issue, they pretty much stay at each other’s throats. Then Wonder Woman shows up and reminds them all that friendship is magic, and they all just get over it. So just not a lot of meat on this bone, in my opinion. I would have loved a more relaxed pair of issues, to really flesh out what Paradise Island is like in peacetime. Tom King recently said that DC pushed back hard against his two-part Double Date issues of Batman, but they were some of the best in recent years. An R&R issue of Wonder Woman, in which Diana engages in the spa, and the Wonder Girls and Amazons try to babysit, would have been really wonderful, I think. Baby’s Day Out on Themyscira, perhaps?

The comics I review in my Hench-Sized reviews are just the usual comics I grab from Comixology any given week, along with a few impulse buys I might try on a whim. So if there are any comics or series you’d like me to review each week, let me know in the comments.

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