Category Archives: Avengers
Age of Ultron Will Make Us All Believe Again
Believe that Brian Michael Bendis can write a good Event Comic, that is. Marvel and Bendis finally got around to revealing the worst kept secret in comics: that his time on the Avengers will end next year with a 10-part Age of Ultron!
In good news, Bryan Hitch will be drawing the first half. And Bryan Hitch is amazing.
So basically, based on this interview, Age of Ultron is a story where the evil robot Ultron finally achieves world domination. Pretty fun, right? And from what I can tell, a few heroes like Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Moon Knight (of all people) are left to figure out how to save the day. Because Bendis absolutely loves Moon Knight, even though he couldn’t get his Moon Knight comic series to sell. The series is going to ship between March and June next year, so another quick event, similar to Avengers vs. X-Men. This is a smart way to do it. We don’t want Event Fatigue.
Bendis is definitely excited about it.
“I couldn’t be more excited for this book to hit the stands,” Bendis says. “Literally not a day has gone by that people haven’t asked me about this online. I know that people are looking forward to this, and have voiced so to me, so to finally debut it, and for it to be, I imagine, much more than people thought it was going to be, is very exciting for us. It takes one of Marvel’s classic villains to a level we’ve never seen before, and it pushes our Marvel heroes into a place that they’ve never been before, and gets us to a place in the Marvel Universe that you won’t be able to guess.”
Personally, I’m luke warm about this idea. I’ve never been a particularly big fan of Ultron, and he was already the major villain in Annihilation: Conquest a few years ago. He was defeated then too. However, considering how lame the Serpent turned out to be in Fear Itself, perhaps going with a known villain as the big bad is a smart way to go. Plus it’ll be a relief to have the heroes fighting a super-villain for once, instead of each other.
I’m also not a big fan of Bendis’ events. House of M, Seige and especially Secret Invasion were bollocks. They all basically amount to a lot of pointless build up, all leading to just a giant fight at the end where somebody shouts ‘Avengers Assemble!’ That’s how it always goes. So I don’t have much faith in him to pull this off.
But I can hope…
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 11/17/12
AvX: Consequences has been cleaning up as the best comic of the week in all the initial Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews, but DC Comics isn’t about to give up just yet. They launched an onslaught of Batman titles this week (at least 2), playing into their revitalized Joker. Was I impressed? Maybe. Has it changed my opinion at all about the Joker? Well you’ll just have to read on to see. Suffice to say, Batman #14 earns the title of Comic Book of the Week! But don’t count Marvel out completely. They launch new X-Men and Thor comics, possibly for the better. And believe you me, the new Thor may be the best Marvel NOW! has to offer so far!
Comic Reviews: All-New X-Men #1, Amazing Spider-Man #697, Batman #14, Batman and Robin #14, Thor: God of Thunder #1 and Wolverine and the X-Men #20.
The Captain American Sequel Has Made a Good Choice for Its Villain
The man who killed Captain America has been cast as the villain in Captain America: Winter Soldier. The villainous mercenary Crossbones will be played by Frank Grillo, who I’ve never heard of.
I think this is an awesome choice of villain! If you’ve been reading Captain America over the past few years, especially around the time he was killed after Civil War, then you know just how badass and mencing Crossbones can be. He’s a big, tough, brickhouse of a man, with a truly sinister mask. And best of all, he doesn’t have some silly superhero costume. He dresses like a badass mercenary, a perfect fit in the more realistic-looking Marvel Movieverse. Crossbones could be a really gritty foe, able to get up close and personal in a fight with Cap, which is just what the next movie needs.
As for Frank Grillo, I have no idea. Apparently he’s appeared in stuff like The Grey and End of Watch, but I haven’t seen either. Does anybody have any idea whether or not Grillo would be good in the role?
For those of you who don’t know, the Winter Solder is actually Captain America’s sidekick, Bucky, who we all saw was killed in the first movie when he fell into that gorge. But as any comics fan will tell you: if there’s no body, he’s not dead. In the comics, Bucky’s body was recovered by the Soviets, and they turned him into a mind-controlled assassin. The name ‘Winter Soldier’ comes from the fact that they would put him in cryogenic freezing between missions, and unfreeze him every few years to kill somebody. This kept Bucky relatively young, and allows him to reappear in the modern day without being an 80-year-old geezer.
So if the new Captain America sequel follows the comic, we can bet that Bucky is going to be re-awakened in the modern day to face Captain America. In the comics, Bucky was woken up by the Red Skull, who was working with his henchman Crossbones and his daughter Sin. This was all part of a plot to destroy Cap, which included his assassination. Crossbones killed Cap with a sniper bullet on federal courthouse steps after Captain America was taken into custody following the superhero Civil War. Long story.
But with Crossbones now cast in the film, do you think we might see the death of Captain America? Or something similar?
And do you think Crossbones could carry a movie by himself? He’ll definitely be aided by the Winter Soldier, most likely. There’s been no word on whether or not the Red Skull would return, but actor Hugo Weaving has gone on record as saying he has no interest in returning to the role. I think that’s pretty much garbage, but then I have little patience for actors who consider themselves better than their roles.
Honestly though, I don’t even want the Red Skull to return for the sequel. He had his go, and definitely fit better when he could be surrounded by actual Nazis in World War II. Captain America is in the modern world now, and he should deal with modern problems. Leave the past in the past. He should face problems list terrorism and mercenary violence, so I think Crossbones is a great choice for the villain in Captain America: Winter Soldier.
What do you guys and girls think? Let me know in the comments!
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews
I’ve been wanting to do this style of comic book review for a long time, but I never end up reading all my new comics before the weekend. However, I’ve got some time on Wednesdays now, so I really want to start. My long reviews take awhile to write, and I can’t do one for every comic I read. So from this week forward (hopefully), I’ll be providing some shorter, quicker reviews on the week’s new comics.
I buy a large smattering of comics across both DC and Marvel, and a few Indy titles. If there is any comic you’d like me to review, let me know via e-mail or in the comments.
Let’s begin!
Amazing Spider-Man #696
Writer: Dan Slott & Christos Gage
Artist: Giuseppe Camuncoli
Phil Urich is one of my all-time favorite comic book characters. His brief series as the good Green Goblin in the 90s was the first comic book series that I ever bought and read with my own money. So of course his transformation into the villainous, perverted Hobgoblin was sad. I preferred him as a down-on-his-luck hero. But with a character as minor and obscure as Phil, I’ve mostly just been grateful that he’s even appearing anywhere. So I’ve been following his career as the new Hobgoblin, and it comes to a head in this issue, as original Hobgoblin, Roderick Kingsley, returns to New York City to crush Phil for good – and, of course, Spider-Man is caught in the middle.
I’ve mostly been enjoying Slott’s Amazing Spider-Man run. He brings a light-hearted feel to the wall-crawler, with brightly colored adventures and really personal stories. This one is no different. Peter Parker has just been outed as the man who builds all of Spider-Man’s gadgets at Horizon Labs, so the Hobgoblin kidnaps Peter for the Kingpin. They want to hold him hostage so that Spider-Man will turn over a special briefcase he’s holding, little knowing that Peter actually is Spider-Man. So it’s up to Peter’s boss, Max Modell, to bring the briefcase in an attempt to free Peter. But just as the exchange is about to go down, Roderick Kingsley attacks, determined to kill Phil.
In the chaos of the Hobgoblin War, Peter and Max escape with the briefcase – which holds a key to Norman Osborn’s entire Goblin arsenal!
Comic rating: 4/5: Good!
This was a fun adventure, and your typical Peter Parker in trouble story. The Hobgoblin War idea is pretty cool, as the characters look absolutely wicked under Camuncoli’s pencils. Seeing them battle is the highlight of the issue. Orange is always a great color for super-villains. I’m hoping Phil puts up a fight, and the idea that Roderick is threatening Phil’s girlfriend might bring some heroism out of Phil. One can hope. The Peter action was fun as he pulled off some web-slinging skill, while simultaneously trying to keep Max from deducing the truth. So yeah, entertaining story, fun characters and the hope that one of my all-time favorite comic book characters gets to shine.
Join me after the jump for more! Including AvX: Consequences, Batman Incorporated, Invincible Iron Man, Talon and Wolverine MAX!
6 Best and 6 Worst Male Superhero Halloween Costumes
We are living in a golden age of dressing up as a superhero for Halloween. The success of the superhero film industry has made them the #1 choice for any Halloween party-goer or trick-or-treater. Heck, The Dark Knight alone had to have raised the Joker costume quotient by 2,000%! And I would hope to see a ton of Avengers costumes this year.
I did a List of Six last year about the best and worst female superhero costumes, and it’s been a pretty popular list this fall. So I decided to revisit the idea and do a list of the best and worst male superhero costumes. Being the nerd that I am, the list is based on two things: costume quality and accuracy. This isn’t about the most popular costumes. The girls’ list was also judged on sluttiness, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for men. Superheroes should be an obvious Halloween costume, because the heroes are wearing costumes themselves. So one would think that designing a Halloween costume should involve just recreating the superhero’s costume as accurately as possible.
Apparently not. But sometimes they get it right. All of these costumes were found online available for sale.







