Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 12/8/12
Not much out of DC Comics this week, but not to worry, Marvel has us more than covered with another seemingly weekly chapter of All-New X-Men and the brand new adjectiveless Avengers #1! Considering how popular Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four run has become, I was actually kind of excited to see what he could do with the Avengers. Sadly, that excitement turned into a whole lot of apathy once I actually read the title. Similar to my reaction to his very popular S.H.I.E.L.D. series. Maybe I just don’t get Hickman. He’s got some wild ideas, but I’ve never been overly impressed. We also get the debut of the new Thunderbolts series and the final issue of Amazing Spider-Man before the big #700. And I still don’t know what’s going to happen?
All-New X-Men rises to the occasion to become Comic Book of the Week, but there are some nice moments in the new Avengers. Including one great one with Bruce Banner.
Indeed, now comes the punch and pie
Comic Reviews: All-New X-Men #3, Amazing Spider-Man #699, Avengers #1, Hawkeye #5 and Thunderbolts #1.
Bane Has Never Been More Fun
Just a bit of silliness to start your Saturday. I loved Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. That voice is just so much fun. This video was brought to us by the Auralnauts.
The Best Dragonball Z Fan Film Ever!
And that’s not just hyperbole. I’d like to see anyone else – including Hollywood – make one better than this. These fans are the real deal.
That is impressive work. The costumes, the acting, the looks. I love that Vegeta seems to be wearing a painted cycling chest guard. Everything is just so well done. I mean, it’s clearly an amateur job, but there is a lot of heart behind it. Plus Tien, my favorite character, gets some awesome scenes. This is what true geekery is about, people. The film was made by K8K Productions out of England. Kudos to them.
Review: X-Factor #248
All of the character-focused issues are over as Peter David takes us full speed into the Hell on Earth War…and it’s rather disappointing. If this issue is any indication of the type of story we can expect for Hell on Earth War, it’s going to be a long, dull trip. The dialogue and jokes are flat and lifeless, the art is flat for an entirely different reason, and the story itself is a whole mess of uninteresting vagueness. There is very little organization when it comes to established demons and Hell in the Marvel Universe. So Peter David is free to just make up whatever craziness he wants, and he definitely does. Nothing that we’ve seen so far about this story points to any sort of cohesion, and this issue is filled with more general evil fluff. PAD also hasn’t explained what any of this has to do with X-Factor!
X-Factor #248
The issue is competently put together, but the new story just isn’t coming together in any way that I find interesting. PAD has apparently been working on this story for more than a decade, but if that’s the case, he clearly didn’t plan it out too well.
Comic rating: 2/5: Bad.
Despite X-Factor being one of my favorite comic books, I’ve always had a problem with how PAD tries to drop hints or clues about what is to come. He’s terrible at it. For almost the entire length of the series, he’s been dropping hints about the true nature of Multiple Man’s powers. But that’s all he does with it. Somebody somewhere will mention how his powers don’t make sense, and that’s it. There’s no sense of the mystery growing or getting closer to an answer. Likewise, he’s been doing the same thing with the Hell on Earth War. There’s no sense that this is actually building to something interesting. It’s just random characters making vague comments about something else going on behind the scenes. To make a really good tease, you’ve got to actually reveal something, and then sparse out those reveals over a period of time. There’s got to be a sense that this is going somewhere and will amount to something.
And that is absolutely not the case with this Hell on Earth War. I’m not even sure if all the cryptic hints we’ve been given over the past year or so even have to do with Hell on Earth! Is this what the elder Tryp has been babbling about in his various appearances? What about that brief scene with the Isolationist? I know the past few issues have featured characters claiming that “X-Factor would fall”, but what does that even mean in this context? They’re a loosely organized team of X-Men spin-offs who stick together because they feel like it. Having them “fall” isn’t really going to ruin much. And why X-Factor? What do they have to do with demons or Hell or anything like that? Why not the Avengers? Why not the X-Men? Why not the Defenders or the Darkholde Redeemers?
This issue fails because PAD spends a lot of time acting like all his teases and hints have been leading towards something awesome – which they haven’t – and the rest of the time with the characters making terrible banter and awkward, uncomfortable jokes. He also wastes that awesome Monet cover by having it be Pip in Monet’s body. Monet is a far more interesting and entertaining character than Pip, but PAD spends a good portion of this issue on Pip. The character is not nearly as interesting as he seems to think. And we’re worse off because of it.
Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review!
