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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 6/7/14

Happy Birthday, mom! If it wasn’t for you, mom, none of us would be here today reading a bunch of comic book reviews. So I think we can all thank her for that. I’ll probably give her a phone call later, just to make it official. But the great thing about having a blog is using it to talk to family members! I have more conversations with my brother via the comments section of my blog than I do through any other means. Good times.

And good comics – mostly! A random smattering of books came out this week, and I read an even more random smattering of that random smattering. Of import is the fact that I finally got back to reading Black Widow and Moon Knight, two new books I didn’t want to lose track of if I could help it. On top of those classics, we’ve got new issues of All-New X-Factor, Batman Eternal and Original Sin…which is turning out to be pretty much garbage. Hopefully this will mark the death knell of the Big Event at Marvel.

Comic Book of the Week goes to newcomer Cyclops #2! I never had much intention of reading the new series starring Young Cyclops, but after the first issue got such stellar reviews, I just had to take a look, and the book is as good as everyone says!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Cyclops is the most dynamic character at Marvel right now.

Comic Reviews: All-New X-Factor #9, Batman Eternal #9, Black Widow #7, Cyclops #2, Moon Knight #4 and Original Sin #3.

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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 5/24/14

I don’t know about you guys and gals, but I’m still too broken up about the Edgar Wright/Ant-Man news! He was supposed to be the Chosen One! Talk about a bad way to start Memorial Day weekend. Fortunately, I wrote these reviews before I heard the news, so let’s get right to them, shall we?!

The biggest deal this week was the finale of Forever Evil…but the delays definitely hurt the book. I feel it kind of limped across the finish line, overfilling the issue with ‘cool moments’ to try and compensate. Fortunately, the Justice League follow-up was much better. On the Marvel side of things, we’ve got the second issue of Original Sin! Or what I like to call, issue #1.5. Yeah.

Much more fortunately, I snagged a copy of Lumberjanes #2 in time to review it, so that’s exciting! And Comic of the Week goes to Uncanny X-Men #21, especially for its awesome handling of Magneto and Blob!

The bromance is over

Comic Reviews: All-New X-Factor #8, Amazing Spider-Man #2, Batman Eternal #7, Forever Evil #7, Justice League #30, Lumberjanes #2, Original Sin #2, Sinestro #2, Uncanny X-Men #21.

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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 5/10/14

It is with a heavy heart that I announce that I am throwing in the towel of doing full, giant-sized reviews of All-New X-Factor. I got hit with a lot of work at the end of this week, including those reviews of Teen Titans and Ultimate Spider-Man, and I took a long hard look at All-New X-Factor and decided that I just didn’t care enough anymore. I started the long-form reviews for X-Factor because it was my favorite comic starring my favorite character, but it has since become a shadow of its former self.

So from now on, let’s welcome All-New X-Factor to our Hench-Sized Reviews! I hope it finds the place a nice fit.

Beyond that new issue, this week brought an avalanche of good comics, some of which I had to simply skip right over due to time constraints. I really want to get back to reviewing Black Widow, and She-Hulk was really good again, but this week I had to focus on the first chapters of Original Sin and Futures End, the new Big Event comics from Marvel and DC.

Neither one is all that great, quite frankly.

Comic Book of the Week goes to Magneto #3, though I have a feeling that some of the comics still on my pile waiting to be read might be a little better. Still, out of the stack I managed to get done in time for reviews, Magneto was pretty cool.

Plus he’s got that starring role coming up in X-Men: Days of Future Past. So I want to be on his good side.

Comic Reviews: All-New X-Factor #7, Aquaman and the Others #2, Batman Eternal #5, Futures End #1, Iron Fist: The Living Weapon #2, Magneto #3 and Original Sin #1.

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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 4/26/14

This is the week of zero issues, apparently! All of the cool kids are starting off their new comic books with an issue #0 instead of the traditional #1. Because who needs tradition, amiright? Besides, ‘zero’ starts with a ‘Z’, so that makes it cooler already.

We’ve got both Justice League United #0, the start off the next Justice League spin-off , and Original Sin #0, a prologue to this Summer’s Big Event from Marvel. Original Sin actually makes for a nice little prologue, while this #0 issue of Justice League United actually reads like a #1 issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if Justice League United #1 just picks right up from where #0 left off.

So what was the point?

Beyond those zero books, we’ve got new issues of Aquaman, Fantastic Four and Batman Eternal, which continues its efforts to drive me insane. I also decided to jump back into Red Lanterns, which was a good choice, because Red Lanterns #30 wins Comic Book of the Week! Though, admittedly, there wasn’t much released this week.

Comic Reviews: Aquaman #30, Batman Eternal #3, Fantastic Four #3, Justice League United #0, Original Sin #0 and Red Lanterns #30.

You can also check out my review for Elektra #1 at Word of the Nerd!

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Next Marvel Big Event Comic Kills the Watcher!

The next Big Event comic from Marvel has been revealed as Original Sin, a story where the Watcher is killed and all of the dirt he’s been gathering on the heroes of the Marvel Universe leaks out.

Because of course the Watcher can be killed by a gun to the head

Sounds like a neat idea to me, I suppose.

Original Sin will be 8 issues long over the course of four months, starting in May. It will be written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Mike Deodato, and I’m a fan of both of those guys.

According to the article on USA Today, the story will be about Nick Fury putting together a team to solve the murder mystery, consisting of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and a few others. Meanwhile, another group will conduct their own investigation (for some reason), and that group will consist of Punisher, Doctor Strange, Emma Frost, Ant-Man and Black Panther. I like the second group more already.

Here’s what Tom Brevoort has to say about the whole thing:

“It’s all the skeletons, all the dark things that you never know, all the interesting and intriguing information — not all of it even bad. And it will all expand out into dozens of stories that will cut to the core of who these characters are.”

So yeah, that’s the next Big Event comic. Sounds like a solid story, I suppose. And they say it’s going to be more personal than Infinity, so that’s good. Plus now I’m dying to see the team of Punisher, Doc Strange, Emma Frost, Ant-Man and Black Panther. That’s going to be the bee’s knees!

Unless, of course, it’s just an excuse to retcon a bunch of stupid, ‘controversial’ secrets into some of these characters’ lives. That just sounds terrible.