This week was a pretty big week…well, at least in terms of charges to my credit card. My total bill come out pretty close to $40 and, strangely enough, didn’t include any trades or graphic novels at all. An unusal thing for sure because I almost always find some sort of higher priced book to pick up.
1. Secret Invasion #2
2. Mighty Avengers #13
3. Conan #50
4. Rann-Thanagar Holy War #1
5. Avengers-Invaders #1
6. War That Time Forgot #1
7. American Dream #1
With that out of the way, let’s get on to the comic reviews!
At the top of my list and soon at the bottom of my trashcan, Secret Invasion #2 by Brian Michael Bendis and Lenil Francis Yu. Lenil’s artwork on the series continues to be flat, uneven and very awkward. I’m not sure what Marvel was thinking by hiring him to draw a book where multiple versions of characters are appearing in and out of costume because everyone he draws looks the same. It doesn’t help that Yu isn’t the strongest storyteller around as the book quickly becomes very confusing — I’d go so far as to call it unreadable.
Speaking of storytelling, have I warmed up to the series after 2 issues? Not at all. The crossover “event” seems to be nothing more than Marvel attempting to fix a lot of its character and continuity mistakes and missteps over the past 10 years. Truthfully, they’re forgetting about their biggest mistake of all…putting Joe Quesada in charge as editor-in-chief. Of course, allowing Bendis to come on board as a writer is a very close second. Hopefully we’ll eventually find out everyone is a skrull and pretend none of it ever happened.
Secret Invasion has replaced Secret Wars 2 as my nominee for worst company crossover of all time. It’s nice to see Marvel finally answering the question of how badly one company can fuck itself up. Read More »
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Iron Man
10. Punisher - Capcom (1993): Easily one of the coolest arcade side-scrollers produced by Capcom, the Punisher was built around game play similar to that of the Final Fight series and Capcom’s other comic book arcade release at the time, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs. In this arcade gem, you were able to play either the Punisher or a cigar-smoking Nick Fury as you fought your way through six levels of mayhem and destruction. Wielding guns, knives, swords, bats and grenades, you encountered faces familiar from the pages of Marvel Comics, including Bushwacker, Bone Breaker and the Kingpin…oh, and don’t forget a whole gaggle of canon-fodder goons, thugs and ninjas. 
If you were a kid in the 80s, then you were following the battle between two of the world’s super powers at the time. No, I’m not referring to the US versus the Soviet Union. There was something BIGGER going on and it threatened to tear families and friendships apart even more than the US Civil War. That’s right, I’m talking about the battle between the two greatest shape-shifting robots ever created - the Trainsformers and the GoBots. 
If you were a fan of robot toys in the 80s then 1984 has got to have been one of the greatest years of your life. In 1984 both the Gobots and the Transformers both made their way to toyshelves across the US and I for one experienced my first erection. Although I enjoyed both lines of toys, I had an immediate preference for the Transformers from the very beginning. Their good guy vs bad guy branding and statistic cards on the back of the toy packaging reminded me of the GI Joe figures I was already buying and made me feel like I was taking part in some storyline greater than myself. To me, the Gobots were cheap and nowhere near as cool. 
First up, Mighty Avengers #12 by Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev. I am a regular reader of the Mighty Avengers, in spite of it being a fairly poorly written book, and I have to say this new issue confused me. I say this because as I read the issue I kept flipping back to the cover to make sure it was an issue of the Mighty Avengers and not its companion book, the New Avengers. Bendis must have been confused himself as he wrote the book because it features not a single member of the Mighty Avengers, and focuses almost completely on the renegade team and Nick Fury. This book is even worse than regular Marvel books which require you to have read every previous issue of a book for the past 5 years…this book requires that you have read every issue of some other series. Marvel really needs to get rid of Brian Bendis if they want to open their books up to new readers…or open the books up to good writing. 
Nothing is more satisfying than standing at an arcade cabinet and playing a video game. Unfortunately, while the old-school games are fairly cheap to get (anywhere from $100 up to $2500 or so, depending on the game), the full-sized cabinets take up a lot of space and, if you’re like me, most homes don’t have enough room for every game you want to get.
Hollywood’s latest sex scandal may turn out to be one of its oldest. That’s right, a 15 minute, 16mm reel of film has been uncovered which shows Marilyn Monroe administering some oral-loving on an unknown man whose face was just off camera. In the early 60s, J Edgar Hoover spent weeks trying to proove the unknown man was either John F Kennedy or Robert Kennedy. Whoever it was, I have to give him props…if it had been me in the reel, the footage would only have been about a minute and a half long.
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