Pull List Review: Zeroes and Heroes

Sorry I'm late! I was hoping to be farther along in Dishonored for tomorrow's post and forgot about Monday's! As it stands, you're getting the rest of my Pull List Review, in which I tell you how I dropped some issues and will be picking at least one up to replace it...

Red Hood and the Outlaws #0 This issue is the back story of Jason Todd. It's not particularly different from the previous DC Universe -- Jason lost his scummy parents early on, became a thief, and was eventually recruited by Batman, only to die at the hands of the Joker. A trip to the Lazarus Pit revived him, and now we have the Red Hood. The interesting part in this issue came in a mini chapter at the end of the issue, where it is revealed that Joker had a hand in every individual part of Jason's life that led up to his parents dying and him meeting Batman and becoming Robin (and dying). I believe that's a new spin, though not particularly interesting (to me). Unfortunately, this issue was all Jason all the time. I read this book for Jason, Arsenal, and Starfire. So this gets a 6/10. Art was fine, story ok, but I'm already tired of DC rehashing old tales.
Teen Titans #0 Similar to the above, this issue was all about an ex-Batman sidekick! It focused on Tim Drake and his obsession with Batman, which eventually leads to him working with the caped crusader. It was mildly interesting due to my lack of familiarity with the character, but that's about it. My problem with the issue is the way they "solve" the time gap where Tim should have been Robin -- he never becomes Robin! He takes on the moniker of "Red Robin" upon inception, weakening the character development and leaving me to wonder if he immediately left Batman to form the Titans, or if Bats really partnered with a Red Robin for a bit... 6/10, and I'm really not liking #0s. And I haven't been enjoying Teen Titans for a bit now. It is officially being dropped as of this issue, though I'll keep an eye on the series to see if it perks up.
Batman #0 This is an early adventure of Bruce Wayne (pre-cowl) attempting to apprehend the Red Hood (Joker's first moniker, not Jason Todd) and his gang. It shows Bruce being excessively sloppy and doesn't do much as a background issue. Funnily enough, it is also "to be continued" in such a way that there should be a direct sequel. Which I guess would make... issue 1/2? Didn't Thunderbolts pull something like this? 4/10. Extremely uninteresting and I've dropped the book. I know Joker's coming back in a big way... But I just don't care. I think I might stick to picking up arcs that interest me as they come out, the in-between issues really detract from Batman for me.
The Ravagers #0 This backstory is mostly about Beast Boy, with a bit of Terra and the rest of the gang thrown in. I'm already sick of how slow this book has been moving, I'm not even going to bother going into detail for this -- it takes place while the cast is still being tortured/altered in The Colony, and that's enough of that. 6/10 for art and some general interest, but I'm dropping the book. I'll wait until a) each character gets an individual style (I'm sick of Tron suits on everyone) and b) picks up with some decent stories (not this poorly plotted escape plan). I like the concept, though, so I WILL keep an eye on it. There's just no reason to read it one issue at a time, it's painful.
Avengers vs X-Men #11 This issue is the big showdown between the Avengers and the remaining Phoenix Two (Scott and Emma). It's interesting on the action scale, though it suffers from the comic book scale of powers -- earlier issues have the Avengers struggling against 1 character with 1/5th of the power Scott and Emma now have split solely between them, and they manage to go almost toe to toe with the duo, thanks to a little help from Xavier (and the rest of the mutants who've turned on Scott and Emma). So much so, in fact, that Scott takes out Emma so he can have all the power to himself... becoming DARK PHOENIX! Oh no! I couldn't have possibly seen that one coming! ... :/ Oh well. Also, the "heavy hitters" Hope and Scarlet Witch do literally nothing the entire fight. Because that makes sense. 7/10 for action and art, loses points for plausibility (which may seem inane in a comic book review, but bite me).
Avengers vs X-Men #12 Scott's first action is to kill Professor X. That's right, Charles is dead (again). Then he pounds on the Avengers until Hope and Wanda finally step in and... well, pretty simply take him out. This issue (and end of the arc) reminds me of a Dragon Ball Z episode. The Phoenix Force possesses Hope, which it should probably have done from the first place. Hope feels that she can control it but, with a little nudge from Wanda, decides that there should be "No More Phoenix." The Nerd has decided that there should be "No More No More." The most interesting result of this action? The Phoenix Force explodes into a bunch of little fireballs that reignite the X-Gene across the globe, meaning mutants are no longer the endangered species they've been since House of M. I, personally, kind of liked it being a more exclusive club, but I'll accept it if it leads to interesting storylines. Scott is seen imprisoned for his misdeeds, while the other ex-Phoenix members are in hiding. Scott's just a bit smug, and I like it. Issue gets an 8/10, series gets a 7/10. I dislike comic book reset buttons, but at least this one took awhile... right? This is the end of this event, and I'll not be picking any of the related follow ups, so I guess this is dropped, to some extent.
Age of Apocalypse #7 The gang is looking for away to take away Wolvie's Celestial given powers. They hope to find the answers in the late Reed Richard's notebooks, which AoA's Emma Frost tells them Victor Von Doom has. Woot! Some Doctor Doom action! The team travels to Latveria, find it a human reservation of sorts, and split up! One group is captured by Emma (that sneaky witch! Apparently the lobotomy to remove her powers was a ruse!), while Prophet and the others meet up with Doom. Oh, and a subplot with Graydon hanging out with his pops (Sabertooth) starts (and starts to go poorly). Meh. I don't mind a change of scope and pace, so we'll see how it goes. 6/10, because I still don't care for the art.
Age of Apocalypse #8 BAM! Prophet and crew are betrayed by Doom and handed over to Emma as part of Doom's plan to win favor with the mutants. Nightcrawler-wanna-be shows up, appraised the goods, then goes to tell his masters. Doom pushed a button and basically resets Emma, freeing the captives and giving them an ultimatum -- help HIM gain the power of the Celestials, or deal with Weapon Omega on their own. Prophet doesn't want Doom to be the ultimate power and bails. Deadeye disagrees and decides to stay with Doom... Long enough for the group to leave and her to hook up with him, where she promptly removes his head and brings it to Prophet. Because they can plumb his disembodied cranium for info, there's an app for that. Oh, and Graydon and Sabertooth didn't get along at all. Which is pretty much all that can be said for that. Well, the issue had some interesting twists (and some not so much), but it did see a Doom killed, and that's pretty rare. I'll give it a 7/10 and will stick it out for another issue before cutting it. I really do have a soft spot for Post Apocalyptic setting, obviously.

In other news, I also read Uncanny X-Force #1 and really enjoyed it. I'll be hunting down the series and giving it its own review in the future. And it is part of the reason I'm trying to stick it with the current AoA, being that is spawned from events that happened in Uncanny X-Force.

As I mentioned in my post about reboots, I also picked up some other Batman #0s. The only one that was mildly interesting to me was Batman and Robin, though I still have issues with the timeline, so I'm not adding anything new to my pull list from DC.

Currently, I'm only adding All New X-Men, though I am looking at some other Marvel Now! titles. I need something to bolster the hits taken this month...

Tune in tomorrow (night) for my follow up to my Dishonored review (... even though I haven't finished the game) and my quest for an old RPG...

Pull List Review: Agents and Outlaws (and Stuff)

This post will finish off this month's Pull List Review -- there shouldn't be that many more titles than the last post.

Venom #22 This issue stands as a sort of epilogue to the Crime Master run. It is the "final" show down between Venom and Jack O' Lantern. Between images of Venom hunting and then fighting Jack, we are shown many images of his childhood in relation to his abusive father. It's laid on pretty thick, leading up to the ending where, despite all the horrible things Jack has done (including killing Venom's uncle and desecrating Venom's father's corpse), Venom decides to capture instead of kill him, sending him to a super-villain prison. Because it would be wrong to kill the big name killer, but not the several foot soldiers we saw Flash kill on the way to Crime Master... This is a 5/10 for me. Art is fine, writing is fine, alcoholic father is harped on too much and the ending makes little sense for a character like Venom.
Venom #23 This issue has Venom tracking down and then fighting an Occult Nazi group, apparently led by the fallen Hellstrom. For some reason, Venom has some mild protection from Hellstrom's magic and fire, something about a mark Mephisto placed on him. The issue ends with Venom getting covered in possession goop, turning Flash/Venom into a campy, demonic-looking symbiote (with horns and wings to boot). Throughout, more harping on Flash's abusive father. Apparently we've forgotten since last issue or every other time it's been brought up. 6/10, only because I'm interested to see what happens. I'm already sick of Flash's flaws being spelled out every issue.
Red Hood and the Outlaws #12 The cover alone makes this an awesome issue. As always, I love the art style. The story is interesting as well, with a fairly nice twist that has Starfire's sister being a good guy, only pretending in the last issue. We'll see how long that lasts, but I'd be happy to see something a bit different. I'm still really enjoying the differences with this trio, it almost reminds me of Marvel's Thunderbolts -- they're all damaged characters trying to get by in their own way. This is a solid 8/10 -- it's not higher simply because it was a relatively low key issue and I feel like Red Hood has been tacked on for this adventure.
The Ravagers #4 This title, more than any other, really drives home that the New 52 was a complete universe reboot. Sure, some things stayed in tact, but apparently more did not. Since I only had a working knowledge of DC before, this comes as a bit jarring when I'm learning something that doesn't quite mesh with my understanding of characters. In this issue, we are following Beast Boy (and Terra) as they rescue the others from Brother Blood. In an attempt at humor, the ritual Brother Blood is trying to accomplish is elaborate and not fully understood. That being said, we do lose Lightning to the "Red Place" and the group escapes, finally back together (well, sans Lightning). Early on, we find that Terra and Best Boy's powers seem to be growing/changing as they get farther away from the Colony -- it will be interesting to see how this plays out in them and the others. The final note is Caitlin asking herself if she's made a mistake -- not longer are the young Meta-Humans abused children to her; now she realizes that they are time bombs waiting to explode, with no thought given to the lives of others or themselves. Issue gets a 6/10 for the characters being mildly interesting. The story itself is still in the 'meh' stage, which isn't good for a new series -- they need to pick it up somehow. ... And, instead, next issue is going to be #0, the origins of Terra and Beast Boy. Maybe the promised Superboy vs. Caitlin after that will be interesting.
Avengers vs X-Men #9 Namor is defeated but many of the Avengers are held captive. With the help of Storm, the Avengers locate their missing team members and stage a rescue mission. Unfortunately, Colossus and Illyana are waiting for them. Spidey steps up to the plate and stays behind to hold them off while the other Avengers make their escape. Spidey takes an epic beat down but, as he's on the floor in a pool of blood, he goads the siblings into fighting each other -- neither feels the other is using the Phoenix Force appropriately. They are both knocked out, transferring their power to Emma and Cyclops. The power is affecting Emma negatively -- she is beginning to reach out and read everyone's mind, and is concerned about what she'll do next. Cyclops uses his extra power to punch a hole between dimensions, uncovering the Avengers' hide out. Rated a 9/10. I liked the Spidey last stand, and Emma going nuts will be interesting.
Avengers vs X-Men #10 This issue is the first show down between Scott and Hope. The few Avengers available throw themselves at Scott while Hope flees. While Cyclops ruins everyone in his way, Hope meets up with the Thunderer, and they use a mystical dragon (who apparently beat the phoenix in a previous incarnation) to hurt Scott. Unfortunately, the dragon is too young. Hope surprises herself, then, when she unleashed mystical dragon flames at Scott -- somehow she absorbed the power. Then she flees and runs into Scarlet Witch. Scarlet takes a stab at Scott but is inneffective against his new strength -- and then there's Hope, who's now absorbed the dragon fire AND Scarlet's Chaos magic. She CHAOS PUNCHES Scott to the moon (literally), and the turning point in the battle is revealed. Scott, after waking up, realizes he's going to need Emma's power. Emma is busy on Utopia, making sure every mutant thinks what she wants to think -- or else. Next issue looks to be Scott vs. Emma. This issue gets a 7/10. It's interesting enough, but the mystical dragon popping up was a little too convenient (possibly because I'm not reading any other related issues). I'm hoping this event ends soon, it hasn't particularly held my interest.
Age of Apocalypse #6 In this issue, we see Monet St. Croix revealing herself to the world as Penance. She plans on making the world a better place for mutant-kind so that they aren't living in filth and squalor. Weapon Omega decides to recruit her, but in the process she reverts Colossus back to his old, Apocalypse hating ways. Prophet reveals himself after the confrontation and explains his hand in her rebirth, and makes a trade -- he'll give her Sugarman and help her overthrow Omega for special consideration in regards to the remnants of the human race. Deadeye, whom this book follows, doesn't agree with this plan at all -- the only good mutant is a dead one, as far as she's concerned. Pretty boring issue, actually, and I don't care for the art still. 4/10, but I'm not kicking the book yet -- next issue promises the inclusion of Dr. Doom, and I'm looking forward to that at least.
Batman #12 This issue... was barely about Batman at all. It's about a girl who lives in the Narrows with her brother. They run into trouble and Batman saves them. She then tries to help him out after figuring out how Batman accesses the power grid (because she's an engineer down in the sewers where the grid is kept). She sort of helps Batman, he tells her to cut it out, and it ends with her saying no, basically. I ran a Google search and found out that she actually made an appearance in Batman #7, where she uses a defibrillator on Batman after he is beaten by the Owls. I assume they have bigger plans for her, but I don't know why they'd give her such a backwards introduction. 5/10. The writing was done well and I didn't hate the overall story, but the art was very inconsistent and I'd rather have Batman in my Batman comic...

I am still missing/behind on Teen Titans. I'll lump them all together next month or do a quick catch up post if I get the missing issue before then.

Additionally, I'll be dropping Batman from the pull list -- I'll pick up issue zero the next time I pick up pulls, but after that I'm done. Eventually, Batman and Robin will take its place, I just need to do some catching up. I'll also be looking to catch up on X-Force and see if I should add that, but for now there will just be a short reduction. Ravagers and Teen Titans haven't held my interest very well, so their suspect to be dropped soon too. We'll see.

Remember, if you're ever looking to get into comics and needs some suggestions or tips, feel free to ask! I reply to all comments!