Captain America 615.1

The Ronin here,

Today we have Captain America 615.1. I liked this comic book, however I have a few issues with it. We will get into that in a moment.

As a 'point one' issue this is designed to introduce the illusive new reader into the book. I suspect that explains our cover. It is a fairly generic cover. Cap is running at the reader but in a world war II setting, and he appears to be wearing his costume from the up and coming movie, my only issue with this is this issue has nothing to do with World War Two, (aside from a couple of panels of flashback) and he does not wear this costume in the book at all.

We start with a very brief recap page, which is good, the only problem is it is a little to vague. For example there is a big subplot going on about Bucky, and while it is mentioned in the book in passing, The book never explains to the reader what has happened. I feel they could of been a little more specific. (they said "legal trouble" then quickly moved on.)

I liked the art on the book, it was very moody and fit the tone of the book, though I can understand why some people would not like it.

Uncanny X-men 534.1 Review

The Ronin here,

Today we have Uncanny X-Men 534.1. Once again as a "point one" issue this is designed to introduce new readers to the property. As we have seen in the other "point ones" this has been hit and miss so far. Uncanny X-Men is a good property for a "point one". Everyone has heard of the X-men, and at 500 some odd issues in, with tons of back story it seems like a good property for a 'jump in' issue.

It has been a very long time since I have read an X-book, I am somewhat aware (from reading the other Marvel books) of what is going on with the X-men. However I do not know any of the details. As such this would appear to be the perfect book for me, so let's dig in.

The cover is fine, it is just the heroes standing in front of a cool broken X made of steel. It does a good job showing us the main characters, Cyclops, Colossus, Emma Frost, the ubiquitous Wolverine, Kitty Pride who is in some sort of space suite and, holy fuck, Magneto and Namor?!?! Okay I am sold already. The X-men have apparently become the Squad of old men you don't fuck with.

I am okay with this.

Avengers Academy 14.1

The Ronin here,

I love this series as you might of read in my "Why aren't you reading Avengers Academy" post. So it will be harder to put my self into the mindset of a new reader, but I shall try.

Avengers Academy 14.1, like the others is marketed as a jumping on point. However this book has a harder job to do then "Secret Avengers" because unless you've been reading Avengers Academy you will recognize none of these characters on the cover. Aside from a few issues of "Avengers: The Initiative" which had Reptil in it, these are all characters new to the Avengers franchise.

The cover is nothing amazing it is just the characters running at the reader, however it does a good job showing off all of the characters. You get a good sense of what they can do from their look, and they are all very colorful and don't blend together like poor Beast did while hanging out in Steve Roger's arm pit in "Secret Avengers".

Secret Avengers 12.1

The Ronin here,

In February Marvel started their "point one" program, the idea was to release a new .1 issue for each of their lines that would serve as a jumping on point, It would bring new readers up to speed so they could jump in with this issue then start buying the regular series. It is not a terrible idea. Although I have to wonder, how did they expect new readers to know this? I mean 614.1 is not exactly an inviting number.

That said the .1 issues were hit and miss, they sold about as well as their regular counterparts, which I am sure Marvel does not mind, but I'd guess the regular readers are the ones who bought them. Only time will tell. So Today i am re-reading two .1 issues I picked up. One from a series I was unfamiliar with and wanted to try, and the other a series I love and own all of.

Green Lantern doesn't suck!

The Ronin here,

This is a spoiler free half assed look at the 'Green Lantern'.

Going to go over a few quick things, I went into the theater ready to be disappointed friday, but I walked out of the theater with a smile on my face.

'Green Lantern' is the sole DC property up this year, and DC has not had the same kind of success Marvel has had outside of the Nolan films. (which won't be in the same continuity as Green Lantern or any later Justice League movies) 'Green Lantern' is probably also DC's most difficult super hero to pull off well. He flies through space with aliens acting as a cop, he gets his powers from a goofy ring given to him by blue dwarves, he uses his ring to make goofy constructs to fight villains etc. In some ways it is DC's 'Thor', in that it would be the hardest to sell to a mainstream audience.

A mediocre overlook at X-Men: First Class

Before I begin this, I will let you in on a little something: I am a huge sap...any movie with back story to people that I have come to know about as already matured characters, will leave me in utter awe (Which basically means I would have loved this movie even if it got lower ratings than Howard The Duck).

Not to mention mutant bromances, oh the mutant bromance.

With that being said, this movie rocked my fucking socks off.

A few things here and there left me trying to figure out whether or not that aligned with the other movies, such as Charles and Mystique having somewhat of a brother sister relationship when there is no recall of this in the other movies. Also, Charles has said that Wolvie, Storm, Cyclops, etc were the first mutants he ever trained when obviously they weren’t. Honestly, by the end of the movie I couldn’t care less because this was by far my favorite of the franchise.

Seeing the professor get paralyzed by Magneto was (so sad and shocking I was looking around like an idiot wondering if everyone was as amazed as I was) a great bonus.

Also, the eye candy didn’t hurt. James McAvoy was a perfectly hot young Professor X, and let’s not forget Michael Fassbender making me wish I was on team Magneto.