Marvel - Review - FA Online

Captain America & Crossbones 1

I am thoroughly sick of these pointless one-shot comics from Marvel – though despite saying ‘ONE-SHOT’ on the cover, there is a ‘next issue’ ad at the end, that being for Cap & Batrock, who apparently has a ‘k’ now. I know there’s a Cap movie this summer, so I figured that that must feature Crossbones, but not according to the IMDB cast list, so I’m at a loss to know why this comic exists.

Sigil 1

Everything about this feels far too glib. We have a schoolgirl who might as well be Buffy mark II, struggling at school, traumatised by her mother having recently died. She has strange dreams, and when attacked by some bullies at school, demonstrates superpowers then finds herself time-travelling to some pirate ship, under attack by some superpowered evil pirates.

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade: Young Avengers 1

This is a weird one-shot, in that it seems like issue 5 of the current Children’s Crusade series, explaining Iron Lad (aka young Kang) appearing at the end of issue 4 thereof. It’s also a weird title, in that the team and book were previously entitled Young Avengers before the bizarre new title.

Venom 1

I said of Flash Thompson in my review of Amazing Spider-Man 654.1, which may as well have been the first issue of Venom, “Why a disabled ex-corporal was chosen for this is not stated – because he’s an old pal of Spider-Man, is all I can come up with, which is a comic writer’s reason, not military intelligence’s.” I thought this might start to attempt to justify that, but in fact I now learn that Flash has had problems with alcoholism which, since they need the host to be in calm control of the Venom symbiote, pushes this even further beyond plausibility.

Ruse 1

I’ve had to get good at not judging a comic by its cover (I assume Willie Dixon would approve of the extension): the third-rate John Buscema knock-off here, delivered by the always imagination-free Butch Guice, would be enough to put many readers off, I would think.

Fear Itself: Book of the Skull

Fear Itself is Marvel’s big crossover event for the next few months – I can’t tell you how many months or how many comics you’ll have to read to make sense of it, because to my surprise there is no checklist included with this. This first comic in the story is also by a different writer from the main series (that’s Matt Fraction), which also surprises me.

Deadpool 33.1

The first thing to say is that this actually fits what I thought a .1 ‘jumping-on point’ issue might be like far more than the other couple I’ve tried. It’s a one-off story, giving what I assume to be a typical flavour of the character. The second thing to say is: isn’t Bong Dazo a great name for a comedy hippy?

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