comics round-up 4th September 2008

So, from my current pull-list I have...

Amazing Spider-Man #570 'New Ways to Die part 3': continuing the story I blogged about earlier this week, Dan Slott and John Romita JR work in some amazing art as new and old villains collide. Norman Osborn's back in town, government-sanctioned and looking to capture Spidey. At the end of part 2, the Venom symbiote tried to re-fuse itself with a recently cancer-cured Eddie Brock but he rejected it instead turning into a huge negative-image version called Anti Venom. This week, it looks like Venom and Anti-Venom clash while Spidey tries to keep Aunt May out of harm's way.

X-Men: Manifest Destiny #1 of 4: A brand new massive cross-X universe event starts as IceMan returns to town. With the mansion in Westchester destroyed, the X-Men are moving to San Francisco. But it's not just a change in the zip code. Yet another the momentous change in status quo means to the X-Men. I'm a little sick of constant X-events, it stinks of shoddy vision, a lack of confidence in telling smaller-set stories and a need to hype everything up to oblivion. I'm giving Manifest Destiny a go and will comment back in a few weeks as more crossover issues arrive. I guess I'll have to relearn the status quo of the rest of the X-universe. It really is exhausting and labyrinthian. While we're on the subject though, Marvel, please stop over-exposing Wolverine with endless tie-ins and one-shots. He's already in three main X books, his two own books, X-Force and loads of one-shots. Too much!

Nightwing #148: So Nightwing has been shot trying to rescue Harvey Dent's girlfriend from assassination. I got into this so I could read about Batman RIP and not miss anything as I love RIP. Unfortunately, Grant Morrison messes with timelines so much I have no idea where I am and trying to pick up the Bat-universe after 15 years of not reading it is really difficult.

Detective Comics #848: This is a Batman RIP tie-in I do like because it fits easily into the RIP continuity in a way Nightwing doesn't (because in RIP Nightwing is locked up in Arkham not running around getting shot). This is about Hush, an old school friend of Bruce's who is, life-wise, the opposite to him. His parents lived and he went the other way due to a macabre mother. He's practising his taking down of the Bat. But where exactly is Batman at the moment? Well, he's RIPing. Dark evil stuff.

Venom: Dark Origin #2 of 5: I kinda liked the first one. I loved the storyline and the history of Eddie Brock as a pathological liar who just wants to be noticed, especially by his dad. He's so unspecial and generic that he tries his hardest to be remembered, to be the hero, but ultimately, no one cares about Eddie Brock. The artwork's a bit too WIDE-EYED in places but it only jars for a few pages before you're too caught up in the story to notice the overly cartoon-y way it's been drawn. Good stuff though.

It's a slow week this week, especially after last week's continuation of Spidey, conclusions to a Dare Devil and a X Force arc, continuations of the bad-ass Kick-Ass (best comic out there at the moment) and some brilliant developments in the Old Man Logan arc in Wolverine. Oh yeah and some more Avengers filler issues for Secret Invasion...