Captain America: Two Americas for $6
Thor: Siege for $6.40
Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman, Vol. 2 for $6.40
Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 4: Unstoppable for $8
Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 3: Torn for $6
New Avengers Vol. 10: Power for $5.49
Casanova, Vol. 1: Luxuria for $6
Deadpool, Vol. 3: X Marks the Spot for $6.40
The Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 5: Stark Resilient, Book 1 for $6.23
Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 4: Stark Disassembled for $6.16
X-Men: Origins for $8
Ultimate Fantastic Four – Volume 1: The Fantastic for $5.20
Captain America: Theater of War for $6.80
The Ultimates 2, Vol. 1: Gods and Monsters for $6.40
Ultimates – Volume 2: Homeland Security for $7.04
Ultimates – Volume 1: Super-Human for $5.20
Ultimate X-Men, Vol. 19: Absolute Power for $5.20 Ultimate X-Men Vol. 18: Apocalypse for $5.60
Ultimate X-Men – Volume 11: The Most Dangerous Game for $4
Ultimate X-Men – Volume 10: Cry Wolf for $3.60
Ultimate X-Men – Volume 9: The Tempest for $4.27
Spider-Man: The Gauntlet, Vol. 2 – Rhino & Mysterio for $6
Wolverine: Origin for $6.80

Tron/Marvel crossover, enjoy!

X-Men Deadly Genesis for $13.24

Deadly Genesis was created as a retcon of Giant Size X-Men 1, written by Marvel fan favourite Ed Brubaker, designed to create a new Summer brothers and show him as one of the most powerful mutants in existance. From that sentence alone, you could tell why most comic readers would be wary. Retcon? New Summers brothers?? SUPER POWERFUL?!? … but…. Ed Brubaker. Does he make it work? Keep on reading to find out.

An interesting aspect to this story, one that’s been touched upon in other comics as well, is showing Xavier’s dark side. This particular arc features a lot of that and makes Xavier look like a damn asshole who manipulates a lot of people and causes some unfortunate deaths. I can understand making Xavier a little more dark, though in the old comics he was already kind of an irritable ass to begin with, but some of the recent stuff is going a bit far.

Vulcan, the “new” Summers brother, is an awful character. He was awful in the first arc I read with him (the recent cosmic arc) and his origin isn’t much better. When the X-Men do get a chance to fight him, some of the most talented and powerful mutants around can’t manage to beat him. Toss in that a classic characters gets killed in one of the fights from this story, ehhhh.

The best part was the sections at the end of each comic. They come up with cool origins for the new mutants involved in this story. They’re quite interesting and aside from Vulcan, pretty fun characters.

Vulcan really seems unnecessary to me, which is one of the reasons I didn’t enjoy this arc as much as I could have. As far as retcons go, the overall idea wasn’t bad. You’ve also got to consider the event they’re retconning, Giant Size X-men with Krakoa, was pretty awesome back in the day. Seeing it from a new angle, even if it is an angle that has some issues, is still enjoyable.

3/5. Some cool parts and a decent enough read, but not one I’d go out of my way for.

Astonishing X-Men Volume 2 Hardcover for $23.09

Whedon continues his smash hit run on the X-Men with this final 12 issues of Astonishing X-Men. While the series continues after this, he’s not the writer on it. So how do these final 12 issues stack up?

This was the second art of the Whedon run of Astonishing X-Men, coming in at another 12 issues. There were a lot of story elements that Whedon set up in the first arc and he does quite the admirable job of taking an intergalactic X-Men story and tying up the loose ends.

The general gist of the plot is the X-Men decide to head to the home planet (Breakworld) of the primary villain from the first arc. They combine forces with SWORD, basically SHIELD in space, and they fly across the galaxy to prevent Breakworld from setting in motion a plan to destroy the Earth.

While this story is still a memorable one in X-Men history, it suffers from more issues than the first arc did. It’s not as interesting for one, the Kitty/Colossus situation can be seen from a mile away (though it’s satisfying that they finally build their relationship), and there’s a few outright stupid moves that were mind-boggling.

The primary stupid movie is the way that Breakworld’s inhabitants are planning to destroy the Earth…it makes no logical sense why they waited for the X-Men to arrive, and once they did arrive, why the Breakworld peeps didn’t immediately fire the weapon. It’s ridiculous to pretend all of Earth’s major heroes couldn’t figure out a way to stop one giant object. If they can take out Galactus and Thanos while he was wearing the Infinity Gauntlet, they can take care of this problem. The second issue was when Cyclops commits his clever ruse. It takes roughly 2 seconds to figure out why this “clever” idea would’ve failed, and by that, I mean he would’ve been disintigrated.

3.5/5. Very much worthwhile reading, and the story has pretty huge consequences for two of my favourite X-Men characters. While not nearly as good as the first Astonishing X-Men, that story feels incomplete unless you read this as well.

Astonishing X-Men Volume 1 Hardcover for $25.64

I’m a fan of Joss Whedon and some of his TV shows, but never did I think to myself, you know what would make a good X-Men series? Joss Whedon writing it. Imagine my surprise when it turned out he wrote a perfectly solid X-Men story.

Whedon certainly doesn’t shy away from some ambitious writing in this twelve issue run. He brings back a popular mainstay of X-Men comics, Kitty Pryde, to have a starring role in a school now led by Emma Frost and Scott Summers. He also creates two major villains, one which changes a considerable amount of X-Men history, brings back a major character long thought dead, and quite a bit more. A nice touch was while a Whedon fan would be able to notice his influence in the writing, he manages to stay away from spicing up the dialog as if it were a Buffy episode.

A significant thrust of the story is the hope of a mutant cure, which isn’t necessarily a unique idea for the X-Men, but I’d have to say it’s implementation was better in this than most of the times it’s been brought up. This isn’t the hamfisted X-Men 3 take on a mutant cure, this has real characters with authentic motivations interested in it, with real consequences. As more details emerge about the mutant cure, things certainly aren’t as simple as they seemed.

The main villain, while slightly doofy in certain parts of the story, is written well enough and has solid motivations for his actions. That already puts him a step above most villains. The secondary villain is the longer lasting of the two, having appeared in a number of X-Men storylines after this series.

One thing that may be an issue is that without understanding X-Men history to some basic degree, this story won’t be nearly as enjoyable. It draws upon people having an understanding of the characters and at least some of their previous actions. It’s a good story regardless, it’d simply be confusing without that knowledge.

The art for the most part is solid and some of the covers are spectacular. I’d go so far as to say this has some of the most memorable covers in X-Men history.

4.5/5. One of the better X-Men reads available.

Superman Red Son Hardcover for $16.49

What if Superman were to land in Russia, instead of Kansas? Mark Millar takes a crack at showing you what happens.

Superman rises through the Russian ranks, keeping America on it’s toes. America might have nuclear weapons, but Russia has the greatest living weapon. This changes the entire history of the planet. Luthor is still obsessed with destroying Superman, but it’s under the guise of protecting American interests. Superman still wants to help people, but his Russian upbringing and the reality of the world change his actions from the Superman we’re used to seeing.

What I liked best about this graphic novel is that it’s well thought out. Mark Millar did an excellent job developing the world, it’s history, and the characters themselves. Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Braniac, Bizarro, Lois Lane, they all exist in this world and they’ve all been changed.

The art compliments the story well. Plenty to like about the illustrations themselves, the new designs are fantastic, and I’m a huge fan of Batman’s warm hat, despite the mockery it received. Probably because I have one of my own, warm hats rule.

Once Luthor becomes President of the US, the last bastion for capitalism, the story builds up to a satisfying final battle. The only time I found the story to be a letdown was after the final battle. It goes into a wacky time travel situation that I felt didn’t added to the story.

4.5/5. One of the better “What If” style stories I’ve read, it’s very well realized.

Planetary – Absolute Edition Volume 1 for $47.25

A Warren Ellis story about the mysteries of the world? Don’t mind if I do!

This finished up a few months ago, it’s being released again soon in Absolute Edition format, what better time to read it again? The series was written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by John Cassaday.

This comic is all about the hidden mysteries of the world. What everyone sees has little to do with the truth of what’s going on and the Planetary organization is investigating each and every mystery. The Planetary group consists of three primary members, with each member having super powers. Though the powers aren’t terribly unique, the powers aren’t the central part of the story.

The best thing about this series is it constantly finds a way to show how imaginative it is. While there are many references to archtypes of comic characters and even individual recognizable characters, the series is far more clever than just that. It works because of the great mystery. You start to realize that every major character ties into the questions of the world. These villains you might have considered Fantastic Four ripoff characters are actually rather interesting, this guy that has powers like Iceman actually has depth, and so on. Think of it less about superheroes and more X-Files with powers, if the grand conspiracy in X-Files hadn’t been a disappointment.

The art, while slightly rough earlier on, consistently delivers after a few issues in. I’m not the biggest fan of Cassaday, but I felt he was a good choice here. No doubt his art will look gorgeous on the larger format Absolute edition.

4.5/5. A great read all around, especially since it weighs in at just 27 issues and has a satisfying conclusion. It’s completely worth it to get both volumes of the Absolute edition. It’s also worth noting that the last time they released this, it sold out fairly quickly and was going for double to triple retail price.

Planetary – Absolute Edition Volume 2 for $47.25

Y – The Last Man Vol. 2 Hardcover for $19.79

After a strong opening, can the series keep up the quality? Let’s find out.

If you aren’t enjoying being the last man on Earth and you hear that more men might exist, you’re going to want to make sure they arrive back safely. Yorick hears the news some men might be alive on the international space station. They’re coming back to Earth since it’s a little difficult to maintain supplies in space without NASA, and well, you’ll have to see for yourself how it turns out. Yorick also manages to get himself into a spot of trouble, an Israeli military woman became aware of his existence in the first volume and she wants him for Israel. In this volume, she gets a lot closer to that goal. When the two situations come together, it’s not going to be good for anyone.

The second arc is a little different. Yorick and his crew go through the country staging a play about the last man. It’s a great way to disguise him. While it has funny elements and it makes sense in the context of the story, it wasn’t as appealing to me as the rest of the journey to date.

It ends on a third story arc, one that is far more dark and serious than what we’ve seen from the series. It’s a gripping part of the comic and shows better than anything else that it’s a dangerous world that Yorick can’t afford to take it for granted. I was surprised at the variety of arcs that they put you through in a fairly thrifty amount of comic pages. It draws you in and keeps you running through this world that’s been created.

Two things I should mention. I forgot to talk about the art in the previous review, so I’ll mention it here. I quite enjoyed the illustrations, the colours were well done, it’s a good looking comic and off the top of my head, I cannot think of anything visually offensive. The second thing is that this is written by a male and the vast majority of the characters are women. While for the most part it’s fine, there are times where it’s a little obvious. It wasn’t an issue for me, but for some, I can see where it would detract from the experience.

4/5. If you enjoyed the first, you’ll like this one. The story stays true to itself and it’s characters and expands the world nicely.

Y – The Last Man Vol. 1 Hardcover for $19.79

What happens when all the men of the planet die off, except one? That’s the concept of Y: The Last Man, and it’s a great one. A great concept doesn’t make a story worth reading though, so here’s my thoughts on the meat of the story.

The main character starts the story off and has absolutely no clue what’s going on. Him and his monkey appear to be the only two males around and females now rule the Earth. Of course, everything isn’t peachy with all women ruling, there are power vacuums and losing half the population obviously causes massive problems in the world.

Soon enough, the main character runs into a secret agent and a genetic scientist and begins a journey across the country. He wants to discover why he’s alive, what happened to his girlfriend, the usual stuff you’d expect from the last man on Earth.

The best part after the first hardcover is that great sense of exploration that you get. The characters start developing nicely while they’re exploring what’s essentially a brand new world. They travel through cities, small towns, even meet more scientists and some astronauts along the way. The writing is clever and funny, it compels you to keep reading to see where our man Yorick will end up next. One interesting thing about the writing is that Yorick is a fun character, but at times, an annoying one. He can be a bit of a dumbass and sometimes he’ll act hypocritical, but not in a manner that drives you away from the comic. The way I read it, and the way I believe it was intended, he’s simply a character that hasn’t grown up yet, which makes a grand adventure all the more rewarding.

4/5. A really unique comic with some solid writing, recommended for sure.

The Walking Dead Vol. 4 Hardcover for $21.59

This volume does so much right, but a fair bit wrong, making it difficult to judge. Is it still a compelling read? Checking my review is one way to find out.

This volume starts off a bit more relaxed than you’re used to. After the events of the last graphic novel, the reader and the characters deserve a light break. It’s nice to see the characters in situations where they aren’t concerned about death every few minutes. As you advance through the story, the tension starts building again. A pregnancy is coming to term, a dangerous lunatic wants to find the prison, it’s a dangerous time for the characters.

Before you know it, you’re up to what might be the most pivotal moment in the series. The lunatic mayor brings his forces to bear against the prison. What they had considered their home is now under assault, characters die, things won’t be the same again. On one hand, it’s gripping stuff. You’ve grown to like some of these characters and you know this isn’t like a zombie assault, some of them simply won’t make it. On the other hand, the mayor is ridiculous and bordering the line of supervillainy, which feels awkward in this series.

It’s a recurring theme in most zombie literature that man is often more deadly than zombie in the post apocalyptic world and that’s what the latter half of this graphic novel is all about. It’s a good theme, but the actions of the mayor in the last volume and in this one felt like a bit of a shift in the series. I’ll say straight up that while I like the concept of the sadistic mayor, the actual execution was lacking. Whenever he’s in it, I don’t enjoy the series as much as normal.

3.5/5. While I have read considerably more of the series, I’ll be stopping the Walking Dead reviews at this graphic novel for now. There’s so many comics to review that a month of the Walking Dead is more than enough!