Six-Month-Old Comics: The January 25 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Amazing Spider-Man #18:  OMG, this issue is really one of the worst comics I've ever read.  I just don't know what I can say at this point.  

Instead of Madelyne suggesting to Jean that she facilitate Peter sharing his memories with Ben in a way that won't compromise said memories (like Jean did for Madelyne in "Dark Web:  X-Men" #3), Madelyne just cuts Ben loose and sides with the X-Men.  Oof.

Of course, that said, I *think* Peter's objection to sharing his memories with Ben was that it would cause him to loose said memories, but I don't actually know at this point.  

It all just sucks.  Honestly, I can't believe I'm going to say what I'm going to say, but I'm considering not reading this series anymore.

Dragon Age:  The Missing #1:  This series finally puts aside the increasingly confusing Wraith-related stories and brings back Varic as he and Harding search for Solas.  

Following rumors that Solas is hiding in the Deep Roads, Varic and Harding bump into a pair of Grey Wardens investigating disappearances that started after excavations broke into the Roads.

After helping the Wardens take out the Darkspawn behind the abductions, Varic and Harding find Solas' lair and an invitation to "call upon the Lady Crysanthus" in Vyrantium, where they head next.

I don't have much else to say at this point, other than I'm interested to see where we go.

Justice Society of America #2:  This series isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, and given all the time travel I'd normally put myself in that camp.  But something about Helena leaving the infirmary and walking into the spectacular hotness (and chest hair) of the assembled Society is thrilling to me.  Of course, as I said, it involves time travel, so it's hard to follow at the best of times.

Helena awakens in 1940 and tells the Society that she's from a future where someone murders her Society.  Helena exposits that she recognized the someone as "a man I've seen on the edges of my perisperhal visions since I was ten."  Dr. Fate attempts to peer into her timeline to share her experiences with the group but the same "someone" transports his consciousness into his future 1941 where he and his protégée, Salem the Witch Girl, are trying to find Mister Miracle to free her from her curse.  Instead, they find him fighting Solomon Grundy, though Fate's consciousness is snapped back to 1940 again.

In the present, Catwoman fights the "someone" whom she recognizes as "Degaton," who Wikipedia tells me is an old-school Society enemy.  He refers to "Snow Globe" turning Helena into a "blind spot," which makes no particular sense now but likely will later.  He also exposits that he needs to kill all the Society members for "the ritual" to work, so he clearly needs to track down Helena.  

Anyway, he kills Selina, which Helena can somehow see.  But she's again somehow transfered through time again (with Dr. Fate's symbols in her eyes) and awakens in another alley, this time at Khalid's feet though he doesn't recognize her.  He's joined by Deadman and Detective Chimp.

In other words, it's a lot.  But I'm down with seeing where we go from here if we get more shots of Jay Garrick's eyes.

Sins of Sinister #1:  I stopped reading "Immortal X-Men" with issue #6, but this issue recaps the relevant developments that I assume happened in issues #7-#10:  namely, Sinister compromises the Krakoan DNA database so that every resurrected mutant is secretly subservient to him.  He begins with Charles, Emma, Exodus, and Hope.  

Sinister isn't an idiot, though, so he has the Council put him in the Pit while his pawns carry out his plan:  namely, Krakoa offers humans an X-Gene to get them in the resurrection queue.  Of course, it's a Trojan Horse that will enable Sinister to take over the planet.  Clever, that Sinister.

Thanks to an interstitial page, we learn his ultimate plan is to use Earth's population and the Moira Engine to achieve Dominion status before "hyper-A.I.s" take over the planet.

As he takes over the mutants, he has Sinister-Forge launch an attack from space that fries Krakoa's brain, allowing the mutants to claim to the public that all non-mutant backups were lost.  It therefore encourages more humans to get the X-Gene, accelerating Sinister's takeover.  

We then get a series of splash pages that details the next ten years of Sinister taking out his enemies, like corrupting the Avengers through the X-Gene.  Storm is the only person who eludes capture after she guess something was amiss in the Council and worked out a deal with Lactuca to make sure Sinister couldn't control her.

But it all goes to hell when Sinister discovers someone has stolen his lab and his Moiras.  Ruh-roh.

Over all, it's a solid introduction to this event.  Gillen expertly weaves his story through the X-Men recent status quo, making for a story that feels like it was Hickman's intent from the start.  We'll see where we go from here.

Star Wars:  Yoda #3:  My issue with Yoda has always been that he's so wise yet missed the fact that he was sitting next to Darth Sidious for years.  He also oversaw a system that treated young children as little more than soldiers for present and future wars.  This issue underscores that he didn't just treat Force-sensitive children that way.  Equal opportunity assholery!

Although Bree's murder of Riak last issue ensures the Scalvi's safety for years, Yoda's abrupt departure leaves Bree a broken shell of a person.  As an adult, Bree has never gotten over Yoda's abandonment despite the Scalvi treating him as a hero.  Yoda returns just in time for Bree's nephew to kidnap the Crulkon leader's daughter.  Bree listens to the girl as she informs him that Turrak's oceans are devoid of life, and he realizes that the Crulkon are, and always have been, starving.  He opens the Scalvis' gates to the Crulkon, which is obviously the outcome Yoda wanted.

But you have to wonder if it had to happen this way.  Yoda admits that he allowed the Crulkon to kidnap him to test Bree, and Bree of course failed when he killed Riak.  But Yoda simply abandoned him to his failure.  It seems possible that Bree could've become the sort of man to see the Crulkon's suffering without taking a life or spending years wondering why he failed Yoda.

A hero, I'm not sure Yoda is.

Also Read:  X-Terminators #5

Five-Month-Old Comics: The November 30 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I am unfortunately reading "Captain America:  Symbol of Truth" again because I love Ian Rogers and he returns in issue #7.  But I'm not happy about it.

Captain America:  Symbol of Truth #5:  Ugh.  I'd say this issue was the worst, but given the way this series is going, I'll probably say that next issue.

Sam and T'Challa fight in this issue for reasons that still make no sense.  Sam accuses the Wakandans of failing to save their neighbors as the colonizers came, and T'Challa keeps repeating the Wakandans' line that Sam doesn't have authority to act there.  To make matters worse, the new Wakandan prime minister expels all the Americans who tried to emigrate to Wakanda as part of "Wakanda Forever," going so far as revoking the citizenship of the ones who successfully did so.  

In other words, it's insane.  Onyebuchi doesn't even attempt to explain the Wakandans' motivations; they all just repeat that Sam didn't have authorization to act on Wakandan soil.  They never acknowledge that Sam not only stopped a bioterrorist threat but also alerted them to someone smuggling vibranium.  Something is clearly happening in Wakanda, but Onyebuchi doesn't give us enough information to make this arc make sense.

Turning to this series' other ridiculous story, the former hostage Luísa tells Joaquín that she smuggled out a "piece of this giant rock" that the White Wolf's men used for experiments and asks him if it made "the señora" sick.  Joaquín explains the vibranium (i.e., the giant rock) likely triggered the bioweapon.  But I have no idea who "the señora" is.  The last we saw Joaquín, the superhuman immigrants were helping him escape from prison.  No one seemed sick at all.

The issue ends with the White Wolf staring at a futuristic cityscape with an enormous panther statue - which apparently is an unknown location and not Wakanda - and waxing poetic about going home to Mohannda.

God, I hate this series.

Captain America:  Symbol of Truth #6:  This issue is a marginal improvement over the first five issues, as we get more information about Mohannda and better (though not great) insight into the White Wolf's motivations.  But it's still rough going, as Onyebuchi continues to rely on his characters delivering monologues instead of talking like humans.

Sam is providing security to the new Mohanndan prime minister as she appeals to the United Nations for financial support as she tries to end apartheid.  As the prime minister and Sam are departing the building, she suddenly sees her grandfather in the crowd.  He goes into cardiac arrest, and Sam realizes it's a trap.  The assassins release gas into the U.N. building, forcing Sam to flee with the prime minister.  However, the assassins were planning on that and detonate an explosion that kills her.  Meanwhile, Falcon remains on the scene to help the prime minister's grandfather but the arriving EMT injects him with a poison.  The issue ends with the White Wolf preparing to take control of Mohannda.

At this stage, I think it's probably best to ignore the first arc.  We're apparently never going to learn how the White Wolf got his hands on all that vibranium, why he was experimenting on the immigrants, or why he was trying to release a bioweapon in Wakanda.  None of it seems to have anything to do with him taking power in Mohannda.  Also, lest I overstate how much we learn about him, we still don't know why he wants to take power.  Is he a segregationist?  I wonder what his adopted brother T'Challa would think.

Whatever.  Let's get onto sexy Ian Rogers.

Captain America:  Symbol of Truth #7:  [Sigh.]

First, someone needs to explain to Onyebuchi that senators don't send troops into foreign countries.  The president is the commander-in-chief.  But Senator Mansfield is the one here trying to convince Sam that diving into the Mohanndan civil war to get revenge on the person who murdered the prime minister last issue isn't the greatest idea.  Of course, he then suddenly drops this opposition and decides that Sam needs a partner to keep the mission from getting too personal.

He chooses Ian Rogers, who apparently isn't dead but taking out HYDRA cells for shits and giggles on the Office of Foreign Utilities' (OFU) behalf.  Oh, you thought that Bucky and Sam shut down the OFU in "Falcon and Winter Soldier," did you?  Me, too.  So did Sam.  Apparently Bucky kept it running because Bucky somehow has the authority to keep open a federal government office whose job it is to murder terrorists, which we see Ian nonchalantly doing here.  Let's just say, I'm not sure Ian was the best choice if Mansfield was trying to keep Sam's operation in Mohannda quiet.

If I was annoyed by this poor plotting, I was downright incandescent with rage when Sam asks Ian if his father knows that he's alive and Ian quips, "Dad'll find out on his own time."  WTF?  Ian might have some anger issues (as I'm now developing reading this series) but he isn't an asshole.  What exactly does Onyebuchi propose that Steve did to Ian to make him so callous that he lets his father still think that he's dead?  Also Bucky knew Ian was alive and didn't do anything other than send him to kill people?  Grrrr.

At any rate, Sam and Ian land in Mohannda and...randomly attack a battalion to help civilians?  I thought they were going to get the person who killed the prime minister?  That's a spy mission not a "use a bazooka to take out an anti-aircraft battery" mission.  What, they're now going to save the whole country on their own?  Also, Falcon is a vampire?

If I don't get a shirtless Ian Rogers every issue to pacify my rage, I'm going to need to drink more to keep reading this series.

Justice Society of America #1:  In typical Johns' fashion, this issue is an explosive start to this series.

We begin 26 years from now, as Helena Wayne shakes down a Falcone to find out where Dr. Fate is.  Helena exposits that a random criminal somehow gained unspecified powers and killed Batman eight years earlier, dying in the act.  Now Helena is worried Dr. Fate is also dead.  He summoned her to his apartment after a disturbing vision, but Falcone and his men were on the premises cleaning up a crime scene when she arrived.  Much to the reader's surprise, Helena is there with her teammate, Solomon Grundy, who shockingly convinces Falcone to talk, though he doesn't know where Dr. Fate is.  (We never do discover why Falcone and his men were on the scene if the time-traveling figure I mention in the next paragraph was the one who killed Dr. Fate.)

As the story progresses, we learn that Helena has put together a new Justice Society of America filled with famous super-villains' children, most of whom are criminals themselves.  According to Helena, she did so in an attempt to honor her father's legacy; as she notes, she's alive because he gave her mother another chance.  Power Girl thinks she's insane.

I'd introduced the Society members to you, but they don't last long.  A security guard discovers Dr. Fate's body in a sarcophagus, and the Society takes possession of his body.  As Power Girl mourns over him, the rest of the team discusses the mystery of how his corpse appears to be over 1,000 years.  Providing an answer they don't live long enough to process, a mysterious figure arrives and uses his time-traveling powers to kill every team member except Helena

Helena only survives when her mother - who Helena previously told to stop tailing her - intervenes before he can age her to death.  Selena tells Helena to find the original Society.  Telling her that Dr. Fate can explain (and that she should've), Catwoman throws an orb at Helena.  We next see her youthful again and unconscious in an alley in 1940.

In other words, I'm totally on board.  Hopefully we'll get some sexy Alan Scott time.

Star Wars:  Darth Vader #29:  This issue is better than the last few issues, as Soule switches focus to Dormé.  

The Handmaidens have sent Dormé to pose as Sabé and confirm whether or not Sabé's really working for Vader.  Ochi helps Dormé make it into Sabé private quarters, where she looks for evidence that Sabé hasn't turned.  Ochi tells her that she's barking up the wrong tree, providing the body count that Sabé's association with Vader has entailed.  Eventually, Vader calls on Dormé and also tells her that she's barking up the wrong tree.

Meanwhile, on Brentall IV, Jul Tambor impresses Sabé.  Jul informs her that he started his rebellion against the Empire after the Emperor forced into exile everyone on Skako Minor who protested him taking control.  To make matters worse, the Emperor also banned the export of the rebreathers the Skakans need to survive off-world, forcing them to recycle ones they find.  Sabé pushes against this narrative, noting that one could argue that Jul started the war.  Jul replies that they just wanted some air.  He confirms his goal is to kill Vader, which Sabé tells him he won't be able to do.  He particularly won't be able to do it after she shoots him.

Again, this issue is better, possibly because I'm resigned to the fact that Soule is going to beat this dead horse.  At some point, though, he really needs to tell us why Sabé is so willing to jump into the Abyss with Vader.

Also Read:  X-Terminators #3