Guest Author - Travis Belk

This was an extremely slow week in comics. The delay of the Marvel Civil War titles has had a tremendous impact on ordering and sales. I feel for the comic store owners that are suffering declining sales as a result. The pickings were slim this week and the quality was such that none were worthy of “Book of the Week” status. That being said, here are the four titles reviewed this week.

52 #18
The issue starts off with The Question and Renee Montoya being awarded Khandaq’s highest honor for the prevention of the bombing at Black Adam’s wedding. Renee doesn’t show out of guilt over killing a child and Adam takes it as an insult and almost kills her for her insolence. The story then switches over to Booster Gold’s funeral. It is lackluster and almost no one attends and Skeets then discovers one of Booster’s ancestors. The final part of the issue deals with paranormal detectives dealing with the appearance of Dr.Fate’s helmet and the death of one of their own. They find Ralph Dibny to enlist his aid and he walks off with the helmet, convinced it is talking to him and choosing him to be the next Fate.

The first part of the issue was good with The Question and Renee receiving their honors. It ties their story in nicely with Adam’s. I was disappointed to see so few people at Booster’s funeral. And I am hoping that we don’t get an ancestor putting on his costume. What made Booster cool was that he was from the future. The third part of the issue was very confusing. There were old characters introduced that only those familiar with DC lore would recognize. We are missing a chunk of time since we last saw Ralph having his breakdown and have no idea what happened to him. This last part detracted from the issue and direction of 52 up to now.

The All New Atom #3
We start things where issue 2 left off and the killer is given a size-changing suit of his own and the name Dwarfstar. During this Ryan (aka the Atom) is in the sewers pursuing a kidnapped woman. He runs into this monster blob thing that claims to be the creator of mankind. It wants to assimilate Ryan and he refuses. He then runs into some other microscopic aliens and acquires some of their technology. He leaves it with a professor and goes to teach his class where he meets a very forceful teacher who takes him on a date that night. At the drive-in she reveals herself to be Giganta and working for the alien blob. She then traps Atom in a bubble and swallows it. Then some people dressed as pilgrims show up for the second feature and watch the alien blob on screen while he is behind them. And finally Dwarfstar corners Ryan’s friend Panda.

I actually feel confused just typing out the review. As you can tell there is WAY too much stuff going on in this issue. Things don’t make sense. The writer constantly tries to toss in “smart” things that only complicate matters further. And the constant quotes from DC and real world scientists are distracting. The art is very simplistic compared to a lot of the bigger name artists in the industry. I do not like this series at all so far and expect better of the Atom legacy.

The Outsiders #40
We start off the issue with a brief explanation of how The Brain and Monsieur Mallah ended up in the cloning business. We also learn that they are working with a third party. It was easy to deduce it was Dr.Sivana and is revealed in the end of the issue. During this, Katana and the fragment of Metamorpho try to figure out a way how to free the other Outsiders. During their exchange we learned the fate of Shift. He allowed himself to be reabsorbed into Metamorpho after killing a “great many people”. They elect to let loose a Superman clone to free their friends. The clone does inadvertently free them in its destructive rampage, but then escapes. Thunder then forces Mallah to reveal that Dr.Sivana is their partner.

This arc has been going so slowly and been quite boring. Clones are such a cliché thing in comics, especially clones of Superman. We are finally dropped clues to Shift’s whereabouts and see what Dr.Sivana has been up to. Though how this will tie-in to him being kidnapped in 52 remains to be seen. For a deep convert action team, this comic doesn’t seem to have any real direction right now. We also didn’t learn anything new about Grace’s secret. My guess is that she is an Amazon. The next issue boasts to reveal the secrets we seek. We shall see if they deliver.

Uncanny X-men #478
Well at the beginning of the issue there seems to be some intrigue in the Shi’ar empire. Secrets seem to be kept from the Empress and Xavier is a traitor. The X-men use Rachel’s telepathy to force a remote Shi’ar outpost to refuel their ship. The team then separates to locate supplies. Havoc and Polaris discover the bodies of the crew in the weapon’s room. And Nightcrawler and Darwin are attacked. Nightcrawler avoids the attack, but Darwin is sucked into space. His mutant ability to adapt to danger saves him though. It turns out War Skrulls have usurped the identities of the crew. Lorna uses her magnetism to remove the implant causing psychic feedback to Rachel and she shuts the Skrulls down. The X-men then take the two surviving members of the crew on their ship and we seem them conspire to capture Xavier. Finally we see a Shi’ar prisoner known as the Blade of the Phoenix getting a proposal to serve the empire.

The issue didn’t seem to advance the storyline of the team going after Vulcan. The War Skrulls came out of nowhere and didn’t seem to serve any real point in the story arc. Darwin also appears to be the new Deus ex Machina for the team. He will be impossible to kill and able to overcome any obstacle. The art did seem a lot better this issue though and a lot less blocky from before. I’m hoping we see some real story development soon and a challenge for the X-men. So far the battles have been minor. Perhaps a major throw down with the Imperial Guard is in the future. One can only hope.