Comics are Awesome III

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Sparky Prime
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Edit: Having fully read the issue... Miles Morales Spider-Man #10 caught my attention because it seems to be revisiting the Ultimate Universe, sort of. It's Miles birthday, and he's reflecting on his life so far, having come from another universe and suffered some recent trauma. Peter stops by, and asks if he could check something out for him, as he's got the Savage Six to deal with, and realized Brooklyn has its own Spider-Man. At the address Peter gives him, Miles finds a warehouse with a dimensional portal generator in it, where he encounters Green Goblin... from the Ultimate Universe. They battle through the city, when Miles gets stepped on by a giant foot. Shrinking down, the new guy reveals himself to be "Ultimatum", a character that combines elements of various of the Ultimates (Giant Man's powers, Iron Man's boots and gauntlet, Caps shield, Thor's vest). Realizing who Miles is, Ultimatum tells Norman to back off and that he needs to think about this situation and to remember who is in charge. With the villains gone, and no clues at the warehouse, Miles returns home. Meanwhile, Ultimatum visits Kinpin, and explains he didn't find what he was looking for in the Ultimate universe, asking if he can run the streets again. Kingpin agrees, but doesn't want to be calling him "Ultimatum", who reveals himself to be 616 Miles Morales.

So yeah... I guess 616 Miles relationship with the Ultimate version of his wife didn't work out, and decided to come back. Not sure how he got his hands on the Ultimates gear, or why he's working with Norman. In a way, it is good to see a follow-up from the "Spider-Men II" mini-series, since the ending of that I felt was pretty lackluster. Using the name "Ultimatum" for his super hero identity feels like bad taste given how terrible that storyline was, yet also fitting since I don't think the 616 Miles Morales is an interesting character....
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Justice League 32 - Doom War part 3
The issue continues the war in the past, present and future as Lex Luthor and Perpetua stand on the brink of winning. This is a middle chapter that keeps the plot moving without resolving too much, but it does in fact see several sets of heroes achieve their goals. Flash and GL with the JSA manage to obtain their piece of the totality, though not because they're particularly awesome, but because Aquaman shows up to bail them out. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Kamandi free Justice Legion A from Brainiac's control, but then he augments himself with future tech and threatens them. And Hawkgirl's group does indeed find Lex Luthor, with the Anti-Monitor (surprisingly) joining his two brothers to fight against Luthor and Perpetua. Lots of action, lots of plot crammed into the issue.

Flash Forward 1 of 6 -
The book I hope will undo the piece of crap that was Heroes in Crisis starts with Wally West in Blackgate Supermax prison with a suppression collar, wracked with guilt because he killed 13 people at Sanctuary. Needless to say, with so many crooks in that prison that Wally or someone he knows put there, he's a constant target, and he's not so sure he doesn't just want to let one of them be the guy who took out the Flash, because it would be easier. He doesn't want to see anyone, but he does have one visitor: Linda Park, his wife in the previous timeline. When Girder and Tarpit attack Wally in his cell, they break his collar and he discovers that he still has some fight left in him... he won't just sit there and let them kill him. He is then approached by some extradimensional being, Tempus Fuginaut (never heard of this guy) who needs the fastest being in the multiverse to fix... something. It's not quite clear. Some portion of the Dark Multiverse (I'm so tired of the multiverse storylines at this point) is a problem that Wally must solve, against his will. He's sent across the dimensions and the last page shows him meeting a badly wounded Calvin Ellis, President Superman. There's a subplot about Metron's Moebius chair, which I presume is left over from the Darkseid War storyline in Justice League.

I enjoyed Brett Booth's art when Titans Rebirth started, and that series was heavily focused on Wally, so it's good to see Booth drawing again. Not a bad first issue, given where Tom King left Wally, and I'm seriously hoping this is DC's version of a fix fic, that will do what the original Green Lantern Rebirth did for Hal Jordan, and find a way to undo the destruction of a perfectly serviceable character, who happens to be one of my favorites. I've been following Wally since the late 80s, on and off, and he's come a long way. Not many of DC's characters get the type of growth and change that he did, so here's hoping he can be fixed.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Surprised to find out, Miles Morales #11 does not follow up from the events of #10, making #10 a stand alone issue. I guess they wanted to bring 616 Miles Morales back to the 616 universe, as well as Ultimate Norman/Green Goblin for some reason, but not actually do anything with them just yet.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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I thought they destroyed the Ultimate universe, with the exception of Miles Morales. Not that I've read any of that, so I'm probably speaking out of turn here. Does Marvel have a multiverse in the same way that DC does?

Flash Forward #2 - Speaking of Marvel, this issue has Wally West face off against DC's versions of the Marvel characters that we saw in Multiversity and pretty easily run rings around all of them as he fights off the dark matter infecting whatever earth President Superman lives on. There's obviously more going on here than just ending an "infection", but we only get hints about what it is. The last few pages of the issue are intriguing as giant busts of the characters Wally killed in Heroes in Crisis have appeared on the landscape in some unidentified place, with the arrivals noted by Jai and Iris, Wally's children. I can't say I expected that.

Hawkman #17 - We're still getting dragged through this interminable Year of the Villain plot, with Robert Vendetti doing the best he can with it. The material with the Shade is good, and his apparent long friendship with Carter Hall is well-used in this issue, but watching Hawkman get more violent and try to kill the Shadow Thief rings hollow since we know Carter has been infected by the Batman who Laughs, somehow. He declares himself "Sky Tyrant" at the end of the issue, so we've got to put up with evil Hawkman for a while I guess.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Justice League #36 - We're almost at the conclusion of the Justice/Doom War, with no apparent way for the heroes to win. We all know they will, somehow, and all the pieces are there, but I can't quite put the puzzle together. In any case, it's every hero from all the timelines versus Apex Predator Lex Luthor and his army, given to him by Perpetua, who double crosses and uses (of course) the other members of the Legion of Doom to make Lex even more powerful. How he goes back to being Lex Luthor, corrupt scientist and businessman after this is anyone's guess. That's the problem with just going all out with the storytelling... as entertaining as it is, at the end of it all, these characters still have to be usable in future.

Hawkman #18 - We get an explanation of who "Sky Tyrant" is, the Hawman of Earth-3, let loose by the Batman who Laugh's virus. The doom symbol is in the sky in a tie-in to the Justice League storyline, but otherwise it's just Carter Hall in Sky Tyrant's mind, trying to stop him from killing. And in the end, Hawkwoman (Shayera) finally shows up in this series, after little more than a few cameos. We've seen her (sort of) over in Justice League, but it's nice to see her in the main Hawkman title.

Flash Forward #3 - Wally is still moving around the multiverse, getting rid of the infection. This time he's on a world where the Justice League are vampires, and he ends up working with that world's Roy Harper to stop them. It's plot-heavy and I won't repeat it all here, but suffice to say that like last issue, Wally really gets a chance to shine and show just how good he is and just what he can do with super-speed when he's going all out. There's no follow up on the Mobius Chair or his kids this issue though. Three issues to go.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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So yeah... I guess 616 Miles relationship with the Ultimate version of his wife didn't work out, and decided to come back. Not sure how he got his hands on the Ultimates gear, or why he's working with Norman. In a way, it is good to see a follow-up from the "Spider-Men II" mini-series, since the ending of that I felt was pretty lackluster.
The whole point of that ending was that 616 Miles (an older criminal) got a second chance at life. I just hope they are bringing him back because they have an idea, rather than some fan-fic grade filler.

I thought they destroyed the Ultimate universe, with the exception of Miles Morales. Not that I've read any of that, so I'm probably speaking out of turn here. Does Marvel have a multiverse in the same way that DC does?
Marvel still has a multiverse. However, the alternates are traditionally more event-based, rather than gimmick based (like DC's). Marvel has fewer alternates where the gimmick is swapping morality or gender. (And, one of the few moral-swapped worlds was meant to be a disposable joke during the lead-up to the 2015 "Secret Wars".)

Over 2013-15, it looked like Marvel was planning to streamline, and dispose of their multiverse. They even went so far as to wipe out several established future timelines (in Remender's "Uncanny Avengers"). Any alternate settings and variations of characters that they wanted to keep would have come from "Battleworld" (the setting of "Secret Wars"), which was meant to be other-dimensional leftovers.

But, at some point (probably late in the process), Marvel changed their mind and wanted to keep the multiverse. (On-page, it is explained as a "new" multiverse. But, in real terms, it is more or less the same.)

The Ultimate universe (# 1610) was destroyed at the end of "Time Runs Out". At the end of "Secret Wars", Miles and a few other things were included in mainline Marvel.

Since then, Bendis re-introduced an updated Ultimate universe (for a few pages in "Spider-Men II"). And, Al Ewing brought back a few more "Ultimate" variants of characters....which everyone has since forgotten about. (My guess is that there were plans to use them. But, when Ewing's post-"Secret Wars "the Ultimates" was cancelled, the plans were abandoned.)
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Dominic wrote:The whole point of that ending was that 616 Miles (an older criminal) got a second chance at life.

Not really... Spider-Men II established Kingpin had gone to great lengths to erase everything about the 616 Miles Morales when he wanted to settle down with his wife and get out of crime, to the point not even SHIELD had anything on him (begs to question why Kingpin couldn't expunge his own record like that, but whatever). He already had his second chance at life, living happily with his wife until she died. The whole point of Spider-Men II was to subvert expectations. 616 Miles isn't the character we expect him to be compared to his Ultimate counterpart (really, they might as well just be two characters that happen to have the same name), and in the end, the bad guy wins the day by getting exactly what he wanted.

This story then undoes that ending with 616 Miles returning to the 616 universe, with out really any explanations.
I just hope they are bringing him back because they have an idea, rather than some fan-fic grade filler.
I wouldn't count on it, considering how they've handled the character thus far... I get the feeling he was only brought back (and Ult. Green Goblin) to give Miles a couple villains.
andersonh1 wrote:I thought they destroyed the Ultimate universe, with the exception of Miles Morales. Not that I've read any of that, so I'm probably speaking out of turn here. Does Marvel have a multiverse in the same way that DC does?
As Dom explained, yeah, they destroyed the Ultimate Universe. There were a couple characters besides Miles Morales that survived and ended up in the 616 universe. But besides Miles, only Reed Richards (who became a villain known as Maker) has played a significant role in any stories since the 2015 Secret Wars.

In the conclusion of the aforementioned Secret Wars, Reed Richards (616 version) with the help of Molecule Man and Franklin Richards created a new multiverse. So really, the Ultimate Universe shown in Spider-Man II is not the same as the original Ultimate Universe we'd seen before. And yeah, it's pretty much exactly the same concept as the DC multiverse.
Dominic wrote:And, Al Ewing brought back a few more "Ultimate" variants of characters....which everyone has since forgotten about.
Those versions of the characters were created by Maker though, they weren't really the same characters brought back. And Maker also killed that version of Captain America for not following his orders, while Spider-Men II showed a Captain America alive and well in the (new) Ultimate Universe.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Star Trek: Picard Countdown #1

Admiral Picard contacts Geordi La Forge, who is overseeing the construction of a fleet of evacuation ships to help with the evacuation of the Romulans prior to the supernova, while Picard is trying to get things moving at the Romulan Senate. Geordi mentions the Enterprise (I assume the E is still in service here), but it's new captain likely will not give up the chair so easily if Picard wants her back, but Picard explains he's comfortable in command of a new ship, the USS Verity, an Odyssey class ship from Star Trek Online (and was designed for the Enterprise F in said game). Anyway, Geordi explains the construction is proceeding well and they might just be able to pull this rescue mission off. In Picard's log, he notes it's a wonder they know about the pending super nova at all, and is frustrated in dealing with the Romulans. Apparently the Romulans only accepted Starfleet's help after they presented them with communications they'd intercepted about the looming crisis, and in their paranoia, are not being very forthcoming with any details Starfleet needs to know, like populated planets that need evacuated, or how much time they have to work with. The estimates indicates they've got a few years at least, but Picard feels like he's racing against an invisible clock.

The Romulans inform the Verity about the planet Yuyat, a planet the Federation previously believed to be uninhabited, is in need of evacuation. Upon their arrival, they are told this colony is breaking from the tradition of secrecy and are allowing Picard and his first officer, Raffi Musiker (played by Michelle Hurd in the upcoming series), complete access to the colony and its citizens. Shortly after, they learn the colonists are using the planet's native population as forced labor. Further complicating the matter, Picard had been told they were to evacuate ten thousand, not a population of five million, which they are not equipped to handle. The Romulans of course never intended to evacuate the locals, just the Romulan citizens. Picard refuses to evacuate anyone until they can properly assess the entire population of sentient life, not just the Romulans. And so the Romulans arrest the two Starfleet officers until they agree to evacuate them.

--

I like that this comic is addressing that there would be planets with native races in the Romulan Empire. I mean, we've always been told the Romulan Empire is one of the super powers of the Alpha Quadrant (despite being in the Beta Quadrant), but we've only ever seen Romulans. It makes sense some of their worlds would have native inhabitants. But apparently the Romulans only keep them around as slave labor, and that they should feel privileged to be in service to the Romulans. I believe the Romulans refusal to allow their evacuation as well will be a big part of the reason why Picard ends up leaving Starfleet. I'm thinking Starfleet will order him to only evacuate the Romulans, forcing him to leave behind the native populations, and thus billions of lives they could have saved will be lost when the super nova hits. Although this also hits a question.... This population according to the Romulans are mostly primitives living in the wilderness. Wouldn't the Prime Directive not allow them to be evacuated anyway (such as should have been the case with the Boraalan in TNG episode "Homeward"), or would the Romulans interference in their development negate that?
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Green Lantern: Blackstars #2 - Much better than the first issue, and the development of Belzebeth as a character is welcome. I love all the pointed commentary about the current state of DC Comics with Superman talking about "superhero mental health issues needing to be dealt with before we can actually help people", and Batman actually giving up after one too many evil dopplegangers and crazed assistants. That Belzebeth still has Hal's Green Lantern ring is interesting, though I knew it had to still exist so this altered reality can be undone. Hal starting a war to stop Earth being destroyed seems very typically Hal, even in the Blackstar reality. But I"ll be glad to finish this arc and get back to the regular Green Lantern series. I will say this: the story is very much tailored to Hal Jordan's character. I can't see John or Guy or Kyle working in this situation in quite the same way.

Justice League #37
He's nowhere near that smart. In fact, I think we're all about to get real **** stupid in here! Right, Dad? - Jarro, who is not wrong. But I love how crazy this book gets. And that he calls Batman "dad".

It's all the heroes vs. Apex Luthor and his white Martian army with a couple of great two-page spreads to kick off the fight. The main League plus several of the JSA attempt to access the various cosmic forces they have a connection to: the speed force, the emotional spectrum, etc. in an attempt to have a sliver of a chance to fight back. Meanwhile if you've ever wanted to hear the Anti-Monitor ask "do you hear a car horn?" or cry to his mommy for help, this is the book for you. He tries to kill Hawkgirl, but John Stewart arrives in the Flash's car, is able to split the Monitor and World-Forger from the Anti-Monitor, and then they are able to return to the present day when Perpetua throws a planet at them. I'm not making this up. It's crazy superhero comics at its best. All this, and Aquaman has his orange shirt back too. In the end, the League has a fighting chance, which they did not have before, and hopefully this story wraps up next issue. As much as I'm enjoying the story, it feels like it's hit the crisis point where it needs a resolution several times. Time to resolve it for real.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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I'm glad once again that I dropped the Superman books. Only a few years after they last tried this and it bombed, Superman has revealed his secret identity to the world yet again, in defiance of logic and common sense both on the page and off. At least he won't be running around in a t-shirt this time, with his cape wrapped around his fists, riding a motorcycle and saying "hell" and "damn" all the time in some effort to make him "relevant". There are time-tested, logical reasons for these characters who have made some very powerful enemies to keep secrets that keep loved ones and friends safe, and I don't see what's so hard to understand about that. At least the book appears not to be selling as well as anticipated, so hopefully I'm not the only one who does not care for this story choice.
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