Weekly Pull List 5-29-2013

This week I only had 3 titles. I picked up Justice League 20 which actually came out last week, but I hadn't decided to continue with this story yet. But with the impending Trinity War crossover I think I'm going for it.

Anyways, Justice League 20 takes place immediately after issue 19 which followed last weeks Firestorm 20. It has the three newest members of the Justice League; Firestorm, The Atom, and Element Woman; facing off against Despero on the Watchtower (the Justice League's satellite fortress). They get taken out pretty quickly, but the day is saved when the Martian Manhunter shows up to take him out. It then reveals that the new Atom is a spy sent by the Justice League of America. The story wasn't as cool as I'd like, but it works great as a set up for the crossover. The artwork is pretty solid. It isn't overwhelmingly good. I mean it's good work, but like many artists I have problems with some of the faces in the issue. It doesn't hurt the book at all, just me wishing it could be better.

Next I got Justice League of America 4. This book follows the JLA as they go to infiltrate the secret society. This issue serves to move the plot forward while showing the creation of Dr. Light, and ends with the apparent death of Catwoman when she's shot in the head by the Joker. Again, a fill in issue that Johns writes superbly. The artwork is beautiful in the book and serves to build the tension and tell the story beautifully. Not much else to say other than looking forward to the crossover.

The last book I got this week was Sonic the Hedgehog 249. We pick up with Mega Man, Sonic, and friends battling their mechanized friends. They work together to release their friends and start going on the offensive. This story surely does not disappoint in any way. It may be cliche and rather predictable but it's just very pleasing to read. It's cute, nostalgia inducing, and a whole lot of sweet action.

Weekly Pull List 5-22-13

A light week this week made lighter by the Sixth Gun not showing up at my LCS (Local comic shop) which of course is super sad, but not overly surprising as I'm the only guy in Flagstaff reading that book.

Avengers 12 - This book takes us back to the crazy huge storyline that's going through this book. While this issue is better than previous ones, it's not great. It involves some villain whose name I don't remember who has sent some sort of life bringing bombs to Earth in order to make the planet a living thing. Overall, not a great book but I will stay on if the story continues to get better in these coming issues.

The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man 20 - The final issue of the book sadly. This book was always in danger of being cancelled as it had such low sales. It also suffered from a lot of regime changes in it's almost 2-year run. I've enjoyed this book from the start and have gone back and collected most of the original 80s series of Firestorm. This issue does fall into the "hey this is our last issue, but our hero's story continues in this other book" pitfall, but Dan Jurgens wrote it well enough that it's easy to overlook. We catch up with old flame head as he's finishing a fight with every member of his rogue gallery. While it is sad to see this book go, I'm glad it went out with a bang and I'm excited to see his adventures as part of the justice league.

Weekly Pull List 5-15-2013

I'm back this week with another short stack of books so this will be a quick post.

Sonic Universe 52 - Part five of twelve in the Worlds Collide crossover. This book follows The Blue Battlers as they fight the evil robots in the Skull Egg Zone somewhere between their two universes. They aren't doing too hot until Mega Man uses the Tail Wind weapon he absorbed when he released Tails from his roboticized self. Not much to say about this one. Continues the story, and sets up for next issue as per usual.

Helheim 3 - As you've read in my previous posts, I was overly thrilled with this book for the first two issues. This book serves as the  "This is what we are heading towards for the rest of this series" issue. If the first issue ended where this one did I would be so much happier. We get the backstory of a feud between two witches. One of whom is the one who brought Rikard back from the dead. Still a promising book, looking forward to see where it's going. As far as artwork on this book goes, Joelle Jones kicks some ass. The gritty world of the book is represented with the raw look in the art. This book has definitely put her on the list of artists to watch for me.

Fall 2013 Television News

So it's the big week! All the networks are releasing which shows they are renewing an which are being cancelled. I thought I'd consolidate what news I could. I gathered it from a super convenient list over at the Chicago Tribune. Click the link to see the full list as I will be picking and choosing which I will be mentioning.

First off over at NBC we have Chicago Fire, Community, Grimm, Law and Order: SVU, Parks and Rec, the Voice, and SNL being renewed. No huge surprises here as these are all fairly big shows, apart from Grimm which is slowly growing a cult following. On the other hand, they canceled 30 Rock, Animal Practice, Guys With Kids, The Office, and Smash. So far I watched none of these shows apart from an occasional SNL. Grimm is really the only one I'm interested in, although I would like to give Chicago Fire a try. Series that NBC has picked up from pilots are: About a Boy, Believe, The Blacklist, Camp, Chicago PD, Crisis, Dracula, The Family Guide, Ironside, Michael J. Fox Show, Night Shift, Sean Saves the World, Undateable, Welcome to the Family, and American Dream Builders.
Out of these, The Blacklist looks to be a very interesting twist on a procedural, but I'm not sure I'll watch. Dracula, The Chicago Fire spinoff: Chicago PD, and remake of Ironside from the 60s all seem okay. All around I'm not excited about anything over at NBC, especially since they passed on The Sixth Gun pilot...

Over at ABC we have Castle, Grey's Anatomy, The Middle, Modern Family, Nashville, Once Upon a Time, and Suburgatory. I enjoy all of these except Grey's which isn't my cup of tea, and Once which tanked after season one when they wrapped up the plot that made the show interesting. I have yet to watch past episode 2 or 3 of Nashville, but it was pretty great up til then. The weirdest renewal is The Neighbors which I watched the pilot of and it had nothing to bring me back to episode 2. Canceled shows include Body of Proof, Don't Trust the B----, Happy Endings, Last Resort, Malibu Country, and Zero Hour. Of these I have watched Malibu Country since I know the prop master and Zero Hour which totally didn't hold up to the awesome sounding premise. Malibu was funny, but it didn't seem to have an audience it aimed for so not a big surprise here. The others I've had no interest in except Happy Endings which looks quite hilarious.
ABC has decided to pick up the pilots for Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Mind Games, Mixology, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, and Trophy Wife. Obviously excited for SHIELD. We are in planning stages for a podcast on that, stay tuned!! Mind Games looks interesting, as does Mixology. I will probably check out the pilots for these in the fall. Once Upon a Time fell flat for me so a spinoff really doesn't appeal to me either.

CBS has renewed 2 Broke Girls, Big Bang Theory, CSI, Elementary, Hawaii Five-O, HIMYM, Mentalist, Mike and Molly, both NCIS shows, and Two and a Half Men. Can't make it through an episode of 2 Broke Girls, the jokes don't work for me and it's really obvious the actors are new to the multi camera experience as the pauses for laughter are painful. Big Bang got stale for me a few seasons ago, but I hear this season is great, HIMYM is supposedly going into its last season, which should have happened a year or 2 ago. The rest of these I don't watch but I see their appeal.
CBS has cancelled CSI: New York, Golden Boy, Partners, Rules of Engagement, and Vegas. I must say, I watched some episodes of Partners and found it to be pretty funny and had it had a stronger female lead, could have gone on much further. Shows from pilots are Crazy Ones (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Robin Williams? Okay!), Hostages, Intelligence, Mom, The Millers, Reckless, and We are Men. I've heard nothing about any of these.

Fox has renewed American Dad, Bob's Burgers, Family Guy, The Following, Glee, New Girl, Raising  Hope, and The Simpsons. I don't really care at all...
They cancelled Fringe which is bittersweet. I loved the show, but took it in a direction I wasn't a huge fan of. They also Cancelled Ben and Kate, The Mob Doctor, and Touch. None of which ever appealed to me and I was always ponderous over calling a show focused on a kid Touch. Just seemed weird.
They are picking up series from pilots: Almost Human (J.J. Abrams sci fi cop show a la Aasimov), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Dads, Enlisted, Gang Related, Murder Police, Rake, Sleepy Hollow, Surviving Jack, and Us and Them. None of these but the Abrams show sound very intriguing.

CW of course has renewed Arrow which means another season of the Rogue Arrow Podcast!! They also renewed Beauty and the Beast, The Carrie Diaries, Hart of Dixie, Nikita, Supernatural and Vampire Diaries. None of which really surprise me as they hit a huge TV watching Market with the teenage girl population. They cancelled 90210, Cult, Emily Owens MD, and Gossip Girl. Again. No stake in any of these. They picked up The 100 (After Earth with 100 juvenile lawbreakers instead of Will Smith and Son), The Originals (Vampire Diaries Spinoff), Star-Crossed (Vampire Diaries, but aliens!!!), Reign (Period piece about 15-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots), and the Tomorrow People (Kids with superpowers.) Meh.

So there's clearly a trend for spinoffs this year. It's annoying for shows like Chicago Fire and Once Upon a Time with only 1 or 2 seasons behind them. I'd rather see something new and different than to start a spinoff before they can really grow a big following... Just me. Anyways, what shows are you guys excited for? Really it boils down to SHIELD, Crazy Ones, Almost Human, and more Arrow for me!!

Weekly Pull List - 5-8-2013

And we're back! I've had a busy week. Recorded 3 podcasts and edited and posted 2 of them (still need to get Mainframe Chronicle up). Been busy with the two jobs as usual. Beat Mega Man X for the first time (a battle 20 years or so in the making). So now I'm onto Mega Man X2 as I have the Mega Man X Collection for PS2. Great game(s)!! Also saw Iron Man 3, which I liked a lot. Look for a review on that soon.

On a sadder note: news broke that the Sixth Gun Pilot was passed over by NBC. Read writer Cullen Bunn's response here. I didn't really expect it to get picked up, but was super hopeful as this could easily turn into a new Walking Dead size phenomenon. But alas...

Anyways, onto the main feature! Had a heavier week this week.

Avengers 11

I've not been impressed with this book since issue one. I was waiting for a change in style or story or something to make it better and this issue is it. Instead of feeling like exposition to an upcoming, uninteresting story, this issue was essentially a heist story. It follows a bunch of characters who I have no idea who they were as they infiltrate some place that I don't remember to find out why something happened in a previous issue (maybe?). Unfortunately the end seemed to be just set up for a new story. I'll try out issue 12 and if I'm not impressed, I'm out. Overall, decent issue. Much better than previous ones, but still not outstanding.

JLA 3

We will now jump to the big group team from DC. I think DC is handling their team books much better. We have a set roster with guest appearances instead of a pool of hundreds of people that it is ridiculous to keep track of them all. Also the story seems to be going somewhere and actually feels like it continues from month to month. I think the issue is that Marvel is trying to do a bimonthly book in Avengers so it feels rushed.
But onto the Justice League of America. This story may work better than Avengers, but it is rather cliche. It starts off where we left off: With the JLA fighting the Justice League, but surprise! it's actually robots. Since their assault didn't work, they try to infiltrate the Society of Villains or whatever they're calling themselves nowadays. They do so using a decent plot device, but of course the hot-headed Green Arrow almost ruins the plan since he's not in the know!! This confused me as I thought he was actually already part of the team, but he's apparently not... So I need to go reread the first two issues to see what I missed. Again, an enjoyable book if not at all surprising.

Sonic the Hedgehog 248

So I caught up with the Worlds Collide story where Drs. Wily and Eggman have tricked Sonic and Mega Man into fighting each other. I think the best way to describe this book is a young gamer's fantasy played out and aimed at a very young audience. In that respect it succeeds greatly. The story is predictable but it is still really cool to see. The evil doctors are sufficiently egotistical and fairly obnoxious, but it totally works for the story. Since Mega Man X and Sonic 2 were two of my absolutely favorite games growing up, I love the story. Were this not the case, I would probably not care at all.

Mega Man 25

Woo! 25th issue! In this episode Sonic and Mega Man go from fighting in Sonic's world to fighting in Mega Man's world. Eventually they start talking and realize they're on the same side. The part that's great is when the bad guys actually acknowledge this and verbalize why that's bad for them. It's amusing and again exactly what I want from these issues.

Chin Music 1

I picked this up because The owner of my LCS mentioned it was new. I saw Steve Niles was involved and he wrote the Mystery Society, one of the books that made me love comics. He also created 30 Days of Night. Everything I've read by him has been enjoyable. Not my number 1 writer by any means, but all decent at least. This book does not disappoint. It reminds me a lot of Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt's The Damned series. It looks to be a 30's gangster book with supernatural elements. I enjoy the book. Took a couple reads to follow it. Really to get into the style of story telling. Bottom line? I'm in for a few issues at least. I could me getting this book for quite a while.

Thor God of Thunder 8

I've raved quite a bit on this book here already and this one doesn't disappoint. It's not the best issue in this series, but it's great in it's set up of the (hopefully) epic fight between the three Thors (say that 5 times fast) and Gorr the god slayer. I'm interested to see how this story will go forward and really this book is worth buying for the epic final page of the Thors riding through space on a viking ship. Art is beautiful. The dialogue is subtle and has great humor in it. The time travel in the story is odd, but easy to look past as the rest of the book is awesome. Great book! All around.

Weekly Pull List - 5-1-2013

So this week I only got to pick up Green Arrow #19. That's it. Apparently I'm the only one pleased with the Worlds Collide crossover as part three was completely sold out. So, yeah.

Green Arrow #19 - As you probably know, I'm a fan of Green Arrow. So much so that when they made a TV show about him, I started a podcast about it. That being said, They decided to make Oliver Queen a younger, less troubled character than his better stories. That said, the current storyline is very similar to some plot threads in Arrow with a "dark archer" in Komodo who kicks oliver's ass at archery. It's okay, but not great. I'm hoping it will get better and the story will pay off, but we shall see.

So yeah... uh that's it this week. Next week should be a bit more exciting.