DJ's Comics Blog

Ah, Marvel crossover events. Those things that they tell us are going to be a set length, with a bunch of pointless tie-ins that add nothing to the experience. You feel safe in the notion that it will all be over after those issues are done, only to be told halfway through that an extra issue has been added. That's the feeling I have with Secret Empire #9. There's absolutely no earthly reason why this couldn't have been the finale of the event, but for some reason we needed all of this filler, where the Underground is searching for fragments of the Cosmic Cube, and with 'Steve Rogers' in the forest for so many issues. It was revealed in this issue that this version of Steve Rogers was the memory of how Kobik knew him before she transformed him into an agent of Hydra, which was a twist that could be telegraphed from a mile away. I'm also still confused about who the narrator of this story is. For this issue's content, I'll give it a 6/10 (For th

The six month journey to the climax of this event had begun. This first issue of Dark Nights: Metal, brought to us by the superstar duo of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, is brilliant. (Obviously!) The art is excellent, the writing is great, and most important of all ... Batman is being Batman. I can't really say much, due to spoilers. But I can definitely recommend that you read this book, and maybe read some of the tie-ins as well (even if they don't advance the story in any way.) The cast of characters that had been assembled is an all-star cast of Justice League members: Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan), Aquaman, and Cyborg. Aquaman being there is kind of a spoiler for what happens in the events of his solo series, which is annoying, but I think I can cope. I give this issue an 8/10 rating.

The Marvel Generations series continued this week, with the release of The Phoenix. This issue centres around the time displaced version of Jean Grey meeting, and working alongside, a past version of herself, when she was the host for the Phoenix Force. Like The Strongest, the issue serves to teach the character some kind of lesson that could possibly help them in the future, with this teaching Jean more about the Phoenix entity itself. Although I did enjoy the issue, I do feel that they probably should have used a different set of characters, as the two Jean's are far too similar in my opinion, maybe they could have used other legacy characters, rather than essentially the exact same person. I give this issue a 6/10.

The cover (featuring Totally Awesome and Incredible Hulks) Like many people who read modern comic books, I was initially sceptical about this whole Generations 'event' that Marvel were going to do. I didn't really have that much information about it and didn't actually understand what was going to happen. The first issue was good. I feel that starting it of with the two Hulks was a smart idea, as it would get the fans to become interested and intrigued. My only real gripe with this now is that they don't really explain how the two of them got there in the first place, or why it is happening. Apart from that, the writing was excellent from Greg Pak (as it most often is), and the art really suited the Hulks. Even due to all this I am still going to give this issue a 7/10.