S.W.O.R.D. #3

I love this book. I think it's great for all the reasons that other books fail. It's a spin off, which usually means that the company is just trying to get some more money from an event. To me this one works. It's funny, the characters are new and have tons of room to grow. This book can even link the marvel space stuff to the earth stuff.

SWORD is like the port authority of the world. Think Men in Black but without Will Smith, oh and funny with more sci-fi parts. All the things you want without the mind wipe jokes.

But I just read that this might get canceled. It would be a real shame if this title does get canceled. So far it's been fun and exciting. I urge you to pick this title up, even just to see Lockheed kick some ass. And who doesn't like to see a cat sized dragon taking on a SWAT team of HAMMER agents?

Lastly I have to say that the art was a little weird at first. The way they drew Beast was more of a blue cow than the cat Beast we've grown to love. But now I like it. It fits the tone of the writing and it just all works. I wish Marvel would give this title some time to grow. I've seen them give much worse titles a lot longer to linger to a slow death. Let's not jump ship after the first arc.

Black Panther #1-3

I know this is the cover for #4 but I like it better then the first 3, so deal with it. I'm really enjoying the Black Panther these days. He's been a cool character for a while but it seems that if there isn't a clear direction, writers have a hard time coming up with how to use the Panther and the Wakanda backdrop.

At first, I thought the whole Storm marriage was just a stunt. I guess I watch too many VH1 "I love disease harvester ______" shows. I thought taking Storm away from the Xmen would hurt both sides but it hasn't. It's given Storm power and let her grow at the same time, she gets grounded when she interacts with he old teammates. I find a lot of the stories in Panther to be about acceptance. Not white on back or mutant on human but black on black and royalty on normal or outsider acceptance.

Again, I think issue #3 suffers from what Dark Avengers #3 suffers from which is they need 6 issues now to fill a trade so this one seems like you could have put half of this in 2 and the other in 4 and would have been fine. Wakanda could be like the world of BSG in that it's basically the same as ours but has grown just slightly different and has been on that path for many years. We see a full society that doesn't need shaping, it's complete, we need to shape ourselves around it because Wakanda is not going to change.

I'm liking the book, but really must add that the Black Panther : Secret Invasion crossover was really great. Those few books are well worth reading and shows just how bad ass the Panther world is.

Dark Avengers #3

This will be short but sweet. I have loved all the Bendis Avengers stuff for the past year. I felt the Secret Invasion tie-ins where even better than the actual Secret Invasion book. Although I like Dark Avengers and the twist it puts on, well everything, I'm not a magic fan. I love the Osborn / Sentry stuff in the beginning and now Doom has got his shit together #4 should be great.

It's a good book. Worth reading and paying the price, which seems to go up every week. You can't expect every issue of a six issue arc to all be home runs (BTW, baseball season starts today). If I had waited and read this all as a trade or set, I'd have liked the book more. I'm ready for the next chapter. This is one of the main reasons to switch to TPB or HC's. But there are some stories I just have to get each month. Sometimes I have the will power to Save them up. Like my Green Lanterns and GL Corps. I've got the past year saved in anticipation of Darkest Night (?). Very excited.

Back to Dark Avengers. Read it. Enjoy. Fucked up characters doing fucked up things for a fucked up leader who is really just fucked up, under the guise of the most honored group ever? How can you go wrong?

P.S. I didn't like the cover. It's only the third issue, can we at least get a good cover of someone on the team? I'm really not too familiar with the villain in the first place. But I am a fan of boobs which you get a good look at here.

Iron Fist

I just finished the first TPB of the new Iron Fist. For the first 3 1/2 books, I wasn't impressed. I've been hearing all this great news about the new Iron Fist. It starts to pick up in the last few books and leaves us at a great spot. We've got a super SUPER powered Danny Rand and some mysterious tournament and a secret book of how to be an even better Iron Fist. It reminds me a little of Harry Potter in an odd way, but there's worse things to be reminded of.

I've got trades 2 and 3, so I'll start on those. I can see why it's getting buzz, but I'll wait and see for the final verdict.

P.S. Not being a regular reader of Daredevil, I'm not quite sure where the bonus pages came from and went to but I can deal with Iron Fist posing at Daredevil, it makes sense in a comic book way. I'm sure the story that leads to this is good. One day, I'll have to get all the trades of the new Daredevil and see what people are talking about.

P.P.S. Really, isn't Iron Fist just Batman with slighly above average super powers? It still can be a good book, but that's my first impression. Except his "Alfred" is a weasel.