The List #31 Part 1

Joker’s Asylum II: Harley Quinn #1
Writer: James Patrick
Artist: Joe Quinones
Here's the basic idea of the story: Harley breaks out of Arkham because it's Valentine's Day and she needs her puddin'. When she arrives at Joker's hideout, it turns out he's been taken by Falcone. From there it's her running from place to place to find Joker, and in the end it turns out Batman caught up to him and put him in Arkham. He says if Harley goes with him back to Arkham she can have dinner with him, so she happily accepts.

This appearance is yet another batch of Harley "cute-isms" without any of the clever quality that came with her animated appearances. What's worse is yet again we're lead to believe that the only reason is Harley's a nut is Joker and past that she's fine. Not only does this go against previously established flashbacks (or at least seems to me), but it holds no appeal. The thing about Harley Quinn is she's this bouncy blonde girl who looks and acts innocent and cheerful, but the violent acts she commits tell us that she's not. It's simply an act, and I like it better when it's just an act because I don't care about some victim of The Joker who runs around being cute all the time when he's not involved. Anyway, at the very least this issue we get to see Harley get her violence on in the name of finding Mistah J.

Now that's a Harley Quinn I want to read.

New Mutants #14
Writer: Zeb Wells
Artists: Ibraim Roberson, Lan Medina, and Nathan Fox
First thing I'd like to call attention to is that there's a couple of artists on board for this issue, one of them being assigned to the scenes taking place in Legion's head. I have to say Thank Frost because Roberson's blandness is irritating me. I don't know what it is with him, but there's just something very mundane about how it all looks.

This issue opens with Cyclops telling the non-X-Men Utopia mutants to join in the fight and that today they are all X-Men. Geez, handing out that status out to anyone these days aintcha, Cyke? Next we have Sunspot, Boom Boom, Avalanche, and Husk fighting Nimrods with Husk running around like a helpless idiot. Yeah, being able to shred her skin to basically be a Colossus of whatever substance is such an unfortunate power.... Anyway, during this time Sunspot has a moment of self awareness:

If you've read the first run of New Mutants, then you know that someone is ALWAYS saying that fucking line. Seriously, it's right next to, "Ah'm only invulnerable when Ah'm blastin'!"

A late development we see here with the Nimrods is that they're adapting to the mutant combatants' powers, which is demonstrated by Colossus' arm getting serious fucked up. Luckily, the X-Men have a solution to this, but first....

This arrogant asshole.

In the future X-Force is all RAWR BATTLE TIME! and Cypher is off doing the whole deus ex machina thing by speaking binary to a machine with a guy in it so that the machine boots him out. Soon enough it'll be established that Cypher can cure the Legacy virus by "speaking its language". Seriously, this character sucks at "dark" and "badass", let's see him go back to something he's actually good at doing. I'll give you a hint: it involves a casket. Anyway, X-Force discovers it has to take down two Master Molds in the end of their side story.

Moving back to the present, Xavier recruits Legion, and he's sent into the fight. His multiple personalities, all armed with different powers, are useful against the Nimrods as whenever one gets adapted to he just switches out to another one. Also notice what the Nimrods say when they detect Legion and Xavier coming:

Notice a plural on that?

No! Because it is A-OK for powerful mutants like Xavier and Emma Frost to be powerful without being OMEGA. Especially since, as it's been explained to me, Omega level means A. You're pretty near-immortal B. Your powers can do about anything C. You're so powerful that it makes it impossible to believe that any fights are a real struggle, nixing the man vs. man conflict and screwing up the story. Over-powered character aren't fun, they're annoying because it turns into The Sentry or Exodus where they're always taken out first to make the rest of the fight believeable. Even though no one should be able to take them out in the first place. Omega level should basically be a Jean-only category because she is essentially the mutant God.

Back on Utopia, that Cockroach Morlock, Scalphunter, Sack, and Random group together to go join the big battle when Toad interrupts them and tells them to back out of it. Sack gets pissy with Toad, and they're interrupted by a Nimrod zapping off Toad's index finger and Sack's head. Which would shock me more except...I totally thought he was dead already. Like I thought he died in X-Men The 198 or during the Leper Queen arc in X-Force but that was Fever Pitch, but whatever, there's too many characters with visible skeletons to keep track of. And to make things more intense, the approaching Nimrod crushes Sack's disembodied head.

And finally, as Utopia itself is getting attacked, Magneto gets up out of bed and decides to switch between his two modes that he's had since his return: Going from old and frail all of a sudden mode to youthful and powerful mode. And with that, expect to see him vigorously fight off the Nimrods in an "epic" battle next issue and in the middle of it, suddenly revert to completely useless. Such is the existence of Magneto post-Uncanny X-Men #500.

Conclusion: This issue was pretty decent despite Roberson's bland art. But I'm ready for this crossover to be done, it has been drawn out way too long. That's it for this issue; I leave you with Sack's disembodied head as a souvenir for all the good times we've had this chapter.

The List #22

X-Factor #201
Writer: Peter David
Artist: Bing Cansino
Before I begin, my apologies for taking so long to make this post; it's been a shit week. This post is not going to be a lengthy one because I didn't find much to comment on this time around, my notes on Works didn't exceed a page which doesn't happen when I've got four books to discuss. Also, there will be no post for the Wednesday that just passed's comics since I don't read any of them.

This month's X-Factor just went to further proving that the Fantastic Four are a horrible team. The Thing doing his manly, unnecessary aggression really just did nothing but irritate me. I mean it's great that X-Factor still has action because sometimes it's too focused on the drama, but when it's totally unnecessary it's just... flat and irritating.

But some good news is Peter David is finally using his characters more evenly without having to have a double issue to make it work. Monet is getting a sub-story which I think works because she's a wonderful character and this story looks like it has nothing to do with Jamie.

Back at the main story it's all FF and The Thing is an add-on to the X-Factor team for the moment and he has THIS to say when they conclude that Doctor Doom probably has something to do with the Invisible Woman's disappearance:

Seriously, how is FF selling if this is their mentality??
Like how fucking dumb do you have to be to consider Doom giving up on you for a second?

Maybe David is just critiquing the FF like he did Utopia last month. I would love it if critiquing Marvel's teams became his ''thing' because he's just the guy to do it. And if that's the case I'm %100 behind him.

Overall: This arc just proves that the FF are a boring team that should just stick to one book. In obscurity. Written by Chris Claremont. But aside from that, this arc is really just forgettable and it falls into the between the ok and good area that I find David ends up in a lot.

X-Force #23
Writer: Craig Kyle and Chris Yost
Artist: Clayton Crain
This issue someone finally fucking dies. Unfortunately, it's characters of no consequence. Here's the death list, which means spoilers in case you're dense: Diamond Lil, maybe Leech?, and Onyxx. Onyxx just being cleanup by Yost and Kyle because he's redundant with Santo around. Why he was ever one of the remaining students always boggled my mind.

In other death news, MASSIVE SPOILER: Apparently She-Hulk and Ares died this week. What. The. Fuck. Two characters I enjoy greatly! Ares being killed by The Sentry which makes no sense because Ares could have a future after DA and without Bendis. The Sentry, not so much, his death is pretty much in high demand. And She-Hulk was killed by Red She-Hulk. Which is vicious disrespect.

This issue is pretty much the same amount of mediocrity and lack of progression that we've come to expect from this crossover. The end of the issue, they decide to invade Genosha to go destory Selene. They actuall had to come to that conclusion. At least Emma was the one to say Kill Selene considering she's been such a pansy in her emotionless diamond form. It seems writers believe her coldness is paper thin and can be ripped away so easily to make the plot seem that much more severe by having her, 'the heartless bitch', getting upset.

Overall, mediocre issue, only buy if you're collecting the crossover. OR if you happen to be a fan of Crain because he's had a couple spectacular moments during this issue and just seems to be on task at making things seem scary.

Gotham City Sirens #8
Plot and Art: Guillem March
Dialogue: Marc Andreyko
This issue revolves around my favorite Gotham Girl, Ivy, and luckily it's done right. But before we get to that, can someone tell me why she's drawn to look like a total tranny on the cover?

Also, I have to say something that occurred to me recently: Don't the Gotham Girls come off as that typical trio of sisters deal? Ivy, the serious older sister, Catwoman, the awkward middle sister, and Harley, the carefree younger sister. Or in Charmed terms, Ivy is Prue, Catwoman is Piper, and Harley is Phoebe.

Anyway, the issue is concerned with a copycat mimicking Ivy and her trying to get to the bottom of it, almost dying, and taking care of the situation. There's also flashbacks and I have to say I enjoy Ivy in Arkham because it better emphasizes her unique nature (but not in the Widening Gyre because I'm hate her being treated like some slut). And pre-Harley Quinn, Harleen the Shrink definitely interests me.

I also happened to love these panels--> Ivy presented as a 'weird' figure is always a joy especially considering the alternative is slutty Ivy.

An interesting discovery we found out this issue was that apparently Ivy can be revived from two weeks of starvation of sunlight, water, and nutrients by just throwing her in water. And it's not like she's pretty when she comes out of this starvation.

The issue concludes with Ivy finding her copycat, some guy who used to work at Arkham and she let's us in on her thoughts of love, men, and how she views herself:

I adore that she has no interest in love and just views it as a burden. Because otherwise she'd be paired up with the DC's version of Cyclops and subsequently defanged. Not only that, but a woman that's unconcerned with her love life is always refreshing considering how it's too often portrayed as the center of their universe. Also, she's sort of sexist and I'm all over it.

Conclusion: Wonderful Ivy issue, done-in-one story that's just a good read, so go out and buy it.

X-Men Legacy #232
Writer: Mike Carey
Artist: Clay Mann
Before I begin reviewing the issue, I have to let you all know I did my homework and got to the bottom of a very serious need-to-know issue. The results are that, yes, the easy access hole in Colossus' costume is part of Bianchi's original designs.

This issue begins with seeing the results of the battle that ensued after Blindfold was possessed by Proteus. The remaining team included a weakened Magneto, Husk, Rogue, Trance, and Psylocke, so it was all very Girl Power. And good news for Psylocke lovers, she ended up functioning as she always should: as the second-in-command and they eyes and ears of the team. She definitely got a big spotlight this issue and I'm glad to see Carey take an interest in her. And Magneto proved he's too old for this shit and a really useless addition to the team. Until he's evil again, of course. Then he'll find himself totally rejuvenated for no real reason except that he just went from good to bad.

Concerning Proteus, I have to say that after 8 seasons of Charmed and 7 of Buffy, possession is an overused plot thing and should be used sparingly because the story's usually the same.

After the first 8 pages of showing the results of the fight, we get to see the flashback to the fight with possessed Blindfold. Something did catch my eye, yet again the character involved is Colossus. Seriously, look at this panel with no context in mind. What is this guy's deal?? Did he sign on for teaching duties in the hopes that he could slam a few kids whenever they'd get out of line? Colossus is most definitely the headmaster of Xavier's School of Child Abuse. He just lives for the days when he has to punch out a few kids. Or even Jean when she's possessed.

Conclusion: Despite Proteus being a horrible villain in the most boring way possible, the issue was pretty good and I would definitely recommend buying this, the best part of the Necrosha crossover.