JOKER'S ASYLUM: TWO-FACE #1
David Hine (W) / Andy Clarke DC Comics
JOSH: "This week's Joker's Asylum focuses on the Clown Prince of Crime's 'The Dark Knight' co-star Two-Face. Sadly, the results here are nowhere near as great as the feature film's. The one-shot focuses on Harvey Dent forcing a similarly scarred but noble man to choose between saving his wife's life or killing the Batman. What should be a threatening, jarring story ends up falling flat, more akin to an episode of 'Batman: The Animated Series' than a horrific morality play. Andy Clarke's art isn't threatening enough. It's hard to take Two-Face seriously when he looks like the Phantom of the Opera. But the majority of the problem is David Hine's writing. The conclusion, a twist on the 'choose-your-own-ending' device, doesn't work."
ANNE: "If you're just joining us, a Galactus-sized Skrull is attacking Manhattan, and Ms. Marvel is vastly outnumbered by an invading Skrull army! She takes out the big 'un with a radio station, and then meets up with S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Sum. They face the Skrull horde together, until Ms. Marvel finds a Skrull with Nitro's powers and pisses it off just enough to get it to detonate and kill the rest of the army. You'd think the Skrulls would have thought of that when they sent him in. Then she and Agent Sum rescue a city bus full of people by flying them over to Raft Super Max Prison. Unfortunately, it looks like a Skrull has already been there, slaughtering S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Skrulls alike. Who could it be? Highlight of the issue: Ms. Marvel's face when she sees the Skrull army looks like the expression on those old Sour Warheads wrappers."
THE MUMMY #4
Joshua Jabcuga (W) / Stephen Mooney (A)
IDW
ANNE: "King Xango of the "So-Huge-He-Must-Be-Compensating" ax and girly tiara starts executing trespassers in quicksand, except for Lord Horwood who offers him guns and ammo to destroy the outside world. He doesn't get the chance to take advantage of it, because Rick, Alex, Safari and Professor Old Beard Langford attack Xango's stronghold to depose him using a tank they dug up somewhere. Dead people rise from the earth to fight the O'Connells. Nothing really new here. The battles are almost no-contest- tank vs. mammoth, and the mammoth gets knocked into quicksand. Rick vs. Xango, and Xango gets beheaded. What's sad is that I really felt bad for the mammoth in its last moments. Highlight of the issue: Xango's laugh: 'Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!'"
PILOT SEASON: THE CORE
Jonathan Hickman (W) / Kenneth Rocafort (A)
WADE: "According to this comic, our planet is located on the outer edges of what is referred to as the universe ‘core’. There are numerous worlds located in the core capable of sustaining life. Many of these older civilizations are beginning to run low on resources and have started spreading out from the core in attempts to sustain their ways of life. Because of this, uneasy truces have been formed to keep the fragile balance of peace in tact while looking for resources. However, two large alliances known as Dahiba and Saano are at war as a result of the ever increasing resource problem. Both entities wish to expand in the same direction, only this gosh darn universe just ain’t big enough for the both of them. A special ops team has been formed by the Dahiba Federation and assigned a secret rescue mission. I won’t bore you with the details, but Asimov Dedeken (new guy on the team and also the only human) saves everyone from certain death and gets some special lovin’ from a sexy yellow alien chick. This book gets a little too technical for my tastes, but if you’re into intricately detailed sci-fi stories, this might be the comic for you."
SKAAR SON OF HULK #2
Greg Pak (W) / Ron Garney (A)
WADE: "More stabby, bloody goodness. Skaar continues his badass rampage in the second installment of the 'Planet Hulk' spin-off series. It’s a quick, fun little read filled with awesome art from cover to cover. Skaar goes toe to toe with Axeman Bone. Things look a little grim at first when Skaar gets stabbed and burned by dragons and punched and then he crash lands into the ground from a few hundred feet in the air. But it’s all good—he’s got Hulk blood running through those veins. After an intense battle, Axeman Bone is defeated and forced to limp away to lick his wounds. Enter Princess Omaka. She has shiny new metal arms. Except, they’re not so much arms as big, pointy blades. She puts them to good use and in doing so creates one of my new favorite comic book sound effects: SCHLAAANG! Next issue, it looks like Skaar and Omaka will be facing off. I’d put my money on Skaar, but only because the series is named after him and it’s the second issue. I’m pretty sure he can’t lose. That would just be bad business."
STAR WARS: REBELLION
Rob Williams (W) / Dustin Weaver (A)
WADE: “After kicking some tail as Yoda in Soul Caliber IV, I had a hankerin’ for some Star Wars action. This book appears to take place shortly after Episode 4: A New Hope. Darth Vader sends a scouting team to a distant planet in order to investigate a creepy Jedi lady, whom he stranded there some time ago, with an ancient Sith talisman. She turns all of the Storm Troopers into big, scary monsters using the talisman’s powers. Luke Skywalker and his buddies learn of this mysterious power and travel to the planet in an attempt to discover its secret. They find the wrecked Imperial ships, but the bodies are nowhere in sight. Soon after, the angry storm trooper turned monster horde rampages toward them and manages to capture Luke. They drag him back to a cave, where the creepy Jedi lady lurks in the shadows. *Que bad guy music* I was hoping for a bit more lightsaber action in this book, but we can’t always get what we want. Maybe I was just spoiled as a child. Time to go beat people with my plastic saber."
