This Week On Marvel Unlimited: 03/25/2020
X-Men, Gamerverse, the Road to Empyre, and a Wolverine reprint. A little bit of everything this week on Marvel Unlimited.
New This Week (03/25/2020)
Amazing Spider-Man #42
Black Panther #22
Falcon & Winter Soldier #2
Fantastic Four: Marvels Snapshots #1
Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler #1
Hellions #1
Immortal Hulk #33
Incredible Hulk: Facsimile Edition #182
Marvel’s Avengers: Black Widow #1
Ravencroft #3
Revenge of the Cosmic Ghost Rider #4
Road to Empyre: The Kree/Skull War #1
Scream: Curse of Carnage #5
Star #3
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #2
Tarot #4
Wolverine #2
X-Men #9
X-Men/Fantastic Four #3
Notes: Marvel’s Avengers: Black Widow is from the Gamerverse…Road to Empyre sets up the big summer event that just completed with the Kree and Skrulls…Hellion’s is the newest Dawn of X title…the Immortal Hulk is actually the 750th Hulk comic released…the facsimile edition of Incredible Hulk 182 continues the story of Wolverine’s first appearance…
Best of Last Week
Deadpool #4 – Book of the week. The king of the monsters concludes his battle with Kraven the Hunter. Solid issue; we get to see a little bit of vulnerable Deadpool at the end of the issue (not quite to the Gerry Duggan level of his last run). Deadpool is at his best when he has a solid supporting cast around him, and these new monsters are bringing quality to the book. I’m really enjoying Kelly Thompson’s run.
Excalibur #9 – This might be the last issue I read of Excalibur; I just can’t get into the book. The characters are not very interesting, the story is boring, and it just feels very unconnected from the rest of the X-Men stuff.
Guardians of the Galaxy #3 – I was expecting to see Peter Quill alive right off the bat, but this issue didn’t do that. Quill is still dead and this book is the team dealing with it (among other things). Rocket is not allowed back for running off to fight the Gods with Peter. Gamora is having issues processing Peter’s death. Drax is having an indentity crisis after dying and coming back so much. It’s setting up a new arc where Gamora brings Groot, Drax, and the 616 Moondragon (because the Moondragon in the first 2 issues was from another dimension) are the new Guardians, hired to kill Rocket.
Outlawed #1 – Recycled ideas are not a now thing in comics. If you enjoyed Civil War, check out Civil War II. How about 4 different Secret Wars? This is setting up another one. The Champions attempt to stop an abduction and cause some unintentional death and destruction; the results is a Government Act which makes it illegal for minors to be superheroes. They are being rounded up. Sounds like the start of Civil War again, but limited to minors; in fact, Civil War started with the New Warriors in the Champions role. It wasn’t a bad issue, but you can tell where this story is going.
Spider-Woman #1 – Just for the record, I’ve never read anything with Jessica Drew. I knew a little bit about her, but never really had interest. Since this was a #1, I gave it a shot and it was worth it. Drew is a down on her luck hero who needs money to raise her infant daughter. She takes on a hero for hire gig, but feels sick the whole time. We learn that someone is out to get her, but not why. It’s enough to get me to come back for issue 2.
X-Force #9 – The highlight of the issue was the beginning, where you see mutants hanging out at the Great Lagoon, their bar. You have different groups hanging together, including Wolverine and Daken playing a form of spin the bottle/clawed Russian Roulette. It leads to Jean questioning her moral compass as a member of X-Force. The meat of the issue is set in South America, where the country of Terra Verde (from earlier in the series) is completely cut off from the world because something sinister is happening. They imply that Black Tom’s powers are out of control and causing the problem, which they leave for next issue.
Retro Review: Hawkeye Freefall #1-4 – What happens when a criminal gets off the hook for his crimes, but the underlings get the jail time? Usually nothing. It rubs Hawkeye the wrong way. It also rubs Ronin the wrong way; the issue, no knows who is Ronin right now.
The series starts with Hawkeye taking down the Hood. At the trial, the Hood gets off and Clint vows to take him down. That’s also the same point that the new Ronin starts doing the same. Other heroes suspect Clink, but when he starts fighting against Ronin with Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it clears his name. We learn that Clint is using time travel to move an hour back and forth to be both Ronin and Hawkeye. Some other heroes realize it (Black Widow), while others don’t (a hilarious scene where Daredevil recruits Clint for a Ronin-hunting task force while Clint is in his Ronin costume, realizing that Daredevil is blind for the first time).
The series is fun. Clint is playing a bigger game than anyone realizes. He’s very Robin Hood in it, using the Hood’s money for good. My biggest issue is Clint comes off like an idiot; after the Matt Fraction run (the last time I read the character), he wasn’t as dumb as he’s coming off. Here, he makes some really dumb moves with Night Nurse (his girlfriend) and some of the other heroes, but maybe the end of the series will reveal is was all part of his plan (but I doubt it).
There is still more to come, but there is quite a delay due to Covid (1-4 were all out by March, but 5 didn’t come out until August). I’ll review the rest of the series as it comes out.
