This Week on Marvel Unlimited: More Random Books
Marvel is doing some weird stuff with releases on the app. We get 18 books (as of this going live) from over a few different months this summer. This list is bound to change over the next 24 hours, as I’ve found Marvel to do frequently.
New This Week
Ant-Man #5
Black Cat #11
Captain America: Marvels Snapshots #1
Daredevil #20
Deadpool #5
Empyre: Avengers
Excalibur #10
Ghost-Spider #10
Hawkeye: Freefall #6
Immortal Hulk #34
Miles Morales: Spider-Man #17
New Mutants #10
Ravencroft #5
Runaways #32
Spider-Ham #5
Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #3
Thor #5
Valkyrie: Jane Foster #10
Notes: Daredevil ends the Inferno arc…Miles Morales: Spider-Man picks up the Outlawed storyline from the one-shot a few weeks ago…Deadpool starts a new arc…Spider-Ham and Ant-Man ends their current arcs…Captain America: Marvels Snapshot is a one shot set in Cap’s history…
Best of the Week
Ant-Man #4 – I’m starting to grab a random book here and there to read to see if it’s worth following; Ant-Man was one of these books. The book is a little jarring to just grab. You get internal monologue from the insects in the book, which is very choppy and hard to follow; I almost stopped the book a few pages in. I stuck with it to find a pretty compelling story going on. The villain – Macrothrax – is part of an insect hivemind that is breaking away from the hive. He steals Lang’s Pym Particles with a plan to enlarge the insects of the hive and take over the world. The “mind” of the hive just wants to stay concealed in the Savage Land. Macrothrax uses Cassie’s helmet to take control of the hive. I’ll stick with it to see how it ends (and I’ll probably go back and read the previous 3 issues).
Avengers #33 – The start of the Age of Khonshu. Moon Knight starts targeting Avengers with certain artifacts for Khonshu, but we’re not sure why yet. Things like the Iron Fist abilities, the metal of Thor’s hammer, etc. He’s leading a army of mummies also. Great start to the arc and I’m looking forward to where this goes. Moon Knight, when done right, is a very interesting character.
Hawkeye: Freefall #5 – Hawkeye contines to hit the Hood as Ronin, from drughouses to underground fights. Rather than stopping the Hood, the villain gets ahead of Ronin; at the underground fights, he knew Ronin would go and beat every fighter and bet on Ronin, making him more money. In the end, Bullseye shows up for a confrontation in the next issue.
Marauders #10 – Duggan digs into the X-Men history and brings back the power dampening technology that Forge created years ago; the Marauders learn someone is replicating the technology. That someone was Forge’s friend/coworker with a photographic memory. He’s being forced to recreate the tech. The Marauders rescue him and stop the tech. Solid issue, but a little down from their previous issues.
Star #4 – Since learning that Star ends with issue 5, I decided to keep going. Captain Marvel and Star battle until the Black Order shows up to take Star. Star and Captain Marvel team up against the bad guys, as neither wants Thanos’s thugs to get the Reality Gem. To stop the battle, Star decides to use the device the Black Swan gave her in a past issue. It sucks everyone away into somewhere unknown. I’m kind of ready for this series to be done.
Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #1 – Set between Empire and Jedi, we get new Aphra adventures. The Doctor is approached by a student who is looking for the Rings of Vaale; Aphra builds her team, but needs another archaeologist with a background on the Rings. The issue…competition for the Rings and the archaeologist’s knowledge. It was a good set up issue. Aphra is the best character created in the Disney canon and I really hope they bring her to live action.
Retro Review: Revenge of the Cosmic Ghost Rider 1-2
Not really retro, since the final issue came out last week, but I wanted to try to get to this. I’m of mixed feelings on Cosmic Ghost Rider; the idea of Frank Castle becoming something bigger than the Punisher is intriguing, but the idea of Frank Castle becoming a Ghost Rider AND a herald of Galactus seems a little too much (I did a little research as soon as I heard of the Cosmic Ghost Rider when he first debut).
CGR travels the galaxy looking to punish guilty people. Of course, the best place to do this is a space prison. He wipes out the prison, but also loses his “life”. A few months later, a group of space pirates, including Cammi (formerly a companion of Drax and part of Hallum’s Avenger’s Arena), finds his skull floating in the debris of the prison. The skull still has some powers and as he kills the pirates, he starts to re-form. The last person on the ship is Cammi, who he spares because she is “pure”. They soon travel the galaxy looking for others to punish. Eventually they work their way to biggest crime syndicate in space.
It’s a good start to a character I was questioning. I’ve enjoyed the story so far. It’s kind of like a Michael Bay, mindless action book; I don’t feel like there is much depth to the character, but there doesn’t need to be for his mission. Adding Cammi to the story was a nice touch; I hadn’t thought about her since Avengers Arena, but I really liked her in that. You get a little father/daughter type relationship between the 2, like when she was tagging along with Drax. Both of the father characters lost daughters, so it made sense.
I’ll finish this series; I like Hallum’s work and I’m curious where this is going. This could be a book that sells me on a character that I’m not completely sold on.
