The Longbox Short-List - Week of December 14, 2016

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Submitted by Mike 'Ace' Maillaro on Tue, 12/13/2016 - 09:48

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week. Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that. Let's get to it!

Comics shipping this week

Some really pricey books coming out this week!

DC REBIRTH HOLIDAY SPECIAL #1 ($9.99!) – I love Holiday Specials. Pretty much any time Marvel or DC has done one, I have picked it up without even bothering to find out what characters or creative teams were involved. My only issues here is this book is 10 bucks. Yikes! Holding the line…except when it comes to being a Grinch. I get that it’s 96 pages, but that is still a big chunk of my comic budget. Especially when we have quite a few other costly books coming out this week….

MICKEY AND DONALD CHRISTMAS PARADE #2 ($5.99!) – I love IDW’s Disney line. Last year’s Christmas special collected a bunch of great Disney comic stories from the past, many of which were never released in America. And this special will be doing more of the same. Can’t wait. But again. $6??? Yikes.

GWENPOOL HOLIDAY SPECIAL MERRY-MIX UP #1 ($5.99!) – Gwenpool has been such a great surprise this year. On the surface, it should be a terrible character, but Marvel has managed to make her compelling and entertaining. Glad to see her getting the focus here. More people need to check out this quirky character. She is consistently one of Marvel’s top books every month.

IVX #1 ($5.99) – It’s not just Santa keeping the price of comics up this week. We also get another Marvel crossover with Invaders Vs X-Men. By the way, for those keeping score at home, we are at $28 bucks for 4 comics. Who can seriously afford to keep up with comics these days? I have said this many times, I have no real interest in IVX, though I am hoping we finally get a solid X-Men line back after this.

HAWKEYE #1 – Kate Bishop gets her own solo title! To be honest, I’ve really enjoyed the shared Hawkeye books we’ve gotten in recent years, but Kate Bishop has been a great character, so I am looking forward to seeing what she can do in her own book. Part of me is hoping this leads to the Young Avengers returning (we got a tease of this in the last issue of New Avengers). Young Avengers was a great concept that definitely needs to be revisited.

WONDER WOMAN #12 – I don’t think I have ever bought 12 issues in a row of Wonder Woman before. Rucka has done a terrific job creating a Wonder Woman story that I really want to read. My only gripe is that it does feel slow at times because it alternates between current and year one stories, but both storylines have been excellent, so that makes up for a lot.

DARK TOWER: THE DRAWING OF THE THREE- THE SAILOR #3 – I finally caught up on reading the DARK TOWER comics. I had fallen really behind a while back. What’s interesting is that even though these books are titled DRAWING OF THE THREE, they actually have gone past that book (the second in the series) and are telling the story of THE WASTELANDS (the third book in the series). This could be confusing for some readers, but it’s no big deal. These are terrific adaptations (and extensions) to my favorite book series. Definitely worth reading!

NEW SUPER-MAN #6 – This was the Superman series I expected the least from, but I have actually enjoyed it far more than SUPERGIRL and SUPERWOMAN (both of which I had high hopes for, and also both of which are coming out this week). Lots of real good twists and turns in this one, especially as we find out more about the manipulations going on with the Chinese versions of superheroes.

Black-Eyed Kids #9
Captain Kid #3
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Pink #5 (Of 6)
Action Comics #969
Batgirl And The Birds Of Prey #5
Detective Comics #946
Flash #12
Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps #10
Red Hood And The Outlaws #5
Scooby Apocalypse #8
Suicide Squad #8
Supergirl #4
Superwoman #5
Wonder Woman #12
Batman Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #2 (Of 6)
Star Trek Boldly Go #3 (Of 6)
Uncle Scrooge #21
Reborn #3
Spawn #268
Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows #2
Daredevil #14
Jessica Jones #3
Old Man Logan #15
Power Man And Iron Fist #11
Spider-Man #10
Star Wars Poe Dameron #9
Totally Awesome Hulk #13
Uncanny Avengers #17
Britannia #4 (Of 4)
Wrath Of The Eternal Warrior #14

In Case You Missed Them:

Here are some noteworthy books from last week…

COMIC OF THE WEEK - The Clone Conspiracy #3 by Dan Slott and Jim Cheung

Summary: Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen are escaping from New U Headquarters. They defeat the Lizard, but other revived super-villains are coming for them. Kingpin has his own beef with New U, so he gives Peter and Gwen information on a meeting Jackal is setting up with the operatives who have been providing him with the genetic materials to make his clones.

Meanwhile, in Horizon University, they realize they can use Kaine’s DNA to reverse engineer the pills the clones need to survive. Horizon calls the police to investigate New U, but the Chief is one of their clones. New U sends Rhino and Electro to rescue their Gwen clone from Horizon.

Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen arrive to disrupt the meeting. Jackal confronts Peter, revealing that he’s Ben Reilly. He also says they can use the New U program to bring back Uncle Ben.

Review: Normally a gimmick return like this would make me roll my eyes, but I have to admit the return of Ben Reilly was done in a pretty clever way. It also shed a lot of light on this storyline and explains that why in many worlds through the multiverse Peter decided that it was worthwhile to work with New U. Instead of chasing me away, this surprise reveal actually made me more excited about Clone Conspiracy. This story has had a lot of unexpected twists and turns, and Dan Slott continues to write good stories.

My only gripe is that he does tend to write stories that seem a little too big for Spider-Man. I have always preferred spider-Man as a more street level character, but Clone Conspiracy seems to be a massive threat to the entire multiverse, and that seems like a strange choice for Spider-Man, especially without him tapping into his wide network of hero friends. But I am willing to accept a lot for a great comic story, and that is what Clone Conspiracy is.

Score: 4.5/5

Doctor Aphra #1 by Kieron Gillen and Kev Walker

Summary: Having faked her death, Dr Aphra is free from Vader and is back hunting for rare artifacts. She is being pursued by members of the Syndicate who she owes money to. She manage to escape from one of their agents by having her Wookiee ally Black Krrsantan beat one of his bodyguards in a fight. BK easily wins. The agent agrees to let her go as long as she brings back the money she owes the Syndicate. Though before they leave the planet, BT-1 and 000 murder the agent (acting outside of Aphra’s orders). Aphra goes to sell the artifact she recovered, only to discover that her doctorate has been suspended for fraud, which makes it hard to sell her artifacts on the black market. She is confronted by her father, a holy man who uncovered her “ethical lapses.”

We also get a backup story by Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca that tells us how Dr Aphra cheated to get her doctorate.

Review: I wasn’t sure if this series would have a lot of legs after Darth Vader ended, but putting Aphra and company in their own book turns out to be a very inspired choice. Loved the glimpses we got into her backstory. Marvel continues to impress me with their Star Wars line, and Doctor Aphra is a great addition. Definitely worth checking out.

Score 4/5

Nightwing #10 by Tim Seeley and Marcus To\

Summary: Looking for a fresh start, Nightwing has moved to Bludhaven. His is currently volunteering in a “teens affected by violence” program at The Haven Community Center. He hears gun shots outside his apartment, so decides to go out as Nightwing. He finds and takes down Gorilla Grimm. A Gorilla City resident who has caused trouble in Gotham in the past. Bludhaven police thanks him, but warns him that masked types belong in Gotham. City officials on the other hand seem to see this as a great tourist opportunity “Bludhaven’s own superhero.” Grimm claims to be innocent. Nightwing heads to the Community Center to confront his new boss, who is someone from his past who went by The Defacer.

Review: After Grayson and the undercover Nightwing arc to start this series off, I am a little disappointed we seem to be stepping backwards to a more generic Nightwing series here. I also thought it was real odd to do a cliffhanger on a character that has been ret-conned into existence. Dick confronting Defacer means absolutely nothing to the reader since we had never heard of the character before. There wasn’t anything wrong here, just a little disappointing after some real ground breaking Nightwing stories over the last few years.

Score: 3.5/5

Reggie and Me #1 by Tom DeFalco and Sandy Jarrell

Summary: The story is told from the point of view of Reggie’s dog Vader. Vader idolizes Reggie, putting everything Reggie does in the best possible light. Reggie’s biggest weakness is Midge Klump, but Midge only has eyes for Moose. Reggie is having a big party, but everyone leaves when they found out there is a bigger party being thrown by Veronica. Midge says that she’s sorry, but Vader points out that Rule #1 is “No one ever pities Reggie Mantle.” Reggie plays it off, saying that everyone is town is a bunch of losers and there were boring him. Reggie then plays harsh pranks on many of the people who left his party.

When Archie realizes what happened, he tries to apologize to Reggie. But at the end it comes off as pitying Reggie, and Vader realizes that things are going to get worse from here.

Review: Despite the fact he’s been in the business for longer than I can remember, Tom DeFalco has always been able to make his stories feel modern and relevant. I loved that on Spider-Girl and it worked here too. I am still not sure I have any interest in reading an entire mini-series revolving around Reggie, but this comic was still very good and worked well with everything else we’ve seen in the Archie relaunch.

Score: 4/5