REVIEW: Deadpool, Volume Two: Soul Hunter

PLOT: First: Flash back to Deadpool’s adventures of yesteryear with Iron Man! Then: A demon hires Deadpool to reclaim damned souls! And just in case you didn’t think he could get any stranger, Wade gets in touch with his feminine side! Plus: Deadpool targets a man with aquatic powers, and then teams up with your Superior Neighborhood Spider-Man! And we promise he kills one of those two! Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn’s hilarious, nonstop reinvention of the Merc With a Mouth continues here!

REVIEW: Even though I knew what to expect from Marvel NOW!'s Deadpool, I was still extremely impressed with this volume and completely blown away by how great it is. Brian Posehn and Gerry Duggan have easily written what is the best title I've read from the Marvel NOW! series. While that isn't a huge compliment in itself, because I don't like much of the Marvel NOW! titles, Deadpool is lightyears beyond the others and has proven yet again why that is so. Brian Posehn's sense of humor is almost entirely too perfect for the character of Deadpool and it makes this comic one of the most fun to read in quite some time. Who would have thought that after filling the first volume with dead presidents for Deadpool to hunt down, there would be just as much fun to be had in a second volume. There isn't a single comic out there that I enjoy picking up and reading more than Deadpool. The first issue that puts Deadpool in a story that takes place during the 80's with Tony Stark was one of the funniest things I've ever read in comics. Of course that humor and entertainment extends into the other issues of this book and makes for such a blast of a read. The art is great, the writing is great, and the jokes in the book are just so funny. I know that the writing is superb because rarely does a book with so much writing on the page keep my attention, but this one had me flipping the pages as quickly as I could. This is a must read for fans of Mr. Pool, the Marvel Universe through adult eyes, and comedy in general. Please pick this up and support Duggan and Posehn's tremendous work on Deadpool.

WRITING : ( 10 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 9 / 10 )
STORY : ( 10 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 10 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 10 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 10 / 10 )

REVIEW: New Avengers, Volume One: Everything Dies

PLOT: To prevent the collision of our universe with another, the Illuminati must reassemble...NOW! It's the most powerful and brilliant team in the Marvel Universe: the Black Panther, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Black Bolt, Mister Fantastic, Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Beast against an infinite legion of parallel realities. Armed with the six Infinity Gems, the Illuminati gather to plan for the death of everything...but their task is complicated by old wounds, lies and secret agendas. But when the Illuminati experience their first dimensional incursion, can this loose brotherhood of end times trust each other enough to use the Infinity Gems in unison? And what new member will join the group? Jonathan Hickman and Steve Epting revamp the New Avengers in a multiverse-spanning saga!

REVIEW: Considering the Marvel NOW! entries haven't really dazzled me, I never have too high of hopes for any of these now upon picking them up. New Avengers is based on an older volume of a previous New Avengers comic it seems, called  The New Avengers: Illuminati. I had picked the previous volume up a month or so ago to read but I haven't gotten around to it, though this one does seem to originate from that story. It's a really cool group of Avengers that are assembled, and in my opinion some of the best characters from the Marvel universe. The volume deals with the threat created by The Black Swan, who upon coming to our Earth, destroys her own. This causes concern with the New Avengers and they then handle the threat as best they can without destroying all the universes and time as we know it. A few things I liked about this volume was the art, and some of the characters. I really like Black Panther, so it's nice to see him in this volume, and of course Iron Man. One character that bugged me to no end though was  Namor, because not only did he seem like he didn't want to be on the team, he didn't really seem like he wanted to be in the comic, as silly as that sounds. It was one complaint after another from this guy, and all he really seemed to serve as was the stirrer of the pot when things seemed to be going all too well for our new team. I'd definitely recommend this title out of the Marvel NOW! before I recommended a lot of others, but I still wasn't absolutely amazed by anything in this comic. I would definitely like to go back and read The New Avengers: Illuminati now to see how this team got together the first time, but you don't really need it to enjoy this book.

WRITING : ( 7 / 10 )

ARTWORK : ( 8 / 10 )

STORY : ( 7 / 10 )

COVERS : ( 9 / 10 )

AWESOME : ( 7 / 10 )

FINAL RATING : ( 7 / 10 )

REVIEW: Captain Marvel, Volume One: In Pursuit of Flight

PLOT: Ace pilot. Legendary Avenger. One hundred percent pure bad-@$$. Carol Danvers has a new name, a new mission - and all the power she needs to make her own life a living hell. As the new Captain Marvel, Carol is forging from a challenge from her past! It's a firefight in the sky as the Banshee Squadron debut - but who are the Prowlers, and where has Carol seen them before? And how does secret NASA training program Mercury 13 fit in? Witness Captain Marvel in blazing battlefield action that just may change the course of history! Avengers Time Travel Protocols: engage!

REVIEW: Because this was a Marvel NOW! title I wasn't really expecting too much, plus with it being a character I'm not entirely familiar with I didn't figure I'd enjoy this much at all. I was really surprised at how much I like this title, and while it's not the greatest of characters it was enjoyable. I find it surprising that it's the second tier characters in Marvel that are getting the best treatment with this re-branding of all their characters in Marvel NOW!. Carol Danvers has a wit about her that makes her really fun to read, and I think it helps to have a female writer on board to give her that authentic female feel. All of the dialogue between her and all the gal pals she meets throughout her journey really feels right and not forced. It's rare that a character you really don't read, piques your interest and gives you a fun read that you can buy into immediately. I will be interested to see where this series goes, and if it continues to get any better as her character develops. This one of those volumes that definitely serves as an introduction to the character, so that may be why it's relatively easy to connect from the beginning. Go figure that Captain Marvel is one of the very few titles to impress me from Marvel NOW!, which still furthers my opinion that New 52 stories are above and beyond Marvel's new structure.

WRITING : ( 7 / 10 )

ARTWORK : ( 7 / 10 )

STORY : ( 7 / 10 )

COVERS : ( 6 / 10 )

AWESOME : ( 5 / 10 )

FINAL RATING : ( 6 / 10 )

REVIEW: Avengers, Volume One: Avengers World

PLOT: The greatest heroes in comics together on one unbeatable team! The Avengers "go large," expanding their roster and their sphere of influence to a global and even interplanetary level. When Captain America puts out his call - who will answer? Big threats, big ideas, big idealism - these are the Avengers NOW!

REVIEW: Well it's about time I stumbled across a Marvel NOW! title that didn't completely suck. In the Avengers, a clear and complex enough storyline presents itself on the first pages. Ex Nihilo, creator of change and good in the universe has captured the Avengers and plans to recreate everything in his vision. It's a plot of grand scope, and it completely incapacitates the Avengers which to do at the beginning of a story is pretty bold. It ends up resulting in a much greater resolve of conflict though at the end of the book, and seeing the whole team of Avengers together and rescuing each other is awesome. I really like in this volume that before each issue there is an Avengers crest like thing on the page, along with all of the names of those in the group, and then the ones that are in bold and not faded out are the characters that will be in the issue. It's something small but I thought it was neat to see and keep track of who you'd be looking for in the action in each issue. Other than that, it's a fairly normal comic. The artwork doesn't stand out in any way, but the story does because it's surrounded by a lot of garbage in the rest of the Marvel NOW! catalog currently. Let's hope that Avengers isn't the only title that is of a little quality in Marvel's Phase NOW!

WRITING : ( 6 / 10 )

ARTWORK : ( 6 / 10 )

STORY : ( 7 / 10 )

COVERS : ( 6 / 10 )

AWESOME : ( 6 / 10 )

FINAL RATING : ( 6 / 10 )

REVIEW: Iron Man, Volume One: Believe

PLOT: Tony Stark is Iron Man: Technological visionary, wealthy playboy, unparalleled engineer, and armored Avenger. But in one terrifying instant, his greatest invention becomes his greatest mistake. The lethal techno virus Extremis is out in the wild and out for grabs to the highest bidder! Introducing the Circle, a mysterious high-tech brotherhood of mech-knights, as Tony's hunt for the rogue Extremis Units takes him to the island of New Camelot! As he dogfights the secret Russian Black Exoskeleton Academy's greatest pilot, Iron Man must act fast...and Tony Stark must build faster! It's up to Tony to contain Extremis, and that means creating a new suit of armor...NOW!

REVIEW: This is my first go at any of the new Marvel NOW! titles, and I can't say I was all that impressed. The story revolves around Extremis, which seems to be all that Iron Man is about in 2013 and I'm just going to guess that that has something do with Iron Man 3. The story in this volume was just pretty mediocre in my opinion. It wasn't very fun to read, and I can't say it was all that easy to keep track of either. The only thing I can recall liking was in the first issue contained within, where Tony Stark uses a liquid metal suit that just looks really cool on the page. The book is nice, the art is passable, but I just couldn't find myself interested in the story of Iron Man here. I haven't been a huge fan of any of Kieron Gillen's work so that may be the problem. I would say give it a read if you're just a die-hard Iron Man fan and you have to check this out, otherwise it can wait until you don't have much else left to read.

WRITING : ( 4 / 10 )

ARTWORK : ( 6 / 10 )

STORY : ( 3 / 10 )

COVERS : ( 7 / 10 )

AWESOME : ( 3 / 10 )

FINAL RATING : ( 4 / 10 )