Comics of December 12, 2018

It’s been a long time since I picked up 8 comics in one week, and I’m running short on time before I need to start getting ready for work, so let’s get started. I picked up the Fantastic Four Wedding Special, Uncanny X-Men 5, Mr. and Mrs. X 6, X-23 7, Avengers 11, X-Men Red 11, the Red Sonja Holiday Special and Supergirl 25. Also, I’ve written my Deadpool 2 blog post, but didn’t have time to edit and post it last night and probably won’t have time tonight. Looking for a house has been keeping me busy this past week and it probably will continue to do so into the new year. Anyway, here are my first impressions, and if I write any reviews after work, they’ll be linked below.

Uncanny X-Men 5 review

X-23 7 review

The Fantastic Four Wedding Special is fun. There are two stories within. The main one focuses on the Bachelorette party, featuring a number of women tied to the Fantastic Four. Oh, and there’s a fight scene with a delusional woman seeking Mole Man’s affection. The fight actually turns this story into a more emotional tale than one would expect from the start, but that’s a good thing. The second half deals with The Thing seeking out the approval of The Puppet Master (Alicia Masters’ father in-law), with him being a traditionalist. It’s a simple scene, but it works very well. This is definitely worth picking up for Fantastic Four fans.

Mr. and Mrs. X 6 is great. Gambit and Rogue host a house party. It’s an entertaining comic with some amusing lines, a quick fight scene, and a couple ominous moments that hint at darker stories to come to balance it out. Writer Kelly Thompson seems to be at her best with this series – she’s clearly passionate about these characters and it shows. Fans of Gambit and Rogue should be picking this series up.

Avengers 11 is good. This is mostly a downtime issue, with a bit of character and story development. The Black Panther meeting with other superheroes from around the world is the real highlight, with a fairly well written debate as to what level of co-operation is appropriate for the different superhero groups. The “date” scene between Thor and Jennifer is entertainingly awkward, partly because it’s only shown in a couple words and panels at a time. Although there isn’t much action in this issue, the action here does tease the problems that are to come. There’s also a really dark scene surrounding this entire issue, but I won’t spoil it. After a bit of a slow start, this series seems to be going in the right direction. It’s at least worth a look for fans of the Avengers.

X-Men Red 11 concludes the series in what I found to be a bit of an underwhelming finale. I’m not sure where else to go with this one besides that X-Men Red started off so well, but as the series went on, it pretty much became about Jean Grey, Trinary and Gabby. Everyone else on the team is little more than wallpaper. It sometimes got political to the point where it interfered with the storytelling as well. This issue is better than the last few, but as a whole I wouldn’t recommend this series. It felt both rushed and stretched out at the same time, with only a couple of legitimately good issues.

The Red Sonja Holiday Special is fun. The main story takes place early in Red Sonja’s adventures in the modern world, with Sonja being very confused about Christmas and its customs, but it still leads to a decent fight scene and a heartwarming conclusion. The second story is a classic one-off Red Sonja tale that’s just plain fun. Red Sonja fans will likely enjoy this comic.

Supergirl 25 is pretty good. The main story continues Kara’s search for answers regarding what happened to Krypton, along with giving us a great fight between her and the self-called Caretaker of Krypton. During the fight, Kara experiences memory flashbacks of the planet that’s little more than ruins, along with flashbacks that bring more questions than they provide answers. There’s also a backup story featuring the alien who’s been helping Kara in the last couple of issues, and another backup story of Kara still on Earth, with a bit of a fun Christmas tale of Kara finding out that one of her most prized Krypton possessions was accidentally given to an orphanage. She ends up letting the orphans keep it anyway, showing her kindness. Again, I’m not a fan of the general direction of the Superman franchise right now, but this is a great issue and it’s well worth checking out for Supergirl fans.