In case I don’t get another blog post up before Tuesday, Merry Christmas everyone.
The comics I picked up this week include Season’s Beatings 1, Extermination 5, Captain America 6, Uncanny X-Men 6, Thor 8, Red Sonja 24 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 89. Here are my first impressions, and if I get to a full review after work, it’ll be added in a link below.
Season’s Beatings 1 is silly fun. It’s got a couple small Christmas stories, loosely tied together with Deadpool in a Santa Clause costume covered in blood. There are a couple minor parodies thrown in as well. Not much else to say about this one. If it interests you, then you’ll probably enjoy it.
Extermination 5 is mostly great. It concludes the story of the original X-men and their journey in modern times. It also gives us a bit of a thrilling conclusion to the X-Men’s fight with Ahab, while promising that we’ll see him again soon enough. There are a couple moments I don’t like, one being a line that feels way out of character, and another involving Rachel Grey’s fate in this comic. That said, the second could lead to some good stories if it’s handled right. This is definitely worth picking up if you’ve enjoyed the teenaged O5’s trip to the present and want to see how it ends.
Captain America 6 is good. It at least partially reveals the villains’ plans, while also leading to the next story arc that sees Captain America on the run. Saying much else would spoil the issue, but there’s a lot going on. It’s easy to follow, but there’s still a lot going on. So far this is turning out to be a great Captain America series, and it’s worth checking out for fans of the character.
Uncanny X-Men 6 is good. This one further explains what’s going on with the plot, as well as at least part of what X-Man’s motivations are. The X-kids actually get something to do in this issue, and while things didn’t go as they hoped, they did get further than the adults did, showing us at least some of their potential. I’m not completely convinced that all of the adult characters would have behaved as they did in this comic though. I’m also not sure how I feel about this whole Age of X-Man thing that’ll be going on for the next few months or so, but I’m at least willing to give it a couple of issues. It’s not perfect – not even close, but Uncanny X-Men is the best flagship X-Men series in a long time. It’s at least worth a look for X-Men fans.
Thor 8 is fun. Most of the issue is Thor, Valkyrie and Angela in a prison, with Thor’s plan to break out underway the entire time. The rest of the issue is mostly story building, bringing us back to the War of the Realms after several months of wasting our time. Hopefully that means this series is getting back on track.
Red Sonja 24 is yet another one off-issue, and an enjoyable one at that. Sonja is taught a lesson by an “old hag” she comes across on the road. The old hag ends up being a witch, who gives Sonja a bit of a scare, but also feeds her. Instead of saying any more, I’ll just say you need to read it to see for yourself. Red Sonja fans will likely enjoy this issue, although with so many one-off issues in a row, I hope it gets back to larger stories soon.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 89 is nice. The whole thing is basically a TMNT version of A Christmas Carol, starring Splinter. It touches on some of the recent tragedies that have fallen on the Ninja Turtles, but this is overall a joyful comic. That’s all I’m going to say about it.
healed1337 
Happy Christmas and all the best for the New Year! 🙂
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Season’s Beatings was reasonably fun. Squirrel Girl visiting Doom was obviously the highlight.
Extermination was a perfectly adequate conclusion, except that Rachel’s a Hound. Again. Still. I saw it pointed out that Rachel was turned into a Hound THREE TIMES this year. The X-office needs to put a moratorium on Rachel-as-a-Hound stories for a looooooong while after this. We’ve had the story before. And I don’t think we’ll get a good story out of it, because that would require a real emphasis on how the experience affects Rachel, and cape comics are still awful at exploring issues of mental health. Maybe if someone like Robbie Thompson or Leah Williams was given a Rachel mini where they can explore her mental health, that would be a great story. But a few months of Rachel being a slave until her brother rescues her, followed by her pretty much immediately getting over it, is what we’re almost definitely going to end up getting.
Captain America is good. Coates and Yu are telling a good story, though I still dislike Yu’s style.
UXM is good, though the fact that even Jubilee is getting in on condescending to the New X-Men is stupid.
Thor is good. Kinda disappointed at Angela not mentioning Sera. I’m always disappointed when Angela shows up and doesn’t mention Sera.
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