More Comic Book Reviews You Won't Read and Don't Care About...

The title says it all!  So let's get to it because we all have better things to do be doing than this.

Return of the Living Deadpool:  It's a world where the population has been overrun by zombies and Deadpools!  In Night of the Living Deadpool, he found that when bit by a zombie the zombie would become him.  Now months later there are hundreds of Deadpools around.  Will the real one please stand up?  So basically Deadpool and a girl fight zombies and a lot of Deadpools.  It's far more Deadpool than just about anyone has ever wanted.  Deadpool! (2.5/5)

Arkham War:  During DC's forgettable "Forever Evil" crossover event in 2013 there was a subsection about all the villains of Arkham getting free to overrun Gotham City and split it among themselves while Batman and the other heroes were gone.  Meanwhile Bane gathers an army from Latin America and invades the city to take it over.  I mostly wanted to read it because at one point Bane builds his own Batman armor sort of what Azrael used to defeat him in the 90s, but there wasn't as much of that as I would have liked and the inevitable Batman vs. Bane battle was anything but royale. (2.5/5)

Original Sin:  This was a forgettable Marvel crossover event from 2013 or so.  Someone has killed "The Watcher" this creepy bald alien who lives on the moon and...watches stuff happen but never gets involved.  Someone then uses the stuff the Watcher has saved up over the years to traumatize the heroes.  Notably Thor loses his hammer and later it's picked up by Jane Foster who has since been Thor.  That's probably the only memorable thing to come out of this.  Otherwise it's OK. (2.5/5)

Captain America:  Operation Rebirth:  Back in the 90s Captain America "died" (again) when the serum in his blood petered out or some damned thing.  Anyway, he's brought back to life by his archenemy the Red Skull because Adolf Hitler is taking over a cosmic cube and could destroy all reality.  So they have to work together to stop him but of course there's a double-cross.  The art is extremely 90s and the Avengers team featured at the beginning is pretty pathetic: no Cap, no Iron Man, no Thor, no Hulk, no Vision, etc.  Anyway, another forgettable series because really since then Captain America has "died" and come back probably 3 more times. (2/5)

We Stand on Guard:  Set about a hundred years from now, global warming has prompted America to fake a terrorist attack as an excuse to invade our neighbor to the north.  Years later, a small group of Canucks valiantly fights back.  It's a little heavy-handed but I could definitely see something like this happening, probably sooner than this predicts. This could really have used more than 6 issues because it all happens so quickly.  (3/5)

Amazing Spider-Man:  Worldwide:  I'm not even sure which series renumbering this is anymore.  Marvel seems to renumber their comics every year, now there are so many Amazing Spider-Man #1s and Thor #1s and Captain America #1s and Iron Man #1s that who can keep track?  Anyway, the Secret Wars event handed New York City to Miles Morales Spider-Man so Peter Parker gets to roam the world as a billionaire playboy with lots of cool gadgets.  It really is like Batman only with a sense of humor.  A group called the Zodiac is after stuff Peter's company has and so he and SHIELD have to stop them with new toys like the Spider-Mobile.  Like the rest of Dan Slott's lengthy Spidey run it's lighthearted fun but not too campy.  About the only thing lacking was Spidey's love life.  I'm not sure who he's even supposed to be shacking up with anymore.  (3/5)

Spawn: Origins, Vol 1:  I watched the crappy Spawn movie and the less-crappy Spawn TV series but had never read any Spawn comics until they went on sale a couple weeks ago.  The first two issues are like the first season of the series:  lethargic and confusing.  The last four get things moving a little more.  It's a little less confusing than the TV show and not as dumb as the movie.  Kind of annoying though that it ends in the middle of a story arc where a cyborg hitman is sent by the Mafia to kill Spawn.  Anyway, these were OK even if I don't have the nostalgia working for me like other people. (3/5)

Spawn:  Origins, Vol 2:  I decided to buy the second volume.  It starts off concluding the story from the previous volume as Spawn takes on the cyborg hitman in a not entirely satisfying battle.  From there it's kind of a hodgepodge.  The series by then had I guess enough notoriety to attract some top-flight talent.  Alan Moore of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, etc writes issue #8 where a child murderer Spawn killed travels through Hell and ultimately becomes a Hellspawn.  Neil Gaiman of Sandman, Coraline, American Gods, etc. writes issue #9 about an angel named Angela (ha) who tracks down and kills a Hellspawn in the Middle Ages and is then defeated by the modern Spawn.  Frank Miller of The Dark Knight Returns, 300, and Sin City writes a moronic story about two cheesy gangs fighting over Spawn's favorite alley.  The funny part was they don't list the credits in the book but I could guess which was written by which author.  I rule!  Anyway, there are new concepts about the Hellspawns and their powers and such introduced but overall it has that lethargic feel from the early issues.  It'd be nice if instead of moping around the alley waiting for stuff to come to him, Spawn actually went out and kicked some ass.  But part of the problem is McFarlane set up this idea that a Hellspawn has only so much power and when it's gone, he dies, so that kind of limits what the character can do.  So you end up with more moping and playing defense than going on the offensive. (2.5/5)

Wonder Woman: Earth One, Volume 1: This never really gets into much superhero stuff, except that she stops a bus from falling off a bridge and lifts a jeep over her head.  Most of it is set on Paradise Island as young Diana, like Luke Skywalker, wants to go out and see the world.  She finds Steve Trevor and fights in a tournament to take possession of an invisible jet to take him home, but her mom isn't happy about it.  That's pretty much all there is to it.  The first origin given to Diana is the "shaped from clay" George Perez one but then there's a more modern one that's akin to invitro fertilization.  The next volume promises to have more traditional Wonder Woman stuff as she enters "Man's World." While some of the worldbuilding and attempt to create a backstory is nice, a little less conversation, a little more action please, as Elvis once sang. (2.5/5)