October 2014

All-New X-Men #32

/ / Comics

All-New X-Men #32After their encounter with a new mutant Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, Angel, and X-23 are scattered across the Marvel Ultimate Earth with no way of getting home. Jean Grey is lucky enough to run into Spider-Man, albeit not the Spider-Man she knows, but other members of the team aren’t so lucky.

Angel finds himself in the middle of the Savage Land, Beast is trapped in the middle of Latveria, after accidentally breaking up a football game X-23 is on the run from the law, and Bobby wakes in the middle of the Mole-Man‘s lair.

The Jean Grey/Miles Morales team-up sells the issue (while also providing a pretty cool splash panel of Miles’ time as Spidey), but the other storylines don’t put the original X-Men in situations which they couldn’t have found on their own Earth (in either timeline, really). As someone who has largely ignored the Ultimate Universe since its creation the comic is is only mildly interesting to me but longtime fans may get more out of it. For fans.

[Marvel, $3.99]

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The Blacklist – Monarch Douglas Bank

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Blacklist – Monarch Douglas Bank
  • wiki: link

The Blacklist - Monarch Douglas Bank

A robbery at the Monarch Douglas Bank in Warsaw provides Reddington (James Spader) with an unique opportunity. Sending Lizze (Megan Boone) after what he knows is the bank of choice for laundering money by a variety of unscrupulous groups around the world, Red uses the team to get his hands on a single employee (Annika Boras) of the bank whose photographic memory not only allows the FBI to get their hands millions in criminal accounts but also provides Reddington some leverage against Berlin (Peter Stormare).

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Morning Glories #40

/ / Comics

Morning Glories #40While spending much of the issue highlighting the underground student newspaper crew, Morning Glories #40 offers a philosophical discussion about he nature of reality with the arrival of Oliver Simon and Ellen Richmond who show up to help the class get back on track for the upcoming science fair. Although Vanessa is overjoyed at the unexpected visit from her mother, Ian is less than thrilled with his father’s arrival and lecture on the nature of observable reality. However, the debate does stir something in the young man and force him to take the first step on a dark path in attempting to rewrite history for his own ends.

Given the lecture hall set-up the issue is even more verbose than usual in throwing out ideas from ancient philosophy to modern science fiction to explain the nature of the universe as we know it. The real reveal isn’t the discussion itself (which I’m sure has clues to larger themes buried in Dr. Simon’s ramblings) but the dark nature of Ian who not only tortures the blinded Fortunato but also prepares to use the power of the Cylinder for his own dark purposes. For fans.

[Image, $3.50]

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Castle – Driven

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Castle – Driven
  • wiki: link

Castle - Driven

Well, that was… different. However the lingering effects of last season’s finale eventually play themselves out it’s hard not to see Castle‘s Seventh Season opener as anything but a misstep caused by cowardice at either (or both) the network level or in the show’s own writers’ room about finally, permanently, putting Castle (Nathan Fillion) and Beckett (Stana Katic) together. I thought the show was past the increasingly unnecessary and lame attempts to keep the pair apart, but it appears those days aren’t behind us after all.

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