Comics

Black Widow #14

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After discovering the auction is for meta-humans, and that Lucy and Anya have been captured and are not part of the menu, Black Widow orders Yelena to finish the mission and get everyone out safely while she deals with the Living Blade. The parts of the issue not focused on Lucy and Anya making use of the twins to find their own escape, and Yelena scaring the shit out of all the guests to force them to leave, has Nat on the run learning what she can about the situation. 

In a somewhat surprising turn, after it appears everyone is on their way to safety and the Living Blade poses no current threat, Black Widow reengages the assassin when she could flee to fight another day (with back-up, like say the Avengers) rather than pick a fight she knows she can’t win. The early results in their latest encounter don’t look good for our girl.

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The Human Target #5

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The latest issue of The Human Target is by far the least linear of the series. While spending time with Ice, and preparing to meet the Martian Manhunter, Christopher Chance thinks back on his past and remembers the events of his childhood which put him on the path to becoming a Human Target and his training with a version of Saturn Girl who taught him not to hide his secrets but see into the minds of others as they probe his own.

What’s obvious here is how quickly Chance and Ice have fallen for each other, as his few remaining days continue to slip away. However, that hasn’t stopped him from pursuing one last mystery as the clues seem to be leading back to Ice’s best-friend who may have used her feminine wiles on J’onn to help with her plan. Before the end we can see a reckoning for Chance and Ice adding another bittersweet layer to events.

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Red Sonja: Black, White, Red #7

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Red Sonja: Black, White, Red follows up one of the strongest issues of the black-and-white anthology with one of its weakest. The most interesting story of the three, “Sonja’s Gambit” involves a drugged Sonja tricked into a game by Queen Thamyris where Sonja finds herself as a figure on a chessboard with other living players forced into a game of life and death. Although it’s not clear if Sonja did obey the rules of the game, exactly, she still manages to win with the help of another pawn.

In a story that has ties to Sonja’s childhood, Sonja fights off werewolves in the forest to return the body of a nun she knew in her youth to be burned in a temple in “Unbowed.” And wounded Sonja makes a stand against a group of barbarians on a snowy mountainside in “Blood on Snow.” 

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Usagi Yojimbo #26

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The second-half of the two-part “Crossroads” finds Miyamoto Usagi catch up to the honor-less warriors who have been attacking and robbing those on the road, and decides to take all six of them on by himself. We’ve seen Usgai beat better odds before, but he underestimates the warriors and without the timely arrival of Yukichi things might have turned out differently for our hero.

We do get a longer segment between Yukichi and Jei which teases a confrontation that never arrives. However, Jei does manage to deal with the one samurai who manages to escape Usagi’s wrath. As for a confrontation between Usagi and Jei, we don’t get one here (which I’ll admit to being a bit disappointed), although the rabbit ronin is shocked to learn what held up his cousin from arriving earlier with his aid.

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The Amazing Spider-Man #89

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Ben Reilly has disappeared. Beyond‘s Queen Goblin is still attacking The Daily Bugle. After leaving Peter in the hospital, convinced he’s still not ready, Black Cat arrives to make the save. However when that fails, Peter arrives in the nick of time to save both Black Cat and Mary Jane.

Although we don’t see him in action, other than a quick save to save a confused Black Cat from taking a 60-story swan dive onto the pavement, The Amazing Spider-Man #89 offers us Peter Parker back in costume for the first time in several issues. With his stand-in missing, the comic falls back on an old Spidey trope with our hero out-gunned and his back against the wall. Can Spider-Man, still far less than 100%, save the day? Or will his return be short-lived and need an even longer hospital stay to recover this time?

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The Amazing Spider-Man #89 Read More »