Baby Boom Tube

Wonder Woman #21

With the monstrously powerful First Born and his henchwoman, the cyborg demigod Cassandra, prepared to kill Zola and use her baby Zeke to destroy the world, Wonder Woman and Lennox are having trouble slowing the villains down. Orion shows up to help, but he’s not managing to tip the scales too much over on the good guys’ side either. Orion drags all of them along into a boom tube to escape, but the First Born actually holds the tube open so he can get to them. Is there any escape?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great art from Cliff Chiang, fun writing from Azzarello. Excellent action, a nice cliffhanger ending for one character, and a modernized take on Jack Kirby’s Fourth World.

Uncanny Avengers #9

The Avengers are in disarray — while Wonder Man helped Captain America escape from Hydra, Cap also had a secret meeting with Kang the Conqueror, who revealed that the future of seven different timelines are threatened by current events. And the Apocalypse Twins revealed to Thor that Wolverine has killed dangerous mutants as a member of X-Force. As a result, Cap wants Logan — and any of his supporters — off the team. And it doesn’t help that everyone is still arguing about Havok’s controversial rejection of his mutant identity. And worse is on the horizon — the Apocalypse Twins have assembled a new quartet of the Horsemen — the ominously-named Four Horsemen of Death…

Verdict: Thumbs down. Ye gods, is this ever a talky comic book. There are so many word balloons in here, you could use ’em to float a house. The Apocalypse Twins talk to each other so they can provide exposition for readers. Kang does the same. Wolverine does the same. And Rick Remender lets Scarlet Witch function as his mary-sue mouthpiece so he can try to defuse the controversy he caused by turning Alex Summers into a self-loathing mutant. (It doesn’t work, by the way — Remender’s rationalizations are still insulting.)