I don’t think I’ve got a lot of patience for blogging — or much of anything else — this week, so let’s get this one knocked out fast.

Tonight’s battle comes from January 2011’s X-Men: To Serve and Protect #1 by Christopher Yost, Derec Donovan, and Andres Jose Mossa. Rockslide and Anole of the Young X-Men are, with the rest of the X-Men, hanging out in San Francisco, and they’ve both decided they want to go out and fight crime, not the usual fighting-with-other-mutants that the X-Men normally focus on. So they go put on disguises that do nothing to disguise them and go fight crime.

The most amusing thing comes a couple panels later when we learn that Rockslide wore a fake mustache underneath his mask. Nicely played.

So head over to SpaceBooger’s house and vote for your favorite.

The Age of the Sentry #1

This is the origin and early adventures of the Sentry, Marvel’s Superman clone, told in a retro, Silver Age style. We get some great little tidbits here and there — a super-powered corgi, a villain named Cranio, the Man with the Tri-Level Mind, who has three brains, the Mad Thinker disguising him as a beatnik movie director, and the Sentry beating the Devil in a fiddle-playing contest.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Kinda similar to Alan Moore’s “1963” series or the retro Mighty Man stories they used to put in the back of some “Savage Dragon” comics. Not real happy about this being an ongoing series — this is the type of thing that’s fun once in a while but gets really tiresome if it goes on for long…

Young X-Men #6

In the aftermath of the first storyline, the team comes to grips with Wolf Cub’s death, Ink’s betrayals, and the whole team getting completely suckered by Donald Pierce. Rockslide punches the holy living snot outta Cyclops, Blindfold leaves the team, everyone gets a few clues about Graymalkin’s origins (it appears that he’s one of Charles Xavier’s ancestors), and Anole returns to join the team.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Pretty good stuff, good characterizations, nicely escalating team tensions. Not real thrilled with Blindfold leaving, since she was one of the most interesting characters in the book, but I’m hoping she’ll be making a return before too long.

The Brave and the Bold #17

Obviously, in this issue, we’re getting a team-up between Supergirl and Raven. Supergirl has voices in her head from her father telling her to kill Superman, so she goes to Raven for mystical help getting rid of her father’s programming. Raven takes her to Azarath to learn how to meditate. Meanwhile, a young urban revolutionary has inherited superpowers from his mysterious vanished father, and he plans on killing a whole lot of people.

Verdict: Thumbs down. The art is… weird. Not bad, just weird. And dang it, I just cannot take Raven’s alter ego seriously. The quiet, emotionless empath from the old “New Teen Titans” comics now spends her non-superhero time as a barely-dressed, fetish-wear goth-punk? Next you’ll be telling me that DC brought Barry Allen back to life…

The Family Dynamic #1

A new all-ages book from DC — this one focuses on the Spencers, a Canadian family with a secret identity as a superteam called the Family Dynamic. The dad, Pyralis, controls fire; Sirocco, the mom, is a wind generator; eldest son Troylus is a water blaster; and younger son Terran is an earth elemental. They all get their powers from a set of rings that have been in the family at least a generation or two. A lot of this first issue is focused on establishing the backstory, thanks to a news interview by a reporter who’s also a superhero in his off-time. And there are another couple of superheroes in town, a mother-daughter team called Blackbird and Little Wing. Add a couple of clownish villains called Tragedy Ann and Tom Foolery, and the stage is set for lots of superhero action…

Verdict: Thumbs up. This looks like it’ll be a lot of fun. Already getting some interesting conflicts set up among the various superheroes, and everyone’s personalities seem solid and interesting. If I’ve got a complaint, it’s that we just barely learn the characters’ real names — the names are buried way back in the story, when in the first issue of a comic, you should really make sure that all the characters have been properly and clearly introduced to the readers. But again, minor quibble there — the rest is plenty of fun.

Young X-Men #5

The mask is off — “Cyclops” is really the evil cyborg Donald Pierce in disguise! As Graymalkin and Magma scare Pierce off and return Dust to her natural form, while Rockslide, Wolf Club, and Ink fight Sunspot and Cannonball. Eventually, everyone realizes they’re on the same side, and they track down Pierce so they can rescue Blindfold and Dani Moonstar. And though they’re able to beat Pierce in the end, he manages to kill Wolf Cub.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Aside from the story being a bit of a letdown, I’m disappointed that they killed Wolf Cub. Sure, it was telegraphed from the beginning — who else were they gonna kill? A brand new character like Graymalkin? The quirky blind girl with the wacky speech patterns? The charismatic rock-covered tough guy? The token religious minority? So if someone had to die, it was obviously going to be Wolf Cub. I’m just disappointed that they felt they had to kill him at all. He could’ve developed into an interesting character, with a little effort. And besides, I’m really getting tired of comics killing off characters for cheap shock-value.

 

Captain America #40

It’s the new Captain America — Bucky Barnes — vs. another new Captain America — in this case, a resurrected and brainwashed replacement Cap from the 1950s. But it’s nowhere near a fair fight — the replacement Cap may think he’s the original Steve Rogers, but he’s a lot stronger and faster than Steve ever was. The fake Cap thinks the Bucky Cap is an assassin who killed Bucky in the ’40s, but when he learns that Bucky’s still alive, will his conditioning break? Meanwhile, Sharon Carter is fighting for her life against the Red Skull’s daughter, Sin.

Verdict: Thumbs up, but for once, I wasn’t overly impressed with what I was reading. Personally, I’m thinking this storyline has gone on for a really, really long time, and I’d like a bit of resolution sometime…

 

Wonder Woman #22

Trapped in a fantasy world, and fighting alongside Beowulf, Claw, and the Stalker, Wonder Woman is rapidly losing her soul, thanks to Stalker’s bizarre magic. Their only hope is to defeat the powerful demon D’Grth, who is assisted by Grendel itself. But someone is fated to betray them all… and what will happen when D’Grth makes his way to our world? Elsewhere, Agent Tessier has stumbled onto Diana Prince’s houseguests — a friendly band of albino gorillas from Gorilla City — and of course, a big fight breaks out, leading to Diana’s apartment getting completely wrecked…

Verdict: Thumbs up, but this is another one that I’d like to get finished up soon, preferably with some explanations that actually make sense.

 

Young X-Men #4

Ink is having a change of heart after betraying Blindfold to mutant-hating cyborg Donald Pierce — he goes out and gets new tattoos (one designed to give him telepathy) and prepares to help Wolf Cub and Rockslide take out the last members of the new Hellfire Club, Cannonball and Sunspot, formerly of the New Mutants. But Cannonball and Sunspot seem to be under the impression that the kids are the villains here — what’s going on? And Greymalkin, a mutant who’s previously not been seen much here, makes a surprise attack on Cyclops — or rather, on the guy who’s been pretending to be Cyclops. No, he’s not a Skrull — he may be even worse…

Verdict: Thumbs up. I was actually a bit more impressed with this issue than I’d been with the previous ones, and the big reveal on the fake Cyclops was pretty good, too.

Trinity #1

After the unmitigated disaster that was “Countdown,” I kinda expected DC to quit weekly comics. But they’re gonna try a new one — namely, this one, “Trinity,” focusing on Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. We start out with our main characters getting together in their secret identities to discuss a dream they are all having. We also get the Flash, his kids, and Clayface as guest stars, plus a follow-up story about Morgaine Le Fey and a futuristic version of the Riddler named Enigma teaming up to try to take down the Big Three.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Much better than I was expecting, honestly. The best bits are probably Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and Diana Prince sitting around ordering coffee — great character interaction here. If they can keep this up, it should be pretty good.

Young X-Men #3

Ink has already betrayed the new team, knocking out Blindfold as they defeated Danni Moonstar — now he’s delivered both of them to some mysterious evildoer, and when Moonstar wakes back up, she takes out her frustrations on Blindfold. Elsewhere, the rest of the team manages to capture Magma, but not before she turns Dust’s body to glass. We also get our first good look at Graymalkin, who’ll be joining the team soon, and he has some plans to take care of Cyclops (or whoever he really is) once and for all.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m enjoying most of these characters quite a lot. I’m a bit concerned about Graymalkin’s bizarre speech patterns, though — after all, they’ve already got Blindfold and her loopy dialogue. What happens if they ever get both Blindfold and Graymalkin in the same room? Total linguistic meltdown?

Young X-Men #2

Cyclops has formed a new team of X-Men, including Dust, Blindfold, Rockslide, Wolf Cub, and Ink, and he’s given them an assignment to hunt down and kill the current Brotherhood of Evil Mutants — the former New Mutants, Cannonball, Magma, Sunspot, and Dani Moonstar. Whoa, wait a minute, why did the New Mutants turn evil? Why does Cyclops want them dead? His explanations make no sense, and the team’s training against holographs of the old New Mutants team aren’t going well. Nevertheless, Cyke splits the team and sends them out after Dani Moonstar and Magma. Unsurprisingly, things don’t go that well, and even worse, there are suggestions that there’s a traitor on the team…

Verdict: Thumbs up for now. Yanick Paquette’s artwork is sweet, but I’d definitely like a credible explanation for Cyclops’ sudden and uncharacteristic bloodthirstiness.

Wonder Woman #20

A weird issue. On one hand, Wonder Woman is in a wintry wasteland, besieged by wolves, seeking out the legendary hero Beowulf. Elsewhere, she’s in the Department of Metahuman Affairs, in her mortal guise as Agent Diana Prince. Sarge Steel promotes her, even though he doesn’t seem to trust her at all. And she and Etta Candy run into the Stalker, an minor DC hero/villain from the ’70s, who manages to strand Diana in, well, a wintry wasteland where she has to seek out Beowulf.

Verdict: Thumbs up, mainly for the dialogue, which rocks. I’m less than thrilled with this Stalker dude, who really needs a little backstory and explanation to make him a decent character.

Young X-Men #1

Cyclops builds up a new X-team, including Wolf Cub, Dust, Ink, Rockslide, and Blindfold. We’ll also be getting a new character named Greymalkin, but he’s only briefly seen during one of Blindfold’s prophetic visions. Their headquarters is, as far as I can tell, in the basement of the still-demolished Xavier Institute. And their first mission is to take down the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants — this time consisting of former members of the New Mutants.

I gotta say, it’s a fairly odd team. Ink has interesting powers — he gains new abilities when he gets new tattoos — but he’s a petty crook. Wolf Cub is a stereotypical feral beast-man, and Rockslide is a seriously overconfident rock-covered guy. Blindfold is blind, and her unique speech quirks make it a bit difficult to tell what she says to anyone — there’s no indication that she has any powers other than precognition and telepathy. Dust really does seem to be the most interesting character — she’s a very traditional Muslim girl, and she looks like she’d be the toughest character in a fight. Wolf Cub threatens one guy, Ink picks a fight with a couple of cops… but Dust skeletonizes a terrorist’s arm and gets a whole squadron of Taliban terrorists to flee in terror. This gal should be fronting her own comic, not playing backup to Ink, Rockslide, and Blindfold…

Verdict: Thumbs up. I dig Marc Guggenheim’s writing, and I’m a big fan of Yanick Paquette’s art. Ink’s habit of calling everyone “cuz” or “cuzzin” is awfully irritating, but I really liked the way Rockslide insists that he’s not joining the new X-Men team unless Cyclops lets Blindfold in, too. All around, it’s pretty good stuff — let’s hope they can keep it going.