Bottom of the Pile - Mar. 3rd, 2015

Aquaman and the Others

I love how stereotypical action movie Prisoner of War is here, until he remembers who he's fighting with.   "Ha! I bet that nuke just detonates in the ocean, loser!  Nobody lives there!"   And Mera's like, "Hey, asshole?  You realize we have multiple kingdoms down there right?"   

Batman Eternal

I wonder if the writers have realized how much of a goober The New 52 has made Bruce look like.  There was a time when I would've said the Batcave was harder to break in than the TARDIS, but between Death of the Family and Batman Eternal, I'm pretty sure there are some Section 8 houses that keep intruders out better.    Maybe Bruce really does need a black Robin to put him up on game.

Grayson

For this issue of Grayson, we're going to focus on the fact that it's now canon that Dick Grayson is the perfect tool to kick the crap out of the Justice League, and not the fact that throughout the issue is some of the most blatant objectification I've ever read in modern comics.   

Since we're doing that, I'm recalling someone basically saying that a game based on Nightwing would in theory be much more difficult than a Batman game, because he's not as strong or as skilled as Bats.  Meanwhile here he is dispatching a mini-Amazo.  Perfect.

Green Arrow

Speaking of Grayson, Spyral should just hire Felicity since she clearly knows all the identities.  This was supposed to be like that one time a computer told Lex Luthor that Clark Kent was Superman and he just wrote it off as ridiculous, but it comes off more like everyone's just incompetent when it comes to keeping secret ID's.    Maybe that's the reason no one has them in Marvel anymore.

Guardians Team-Up

 And Marvel's continued attempt to make you hate Spider-Woman's old costume as much as they do now finally gives us the real reason why she decided to get a new suit.

More seriously, this is just the Guardians/Avengers crossover we can't actually get in the films yet.  They even recycle the same villains.  Unfortunately, while it's got quite a few funny dialogue bits it's also got too much of that "make the book like the movie" stuff that irks the crap out of me.

Avengers

For my money, Avengers manages to have a far, far better Guardians of the Galaxy/Avengers crossover--with the circumstances being more cleanly laid out, the stakes far higher, and though the appearance is for a more brief period, it plays into the purpose of the "new" Guardians team Bendis set up back two years ago--to protect the Earth from intergalactic threats.  

In Two Months...Time Runs Out.  And aside from any obvious things like "because Secret Wars", we're starting to see why. 

New 52 - Futures End

 A Title Drop and Record Needle Scratch on the same page?  TV Tropes would be proud.  Though I fear Futures End will end much the way Death of the New Gods did--a loose tie-in at best, but no major effect on the actual story it's building up to.   Brother Eye's a bad-ass and all, but in the battle of him versus Brainiac, we're already aware who stomps out who.  Unless this is leading to a last minute turn-around plot-wise. 

Transformers

There's a couple things I could talk about with this issue--like how apparently Prowl's turned into a more destructive version of Max Lord since he's become the head of Devastator, or how Arcee's become a master of trash talk.  But mostly I just wanted to say: they're finally leaving Earth!!!  YAY!

Transformers - More than Meets the Eye

 MTMTE faithfuls will know this was the ominous voice message left at the end of the very first issue, as we finally close out on one of the last plot threads from the early era of the book.  It has a pretty elegant and conclusive ending, but at the same time leaves several more questions left hanging.  Initially I was slightly bummed these guys wouldn't be participating in Combiner Wars, but now that we've seen some possible directions for what comes next, I'm actually ecstatic they won't be anywhere near it.   It seems no one can resist the appeal of parallel universes, this year.

X-Men

Oh no!  Internet memes have invaded superhero comics!  Abandon ship, abandon ship!  

Nah, but seriously, I've always hated "bye, Felicia".  If only because I'm 90% certain most of the people who use it have no idea where it actually comes from.  Still, Jubilee's definitely the type of character who'd say that, so I refuse to write off what's basically a great comic book for what slightly irking line of dialogue.  Particularly when it's in-character.  It's a shame G. Willow Wilson won't be sticking around to write the X-Men after this. 

Author's Note: Bottom of the Pile is a weekly column (or at least, my attempt at said) in which I cover the comics that found their way to the bottom of my reading stack, thus being the "best".   Since bog standard reviews can be found literally anywhere, coverage here can range from mini-reviews to funny comments to commentary on a creator's run or comics as a whole, depending on a wide range of factors including the comic itself, the amount of time I have, and my general mood.