Bottom of the Pile - April 23, 2014

Goodness, this is late.   My apologies.

All-New Invaders

This is a cute way to write off the fact that the Avengers literally saved the universe all of...probably three months ago MU time, in the Infinity event.

Aquaman

...Wait, really?  So, a fuckton of mythical monsters escape from an Atlantean prison, and your response is, "...Eh, I got other stuff to do."   You realize they're probably somewhere murdering people right now, right?

Batman Eternal

No more chalk boards!  Gracias.  They give me flashbacks to that period from 2007-2011 where every future plot development was on a chalkboard for some reason.  Anyway, I'm sure this will end great.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Does coming back from the dead make you whiny?  Because I really don't recall Star Lord complaining this much before.

Iron Patriot

Yeah, that's usually what all villains say.   I think there's a list of canned lines in a manual for them somewhere.  Anyway, blowing up a large number of metropolitan areas and the Iron Patriot armor, kidnapping his family and putting him in critical physical condition...is the Iron Patriot canceled already?  Because I just don't know where you go from here when the stakes have been raised this high.

Justice League United

There are probably other things I could've commented on with this issue, but I chose this because it's the first time DC's reminded me of how fun their comics used to be, back before everything got "serious".   It's nice to see that there are still kids (even in other countries!) that still look at superheroes as a key to unlocking their imaginations.

Original Sin

This issue is a cute little prelude to Marvel's Original Sin event, even though it clashes wildly with the last Watcher appearance, where he had like a girlfriend and was trying to have children.  Ah well.  Like I've said once already: Marvel continuity exists when they want it to.

Secret Origin

Secret Origin is a book that should've happened in September of 2011, when the new DC Universe started.  But, at least they're trying.  And here we have Dick Grayson's first Robin costume of this universe.  The fishscale undies are gone for good, it seems.

The new Wally West is (half) black.  Cool.  Historically, Wally has always looked up to his "uncle Barry", so since they changed his ethnicity, no matter what happens eventually we're going to hear someone use the "Great White Hope" insult.  That's unavoidable.  But could we have at least not started off the first story with showing Wally's mangled corpse?  That would've been nice.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise

Okay, let's talk about this for a second.  The first (and so far only) human character to be introduced in this post-Chaos Transformers world is a female.  That's great.  She's not wearing a ridiculous outfit.  Wonderful.  She's in a position of power and running shit?  Impressive.  ...But she's working alongside the Decepticons in an alliance that is almost sure to do Earth more harm than good, making her look completely and utterly incompetent in the eyes of most fans reading the book, giving them an automatic reason to dislike her?

Yeah.  There's where you tripped up.  Didn't we learn this with Maria Hill?  If you're going to automatically make the woman in charge unlikable, then it's going to be hard to push the idea that having a woman in charge is a good thing.  It's poor concept association.


I've got two more of these to catch up on over the weekend.  Expect to see them soon.

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 pile, thus being the best as I've always been a proponent of "saving the best for last".   Since bog standard reviews can be found literally anywhere, coverage 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.