Bottom of the Pile - July 2nd, 2014

Let's see if I can get on schedule this week.  >_<

All-New X-Factor

The longer you've been in life-threatening situations, the more you begin to think it's appropriate to have conversations about how good the original Star Trek film was during them.

Aquaman and the Others

 I'm with her--I don't really want to think about where you would've kept tools to escape if you were naked.   None of it could've been sanitary.

Batman Eternal

And here we are off the rails again.  Tim Drake was already close to being Gary Stu territory with his origin, much as I love it.  Now Harper Row is treading that same water.   "Oh wow, Batman's a genius--his place would be impossible to hack into.   Oh wow, Red Robin's even worse!  I bet it'd be IMPOSSIBLE to hack into his--nope, I did it.  Using a shitty Dell I bought working my even shittier minimum wage job."

Last time Eternal did pretty well, turning what would be a plot pitfall for most stories into an actual turning point in the storyline.  Let's see if they can pull it off again.

 Earth 2

 This page is pretty much a perfect example of why Earth 2 bugs me.  Beautiful art, some pretty kick-ass costume designs.  But DC continues to basically shit on what's technically "the original Superman" and his original world, and Alan Scott constantly teeters between being a bad-ass and the weakest Lantern ever.   Apparently he was more powerful when he was the owner of all the arcane energies of the universe from the beginning of time, than he is as a glorified Captain Planet.  Go figure.

Legendary Star Lord

Marvel's new plan to get readers in 2014: Introduce a bad-ass sister for every male superhero.   It might work.  She does look pretty bad-ass.

 Magneto

This is an interesting inversion of the usual trope, where the villain explains how he's exactly like the hero and "not much separates" them.  Here, Magneto--whose actions here can't be described as anything but monstrous (no matter how justified), compares himself to another monster and creates a justification from how his actions are "different" from Sinster's.

Miles Morales - The Ultimate Spider-Man

The dude crossplaying as the 90's Ms. Marvel knows what's up with the Ultimate Universe.

Moon Knight

I've always wondered why more heroes don't do this?   Dude has a hostage?  Remind him of the terrible, awful things you'll do to them if they kill said hostage.

Rocket Raccoon

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...especially when it's several dozen women who all seem to have empires and/or large amounts of money and they're all angry at one, admittedly cuddly, guy.

New 52 - Futures End

Without costumes it's difficult to notice some of them, but I spot (from the bottom): Aquawoman, Power Girl, Big Barda, Hawkgirl, Mister Miracle, and Dr. Fate.  Pretty much only heroes.  That means during the Earth War either the villains were all killed or Cadmus sucks at catching them.

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.