The Punisher 1

This is another relaunch of Punisher line of comic under new scribe Greg Rucka. It starts off with an incident where a wedding is gate crashed by some mercenaries and everyone gets killed including the bride and groom. The story then centered on two detectives, Bolt and Clemons as they investigates the mass murder. The Punisher hardly makes any appearance in the opening scenes as the story focuses on the duo of detectives trying to find leads.

Then the story zooms to the mercenary killers, the Punisher kills the light and one by one the mercenaries are being put out in the dark. Until the last member remains, and the Punisher leaves him alone. Simple story to kick off the first issue as the Punisher always gets his kill in the end. But the story doesn't end there.

There was another story at the end involving Detective Bolt and his previous partner doing surveillance on some drug gangs. The scene is recreated from Bolt relating the incident in and interview with another detective.  Two gangs are about to blow each other up, but Punisher is at the scene and puts out every gangs there is. Bolt concocts a fake story that Punisher wasn't there and in the end he gets all the credit knowing that his partner was killed off by Punisher for cold heatedly shooting another gangster in the back. Punisher doesn't take any favors and serves justice no matter which side one's on.

Uncanny X-men 541

The rampaging Juggernaut continues in this issue. The Juggernaut in this issue is the most beautifully rendered ever as there are many close shots of juggernaut and the color is richly textured. There are a lot of nice close up shots of the X-men taking on Juggernaut. The story kicks off with Cyclops and the mayor planning on action to stop Juggernaut as he moves towards San Francisco.



The X-men plan is to remove Juggernaut's helmet so that Emma can penetrate and attack his mind. Cyclop's optic blast has no effect on Juggernaut and Colossus's tackle proves futile as Juggernaut whacks him into oblivion. Next is Magneto's turn and Juggernaut hurls his hammer at him. Magneto's magnetic power unable to stop the hammer and only the timely intervention by Kitty Pryde helped Magneto to phase through the hammer without hitting him.

Cyclops as a last resort decided to use Hope's power to harness all the mutant's powers at her disposal to take off Juggernaut's helmet. Hope succeeds in melting the helmet and taking it off, but Emma Frost is stunned that instead of her entering the mind of Juggernaut, it was hers that gets penetrated. Juggernaut's message of chaos and destruction is passed through one of his followers to both Cyclops and the mayor. Looks like there is no stopping Juggernaut from flattening the city of San Francisco.

X-men Schism 2

The sentinels starts going berserk as the governments of the whole world activates the sentinels. Sentinels starts to attack everything in their path. So all the superheroes including the X-men, avengers and Thunderbolts scrambles to bring down the sentinels. Mostly there's a lot of conversation takes place at the mutant island Utopia as Cyclops and Emma Frost tried to coordinate attacks and strategies to stop the renegade sentinels.

Later on it is revealed that the young kid Kade Kilgore the new leader of the Hellfire Club is behind all the malfunctioning sentinels. It is part of a larger plan that is yet to be known. Kade also has plan to make transaction with some intergalactic aliens to purchase some sort of alien slug. Also its part of a bigger plan. Kade's acquaintance also little kids also share the same deadly psychotic tendencies as the delay of providing the money in the transaction with the intergalactic aliens ends up in bloodbath as the aliens are slaughtered by the kids. The kids must have had really good training in killing and maiming.

Meanwhile the  mutant Quentin Quire that caused all the world to hate mutants again and caused all the sentinels to be reactivated shows up at the X-men headquarters. Wolverine grabs him and tried to deliver him to Captain America but Cyclops intervenes and states that Quentin needs to be tried among mutants and not the outside world. In the midst of all this the mayor decides to move the opening of the new mutant museum forward to help calm the anti mutant campaign. The X-men makes an appearance at the grand opening with all the main characters being there including Magneto, Colossus, Iceman and Emma Frost herself. Kade is busy preparing a surprise for the X-men as he and his goons makes a barnstorming appearance. This is part of his plan again which will be known in the next issue.

Wolverine 11

The story in this book mellows down as the story line centres around an old woman that is part of the red right hand. But Wolverine does have to deal with another villain by the name of shadow stalker, a harder to kill enemy from the previous Cannonfoot. The old woman narrates her ordeal and flashback to the past when she was still a little girl that has a father that works for the government Oss that deals with a lot of top level hush hush kind off secrets. Until one day Wolverine shows up and assasinate the father and set the house on fire.

The little girl nevertheless moves on with life until she is a grown up woman married to a man who also deals with top level government secrets. Till one day Wolverine and Sabretooth shows up and kill her husband also. The second time her loved ones murdered at the hands of Wolverine. Wolverine spares her life again and thus she ends up joining the red right hand after being approached at the husband's funeral. She was persuaded to join in a most unusual way I must say. She was led to a home where there is an old woman sleeping who is Sabretooth's mother. On hearing this the urge to seek revenge is unbearable and she hacked the old woman to death in her sleep.

Meanwhile in the present, Wolverine makes Shadow Stalker expired as normal and proceeds deeper into finding the members of the red right hand. But the final flash back to the past has this character criticizing the red right hand at a gathering. The character reveals himself with a mohawk hair which can only be Daken the dark Wolverine. Daken having a part in the red right hand is sure to make this more intriguing as Daken has existed long before Wolverine even knew who he was supposed to be.

Uncanny X-men 540

The starting issueof storyline tie in to the fear itself event. Great to see Greg Land's art work on x-men characters again. Brillaiant and awesome. Been a fan since he did the artwork for crossgen's Sojourn. The new look Juggernaut on the cover page is excellently depicted and you marvel at it all day long . Really worth money getting this. As for the storyline Juggernaut finally arrives in San Francisco the base of the x-men. Apparenly Juggernaut's power is not merely destruction but also converting humans to his cause and purpose. Here he uses his hammer to brand a tattoo to a human and he is a fellow converted before he knows it.

Meanwhile Cyclops, leader of the x-men meets up with the mayor to discuss about the chaos caused by the fear god and why it hasn't happened to San Francisco yet. Even the mayor is hotly depicted here in this issue. The other side story in this issue is Colossus tried to meets up with his sister that is locked because of the crimes she committed in the previous issues. But she is unrepentant and corrupted and seems there's nothing Colossus can do to ease the situation.

Interestingly Emma Frost also gets a visit from Namor. Namor is has seek the allies to help in his battle to regain Atlantis that is devastated by one of the minions of the fear god. He wants to see Emma for one last time and gets her to bed before departing for battle. Now it is known that Namor and Emma Frost has a relationship long before. But Emma rejects and Namor departs without batting and eyelid. On the other end Cyclops and the mayor receives news of the ongoing carnage Juggernaut is unleashing as he is nearing to the city. There is a two page spread of the terrifying Juggernaut on his way which is definitely a gem to look at. Next issue should be on how are the x-men going to match up against the new unstoppable Juggernaut. More action is expected.

Daredevil 1

The new relaunch of the daredevil title by new creative team penned by Mark Waid. The story starts with daredevil travels to a mansion where a wedding between two mob families is taking place. Apparently daredevil receive news that there is going to be a hit at the wedding. But instead of a hit, it was an attempt to kidnap a little girl by a villain named 'spot'. Spot has teleportation capabilities that enables him to appear anywhere through black holes. Daredevil thwarts all attempts of spot to kidnap the girl and daredevil using his sixth sense points out the inside man that hired the spot. Spot killed off the inside man and daredevil managed to bring down spot. Its sad to see Spot only lasted around four pages with Daredevil. With his power, Spot could have done a lot more damage. I mean the guy can appear anywhere he wants and disappearing. Daredevil even managed to plant a kiss on the bride before kicking spot's ass. There's a new sense of humor in daredevil now.

Daredevil/Murdoch next receives a case of police brutality on a fellow muslim shopkeeper. But all his strategies to defend his new client ends up with the prosecutor using Murdoch's daredevil alter ego to win the case. In the end the case was thrown out and retrial is needed. Later the new assistant district attorney tips off Murdoch that there is more than meets the eye in the case trial as nobody wanted to represent the shopkeeper previously.

Murdoch proceeds to investigate further into the case. The story ends in a cliffhanger as daredevil is cornered by anti radar material shot from someone disrupted his senses. Being completely blind of his senses, daredevil is about to get hit by what looks like captain america's shield from behind.
 Is daredevil stepping into cap's turf?

Avengers 15

The story starts off with the avengers sitting down for a chat again. Bendis has a knack for coming up with a lot of dialogues as always. Mostly the chat centered on spider woman of how she comes to be in avengers and her history with other avengers. Marvel girl, the cap and hawkeye also joined in gave their opinions on spider woman but slowly it builds up to the event leading to the chat where they encounter the hulk infused with the power from the hammer in fear itself event. Hulk was rampaging through the streets of Brazil when the avengers, spider woman, marvel girl and the protector drops in to stop him.

That was a bad idea as they were shell shocked by the hulk's  hammer pounding. The hulk moves to finish off spider woman but she stood her ground and fights back. Her zapping on hulk with electrical pulse is no match for the hulk and soon hulk have her on his grip. But Hawkeye's intervention from the air saved her. Hawkeye's arrows only proved to be a minor distraction to the hulk, even an arrow that is a direct hit through hulk's mouth is nothing. Hulk sends his hammer and ripped through the avenger's shuttle and hawkeye has to bail out. The Protector and Ms Marvel taking on the hulk is futile and the hulk is unstoppable.

Spider woman managed to save some kids stranded in the war zone as hulk was kept busy by Ms Marvel and Hawkeye. Hawkeye sends and electric charged arrow at the hulk and Ms Marvel lifting the hulk and throwing him at a fuel tank causing a massive blast. Hulk emerged from the blast unscathed as usual. The avengers together with the kids managed to hide out from the hulk in a truck. The story end with the avengers discussing the better way is to retreat from the fight that is no way to be won. Captain America sums it up well with a new plan of attack is needed or else their days are numbered.

Wolverine 10

Wolverine continues his revenge as he reached the location of the red right hand, the organization that's responsible for sending him to hell. The blood starts to flow thick and fast as soon as Wolverine breaks into a the headquarters. He faced an enemy with a unique trademark of hurting people, by kicking cannonballs at his opponents. That's very creative and god knows what his legs is made off. Wolverine suffers some knocks and cuts while tangling with this Cannonfoot. The cannonballs got stuck on Wolverine as if it were live bullets but nothing Wolverine couldn't handle.

But more origins of the red right hand is revealed by flashback way back to 80 years ago. The story is told as a first person from a kid as his father, a mine owner faces a revolt by his workers. In trying to crush the revolt his father hired pinkertons who massacred a lot of the miners. The blood spill ends when in step a new negotiator from the side of the miners. The negotiator is Wolverine and he dealt with the pinkertons easily. There is a good shot of Wolverine in a 40's suit arriving at the scene though. The kid's father was forced to settle with the workers union only for a rash misjudgment of the father caused him his life by the hands of Wolverine. From then on the kid swore on revenge as he devoted his life in seeking out and killing Wolverine. When the kid grew up, he located Wolverine and killed him numerous times but to no avail. Later he seeks out other members that has families that have been killed by Wolverine as well. So the basis for the founding of red right hand is to unite the family members of people slain by Wolverine to exact revenge on him.

Back to present, Wolverine made Cannonfoot expired as expected only to be confronted by another female assassin that gives Wolverine a head shot. The story is far from over and Wolverine has a lot more of bad guys in later levels to deal with before reaching the red right hand members.

X-men Schism 1

The introductory issue to the X-men event of the year, the story start just as any normal day in the island of Utopia. Cyclops requested Wolverine's help as a one man security personnel to the international arms control conference in Switzerland where Cyclops is to make a speech. Cyclops main speech is plead his case for the international leaders to stop and dismantle Sentinels but soon got heckled by one of the members in conference with noticeable six fingers on his pointing hand. The conference is disrupted when a mutant Quentin Quire barged in and uses his powers to make all the delegates to spill the truth on their lives.

In the chaos that ensues Quentin slips away and both Cyclops and Wolverine has to deal with Sentinels being sent in to clean up the mutant mess. Not much problem handling the sentinels for Wolverine. Then the story zooms into an arms manufacturer after the debacle at the conference. The arms manufacturer is not the main bad guy here as soon he is killed off by his 12 year old son Kade after scheming to inheriting his father's business. Obviously this kid is both a genius and psychotic.

Back in Utopia the x men watched as the events around the world starts to unveil because of the attack at the conference earlier. All countries began to mobilize their sentinel robots against any mutant attacks. In the end it is revealed the whole chaos in the conference is caused by Kade Kilgore the 12 year old who is inducted into the Hellfire club as the new black king. A new villain in the form of a kid. Villains can't get any more younger than this.

Fear Itself 4

The world is still gripped in fear as the serpent is scheming to reclaim his throne from Odin. The more fear is sow among humans by unleashing his minions, the more powerful he becomes. Continuing from the previous issue, Thor is back at earth after being released by Odin. Thor makes his way to reunite with the other avengers namely Captain America Steve Rogers and Ironman. There they planned on how to stop the serpent, with Thor revealing that there is a prophecy of him slaying the serpent for the price of his own life.

Meanwhile the serpent has gained enough power and raised up his palace in Antartica. Something like superman's fortress of solitude. Not only that, the serpent gets rejuvenated and become young again and raise up more of his minions from the dead. Thor raced to Antartica to faced off with serpent, while captain america parachuted in DC to confront Sin/Skadi and the Nazi hordes. Ironman went to seek out Odin only to later curse the fellow and have a drink of his best wine. Looks like Stark is losing it. Thor is busy dispatching of more Serpent's minions and Captain America has his hands full with the Nazis.

Surely enough, Thor unable to reason with the Serpent and before he knows it, he was transported back to down town New York. The gods always like to teleport objects as if its fun. Thor doesn't have a scratch as always but what unfolds next is set to be the main event in the next issue. Thor is to have a show down brawl with both Hulk and the Thing with hammers. Its going to be a a hell of a hammer fight.

Northlanders 42

A new storyline which exactly the perfect issue to jump in. This is part of the Icelandic trilogy from the publisher Vertigo. The story starts with a family of vikings from Norway making way to Iceland to resettle. There's the father Val, the mother and the son Ulf. The story is told from the point of Ulf as he narrates the story. They are the first one there as the island is uninhibited at the time. There is a lot of description about the hardship and how the family try to survive in the new environment.

After a year or so, other settlers starts arriving on the island also. And with it comes a host of problem. The new settlers begins to claim new lands and before long Ulf's father got in conflict with others. In order to prepare his son, Ulf for the harshness of life, the father beats him up to teach him about the cruelty of the world. And this beating is described precisely over three pages and in this moment a hatred builds inside of Ulf towards his father and mother.

As the days went by, Ulf's family the Hauksonns are locked in war with another family over land matters. So the Haukssons are constantly preparing themselves for war by training. But turning point is on the final pages as on a cold winter night, Ulf thrust his sword into his mother. Where the story is headed and Ulf's motive is anyone's guess right now.

Avengers 14

The story here starts with something of a conversation between the avengers. It is like just any other normal chit chat with different members of the avengers taking turns to talk. Then slowly the talk slowly turns to more serious tone touching the red hulk and then the fear event. If one is unaware about the fear that is happening, captain america Steve Rogers gave a good description about how the god of fear returns and summoning the hammers.
Then the main action zooms to the thing who is taken over by the hammer in downtown New York. The only one avenger standing in its way is the red hulk.
Red Hulk proves no match for the thing with its new hammer. Hulk tries to tackle the thing but unable to stop it on several occasions. The thing unleashes a blast from the hammer causing hulk to thrown back a few blocks of buildings. The thing on eyeing the avengers tower fling its hammer to the tower. The hammer plunges through the tower a few times making a few round trips again and again. The thing delivers the final blow to the avengers tower by unleashing another blast from its hammer and the whole tower collapses on red hulk.



But red hulk is not done yet and makes one final assault on the thing but the thing proves far more superior blocking the hulk's moves and slamming its face with the hammer. The final scene has the thing telling red hulk to beg for mercy. The red hulk refuses and the thing whacks him to god knows where never to return again. Surely the red hulk is not dead yet, but who's going to stop the thing now that the only avenger that has the slightest possibility of doing is gone.


Main event: Avengers tower is gone.

Fear Itself 3

There's a lot of action in this issue as the wielders of the hammers starts break havoc around the world. It starts with Sin/Skadi and her troops of nazi robots bombing Washington. The avengers with Captain America which is still Bucky, black widow and Falcon is there to intercept. The avengers are unable to stop the new threat with Cap getting a hammering by Skadi. While they are busy duking it out, Thor escaped from his cell after being imprisoned by Odin in the previous issue. Odin on finding out about Thor's request to rejoin the avengers on the fight against fear grant him the wish and sends him back to earth.

Meanwhile in Brazil the Hulk is terrorizing everyone after being possessed by the hammer as Betty tries to rescue everyone from its menacing rampage.  But the avengers arrived just in time led by spiderwoman and miss marvel to stop the hulk.

There is the final hammer that lands in new york and mr fantastic and the thing is on site to investigate. Only to end up the thing is worthy of lifting the hammer. So another superhero gets possessed by the hammer with the name Angrir breaker of soul and starts wreaking damage in downtown new york.
But this is the issue will best be remembered for the death of Bucky/Captain America at the hands of Sin/Skadi. As Skadi lands the killing blow leaving a hole in Bucky's chest. His final words were about the serpent is here and we gotta save em. So long Bucky.

Main event: The death of Captain America