Dish's Stack: Marvel and DC Comics 29/02/2012

Five Wednesdays this month means my monthlies have been spread out over an extra week: resulting in the fact that I have nearly caught up with my stack!  A small week this week is slightly disappointing, but does mean I may actually be reading comics the week they come out some time soon!

Read after the jump for my forethoughts on Amazing Spider-Man, Justice League  and more!

Amazing Spider-Man #680

ComicBookResources

The 'Point One' a couple of weeks ago was one of the most fun comics I have read in a long time!  Told partly from a kid's point of view, it was everything a prospective ASM reader could want in terms of a jumping on point.
The 'mystery' of who was in Horizon's 6th lab was finally revealed after months of hints and major clues, and their consequent escape leads nicely onto a story coming in a couple of months that will tie into the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man movie.  But best of all were all the science-y things we were shown: Peter showed a couple things he has been working on to help with the inevitable clash with the Sinister Six, and Uatu (a kid genius working at Horizon) showed that he's doing what anyone would do with a mind like his - make weapons to fight supernatural creatures!
That was a great issue, so hopefully this month's wont be a let down for any newbies sticking around.  As hinted/shown/teased months ago, in a 'flashforward' of sorts, Spidey will be going up into space to rescue astronaut John Jameson from Doctor Octopus's schemes!  According to ComicBookResources there is also  a special guest appearance, so keep a look out for that!

FF #15

ComicBookResources

Doctor Doom, Nathaniel Richards and the kids of the Future Foundation have bought the time they needed to save the universe - now they get to kick some ass!
Last issue was really quite cool, even if it seemed a little short; it only spanned maybe 20 minutes or so, but tensions were built up so brilliantly and the converging 'scenes' meant that so much happened that you barely noticed.
The downside to having so much happen so quickly is that there can be a sense of "wait, so what exactly happened there?".  A couple major story points happened within a couple pages of each other so I wasn't 100% sure what went down, but a part of me guesses that that was intentional to future developments rather than a story-telling oversight.
The 'event' will be winding down over the next couple of issues of this and Fantastic Four proper and I'll be quite sad to see it end - a fantastic return to form for Marvel's first family!

Moon Knight #10

ComicBookResources

I don't remember if this book had been cancelled before I last wrote about it so, if it hadn't, let me tell you (again?) that this series will be ending with issue 12 - a mere 2 months away.
I possibly started giving Moon Knight a little too much credit after his first encounter with Count Nefaria, in which he held his own really well against a foe way out of his league - but after the events of last issue I really think I jumped the gun on heaping praise on Mr. Spector.
I'm pretty sure it's part of his character, but Moon Knight is so reckless and out of control that he doesn't even seem to know what the hell he is doing half the time; and that he knows he is outmatched by this villain makes his recklessness all the worse - he is literally putting people's lives at stake.
Now, don't take this as me saying I no longer like this book: quite the opposite!  I just feel like the whole split personality thing may be being overplayed right now.  The scenes in which he kits himself out like his alter-brains was a little too much for me, and I feel the 'present' could have used the extra pages taken up by those parts.
I will be disappointed to see such a promising book end but, unless the final issues are something special, it may turn out that Marvel was merely saving Moon Knight from it/himself.

Venom #13.4

ComicBookResources

Well, I was a little off!  I don't think Doctor Strange and Hellstrom featured at all last week, in an issue I thought would be devoted to explaining a little more about the supernatural-ness of the event - but it was all the better for it!
Seeing each characters' personal 'heaven' and see it twisted and distorted to torment the heroes was a masterstroke and pretty much perfectly done - seeing how 'Hell' works in the MarvelU for the first time was quite en enlightening experience for me.  The deal brokered with Mephisto (it was Mephisto wasn't it?) was also a suitable, if reasonably predictable, solution to the whole 'dead' thing going on with the good guys, and the resulting 'favour' owed will no doubt fuel future stories with all characters - hopefully not to be misused.
So this is the penultimate issue in this month-long event, and I would expect some major action this week with a more 'winding-down' kind of a finale next week - though with my track record for predictions, make of that what you will!

Justice League #6

DC Comics

It didn't feel like an awful lot happened in the last Justice League, though Batman did take his mask off which I thought was supremely frivolous of him especially considering Bruce's usual cautious self.  It could have made sense, and they really tried to make it seem like an act of trust between new allies, but the threat has never seemed bad enough for the team to need a bonding exercise like that - though that may just be me.
Geoff Johns has done his best to make the threat seem massive, but I'm just not feeling it: Darkseid's laser-eyes, for example, were just assumed to be an insta-kill, which I don't remember ever seeing any evidence of...
I did like Batman's 'infiltration' of the spaceship/planet/alternate plane/whatever, and that was the only thing to give me a real sense of scale of what was happening, and that has been restricted to a single page so far.
I really want to like Justice League, and there are some really promising parts, but I just think it may be trying too hard to be the epic it so wants to be...

Also out this week:

Marvel

Avengers #23

New Avengers #22

Ultimate Comics Ultimates #7

Ultimate Comics X-Men #8

DC Comics

Batman Beyond Unlimited #1
Gears of War #22

Follow me on Twitter for not-so-occasional insights into the geek world: @IFeed_Dish

Dish Out! 

Dish's Stack is where i talk about the comics i will be buying this week!  Judge my taste all you like, but that's what this is! I will normally focus on my thoughts of previous issues and possible developments, but nevertheless be wary of minor (or possibly major) spoilers if you do not keep very up-to-date with series or previews, but I'll do my best not to reveal anything too surprising