Your patience has been rewarded!

Yes, FINALLY some comic reviews!

Rather than focus on a particular week (last week was a small one for me), I want to pull some from recent weeks that caught my eye for good and bad.

Spawn 185- Beginning of "Endgame" by McFarlane and Portacio. The line from Godfather 3 kept repeating in my head as I walked out of the store with this issue; "every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in.". Spawn was my foray back into comics after many years and I stayed with it through good and bad times like a battered girlfriend. Finally I get the courage to say "enough" and walk away only to get sucked right back in. Todd hasn't written or drawn for I don't know how long and Whice has been in and out of things as well.
All that being said, this has both good and bad points. If you haven't read SPAWN in years, you're not going to know who this patient 47 is and why it's such a bad thing that he's awake from his coma. If someone knows, please leave me a posting. It also looks like Al (Spawn) has killed himself. Or at least it appears that way. The body is found by the Clown (Violator), sort of Joker to Spawn's Batman. The artwork is typical Portacio, for better and worse. A very dark tone in terms of shading to the book, more to make the words and actions pop. Given that it's the first part of a story arc, it's not that bad. But if they don't go about giving the backstory to this at some point, all of what has happened will be for nothing.
Ultimate Origins- I picked this up with great trepidation. I have loved ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN for the most part and read both FF and X-MEN for a while before both lost me. This is supposed to be a telling of how everything is connected within the Ultimate universe.
OK, now that the official line is out of the way let me say, WTF? Black Panther was part of Weapon X and saved by Nick Fury? Seriously?? Rick Jones is going to be the Silver Surfer? That's it? That's the "big thing"? Man. I know that Black Panther did not have the sexiest origin in the MCU, but it was organic and made sense for the character and it worked. To take it and totally screw it up is pitiful. Speaking of pitiful.....
Ultimate Spider-Man Annual 3- In this economy, I feel that we as fans should march on Marvel's offices and demand our money back from either Bendis or Quesada for this abomination. The artwork on this was sporadic at best, and the tagline about Peter and MJ was misleading. So they get back together, so what? That's supposed to cost me 4 bucks for something they could have put in the regular series? I do have to say that the introduction of Mysterio was nice, and if they had sold the issue as his intro, maybe I wouldn't have as much issue with things. Just a total bait and switch for my money.
Rage of the Red Lanterns- I loved this! Man I was looking forward to this issue and not only did it not let me down, it deepened the mysteries that will go on toward the BLACKEST NIGHT story next year. I also feel that I should throw something out there. Hal Jordan has been the model Green Lantern for the last 40+ years, but I don't think he'll be one at the end of the story next year. I think that he'll become a Blue Lantern to join Ganthet in that particular corps. One question I do have though; what did this have to do with FINAL CRISIS? It had it labelled on the cover and said it took place between 1 and 2,but in my opinion, had nothing do to with it. This was a great mix of action and talking. Having a cat as a Red Lantern? Brilliant! It sneaks up on a Yellow Lantern as they are trying to break Sinestro out of his cell and kills him. He was being transported to his home world for execution by the Green Lanterns when the Yellow Lanterns ambushed them. They appeared to have been tipped off by the Guardian who can see the other colors. The Red Lanterns appear and lay waste to all to get to Sinestro, who had imprisoned the leader Atrocitus.
The Red Lanterns don't care who is in front of them, they kill everything. The one Guardian (a chick?) who was wounded during the SINESTRO CORPS WAR seems to have to ability to either communicate or manipulate the other color Lanterns, including the Black Lanterns. Did not see the red logo or the orange logos in her eyes, but we'll see. She also can communicate without the other guardians knowledge, something that will be telling in the months to come. I look forward to the series next year and if the buildup to it is as good as this, it will totally blow FINAL CRISIS and SECRET INVASION away.
Crossed 1- I have never been a big horror fan, but I've liked most of what Warren Ellis has written. This book totally unnerved me. And not in a good way. It seemed almost like shock just for shock's sake. I know it supposed to be a look at what we would be like if all our inhibitions went away, but some of this, especially with the kid was disturbing on a level that if you heard someone talking about this, you'd have him locked up. I don't know if I'll buy another issue, I may read it in the store to see where this goes. Unlike THE WALKING DEAD, this seems to have nowhere to go, so I'm guessing that it's a mini series.
Superman/Batman 53- Part 1 of the "Super/Bat" arc. This is another book that I jumped off a while back but was sucked back into. So far though, this has been a consistently good book. Michael Green has done a nice job constructing out of continuity stories that while different, don't look too out of place. His "mini-heroes" are was short and sweet (pardon the pun) and a whole lot of fun. Had some great moments of humor in them.
Now he gets to play with Rags Morales on art with swapping the powers for the two. Okay, there are no real powers for Bats to give to Supes, but you get my drift. It appears that Silver Banshee may have caused the switch, at least on the surface it looks that way. The inner dialogue that happens is spot on and captures both heroes flaws, including some pity and jealously. This has the making for a great arc and hopefully a continuation for Green of a great run of stories.

That's it for the moment. Will return (I promise!) in a day or so to throw some more your way.