Welcome to another edition of The Pull List Comic Reviews! The fall of the Hulks begins, Mogo dishes out his brand of justice and both Geo-Force and the Sentry lose their marbles. As always, WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

PULL OF THE WEEK:

Dark Avengers #13
Marvel Comics – $3.99 US
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Mike Deodato
Score: 8.5/10

The Marvel Universe has seen better days. While the disassembling of Earth’s mightiest heroes led to the breakout of a civil war, a secret invasion became the catalyst to Norman Osborn’s dark reign, and with the siege of Asgard on the horizon, surely things couldn’t get worse (see what I did there?), could it? The Sentry’s true origin is revealed, answering once and for all that, yes, things can get worse…much worse.

Just when I thought all the pieces were on the table, Brian Michael Bendis takes the much-maligned Sentry and turns him loose. With this latest revelation of how the Sentry came to be – not to mention how he’s more unstable than anyone thought – Bendis has taken a tragic figure and made him the definitive x-factor for the Siege event. Whether or not the character winds up saving the day or becoming the most dangerous player is still up in the air, and that’s just a tad frightening.

This issue is all about the eyes. Artist Mike Deodato nailed every beat of this issue by letting the eyes of the characters tell the story, which really focused on the horror of what resides within the Sentry’s mind. From the Sentry, the Sentry’s wife, Lindy and even Osborn himself, the eyes served notice that something wicked this way comes. For even more justification, take a gander at that last page.

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Jeez, a whole lot of nothing this week.  I can safely say I will be buying THREE books this week.  

From Marvel, I’ll buy the final issue to “World’s Most Wanted” in Invincible Iron Man. I don’t know, they milked the story into what, thirteen parts? Who cares! The previous issue finally went farther than “I’m Tony Stark and I convinced a computer to give me Alzheimer’s so I can save all of the heroes on the list I created from Norman Osborn.” You know he’s going to get it all restored at the end of this issue, but I just want to see how actually ends.

There’s another Deadpool book, its by the far the funniest and wild and that’s Victor Gischler’s Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth.  I say that if Daniel Way (who is doing a stellar job on the main Deadpool book) leaves the book he should be replaced by Gischler.

And the last book I’ll be getting is Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon’s Sugarshock.  This originally premiered on Myspace Dark Horse presents and it was a wild ride.  This is the Joss Whedon we all know and love, and is a truly wonderfully fun story.

Other than that, this week is a pretty light load.  I suppose there is plenty of Blackest Night books and Dark Reign books but I haven’t been reading those spinoffs so its disingenuous for me to recommend them. As always, we here at The Flickcast care about what you read, so leave us a comment and let us know what you liked/didn’t like from this week’s comics. For a more complete list of what comes out this week, check out the one at Midtown Comics.

Normally the Pull of the Week comes on the Thursday version of the Pull List but this week we decided to keep you in suspense and make you wait until today. –John

Pull of the Week:

USA Comics #1 – Marvel – $3.99
Score: 8.5

When I was younger, I had never known much about Golden Age comics other than that’s where Batman, Superman, Captain America, Namor and the first Human Torch came from. But with Marvel’s 70th Anniversary, they have made it easier to get acquainted with tons of heroes from their past that seemed to be lost in the annuls of time only to be reprinted or re-imagined these decades later. This story follows German journalist Emil Hansen as he is on a supply train interviewing a Nazi colonel during the early days of World War II.

Their train is attacked and destroyed by the Mighty Destroyer who dives out of the train with Emil in tow seconds before a bomb detonates. Emil, though not a Nazi, fears he has become a captive of the Destoyer. He is used as bait and tries to warn the Nazi’s only to be confronted by the Destroyer for trying to save them. Emil talks about how he may not be a Nazi, but Germany is his home and he loves it still. The Destroyer speaks powerful two very powerful words about what a man should do and what he shouldn’t be afraid to. The Destroyer keeps Emil with him as he sets what should be a standard trap on a railway but instead of just watching his target train derail, the Destroyer takes Emil and the two board that train. After some great action sequences fighting around the train, the Destroyer’s plan is revealed with an emotional final few pages.

Issues like this were part of what brought me originally in to comics. I didn’t need long story arcs extending over six months. Back when I first started reading, younger than 10 years old, I had no attention span. If it didn’t wrap up in a single issue, I didn’t remember what had happened four weeks later. The issues that stood out most from my youth were the great one shot stories. USA Comics #1 focusing on the Destroyer is a great comic. Though lacking humor, every other aspect of great comic writing is in this book. There is drama, action, compelling characters with an unusual relationship between the two and of course, conflict.

For someone who only saw the Destroyer before as a WWII version of the Punisher, this anti-Nazi can evoke so much more emotion from a reader than any current rendition of Frank Castle. For example, the explanation of his costume reveals a fantastic “Oh wow” moment that the Punisher could never achieve. Being currently in an era of big events that don’t have much long term consequence like Final Crisis or the Secret Invasion, the story being set in an actual major event such as WWII gives it so much more believability and weight as the reader sees what these characters must go through.

Starting off as Timely Comics, Marvel has gone through tremendous change over the years but like any company to last that long like DC or Archie, they have produced compelling characters. It is great to see a company that honors its history instead of just blindly pushing forward. USA Comics #1 does so in a way that is both captivating and relevant. By keeping the characters accurate to the original themes surrounding them and losing the campy dialogue that was so dominant during the Golden Age of comics, the book instantly becomes so much more accessible to readers new to the character. It’s also great to see one of Stan Lee’s earliest creations still in action after all these years as well.

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