Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Weekly Rankings For 03/18/09

Here are this week’s comics ranked prior to reading them:

6. X-Files #5
5. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic #39
4. Uncanny X-Men #507
3. X-Men Legacy #222
2. GI Joe Cobra #1
1. Wolverine #71

It seems I passed on X-Force and it had a good tidbit for the upcoming crossover with Cable. I also passed on Freedom and Azrael, mainly because I didn’t have a ton of time this week to read, dissect and review eight titles.

6. X-Men Legacy #222

Carey, Eaton, Hennessy & Reber

The middle of the arc sees a lot of explaining. This isn’t a bad issue at all but there is a lot of time spent on Xavier trying to figure out who the Shi’Ar salvage crew are and then spent trying to figure out Danger’s game. Then a good amount of time is spent on Rogue and her internal battles with Mystique and with her past as seen through the eyes of the Danger Room. I liked the issue but didn’t love it. For me, some pieces were still left dangling. For instance, why exactly does the salvage crew want with the Danger Room? Also, if the Danger Room is trying a doomsday scenario just for Rogue, then isn’t there other roads it can access instead of the ones covered here? Middle arc issues usually leave something to be desired, but I did like the characterization of Xavier and Rogue in this one a lot.

5. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic #39

Miller, Ching & Atiyeh

A new arc has Zayne involved in gladiator, pod racing. The set up is that Gryph finds some way to gamble on the games knowing the outcome already. It turns out Zayne’s dream was to be in these things. He runs into a competitor who plans to use Zayne to watch over his vegetable, rookie son out in the arena. All this, and Rohlan gets dragged into the games as well. The story sets up the plot for the next two issues. The part that stood out for me was the art creating a whole new type of games and not just recycling pod races and other visuals from past works. This was an interesting direction for a Star Wars title.

4. GI Joe Cobra #1

Gage, Costa & Fuso

The Chuckles mini series starts out here with a decent issue. To me, though, it felt like a Jason Bourne type plot rather than a GI Joe plot. I guess because Cobra is really not seen much and the bad guys are as much of a mystery as the people Chuckles meets with. I liked the story telling technique that jumped around the timeline. The part where Chuckles is forced to leave the ranks of GI Joe so he can go underground is simply not believable. All of the people who watch him get booted in the briefing room end up involved in the plot when he’s underground anyway, so what’s the point? On the other hand how is a guy allowed into GI Joe wearing a Hawaiian shirt all of the time anyway? The opening to the comic is brilliant when Chuckles plays the chess match with his prospective client. One false move and someone was dead. It was a very cool opening to the series. We’ll see how this plays out but Chuckles? Why Chuckles?

3. X-Files #5 of 6

Moench & Denham

This has the makings of a very different X-Files story. Scully and Mulder are checking out missing persons in the Badlands. They have a suspect to interrogate and find that the guy has two personalities. He may be the person taking all of these people. However, Mulder finds some common ground with the guy talking about the occult. Eventually Mulder goes off by himself investigating the guy’s trailer and surrounding area and finds some stuff that is not easily explained. Could it be that Mulder really has found the mole people? This was a good story with some really good supporting characters in it. I found the fight that Scully and Mulder had to be odd and almost not believable. This might be the best of the mini series so far.

2. Uncanny X-Men #507

Fraction, Dodson, Dodson & Ponsor

Emma and Colossus smash around the tattoo guy while Beast, Angel and the X-Men Gene Club fight off Godzilla and make their way home. The issue wraps up a couple of small plots rather nicely. Colossus finds a way to deal with some of his grief with regards to Kitty while he also gains a trusted friend in Emma. The new science team seems to be in place while Beast finding out about Angel’s dark secret opens a new can of worms. There are a couple of other interesting tidbits in here and I think some of them might be pointing to the end of the M-Day problem for the mutants. A huge reveal occurs at the end of this bad boy.

1. Wolverine #71

Millar, McNiven, Vines & Hollowell

I think what I liked the most about this issue was the fact that I didn’t see this coming at all. Wolverine and Hawkeye have taken forever to inch their way across the country and they reach New Babylon (since when is Connecticut south of Philly?). Along the way they meet up with an X-Men of all things. This surprised me. I was also surprised by the ending. I knew Wolverine would be turned on in some way but this way I didn’t see coming. Also I question whether or not he would pop his claws as a result of this. I mean, if this is modeled after the movie Unforgiven what does he see as the point of no return here? In the movie, Eastwood’s friend is killed. In this comic Logan has no real allegiance to Hawkeye other than he wants to be paid. It will be interesting to see how Millar writes his way out of this one. It was fun to be sent in a direction I wasn’t expected.