Take It Or Leave It – September 18, 2013

Welcome to Take It Or Leave It, where each week we pick out some of that week’s newest comics and give you our opinion on whether it was worth the price and you should take it, or if it was better left sitting on the shelf.

Well Infinity continues to confuse me and make me sad, but so much good stuff came out from Image and you throw Battle of the Atom and Venom in there and the disappointments like Batman 23.3 can be forgiven. Enough of that though I don’t want to give everything away so lets get started with this weeks Take It Or Leave It.

Alphabetical by Publisher

DC Comics | Image Comics | Marvel Comics

Batman #23.3 Penguin #1 I don’t really know much about the New 52 version of the Penguin. To be honest the majority of my Penguin experience is with Danny Devito in Batman Returns. The most I’ve seen him in comics has been a few issues of Dective Comics I read a while ago, but never really got invested in. That aside, I thought this was a more interesting version of the Villain issues than I’ve read so far. It’s not a rehash of his origin or anything. It’s taking place during Forever Evil so the world is without heroes, and the Penguin is just trying to keep making his money. While nothing was especially awesome about this one, it was still interesting. Unfortunately like a lot of these issues, it’s just not enough to make me want to know more. Verdict: Leave It Score: 7/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Batman and Robin 23.3 Ra’s Al Ghul and the League of Assassins #1 Ra’s Al Ghul is such a cool character, and this issue could have been just as awesome if it was a little more present and a little less past. I get it, it was cool seeing all the historical stuff with Ra’s, but the stuff happening in the present was so much better. We only got a few pages to see just how badass this foe of Batman really is, on the bright side he will hopefully be fairly prominent in coming issues of Red Hood and the Outlaws. I can’t say this is a must read, but if you’re not super familiar with this guy it’s probably worth a read, at least for the $2.99 2D cover. Verdict: Take It Score: 7/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Aphrodite IX #5 Well that was one hell of an opening story arc. Issue 5 of Aphrodite IX brings to a close a bunch of the plot lines that have been running for these first five issues, and mostly finishes introducing us to our heroine and some of the immediate supporting cast. It’s nice that a book can tell us all kinds of things about characters, but still leave so much as mystery, it’s not like in normal superhero books where you know who the person is, just no one else does. In this case, no one knows anything and it really keeps the story moving. The action in the issue is great and the story doesn’t feel forced to the conclusion, nor was it just a co-op. Matt Hawkins found a great balance to keep things moving forward without sacrificing any of the story or characters. Well I guess he sacrificed characters, but not in the way I meant. Aphrodite IX is a book you should really be picking up, and it’s only 5 issues in so get on board now. Verdict: Take It Score: 8/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Morning Glories #31 Well everything in Morning Glories seems to be back to normal, well as normal as this book ever is. It feels like forever since the kids were actually part of a school, and not this twisted time travel of terror coaster they’d been on. Now we’re back to a bit more familiar formula with things being weird and confusing while also showing us more about particular characters. Last time we saw a lot about Irina’s past and just how she’s connected to everything. This month though it’s all about Hunter, and how he had one of the crazy trips with everything that went down. Not quite as bad as Casey, but still pretty crazy. Oh and he joins a the A/V Club which is kinda cool too. Verdict: Take It Score: 7/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Infinity #3 How do you say something is the best out of a series of bad things? Because however that’s done Infinity 3 seems to be playing the part. I know I’m in the severe minority here, but what in the hell does everyone see in this story that it’s getting such rave reviews? The first 2 issues, and most of the ‘tie-ins’ have been terrible and gone nowhere. Now this issue at least seems to stay fairly focused and moves things forward, but it’s just one issue, and it’s still not very good. I’m kind of expecting Infinity 4 to just be 22 pages of “Hahaha screw you guys” over and over again. Seriously please if you haven’t started buying this yet don’t start, and if you have I’m so sorry. Verdict: Leave It Score: 2/10 Reviewed By: Chris

New Avengers #10 Alright, I’m going to be completely honest, I actually kind of liked this issue. I know I had nothing nice to say about New Avengers when it first restarted in Marvel Now, but it’s starting to grow on me. I’m still not a huge fan of the whole Illuminati thing, and maybe I’m just picking the lesser of 3 evils (the others being Infinity and Avengers), but this wasn’t that bad. I’m finding that I really enjoy the Inhumans, which makes me excited for the new series debuting in a few months. So it’s nice that this book kind of has a lot to do with them. It’s also mostly separate from the ridiculous crap going on over in Avengers and Infinity that I just couldn’t give a damn about. I wouldn’t call this a great issue, and if you’re not following all the Infinity stuff or the previous 9 issues this probably isn’t a good place to start. Verdict: Leave It Score: 7/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Uncanny X-Men #12 As much as I’ve enjoyed Battle of the Atom so far, this issue was a bit of a let down. It still had some interesting stuff happening, but for the most part it was a recap of already recapped things. We get it future X-Men are here to tell the past X-Men to go home while the present X-Men decide who’s right and wrong. Even considering it wasn’t much new to us, the interactions with and caused by young Jean and Scott meeting with older Scotts X-Men was pretty interesting. I especially enjoyed Emma telling Scott the only thing he loves more than the memory of Jean is himself. Of course the ending has a whole lot of awesome going on too. It really gets you excited for the next issue, because frankly we don’t enough action in some of the X-Men books. I’ve said this before and I’m going to say it again, Battle of the Atom is at this point the best event running in comics, if you don’t want to get dragged down by Infinity or slightly confused with Forever Evil and all the villain issues this is definitely the book to go with. Verdict: Take It Score: 8/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Venom #41 Marvel seems to be canceling the books I like best right now. Unfortunately Venom is one of those, the story is getting so good right now too it’s sad that in just a couple more issues we’ll be losing it. And possibly Flash as Venom too. It’s a shame, Flash has been a great character to use for this kind of series. I never liked Mac Gargan as Venom leave that guy as a loser like Scorpion. Eddie Brock was a great Venom, but I do also enjoy where his character has gone in recent years. Enough of that though, this issue of Venom is really getting things moving, with seeds that were planted way back in the Circle of Four from 2012. It’s been along road to get here, but damn I’m excited to see how it goes. With the addition of Mania and the creepy but revealing conversation Flash gets to have with the Symbiote I see this story going on to be one of those must reads for Venom fans whether you’re an old school fan or not. Verdict:Take It Score: 8/10 Reviewed By: Chris

Chris talks a bunch on PodQuest each week. He's also been known to write about stuff from time to time. You can Email Chris or follow Chris on Twitter @Just_Cobb or Facebook

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