Before I get into the resolutions for next year I think it's best to do a final tally of the 2008 ones.

1. Start home brewing beer
2. Learn to bake bread and bread related products
3. Learn how to make my own sausages.
4. Increase exercise to counteract the effects of a beer/sausage/bread diet
5. Finish writing my novel
6. Get at least two short stories published
7. Learn more Italian

I wrote up an update around September for my post a day and not much has changed since then.

I made beer and started learning Italian. Most importantly I put a lot of effort towards increasing my daily exercise.

Way back at the beginning of the year I was given a free session card for the gym located in the same building as I work. Given the heavy fees most gyms charge finding that little card was like finding a golden ticket to healthiness. It was only 10 sessions, and I only managed to use 9 of them, but for 30 minutes I worked myself like a dog.

I also hit a separate gym close by the house for a couple of spin classes. If you've never been, spin class is hell. 45 minutes of constant leg moving, intersected with periods of standing, sitting and high tension leg breaking. After all that you get to nap, wait a week and do it all over again. Fun with a capital F.

So thats 1, 4, half of 6 and part of 7. Although you could argue that 7 was vague enough that it would never ever be 'completed'. In fact all of those resolutions weren't as fleshed as they could've been. Three and a bit resolutions out of seven completed. Terrible, just terrible.

I'm rambling again, so I'd better get to the list for 2009. I've tried to make it a lot more detailed so there's actual goals to reach:

1. Learn how to make bread. Be able to make sourdough and wholemeal high tin loaf.
2. Go on a mushroom picking tour.
3. Convince the Italian community to let me get involved in making sausages.
4. Submit fiction to at least two short story competitions.
5. Finish a 100 page script for Script Frenzy in April.
6. Participate in Dry July.
7. Loose 10 kilograms.

So that's seven moderately easy resolutions. Same number as last year. Now I just need to keep them.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #20

Readers of this site and followers of my Twitter account may know of my utter disappointment with anything that comes from Jeph Loeb's hand. So it was with utmost trepidation that I sat down and started in on this book.

Just a note of warning: this is a book for the hardcore fans only. Unless you've been watching the show since episode one you will be lost.

The meat of this book is a flackback to season 2 of the TV show in the style of the animated series that was proposed wayback when.

There's a couple of decent enough moments in the book, Like Buffy thinking back to Angel's words of advice and getting them mixed up. But the majority of it is just incredibly bad. Like the "real-life" scenes that bookend the cartoony middle. The characters are written so over the top that they border on parody. They get worse once the cartoon sequence begins.

And Loeb? Points off for using the same lame Wizard of Oz reference that you used in the season finale of Heroes. It wasn't good then and it's not good in this book.

Thank the various gods that this is just a one shot. I don't think I could handle another Loeb issue.

Mighty Avengers #20

When Secret Invasion started way back at the start of the year both the Mighty and New Avengers books were hijacked to provide for filler material.

You could easily class this book as more filler, but the writing, by Bendis, is just so much better than the main Secret Invasion book. I wonder how much better SI would've been had Bendis stuck to the small character-focused arcs, rather than resorting to scenes where the Skrulls break out the big guns.

Probably my favourite part was the silent montage of Ms Marvel filling in Hank Pym on the Marvel Universe happenings since he's been gone. Can't wait for the inevitable photoshops where Captain America's death is replaced with pictures of Sarah Palin. If it hasn't happened already that is.

There's three artists listed in the credits: Lee Weeks, Jim Cheung and Carlo Pagulayan. I don't know why they needed three different artists to finish off this book as it's just a standard 22 pager. No upsizing at all. Which is strange as this is Bendis' last issue of Mighty Avengers. Dan Slott takes over next month ad for the foreseeable future (hopefully).

Complete List:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #20
Ex Machina #40
Trinity #29
Avengers: Initiative #19
Dark Reign New Nation
Mighty Avengers #20
Thor: God-Size Special #1
Thunderbolts #127
Ultimate Fantastic Four #59
Uncanny X-Men #505
X-Factor #38
X-Men: Legacy #219

Booster Gold

This is the first issue written by Dan Jurgens, creator of Booster Gold and drawer of said character since issue one of this particular ongoing. This issue is a  lot more light-hearted than the previous issues written by Rick Remender. While adventerous, his issues were completely lacking in charm. But enough about ol' Rick. How does Booster Gold stand up now?

Better. Much, much better. It's not quite Geoff Johns level, but this Booster has just the right amount of self-indulgent goofiness and Skeets has the right amount of know-it-all sidekickiness going for him.

I would've preferred this to be a done-in-one issue, but it looks like we get another multipart story, spinning out of the storyline Remender followed. Is this Jurgens' way of ignoring Remender I wonder?

After a cute opening scene with Booster and Goldstar in 16th century Italy looking for food and fame, the story quickly becomes a search for Rip Hunter and their headquarters that seems to have vanished from the timestream. There's a fun sibling fight then Skeets informs the two that all evidence points to time traveling knife, misplaced during the Killer Moth mission, being the cause and not Goldstar's posing for a portrait with Leonardo da Vinci as Booster suggested. Booster meets up with future fellow Justice League International teamster Elongated Man, in a scene that would mean a lot more had I grown up reading JLI. Then Booster is flung through time to somewhere next month's solicit reveals to be World War 1.

This book sits fairly low on the month-by-month sales chart. Lower than Blue Beetle and Birds of Prey. I hope that doesn't mean that this book is up for cancellation. Though I wouldn't be too surprised, given DC's cancel-happy attitude these last few weeks.

Green Lantern Corps #31

Confession time. Kryb scares the every loving shit out of me. This is Kryb:

Seriously, it took all of my willpower just to post that picture.

Not only is she a superpowered baby-stealing alien that runs on fear. her "milk" also acts as a DNA-specific mind-controlling agent if it gets on your skin. Jesus H. Christ. The only way Kryb could be more creepy is if "she" was a "he".

Despite the recent ick factor Green Lantern Corps has been great to read. Expanding on the emotional spectrum where the standalone GL book has become more tightly focused.

Yes, we know that the Love Lantern is going to defeat Kryb and break the hold over the other lanterns. Well at least I hope that's what happens. Before Kryb cuts the baby out of Amnee's body, thanks. The third law of Oa, "no relationships between Green Lanterns", is only going to end in disaster. But if the Guardians actually thought things through instead of just reacting to everything then we wouldn't have the Manhunters or the Alpha Lanterns.

Yes, this book is creepy, but it's creepy in a "look through your fingers" kind of way. And I love it for that.

Complete Pull List:

Booster Gold #15
Final Crisis #5 (of 7)
Green Lantern Corps #31
Justice Society of America HC Vol 03 Thy Kingdom Come Part 2
Justice League of America #27
Secret Six #4
Trinity #28
Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes #2 (of 2)
Secret Invasion Dark Reign
Wizard Mag 2009 Platinum

Secret Invasion #8 (of 8)

Firstly, just a few things about this issue I found to be incredibly dumb:

1. Janet Pym (founding member of the Avengers)'s death is portrayed terribly. Shes paralysed by  massive amounts of pain, until Thor generates a cyclone as tall as her that appears to engulf half her body. Then she dies.
2. SHIELD is a UN-based agency, so the US President can't do shit about it. Unless of course the President is Bendis himself.
3. All the heroes that were replaced by Skrulls weren't killed, instead the aliens kept them locked in a ship floating above the earth ready for some wandering hero to come across them. Which they do.

Now on to the review proper.

It's hard to review this book without touching on the seven issues preceding it. So forgive me if I seem to jump back and forth.

I came into Secret Invasion with middling expectations at best. After House of M, Civil War and World War Hulk  I was tired. Very, very tired. The whole series was roughly 4 issues too long. I can only guess that it's as long as it is because Bendis wanted it to match up with DC's 80's "secret invasion" series Millennium.

As far as finales to crossover heavy events goes it doesn't completely suck. The framing device (a debriefing) works well and is a nice change from seven long months of people screaming and firing bullets at each other.

Norman Osbourne kills the Skrull Queen and in doing so sets himself up as the new defacto ruler of the superhero community. Whats interesting is that if he'd pulled the trigger a fraction later we'd be looking at a year of "King Wolverine rules the world". Although with the amount of Woverine titles currently put out by Marvel you'd thing that was the current status quo anyway.

The book finishes up with the obligatory Marvel brand non-ending that sets up the much darker universe and the various Dark Reign tie-ins for the next year or so. (At one point Nick Fury literally disappears off the page. No doubt reappearing in the upcoming Secret Warriors title).

Based on the solicits I don't see myself buying any of the new books Secret Warriors included. I'm just burnt out. As a marketing exercise to get people to invest in yet another new line of books Secret Invasion has failed. As far as the story goes it gets a passing grade. But only just.

Complete Pull List:

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #1 (of 8)
Trinity #27
Invincible Iron Man: The Five Nightmares HC
New Avengers #47
Secret Invasion #8 (of 8)
Secret Invasion Front Line #5 (of 5)