In Exile

     After the shocking events of the last issue, Thor finds himself without a home and with a broken hammer.  Bor is now the only person to have been able to damage Mjolnir without the use of magics to weaken it.  So with this state of affairs, Donald Blake is just really happy to not be stuck in Limbo somewhere.  Meanwhile, Loki and Balder transport all the Asgardians out of Asgard into their new home, Latveria, as per the agreement between Loki and Dr. Doom as a part of their involvement in the Cabal.  Plus, Loki plays another card that sends Blake and Thor off on a mission to rescue Sif before she breathes her last breath, though, knowing Loki, it’s some sort of trap to further screw with them.

     J. Michael Straczynski continues the top quality writing and the great character moments for which this series is so famous.  There’s the great scene with the Warriors Three where Volstagg is completely drunk and ends up getting licked on the mouth by a goat.  That one was priceless.  Then, there’s the touching love story between Kelda and Bill Jr. that makes you feel like you’re reading Romeo and Juliet.  This whole story has this great Shakespearean gravitas that most comic books could never even dream of.  Now, the weakest point of the issue is, oddly enough, Marko Djurdjevic.  He’s still a superb artist.  But he’s much more suited for covers, where his statuesque style can really flourish.  Olivier Coipel, on the other hand, has a knack for drawing great and animated faces that really contributed to the success of this series.  Nonetheless, this still remains one of Marvel’s top comic books.  J.M.S. is writing a modern day Odyseey in the pages of this book!

Plot: 9.4      Art: 9.2      Dialogue: 9.6      Overall: 9.4

Returning to the Final Frontier

     For years, the Star Trek franchise has been in dire straits.  The crappy show Voyager, followed by the even crappier show Enterprise, along with the two terrible movies Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis, made many people think that there was no saving what was once the premier science fiction television show.  And then along came J. J. Abrams.  He gave us Star Trek, the brand new movie that successfully rejuvenates the original story of Star Trek while still being different enough to not be more of the original series.  Spoilers follow in the next paragraph, so beware!

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     If you’re reading at this point, you must not care about spoilers, so here I go.  This is an alternate timeline, created by dear Mr. Spock (a.k.a. Leonard Nimoy) the Vulcan accidentally going into the past along with the movie’s villain, Nero (a.k.a. Eric Bana) the Romulan.  As a result, Abrams gets to fiddle with the origins of the characters, all of them in a good way.  We have one new relationship, and basically all of the characters are better explored.  James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) ends up joining Starfleet, and he becomes friends with Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban).  He ends up beating the unbeatable Kobayashi Maru scenario, which was managed by Spock (Zachary Quinto).  The team ends up getting formed, and eventually, they have to defeat Nero, who threatens to destroy Earth.

      The fact is that this movie manages to capture what is great about Star Trek with none of the crappy baggage. *cough* William Shatner *cough*  Abrams focuses in on the relationship between Kirk and Spock, which really is the core of the original series dynamic.  He makes all of the characters interesting: Uhura (Zoe Saldana) is tough, sassy, and smart, Sulu (John Cho) is a relatively inexperienced pilot with hand-to-hand combat skills (in fencing, no less), and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) is an adorable young crewmember with a serious speech impediment but a lot of knowledge.  Oh yeah.  And Scotty (Simon Pegg) is so perfect that he manages to outshine the original.  Now, I do feel that some of the camera work was too… shaky.  And I mean that in a physical way.  Too much motion can make things harder to follow.  But that’s largely a personal preference.  There are tons of jokes and references to the original Star Trek in both the dialogue and the soundtrack, and, of course, there’s the freaking U.S.S. Enterprise, so you can’t help but love this movie.  Even non-Trekkies love it.  Trekkies, of course, just go crazy.  I know it’s not technically the summer yet, but this movie has the quality to be the blockbuster of the summer. 

Story: 9.4      Cinematography: 9.2      Soundtrack: 9.0      Acting: 9.6      Overall: 9.4