So, this week I decided to just continue my sort of “Rapid Reviews” to which I call, if you didn’t guess it, Tuesday Twist-offs.

Let me lay down what I’m going to speed through for you real quick:

• Air #1
• Amazing Spider-Man #568
• Incredible Hercules #120
• Rest #0
• Squadron Supreme 2 #2

Does that work for you? Well, it works for me. Let’s begin.

**definite spoilers and randomness after the break**

Air #1

Air #1 cover

Can I start this off by saying that I started reading this Vertigo comic on a whim and boy did it blow me away. Being the first issue, it seriously kicked tons of ass. The story starts out and you hear about good guys and bad guys, bad guys who play as good guys, rogue agents and plane terrorism. Now, doesn’t that just relate to modern times? What G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker have done is made a great story full of love, fear, and whole-hearted thrill that ends up being Air #1 and with characters named Blythe and Zayn you can’t go wrong. Needless to say, I’m effing excited for next month’s issue and to see where this story is going to go.

Amazing Spider-Man #568

Amazing Spider-Man #568 cover

What can Is say about this comic? It was just stunning. With John Romita Jr. drawing cover and interior art, you can’t go wrong as far as art is concerned. Then, of course, we have the Spidey writing team behind this comic, with Dan Slott heading this week, and, oh yea, the concept of this story is simply mind-blowing. We see Peter Parker telling his origin of Spider-Man, we see a fight with The Menace, we see Peter decide to work for Front Line, we see Crowne (the guy running for mayor in New York City) hire Norman Osborne to run his “behind the scenes” in his campaign and there’s a nice twist at the end with some old Spidey-foes (Norman Osborne + Thunderbolts = bad idea to begin with). Oh and there is a special little deal with Eddie Brock that’s done with the art of Adi Granov and writing of Mark Waid… it’s good stuff, I promise. This arc is going to brain-shattering good.

Incredible Hercules #120

Incredible Hercules #120 cover

Another issue tied into Marvel’s Secret Invasion but still… it’s Incredible Hercules and it’s utterly fantastic. The issue starts off with an origin of the Skrull people and the origin of their original god and goddess. On top of this origin story, we see the “scripture” explaining why the Skrulls feel they need to invade Earth: not for revenge but because their religion tells them that their over-powering god, Kly’bn, is the god of gods. It’s a crazy tale. His wife, Sl’Gur’t, pledged to never keep one form for more than a few moments. And here is where Herc enters. Kly’bn is preaching about “saving” Earth, and Herc is definitely not cool with that. Cue, after a bit of bickering between Her and Ajak, one of the most bad ass fight scenes I have ever seen in a comic book. Mikaboshi takes Sl’Gur’t in one bite… that doesn’t last long as Mikaboshi explodes in a flurry of blood an bone and Amadeus Cho saves Herc, but condemns himself to the abyss of black below where Snowbird rested her soul (or not!). This of course, causes Herc to go ape-shit and, with the sudden arrival of Snowbird–she wasn’t dead, just falling/flying–who saved the falling Amadeus, Kly’bn gets bone-raped (literally) and dies. This messes with all of the Skrull ships/priests and another pillar in the Secret Invasion falls. Oh, and Reed Richards escapes. Kick-ass times ten-thousand and the end of the Secret Invasion tie-ins.

Rest #0

Rest #0 cover

A preview of an issue from Devils Due Publishing, Rest #0 leads to the story of two former college room mates who have parted. One, John Barrett, is your average-working-class-joe just living life, the other, Teddy Blake, is our main focus in the story with a strange past. He was just an average guy like John until something happened and it “saved” him. We don’t know what kind of saving this something did, but it changed Teddy’s life and he wants to share it with John. The whole issue, up until the end, we see Teddy trailing John throughout his day talking to an unknown person about “the program” and how John isn’t ready for it. In the end of the issue, Teddy finally confronts John and tries to share this something with John, but John denies it, for now, and takes Teddy’s card–which is from a company called Donte-Global Pharmaceuticals where Teddy is an Executive VP in Sleep Technologies. Could this something be a pill? The ads in the comic seem to say so, and the ads in the end of the issue saying “Why Sleep? Take REST” are a bit of a giveaway. I’m definitely curious as to the whole idea behind this… I guess we’ll see in October when Rest #1 is released. One more thing: Fabulous art by Shawn McManus and Lizzy John and the clever writing of Mark Powers is just great. Worth the money this one is…

Squadron Supreme 2 #2

Squadron Supereme 2 #2 cover

Now, this is the second issue in the post-Ultimate Power world of the Squadron Supreme (who are now in the Ultimate Universe) and at first I was utterly confused. In issue #1, characters were coming out of no-where left and right, but after reading the second issue, things are starting to make more sense. The issue begins with a super-hero save from an alternate Tony Stark (it has to be…) but that’s not too important. This month, we see the four “space cadets” from last month’s issue come out of stasis and boy do these guys have powers. It’s like an alternate Fantastic Four (well, in my opinion, it is an alternate FF). Nick Fury tries to contain them and expose them to the world (oh yea, their “super transformation” was covered up by the US government in this universe). This backfires and the issue ends with the team heading out wherever they damn-well-please. But “someone” shows up at the end–we don’t know who, I swear. So, now I’m digging this series. I was really on the brink of hating it, but Mr. Howard Chaykin really stepped up and made this book much better. Next month should be a fun one.

And that’s it kiddies. See you next week (hopefully)!