DARK AVENGERS #13 – So last issue we found out that The Sentry is more powerful than Molecule Man and can’t die. Even after having his atoms dispersed, he was able to reassemble himself and force MM to put everything back to normal. That actually makes three times that Sentry has died and came back: the battle with MM, against Morgan Le Fey and when his own wife shot him in the face with an alien gun. This issue delves into the events just before and after Lindy shot him. After shooting Bob and making it hard for him to wear a hat, Lindy begins to tell his robotic assistant the REAL origin of The Sentry. Bob was originally just a simple burglar and junkie that broke into a scientist’s lab looking for his next fix and downs an experimental drug. The drug reacts violently in him and not much is left of the building and the scientist who created the drug is the first place continues to make the drug to keep Bob happy while he experiments on him. Brian Michael Bendis is overly infatuated with this character that started as a joke and then became a full-fledged rip-off of Superman. Throughout this issue, Bendis hints that the power of Sentry and the Void have Biblical history and powers; for what is a superhero with powers but a god? To quote Bill Murray in Groundhog Day: “Not THE God, but a god.” Wow. Really Bendis? You’re gonna take that route? Please tell me that you’re just setting this character to die the complete and total death reserved for characters outside of Marvel and DC. This character is too powerful to exist in the Marvel U. Siege should signal the end of Sentry before he becomes an industry joke…
Undercover Fanboy Rating: 
G.I. JOE: ORIGINS #11 & #12 – This is what I thought the series would be when I saw issue #1 advertised. What various members of the Joes and Cobra BEFORE they joined. What led them to the present? How did they get their codename? Stuff we’ve wanted to see for years, but have never have. Issue #11 shows the origin of everyone’s favorite hard@$$: Beachhead. Found wounded and unconscious on a South American river beach, the Joe soon to be known as Beachhead wakes in a hospital with no memory. Struggling to recall anything, he only remembers that he is an Army Ranger and why he decided to join in the first place. He then manages to recall bits of his last mission with the help of a doctor that turns out to be Duke. He tells him his is name is Wayne Sneeden and he’s being recruited for the G.I. Joe team to continue the failed mission and become part of the world’s elite anti-terrorist organization. Duke gives him the name Beachhead because of what the hospital workers were calling him in Spanish: “Cabeza de Playa.” So he remembers being in the Army and his training, but nothing else. That’s a story! Writer J.T Krul manages to breathe new life into characters that have existed for over twenty years and while artist Klaus Scherwinski won’t win an Eisner Award, he stuff is better than some of the other stuff I’ve seen coming out of IDW that wasn’t creator owned. Origins #12 shows us the origins of the Baroness before she joined Cobra. Yes, I can you some of you screaming, “But they already gave her origin in G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #93-96!” I know. I have those issues. This picks up back at her home where her father is wishing that she had been the one killed instead of her brother. She is befriended by another spoiled, disillusioned rich kid who was already into terrorism and anarchy. He trains her to become a weapon against the rich and decadent. Convincing her to kill her parents by blowing up their mansion, the two go on to become international terrorists and assassins for hire. When things get too hot for them to remain together while in Morocco; she travels to Syria, Paris, Madrid, London, Moscow, Bangkok, Serbia, Pakistan and Athens – killing paid targets and furthering her training. Cobra takes notice, recruiting her to become The Baroness we all know and love. Not that crap that was in the movie. Writer Marc Adreyko brilliantly bridges the gap between the known and unknown in her origin, but what really brought this comic to the top of the weekly pile was the art by superstar Ben Templesmith. IDW should really stick with this format and recruit either new talent or existing superstars to tell a different origin story from the G.I. Joe Universe a la Marvel Comics Presents. Imagine some of the non-exclusive Marvel and DC artists taking a crack at a Joe story. Adam Kubert doing Stalker, Gary Frank – Flint & Lady Jaye or Sam Keith telling the origins of Major Bludd. Maybe I will add this to my monthly read list…
Undercover Fanboy Rating:
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #44 – Blackest Night is really going to f-up stuff in the DCU for a while. The Green Lanterns on Oa have been fighting a losing battle against dead Corps members that almost cost Kyle Rayner his life. Guy Garnder, succumbing to his rage, now wields both a green and red ring… making him pretty damn powerful. Mogo the living Green Lantern planet shows up and decides to save the Main Green Lantern Battery on Oa by pulling everything not tied down onto his surface and absorbing anything not living. So the millions of black lanterns that had been attacking Oa are now energy to feed Mogo. Unfortunately, Guy is still too ticked at life to see clearly and thinks the resurrected Kyle is a black lantern and tries to kill him and the rest of the surviving lanterns. As Blackest Night begins its crescendo, I can see where DC might be setting the universe up for another cleansing like we haven’t seen since Crisis on Infinite Earths back in ’86. Logistically, I’m liking the way DC is handling the tie-in issues of Blackest Night. We don’t have to pick up every frickin’ issue with the Blackest Night banner on it to make sure we get the whole story (hello, Marvel editors…), but each tie-in simply shows how the rest of the DCU is handling the crisis. I would still like to see a different artist on this series (Sean Chen, Cary Nord, Scott Kolins…), writer Peter Tomasi continues to draw me further into the exploits of the GL Corps each month. Maybe BOTH he and Geoff Johns should be consulting on the upcoming Green Lantern movie?
Undercover Fanboy Rating: 
Rating System: 0 to 1.5 stars = save your money unless you are just mindlessly collecting the title. 2 to 3.5 = worth a shot if you are up to trying something new or wanting to get back into a title. 4 to 5 = a must buy for any comic reader.
Visit Things From Another World for a massive selection of these comics and more.
