Another slow week for the most part, most likely because of the July 4th holiday, but the comics that did come out were mostly quality. So let’s see what we grabbed in this week’s Pullbox! Quick note: With EGM storming SDCC next week, the Pullbox will be taking a week off!

Marvel – Amazing Spider-Man #689 – Spider-Man, along with help from the living vampire, Michael Morbius, has found a way to once again supposedly cure Dr. Curt Connors of being The Lizard. What neither knows is that although they’ve cured him of the physical affliction of being The Lizard, Connors’ brain is still that of his reptilian alter-ego and sets plans in motion to continue his quest to make all of Manhattan populated by lizard people!

For the most part, I refuse to read Spider-Man comics ever since the worst storyline I’ve ever read in my comic book loving life in One More Day. But in honor of the new movie (which was awesome by the way) and new game (also really good) I figured I’d buck the boycott for one week, especially as it involves the Lizard. What perfect timing that he’s the main bad guy in the movie (sarcasm)! Seriously though, this was a solid comic if you’ve stuck with the wall-crawler through his ups and downs then you’ll enjoy the action as it sets up an epic storyline between Spidey and one of his all-time great foes. And Michael Morbius’s presence is the icing on the cake.

Marvel – Wolverine #310 – After being out of Wolverine’s spiky hair for some time, Romulus has found a way to escape out of Cloak’s darkness dimension and has also found a way to bring Sabretooth back to life. But was Sabretooth ever dead to begin with? Going back to where his most heinous memories originate, Wolverine searches Silver Fox’s cabin and the Weapon X facility and realizes he’s stumbled into another nightmare, a Sabretooth clone factory.

You knew it was only a matter of time before both Romulus and Sabretooth came back. The idea of clones though is probably the least interesting way they could have done it. Still, Jeph Loeb is one of the few people I trust with this and the set-up so far has been tremendous. Lots of action and making Cloak and Dagger major players will be interesting if they stick around for the whole of the arc. All in all if you like Wolverine, this will have everything you love about him in it, bub.

DC – Batman: Detective Comics #11 – Mr. Toxic’s true identity is revealed as…Hugh Marder?! The man Batman has been trying to save is also the same man who is trying to kill him and so there is a lot more science involved debauchery going on as the on going theme this week seems to be clones.

I understand that DC is still trying to build up Batman’s rogues gallery (for some unknown reason since it’s the most celebrated in comics already), but this story is a bit too sci-fi for me and Mr. Toxic looks like a bootleg version of the Atomic Skull. Honestly, so far this arc has been very forgettable and has done nothing to impress me and if it wasn’t a Batman monthly, I’d probably have dropped it from the Pullbox with a lot of the other ‘New 52’ garbage DC has tried to force down our throats. Hopefully this will start to pick up, or at least end quickly so that we can start a new arc that maybe I’ll care about.

DC – Red Lanterns #11 – The Red Lanterns continue their search for what has caused their power battery to become corrupted before it’s too late. The new human Red Lantern is lost in space and following his own trail of death, Bleez is trying to beat off the Star Sapphires, and Atrocius is still using blood prophecies to try locate his abomination that started it all. Who will find the source first though?

I liked that even though there was three different stories going on at once, the pace of the comic kept up throughout and there was just enough action to keep you intrigued about what might happen next with each major character and if any of them would finally catch their quarry. It does a great job of setting up the major confrontation in the next issue that we’ve been waiting for though and will hopefully end this ‘plagued’ Red Lantern Battery arc so we can get back to seeing what Red Lanterns do best and that is kick intergalactic butt.

IDW – The Cape 1969 #1 – Set in the midst of the Vietnam War, this origin story for Joe Hill’s The Cape sees how the main protagonist of that original volume comes into possession of the demonic piece of cloth and where it gets its power from as we watch his dad fight through 1969 Vietnam.

Joe Hill is one of the best comic writers of the day and seeing him branch out from his already amazing Locke and Key series is a real treat. What’s best about this comic though is that you don’t need to have read the original The Cape to pick this up and start enjoying it for what it is. This gritty, gruesome, swear word filled first issue will blow you away with its depth and action and make you forget that its supposed to be the origin story about a soul-consuming piece of cloth. Joe Hill definitely got his daddy’s writing genes.