Not a Russian tourism brochure.

[colonel_green]

Well, it's been a while.  I could say I'd been doing something productive the last few months instead of posting here, but that would be mostly inaccurate.  Anyhoo, four scans apiece from Captain America #618, by Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice, and Chris Samnee, and Wolverine #9, by Jason Aaron and Daniel Acuna.


For those who haven't been following Brubaker's Captain America recently:  Bucky skated through the American court system, but the Russians have it out for him for two apparently unauthorized murders committed by the Winter Soldier in the late 1970s; so Bucky's temporarily hanging out in a Russian prison, and it's, well, a Russian prison.  Also, it's presided over by one Colonel Rostov, who engages in various schemes to have Bucky fight people in a prison arena to try and jog his Winter Soldier programming for some reason.

Meanwhile, our other heroes continue to look into the matter, with Black Widow and Sharon heading to Moscow to do some investigating.  They speculate on the involvement of Rostov, and ex-KGB figure once codenamed "Red Barbarian".



"Plausible deniability" consists of Black Widow driving off in her car while Sharon phones Steve and tells him that Natasha skipped off without her knowing (since their radio communications are undoubtedly being monitored).

Meanwhile, in the gulag, the continual fighting (at one point, with Ursa Major) isn't doing great things for Bucky:




The bad guys gin up a prison riot, and in the process Bucky is knocked out and taken to a secret lair:



Elsewhere, in Wolverine, Wolverine's back from Hell, demon-free, and out for revenge.  He spends most of the issue tracking down Mystique, demanding she tell him who the villains are (since she was working for them, before she turned on them to help rescue Wolverine), while an assassin from the villains (the Red Right Hand) tries to kill Mystique.






Economical storytelling, there.
 

Comments

[thanekos]

Lord Deathstrike.

Well, there's a distaff name that had to happen. (Looks different from what I was expecting, so that's good.)

[thehood]

Well, Spear counterpart. Distaff if for female versions.

[shadowpsykie]

the hand i take it?

You know.. like it or not Wolvie, she has a point. and truth be told, i don't mind him killing Mystique (though we know she's not dead, and i think even HE knows she's not dead.) he killed her for the sole reason that she was right.

[thehood]

It seems she is dead though. The question is, will she stay that way.

I wouldn't say she's right though and she's a hypocrite, since she's betrayed far kicks. She is the Mutant Judas.

Anyway, i don't think that's the Hand, the Hand wear red.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I wanna like this Russian arc, but man, I just can't get over how Bucky was just handed back to the people who made him an infamous killer and look! They're doing it again.

[colonel_green]

That's Gyrich for you.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Gyrich is just a small part of it though. The United States has no treaty with Russia, they were our main Cold War enemy, their current government is corrupt from top to bottom and they turned Bucky into the Winter Soldier in the first place.

So unless Gyrich was using Purple Man to grease the wheels, I think credability is just shot.

[stolisomancer]

That assassin in Wolverine is one of the coolest damn things ever. I'm surprised you didn't post the pages with him taking out that guy in China.

[funbox]

Please post, sounds epic

[lucky_gamble]

Average story ends mildly interesting. Maybe the Hand might give Mystique the fire power to beat the tar out of Wolverine next time. She had a point when mentioning Wolverine is just as much a sleaze as her.

[colonel_green]

"Just as much" is a bit of a stretch. He generally tries to be a good guy and has saved the world so many times that keeping count is pretty pointless. Mystique doesn't have anything like that (though she's a character who suffers from chronically shifting motivations).

[akodo_rokku]

Yeah really the difference is that while he may have been like her in the past, Wolverine has spent years trying to do the right thing now. Raven's never seriously tried for redemption.

I don't agree

[pervymax]

I think he *way* trying, in the early 80s, when he wasn't murder-stabbin' the everybody. Now he's just the toughest thug on the block, which gets old really, really fast.

I've really lost interest in the character.

Re: I don't agree

[colonel_green]

He kills bad guys.

Re: I don't agree

[pervymax]

I could probably dreg up dozens of places where he's killed/stabbed/tried-to-kill good guys, as well general soldiers, as well just general villains who didn't deserve the stabity-stab: but the one that comes most clearly to mind is when he stabbed spidey when after both joined the avengers.

He's just a dick!


Wolverine used to be an interesting character: ugly, short, bearable: an old soldier who was really trying. but how he's just a parody of himself.

Re: I don't agree

[thehood]

Most of those times he was under mind control. Otherwise, he always holds back agaisnt other heroes.

So no, he doesn't try to kill good guys. You are wrong there.

Re: I don't agree

[pervymax]

Re: I don't agree

[pervymax]

[lucky_gamble]

True he does try but there have been WAY to many instances where he *surprise* goes feral and murders someone or some people. It was stated in the first chapter of this story by Cyclops that Wolverine has a strange affinity for the brainwashing. That's the reason i never got into Wolverine; his good guy potential is greatly outweighed by the horrible things he's done and will do unwillingly.

[thehood]

Except the horrible things he has done aren't his fault and weren't intentional. Unlike Mystique who is an out and out monster(Dumb if she thought bullets could harm Wolverine).

[lucky_gamble]

an old response gets a new response? lol

Its been said that Mystique has taken care of other individuals like Wolverine (healing factor sans the adamantium) with guns. So her going against Wolvering with bullets isn't completely stupid. Risky yeah. A lil dumb, yep. But its worked before.

[flint_marko]

Maybe the Hand might give Mystique the fire power to beat the tar out of Wolverine next time.

I hope so; I'm tired of seeing Wolverine gut her.

[okkult3000]

Maybe a decapitation next time? Quartering? A slashing of the femoral arteries? Severing her spinal column and leaving her on an isolated island? Removing her bones one at a time, starting from the toes and working up? Variety is the spice of life, after all.

[flint_marko]

Yeah, it'd be great if Mystique did that to him.

[leoboiko]

Ah, the Hand. Resurrecting femme fatales since 1983.

[thehood]

Is the Hand? I mean they are working for Kingpin these days, why would he want to revive her?

[protogarrett]

Logan needs to just kill her for real. Chop her into bits. And burn them. Honestly... this is MU. You can't just stab someone and hope they stay dead. He should know this by now.

[lucky_gamble]

maybe he's hoping that Tetanus will do the rest. "Kill her my bacteria pretties!"

-random thought of the day

[schala_kid]

That Chris Samnee art....

[mullon]

Mystique had to have known that a gun wouldn't do shit.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

It would do alot more than just fists would, though.

[big_daddy_d]

Since the pot is calling the kettle black here, can Mystique be sent to Hell also? Just saying.

[pyynk]

I'm not sure if it's a new inker or having more time since Samnee is drawing the branching parts of the story, but Butch Guice's art has gotten a lot better.

[blackruzsa]

Hey look, Itsu taking up quite a bit of a page in Bucky's story! Must mean a Wolverine crossover!
And yes it is!

I've got to be pissed for Mystique, even if we know she won't stay dead.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Ya know, I can't blame Wolverine for killing her, but it would have been nice if he'd actually listened to her before killing her. Just for a change of pace, ya know?