Hey there, thank you so very much for checking out the latest edition of Best Battles in New Comics! As the weekly segment's title obviously implies, this is the place you want to be if you want to relive some of the coolest fight scenes and talk about all of the latest brawls that went down in the latest issues. The Comic Vine has thought about the options. This week, we have a massive melee between two teams, a battle between archers, and a character showing off how ridiculously swift she can be. Hopefully you'll enjoy 'em as much as we did. If not, you're more than welcome to discuss your top fights in the comments. Now, let's get right to all of the madness.
DEADPOOL #38
Let's kick things off with a giant, hectic battle. In Gerry Duggan, Brian Posehn, Mike Hawthorne, Terry Pallot and Ruth Redmond's DEADPOOL #38, we have a crazy fight between a bunch of inverted characters. If you've been out of the loop, AXIS -- Marvel's latest big event -- made a bunch of characters' personalities do a total 180. In this case, that means Deadpool's become "Zenpool," a calm and peaceful man, and the X-Men have become total jerks and extremely violent. Deadpool was keeping his allies from a North Korea Weapon X program, the FauX-Men (if you don't know who they are, you seriously need to go read The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly asap), with the famous mutant team. But seeing as the X-Men have become, well, let's just be nice and say "unkind," they want these characters off their property. Instead of kindly asking them to leave or being all or even saying "get off my lawn" like Clint Eastwood, they've trapped the FauX-Men in the Danger Room. You know, because they're jerks now. Deadpool has arrived to save them, but there's just one little thing standing in their way: Some very, very angry X-Men.
Duggan and Posehn's script offers a lot of fun and there's plenty of mutant mayhem as Wade struggles to help his friends survive against the bloodthirsty X-Men. Watching the FauX-Men line up and face their counter-parts is a good time but what's really great is Zenpool is calm and focused, so it allows Wade to really put his impressive agility and hand-to-hand skills to use. You see, Wade's often joking around and not really unleashing, so many people tend to think the guy's not that good and it's his healing factor that makes him special. It's important to remember this dude is also incredibly dangerous and has what it takes to hang with some of the deadliest street level characters. Just because he often jokes around doesn't mean he can't bust out some serious skill when it's needed. Just check out how he handles going toe-to-toe with Beast, an X-Men with commendable physicals.
Hawthorne (artist), Pallot (inker) and Redmond (colorist) must have had a blast handling this battle in the Danger Room. Not only is it full of various powers and settings, but a majority of the fight takes place across double page spreads! There's a very cool spread, but we're not going to spoil that one for you. Really, it's very cool and guaranteed to make your eyes thank you for looking at it. However, what we will show you is the X-Men harshly beating down Wade. If you really love Wade, you may want to look away.
Dude, Colossus just punched through Deadpool and then he was struck by lightning! Yeesh. Still, the merc with a mouth (or should he now be called the man with a meditative mind?) has an accelerated healing factor, so you know those vicious attacks aren't going to do any lasting damage. "Tis but a scratch!" But how does Wade escape the Danger Room? Can he escape? And will he be able to save all of his allies? We won't ruin it for you, although we are going to guess there's only about a 0.005% chance you'll predict what happens.
GREEN ARROW #37
Goodbye, crazy fight involving all kinds of powers. Hello, fight between two very accurate humans! Welcome to Andrew Kreisberg, Ben Sokolowski, Daniel Sampere, Jonathan Glapion and Gabe Eltaeb's GREEN ARROW #37! Let's get something out of the way: Yes, this new team is pulling a lot of inspiration from Arrow (Ollie now works with Felicity and there's even a salmon ladder in his base) and it didn't have the strongest start, but it's plot and the charters its incorporating has our interest. In this latest issue, Merlyn assaults the emerald archer and unfortunately, Mia's caught right in the middle of the fast-paced action. Oliver's good, but the guy is about to get completely owned.
Imagine the onomatopoeias if Ollie battled Spider-Man. THWIP! FWIP! THWIP! FWIP! Anyway, you know how fights sometimes end up on top of a speeding train? Seriously, it happens way more than you'd expect, and sure enough, it happens once again in this battle! Except what helps this one stand apart from the gazillion other train fights (or in this case, monorail) is these two combatants are firing an onslaught of arrows at each other and we get to chime in on each and every one.
Pretty neat way of following all of the action, right? Seeing as they're fighting out in the open and have literally zero cover, a fight like this can't go on forever. There just isn't enough room to move around and keep evading. Either someones going to get tagged, get close, or use a trick arrow. Unfortunately for Ollie, he isn't the one to use a trick arrow first. Way to go, hero.
Look, we're not going to lie to you. The fight does come to an end very shortly after this panel, but why does it stop? And what's going on with Mia's new story? Just because the fight concludes, that doesn't mean there aren't some good reasons to read the rest of the issue! This may not be a mind-blowing run just yet, but it's building up some interesting plot points.
ANGELA: ASGARD'S ASSASSIN #1
Our third and final highlight comes from Kieron Gillen, Phil Jimenez, Tom Palmer and Romulo Fajardo's debut issue of ANGELA: ASGARD'S ASSASSIN! "Cool, but who's Angela and why should I care?" Luckily for you, Gillen makes sure that's something everyone knows right away. There's a thorough intro page and a good amount of exposition before Angela makes her way into Nu-Town. Once there, we get a good look at her character: she's the kind of person who's quick to leap into action. And we really should put an emphasis on the word "quick" because she's absurdly fast. She vanishes right in front of this fellow and, before he knows it, she's right behind him and has him in an extremely uncomfortable situation. Luckily for him, she doesn't need to use that blade she has pressed against his neck. Don't worry, she'll get to use her weapons soon enough!
Before we go too far into the story, Gillen makes sure readers are treated to a good serving of action. Even though she can't believe it, a group has successfully followed her and, now that they've caught up, it's clear they aren't very interested in talking. Well, neither is Angela and, once again, this scene highlights Angela's staggering speed as she's able to vanish without a problem, even when she's surrounded by six characters. It almost makes you wonder who'd win if she played hide and seek with Batman. Anyhow, Angela didn't have to use deadly force earlier, but now she's going to unleash. Her moves are swift, precise, and oh-so-deadly.
The art team does a solid job capturing all of the intensity and motion as Angela rapidly moves from target to target. You can tell she's focused and making every move count; it's a no-nonsense mentality and you can't help but wonder how she'd fare against some of Marvel's biggest heroes and villains. She gave the Guardians of the Galaxy all kinds of trouble and now there's this seemingly effortless slaughter. Not a shabby way to leave an impression, Angela!
You saw that, right? She's kicking one dude in the face as she throws her weapons in the opposite direction to decapitate two others. Impressive multitasking, isn't it? It may not be the longest action sequence, but it certainly is a memorable one! Plus, the first issue has a cliffhanger and big development that's guaranteed to make you stick around for the next issue.
What are your top three fights from this latest round of new comics? Support what you love and tell the world below. Also, don't forget to make nominations every week in the official thread or tell us via Twitter. See you next Friday and have a good weekend!