There aren't as many books out this week as I expected, after a cursory glance, but the ones that are out make me hesitate to pick the ones I'm most excited for. Lot of good stuff makes it harder to narrow down to the top five. But, because I'm a champion, I have done so.
Hawkeye 8
I'm not going to stop choosing this book as one of my most anticipated. There are a handful of books at Marvel that I look forward to giddily every time they come out. This is right around the top of that list. There's a doubly strange effect with Hawkeye, too, where I know I'm not reading to keep up with the story. There hasn't really been an ongoing story yet, though there have been a couple arcs and there are things that are clearly built to become a story but they haven't yet developed. I'm reading this book excitedly every time it comes out because I just really enjoy this book. It's a nice little departure from the feel of most Marvel books.
Punisher War Zone 5
After duping the Avengers into following a false trail and stealing Iron Man's armor to rescue Sergeant Cole-Alves, the final book of this mini is primed for crazy action and some major character choices for Punisher and Cole-Alves, particularly. This will also mark the end of the series that tied together the Avengers world and Punisher, two corners that tend to stay pretty far apart in the Marvel Universe, so it's a little interesting just to remember that this is unlikely to happen again immediately (of course, it will happen again eventually, this is Marvel, after all).
Uncanny Avengers 4
This book has been stellar so far and the last issue haunted me long after the issue ended. It's rare that an image or issue stays with me that vividly (I remember after the first issue of Shadowland thinking constantly back to Daredevil stabbing Bullseye through the chest) and I'm simultaneously incredibly nervous and excited to see where the series goes from here. It's very dark and it feels pretty big, unlike most typical Avengers stories. Almost none of them go this dark. I'm interested to see where it goes from this spot.
X-Men Legacy 6
This book has been great so far and the cliffhanger at the end of last issue was about as good as any I've seen in recent comics. I'm not even particularly invested in the outcome (I've never really had a connection to Blindfold) beyond wanting the good guys to win. They've made me invested in the series as a whole, without needing to be terribly invested in how things end, which is a really weird feeling. It's kind of like Hawkeye in that way, but with a more dedicated story driving the series.
Young Avengers 2
Another big cliffhanger to end the previous issue sets this one up for some interesting progress moving forward. Even though we saw all the characters, nothing is really tied together yet; none of the original Young Avengers are really with each other (aside from Billy and Teddy) and the new members of the team have appeared but haven't been nearly inducted to the team. On top of that, Billy's parents have been melted to go by a crazy version of Teddy's mother from another dimension (good work Billy). Lots to go on here. Plus Gillen and McKelvie.
Good week, everybody. Good week.
Tim,
ReplyDeleteWhat are your thought on the upcoming Age of Ultron? I was reading a short article about it in the USA Today this morning. Maybe you've mentioned it and I just haven't noticed. Later.
Kirk
Wellllllll, that's kind of a mixed bag. I'm usually pretty into stuff concerning Ultron because I think there's a lot to deal with there. First and foremost, I'm a science fiction fan so OF COURSE I'm interested in the idea of the singularity, when robots become smart enough to build other robots who are better and so forth, which is what Ultron really comes down to. There's a feeling in the Marvel Universe that eventually Ultron will be their downfall, it's just a matter of when. Is that when now? No, probably not, but it's worth keeping in the back of your mind.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it's largely going to be written by Brian Michael Bendis, with whom I have a love/hate relationship. I know Bendis CAN write and I know he CAN come up with good stories; he spent most of his time on Daredevil and a lot of Ultimate Spider-Man doing that. However, I think he's fallen into a slightly different form of writing in the last few years that I don't think works as well for comics and he's shown me time and again that he'd rather stuff the middle of long arcs with pure filler and make maybe two or three books out of ten worth reading. It's super obnoxious and that worries me about a long event like this. He also tends to pull his favorite characters out for this, which means we'll get huge doses of Hawkeye, Spider-Woman, and Luke Cage (and likely Squirrel Girl, of all characters) and I don't think he does particularly well when he writes ANY of those characters, let alone when he puts big focus on them.
I touched on crossovers once, I think, but I didn't go as in depth as I've planned to try to go at some point. This one seems, for such a big-sounding event, like it's going to be relatively self-contained. There are bound to be a couple crossovers in several major books at Marvel which can bug me if they're not done well, but the writers in charge of those I think can handle it. Sometimes those crossovers break the flow of a separate series and they muddy up the event itself. It seems like this one is a little more self-contained than recent crossovers, though, so I'm hopeful for that.
So I guess, long answer short(er), I'm very hesitant to make any commitments to it. I like that Ultron's coming back (and they've been planting seeds for a while now about that) and I like what that could represent. I'm very nervous about its execution. I also think it's easy to screw up an Ultron storyline because he's pretty hard to deal with. There are complex sci-fi things there and it's easy to make him either too powerful or too weak at varying times. Because the conceit of Ultron is that he keeps improving himself (like the Terminators that keep coming back each movie), he has to have a very specific level of competence to keep up. I imagine that's not easy to maintain.
Long answer MUCH shorter, I'll still read it.
When I first got back into comics a bit around 15 years ago, it was during the Onslaught crossover in the mid 1990s. I still own all of the main issues from this series and a number of the side issues. I remember not liking some of the character reboots that happened shortly after this, especially the artwork for Cap. Maybe I'll have to give these Ultron issues a look, do you know when they are starting?
ReplyDeleteOh geez, 90s Cap. WAY too buff. He just doesn't fit as a human! I get that he's supposed to be peak physical condition, but the older and newer designs of him fit so much better. You can actually picture him moving successfully, not just a pile of muscles that couldn't possibly interlock correctly to form movement.
ReplyDeleteI just posted my review of Uncanny Avengers 4 and it SEEMS like they're going to aim for an Onslaught tie-in. It was really brilliant and the idea of Onslaught coming back into this book makes a lot of sense.
Age of Ultron actually starts in March. I'm not 100% sure of the date but I'm sure they'll be on my pre-game picks the first week they start coming out. I appreciate that this will be a 10 book event but will only run March to June. Fear Itself in 2011 (I'm pretty sure) ran about 7 issues or so and took the whole year. At least, it felt like it did.
I know what you mean about Cap. Giant muscles, tiny nose, very weird.
ReplyDeletehttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lBWYz29Iw_g/TMrukH89FSI/AAAAAAAAFLo/GieN_BYuOz4/s1600/captain+america+boobs.jpg
I'll have to keep my eye out for Age of Ultron (and Onslaught), thanks.