Comics this week

Back to bunches of comics this week. Should be some real good ones in the bunch and should be a few bad ones (law of averages, right?) and a few that I'm not sure are real things I need to worry about (Wolverine Comic Reader 1 what?). As is typical, though, let's focus this Tuesday on the should-be-good-ones.

Avengers 13
Avengers, a book I'm already pretty thrilled with, is on a run of solid connected one-shots. It's hard to explain that too much so you guys should probably just all be reading Marvel flagship title. I do think this is still a tricky one for newcomers to comics which makes it particularly strange and particularly daring for Marvel to go forth with this. I also touched upon New Avengers last week kind of using the "New Avengers" title to drive sales but both feel more intense and complicated than new readers would be willing to get involved with. In that way, it feels like Marvel wants to reward long-time comic readers with Avengers books of their own and I certainly appreciate it. I hope their sales do too.

Avengers Arena 10
Despite this book's place on the list (which, I assure you, is purely alphabetical), this is the last pregame pick I'm writing before this post goes LIVE. That's important to note because it's been very difficult for me to pick just five books this week and Avengers Arena was vying against Cable and X-Force, Red She-Hulk, and Superior Spider-Man (none of these books were helped by the sudden inclusion of Iron Man, either). At the end of the day though, it came down to Avengers Arena again because I just can't stop enjoying this book. Every issue has been a delight and, even though it's officially earned a near-permanent spot here, it's still a surprise that it's so good. This book has all the makings of a book that could easily have been botched but instead it's found a great spot to work from and Hopeless and crew are putting out great issues week to week. Hard not to include on pregame picks.

Daredevil Dark Nights 1
I'm a big Daredevil fan so it's pretty interesting to me that Daredevil is getting so much love at Marvel right now. Granted, he's a successful older character and his new book is great (like, Eisner great) so it's not that huge of a surprise but it's still encouraging to see. So why pick this, the start of a new eight-part series that will feature different writers/artists to tell new one-shot stories about the man without fear, instead of the conclusion of the eight-part Daredevil: End of Days? Well because I don't much care for End of Days. I think that one could have been half the size and told just as much story. Eight one-shots telling eight separate stories seems like a bit of a better formula and is still a great way to showcase the character.

Iron Man 11
With the interesting story of 451 slowly emerging (though it's coming from him, so who knows whether we trust the narrator or not) and Tony Stark squared off against him, knowing that 451 can take over his armor at any time, we seem primed for a great story with great new insights to Tony and his world. Every issue has been entertaining and has left Tony in an interesting place and I trust Gillen to keep that up. Kieron Gillen has quickly cemented his place in comics and I'm looking forward to this story as much for Tony's new developments as for Gillen's. For Marvel alone (not counting his work with other companies or his indie works like the incredible Phonogram books) Gillen had a masterpiece in Journey into Mystery and is now knocking it out of the park in Iron Man and Young Avengers. I'm excited to watch it continue in all places.

Winter Soldier 19
This is the final issue of Winter Soldier. For anyone wishing to know what will happen to the supremely complicated, thought-dead hero, this will be the last we'll see of him in a solo book for at least a bit of time. Things may change in a year or so, as Captain America: Winter Soldier premieres in 2014, but for now, I'm hoping for a wonderful send-off to what has been a phenomenal solo series for one of Marvel's most popular new characters over the last several decades (I heard Brubaker said that he was the most popular since the likes of Wolverine and Deadpool, though I'm not sure where he got those numbers. I do sort of implicitly trust him, for better or worse). Real sad to see it go.