Deadpool vs. Carnage 1, What If? Age of Ultron 1, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Prelude 1

Deadpool vs. Carnage 1
Bunn (w) and Espin (a) and Gandini (c)

Carnage is on the loss again and abandoning his recent ambitious plans that included being the ruler of his own little mini-universe and taking control of a city. Now he's back to just being Carnage, tearing a path through America while he settles himself back in. The news reports are going crazy as no one can find the psychopath until it's too late. Deadpool, though, determines, with a little help from the television, that he would be perfect to find and catch Carnage because it takes someone insane to catch someone insane. He sets out and manages to find Carnage almost right away, proving that his insane person logic actually rather worked out. Deadpool shoots a missile at Carnage, managing to knock him out of the fight for a moment but before Deadpool can capitalize, old Carnage ally and Spider-Man villain Shriek appears to defend "her man."

Another series in the DEADPOOL VS. line but this one, as opposed to many of the more existential or more meta books, pits Deadpool against an actual established villain as if it were just an arc of a comic book. Marvel's been excited about this one for a while and you can understand why. Deadpool and Carnage are both extremely popular characters with fans and anyone who would pick up a Deadpool book is looking for the sort of craziness that both characters are known for. The book does a fine job characterizing both of them but, for a title like this one, they're not particularly deep characters. I think that Deadpool's a pretty deep character but this book doesn't call for that sort of stuff; it calls for him to be the crazy guy. Considering that, the book does a solid job giving us that Deadpool and that Carnage and letting them go crazy. I will say, there are a lot of little inside Marvel references "hidden" in the art of the book that may be fun for people but I also found somewhat distracting. They rather draw the eye away from the action and the characters instead of to them. Regardless, if you're a Deadpool or a Carnage fan, this book will probably satisfy you. Don't expect it to have the same sort of darkness as DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE or DEADPOOL KILLUSTRATED (for one, Marvel couldn't call this one DEADPOOL KILLS CARNAGE because what are the chances either of these characters end up dead by series end?) but if you're going in just as a fan of the characters, I'm sure you'll be pleased.

What If? Age of Ultron 1
Keatinge (w) and Ienco (a) and Serrano (c)

In a separate possible timeline, Janet Van Dyne dies early in the Avengers existence when she experiences that thing that was happening all over the end of AGE OF ULTRON, when everyone sees their changed history and their alternate selves and whatever else. Though it never actually broke anyone's brain before, it apparently breaks Janet's and Hank Pym somehow uses that as a reason to say that the Avengers failed. So he goes to work on Ultron and improves it EVEN MORE in its first time out, hoping that it will replace the Avengers that he feels failed Janet. Of course, it doesn't except in the way that it kills them all. Like, instantly. Hank then goes on, in a letter he writes to the dead Janet 25 years after her death, to explain that there were others who fought the Ultrons and who seemed like they may have had a chance but CLEARLY THEY DIDN'T because he also says, 25 years later, that he hadn't seen a human face in over 9,000 days, or just under 25 years. Then the Ultrons capture him and torture him and reveal that he's actually mostly Ultron at this point, that they keep replacing parts of his body with Ultron parts and wiping his mind so he doesn't know it keeps happening because they want to torture him until any vestiges of him that are left finally die away.

I did a bit more analysis in my summary than I've been doing lately but that's only because I couldn't help it. WHAT IF? books are often a little ridiculous because it's hard to tell a story that has two interesting and logical conclusions. Presumably the interesting and logical (for comic books) conclusion came in the actual book, leaving the WHAT IF? book to explore less logical and, perhaps, less interesting conclusions. This one, though, seems more flawed than ever in its very conceit. I'm not opposed to WHAT IF? books. I think they give a chance for a writer to explore ideas they may have come up with since or ask questions that readers might hypothetically ask (nerds that they are). By and large, though, the WHAT IF? titles start with some semblance of the original plot or even the original layout of the world. In this case, the inciting incident (that Janet would die from these visions) seems flawed and then the idea that Hank would go "well geez, the Avengers failed her because her brain popped!" even though it's not like a supervillain killed her and her last words were LITERALLY all about how she believes in the Avengers all seem a little too far-fetched to let the rest go. Also a little weird that in this alternate reality (it's actually set up to be a separate world entirely, as opposed to the normal "HO, I AM THE WATCHER, SEE WHAT POSSIBLE TIMELINES I HATH SEEN," presumably because the Watcher's in for a spot of bother in the coming months and it would have been a little awkward to see him in this limited series) Hank was like "oh, I'll build Ultron better" and then did? Kinda thought Ultron was the pinnacle of what he could build and then it just took on a life of its own, improving itself and improving itself until it got to this point. Nope! Hank willed himself to be smarter! LOOK, WHATEVER.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Prelude 1
Abnett and Lanning (w) and Alves and Clark (a) and J.D. Ramos (c)

Nebula, a trained assassin who grew up alongside Gamora and some other trained assassins under the watchful eye of Thanos, reaches the cloud tombs of Praxius in search of an orb her master seeks (likely an Infinity Gem, because that's always what Thanos is after). While she descends on the tombs and makes her way through the guards, she recalls times in her life where she learned lessons about weakness. The first is when, as children, Gamora suckered her into a trap while they attempted to recover an objective as part of a training game and threw her from some height, leading her to hospitalization and recovery, though Thanos is annoyed at her weakness. The second memory is one where she and Gamora, a bit older now, decide to steer their damaged ship into an enemy's, ejecting just before impact. Though they're recovered, Thanos still disapproves of any weakness they showed, but he's happy that they turned a weakness into a strength (on Gamora's suggestion). Back in the tombs, Nebula discovers that the orb isn't where she thought it would be and gets tangled up in laser-thorns. Gamora appears as backup and kills all the guards, but Thanos tells her to leave Nebula behind to find her own way. Gamora leaves a knife behind, reminding Nebula that laser-thorns strip the flesh and mangle bone and can't but cut with a blade. Nebula awakens later from the healing tank she so often ends up in with a new metal arm, having left hers behind at Praxius and having learned another lesson about weakness.

The preludes scheduled for Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy may have a little more use than some of the other preludes we've seen, though it's hard for me to tell if that's true as someone pretty familiar with all of the other characters out there. I've read Abnett and Lanning's GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY all the way through but that was a few years ago now and that certainly doesn't cover their entire history so, of all the Marvel properties turned into movies, this is the one with which I'm least comfortable (as is the case with most people in the world). As such, this prelude works a bit better than I've found the others to work because it establishes the sort of relationships we're ready to see in the film and gives us a pretty good look at one of our heroes and a pair of our villains in one tidy package. It's a good read and it's exciting to see Abnett and Lanning back to set us up for this. It is a little strange still, even though this is just the comic book and not the movie itself, knowing that Nebula is Karen Gillan. Pretty hard to get past that one, even if she's bald and blue.