Avenging Spider-Man 22, Alpha Big Time 5, Venom 36

Avenging Spider-Man 22
Yost (w) and D. Lopez (a) and Roseberg (c)

It's the final issue of Avenging Spider-Man before it switches over to Superior Spider-Man Team-Up, which means that Spider-Man has to pull in another member of the Sinister Six. This time, he comes across Mysterio but not really. Mysterio, Doc knows from Peter's memories, is still locked up in the other universe (meaning the Ultimate Universe, after the events of Spider-Men). This Mysterio, calling himself Mysterion, is not so talented as Quentin Beck and pretty quickly reverts to poison gas on the attacking Spider-Man. As Spider-Man tries to get answers from the fake Mysterio, Punisher shoots at him from another building. Spider-Man is furious and saves Mysterion, who flees. Punisher and Spider-Man get into a scrap with Punisher warning Spider-Man that he has to know how far he wants to take this new personality as more brutal personalities tend to be hard to break out of. The two of them separate and both pursue Mysterion but Spider-Man manages to trace a call Mysterion is making to his benefactor, the man who gave him the Mysterio suit and powers. It's Hobgoblin, the original Hobgoblin, and Spider-Man quickly webs him up, angry that he's selling off old allies' powers. Of course, Hobgoblin convinces him to leave him, allowing him to escape, in order to save Mysterion from Punisher. Spider-Man reluctantly does, capturing Mysterio for his collection of Sinister Six while letting Hobgoblin get away.

It's certainly going to be interesting when Hobgoblin decides to sell off the Doc Ock identity and runs afoul of Spider-Man again. Doc Ock's emotions were interesting in this one, as he runs the gamut on his feelings about Mysterio. When he originally thinks this Mysterio is, indeed, Quentin Beck, he's furious at the coward who betrayed him during Ends of the Earth but he becomes more angry when he finds out it's an impostor who has taken the guise of "one of the greatest villains on the planet." After he escapes, Spider-Man turns his anger to Punisher who, he admits, he rather understands. Finally he focuses his anger on Hobgoblin for selling off old and unused villain sets. There's plenty of outrage to go around here from Doc. It'll be interesting to see how his respect for the Sinister Six plays out as he now has the majority of them stored away for his own uses and as we enter Superior Spider-Man Team-Up. Hopefully that book reads as well as this one did. Avenging Spider-Man was always entertaining and, over the last few months, it's gotten much heavier in terms of story. Good series that would have been just as easily excused if it had been garbage.

Alpha Big Time 5
Fialkov (w) and Plati (a and c)

Alpha arrives at his home just in time to save his mother and grandmother. He absorbs all the fire and manages to save his mother's life after he finds her not breathing. She delivers the message she was given about Boss Cohen being behind this and Alpha swears revenge. His mother shoots that down, insisting he leave him alone and not risk himself. For the time being, Alpha agrees. He still has the mugger-entity to deal with, which is rapidly growing and consuming everybody. Alpha, unsure what to do at this juncture, speeds to New York where he grabs Spider-Man mid-fight with Constrictor and whisks him back to Pittsburgh. Spider-Man is not pleased with this but, when he sees the entity, he understands. With the help of Alpha, he figures out what the problem is and tells Alpha how to fix it, which involves changing the entity on a cellular level. It breaks apart (the root of the entity gets away) and everyone is saved. Alpha goes to wait for Soupcan (who, it turns out, was given that nickname by her mother long before her mother died so she keeps it out of love, making it a far less stupid nickname, which Fialkov addresses when Alpha says more or less the same thing by having Soupcan ask if Alpha thought it was because she had so many piercings on her face. Look, it's described better in the book than I'm describing now) and eventually the two admit to having feelings for one another. The would-be tender moment is interrupted, though, when one of Cohen's men shoots at Soupcan's head. Alpha senses it in time and manages to destroy the bullet just before it can make contact. Soupcan is understandably very shaken up and Alpha attacks the shooter, demanding to be brought to Cohen. He is and the two talk, as Cohen blackmails Alpha with a picture of him bashing in the mugger's head. Cohen says that he doesn't mind Alpha being in the city as long as he stays away from the crimes Cohen's committing. The book ends with Alpha not being able to fight Cohen and with Soupcan distancing herself from him, but he still has a friend in Kilgore from the beginning of the series and his mom has seemingly been brought out of her depression.

I've said it before about this book but I'll say it again; Fialkov did a pretty good job making Alpha a more likable character without fully changing who he is. When Alpha first emerged in Amazing Spider-Man, he was a jerk and unanimously disliked. However, Fialkov changed the way that he saw the world, now that he had been given powers and had them taken away, and used that change to ground Alpha a bit more. He's still interesting because his powers are, even at about 1%, astounding, and he still remains a little conceited as a hero but he's far more down to Earth and he knows now what it means to fail. As an individual book, this one was pretty solid, with the bits between Andy and Spider-Man bringing the most levity and fun. Solid book, solid mini-series. Good job by both Fialkov and Plati to re-establish Alpha in this world and give us a reason to ask about him going forward.

Venom 36
Bunn (w) and Larraz (a) and Loughridge (c)

Flash is trying to simplify a little bit, trying to just live his life without overcomplicating it. He goes to school as a teacher during the day, stays in AA, works out, etc., and at night he fights pretty straightforward villains in Philadelphia. Drug runners, thieves, hoodlums, Batroc, the works, but nothing to complicated. That's his hope as he settles in. He complicates things a bit for himself as he tries to knock the school bully/jock down a peg by hitting him with a dodgeball the way the jock is hitting all the nerds with dodgeballs and his arm goes full Venom for the throw, increasing the speed and power of the ball. It knocks the jock to the floor but no one seems to know who threw it. Flash suspects, though, that his neighbor and anti-gym student Andi may have seen. which could complicate things if she happened to note that his arm went all black and fluid-like as he released the ball. His life gets a little more complicated that night as he finds the head of the big drug running operation he's been trying to put a stop to, a brutal man calling himself Lord Ogre, and his henchmen. Ogre releases his dogs on Flash and his own underlings before escaping himself. Venom deals with them quickly then finds that his men are running more than just drugs: they're running people.

Another solid issue from Venom as Bunn slows things down a bit before starting the newest arc. Bunn has been really good at this in the Venom series, with the issue immediately after Flash had moved to Philly and now this one. Both gave Flash (and the reader) a chance to reset a bit after long arcs dealing with multiple enemies and big personal problems to Flash. Bunn adeptly gives Flash some recovery time and a way to refocus while also nudging in the newest plot points to keep an eye out for. In this case, we're going to be watching as Flash tries to keep his normal life intact despite the fact that Andi probably knows who he is and the fact he really can't be getting that much sleep as well as watching this new drug/person running operation and this Lord Ogre character, as well as his gaggle of direct henchmen who look colorful enough to each have their own personality and super-ish power too. Should be an interesting new arc as we move forward.

Avenging Spider-Man 20, Alpha Big Time 4

Avenging Spider-Man 20
Yost (w) and Checchetto (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Spider-Man, in his quest to gather the Sinister Six for some no doubt sinister plan, has struck the SHIELD helicarrier to try to free Chameleon. Black Widow and Hawkeye also appear, alongside Agent Coulson (whose nickname in this book and in Secret Avengers this week has been revealed to, inexplicably, be "Cheese" in what feels a little desperately like saying "Accept this movie character into your comic book world!"), fresh off an off-panel Secret Avengers mission. All heroes and new Nick Fury are brought into the debriefing room when Ock's plan to use his mini-spiderbots goes into effect. The power aboard the helicarrier goes down and Spider-Man starts to use it as a way to track down Chameleon before discovering that there are other villains breaking onto the helicarrier following the power surge also looking for Chameleon. They're two previously unseen villains, both wearing masks and one who has the power to kill with his touch. While the heroes fight them, Spider-Man slinks off to look for Chameleon only to find that Chameleon has killed his guards and escaped his cell. Doc starts to realize that his bringing the power down allowed the other killer villains on board and allowed Chameleon to escape and kill the guards so he is ostensibly responsible, despite his feelings that he's the better and more responsible Spider-Man than Peter Parker. He thus pushes the thoughts out of his head and starts to fight the villains, who have also made their way to where Chameleon should be, before Hulk shows up (Banner was also somewhere on the helicarrier.

Avenging Spider-Man (which, I should mention, is technically going to be cancelled I believe after next month's issue but will be relaunched, with Yost still at its helm, in July as Superior Spider-Man Team-Up or some such) continues to be as compelling as Superior Spider-Man, which is especially interesting given how the series started. I'm not saying it was a bad series to start but it was certainly a more puff piece kind of series. The team-ups were fun and no one's going to complain about getting to see Spider-Man in more places and interacting with different heroes than normal, but there wasn't a point to it beyond getting to see Spider-Man in more places and interacting with different heroes than normal. That's okay, but a full story is almost always going to make for a more compelling series. Doc Ock capturing the Sinister Six for some unknown purpose is certainly compelling enough, added to the fact that he's had his own interesting team-ups and complicated relationships with other heroes in this world as Superior Spider-Man. It's been a solid book and hopefully it will continue to be as, presumably, this Sinister Six arc reveals itself to us with the book rebranding in July.

Alpha Big Time 4
Fialkov (w) and Plati (a) and Rauch (c)

Alpha Big Time, the surprisingly good mini-series about the boy Peter Parker accidentally imbued with godlike powers before limiting them down severely for a bit of time, is roaring along to its conclusion (issue five). There's still plenty to get through, though, as the mugger whose face Alpha kind of smashed in at the end of issue one is now mutating and absorbing energy in the form of over four hundred people all the while growing larger and larger makes his presence known to Alpha, who can't successfully fight him. He has to leave midfight, though, as he hears his mom screaming from their house. He pushes his powers to the limit to race there only to find it on fire, a threat from the mysterious Boss Cohen who has been setting fires throughout Pittsburgh. Add to that the typical teenage angst Alpha is feeling (including girl trouble, as always) and the questions about his powers that are looming ever bigger and Joshua Fialkov has engineered a pretty solid book about a character that, when he debuted, nobody liked. I think people might have liked the idea of Alpha but he was designed to be unlikable and Slott made sure he was. Now, with his powers a fraction of what they could be (and eventually will be), Alpha has learned a bit about maturity and has a bit of a cooler head with these things.

I said that he has a bit more maturity but that still doesn't make him mature. He confesses to guest star of this issue Thor that he can't help but feel like everyone is so small compared to him (which is, on top of being remarkably conceited, supervillain sort of talk). Thor is the right guy to talk to and he admits that it's sometimes challenging even for him to keep his mind on task. He talks about the brash and arrogant young Thor but reveals that he has since learned that they feel bigger and so need to raise up everyone else. It's a nice message and definitely one that Alpha will have to take heed of if he intends to continue as a superhero. Despite what I said about it being supervillain talk, Alpha doesn't act like a supervillain. Sure he's young and cynicism and horrible events could turn him into a villain down the road, but he seems mostly good-natured throughout this series, even going so far as visiting the mugger in the hospital between almost killing him and him turning into a giant monster. Still, there are plenty of directions for this last issue to go and, though I wouldn't have expected to be saying this when the first book was on the schedule, I'm excited to see what the conclusion brings.

Alpha Big Time 3, Avenging Spider-Man 19

Alpha Big Time 3
Fialkov (w) and Plati (a and c)

The Alpha Big Time mini-series continues to be better than expected as Alpha finds himself getting embroiled in the suddenly weird city of Pittsburgh. He comes to love interest Soupcan's (that's the name Susan insists on going by because she's a tortured poet/hipster type, saying that Susan is her slave name) aid as a fire in the building over from her work starts to spill into her building. He rescues and hits on her (the rescuing is pretty successful, the hitting on is less so) before returning to Peter Parker (he talked to Spider-Man at the beginning about how much he hates his powers) for tests, citing a new power as his reason to come talk. Peter examines him and deduces that one of his growing powers is sense-related, as Alpha had come to Soupcan's aid after hearing her yelling for help from his house miles away. Peter (still Doc Ock over there) tells him to tough it out and that he doesn't need to come see him for every little problem. Back in Pittsburgh and angsting on top of a building, Alpha tries out his new power, testing its limits. He suddenly can see and hear far too much around him and he freaks out again, worrying that he has too much responsibility, that he can't save everyone who he's hearing in trouble. However, he manages to isolate out Soupcan on the phone, telling someone that Andy would have a chance with her if he just toned down the superhero thing. This sends Alpha into a joy. He visits the patient he put in the hospital (who he seems to have a weird therapeutic relationship with) to tell him all about Soupcan and everything else (terrible plan for a hero to a possible villain) and leaves just before the weird, now blue-sludgeballish patient rises from his bed and kills a nurse, screaming for Alpha. Alpha heads home and puts out another fire on the way, saying "there is an inordinate number of fires in this city" (which, for my money, is the best moment in this issue) and flying away. We're shown someone who's apparently pulling the strings behind the recent weirdness (factory monster and all the fires) in Pittsburgh and who is now gunning for Alpha and his loved ones. Seems pretty brutal to push Alpha off.
Still, the series continues to impress by making Alpha more likable and yet still somewhat obnoxious (as he had been in Amazing Spider-Man). He's still pretty inexperienced so he doesn't connect the dots between this inordinate amount of fires and the factory monster and his own level of notoriety and so on. Next issue promises a team-up with Thor, so we're going to put two almost impossibly strong heroes with brash personalities together to fight some bad guys. Could be a lot of fun or could end in Alpha dead at Thor's hands. Either way, I suppose.

Avenging Spider-Man 19
Yost (w) and Checchetto (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Interesting issue as Avenging Spider-Man again introduces me to a character I'm unfamiliar with but curious about. This time, Doc Spidey has to pair up alongside the mysterious Sleepwalker, a regular guy who enters the Mindscape when he sleeps, leaving behind a mysterious hero who fights off threats that escape the Mindscape. Doc Spidey ends up in the Mindscape, attacked by a fearworm (who Sleepwalker thought had died off long before) which causes him to relive horrible moments and fears of his past. They mostly, for Doc Ock, revolve around his abusive father hitting him when he was a young and defenseless and small but chubby child. It's more emotional stuff to root Doc Ock's villainy in realness and create sympathy for his character and it's pretty well done,w ith pretty great art and colors from the creative team. The most interesting part, though, is that he's also attacked by the ghost Peter who has been popping up in Superior Spider-Man, who the audience knows to be the real Peter stuck as an observer in his own body. Everything is a little surreal for Doc in this place, though it feels real enough for him. While the audience can quickly figure out that everything in here is just in Doc's mind, we also know it's pretty likely that the ghost Peter who jumps on Doc and starts fighting him is the real Peter we've been seeing in Superior Spider-Man. Doc himself lets on to having his own suspicions at the end of the issue, which is true over in Superior Spider-Man too (more on that in a second). Just when Doc Spidey is at his lowest point against the fearworm, he manages to channel enough anger and power (possibly from Peter within him) to push through and throw the worm off him long enough for Sleepwalker to destroy the worm.
One of the things that I've found most intriguing and rewarding about this series is the way that it's almost effortlessly tied to Superior Spider-Man while that series is going on. There's a very interesting subplot going on wherein Doc Spidey is collecting his former Sinister Six cohorts (taking the grain of sand that contains Sandman, capturing and hanging on to Electro). On top of that, now Doc Spidey is starting to suspect that Peter is trapped somewhere inside and will likely be forced to take some action in that. That parallels nicely with the same revelation that Doc has come to in Superior Spider-Man about Peter without really trying to drill it home. It's a smart book and it's developing a real point of its own, whereas it had started as a kind of fun companion book but definitely missable. Yost is showing his chops at weaving stories and planting seeds again and it just makes me miss Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes even more.

Fantastic Four 5, Alpha Big Time 2

Fantastic Four 5
Fraction (w) and Bagley and Farmer (a) and Mounts (c)

For me, love of comic books comes largely out of the writing. Some of my favorite comics are based on the art, some are based on the story, but most of my favorite comics and my favorite runs are driven by the writer. Of course, that's unfair to say; the writer, as I've learned more and more throughout my time reading comics, needs his artist and colorist and letterer and editor and assistant editor and everyone else to succeed for sure. But when push comes to shove, I tend to prefer comics written by my favorite writers. For me (and this is all personal opinion, obviously), art doesn't typically ruin a book. It can hurt a book, it can lift a book and even save a book, but it can't ever ruin the book entirely. Same with colors. I think writing absolutely can. By that same token, writing can save the book faster than good art can. If the art is really great on crappy writing, you're still reading a crappy book and looking at great pictures. If you're reading a comic with bad art and great writing, there's still a ton to be gained (this is all coming from a writer's perspective, not a huge art critic's. Have I qualified this enough yet?). The point I'm very long-windedly getting to is that I think Marvel is succeeding so strongly in the last couple years because they've head-hunted some of the best writers available.

I didn't like the Fantastic Four at all when I started reading comics. I thought they were boring and isolated and formulaic and oftentimes annoying. I started to pick them up (when I was beginning to delve more heavily into all Marvel) when Hickman started writing them a few years ago. I had liked Hickman's stuff and I'd just finished reading his Secret Warriors book when I decided to take a chance on his F4. He won me over to the point where I was saying "well, maybe they're not SO bad." With Matt Fraction, I've gone to the next step, which is actively looking forward to reading their book. With five issues released, I'm looking forward to Fantastic Four books, after six hundred-odd issues. I never relished hating Marvel's first family. It felt like I was missing out on significant Marvel history. So I'm pretty thrilled to be onboard now.

Anyway, this issue is another solid one. The family travels through time to visit Caesar on the Ides of March to watch his assassination (Fraction is in a groove with writing comics that match up with certain dates; Hawkeye had a holiday issue and a pseudo-Valentine's Day issue, F4 has now had a Valentine's Day issue and the rarely seen Ides of March issue) only to find that he had died years previous and been replaced by a seemingly near-immortal Watcher-esque alien who had been following Caesar for years and whose appearance in his timeline had apparently altered time enough to kill Caesar before the Ides. The quick thinking alien, knowing Caesar's history, assumes Caesar's form and plans to die on the Ides of March so as to not ruin Earth. The F4 complicate things again by showing up but manage to work a plan out for this Caesar to live while appearing to die. The issue ends with "Caesar," in modern times, reading up on the new F4 (the F4 that isn't time-traveling, featured in Fraction's FF book) and deciding to aid them because "Caesar repays his debts." Also, some interesting stuff in this book about Thing freaking out while in a gladiatorial sort of battle with a monster. Thing seems to Hulk out on it, which is something to keep an eye on going forward and, I would speculate, ties into Fear Itself. Plenty to see here, folks. Stay tuned.

Alpha Big Time 2
Fialkov (w) and Plati (a) and Sabino (c)

Not too too much action in this books. Hot off of Alpha having his power restored only to almost kill a mugger in his first attempt at heroing, we find out that the man is alive enough to be rushed to the hospital, which Alpha does. He comes clean to the cops, who wave his story away knowing he stopped the mugging and whatever else might have happened. Alpha also decides to come clean with Peter Parker but, before he has the chance to, he spots a headline that says the mugger has pulled through and is expected to make a recovery in time for his court case. Relieved, Alpha leaves Horizon and heads back home, able to more easily work through his teenage angst now that he hasn't murdered someone in his first opportunity. He visits the man in his hospital bed and apologizes for the whole ordeal. The man is wrapped in many bandages and is still clearly in bad condition but grabs Alpha's wrist with newfound power and new colored lettering (the sign of evil changes) and swears revenge on the new teen superhero.

I'll admit, the end rubbed me the wrong way a little bit. I guess I should have expected it and the reveal of how this man got powered up could be interesting going forward, especially if it comes down to "Alpha's powers can turn low level bad guys into higher level bad guys," which would be an interesting twist on his suddenly crappy powers (and would also fit with the idea that he accidentally kept making a monster he fought in this issue bigger), but it felt a little bit like a stretch. The more I think about that theory, though, the more interesting it becomes. Hopefully it goes that way. Otherwise I'm enjoying this book, unexpectedly. I didn't particularly care for Alpha when he debuted late in the Amazing Spider-Man series and I wasn't really looking forward to this book but Marvel seems to be winning me over at every turn. Hopefully this book keeps up and, though it's a limited series, creates some new interest around a new teen superhero with near-limitless potential. No idea how they'll solve that issue eventually, but whatever. We're here now, not then.

Superior Spider-Man 4, Daredevil 23, Alpha Big Time 1

Superior Spider-Man 4
Slott (w) and Camuncoli and Dell (a) and Delgado (c)

Dan Slott is wasting no time getting the new Spider-Man familiar with his own history. After a couple of small time Spidey villains to kick off the series, last issue brought back the Vulture and this issue invokes recent villain Massacre and the Green Goblin. Recently, a lot of solo hero books are steering clear of their key villains, for one reason or another. Daredevil hasn't crossed Kingpin nor resurrected Bullseye. Hawkeye doesn't really have a huge villain (maybe Trickshot, who I think is upcoming, and maybe Crossfire? I don't know, he doesn't really get his own villains because his solo books don't tend to work out). Captain Marvel will be bringing in an old villain as a new arch soon, according to DeConnick. Cap is facing off against Zola, who is a kind of key villain, but I'd still rank him under Red Skull and Zemo, probably. But here, the new Spider-Man is really running the gamut. Of course, part of that is that Spider-Man's rogues gallery is a little more expansive than probably anyone else in Marvel and, like Batman, his best villains tend to shadow him in some way or they're closely related to Peter Parker. That doesn't totally affect Doc Ock in Peter's body, but, as one of Peter's biggest villains himself, he still typically has some connection to his enemies. Massacre, then, presents an interesting foil. Sociopathic, not entirely unlike Doc Ock, but with a bigger thirst for wanton destruction and murder and less of a need for intelligence. So there's plenty for Slott to play with.

On top of bringing up every villain he can pull together, Slott is weaving a compelling tale of what Doc Ock does in Peter's body to Peter's social life. It's hard to say for sure if there's any real care in his actions, if he really wants to stay close to Aunt May or get closer to Mary Jane, or if it's some kind of game for him, a game where he masters Peter's life in a way Peter never could. I personally lean towards the latter, but I think an argument could be made (slightly) in either direction. Doc isn't complete sociopath. He has real emotions and presumably could feel real love. However, his need to crush Peter Parker in every conceivable way kind of leads me to believe that one of those ways would even be posthumously (OR SO HE THINKS). It's a good question and it's something that will likely have to come up eventually, as he's forced to choose where his priorities lie. It sets us up for plenty of interesting situations as this series progresses. Between that and the stark differences in how Doc Spidey and the true Spider-Man operate, this book has manuevered itself into a good little position to ask some questions to Spider-Man readers. I think one of the ultimate questions we'll end up asking ourselves (depending on how the next couple issues/arcs develop, is who is the better Spider-Man? Is it worth having a Spider-Man who prevents more crime if he's also a jerk and has less of the responsibility that made Spidey so great? Or is it worth allowing a little more crime to make more morally sound decisions?

Daredevil 23
Waid (w) and Samnee (a) and Rodriguez (c)

Waid's run of Daredevil has been a very well-acclaimed run, garnering notice from all corners of the comic industry. It's been pretty tight, keeping arcs short and showing glimpses of bigger things. Glimpses of Matt's relationships, glimpses of the cracks in his newfound armor, glimpses of villains on the horizon, and glimpses of the darker, grittier Daredevil he's tried to leave behind. What's so interesting about this issue, tied to the last few, is that we're watching as a story expands in a couple directions. As I said, it's been a relatively tight book, keeping its cards pretty close and giving us these peeks to keep us wondering. Now the book is widening bit by bit. We're realizing an overarching scheme by some unseen villain, we're watching as Matt's relationships start to falter as his past lurks closer, and we're...well, we're seeing Foggy get cancer. There's not really a broad stroke there, it's awfully specific and terribly depressing. Either Brubaker or Bendis in their runs fake-killed Foggy in a prison stabbing as he visited Matt. Of course, he recovered from that simply because it was a fake-killing and not a for-real-killing. It was only ever meant to send him off the radar (SENSE. GET IT? BECAUSE DAREDEVIL HAS A RADAR SENSE. pfft, whatever, you just don't understand science). But cancer seems an awful lot harder to fake.

One of the things I've always appreciated about Daredevil comics, and that has followed this run well, is that the relationship between Foggy and Matt always seemed real. They were always real friends. That meant a lot of sacrifice (usually on Foggy's part), but also a lot of real love. That makes this harder than it would seem in probably most other superhero comics. It also leads to an interesting shift in priorities. Right now, Matt is going through his seemingly biggest problem since Shadowland and he's trying to work pieces together. However, Matt's priorities tend to be with Foggy (eventually). So how does Matt react here? Does he work on both? Do he and Foggy work out some sort of arrangement? Does he try to settle his business faster to, in theory, give himself more time with Foggy? For that matter, what kind of timeline does Foggy have? What kind of cancer is it? Are we talking treatable? Are we in the early stages? Plenty of questions here. Add to that the fact that this is a superhero comic called "Daredevil" wherein we will likely learn more about the secret attacker behind all of these recent trials for our hero and we've got ourselves a quickly growing story, blossoming from a new, more lighthearted look at the character while we all waited for him to break. Waid is playing a game with Daredevil and he's doing it masterfully. It's worth checking in on him if you're a comic fan in general. It also doesn't hurt that the art in this series has been outstanding, from people like Paolo Rivera straight on through to Chris Samnee. Great series so far.

Alpha Big Time 1
Fialkov (w) and Plati (a)

I expected worse from this series. I don't know what exactly I expected, but I expected worse than this. Alpha, when he was first introduced in the late stage of Amazing Spider-Man, was pretty annoying and took a lot out of me. He's an interesting idea, though. Peter Parker creates a teenage hero on accident, much like his own creation was an accident. However, Alpha (Andy Maguire) has far more power than Spidey ever had and his is growing. He has potentially limitless power once it all expands. And he's a teenager. In ASM, he was focused on the publicity of being a superhero and the cool-factor. It led to obvious mistakes, even with Spider-Man mentoring himself. Eventually, his recklessness caused people to die, so Peter worked out a way to negate the "Parker Particles" within him that slowed his growth to a crawl. Doc Ock Spidey, of course, wants to overwrite that and try again. This goes back to the whole "needs to be better than Peter in every way" bit I mentioned up above.

So Alpha, now understanding a little more what his powers can cause, accepts about ten percent of his power back and goes out superheroing. We've seen his life without the powers and, as it did before he got powers, it's pretty awful. The difference is that now, everyone knows he used to be a superhero and people give him no end of crap for it. Where his life had been dull and he'd gone unnoticed before his newfound powers, after he lost the powers he simply became a target for insults. This issue starts off by showing us some of that, teamed with both the resentment at Peter Parker for taking away his powers and being a bad mentor and also the understanding of why Peter had to take the powers away. It leaves us with an interesting feeling about where Alpha stands. He does seem to be a good kid, if still brash. He does also seem to have real regret about what happened his first time around. He still wants to be a superhero but he understands a little more what that really means. He's still a high schooler, he's still got some issues with Peter and with his personal life but he is leaning good, it seems. Regardless, just the questions about his motivations and how much heroing he can actually do without making mistakes and/or killing someone (as this issue ends, more or less) make this book an intriguing option going forward. We'll see how the rest of the series plays out but issue one definitely wasn't a bad start for this new five issue mini. Hopefully it can sustain. I think five issues will be a pretty solid gauge of the character going forward, or will at least give enough time to make Maguire irrelevant again.