Disappointing news out of Marvel

Hey everyone. Some of the bits of news that have come out this week, on the heels of February solicits, include the ending of Waid and Samnee's run on DAREDEVIL, the cancellation of ELEKTRA (slated to end with issue 11 in February), and several more books that seem to be wrapping (though I don't have links for those), including X-FORCE (brutal) and STORM (though I'm not hearing that that one's actually being cancelled, just that the numbers are much lower than they'd like). DAREDEVIL, it sounds like, is ending based on Waid and Samnee wanting to move on, but the others all seem to be numbers-based. One of those sad days where really good books aren't getting enough eyes on them and are being dropped, undoubtedly, for more events.

Bit of internal news, I doubt there will be many more reviews this week. I've read just about every book this week and many are very good (DAREDEVIL, BLACK WIDOW, ELEKTRA, AVENGERS, NEW AVENGERS, MOON KNIGHT, SPIDER-WOMAN, and several more) but, as you all know, it's getting harder and harder to get these reviews out on time. We'll see what the start of this week brings.

Marvel cancels SHE-HULK, ALL-NEW ULTIMATES

Marvel released their January solicits and said solicits revealed that both critical darling SHE-HULK and the abomination that is ALL-NEW ULTIMATES are set to end with their January issues. I think probably that description tells you what you need to know about how I'm feeling. SHE-HULK (the newest issue of which I'll review soon, I promise) has varied from above average to outstanding, never dipping into mediocrity. Meanwhile, ALL-NEW ULTIMATES tried too hard for my liking and ended up middling at its very best points. Look, I don't have that much more to add, as these two books are probably books I talk about enough (considering I like SHE-HULK and I talk a lot about books I like and ALL-NEW ULTIMATES seemingly comes out every week or so and so my feelings are altogether too-well documented), but check out Brett White's article on CBR about the cancellation of SHE-HULK and what cancellation means for Marvel these days. It's certainly worth a read.

THUNDERBOLTS ending with 32

Sad news out of the October solicits this week as it's been announced that THUNDERBOLTS 32, by writers Ben Acker and Ben Blacker and artist Kim Jacinto, will be the last of the series. I've really enjoyed this series, particularly since Soule took over and so far I've enjoyed Acker and Blacker's run (one issue by the time of writing this post, though issue two of their run comes out THIS VERY DAY) so I find myself particularly sad to see this happening, though not entirely surprised. I think we've been fortunate to get even 32 issues out of this one so there's not a lot of room to complain. Hopefully this acts as something of a test run for Acker and Blacker and that they have more opportunities in coming days.

Venom cancelled with issue 42

WHAT IS THIS. I spent Venom's whole review this week talking about how much I liked it and how impressive it was that it's lasted this long and how it's nice to see a book that doesn't deserve to be cancelled not being cancelled ONLY TO FIND OUT TODAY that Venom has been cancelled (apparently it was announced over the last week and a half but I'm a little late to the game). That's right, Marvel cancels Venom with issue 42, a short THREE ISSUES from now! Well. That's a bummer. I'd talk more about it but, you know, I already did, this week, with my review of Venom. Sad times you guys.