Comics this week

Like every week, here come some comics! We have 14 books this week, unless my eyes deceive me (for some reason I'm sure they do this week so don't be surprised if we audible in a fifteenth; also, football season has started so prepare for me to start loading everything with football analogies like so much early-run Venom) including, yes, another ending book. Three weeks in a row, right? Can we make it four? God knows we have enough ending soon. Plus side, we have another new book kicking off too. Here goes.

Astonishing X-Men 67
The end of a good book will hopefully lead to the start of another good one. I believe Marvel has Amazing X-Men slated to follow this one up but the point is that this is the end of the series that started with Joss Whedon's defining run where Colossus returned. Certainly sad to see this book go and actually, and this can't be said of too many ending books in general, really interested to see how this one wraps up. I think we'll get a conclusion to last issue, with the weird underground alien creature that zombified people and shared its own emotions with them, but I wouldn't be upset if we didn't get that. This team redoubled its efforts to act more like a team, like a family, in the last issue and I'll be interested to see what that means in the immediate future. Marjorie Liu should get whatever book she wants at Marvel after this; she probably won't but she should.

Avengers Arena 15
Always on this list because still, even after 15 issues, I'm still shocked at how good this book is. In truth, I'm probably saying all the things about this series that I would have said about Avengers Academy during its run if I'd had this blog and also if I had been braver then to admit that it was a really solid book. I was rather against Avengers Academy because of all of the teen angst and emotion running rampant through it but it ended up being a tremendously well-told story about fairly interesting characters. This book started with a bang and kept up the pace, even keeping up the energy and emotional core that Avengers Academy established. Really good book. Excited to see where this week puts us as the book speeds towards its intended finish.

Captain America 11
This is Cap's first journey post-Dimension Z. Sure he's been around in Uncanny Avengers and other books but he's ignored it in those books (with a nice nod to it in Uncanny Avengers; such is the benefit of having one writer on both books). Here he'll have to find a way to deal with what he's been through, with another decade gone but this time only for him (last time he missed decades, the world grew without him, this time he's grown without the world), with Jet Black in the world, and with the possible deaths of Sharon and Ian (he thinks they're both dead, he's wrong on at least one count but good luck proving that). Should be a really defining issue one way or another. What Cap will come out of this struggle?

Mighty Avengers 1
Brand new Avengers series (so maybe there are a few of them already, whatever, they're a big organization, okay?) the initial conceit of which is that these are the heroes left over with the current Avengers in space and the Illuminati doing their own thing. This book, though, could be bigger than that for Marvel. The team is comprised more of various races than other Marvel books, with characters like Luke Cage, Spectrum, White Tiger, and Power Man (okay, so maybe mostly black but hey, that's more varied than most Marvel books, sadly), as well as Spider-Man and a possibly new character in a Spider-Man costume (are we getting a Miles Morales for the regular universe? The Spider-Men series a year or two back opened the door for questions like that). Some people might see this as sort of an overreaction to criticisms that Marvel doesn't have enough representation in their books but frankly, that's okay by me. Any step in the right direction, even if it's a pretty obvious step, can be a good step. Like with the next book I'm going to mention, I'd rather see them blatantly address the issue than ignore it. Of course, that starts with the book being good. Al Ewing and Greg Land will head up the book to start.

X-Men 5
I had already chosen this as my fifth pre-game pick before I remembered it's part of the Battle of the Atom event and now it's too late to slowly back away and sweep this under the rug. I was pretty adamantly against the first two books of this event but, you know, there's always a chance it can turn around. The reason I had picked it was that I really enjoyed the last issue, which delved a little deeper and more explicitly into the team than the first three had had a chance to. The first three were dedicated to the plot that was going on and number four got a chance to pull back and examine who was on this team and the way they were going to interact with one another. I was excited for a new arc and was hoping they could carry whatever else they'd built up into the next issue. Now I'm a little less excited and more wary. We'll see how it goes. It's still Brian Wood and I like him a whole lot, though I just read the description and it says that some X-Men don't believe the All-New X-Men should be sent back in time and I'm furious again.

Ultimates 29, Thunderbolts 14, Nova 7

Ultimates 29
Fialkov (w) and Di Giandomenico and Ruggiero (a) and Charalampidis (c)

Reed's team only needs the one remaining Infinity Gem to finish out the gauntlet and things really should be less complicated as Tony Stark is dead and his armor seemingly under Reed's control and the Ultimates are imprisoned. Unfortunately for Reed, Tony's smart enough to have uploaded his consciousness into his network, meaning that he can hack just about anything now. Bit of a buzzkill for Reed as it allows him to take his own armor offline, mostly, instead of allowing Reed to use it and it means he can hack Reed's systems and control a suit himself. The book moves incredibly fast as Tony works his way through all of Reed's plans, culminating in a rescue of the Ultimates and the serious delay of all of Reed's work, if not the ultimate end. Meanwhile, Quicksilver has used John Storm to drill to the Earth's core to retrieve the last Infinity Gem for Kang, who he believes is his sister Wanda. As he returns with the gem, he reads through Reed's math (Pietro admits he's not smart but he's great at math because the speed he can analyze it means that he knows math well purely through repetition) and realizes that Kang's plan isn't going to end the way he thought it would and it's not anything that Wanda would ever do. She's not Wanda. Kang realizes that Quicksilver's found out and quickly catches up with him, admitting it to him before taking the gem and ending his life, giving him 30 seconds in which he sprints to Wanda's grave to give a final speech to her, pouring his heart out before he dies by her side. It's that speech that serves as a sort of narrator for this book, starting right with the beginning of the comic and ending as Pietro actually reaches the grave before starting anew out of Pietro's actual mouth. So who is Kang? The Ultimates find out as they gang up on Reed that Kang is future Sue Storm and she'll kill every one of them if they get in her way.

There is a TON happening here. Really impressive the level of climax we had here. Guys, I know this is the Ultimate universe and people die here but Tony Stark is kind of dead and Quicksilver just died. I recounted this book to my girlfriend and the fact that Quicksilver died came up and was, honestly, kind of off-handed because Tony obviously is a bigger death and she had to stop me to be like, "wait, what? Don't they stay dead over there?" I know! That's not to say it's poorly done or something, the fact that it's more off-handedly mentioned. In fact, it's very well done. It's incredibly sweet (ignoring the weird Pietro-Wanda relationship in the Ultimate universe) and it justifies a lot of his actions. He's suddenly more understandable and more helpless than conniving and kind of pure evil, as he's been shown lately. But it still fits nicely and his sentiments are very sweet and very touching. The pace of the book is great as Tony consciousness runs circles around Reed, thwarting and mocking him at every turn. Everything is fast and smart and the Sue Storm end reveal (with present Sue Storm in the room working against future Sue) is pleasantly surprising and well hidden. Solid work here. I've had some skepticisms about this Ultimates Disassembled business but this issue really straightened some worries out, giving us plenty to look forward to next time. High fives all around.

Thunderbolts 14
Soule (w) and Palo and Pallot (a) and Guru eFX (c)

Guys, I'm going to be honest and give some review-spoilers here: the three books reviewed today all get slightly surprised high fives. I could not be happier that this is true; I've had my troubles with each of these series that extended even as far as the most recent issues before these but I found myself genuinely enjoying each of these books and happy to be reading them. Let's talk about the specifics more, hm? Okay, so Thunderbolts. The change is official: Charles Soule is the new Thunderbolts writer with Daniel Way stepping aside to make way for him. I'm a Daniel Way fan; I thought his run on Deadpool was great and really helped the character along in the Marvel Universe (don't talk to me about the new one, whatever guys, I'm having fun right now) and he carried that solid Deadpool into this book. There was plenty to like about this Thunderbolts team but I wasn't falling in with the tone of the book, which wasn't particularly well-established, and the other characters didn't have too too much meat to them. Soule takes over along with artist Jeffte Palo and the tone is immediately changed. I've liked the last couple issues a bit but they were meant to tie up final plotlines. In 12, Soule's first issue, Punisher hunted down Elektra's brother. In 13, we learned about Mercy. Here, in 14, Soule is building his first set of issues. They're kind of tied-in to Infinity in that the Avengers are off-Earth here and Thanos is likely on his way, which might have an effect or might be a backdrop to our story. But Ross is keeping to his promise for the team; he built the team with the assurance to each member that they'd have resources and a team at their disposal to do things for themselves and that the team would alternate missions, one for Ross, one for another team member, one for Ross, one for another team member, and so on. So he's sticking to it. The first team member to get to choose a mission, after picking names from a ridiculous hat, is Punisher. He says that his mission is that he wants their help taking down a crime family in New York, which is followed by this nearly perfect beat (I don't often post panels in my summaries but this was too perfect to pass up. It might still make its way to panel of the week this week):

Great, right? Anyway, Punisher wants help taking out a dangerous crime family who has the support of every other crime family in New York. A success would mean crippling New York crime, potentially even by taking out tons of players, but the risk comes with the fact that every crime family in New York is willing to drop everything to defend the Paguro family. Risky business. There's another fun moment where Punisher starts to make a plan which dances around utilizing the whole team, knowing that attracting the attention of the Avengers isn't a great idea but, as soon as he learns the Avengers are off-world, he changes the plan to a full on assault.

Look, this is a really long post because I'm very happy with this change in tone and pace and even art. I liked Phil Noto's stuff but it was kind of as tone ambiguous as Way's writing. The book had funny moments but wasn't funny and it had serious moments but didn't feel that serious. This book has its own serious moments but the humor really shines. The art also gives it a lighter feel, with Jeffte Palo's more cartoony artwork giving us a really great match for the writing. Lots of great moments, genuinely fun beats and an exciting plot. I can't ask for more out of a team that I originally anticipated being incredibly fun and exciting. Full-on applause for this one.

Nova 7
Z. Wells (w) and Medina and Vlasco (a) and Curiel (c)

Nova has been given permission to keep Nova-ing but isn't yet ready to join the Avengers. Point of fact, he's not really ready to keep Nova-ing. He ignores the damage he did to the skate park in his hometown during his first arc and speeds to New York, only to be immediately accosted by angry NYPD and to crash into a more angry and more dangerous Spider-Man. Spidey curses him out for his inexperience and naivety before sending him on his way with the useful suggestions of getting a police scanner to identify real emergencies and maybe going to a city without superheroes to practice (which would be any other city on Earth, practically). Sam rushes off to do these things, using his helmet to identify some real world problems and zooming around after a failed attempt in Los Angeles (with a not-so-thinly-veiled and a bit eye-roll-worthy nod to Joss Whedon and a quick cameo by former New Warriors Justice and Speedball). He quickly learns that rushing into situations isn't the best approach (there are some neat bits where he admits to construction workers back at his skate park where he's reluctantly decided to help that firemen are better at fires than he is and that angry crowds aren't easy to talk to) and slows things down, returning to Carefree, Arizona to start small. However, Thanos is on the horizon, so don't expect him to stay small for too long.

I really enjoyed this issue. Nova sounds like the fifteen year-old he's supposed to sound like and the book wants to have a more fun feel to it, something that books that try to hard fail miserably at. Instead, it works very well here and the laughs are mostly genuine (the Joss Whedon does indeed get an eye-roll). This one's applause comes with rather a wary eye, though. I wasn't a huge fan of the Nova reboot here. First and foremost, he spins right out of the newish Ultimate Spider-Man TV show which is garbage. Still, comics don't necessarily follow TV or movies word for word so he was still jumping into an established universe. I liked the idea behind the Black Nova corps but I didn't love the story or the character particularly under Jeph Loeb. It felt strained and very cliché. Zeb Wells took over recently and got me a little more onboard, giving Nova a more genuine sounding voice and putting the character back on new ground on Earth. I've liked the work he's done and this issue is certainly no exception; in fact, I'd say it's the strongest of the series so far. But issue 10 will see another writer change on the book, replacing Wells with Gerry Duggan. Remember above, in my Thunderbolts post, when I mentioned not liking the new Deadpool book? Or every Deadpool review where I've said that? Duggan is one of the men behind that. Don't get me wrong, that certainly doesn't mean Nova is bound to cross borders I don't care for. Deadpool's a different character and Duggan's a pro, who is also, it should be mentioned, writing Deadpool alongside a stand-up comedian in Brian Posehn. Still, I'm wary of the new direction that could be coming, especially after I liked this issue so much. Hoping that Wells' stay, if nothing else, is memorable. Truly hoping for better beyond that, but I'd except a solid five issues.


Geez guys, sorry for the really long post today. I've tried to limit my number of three review posts but sometimes you have fourteen books and you can't help yourself in four days. Also, I was really impressed by these three books and really surprised at how impressed I was. Days like these make me love comics anew. Wonderful. Maybe not the best books this week (building suspense for THIS WEEK'S PICKS tomorrow) but good enough to make me excited.