New Avengers 24, Mighty Avengers 14, Secret Avengers 8

New Avengers 24

We're eight months in the future and Namor comes to Doom for help getting rid of his cabal, who he has realized are maybe a little too violent and bloodthirsty for his liking, and for help with the incursions. Doom provides neither, resentful that he is Namor's second choice. Meanwhile, Black Panther and Shuri use the distraction of another incursion to attempt to steal back all the anti-matter bombs housed in Wakanda, currently occupied by the Cabal, but find themselves facing Maximus and Proxima Midnight, left behind to guard. They barely escape and Black Panther teleports back to the Illuminati but Shuri chooses to stay behind and fight for Wakanda. Back in Latveria, Doom explains to Kristoff that he didn't accept Namor's offer because it's clear he understands more of what's going on than Namor does, so he wouldn't benefit from an alliance. Instead, the Mad Thinker has been working for Doom to study the piece of a world the Mapmakers left behind and finally Thinker has used it to map out all of the marked worlds and to trace it back to its originator, the person behind all this. Doom intends to turn the tables on this person, hoping to use the Molecule Man to strike back at the incursions.

As with AVENGERS, this book has leapt eight months into the future and now has 30+ pages to get us somewhat caught up on the state of the world. Also like AVENGERS, it does a pretty good job of it. Hickman delicately balances things we need to know now with things that can wait, meaning that we largely get good explanation without over-exposition. We also get a glimpse at what the Cabal is doing to other worlds, annihilating their people and relishing the opportunity to destroy their incurring worlds. Where everything seemed slightly askew and mildly threatening in AVENGERS, everything in this book seems horrible, like every plan ever devised has gone wrong,w which seems to be Hickman's intent. Valerio Schiti does an excellent job on the art front and overall it's an engaging and exciting finished project. NEW AVENGERS brings the last two years of stories to a head masterfully, never hand-holding and never over-explaining, illustrating a world that came about naturally well down the line.

Total Score: 5/5


Mighty Avengers 14

The Deathwalker Prime begins to transmit nightmares to every living being on the planet, causing everyone to kneel to it, but Luke Cage stands against the nightmares, fighting back and ultimately securing the ceremonial goblet in which the blood was combined and passing it on to a similarly breaking-free Kaluu, who manages to use the goblet himself to create the Avenger Prime, a mighty being with the combined strengths of the entire Mighty Avengers (except for Cage, who remains out of it) and which manages to defeat the Deathwalker Prime, freeing everyone on Earth. Cage destroys the goblet and the team decides to take a little vacation, primed to return in CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE MIGHTY AVENGERS.

It's a pretty strong ending to a book I mostly found middling. Most of my problems with the book have been tonal dissonance or inside jokes or whatever you'd call the captions strewn about the book and that sort of thing kind of continues here but mostly reins it in to let the story and the characters do the talking. When the book got out of its own way, I liked it more. As with my feelings toward SECRET AVENGERS (we'll get to that), it's entirely possible those captions and other little bits strewn here and there appealed to a great number of people. They weren't my thing and they got int he way of the book for me, taking what could have been a personal and strong tone and muddying it with a need for forced laughs. Still, that's more a critique of the series and less a critique of this issue, which remains rather strong, though I have little connection to the main villain so it's a little difficult to feel the weight of the story. Ewing does what he can by showing that the entire planet is affected by the attack but it's a global threat that feels like it came out of nowhere, so its actual threat-level is hard to take seriously (okay, it's comics, seriously is CLEARLY "comics seriously" here). Kind of nitpicky but you have to believe the villains just as much as you believe the heroes. Still a good book.

Total Score: 4/5


Secret Avengers 8

Maria Hill believes that MODOK is behind everything and explains, bit by bit, why to Spider-Woman, who has more questions than answers. We also flash back to various points in the last eight months or so to see MODOK working with head scientist Snapper to plan their allegiance switch to SHIELD and to quickly rise through the ranks and take it over from Hill, a plan that is slightly stalled as he reveals by issue's end that he's, in fact, in love with Maria Hill.

Nope, still don't get and/or like this one. It's not helped that one of the key contributors to the series is Maria Hill, who I cannot come around to. Right now, we're talking about a personal, intimate battle of wits between Maria Hill and MODOK and I don't understand who that sentence appeals to.

Total Score: 1/5

New Avengers 23, Mighty Avengers 12, Secret Avengers 7

New Avengers 23
Hickman (w) and K. Walker (a) and F. Martin (c) and Caramagna (l)

The next incursion is coming and the Illuminati agree that they can't go through with destroying another world so they resign themselves to their fate instead. As each member of the team consoles themselves as best they can, spending their final moments with loved ones, letting off steam, or pondering, the clock ticks down. Finally the moment of incursion comes...and goes. They reconvene to ask what happened, happy that the universe isn't destroyed but worried they may have gotten some calculation wrong and subsequently have already destroyed a world for nothing. Black Bolt realizes, though, that Namor didn't show up for their meeting and the truth dawns on them, though maybe not the extent of their troubles. Namor has formed the Cabal, consisting of him, Maximus, Black Swan, Thanos, Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, and Terrax, to do what the Illuminati cannot.

Rather a nice issue as Hickman has the team take a step back and analyze what's important to each of them. We see Black Panther returning to Storm (they have a tryst but she calls it a mistake, even as he admits that his only thoughts as the world is about to die were of her), Banner drinking to the thought of his final moments with Hulk, Tony pouring but ultimately turning down a row of shots, and Reed visiting his entire, spread-out family, among other moments. It's a simplistic but very nice idea, watching the heroes resign themselves to going out with a whimper and not a bang, as most superheroes tend to do. The introduction of the Cabal, too, is very interesting and certainly worthy of a gasp as we get the reveal. I think Walker's art is better here than the last one, which relied so much on serious fighting and screaming, but I still think it's wrong for this book, though Martin's colors help ease it on its way.

Total Score: 4/5


Mighty Avengers 12
Ewing (w) and Larroca (a) and Milla (c) and Petit (l)

The Deathwalkers have drained enough out of Blade to start their ritual, though they're interrupted when he breaks free and comes after them. His breaking free also allows Power Man to find Blade's chi in the city, with help from a powerful speech by Cage's father, and direct the Mighty Avengers plus Kaluu and Constance Molina to his side. They fight a bunch of Ani-Men and try to attack the four Deathwalkers destined to divvy up the Earth but aren't able to get to them before they can finish their ritual, which bonds the four into one who is surely destined to take over the world. I mean, nothing can probably stop something that powerful, right?

Man, leave it to a regular, unpowered human to lecture about the difference a regular person can make and then to be left behind by the superpowers because he's old and would probably just die anyway. But we can agree, he'd probably die, right? Anyway, that's what happens to Cage's dad here but he does get to meet little Danielle while the adults go attack. Also interesting: Spitfire and Blade are apparently together. Did not know that, but I'm a Spitfire fan and I guess I can see that, though I'm sad she doesn't seem to be rushing to the rescue on this occasion. STILL, not an awful issue, though I still think the tone could use a bit of regulation here, choosing whether it should be fun or tough or maybe if the heroes should just focus on the potential world-ending fight instead of idle chit-chat at times. Not bad, though.

Total Score: 4/5


Secret Avengers 7
Kot (w) and Walsh (a) and Wilson (c) and Cowles (l)

Black Widow has traveled through a black hole, Fury is still in a coma, Maria Hill admits to Spider-Woman, who is having something of a bad day herself, that MODOK is on the team, Coulson is tracking mysterious leads, and Hawkeye has been brought in by Deadpool and a pair of AIM agents and Deadpool has revealed to his new Avenging pal that they're in a comic book. Lots of fourth wall breaking here and very explicit about it. The issue ends as Hill reveals to Spider-Woman about MODOK and reveals that she has reasons.

Little inside baseball here: I read and reviewed NEW AVENGERS pretty immediately, then read MIGHTY AVENGERS, SECRET AVENGERS, and a handful of other books (the ones most likely to get extended reviews this week), then I reviewed MIGHTY AVENGERS, then I showered and praised myself for my ability to keep the above two reviews pretty tight and decided if I could do that with SECRET AVENGERS, I really ought to be proud. Fortunately, I reasoned, that wouldn't be too hard since I have no idea what's happening in this book and the Deadpool explicit fourth wall breaking really tends to take me out of it. I don't mind slight nods to it here and again in this day and age or full-on reference to it in strange side-books (like the DEADPOOL KILLS- series), but I don't think it really fits into current Marvel continuity and I think, therefore, it's very strange here just as I think the overall tone of this book is very strange. BUT HERE'S THE THING, MY FRIENDS: I'm accepting it really well today. Can't promise next time won't be worse (though I've gotten better with this book each issue, I think), but it's hard not to think that maybe, just MAYBE, every book shouldn't be for me. Presumably if every book were for me I'd be incredibly happy but plenty of people (probably people I wouldn't get along with but PEOPLE NONETHELESS) wouldn't be reading comics. So this issue, and probably this series, isn't for me. And that's fine.

Total Score: 2/5*

*But, as with most other scores, that's just what I think and...actually, there's no way to finish this thought without implicitly recommending you stop reading this blog so NEVER MIND, WHAT I THINK IS BEST.

Secret Avengers 5, Avengers World 9

Secret Avengers 5
Kot (w) and Walsh (a) and Wilson (c) and Cowles (l)

It's sort of a day off for the Secret Avengers with all of their recent missions end it and the team spends it in their own ways. Spider-Woman talks to the living bomb and learns from it that she is an empath, Coulson demands a vacation and takes it even after it's denied, Fury is sent into Coulson's locker only to have acid sprayed in his good eye for his troubles, Black Widow helps Maria Hill interrogate the terrible poet and reveals that she knows about MODOK, Hawkeye eats lunch and shoots some arrows, and Maria Hill and MODOK discuss whether MODOK can be trusted. Though MODOK swears he can and swears that he wants to make the world better, Hill secretly believes that everything that's happened recently, from the hitman to the recently discovered pregnancy of the Fury to the poet and the living bomb, has MODOK's fingerprints all over it.

There are directions in which this book can go that I think would make it an interesting book and I think that Kot has wisely kept many of those directions open. One of the benefits of an occasional rest issue is that it allows a reader to reset and the writer to nod at different potential plot lines. You need to fill space in a rest issue and you don't want it to be wasted space so the best thing you can do is keep some balls in the air. Kot is doing that nicely here, but there is a little bit of a flaw here in that Kot's biggest ball still in the air is that MODOK maybe can't be trusted. I wasn't particularly onboard at any point with MODOK joining up with SHIELD because I don't think it tracks at any point in MODOK's existence (it tracks in SHIELD's existence because SHIELD is the worst) but neither sincerely wanting to help SHIELD nor subterfuge and subtlety in trying to take SHIELD apart from the outside has ever been a strong suit for MODOK, so to find that this book's drama is currently hinging on whether or not we trust MODOK left me feeling a little letdown. Still, I enjoyed this issue more than the previous ones because it felt a little more down-to-Earth (I don't think the book should be forced to keep to sort of generic comic book standards, but I do think it needs to choose a real tone and stick with it) and didn't get too caught up in its own perception.

Total Score: 4/5


Avengers World 9
Spencer (w) and Caselli (a) and Mossa (c) and Caramagna (l)

Cannonball and Sunspot are being treated pretty well by AIM and it's throwing them off a bit. They're not able to leave but they're treated to fine dining and first-run movies (with as blatant a nod to Marvel's upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy as you're about to see in comics, even including the movie tie-in books). Still, their rescue team didn't pan out but Maria Hill was able to establish contact. With the help of a future Jocasta unit recovered back in Spencer's SECRET AVENGERS, Hill has learned that AIM Island has blossomed because the AIM of the future is sending back tech and info to the past. She knows how they're doing it and sends Cannonball and Sunspot to go shut it down at the source, traveling to the future to stop the flow of information to the past. A future Jocasta meets them there and brings them to see the kidnapped children of the Avengers.

I talked in my pre-game about how much I'm enjoying this series as a whole, with smaller teams and somewhat more personal quarters and missions. It's been a really strong book altogether and I think this issue is no different. This one is a little more light-hearted as Cannonball and Sunspot, particularly together, are more light-hearted characters, but it works here as the situation still feels big but they, with all of their powers and bravado, don't quite fit into it, leading to the humor and the slightly-off tone. It works. Also, there's a major Back to the Future reference which is then called back very nicely and a good Back to the Future reference will typically get me on your side (I'm calling it Back to the Future because the line in question, "it's your kids, Marty, something has got to be done about your kids!," is at the end of the first movie and is repeated at the start of the second movie but we're NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE SECOND MOVIE. Whole stupid thing hinges on Marty not being able to walk away from someone calling him chicken. So dumb, you guys! But that first one is gold).

Total Score: 5/5
Back to the Future Total Score: 1.21 GW

Uncanny X-Men 22, X-Men 15

Uncanny X-Men 22
Bendis (w) and Bachalo (p) and Townsend, Deering, Irwin, Mendoza, Vey, and Olazaba (i) and Bachalo and Villarrubia (c) and Caramagna (l)

The helicarrier continues to attack the X-Mansion while Hank brings Scott to the perpetrator and Magneto shows up with the drained Dazzler in tow. While Triage helps Dazzler, Hijack reappears, hoping to join up with the Jean Grey School, and manages to take control of the helicarriers again. Beast reveals to Cyclops that the person behind all of this is, in fact, Dark Beast, from the Age of Apocalypse timeline. Cyclops kind of inadvertently kills him when he blasts open his big suit that DB claimed was keeping him alive. Cyclops and Maria Hill have an argument on the front lawn and SHIELD and the X-Men's relationship gets a little rockier.

Things have ramped up quickly in the SHIELD Sentinels' attack on the X-Men as suddenly everything is converging on the Jean Grey School, just as Hijack deus ex machinas his way over to the campus. Overall, the action is pretty solid and the book reads a little faster for it though it's hard not to feel like simply too much happened. Between the attack and Magneto+Dazzler and SHIELD and Dark Beast, it feels like there was zero chance for the story to have meaningful impact because we're jumping too quickly from one thing to another. How can you worry about the implications of Dark Beast's actions when you're busy thinking about how SHIELD let this happen? How can you question the limits of Hijack's powers when you're busy trying to remember if there was some dumb subplot about Maria Hill being attracted to Cyclops in just another example of Hill's character being weakened by Bendis? How can you wonder about what Dazzler's going to do next when you're thinking about how terrible Maria Hill is? Too much happening, though it doesn't necessarily make the book unreadable, just smaller than it feels it should be.

Total Score: 3/5


X-Men 15
Wood (w) and Buffagni (a) and Mounts (c) and Caramagna (l)

The Future, who has trained for everything and who will, according to Kymera, manage to separate Jubilee and Shogo, is taken aback momentarily by the fact that someone in the X-Mansion killed one of his men. It doesn't line up with what he believes about the X-Men and it gives him pause about how to proceed, recognizing that there's at least one wild card out there. However, it doesn't give him much pause as he manages to take out Psylocke on the front lawn and proceed inside, where he finds Jubilee and shoots at her, grazing her head with the bullet and knocking her out to take her, though he doesn't quite take Shogo. MEANWHILE, the BROMO-SUPERIOR Wood/Briones mini-story wraps up as Psylocke saves her students by killing her danger room boyfriend (weird) in a big teaching moment.

The Future, though something of an inexplicable villain right now, becomes a little more interesting as he gets a bit of narration in this one. We don't necessarily get anything of his motive or his personality, but we start to see just how dangerous he is. He continues the theme that Arkea started, the idea that knowledge is real power and that his knowledge of a situation makes him a far more impressive villain than simply being a strong combatant. Wood also does a good job to settle out some of the team issues by having Ororo show a little more strength here, coming back to a place where the others respect her more. There's also a really nice moment in this issue where Jubilee, talking to Beast while he tries, perhaps ill-advisedly, to save Teon and Sprite with a bit of Arkea, boosts Beast up by talking about how much of a rock he is and how she knows he'll always be there to protect him. PERHAPS some ominous foreshadowing but, in the here and now, it's a nice win for Beast as a guy who hasn't had a lot of those recently.

Total Score: 4/5

SUPER QUICK REVIEWS: Thor: God of Thunder 22, Hulk 3

Thor: God of Thunder 22
Aaron (w) and Ribic (a) and Svorcina (c) and Sabino (l)

Dario Agger continues to pillage Broxton with his Roxxon factories and, to add to the problems, massive sinkholes have begun opening up in the small town. To make even those matters worse, Roz Solomon has discovered those sinkholes are full of trolls. Though Thor has been banned from the area (and gotten a stern talking to from Roz), he returns to beg Agger to stop, saying that his care and concern for the people of Broxton is greater than his pride. As he says all this, though, Agger opens more of the ground, killing even his lawyers, and he goes minotaur while some trolls hold Thor. Meanwhile, in the distant future, Thor's granddaughters fight a charged up (from eating the Earth) Galactus in the hopes of finding Thor, while Thor himself races to the black hole in which he tossed Gorr's weapon, the Necrosword.

The key to this issue is seeing Broxton fall apart and, subsequently, both seeing how devastating and fast Agger can be while also seeing what Thor is willing to do to stop it. As Coulson points out to Solomon, this is the threat of the new age. It's not Nazi's and decoder rings any more, it's billionaire CEOs. It's a problem Thor can't so easily punch away. It's a problem Thor has to think his way out of which, as Loki would point out, is not particularly a strong suit. At the same time, Agger seems every issue to sink lower and lower into full-on psychopath, which makes it a little harder, in this case, to find him as compelling for me. The King Thor vs Old Galactus storyline is still engaging enough, watching the fight, but the stakes are still a bit strange as it's hard to feel connected to it. I think it's there to show how much Thor loves Earth but it's still hard to feel that seeing Earth as a cold, dead place. Still, it's engaging to read and I guess we can't ask for much more than that.

Total Score: 4/5


Hulk 3
Waid (w) and Bagley (p) and Hennessy (i) and Keith (c) and Petit (l)

The Abomination has been set loose in the small Colorado town Banner has been hidden in and Maria Hill wants answers. She gets them from a small attack force sent to grab her who find themselves outmatched. She learns that Abomination is nothing more than a zombie reanimated with brain tissue from the Hulk but before she can learn more, the force is teleported away. The Avengers (Captains America and Marvel, Iron Man, and Sunspot) show up on the case, having been looking for Hulk since he disappeared, and begin to drive Abomination back, though they can't hold him without Hulk's help. Out of the fight, Hulk reverts to Banner and we see that his brain has healed a little more. Hill warns that switching back and forth like this will do more harm than good though and that the brain needs time to adjust and to mend. However, Banner refuses to leave the Avengers on their own and takes the risk, hulking out to help.

There are still perhaps more questions than answers here as the explanation for the healing of Banner's brain helps but also feels more than a little like "hey, hang on, these are very clearly made-up rules." Okay, so OBVIOUSLY they're made up rules, Hulk doesn't exist in a place where we study brains, just as an accelerated healing factor doesn't exist in a place where we study brains. Still, typically you can allow for a bit of soft science and either have it hit you so hard that you go "ugh, shut up Reed, I believe you" or you go "hey, you know what, sure, that seems right." I'm not feeling either of those here and it's making it harder to buy into the storyline. On top of that, we still need to learn a little more about this villain with all his crazy resources and his absolute disregard for morals. Also, the Avengers really booked it to Colorado, huh? WHATEVER, it still reads fine and the art is fine.

Total Score: 3/5

X-Men 13, Uncanny X-Men 20, X-Force 3

X-Men 13
Wood (w) and C. Mann (p) and C. Mann and S. Mann (i) and Mounts (c) and Caramagna (l)

With a moment to rest following Arkea's defeat, the team ponders where they've been and where they're going. Psylocke encourages Storm to officially make them a team and own up to being its leader, Rachel Grey tries to get over her crush on John Sublime (which may turn into a revenge on Sublime), Monet pushes herself harder to eliminate the weakness she found against the Sisterhood, and Jubilee tries to find her place in the school with Shogo. They're thrust into their new mission, though, as a professional bad guy (that may as well be his description) claiming to be Shogo's father begins to attack the school, promising that everyone will die unless he gets his hands on the boy.

Story
Though we're entering quickly into the new BLOODLINES storyline and this bad guy who goes by the name "The Future," this is meant to act more as a downtime issue. The action doesn't kick in until about halfway through as it's more important here to understand what the team is going through. It's a needed break in the action but, as with all serial media, it can't last. The Future is maybe a little weak so far in his actual background (he really does just seem like a generic really bad guy, though that may be developed further) but he does seem already to be an impressive adversary. 4/5

Character
With a break in the action, the character takes an important role and Wood does a good job taking advantage of it here. Psylocke wants Storm to be the Ororo that gets up in people's faces and that doesn't back down and they have an exchange that works really well. Still not totally sold on Rachel Grey in this book but I think Wood can use her as a good foil to Storm. Monet's determination is right on the money and Jubilee's restlessness towards not understanding her new role is solid. 4/5

Writing
Pretty solid writing throughout. The story comes across well and Wood does a good job switching between characters and even shifting the tone when the action starts to pick up. 5/5

Art
Clay Mann draws really impressive people and some pretty good action, though there's not a lot here. Still, the range from Ororo and Storm's talk to Monet and Rockslide's punching to Jubilee's dancing is a pretty wide range and Mann handles it well. 5/5

Miscellaneous
A first issue of a new arc is hard, particularly one following an arc that was so long. I think Wood and company gave just the right amount of downtime here before diving into the new story. Still not totally sold on the Future (also his name is the Future). This issue also has a little mini-story at the end by Wood and artist Phil Briones called BROMO-SUPERIOR where Hellion, Rockslide, Anole, and Broo go to train in the Danger Room on the heels of the Future's first attack on the Jean Grey School.

Total score: 4/5


Uncanny X-Men 20
Bendis (w) and Bachalo (p) and Townsend, Faucher, Holdredge, Mendoza, Olazaba, and Vey (i) and Bachalo (c) and Caramagna (l)

After the attack in Chicago, Scott decides to check in with Maria Hill personally, using the Stepfords to get into SHIELD unnoticed and ask his questions of her. They search her mind, to which she submits willingly, and find that she also believes that SHIELD could be behind the Sentinel attacks but knows little more (though she has an attraction to Scott because Bendis). Scott and the Stepfords leave and, back at base, realize that whoever is targeting them must be using Cerebro technology to do it. The list of people who can use Cerebro tech is very short and Scott narrows in on Hank McCoy. He and Magik pay Hank a visit at the Jean Grey School but are quickly found by SHIELD and attacked.

Story
Scott's war continues just as Mystique and Sabretooth continue their fight with SHIELD, Mystique still posing as Dazzler. It's hard to really get in the head of some of these characters because I'll likely never face the persecution and fear on these guys but I find it hard to buy that Scott would even feel the need to check on Hank. They weakly try to explain it all away by saying that it's probably not him but who knows, he certainly hates Scott these days, but it's hard to see even the most persecuted and feared man believing that Hank McCoy would employ Sentinels. Also, Maria Hill having a crush on Scott is INFURIATING. Bendis can't go two minutes without introducing another love interest for so many characters. 4/5

Character
Scott's character is so often in flux these days that it's hard to kind of pinpoint if he's in character or not. It's also hard to tell about Maria Hill because she's sometimes savvy and crafty and sometimes totally off-the-handle obsessed with one aspect of her job. I don't think these problems are this issue's, I think these are line problems at Marvel. Still, I'm going to lump the score for Maria Hill's crush on Scott into here so... 2/5

Writing
The tone works for this issue as things jump around pretty quickly to disorient the reader. In addition, it does feel like it's coming from a darker place right now, which is how things surrounding Scott should feel. The Maria Hill attraction thing (no, I'm not going to get over it and I HATE Maria Hill) feels a little out of place amidst all the serious Sentinel things going on. 4/5

Art
I like Chris Bachalo's art a lot and I think he does an interesting job matching tone here. There are times where I think that his art is almost too cartoony for how dark this tries to go but overall I think he manages to balance it out with a seriousness that matches Scott's concerns and the war designation Scott is so eager to give out. Also, I will admit that I'm still not really onboard with a lot of these costume designs. 4/5

Miscellaneous
I really don't think that my aversion to the Maria Hill-Scott Summers thing is out of place here. I think Hill is a stronger character if she's not obsessed with Summers based in part out of some schoolgirl crush on him. On top of that, it is one of my frequent complaints about Bendis that he tries to overload with love triangles and romances that I feel tend to bog things down. Don't get me wrong; there are romances and love triangles elsewhere throughout comics and every other sort of media, but we don't need it in every single comic.

Total score: 3/5


X-Force 3
Spurrier (w) and R. Kim (a) and Sabino (l)

X-FORCE needs to find Volga, their suspect for the bombing at Alexandria. Psylocke combs Cerebro to find Volga but settles for finding people who are thinking about Volga, honing in on one mutant in particular, a teleporter named Antonio Aggasiz who had escaped but was again captured by Volga and terrified of him. The team travels to Brazil only to find that many mutants are being held there because their home countries wanted them secreted away and punished for being mutants. With guards keeping an eye on Aggasiz, the other inmates ask to be let out of their cells to help take down the guards. Cable accepts their help but Psylocke refuses to let them become killers and puts everyone to sleep while she goes in and kills all the guards. She wakes the team but before they can get anything from Aggasiz, Volga himself appears in some sort of energy projection and kills the teleporter.

Story
The plot thickens as Volga seems to have some sort of powers though it had seemed for all intents and purposes previously that he was just a regular human. In addition, the look at the rendition of these mutants is as dark as anything else we've seen pertaining to these mutants and really helps illustrate the sort of conditions mutants live in more than fights with various supervillains could. 5/5

Character
Psylocke narrates this issue though her narration is far more sparse than the previous two issues from Cable and Marrow's perspectives. Instead, she puts her thoughts on her sleeve this time out, snapping at Marrow for calling her ability and methods into question and putting everyone to sleep before admitting to her team that she sought out X-Force, unlike the recruitment of the others, because she can't stand to be away from the killing. It's dark but it's really well done and we get a couple hints at more interesting developments down the road as she reveals she knows why everyone else joined up. Something interesting also happening with Marrow as her language centers do, as Psylocke threatened, seem to be on the fritz. 5/5

Writing
A really good comic book will more or less have this "writing" section covered based on the "story" and "character" sections because the plot, tone, and characters will mesh so well that I'll have nothing to add. Such seems to be the case here as Spurrier is showing us the world that Cable fears is out there already in this darker issue. 5/5

Art
I wasn't sure how I liked Rock-He Kim's art when the initial preview art for the series came out. Much like so many books with a steady artist, though, it's grown on me and come to match the tone so inextricably that I can't imagine another way it could be illustrated (though I saw preview pages recently for an issue done by another artist so I guess I find out). 5/5

Miscellaneous
The team is starting to come together here and the closer look at Psylocke really helps to establish some of the things Spurrier wants established. In this case, she shines a light on Marrow (who helps her own case by talking so much this issue) and on Fantomex (there's a great moment when she corrects his faux French and calls him a fraud but then later reveals that he's joined with the team because he needs help and won't ask for it). Even MeMe has a nice couple moments here. And her name is actually MeMe and not Meme. Who knew? Such is the flaw of writing in all capital letters all the time.

Total score: 5/5

Mighty Avengers 9, Secret Avengers 2

Mighty Avengers 9
Ewing (w) and Land and Leisten (a) and D'Armata w/ Delgado (c)

Blue Marvel tries to reason with his son Max while his other son Kevin, larger than life, begins to come out of the portal. Kevin is too unstable to bring back into this world and he's primed to explode if he's not sent back into the portal, taking the solar system with him. Max refuses to believe it and thinks that he can stabilize Kevin with just a little more time and so refuses to lower the forcefield. Spectrum becomes gamma radiation and enters She-Hulk to power her up more, giving her the strength to break through the forcefield and, when the two separate again, they manage to force Kevin back into the portal. Max is still furious with his father and Adam is more depressed than ever. Meanwhile, Ronin fights off one of some enemies looking to get their hands on the talisman he took and finally reveals himself to be Blade.

There's a lot of Brashear family backstory here as we see Adam's relationship with Kevin as the two fought off major threats on the down low and we see the circumstances of Kevin's disappearance right at the start of the Marvel Age. It's very clear that Adam loves his family and is full of regret for Kevin's loss, as well as his wife's death and the subsequent anger from Max that separated them. So like, it's easy to see how much he loves them but it's also not hard to extrapolate that maybe he's the problem? Anyway, it's a big moment for Blue Marvel in this issue and a tiny universe-threatening problem defeated but not a ton more to deal with on this front. Ronin is Blade, something probably pretty evident considering how often they kept saying Deathwalkers and, well, not hard to switch that on over to Daywalker. So that's that. Not an awful book and certainly it keeps with the tone of this series so far but there just kind of feels like there isn't a whole lot here this time out.

Secret Avengers 2
Kot (w) and Walsh (a) and Wilson (c)

Coulson and Fury are drifting through space as the Fury (not Fury) drifts into the sun. At the same time, Black Widow, Spider-Woman, and Hawkeye use the SHIELD car to drive to the space station to repair the console to stop more satellites from falling out of the sky and killing more people. All this while an assassin comes to kill Maria Hill for actions she's taken that led to deaths. So it's a busy day for the Secret Avengers as Black Widow, Spider-Woman, and Hawkeye make it to the space station and stop the satellites, MODOK sends a lab rat with a syringe on its back to take out the assassin from the vents, and the saved Maria Hill uses one of MODOK's designs, the nanobot blanket, to have her team rescue Fury and Coulson from impending doom.

Readers of my first review of this series will know that I was not so onboard with it. It felt like it was gratuitous and trying way too hard to be something it simply can't be. Kot himself compared the series to a Michael Bay movie, a Breaking Bad episode, and an Arrested Development episode. I said that in the first review too and I bring it up again here because it felt to me too much like it's trying to be too many things at once all the while trying to be different from other comics but trying to ape some similar styles. It's hard not to read any HAWKEYE influence into books like this one, ones that are maybe more chaotic with more personal risks than universal risks and that's probably not fair. However, it's also hard not to read those influences into THIS book particularly as the first issue took the Hawkeye-face-covers-exposed-genitals and and second issue finds Clint out of costume with bandages all over his face, a la HAWKEYE. I also talked in the first review about not writing this book off because it's so early and I'm going to continue to not write it off. I lodged some of these same complaints against SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN at the start of its series and I think that one has nicely carved out its own little niche. Here's hoping that Kot can do the same thing though I'm maybe secretly a little more skeptical. This one just seems so derivative to kick things off. LOOK, I'll stop talking about it now because I'M NOT WRITING ANYTHING OFF.

Mighty Avengers 8, Secret Avengers 1

Mighty Avengers 8
Ewing (w) and Schiti (a) and D'Armata (c)

The Mighty Avengers have managed to get away from Gideon Mace and his militantly conservative hate group but there is still talk of a lawsuit given White Tiger's attack on the headquarters. Now the team has brought Ava to Blue Marvel's undersea base Kadesh in the hopes that they can find some way to remove the Tiger God's influence on her. Before they're able to come up with anything or summon any magic specialists, Blue Marvel is called away by a threat from WESPE, a European sort of AIM style group with a focus on providing scientists with money and resources in exchange for deadly tech down the line. Blue Marvel, She-Hulk, and Spectrum go to find out what the alert in the Pacific is about. Blue Marvel is particularly worried as it seems to be occurring in an area that serves as a gateway to the Neutral Zone, a dimension he found long before and apparently where one of his sons, Kevin, is trapped. Dr. Max Brashear, Adam's other son, has teamed up with WESPE in the hopes that he can find a way to bring Kevin back. As you may imagine, he has some serious problems with his father. He traps Spectrum and She-Hulk in a forcefield strong enough even light can't get in or out and then he uses his volcano base to rupture the space between the world and the Neutral Zone, hoping to bring Kevin back. Meanwhile, the Tiger God has appeared to Ava and demanded answers for her interference in his hunt. She reams him out, explaining to him exactly how feared tigers aren't in this day and age and daring him to kill her, seeing where that would leave him. When he realizes he can't, she demands he give her all his power, which he seems to do. She wakes up again, apparently better than ever.

There are some interesting things going on in this book and with this team. I don't know a ton about Blue Marvel but he's got a pretty good story and an intriguing conceit. White Tiger, too, is showing a lot of promise in this book. The interactions between the team are compelling, at some points anyway, and sometimes interesting enough in and of themselves. Still there are a few too many jokey-jokes and tonal shifts in the writing that throw me off. I really cannot get past jokey introduction captions (this will come back in the next review too, guys. Look forward to it, if not to the next book). On top of that, Max, or Dr. Positron as he's calling himself, is a little more comical a villain than I think this book needs at its outset. I understand the appeal of writing him as somewhat childish; he is the child of Blue Marvel and his personality couldn't be more different than his father's. Regardless, he borders on silly and it makes him a little hard to take seriously. This book, too, is already more concerned with the rest of the Marvel Universe than almost any book in the modern era, making references to a handful in just one issue. Again, I understand the point of that and I get that Ewing found easy enough ways to reference books like Blue Marvel's initial series, YOUNG AVENGERS, and his own LOKI: AGENT OF ASGARD, just like I get that Marvel is a business and likes to get fans interested in those sorts of tie-ins, but sometimes it feels a little cynical and a little too hitting us over the head. In a way, it's either a book that's good in spite of itself or a book that's not quite good despite itself. Tricky, tricky book to get behind.

Secret Avengers 1
Kot (w) and M. Walsh (a) and M. Wilson (c)

The Secret Avengers are back up and running on Maria Hill's watch as her new and uneasy alliance with MODOK begins. For her team's first mission, she's sent Coulson and Fury Jr. (gotta start referring to him like that as Nick Fury Sr. is set to reappear in the upcoming ORIGINAL SIN) to space to investigate a SHIELD satellite having some troubles while Black Widow and Spider-Woman spend their day relaxing, something apparently important to Black Widow. They've gone to get massages and gelato and to test out some weaponry at a place Natasha knows well. Unfortunately for them, though, they're interrupted by a naked Hawkeye on the run from AIM (not a single person knows why he's naked except that Kot and the team wanted to parrot the Hawk-blocked bit from HAWKEYE which they do not once but twice in what might be the cheapest move in the entire...you know what, we'll get into it later). As they escape AIM in Natasha's car, Hawkeye naked and the two women covered with towels, they're called by Hill to assist Coulson and Fury Jr., who are dealing with the cybiote and Captain Britain foe the Fury in space.

Guys. I would have words with this book. I've been a little skeptical of this reboot of SECRET AVENGERS, coming, as we all know, very shortly after the end of the last volume. I didn't think the last volume was great and I think that the last arc of it was something of an unfulfilling mess. Ales Kot had a big hand in wrapping that volume and now kicks off this volume promising to take readers somewhere they've never gone before with something fresh and new. And yet, he also describes the book as a Michael Bay directed episode of Breaking Bad by way of Arrested Development, thereby referencing three things this book will be similar to instead of just being its own thing. This is just issue one so I'm trying not to be too judgmental about it but it's kind of hard. In most cases, I think I'd rather a first issue swing for the fences and miss because at least it tried something. The last thing you want is for your first issue to be boring. I think we've had a couple of those recently (sadly, I kind of have to point to ALL-NEW INVADERS and ALL-NEW X-FACTOR for those examples, though I have hopes for both books). However, eye-rollingly unimaginative and derivative isn't exactly a great swing either and that's rather what this was. Not only did we get a naked Hawkeye for literally no reason after he, trying to evade AIM, breaks into what happens to be the same exact Russian baths in New York that Natasha and Jessica are at. Then they do the now infamous "Hawkeye-face comic-code-style covering Hawkeye's genitals" to him and then, later on, they cover what would be a Spider-Woman exposed breast with a Spider-Woman face because apparently the joke that really only worked when it was new back in HAWKEYE was hilarious enough to work twice in this issue. It's all just ridiculous and derivative and that's not even getting INTO the fact that it often seems like there are maybe five people who I've seen write Natasha Romanoff and have managed to create a believable character for her backstory and this doesn't seem to be one of them. I'm cutting myself off here because, again, it's the first issue and I don't want to throw the series entirely away based on one issue but I will tell you that we're not far from it. OH, and Kot spent some time having Maria Hill and MODOK discuss Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias" and Shelley's contemporary Horace Smith because literature debates are the way we expect Hill and MODOK to talk and aren't condescending at all (Kot would go on to talk about Sylvia Plath in his opening letters-page column because UGH). OKAY, I'm seriously done now. Join me later for me being angry at ALL-NEW X-MEN because I don't know why I scheduled the books I'm most looking forward to for the Thursday through Saturday stretch.

Hawkeye 16, Iron Man 20, Indestructible Hulk 18

Hawkeye 16
Fraction (w) and Wu (a) and Hollingsworth (c)

Kate is still out in LA and still short on cash and most everything else. She finds a seemingly kindred spirit wandering the highway as she rides her bike down it and agrees to help him get back something he claims was stolen from him. She soon finds out that the old hobo is actually '60s musical sensation Will Bryson and that he's not actually an old hobo at all. Will claims that his brother Grey, his one time recording partner, stole the masters of Will's long-awaited masterpiece album Wishes and that he released them bit by bit to the public. Kate is quickly embroiled in this little family feud despite the urgings of her extremely reluctant police contact and vows to help Will get his recordings back and figure out who is, in fact, behind it. Kate's investigation leads her into a fight with Bryson nurses/bodyguards and eventually she talks with Grey and realizes he did steal it but that there's not much she can do about it, nor, perhaps, that she should do about it. Will holds a concert to play bits of Wishes and Kate attends with her new LA friends and, for a moment, feels like she's going to be okay. Then Madame Masque pops up behind her, whispers "found you" and disappears again.

I said last week that THUNDERBOLTS might just be the most fun book that Marvel is putting out these days. While I stand by the sentiment that it is certainly fun, it's hard not to read this book and hand the title right on over. If THUNDERBOLTS is the book that's trying to be the most fun (and pretty much succeeding), Kate might still be the most fun character, so I have to say that HAWKEYE might just win out. I think THUNDERBOLTS is going for a lighter feel in general than HAWKEYE (which might be harder to say right now considering we haven't seen a Clint-centered issue in a while) but geez, this book is a non-stop fun ride. Kate's voice is absolutely unique and delightful and the book manages to be chock-full of references without ever feeling bogged down. That's a really important and specific type of writing to hit and it's the difference between, say, the amazing Venture Brothers and the deplorable other reference-centric comedy like Family Guy or The Big Bang Theory. This is a lovely little issue and it again highlights the beautiful differences between David Aja and Annie Wu. Fraction answered a question on his tumblr that pretty perfectly encapsulated what makes this little switch-off so great, saying that if he was only going to be allowed access to Aja for the Kate stories he wanted to tell, he probably wouldn't have sent her to LA. Obviously Aja's art is amazing but it's incredibly different from Annie Wu's, though Matt Hollingsworth's colors also deserve mention for still linking the stories so well. Wonderful book, nice story, great character, and amazing art. Can't ever go wrong with this book.

Iron Man 20
Gillen (w) and Padilla and Hanna (a) and Guru eFX (c)

IRON MAN jumps into INHUMANITY as Tony and Arno continue searching for the Mandarin rings only to find one, the Nightbringer, alighting on a human with a whole flight of issues already. This human, Victor Kohl, has had plenty of personal problems and his most recent one, a distrust of his father and brothers and a suspicion that he's not really his father's son, is exacerbated when the Terrigen mists hit and his family all cocoon and he doesn't. The government comes to take the cocoons away and Victor watches the news, discovering that the Inhuman DNA is passed through bloodline so it appears he was right and he wasn't part of their bloodline. He drinks himself into a stupor and goes to attack the Inhuman Nativity Center his family was brought to. The Nightbringer finds him there and rests on him, happy with his desire for vengeance and his anger. As soon as the Nightbringer goes active, Tony and Arno spot it on their equipment and Tony goes to recover it. He and Kohl fight and Kohl damages the cocoons before Iron Man gets a clean shot off on him. Nightbringer recognizes that they're incapacitated and teleport away before Tony can get his hands on him. Transported underground, Kohl is surprised to find himself suddenly cocooning. When he breaks free in his new Inhuman form, Medusa arrives to show him the remains of his father's cocoon, destroyed by Kohl. She also informs him that his family was living in the same place when the Terrigen bomb was detonated and so had the same level of exposure and therefore all changed at once but he lived elsewhere at the time and so changed later but he's still of their blood. However, she admonishes him for killing an Inhuman and exiles him from Inhuman society. The Nightbringer convinces Kohl that it's really Iron Man's fault (not a hard sell for Kohl) and he swears revenge, taking the new name The Exile.

Pretty cool little tie-in here and one that manages to show us the Marvel Universe at large but still keeps the story rather contained to Iron Man's world. It's a nice play by Gillen as he constructs an issue that works to achieve both ends well. The sentient rings continue to be a really cool idea and the idea of Tony and Arno searching them out but only able to find them when they go active adds a layer of depth and intrigue that's worth acknowledging and that keeps the reader on his toes. There's also a nice talk between Tony and Arno about INHUMANITY which feels like something of an admission on Marvel's part that GEEZ it feels like this has been going on a while already and it has barely even started. There's also talk about Bruce Banner trying to find a cure (as we'll see below) and Tony wondering if it's really necessary to worry about. Lot of good bigger universe stuff in here, which is the sort of thing that Gillen's IRON MAN has avoided diligently and it's yielded good results, yet here we are with a solid tie-in that really works. Can't complain.

Indestructible Hulk 18
Waid (w) and Raapack and Sepulveda w/ Grummett (a) and Staples (c)

Banner's bomb goes off too low over Tulsa and things immediately descend into chaos. Hank Pym would have been caught in the explosion but managed to shrink down to microscopic size and actually avoid the particles as they flew by. It's a good thing he did since he starts to figure out what's happening before anyone else. The bomb itself integrated tech that Banner recovered from the Chronarchists int he hope that he could create time fields that would accelerate the Terrigen particles so they were spent almost instantly, keeping them from everyone else. It's a good idea and one that Pym particularly is impressed by but he finds a cocoon amidst the chaotic time fields and realizes it must not have worked. After everything is set straight again in the town below the bomb's detonation, the super scientists determine that there were too many variables with the Terrigen particles that no one could have foreseen. It doesn't make Banner feel any better. He plans to hitch a ride back with his team, who broke out of the lab despite Hill's orders, only to see them nearly go down before reaching him as Randall Jessup cocoons and turns into some sort of monster, which seems to emit some sort of almost sedative rays, to the point that he calms the raging Hulk back into Banner and throws him from the jet.

The bomb storyline was only a two piece arc but it worked for me. I think that I enjoyed the first part more, which really delves into what's happening with Banner and what's at stake for him pride-wise. Waid did a really good job (as he's done all series) characterizing Banner and giving us a sense of what these kinds of things mean to him (it seems like there are big changes coming for the series as it moves into its new ALL-NEW MARVEL NOW launch and I think Waid's done an excellent job facilitating the shift). This issue was a little more dedicated to the action and the science of it, which maybe slowed down the character-driven bits a little, though it does shine a bit of a light on Hank Pym's character for anyone looking for that. The transformation of Jessup is something that Waid's been working to but we'll have to wait until next issue to really see what it means. Entertaining and engaging book all the same.

Avengers 25, Avengers World 2, Mighty Avengers 5

Avengers 25
Hickman (w) and Larroca (a) and F. Martin (c)

At this present moment, Maria Hill and SHIELD, investigating an explosion in New York, find a couple hundred dead bodies including, among them, Hank Pym's. The comic zooms us to several hours previous when AIM, led by Scientist Supreme Andrew Forson and Minister Superia, was busy opening up portals to the multiverse, powered by energy harvested from the Negative Zone. As they open one of the portals, they're surprised to find the Avengers coming out of it. It's an old school team made up of Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Wasp, and Ant-Man, many of whom don their old school costumes. The group seems a little confused particularly when Forson tells them they're on Earth. They back out through the portal again and are next seen flying over New York. They talk briefly about their failed attempts to save Earth and we get a little flashback and see that their Earth (these are clearly parallel universe Avengers) was destroyed by an incursion but they were pulled off of it in time. They decide to continue their mission on this Earth, starting again, as it were. Unfortunately for this Earth, it seems like maybe these Avengers have a different way of helping and the last footage SHIELD has of them is Thor bringing his hammer down on a crowded street and shorting all the electronics and, presumably, some of the people. Some time later, Maria Hill calls the Avengers to the helicarrier to give their whereabouts for the last couple hours.

There was a fear in me that this was maybe going to go All-New X-Men on me but it was never a particularly substantial fear. Hickman has enough Avengers to play with, he doesn't need to duplicate more or bring more from the past here. Frankly, in this day and age, I'm pretty sure no one has to resort to that but hey, I guess I don't run things. Anyway, one of the things that's been impressive to me about the way that Marvel NOW and subsequent relaunches have gone is their uniformity across certain books. Sometimes it doesn't quite work but the focus on AIM as the villains, which has played across AVENGERS, NEW AVENGERS, AVENGERS WORLD (as we'll see in a moment) and SECRET AVENGERS particularly, but has not been limited to those titles. There's a lot going on with AIM right now and it's making a real impact on the books, maybe more so than something like, say, an event or crossover might demonstrate. Should be interesting to see the Avengers of today take on the Avengers of yesterday (and also of evil) as this story pushes forward but keep an eye on everything AIM is up to as well. Something big is brewing.

Avengers World 2
Hickman and Spencer (w) and Caselli (a) and F. Martin (c)

Smasher, Cannonball, and Sunspot have been captured by AIM as they went to investigate the strange growth of AIM Island. Cannonball and Sunspot both sustained serious injuries but are being treated by AIM while Smasher, seemingly unharmed, tries to break out of her containment field. Forson allows Smasher to be released and hopes that he can convince her to support what's happening on the island. He tells her that she's free to go whenever she pleases but that he'd like to show her something first. Once she's convinced her friends are okay and she's free to go, she consents to follow Forson, who shows her around one of the rapidly growing forests on the island and tells her that this truly is a new AIM, not bogged down by the old ways and the greed that followed but hoping to improve the future. She's still suspicious but she allows Forson to keep talking until one of the exotic bugs bites her. She begins to transform, the transformation changing her costume into something yellow and wrapping itself around her while Jude the Entropic Man approaches. Forson tells her that she will be the messenger, that she will deliver their message to the people with "low vision" who will try to strike at AIM out of fear. Their message is "everything dies."

Another nice issue for AVENGERS WORLD as more problems with AIM come into focus. AIM Island is growing both out and up, with all sorts of crazy developments that Bruce Banner says are way beyond anything the rest of the Earth seems capable of yet. Now they've captured three Avengers and turned one of them to their side, seemingly. It's a little like the earlier issues of AVENGERS, which focused on giving us an understanding of some of our newer members, like Smasher. This issue jumps back and forth between the present and everything Smasher's dealing with now to Smasher's past with the lessons of her grandfather and his stories and the bond she shared with him. It's a very nice story and one worth exploring and it gives the main story a little more of a drive. It'll be interesting if this book can sustain its pace and give us a look at some of the characters we won't see in a particularly personal way over in AVENGERS while AVENGERS tells the bigger stories, or at least the ones the require a bigger team. Cool stuff, hopefully it will keep pushing.

Mighty Avengers 5
Ewing (w) and Land and Leisten (a) and D'Armata (c)

While Spider-Man chews out Luke Cage and Jessica Jones for being unorganized and tries to make himself leader of the team, Spectrum leads Ronin, Falcon, Power Man, and White Tiger to the fallen Attilan, where Ronin suspects Deathwalkers are trying to find Inhuman artifacts for their own devious purposes. They talk their way inside where Cortex Inc.'s Barbara McDevitt, newly made Inhuman, is already searching and has already been set upon by the Hellhound of the Deathwalkers. Her new power, though, is to create limited time fields and she trapped the Hellhound in one mid-pounce while she continued working. She releases it as the Mighty Avengers arrive and they have to work together to fight it, even after it takes Ronin out of the fight. Spectrum avoids Barbara's powers with her own light powers and is able to shut her down while Power Man and White Tiger (Falcon waited outside) combine to stop the Hellhound. Ronin, meanwhile, took the artifact and left. Back at the Gem Theater, She-Hulk shows up to "mediate" the issue between Spider-Man, Cage, and Jessica as it quickly turned into punching. Spider-Man ends up leaving, deciding that Cage can keep his stupid team.

We're only five issues into this new Avengers title but, if things keep going the way they're looking, MIGHTY AVENGERS has quickly become my least favorite of the bunch. There are a lot of little bits and pieces that I'm not in favor of but it can kind of all be summed up as "it seems like this book is just trying too hard." The weirdest thing is that I don't even know what it's trying too hard to do. It's reminding me a bit of FEARLESS DEFENDERS but with very slightly bigger toys to play with. Everybody quips and the book wants to have this fun feel to it but it seems to come out forced at every turn. Everyone, like back in FEARLESS DEFENDERS, gets their own little introduction caption that wants to pal around with the audience. There are also weird questions that aren't being asked, like the strange identity of Ronin or, perhaps more aptly since that one actually is meant to be a mystery for whatever purpose, the question that every other book in the universe has asked so many times, to the point where I'm almost glad this book isn't asking it but it suddenly comes off as glaringly odd that it's not being mentioned: who is this Spider-Man? This is Cage and Jessica's first run in with the Superior Spider-Man after spending years on a team with him and there's no questioning the giant jerk he's become, a jerkiness that doesn't even try to hide itself like it so often does in different (some might say better) books. If I'm remembering correctly (it's hard to keep some of this stuff straight), Jessica and Luke even know that Spider-Man is Peter Parker and they know and like Peter so it's not like some mysterious, faceless entity behind that mask who has suddenly changed, it's a friend of theirs who has become the world's biggest jerk. Sure, I'm a little sick of every book having to do the "boy, he's acting strange" dance but you can sort of see why they do it after reading this book. Definitely not my favorite book out there and I don't know that that's going to change without a major tonal shift.

Captain Marvel 16, Secret Avengers 9

Captain Marvel 16
DeConnick and Van Meter (w) and Oliffe and Geraci w/ Nguyen (a) and Troy (c)

We get a bit of recap here for people who have been following Infinity pretty intently; we see Carol go Binary, save her team, and get interrogated by the Builders, where she hears the Builders' intent for earth and sees J-Son betray the resistance and get punished for it. It's a nice bit of recap for people who haven't been paying attention but it takes up a lot of issue space. Returned to her imprisonment alongside the less powerful Avengers among the captured (Hawkeye, Sunspot, and Cannonball), Carol makes a plan to save Earth by sacrificing herself and her teammates in one last-ditch attack on the Builders. Right as they're about to set off, the Avengers strike team makes it on to the ship to provide their rescue. Carol directs them to the bridge, where the rest of their team is, and they have to fight their way through the rest of the crew to get there. Spider-Woman and Carol have a bit of a fight and a bit of a resolution as they make their way there, then we see essentially what happened at the end of the Builders' story in Infinity 3, with Starbrand making his mark on the fight, though we see it from Carol's perspective.

It's a nice touch to have Carol rally the troops at the end here, though in Infinity, it's Black Widow who inspires Starbrand to defend the resistance. It's not necessarily not that in this one, but we don't get it from Widow here, which is interesting in a book with so much recap. Still, the touch of Carol giving the big speech that pulls everyone together and having a big Avengers moment is solid, as it wraps up this little arc nicely by putting Carol in the captain role that Captain America was in last issue. A bit heavy on recap for me and the art isn't exactly my favorite in comics today (lot of really defined face lines) but it's also a solid issue for Carol's character and thematically with the last one (and the rest, it fits nicely with what we know of Carol from this series). Looking forward to the promised double issue next time as we return to Carol full-time.

Secret Avengers 9
Spencer (w) and Guice (a) and Wilson (c)

Daisy Johnson has been removed as SHIELD director in favor of Maria Hill after the botched invasion of AIM Island. Aware that her memory could be erased at any time (she and others implanted the memory chips as a sort of show of good faith and as a safeguard for themselves as well), Daisy's desperate to back up her knowledge. With the help of fellow former-Secret Warrior, now Avenger Manifold, she breaks into an old Tony Stark lab which has tech to record a disc with her memories on it. She insists on being backed up and asks Eden to keep an eye on it for her while it happens. As it's happening, SHIELD psy-division picks up on it and notifies Hill immediately, who demands they remotely wipe her memory of all of these events. As a result, her back-up stops at 62%, leaving her only kind of aware of what's been going on. It's enough, though, to show Hill that she still remembers some things (Hill doesn't know how much), and to enlist outside help in the form of (FINALLY) Winter Soldier.

There's a nice Secret Warriors feel to this issue, thanks in large part to the focus on Daisy and the inclusion of Eden and the original Nick Fury (who comes to pay his respect to Agent Ralston and to give Daisy some advice). It also has that wheels-within-wheels feel of Secret Warriors, though a little more explicitly perhaps. Making the reader remember Secret Warriors, though, isn't ever a bad thing. The start of the issue drags a bit as we go back in time to the month before the Secret Avengers program was initiated, where we see Hill and Daisy talking about what was going to happen going forward. Most of it's important as it characterizes the differences in the two women (Hill is very do-what-it-takes where Daisy wants things done right and well but within maybe a few more moral parameters) and it gives us the backstory, but it's definitely slower reading than the rest of the issue. There are nice little characterizations for Fury and Eden (particularly Eden continually standing on one leg in almost a yoga pose) and the inclusion of Winter Soldier (finally) is encouraging. Pretty solid issue, which isn't something I've been particularly prone to say about this series so far. Excited to see where it goes. Not to mention, all this talk of recording memories makes me hopeful for Bucky and Natasha.

Avengers Arena 13, Secret Avengers 7

Avengers Arena 13
Gage (w) and Moline and Pennington (a) and Beaulieu (c)

Someone outside of the Arena suspects that something's wrong. Unfortunately for the people in the Arena, the person who suspects something is wrong is 12 year-old Molly Hayes (is she 12? I'm pretty sure that's the last age I remember her being but it's entirely possible I made that up, you guys. Don't tell anyone). Molly doesn't believe that her fellow Runaways Nico and Chase have, as they reported it, simply disappeared to try to work some things out away from home. Molly doesn't believe the texts they keep getting or even the phone calls they occasionally receive. She brings her problem to Avengers Academy head Hank Pym who promises to look into it. He works out a few pieces of the problem, realizing that he lost kids (Juston, who went back home allegedly, and Hazmat and Mettle, who ran away so they could stay in a relationship Hazmat's parents didn't approve of) the same time the Runaways ran away. With a little investigating, he finds out that X-23 and some of the Braddock Academy kids disappeared at the same time. All of it bothers Pym tremendously but he can't seem to convince anyone else something is wrong and, more than that, he can't find any substantial evidence. Arcade has done a truly phenomenal job (or, in truth, Miss Coriander has) covering his bases and only pulling kids likely to disappear for one reason or another and maintaining a presence for them within their communities. Eventually Pym has to give up the fight when he's met by Mettle (Arcade's trump card, cybernetics hidden under what appears to be, disgustingly, Mettle's real skin) and assured that everything is okay but that they still have to lay low because Hazmat's parents are trying to call it a kidnapping. Is there anyone else out there looking for the young heroes?

Solid explanation of why no one has become suspicious in the world and, given everything else that Miss Coriander has arranged for Arcade, it fits well within the scope of the story. It's also rather nice to see Christos Gage writing another story that ties so nicely to Avengers Academy, which was a deceptively good book, surprising in the same way this book is but probably a little less action heavy. Minor complaint to start (and it's incredibly minor and petty but it's been bugging me so WHATEVER): Tigra appears in this book (she's number two at Avengers Academy and romantically linked to Hank right now) and her caption calls her a were-woman, which is entirely wrong on a couple fronts. First off, "were-," as in "werewolf" translates to "man," hence why it's werewolf and not wereman or manwere. So calling her a were-woman is saying she's a man-woman which complicates PLENTY and she's already complicated, okay? Secondly, it implies that she transforms back and forth and I'm pretty sure she doesn't, she's just all Tigra all the time. That's PRETTY MUCH my only complaint though so I guess it evens out. Nice explanation, slows down the series a little bit from all the high-action we've seen lately but certainly a necessary addition to the book.

Secret Avengers 7
Spencer (w) and Guice and Magyar with Epting and Theis (a) and M. Wilson (c)

Maria Hill continues her unbeaten streak of being my least favorite Marvel character in existence. There are plenty of contenders in that race, including Wonder Man and Milla Murdock (okay, some are more relevant than others), but no one ever holds a candle to Maria Hill. Maybe its my own biases here but I have real trouble believing, as the recap page says, that Hill had to make a terrible decision. I don't think she ever thought it was terrible, having Daisy removed from SHIELD. Just like I have my doubts that she had problems making this call. Sure, give her a look like it was a really hard decision and soften her up later but I'll never buy it. Man. Maria Hill, am I right? Anyway, we flash over to Barbuda to find that the strike team needs a way out and that Mockingbird has a shot at the real Scientist Supreme (AIM had warning of the attack and got their man out of the way). Hill shuts her down, wipes the memory of her being on this mission from the team, and gets them out of there. So Mockingbird is stuck on AIM Island with no idea what she's doing or why she's there. Maria Hill, ladies and gentlemen.

This was, admittedly, the first issue in a while for Secret Avengers where I was surprised and intrigued by the ending. I'm still not totally onboard with this Avengers team that has chosen to work for SHIELD (SHIELD and Avengers notoriously don't get along and many could say it's because of issues like this and YES, "issues" there is a double meaning because I'm a great writer and I want you all to know it) and chosen to have their memories played with by SHIELD. It just doesn't feel entirely right, largely, I think, because all of these heroes (and that is an all-encompassing "all") are broken and they all (all) have trust issues and frankly they probably could have figured out that AIM Island was bad news without SHIELD's help. On top of that, I have trouble viewing SHIELD with any real constructive eye; they're always sort of backups to the Avengers or blocking the Avengers in some way  (because their literary function isn't to be the heroes, that the hero's job, it's to throw up more roadblocks or, best case, to assist the hero in some minor capacity) so it's hard to view them as doing anything competently. Despite them being the focus of the book in a way, it's hard still to say they're doing anything competently, which makes it far harder to like them which, in turn, makes it harder to like a book driven by their actions. Tricky scenario Nick Spencer has worked himself into. Let's see if he can get out of it (maybe throw Winter Soldier on the team, hm?).

Daredevil 29, Indestructible Hulk 11

Daredevil 29
Waid (w) and J. Rodriguez and A. Lopez (a) and J. Rodriguez (c)

Daredevil's newest client Nate Hackett has been shot by a judge loyal to the Serpent Society and no on in the courtroom besides Matt Murdock seems surprised or worried. Police rush in and are told that the shooter fled the scene, ignoring Matt's pleas for help. Matt realizes that the Serpent Society has somehow infiltrated pretty deep into the justice system he's dedicated his life to supporting. Not knowing who he can trust and unable to prove the judge and his cronies are guilty, Daredevil takes to the scene and discovers why they wanted Nate dead and how they plan to get away with it. Will Daredevil be able to expose the Serpent Society, rescue the innocent people inside, and save Nate's quickly fading life?

The story here is pretty fantastic, leading Matt to a whole new sense of paranoia. It worked really well for Waid and company throughout the Ikari arc, this idea that he can't trust anyone, and it's looking to work well again here. It's certainly a different sort of paranoia as this one enrages Matt more than worries him but it's a perfectly structured story in that respect. After having his actual loved ones in jeopardy (as well as his own life) last arc, he now has the institution he's always trusted at stake. The writing for Daredevil continues to be amazing and the art continues to be among Marvel's best. Even with Javier Rodriguez taking the reins from Chris Samnee for a bit, the art style fits exactly with the style Samnee's given this book. On top of that, Rodriguez's colors remain consistent with his work on the rest of the series, grounding any difference in art style between he and Samnee and making the book feel exactly the way it's always felt. This issue's not necessarily as emotionally stirring as some of the other work we've seen in Daredevil or in something like Hawkeye or Young Avengers but it's a near-perfect book anyway, one with a great plot and a great examination of Daredevil int he window we see him in. We get the cleverness of Daredevil, the nice problem-solving skill set he brings to the table, as well as his concern for innocent people and his hatred of corruption. Great plot, great character, great writing, great art, great book.

Indestructible Hulk 11
Waid (w) and Scalera (a) and Staples (c)

Time and space are broken in the Marvel Universe and it's slowly beginning to impact multiple books. We saw it a little in Guardians of the Galaxy this week and it seems to be the hinge of the upcoming Infinity event but we get a slightly more personal look at it in Indestructible Hulk as Banner is contracted by SHIELD to enter the broken timestream itself to see what he can do about a series of strange and dangerous (strangerous) chrono-happenings as reported by SHIELD prisoner Zarrko, the Tomorrow Man. Zarrko has apparently been warning Maria Hill about the threat the superhero community has posed to the timestream and, when he wasn't immediately right about his predictions, Hill ignored him. However, now he's proving to be spot-on and he claims to only want to help repair the timestream. His idea is to send Hulk directly into it with a suit he himself constructed (and has proven too dangerous for normal men, hence why Hulk needs to go in) and sic him on the time-hopping Chronarchists, who are using the breaks in time to commit atrocities and change the world in different ways more befitting them. The catch? Other than that they're sending the Hulk into an already broken timestream or, as Banner calls it, operating on the timestream with a chain saw instead of a scalpel? If Hulk reverts back to Banner, he likely won't survive the transformation.

Another really interesting book from Waid as this is the first time that the breaks in the timestream have seemed worthwhile as opposed to a bit of a reach in the hopes it will provide a great event. Also, why are the original X-Men still in the present? Wait, back to this book. On top of sending Hulk into the timestream to try to stop the Chronarcists (which, even at the end of this issue showing a dinosaur attacking in the 1800s, will certainly lead to some neat bits), we have some of the ramifications of a broken timestream. When Banner puts his foot down to letting the Hulk go into this situation, he recommends they use Red She-Hulk, as she has similar power/durability, more intelligence in Hulk state, and would love the job. However, Red She-Hulk seems to be one of the first casualties (or causalities. Get it? Timestream, causalities? Ah, whatever) of the Chronarchists plot and she's slowly fading from the timestream, causing Maria Hill to be unaware of her existence as she fades from Bruce's mind. There are a lot of really interesting ideas, which culminates in the neat idea of teaming Banner (in the form of a robot with Banner's knowledge and personality infused) with Hulk for the mission. There's a lot of good stuff coming from this issue and it'll be neat to see how it all plays out.