Avengers Assemble 22, Secret Avengers 13

Avengers Assemble 22
DeConnick and Ellis (w) and Buffagni and Diaz (a) and Woodard (c)

Spider-Girl, Spider-Woman, and Black Widow have been captured by Kashmir Vennema and AIM and Vennema is prepared to have them killed. Thanks to Spider-Woman's pheromone control, though, it doesn't happen, as Jessica befuddles all the guys guarding them in the room and uses her spider bursts to get them out of their binds, allowing them to dispatch the AIM guards easily. They enlist the help of Wolverine and Bruce Banner to surprise Vennema in her private car and find out who she sold the Inhuman cocoon to. Vennema reveals that it was Toxie Doxie, Dr. June Covington, and the Avengers (after a sincere scare to Vennema) reconvene at Avengers Tower. Spider-Girl and Spider-Woman plan to go after Covington (the others, including Black Widow, have to back out and deal with other problems around the globe), who has done some research of her own into her detonated cocoon. She managed to salvage the man inside and has reasoned that he doesn't show up on mechanical scans, a power she'd like to add to her own collection. Her penchant for accruing genetic abilities means that, by issue's end, she's identified the gene in Anya's teacher that is responsible for his new powers.

Another pretty interesting issue as the tie-ins to INHUMANITY continue to press on. I'm not wholly decided on them, positive or negative, just yet and I think it would probably be wrong to lump them all one way or another anyway but it's certainly, in many cases, provided for some intriguing stories. Here, as with the entirety of AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, the key to the issue's appeal comes from the typically fun and entertaining writing. The team interacts far differently in this series than it does in any other, but not in a way that entirely breaks character. They just seem more friendly with one another here, or, in the very least, far more personable. Not to say characters are done poorly in, say, AVENGERS, but that book has its focus and tone and this book's focus and tone tend to be a bit different. It's always nice to have this book around, which gives us a somewhat lighter feel for the team, not always so incredibly heavy but with its own sorts of drama and tension. Comic pro Warren Ellis jumps in to co-write with regular writer (and rising star at Marvel and in comics in general) Kelly Sue DeConnick but the series tone doesn't seem to shift in any real way, feeling as natural and as fresh as any other issue. Fun book, always a pleasant surprise.

Secret Avengers 13
Spencer and Kot (w) and Guice, Rubinstein, and Palmer (a) and Wilson (c)

Things are going badly for the Secret Avengers as Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Fury have been ambushed at the underwater AIM station MODOK had led them to, Mockingbird is still in the field and apparently discovered, and their one useful outside-asset is the ever-unreliable Taskmaster. MODOK and Maria Hill bicker about whether or not he's setting her up and what he has to gain from SHIELD's involvement taking down Scientist Supreme Forson. In another attempt to gain favor with Hill, he reveals another secret base and Hill sends Banner and Iron Patriot there to collect AIM secrets at the base, which Forson detonates shortly after their arrival. She again accuses MODOK of treachery and he again says that he wants Forson removed and points her to her own organization as having leaks in it. Meanwhile, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Fury have been captured by what seems to be some AIM-led adaptoids and are being transported back to AIM Island. Taskmaster is betrayed by his new apprentice, a beekeeper who turns out to be Anton Trask, and is apparently executed by Mockingbird at the behest of Forson.

Plenty happening here and it's getting a little tricky to keep track of it all. I have to say, I think the idea of pitting MODOK against Hill in a battle of possible lies vs. almost definite incompetence is probably the best way to build suspense while also keeping to continuity in a SHIELD book. As I was writing this review, I kept saying "boy, how could she be so stupid as to send teams in on MODOK's advice?" At the same time, I don't necessarily believe that MODOK is lying; I believe him when he says that he wants Forson deposed and that AIM has become something unrecognizable to him, not to mention that I believe him when he says that he could have just sent a proxy in to tell Hill these things and keep out of harm's way. However, by the same token, this is MODOK we're talking about and, to add to it, Hill seems to be playing this guns blazing, even worse than Daisy sending a hit team to AIM Island in retribution for killing her friend. This keeps MODOK in character, playing his cards to regain AIM's control, and keeps SHIELD in character, being terrible. Boy, do these guys miss the original Nick Fury or what? Anyway, plenty happening and I'll admit that I'm going to be pretty sad if Taskmaster is actually dead. Always liked that guy. Also interested to see what's happening with Bobbi; I hope she too isn't dead but I don't believe that she's a traitor, which doesn't seem to fit her character in any way. Probably something more with adaptoids, am I right?

Scarlet Spider 21, Ultimate Spider-Man 26

Scarlet Spider 21
Yost and Burnham (w) and Barberi, Baldeon, Pallot, and Olazaba (a) and Sotomayor (c)

Kaine has returned home from his trips to Westchester and New York City only to find himself afflicted with the degenerative disease he had thought gone long before. It's driving him a bit mad and he's snapping under the pressure. Meanwhile, each of his friends is hunted down and attacked (hunted down, that's a clue). While Kaine webs around the city, looking for some sort of relief, he's attacked by Ben Reilly, the original Scarlet Spider and the first successful Spider-Man clone (a. Kaine was the first clone but had the degenerative problem at first so Ben was the first one to be a complete success and b. that guy has a bunch of clones, geez). Kaine isn't prepared for the fight and finds himself quickly on the losing side. He escapes to gather his mind. He's convinced the attacker isn't really Ben Reilly, who he thought dead, but has no way to prove it. Reilly catches up with him (hunts him, almost) and rips off the mask to reveal that it is indeed Ben Reilly. Kaine puts up a good fight but his powers are degenerating and he eventually gives up again. This time, though, Reilly reveals that, psych, he's not actually Reilly and Kaine is just seeing things because of the heavy hallucinogenic dart he was hit with back at the airport and his attacker is actually Kraven the Hunter (Kraven's daughter has been attacking Kaine's friends one by one).

I wasn't sold on how fast Kaine decided he was losing his powers because I felt like there would be more skepticism to how fast the disease returned, with no warning, and how quickly it affected him. However, I think now that it works out pretty well as it leads to a bit of a breakdown on Kaine's part, which all works together to show how tightly strung Kaine is and how he's only barely managing to hold things together. In that respect, I think this plot works pretty well and it's a solid build for the arc and the character. Kaine has developed a decent little life for himself and if you remove Prey and the incident that caused it, he's been really very successful at turning his life around. But you can't remove those incidents and you can't remove his recent shake-up with Spider-Man and Jackal so he's understandably on a bit of a precipice here. It's certainly not going to help that he's up against the Kravinoffs, the family who killed him during Grim Hunt (guys, he came back, no big deal). Should be an interesting arc.

Ultimate Spider-Man 26
Bendis (w) and D. Marquez (a) and Ponsor (c)

Miles is back on the scene as Spider-Man and he and Jessica Drew team-up to find Bombshell after her fight with Cloak and Dagger. The story is interspersed with Bombshell's origin story and the goings-on at Roxxon as a result. Bombshell's mother had been in prison for armed robbery when Roxxon got her out in order to use her as a test subject in their attempts to create a new super soldier. She consents and they begin testing. It doesn't result in a super soldier like Cap was but does grant her the power to create explosions with her hands. Immediately after the first successful test, a scientist reveals that she's pregnant and Bombshell's mother breaks out of the facility. Seemingly she went on to live her life and give birth to her child without Roxxon nearby, though it seems they've been keeping tabs because Bombshell's name appears on a list of Roxxon test subjects, a list that Cloak and Dagger got a hold of in the hopes they could take down Roxxon. Meanwhile, Roxxon has hired a bounty hunter of sorts, codename Taskmaster, to track and bring back Bombshell and Cloak and Dagger. The issue ends after Bombshell's told her story to the Spiders and Taskmaster manages to knock all three unconscious.

There's plenty going on here and there's a lot to like about this issue. I do think there's still a bit of that back-and-forth dialogue that gets in the way of the good stuff but it feels a little more at home in this issue, as there's less fighting and fewer characters, meaning that it doesn't feel as excessive as it does when five or six people are doing it in one scene. Still, apart from that, the story is interesting enough and there are nice touches here and there to help build character. There's a joke that gets played out twice (which is the perfect amount, it will get annoying if it comes around again later) as Spider-Man misses Bombshell with his web and has to frustratedly explain to doubters that he's out of practice. There's also a scene between Cloak and Dagger which is good in explaining their motives a bit more and expressing their concerns with their own plan, though it does get a little weakened by its cutesy back-and-forth. Still, overall a good issue with some really good art and a solid plot to build on.

Deadpool 10, A+X 8

Deadpool 10
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Hawthorne (a) and Staples (c)

Ben Franklin and Agent Preston are both disturbed and upset about the way Deadpool is handling the Vetis situation, which included killing Michael in the hopes he could go convince Mephisto that Vetis is trying to undercut him. Franklin leaves the group and drifts into, predictably, a strip club. We'll get back to that "predictably" bit in a second. Anyway, the next person Deadpool has to assassinate is a businessman named Daniel Gump who Vetis gave pre-cognitive powers to. When Deadpool arrives, he comes across Spider-Man, who is also investigating Gump, a suspiciously successful businessman who has suddenly acquired mercenary protection in the form of people like Batroc, Taskmaster, Stilt-Woman, and others. There's a bunch of banter, including Deadpool making fun of Doc Ock kind of out of nowhere, and eventually Deadpool catches up to Gump and kills him. Spider-Man webs Deadpool up with the other villains, denouncing him for killing Gump instead of letting the justice system have him. Meanwhile, Michael is trying to get to Mephisto but has run into some trouble with a gatekeeper demon.

Readers of this blog will know that I'm not particularly on board with this title the way it's currently running. That "predictably" tag I gave to Franklin going into the strip club could be applied to a lot of the jokes that pop up throughout this book and throughout this series. There are a handful of decent and original jokes peppered in throughout the ten issues we've seen so far but it feels like something like 80-90% of the jokes can be seen coming a mile away. That wouldn't be horrible in a book that doesn't sell itself on its jokes and that hadn't hired comedians to write it. However, where you have a book that makes just about every line a joke, it's a downside if those jokes constantly reach for the lowest hanging fruit. So no, this book hasn't really made me excited about anything they've done, despite including Tim-favorite Batroc the Leaper. It hurts when he shows up and I'm still not entertained.

A+X 8
Spider-Woman and Kitty Pryde: Duggan (w) and Larroca (a) and Ocampo (c)
Hawkeye and Deadpool: Hastings (w) and Brown (a) and Armstrong (c)

Hey, look at that. We start with a story written by Gerry Duggan, co-writer of the Deadpool series! I'm not going to say that what I said above about Deadpool 10 totally apply to this first story featuring Kitty Pryde and Spider-Woman and Lockheed trying to acquire a strange and unidentified space-metal for SWORD before anything bad happens to it. However, most of those things still do apply. There are a bunch of pop culture references and low-hanging fruit jokes and things like that. The other thing I couldn't help feeling, as is true with literally every issue of Deadpool I read, was that this book felt so long. Each Deadpool book, I get just about halfway through and can't believe the book is still going. Not because so much has happened, but because there's been such an overabundance of dialogue. Same problem here, which is particularly depressing because this story is half of an issue. So one quarter of the way through a book, I got annoyed with how long the book felt. Not the best feeling. Anyway, the three heroes fight Absorbing Man, who is trying to get his hands on the weird metal amidst a swarm of Hydra and AIM fighters. Kitty lets him take the metal then shuts his brain down after a whole ton of exposition about her history. Like I've said, A+X books aren't particularly plot-heavy or heavy in general and they don't have to be because of the conceit of the book. I would still rate this story under a lot of the stories that have spawned from this immensely long series.

There are still a bunch of pop culture references in the second story, featuring Hawkeye teaming with Deadpool to rescue a taco chef from pirates who intend to force him to make meals on their journey, but they make light of the fact that they're using pop culture references. Deadpool searches his repertoire for a new pop culture reference for Hawkeye only to learn that all of them have been used over and over again. Deadpool also decides to join Hawkeye in using arrows and shows off his own trick arrow, which uses a novelty Hulk hand at the end that punches people and roars when it hits them. The trick though, he explains, is that they all explode. The whole thing feels pretty genuine though, with two heroes who can more or less respect the way the other works and knows that their mission is a relatively fun one. Of course, I was a little biased going in as someone who likes both these heroes (and particularly roots for Deadpool to be halfway decent outside of his own books now, as it's the only place I can tolerate him now) and who likes Christopher Hastings (to my credit, I was a fan of Brian Posehn before Deadpool too). Anyway, this story was fun, nothing more, but that's what A+X is so can't fault it for doing its job well.