This week's picks!

New Avengers 4

I get the sense already that it's going to be impossible for this book not to land in my top three every time it comes out. I love the story, I love the characters, I love the questions it's asking, I love the understanding of superheroes in this world, I love the art, I love the colors, I love the interactions. This is pretty much a perfect book in my eyes. It occurs to me that this book ended with the first real fight scene this team will have, after fighting against something far more intangible the rest of the series. Somehow I'm even MORE interested in this book as we get to the point where we'll see the team work together. None of this even begins to talk about the underlying dynamics of the team, particularly Black Panther and Namor (though, really, anyone and Namor) and the way Beast feels about everything that's happening. Just an all around phenomenal title right now and issue four was no less fantastic than the other three issues.

Captain Marvel 11

Every time I read a new issue of this series I come away feeling floored by the amount of detail each book manages to cram in. I've appreciated from the very first how many non-super powered characters have made their way into this book and how well each one has been crafted just with a line or two every now and then. For DeConnick to then take those people (who, because of the work she's done, are truly people and not just set pieces) and make them integral to the plot and, more importantly, to Carol's life and Carol's sense of her own life is beautiful. In mainstream comics, you don't get a lot of examination of a character's life outside of superheroing and maybe one or two dramas here and there that are almost exclusively related to family or to dating. Captain Marvel has quietly built a life for Carol Danvers, from when she wakes up to when she goes to bed so now, when that life is in jeopardy, the stakes are much higher and it's a far greater payoff for the reader. Terrifically done and rewarding in every sense.

Captain America 5

This beating out Avengers or Hulk is almost entirely based on my own bias. I think it absolutely merits being up in the top three, but the reason that I picked it over the other deserving titles without much of a second thought is totally because of my own love for the character (fun fact: it's also why Avengers would have been my fourth pick; the characterization of Cap in that book, alongside everything else in the book, puts it a little ahead). I should stop being excited, probably, by how well I think Remender's characterizing Captain America. I've said plenty of times that there are easy ways to screw up writing Captain America (in fact, I think there are Marvel writers working today who don't write him very well) and, though I trusted and loved Remender hot off of Uncanny X-Force, I was admittedly nervous when I heard he was writing Cap. Not because of him, because I would have been nervous for anyone to write Cap. Nothing is worse than a poorly written Captain America heading up his own book. But Remender has blown me away with the look he's given this new series. On top of just going back into Steve's childhood, we're getting so much added to Steve without going against everything that's come before. It's really delightful, as a big Captain America fan, to not only watch the character done right, but to see him expanded on so much. Someone nervous about writing Cap could easily have just taken the Brubaker Cap and put him into more plots, focusing on story rather than on expanding character. Remender's doing both and it's working out extremely well.