Comics this week

After 11 new releases last week made it tricky to find five to be super excited about, we return to 17 new mainstream Marvel releases this week and it gets tricky to narrow it down again. The problem with the format of this pre-game business is that we're going to pretty quickly start seeing the same books over and over on the list. I'll be honest, it's not a huge problem. It just means that there are some really fine books coming out from Marvel these days.

Avengers Arena 7
Guys, I just watched The Hunger Games on Netflix last night. It was too long. Anyway, I'm a little interested to see how knowing some of the source material affects my enjoyment of this series. I don't expect it to have a huge impact, as I knew the gist of it all back when Arena started but I'm interested to see if I'll pick up on things I wouldn't have otherwise now that I've seen it all (I'm mostly interested in the comparison between Arcade and that one guy in Hunger Games). Also, you know, I'm just excited for this book. Excitement and twists at every turn. I love the pacing of the book so far, allowing us to see a bit from every group before letting us view all groups in one issue. Well constructed series so far.

Hawkeye 9
Hawkeye is one of those books that comes out every month and feels like we haven't seen it in ages. I constantly ask myself when the last time a new Hawkeye issue came out and am stunned to find it was some time in recent memory. I don't know what the cause of that is but if I had to speculate I'd say it's because I always want to be reading Hawkeye. I feel the same way about New Avengers, particularly, and I'm getting that way with Captain America. The problem with the five-months-in-advance solicits too is that we've known a particular plot point is coming but it feels like it takes forever to get here. This issue suffers from that (or perhaps benefits, we'll have to see) as we've known that some Hawkeye-Spider Woman relationship stuff is going to come up this issue, as well as some Hawkeye-Black Widow and Hawkeye-Mockingbird. It's the meeting of the friend-girl, the work wife, and the ex-wife, as Marvel has been saying. Very exciting to finally get some insight into all of that.

Secret Avengers 3
This book is going to hang out on the pre-game list a little bit longer as I'm having some trouble getting a handle on it. I found both the first and second issues to be better on a second read through or after a lot of time thinking about it. However, that meant that neither of the first two issues particularly blew me away. I still love almost all the characters involved in the series and I'm looking forward to seeing Hulk and Winter Soldier meet up with the Secret Avengers, as we've been promised, as well as a new Iron Patriot (particularly as we move ever closer to May's release of Iron Man III) and I'm interested enough in the plot that they've put forth to certainly be intrigued by the series, but I'm still grasping at the shape of this book as a whole. However, after two issues, maybe it makes for a better book when you can't immediately suss it out. We'll see where that leaves us this week.

Uncanny Avengers 6
On top of this being a great title overall, I received a promotional poster at my comic book store that featured the cover of UA 6. It's a dark image with Apocalypse facing down Thor (in their, I believe, first meeting) while a town burns behind Apocalypse. I was particularly interested in this issue after reading issue five, which had a bit to do with Kang taking the two children of Apocalypse and his horseman (horsewoman?) Pestilence and plotting to put some things in order in time. However, beyond that there's very little mention of Apocalypse and it certainly didn't feel like things were falling into place that quickly. Still, matching Thor against Apocalypse is an interesting plot point and character battle made even more interesting when you realize that Kang is involved and Red Skull is somewhere in the background of everything. Three major Marvel villains all within arm's length of each other doesn't bode well for any Avengers team.

X-Treme X-Men 13
The X-Termination event continues and I don't know that I have to explain my excitement for this again. I'm very happy with the way this event is turning out and I'm anxious to read each new issue. The pacing is strong, the threat is real, the characters are intriguing, and the story is compelling. All signs of a good comic and a good event. I've also written about this event every week for the past month or so, so there's probably not much else for me to hype here. Strong week, hopefully it all comes through.