Comics this week!

Lotta good books out there this week. Fifteen books this week, if my count is right (I have to temper it with that all the time because I've been burned before). There's been a weird lull lately of non-20 book weeks. I'll be honest, I'm not complaining. I love reading comics but reviewing five books a day while also attempting to perform as an adult human is occasionally taxing. But this is the world and I'm complaining about self-inflicted writing about books I tend to like far more than I tend to dislike. Maybe if I could stop myself from writing essays on each book I'd be in better shape. Maybe.

A+X 8
I don't tend to put these books (or books like them) on my "most anticipated" lists for the simple reason that I don't tend to anticipate them. They are what they are and I don't begrudge them that. They're fun little one-off books but they're not typically much for plot or hugely for character building. That said, I'm pretty excited about this book if just for half of it. I'm not completely thrilled for the first half, which is a Spider-Woman and Kitty Pryde team up written by Deadpool co-writer Gerry Duggan. I'm not really a fan of Spider-Woman (though I've grown fonder of her with DeConnick's take) and I'm not a fan of the new Deadpool series. I am, though, still a big fan of Deadpool and Dr. McNinja writer Christopher Hastings (who wrote the Deadpool mini for Fear Itself as well) will team Deadpool with Hawkeye for his half of the story. I'm pretty excited about that one.

Avengers 12
This book just keeps building and building. I don't know if I've mentioned it here before (I think I may have last week, or I may have just been thinking about it a lot) but Kelly Sue DeConnick says that Hickman is capable of planning in four year blocks for his stories. It makes total sense (and the more I write down, the more I remember having already written that at some point) and this story feels like something along those lines. When I said this to one of the guys at my comic shop, he said that he'd be surprised if Hickman stayed on the book for four years; guys like that tend to move around and are usually in the Marvel game to prop up their creator-owned books. That's not untrue and it's not anything to hold against Hickman (whose CO stuff I should really be reading) but that doesn't change the fact that this series feels like a long game. That doesn't mean the immediate stuff is worth skipping; quite the opposite in fact. These kinds of long term things tend to be most rewarding after reading everything and this book has been really good already.

Daredevil 26
Geez, what's not to recommend about this book right now? Matty's up to his neck in stress and now he has to deal with a mysterious hired gun who has all of Matt's powers but isn't blind (and knows Matt is)? There's definitely worrying stuff all over the horizon if not closer for Matt Murdock and I swear at some point his Shadowland past will catch up to him, you just watch. I mean, it has to, right? It was pretty crazy.

Superior Spider-Man 10
After last issue's somewhat shocking reveal that Doc Ock figured out Peter's memories were gaining sentience and that Peter had a chance of coming back, he snuffed out the problem and seems ready to move on and away from it. We're all comic book readers here so we all expected Peter to come back, maybe even sooner than this would have been. Could Doc Ock really have taken out the last chance for Peter Parker's return? Probably not, but it's worth thinking about. Just like the most intriguing question in Marvel right now might just be "Is Doc Ock a superior Spider-Man?"

Young Avengers 5
Even if Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie weren't crafting an exquisite book right now, with an enticing plot, superb characters, clever writing, and gorgeous art, the plot twist of "Loki has reality-altering powers" should be enough of a draw for any reader. That's Loki, god of mischief and decidedly sinister, with powers spawned from the lady who once decimated the mutants by saying words. Not even particularly difficult to say words, just words. Sure, Billy's powers might not be quite up to his mom's standards yet but he also doesn't know how to use them. Loki doesn't have the level of power Billy has (right now, anyway) but he sure has the experience Billy lacks with powers. Now we have to see if Loki fulfills his promise to help them or if he simply doesn't return to the team. Maybe more than that, though, is what he'll do with the powers now that he has them. Extinguish the curse, sure. But he's got ten whole minutes with those powers. You think that's all he's going to do?