Fialkov (w) and Kirk (a) and Aburtov (c)
The Gah Lak Tus swarm and Galactus are obviously already huge threats on their own but this mini-series introduces the idea of two versions of Galactus teaming up and wreaking unbelievable havoc, among other worrying things about the rips in time and space. The decision to focus this, at least for now, on Rick Jones is an interesting one as I believe he's been rather inactive for rather some time (well, by his own admission, he's been incredibly active but we've not seen him in some time) but he's a wonderfully powerful entity and therefore is a good gauge for how strong the Galacti are. At the same time as this giant disaster, Fialkov is writing the giant disasters ongoing in the Ultimates at current and he's fresh off a startlingly good Alpha mini-series. I don't read a ton outside of Marvel and a handful of other indies (and Scott Snyder's Batman which I have to admit is a pretty awesome book, even if I won't recommend it here lest it ruin my Marvel cred) so I hadn't seen Fialkov prior to this set of Marvel comics but he's certainly a capable writer with a good eye for character and a story to tell. He was recently on the Nerdist Writers Panel podcast and said that one of the approaches he likes to take is to tell the story of a character on their worst day, which is a nice frame for a lot of these stories and which tells a good amount about the character in the way he or she reacts. Solid start here. It'll be interesting to see how this resolves as I find it hard to believe the 616 will be lacking a Galactus permanently.
What If...AvX 3
Palmiotti (w) and Sandoval and Tarragona (a) and Rosenberg (c)
I'd be interested to hear how someone who prefers comics and stories for their plots is reacting to this What If series. I like plot and a good plot can certainly carry a comic sometimes but it would have to be an insanely good plot to make up for weak characters. I care mostly about characters and think the best characters can easily hoist up a bad plot and make you forget all about it. This story is not about the characters. That much has been clear from the get-go. Events sometimes have trouble doing that because there are so many pieces to the story. It's why I liked the Age of Ultron tie-in stuff more than Age of Ultron (well, that and other reasons); I preferred to hear how these events impacted the characters I care about rather than how the story would settle itself out. Civil War was pretty solid for defining character because it was such a morality question and just choosing a side told a lot about character. Here, though, the character doesn't really impact the story. It's good that it doesn't, though, because every character continues to be either written exactly the same, in the case of any backgroundish character, or to their basest elements, in the case of the characters most in the foreground. Everyone is simply saying whatever best advances the plot and no one seems to have a personality to them except for the personality foisted on the stars of the book, like Magneto (hates humans), Cap (soldier), Cyclops (X-Man) and Iron Man (Avenger). On the other hand, pretty much anyone else could be swapped with any other character and it would all look about the same. Nova, here Sam Alexander, talks like he's been a superhero for years and is maybe actually Richard Rider under there instead of a 15 year old who just got powers. Black Panther literally says, in conferring with Tony about a scientific weapons device, "From what you told me, this thing packs a wallop!" which ignores the fact that the Panther we know would already know the exact scope of the tech he's using, would never say "wallop," and likely hasn't had an exclamation point anywhere near him in decades. These may sound like nitpicks from someone who's a little too into comic books (if that's what you're thinking, why are you here? That's pretty much ENTIRELY what this blog is supposed to be), but they really do break the flow and the weight of the book by making it feel like the writer didn't care about the characters, so why should I? I adore Black Panther, he's in my top five superheroes, and it couldn't have mattered less to me that he died in this issue (he died in this issue, btw). Sure it's a "what if" so I know it's not in continuity anyway, but I still should have felt something: I knew he wasn't actually going to be dead at the end of Age of Ultron and I was still legitimately mad when he got killed off (though that was largely because he got killed by a bad fall, the dude with maybe the best reflexes in the world). Here, it didn't matter. He was just words on a page. And that's an ugly thought to be left with when your job description boils down to "words on a page."
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