This week's picks

Tough picks to make this week with two sure bets and one that could go a couple different ways. On the plus side, it's pretty much just those four or five that I'm debating, everything else is significantly behind.

Avengers AI 1

It was between this and Iron Man (and a little bit Venom but not that much) and I'm still not sure which was the right one to choose. I think Iron Man may have been the actual better comic but this one's worth checking into for the feel of the comic and the nice way it's set itself up. Iron Man continued its great pace and its stellar story and writing but my recommendation, I think, goes to Avengers AI because I think it may fill a role in the Marvel Universe that isn't filled yet so I think people should be keeping an eye on it. No guarantee that it will all pan out but there seem to be places to go with this story and these characters and the book was fun overall. Read it, enjoy it, maybe pick up the Skottie Young variant if you can find it.

Red She-Hulk 67

I would be lying if I said that this wasn't always going to make my final pick. Bear with me, though, it's my last chance to be able to pick it. On top of that, it delivered an end to a good story and gave us some nice character resolution bits, including Red She-Hulk figuring out both worlds were real and choosing her world and X-51 learning that, although he's a machine with specific coding, he can still be an individual in the way he manipulates that coding. I'm particularly sad to see the main duo of Red She-Hulk and X-51 disappear for at least a bit because their relationship proved to be one of the most enjoyable in the Marvel Universe at current. It developed very naturally and improved along the way and became an incredibly fun and dynamic friendship. It's not easy to do that and it's especially not easy to do that in as little time as Parker had to set it up and build. A satisfying ending to a regularly pretty great title.

X-Men Legacy 13

Very interesting to see Spurrier switch narrator from our main character over to Pete Wisdom. It's rare to see a solo book (especially one as decidedly solo as this) take the focus off of that character and place it on another, particularly another established one in the Universe. I feel like most books that switch narrators for an issue or two will put it on someone who hasn't been developed enough to give the audience a sense of who they are. Wisdom is more developed though certainly I'd say he still fits that bill. Even more interesting is how defined David's voice has been, meaning that the decision to switch narrators isn't so simple. David's voice very much drives this book. Taking that away is a risky play but it worked out very nicely here and keeps us in the dark about whatever David's plans are, be they righteous or nefarious. More so, as I think we can fairly safely believe his motives are righteous at this point, we don't get his opinion on whether what he's doing, which is pretty clearly nefarious, is worth the righteous ending. Lot of questions opened up here and really should push this arc and this book as a whole to another new interesting place.


Best Cover

As I said in my review this week, Daredevil Dark Nights' art felt a little like cheating because anything set on snow is going to be pretty gorgeous (unless it's crazy hectic snow, like we've seen in Astonishing X-Men; interesting question, why does this, which is set up to be a huge and impenetrable storm, seem so much calmer in the images? Oh well, not what I'm getting at here). However, I also said that the art is pretty great in this book overall and this cover is no difference. It's maybe a little heavy-handed but that doesn't mean it's not still pretty great looking. don't miss the forest for the trees and all that. If that applies. I'm going to say that it does and I run this blog so no one is editing me out. Fantastic work again, Tim.