This week's picks

Kind of a tough week to pick three. There are a few standouts and many that are just on the cusp of being standout. Always tricky. Let's dive right in, hmm?

Avengers Assemble 17

I love the pacing of this story and how the characters are coming through. Kelly Sue DeConnick has been laying significant groundwork for this without any of us even noticing because she hasn't necessarily been laying groundwork to the plot. What she's been doing all along, so brilliantly, in Captain Marvel and Avengers Assemble is building a cast. Both books have their own independent casts and it's all coming together nicely now. The Avengers still talk like the Avengers that lay a wager on whether Banner or Iron Man would get to a remote science base first. Carol's team still surrounds her, tightening up to protect her, as they did when she got the news of her illness. This event doesn't work so well without all of that, without all of the pieces sliding neatly into place, so neatly that we didn't even really notice them doing it. This is a book and an event where the characters act like people and it's wonderful that we can fit that around an interesting story instead of sacrificing character to serve plot.

Iron Man 13

This series has quietly been really impressive. I don't know why it's been so quiet, considering how popular Iron Man is as a character right now and how fantastic Kieron Gillen's been for Marvel, but it's felt like something of a slow burn from the start. Now the book is pretty on fire though as 451 is close to his endgame for Earth's protection and reveals that it also means the end of Tony as an independent character. His body and mind would be more or less absorbed into the Godkiller. Death's Head makes another great appearance and Gillen again shows off his aptitude for writing the "Freelance Peacekeeping Agent," as he prefers to be called. Now Tony has quite possibly one more moment of freedom before 451 retakes him in which to try to solve all of his mounting problems. Who's not excited to see how that plays out?

Savage Wolverine 7

This one had some fairly strong competition for the three-spot, going head-to-head against Thor, Cable and X-Force, both F4 and FF, and Thunderbolts, in particular. Still, this one won out because it's something of a pleasant surprise. I was fairly against the first arc of this book and I was worried about the direction of this series as a whole but the last two issues have been solid, with nice character moments mixed into an interesting plot. This issue specifically is the best Wolverine book we have right now. Cornell's Wolverine has a couple of interesting ideas kicking around but it's bogged down by a dragging pace and supporting characters that you couldn't pay me to care about (unless you wanted to try, I'd be willing to give it a shot). Wolverine MAX is equally slow and when Wolverine actually has a personality it's just a heavy brooding. Here he's got all of the trademarks of Wolverine, asking interesting questions about his nature and the nature that someone like Elektra, who is not so different than him, brings out in him. On top of that, the story has gotten more intriguing as we learn that Kingpin is being Kingpin and manipulating Elektra and Wolverine to do his work for him.


Best Page

This was going to be a best panel but I couldn't narrow it down far enough. I suppose if I had to it would be the fourth panel of this page but guess what, it's my blog, I don't have to. Anyway, I talked about this in my actual review for Iron Man but this page stood out so strongly to me as we get a real moment of seemingly true emotion for 451 and it's so palpable, what he's feeling. It's a really well-timed moment and it's perfectly executed as it shows 451 in something of a brief moment of weakness, which we haven't seen at all in his calm and collected manner. Of course, the weakness is detracted a bit because he accomplished his goal of taking over Death's Head before getting smashed, but it's still there, that one-off feeling. It's amazingly well done and really very quickly and quietly adds depth to his character.