Thanos Rising 5, Deadpool 15, A+X 11

Thanos Rising 5
Aaron (w) and Bianchi w/ Pieruccini (a) and Svorcina (c)

The conclusion of the Thanos origin story begins as Thanos returns to Tian, now with a skeleton crew running his fleet (he's killed, you know, a bunch of them), to raze his home world. He has the crew stay inside after the initial wave of bombing, deciding to walk the grounds himself. The last man standing on Tian, Thanos' father, confronts him with a gun of his own design. Even with everything Thanos has done and how betrayed his father is, he can't bring himself to shoot his son. Thanos has no such issues, takes the gun, and shoots himself in the head with it. It doesn't work well and Thanos discards it, shooting his father in the stomach with his own weapons. The two have a chat about everything that's happened and, in the course of the chat, Thanos reveals that he's done it all for Death, who he still thinks is an actual person beside him. A'Lars is shocked by this and implores Thanos to check all the devices in his lab to tell him whether or not there's anyone else with them. Thanos keeps clinging to the idea of her but he begins to get a little concerned. Thanos shoots A'Lars again, still not enough to kill him, just enough that now A'Lars can watch the destruction Thanos spreads across the universe. It was enough, though, to sour him on the idea of Death as a physical person and he walks away from her, leaving her to follow him across the universe begging for him to acknowledge her.

I'm still thrown a bit by this series as a whole. Obviously the timing makes a whole bunch of sense with new readers coming from The Avengers and his likely subsequent appearances in other movies as well as his importance in the recently started Infinity event. This gives all those new readers a sense of Thanos as a villain and the lengths he's willing to go to and what drives him and the way his mind works and so on and so forth. While I liked the way this series ended (as opposed to the way I feared for a while it was going, where some tangible person was poking and prodding at the mighty Thanos to make him evil), I'm still unsure whether it's a series that needed to be done. In a business sense I'm sure it did so I'm willing to accept that answer. Comics are a business and you don't ever want to exclude new readers just as you don't want to upset old readers unduly. I think this series is a good example of that, giving a backstory for new readers while being inoffensive to old readers. Still, I've always seen Thanos as one of those "death for death's sake" kind of guys or the Iago trope of someone who seeds destruction because he's a sociopath. Less that, perhaps, than some others but in that vein. Giving him a driving backstory kind of takes that away (though you could make an argument to say this particular backstory doesn't because all of his motivation still comes from within). Oh well. Can't complain, solid business move and an acceptable creative move. Nicely handled, Marvel.

Deadpool 15
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Shalvey (a) and Bellaire (c)

Deadpool suspects that the people who have been harvesting his organs, led by the mysterious Butler, are connected to the Weapons Plus program, the same program that created Deadpool and Wolverine (as well as Fantomex, though I don't know, sadly, that we'll get him in this arc) and that was based around the Captain America model. He's not wrong, as we see Butler reprimanding one of the Weapon Plus scientists for rejecting Deadpool after they thought they had failed with him (they cured his cancer even if they didn't feel successful with his brain damage). Butler sees this is a huge oversight and wishes to test on him more, though he has his own ulterior motives in the form of someone he loves who's apparently in suspended animation or something similar. Anyway, Deadpool infiltrates Stark Tower to talk with Wolverine about the issues. Wolverine isn't much help and thinks Deadpool is being paranoid (well, not entirely, he thinks probably people are after Deadpool but he doesn't think it concerns Weapon Plus). Deadpool and Agent Preston go next to have a chat with Captain America at an AIM base he's bringing down. Cap follows Deadpool's logic in coming to see him but also doesn't quite believe him. He recommends Deadpool find someone to talk with about everything and come in out of the cold to find where he belongs in the world. Deadpool isn't assuaged and decides to put a mysterious device in his leg in case anything happens to him. Solid call since that night he's attacked by Butler and his cronies and taken in for testing (after a dream wherein he and Wolverine successfully defend from the Weapon Plus guys). Butler commands that Deadpool's legs and arms be removed as Deadpool's not going anywhere.

First and foremost I want to say that this is a legitimately good issue. I've had a lot of well-documented problems with this series in the past though I think it's steadily been improving bit by bit. I think the plot and the humor of the first arc was at its worst, slightly improved in the second arc, and slowly working its way up from there. One thing this team has done pretty well so far has been characterizing pre-existing heroes from the Universe and this arc is going to be a good test of that with super-established Wolverine and Cap joining the ranks. More than that, the plot seems sound and Deadpool is making fewer stupid jokes. Maybe he's talking less, I don't know. It does also make me feel like the supporting cast has been holding the book back (I haven't been a fan, exactly, of SHIELD agent Michael nor Ben Franklin nor really Preston, let alone the other bit-part characters that have come through). I've mostly liked the art in this series so far as well but I feel like we can't overlook this arc's art team of the awesome Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire. But really, it's a good issue with almost entirely good writing and ideas (there are still a couple of unnecessary and overkill jokes in there) and a solid plot to put us up against. I'll be thrilled if this series as a whole turns it around. As I've said, I don't like not liking books and I hate not having a good Deadpool book out there. Rooting for it here.

A+X 11
Thor and Magik: M. Benson (w) and Texeira (a) and Loughridge (c)
Spider-Man and Cyclops: Krueger (w) and Lim (a) and Sotomayor (c)

Another issue of A+X and I still don't know what this series is doing. The first story is Thor and Magik and it's a doozy. Thor, visiting the Asgard armory for just about the first time ends up inadvertently touching a weapon that sends him to Limbo (don't know why Asgard has that). Magik feels the disturbance and travels to Limbo to get Thor to stop messing around in her dimension. Thor isn't happy to see her and demands to bring her back to justice. He's also not really dying to give up on the fight with all the demons but eventually she just brings him back out to Earth anyway. Then she leaves. And that's the issue. Really weak story with pretty bad characterization. Very bare bones (Thor likes fighting, Magik runs Limbo, so on) and somewhat strange and off-character writing (Thor literally says "I tip my wings to his lady wife" at one point and what what does that even mean, Thor). Not much to be gained from this one.

Second story features Cyclops chasing a mutant body snatcher named Malice into the New York subway trains only to find himself confronted by Spider-Man, who sees Cyclops picking on average people (Malice doesn't just shape-shift, she takes over a body). When Spider-Man begins to hear Cyclops out, Malice tries to take him. Spider-Man is not so easily taken, though, as he's a bit familiar with people inhabiting other bodies. Eventually, Malice puts Cyclops in a position where he has to make body contact with her to save the life of the human she's attached to. She takes him over, which actually works according to Spidey's plan. He's able to take down Cyclops and restrain him enough to pull Malice out of Cyclops (Doc Ock has his ways to pull a mind out of a body). The two chat back in Spidey's lab for a minute wherein Spidey tells Cyclops it could help him to use the villain identity as it suits him. It's a fair sight better than the first story as we actually get some decent characterization here both between Cyclops being the hero and still being bewildered to find himself such a villain and between Spidey as Doc Ock still having trouble dealing with insults to Doc Ock and being as smart as he is. Better stuff, still a bit of a silly series. I swear some day it will end.