This week's picks!

Not a bad week for comics, you guys! I will admit to not being particularly thrilled for the comics that were coming out this week; it feels like it had been long enough since some of my most anticipated books (INFINITY, NEW AVENGERS, HAWKEYE, YOUNG AVENGERS, etc) had last come out that we'd have a fuller slate for this week but instead we got a pretty barebones week which nonetheless managed to pull out some really good books.

Captain America Living Legend 3

I've liked this series a great deal but this one still only barely managed to edge out MARVEL KNIGHTS: X-MEN and AVENGERS ARENA for one of the top spots this week. That's right, there were five books (at least) worthy of this list this week. Cap makes the cut here because I'm a sucker for book with strong character moments and choices and for books that thematically plant seeds then bring them to harvest successfully. In this case, as I've said so many times, Andy Diggle has made it clear that the background characters, while sometimes still being less important to the plot, are real characters, people who would probably go home to their families at night if they survived the day (they tend not to). The level of care Diggle puts into that has been great and it reminds me of Kelly Sue DeConnick's CAPTAIN MARVEL, which spread little lines of dialogue to establish more minor characters in Carol's life throughout the early books to be picked up on later, confirming that Carol had a real connection to these people and that we'd care if they were threatened. Diggle's done fine work with this mini and it's heading to an interesting place.

Deadpool 19

Another time DEADPOOL has made the cut after starting this series on my absolute most hated list. I don't take back what I said about early DEADPOOL issues in this volume but I'm extremely happy to see that it's soared over all of that. This arc has had a nice emotional bent to it for Deadpool which could probably have felt extremely heavy-handed and weak but managed to pretty regularly stay away from that. On top of it, Posehn and Duggan again brought out other major characters from the Marvel Universe and wrote them well. Even when I wasn't liking the series, I did like a lot of the characterizations for other Marvel staples. Shalvey and Bellaire really complete this book and make it something definitely worth picking up, a nicely written and characterized book with truly gorgeous and fitting art. There's a lot of really cool stuff in here both on the writing end and on the art end and it's a pretty complete book for it.

Savage Wolverine 11

Jock's writing debut with Marvel is a success as his SAVAGE WOLVERINE arc comes to a close and gives us a nice, complete-enough story to really sink our teeth into. I talked in my review about how it doesn't really clear up who specifically it is that brought Wolverine here, how they captured him, where this place is, and who is trying so desperately to recreate him, but, in truth, I'm not sure that any of that would have improved this book. It's a complete story and it works particularly well for a character like Wolverine, who is so used to not knowing huge swaths of his own history and who is also pretty used to people trying to experiment on him and recreate him. So we find Wolverine landing on this planet and just kind of making do with what he knows and what he can do. On top of all that and on top of the classic Wolverine violence and rage we see at the forefront here, we get to see the somewhat softer side of Wolverine, the side that almost instantly takes to Kouen and who understands what's going to happen to him and understands the decision Kouen makes to destroy his test-tube brothers before they can suffer through what he's going to suffer through even when Wolverine himself couldn't bring himself to do it. Gorgeous art, nice story, good characterization, can't ask for anything more. Oh, and I just realized I picked a book by Jock and a book by Andy Diggle in the same week. So exciting!


Coolest art decision

I absolutely love this little sequence. In DEADPOOL 19, Deadpool and Wolverine attempt to enter Butler's little fortress while Captain America goes to stand guard topside and cover them from the should-be-advancing North Korean army. We haven't seen Cap since the first page or so of the issue but then, about ten pages in, a clearly-nervous Butler bursts out asking where the North Korean army is and why it hasn't stopped Deadpool's team yet. Smash cut to Cap standing in front of the collected army (obviously not at full force but full enough), viewed from the binoculars of an NK soldier, standing perfectly upright, shield behind his back. Not only is it a pretty great Cap, looking very much like the soldier we know and love, he's standing, waiting for an entire army, with his shield behind his back. Awesome, you guys.