Cataclysm - Ultimates' Last Stand 5, Guardians of the Galaxy 12

Cataclysm - Ultimates' Last Stand 5
Bendis (w) and Bagley and Hennessy (a) and Keith (c)

Kitty Pryde is prepped and ready to go in the fight against Galactus. She grows to giant size and goes after Galactus, providing the rest of the Ultimates with the distraction they need. Reed Richards launches a little ship towards Galactus and, as the world-eater begins to retaliate against Kitty, it flies behind him and opens a portal to the Negative Zone. Galactus begins to be pulled in, along with Kitty, as Reed preps to shut the portal. Spider-Man and Sue Storm race to catch up to and save Kitty despite the fact that, as Reed puts it, she knew her chances of survival. The pair of them catch up to Kitty and start trying to pull her back but the pull of the Negative Zone is strong. Galactus is going in first but it won't be long before it pulls the whole city in piece by piece as Galactus struggles against it. Fortunately, the deus ex machina comes in the form of actual deus Thor, who flies straight at Galactus with enough power to push him into the portal. With Spider-Man, Sue, and Kitty still fighting the pull, Reed goes to shut the portal down. Tony stops him for a moment, begging him to give Thor a chance to come out of it, but ultimately relents and Reed closes it down. With the threat gone and the city left to rebuild, Storm finds Captain America's shield in the wreckage, but with no sign of a body.

So this is it for Cataclysm after what feels like a really long time. It's a solid issue and the end of a pretty good event as a whole (though, and this isn't anybody's fault, it seems as if this solution is exactly the same as the solution at the end of the video game Lego: Marvel Superheroes, an immensely frustrating game only because of how broken it is but ultimately fun - this is my review of it, tucked away inside of a review of a comic. Maybe I'll really review it at some point. LOOK, whatever). Given that this is the Ultimate Universe, it's very surprising how few casualties there were in Galactus' would-be world-ending attack. Granted, Galactus is very much, more than anyone else in probably any universe, an all-or-nothing sort of villain, but I think we only really saw the death of Vision and maybe Punisher? Everyone else survived, after a manner of speaking, though the fate of Captain America is still up in the air (I'm going to go ahead and guess that if they didn't show a body this issue they're never going to, not until he's shown to still be alive) and Thor is trapped in the Negative Zone. Neat stuff with a good amount of potential as the Ultimate Universe does indeed survive and continue.

Guardians of the Galaxy 12
Bendis (w) and Pichelli, S. Immonen, and von Grawbadger (a) and Ponsor (c)

The Guardians and all-new X-Men have met up with the Starjammers, shocking a young Cyclops to his core as he comes across his father for the first time since he saw their plane blown up. Of course, for Corsair this isn't the first time he's seen one of his sons since but it's the first time he's seen him so young. All of this is covered and Scott has a lot to deal with as he runs into some new emotional ground and has to work his way through it with X-23, who comes to give him a hug. They've reached the Shi'ar throne world and found their defenses high as a whole ton of Shi'ar have gathered at the planet. Coming soon, too, will be J-Son, head of the Spartax empire and father of Peter Quill as he's received word that, despite his previous announcement to all the planets and races out there, the Shi'ar have meddled with Earth and the Guardians are heading for them. Meanwhile, Gladiator believes that the X-Men, though they may even be aware of Jean Grey's disappearance, won't get there before a decision is reached about Jean's fate. She's not helping her case as she continues to lash out and yell about her innocence as the trial commences.

There are...interesting parts to this storyline. On the one hand, it feels like trying to do too much, throwing the Starjammers into this story after years on the outskirts of the Marvel Universe and really only to show young Scott his father again. Sure they may play a bigger role but it feels like such a weird time to throw them in except as a plot device. By the same token, sending the Spartax there to further J-Son's demands that Earth be left alone makes sense to the story at large but it may also be one too many moving parts. Finally, I still don't particularly care for the driving plot behind this story. Putting aside my many complaints about the O5 X-Men being in the present, I just can't bring myself to care about another story right now where someone is charged with possible crimes from their future. It's been done a lot and it can be done really, really well and it's been done a lot recently and sometimes pretty well. Here, though, it's not as compelling and it's weirdly timed, coming right off of BATTLE OF THE ATOM, which dealt very much with the same sort of ideas, AGE OF ULTRON, which dealt very much with the same sort of ideas, and INFINITY, which dealt with Gladiator and the Shi'ar finding immense respect for Earth and its people. Makes me not love this event as a whole, though there are parts that may work in the end. Hopefully the parts are enough to justify the sum.

Wolverine 2, Wolverine and the X-Men 42, Origin II 3

Wolverine 2
Cornell (w) and Stegman and Morales (a) and Curiel (c)

As you may have guessed from the intentionally deceptive and big ending of last issue, Wolverine, it seems, has not actually gone full evil. Yes he killed that guy but he killed him only because he was protecting his new teammates and doesn't like that, because of his lost healing factor and reluctance to straight murder people, he's dragging the team down somewhat. His teammates and their boss Offer continue to offer few hints about whether they're good, bad, or in-between but given the fact Wolverine's apparently not gone crazy it's probably a safe bet that they're closer to good than bad. Still, the question remains, how did he get here? Well it started with a meeting with Spider-Man. In the midst of Goblin Nation, Wolverine decided that Goblin must have some sort of deal with Sabretooth to divvy up the city and so he tracks down Spidey hoping that he's heard something. Spider-Man berates him but eventually the two have a chance to talk (after each has saved the other) and Spider-Man asks what he plans to do to Sabretooth while Wolverine asks if the new tone of Spider-Man seems to be working for him. Spidey tells Wolverine that he shouldn't go for Sabretooth and says that his new way may be more brutal but it's also more effective and the issue ends with Spider-Man telling Wolverine that it's easy to change and still be the same person without falling into self-hate and self-doubt before throwing him off the building and saying "don't fall."

There's a kind of unwritten rule at Marvel that says when a book is flailing or just on the bubble of doing well, throw Spider-Man or Wolverine on the cover and into the issue, even if it's just for the smallest of guest spots. It's simple logic to follow: Spider-Man and Wolverine sell books and they're characters people know and can make them feel comfortable jumping into a book they don't know as well. So what, then, does it mean when Spider-Man makes an appearance on the cover of a Wolverine book? Unwarranted and unwanted speculation aside, it makes some sense to put these two together. Wolverine and Spidey have a long history together as poster-boys for the Marvel Universe and typically they're at odds with one another for the other's methods. Here the roles are reversed somewhat, a chance Cornell wasn't going to pass up and, once that speculation is put aside, one that would have been silly to pass up. Now Wolverine doesn't want to kill, afraid he'll fall into bad patterns, and Spider-Man isn't afraid to kill, preferring to end threats longterm. As a result, though it's still hard not to feel as if the superstar cameo isn't a little bit forced even with all of the logic at my disposal, the Spider-Man/Wolverine parts are the strongest in the issue and it's clear Cornell enjoyed writing Spider-Man as much as Stegman enjoyed drawing him again (hard not to put Spider-Man in an issue when you have Stegman as the new artist too). The parts with Wolverine's new team still remain a mystery, but not like, in the way a mystery is a good thing, in the way that I still have yet to care that they're not explaining anything. Ah well, third time's the charm.

Wolverine and the X-Men 42
Aaron (w) and N. Bradshaw, Larraz, R. Perez, Crystal, S. Sanders, Alves, Townsend, and Bachalo (a) and Milla and Loughridge (c)

It's graduation day at the Jean Grey School and everyone's excited for the future except Quentin Quire, who is forced to look inward and ask what's happened to him. He came to the X-Men as a troublemaker and a nuisance (truthfully, those words are too small for how he came to the X-Men with Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely) and now he's set to graduate from the school after becoming class president and one of the most popular students and not even burning down the school once. On top of that, family and friends come from all over to support the new graduates and he doesn't have anyone. Until Captain America shows up. That's right, Cap cares about Quentin to some extent, just like Wolverine cares about Quentin to some extent. SPEAKING OF WOLVERINE, all of the graduation festivities are intercut with a scene from the future, when all of these graduates have gone on to their new lives well down the road, with many joining the X-Men, some elsewhere among the heroverse. Wolverine is now shutting down the Jean Grey School as apparently there is no more interest in it. X-Man Idie has come to keep Wolverine company but has to leave partway through to help the X-Men leaving Wolverine alone until who else but Quentin Quire, the new Phoenix (as we saw in BATTLE OF THE ATOM), arrives. The two talk with Wolverine revealing that he's going to have to go elsewhere before Quentin dumps off a bunch of new students from the Negative Zone School, to Wolverine's annoyance and delight. Back in the present, it's a new day at the Jean Grey School and Wolverine went a whole day without having to pop his claws.

It's not an awful ending to the book here, as this is another one of those series that's going to end and restart quickly with Jason Latour and Mahmud Asrar at the helm. It is, perhaps, a fitting ending as it focuses so heavily on Wolverine and Quentin Quire and their relationship, as the book did throughout its run. There were always other students at the school (I've seen lots of people complaining about the lack of YOUNG X-MEN, like Blindfold, Dust, Rockslide, and Anole, throughout this series and I can't say I blame them, if only because they're clearly a big part of the school but they're almost never referenced; even here, as they graduate, Anole's name gets called along with Pixie's and I don't think we've ever heard them speak in this series set at the Jean Grey School) but the focus was always on this newer batch of students, with Quentin tossed in from the old days, and particularly on Quentin. That makes some sense as Wolverine as a headmaster is something everyone wanted to see and who needs headmastering more than Quentin Quire. So the ending is a fitting one here but still one that focuses itself very narrowly on Quentin and Wolverine. Of course, some of the other storylines wrapped even before this, like Broo regaining his mind and Idie regaining her soul for Broo, and so forth, but it does feel weird, after a 30-page conclusion issue, to really only come away with things to say about two characters.

Origin II 3
Gillen (w) and Adam Kubert (a) and F. Martin (c)

Logan is locked away in a cage, shackled to a machine that will shock him until he does what his new owners want him to do, at a circus, exploited for his beastly look and the claws that pop out of his hands. Of course, Clara has a soft spot for him and wants him to talk to her and the others, sure that they'll let him go if he'll only prove himself to be a man and not an animal. Clara has some experience with this as the current girlfriend of Sabretooth and gets a little too close to Logan for Sabretooth's liking. Sabretooth takes an immediate dislike to Logan but still vows to help Clara after Sinister, having already failed to legally purchase Logan from Hugo the circus owner, takes him for testing and experimentation right out from under the circus. Sabretooth tracks Logan to Sinister's lab and they watch from outside while Sinister experiments and shows Logan that he's created his legion of men by taking people who want to die anyway and granting them that death with a concoction that essentially kills them but moreover makes them not feel pain of being human, making them, as he puts it, übermensch. When he leaves, Sabretooth and Clara break into the lab and go to Logan. He first tells them to run but, with Clara's allowance, instead asks for help and the three of them escape together.

I talked last time about how ORIGIN II comes at, perhaps, a bad time simply by its own concept. To reiterate (or you could just click that link, whatever, I'm not the boss of you), ORIGIN II is coming at a time where we know so much about Wolverine's past and he knows a lot more about his past and so a new story about his origin maybe doesn't hold as much weight with us. I still think that is a flaw in the design but it's a flaw that's made very manageable by Kieron Gillen and Adam Kubert, who are both doing great work on the series, making it a series worth reading despite the thought that maybe it's not really breaking ground we needed broken. Of course, it is the first time that Wolverine meets Sabretooth and deals with Sinister so there's still plenty here to deal with and to learn. Kubert's art is really matching the tone of Gillen's writing and, for as much as I like the way he's drawing Wolverine and the landscapes and what not, I think his Sabretooth is really shining. Instead of the giant, lumbering figure that we see so often as Wolverine's rival, Sabretooth is lean and tall, still the antithesis to Wolverine but a polar opposite to Wolverine's short and bulky. The most recent we've seen Sabretooth in comics (though there's been an influx of him lately) was in Cornell's WOLVERINE and he appeared there as almost a Kingpin like figure, larger than life and, weirdly, wearing a suit. I kinda hated that design as it seemed to really take away from the Sabretooth mythos. Sure it's showing him in a different light, maybe even in the light in which Wolverine is trying to be seen, but it's still a huge change to the character after all that. This one looks different than most of the Sabretooths we've seen but still retains a more animal and feral look, something that can turn from human to animal in a flash. Some really good stuff out of this book that, by all rights, shouldn't be that good.

Superior Spider-Man 28, Indestructible Hulk 19

Superior Spider-Man 28
Slott (w) and Camuncoli and Dell (a) and Fabela (c)

Spider-Island has been bombed and Spider-Man takes what equipment he can with Robot and flees, leaving his Spiderlings to try to fight off the Goblins. Spidey heads to Parker Industries to try to concoct a plan, where he's set upon by both Sajani, mad that he's been gone for so long, and Wraith, who believes he may have a hand in Carlie's disappearance. Speaking of Carlie, she joins all of them in her new Goblin costume and deformations and chases Peter and Sajani through the building. Eventually Peter pushes Sajani into a separate room, assuring her that Monster will follow him, which she does, and it gives Carlie a chance to talk to Peter without spectators. She needs Doc Ock to fix her brain in only the way he can so that she can be saved and so she can tell him of what's coming next. Meanwhile, MJ has been gathering up friends and family of Peter's, having realized it's Goblin attacking the city and Spider-Man, to keep them safe. Unfortunately, she misses Anna Maria and Lily Hollister, the Goblin known as Menace, gets to her first.

Plenty happening as GOBLIN NATION continues. Slott's created a pretty good tone, and one that he's usually pretty good at maintaining and controlling, a tone of war and destruction. Spider-Man has the best-known and biggest supporting cast of any of the Marvel heroes so when a war is waged on Peter Parker, there are a lot of moving parts. On top of that, Spider-Man never has just one issue to deal with so, on top of Goblin's attack, J. Jonah Jameson has launched "Goblin Slayers" into the city, though MJ recognizes them as Spider Slayers. Slott's always been good at threading multiple storylines and multiple antagonists through a story and it making the story read pretty quickly in the midst of it all. Of course, he tends to have more words per issue than some of the best at it (looking at you, Kirkman) so the over-explanation can sometimes slow one of these fast-paced, high-energy issues down, but he always manages to tell a compelling story and build the characters up through it. Even with three or four concurrent plotlines all led by different characters, Slott's going to make sure we see enough of everyone to get the full feel for it. Should continue to be a good event moving forward.

Indestructible Hulk 19
Waid (w) and Raapack, J. Bennett, R. Jose and Grummett w/ Kesel and Hennessy (a) and Staples (c)

Banner has been thrown out of a moving jet by the newly Terrigenesis'd Randall Jessup, whose new form seems to feed on anger, making it stronger and calming down the other person. Like most Inhuman powers, it's a reflection on the person, as Jessup was always the one to try to stop fights and smooth situations. Unfortunately now, it means that Banner is falling from the plane and can't Hulk out. He resorts to breaking his own finger to surge Hulk back out. He leaps into the air to battle Jessup's new form while his other assistants parachute out of the plane. Hulk realizes that the monster's eyes are the key to his absorption and keeps Jessup from looking at him. Able at last to keep his anger, he defeats the monster and reverts Jessup back to human form. They try to find a cure for him only to find, right as Banner thinks he's done it, Jessup being kidnapped away by one of the numerous evil organizations out there intent on experimenting on new Inhumans. Hulk tries to stop the kidnappers but fails, making it look like, to all Banner's assistants, Hulk killed Jessup or something.

One of the cool things about the Inhuman mutations, as it's been explained during this REALLY prolonged event, is that they tend to reflect the person as much as they're just a cool power. Thanos' son Thane held the power of life and death (well, really death and worse death), the new Inhuman in IRON MAN is a giant jerk, and now Jessup absorbs anger. It's a particularly neat idea because that mutation does reflect Jessup but it also acts as a perfect foil to Hulk. This is pointed out fairly often in the issue, even going so far as to compare the fact that Jessup was at the bomb site when Banner's Terrigen bomb went off to Hulk's origin. When I first realized what Jessup's monster form was, it felt very much like it could have been a situation where it was just a writer saying "this is a cool foil to Hulk and I can do anything so here he is!" There's a new Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon coming out (guys, shut up, I'm pretty well-connected) and the teaser for it shows a scene where Robotnik has created a robot named "Burn-Bot" that Sonic quickly figures out doesn't actually burn anything and blames Robotnik for "false advertising." It's played as a laugh moment, a moment where you're siding with the cool and funny Sonic for pointing this out but behind it, you know the writers named it Burn-Bot just to have that joke and it's not a worthwhile joke to introduce such a stupid concept. I should really get back to talking about Hulk but ANOTHER EXAMPLE is something comedian Kumail Nanjiani brought up about Casino Royale. The stakes at the poker game aren't as high for the audience because it's writers writing a poker game so the incredible fact that Le Chiffre has four of a kind but is beaten by Bond's royal flush isn't as incredible. ANYWAY, this monster could have been that sort of situation but instead, thanks to Inhuman/Marvel canon, Jessup's transformation makes sense and acts as a perfect foil to Hulk. Pretty cool stuff, you guys.

Marvel cancels AVENGERS AI, readies launch of ROCKET RACCOON

Couple of big news pieces this week, as, it seems, is true any week with new month solicits. First up:

Avengers AI cancelled after issue 12

Sam Humphries has made it known on his Tumblr that AVENGERS AI will be ending with issue 12. Along with the picture at left, he promised that the last three issues will be the wildest yet and thanked Marvel for giving him such a long leash, series artist André Araújo for his work on the series, and the fans for their support and love. Can't say I'm particularly surprised by this, as I've kind of been expecting this in many of my AVENGERS AI reviews, but it is nonetheless a little sad that the series wasn't able to really find its niche or its footing until it was too late (if it has or indeed will at all). This isn't a favorite series of mine by any stretch but there are bits and pieces here that made the story worth telling. Humphries fans shouldn't cry just yet though, even after the cancellation of UNCANNY X-FORCE and AVENGERS AI, as Humphries also promised that he had lots more coming from Marvel this year.

Marvel announces new Rocket Raccoon ongoing written and drawn by Skottie Young

Readers of this blog will probably know that I rather adore Skottie Young. I think his art is incredible, I think his sense of humor is strong, and his writing is solid (mostly his art is incredible, that's the biggest and best known aspect of Skottie). So, while I'm surprised and maybe a little skeptical about an ongoing series starring the always-strange Rocket Raccoon, I think that Marvel couldn't have picked a better creative lead for it. Just look at that art at left. Skottie Young is an immense talent and this sort of book could be the sort of book that is exactly up his alley. What's really intriguing, though, is the idea that maybe he'll get to draw a baby variant for his own book. That'd be real cool. Anyway, more Skottie Young art in the world is never a bad thing and it's Young's first shot at an ongoing in the greater Marvel Universe (he previously had been the artist behind Marvel's OZ books, but those don't really play in as much as you might think). ROCKET RACCOON is set to launch in July.

Hawkeye 15, Fantastic Four 1

Hawkeye 15
Fraction (w) and Aja (a) and Hollingsworth (c)

The Barton boys are trying to piece together what the tracksuit draculas are up to with the help from Team Clint's Exes. Mockingbird drops by to tell Clint that she's followed the records of the strip club he busted up through several shell companies and eventually to its own, Ivan Banionis, the man Clint had deported before buying the building. She also has figured out that he and his companies own every building for three blocks except Hawkeye's, making him a big ol' target for them. Next up is Black Widow, who has dug up 18 murders in the tri-state area that seem to be a result of the tracksuits and their hitman, who Natasha warns Clint is practically a ghost, someone who can sign his work as loudly as he wants because no one knows anything about him. Meanwhile, a backroom meeting commences as the shady people above the tracksuits discuss the plans for the land, a three block by three block premiere luxury shopping center that would replace the medium and low income housing currently in the area. The only hold-up is Clint's building which the Clown, out of disguise (or into it, I suppose), says is still legally owned with the city by Ivan Banionis and that Clint's name appears as "interim superintendent and owner," a title the Clown doesn't think is terribly legal. He meets with the tracksuits next to tell them that Clint's stay there isn't exactly legal, which means that he can't call the cops on them so they don't really have to worry about the little games they've been playing; instead, they can go for a full attack. Clint and Barney beat up a bunch of the tracksuits in a van on the street but are rushed back inside when they hear Simone screaming. They run to her apartment and take out a few more tracksuits before Spider-Woman meets up with them in their apartment to tell Clint that he can't just "buy" the building, that things aren't that easy. Barney asks how the tracksuits got in and Clint realizes it must have been the roof and that they could still be inside. Clint runs downstairs and checks outside but the van is gone. As he comes back in, the Clown stabs him in the head with his own arrow and shoots an oncoming Barney in the gut before leaving both Barton boys on the ground.

Here's the thing about HAWKEYE that's been so rewarding for readers: that summary. Not, like, I did a really good job with it or anything like that (I'm fishing for compliments here, dear reader, take a hint, okay?), but the fact that it's so packed with things that happened. Every part of the issue was important and I STILL didn't cover everything in the book. Despite how jam-packed it is, the comic reads really well. It moves quickly, it keeps you exactly the right amount off-balance to keep you reading and entertained but not overly confused or lost, it has compelling characters with compelling relationships, and it's ultimately about the failures of Hawkeye more than the successes. Granted, it's a slightly different feel when Kate is our star because, simply put, Kate succeeds more. Hawkeye is a hero with the Avengers, he's someone who always shows up, usually does his part (which is sometimes actually helpful), and goes home. At home, though, he's a different person, trying to do his best with just about no sense of the actual world. This book was created by someone who understood Clint's life, who saw the bigger picture of Clint Barton. He was an orphan, he became a circus act, and he moved into a life of crime before being plucked from it and becoming an Avenger, which he's been ever since. That didn't leave a lot of time for studying or for understanding the way the real world worked, which is why Clint is where he is now. It's all summed up in an exchange with Jess where he says that he's just trying to do the right thing, that what the tracksuits were doing wasn't right and he wanted to fix it. When she tells him it's not that easy, he mutters "yeah, but it should be." Perfect Clint, perfect book, another good issue. AND GUYS, this analysis didn't even mention the fact that the Barton boys are seriously injured by issue's end.

Fantastic Four 1
J. Robinson (w) and Kirk and Kesel (a) and Aburtov (c)

The Fantastic Four are back, donning new red costumes and out to save the city again. The issue is framed by a letter from Sue to her kids which is very much the style of "how did things go wrong?" sort of storytelling, where we know something has happened to break this family up but we have to build our way there. She says that Reed is now a broken man, a shell of himself who she sometimes hates for everything that's happened, that Ben is in jail after Reed's testimony, and that Johnny is a wild card, a loose cannon, etc. BUT HOW? Well it apparently starts with them fighting Fin Fang Foom in downtown New York, which causes Reed to ask why he suddenly seems out of control, no longer the plotting and planning foe of theirs that he's used to. They defeat him pretty quickly and go their separate ways, with Reed and Sue watching over the house and the FF, missing Valeria who went to stay in Latveria after some anger at her parents, Ben going to see on-again-off-again girlfriend Alicia Masters, and Johnny going to see his rock-star manager. All seems to be back on track for the F4 until, late at night, some monsters burst out of Reed's lab and into New York.

James Robinson has been in comics for a couple of decades now but I'm only just getting around to hearing about him. He's spent much of his time over at DC with long stints with characters like Superman and Starman but, as you may have guessed, I don't have a whole lot of history with DC. Pretty much, I know Batman and even that is at a far lesser level than I know about the more minor Marvel characters. Robinson's written things for Marvel before but I can't safely say that I've read it (he did a few issues of HEROES REBORN: CAPTAIN AMERICA and I'd hazard a guess to say I've read them, as I've read some HEROES REBORN and I love Captain America, but I can't recall anything about them so here we are). Now he's the writer of the ongoing ALL-NEW INVADERS and FANTASTIC FOUR. This long intro to James Robinson is essentially just my way of talking for a while before I have to say that I'm getting a similar vibe out of both of these books and that vibe is the same sort of vibe, albeit less egregious, I get from Robinson's fellow countryman Paul Cornell, he of WOLVERINE. I have less patience with Cornell after the last WOLVERINE series because it just flat-out bored me, which Robinson has not yet done with either of these two books. However, there is a robotic kind of feeling to the writing that kind of shows there are characters here but makes it feel like, even this early into both series, we're not going to get anything new from these characters. New stories, new situations, sure, but the characters themselves seem like such boilerplate versions of the characters we already know. That said, we are EXTREMELY early into both FANTASTIC FOUR and ALL-NEW INVADERS so I'd be delighted and unsurprised if they turned me around (I'd also be surprised if I ever got to the point with these books that I have with WOLVERINE) and this may be nothing more than an incorrect gut feeling but it's worth noting that it's certainly what my gut is telling me right now.

Avengers Assemble 24, Mighty Avengers 7

Avengers Assemble 24
DeConnick and W. Ellis (w) and Buffagni (a) and Redmond (c)

Anya, detached from Wolverine after a rather harrowing day with him, returns to Avengers Tower to try to figure out the next step. She gets the help of Tony Stark in this next phase (and gets lectured about the studying and preparation that comes with being a superhero) and they trace Covington to a couple of different smaller AIM hideouts in her strike on AIM. In the process, they manage to recover Anya's teacher, the one whose disappearance kicked off this whole event, and bring him to the hospital. They also realize that his new Inhuman trait has to do with being invisible to machines (Iron Man can't see him through his armor) and determine that Covington has begun to simulate this trait and is using it in her attack on AIM. Now, as she moves to make a big strike, Anya meets with Cap, finally, and he calls the rest of the Avengers in to ready them to move against Covington.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE is ending soon, cancelled likely because of sales and because its successor, AVENGERS WORLD, is already on bookshelves and in long boxes, but this arc is just one of the reasons that's a pretty sad cancellation. I've long said that AVENGERS is the "oh god, you're in pretty deep" Avengers title, with Hickman's intense, very rigidly plotted and often confusing (though good) writing and stories where AVENGERS ASSEMBLE is more the starter-Avengers book or, barring that because it sounds condescending, the more fun-Avengers book. However, this arc is playing at a bigger game. It's showing us Anya, Spider-Girl, sure, but it's going deeper and showing us the roots of these superheroes. It's showing us the way these individual heroes act and move and think and plot and avenge on their own and it's giving us their individual styles (while explicitly giving it to the young hero Anya) before rejoining them all to show the Avengers in action. In a nutshell, it is the heart and soul of an Avengers team, it is the "Earth's Mightiest Super-Heroes team up to fight the foes that no one of them could fight alone" mentality hard at work, and it is paying off. It's going to be sad to see this one go for a lot of different reasons but this arc is one of those arcs that is certainly fun to read, worth reading while it's happening, but really a deeper and more profound arc to look back on afterwards, or even during. Really good stuff and really clearly a great Avengers book.

Mighty Avengers 7
Ewing (w) and Schiti (a) and D'Armata (c)

Ava has learned, intercepting Falcon's call to Cage, that Gideon Mace is out on the streets somewhere, inexplicably freed from prison as a hero to anti-cape Americans who gained particular prominence with the movement during Civil War (though I don't believe he had a part in it, this issue retcons the idea that people, at the height of hating superheroes, took to this man). Now Ava's out to find and kill Mace while her Mighty Avengers brethren are out to stop her from becoming a murderer and inciting a war with Mace's supporters, who have formed the "American Policy Research Initiative," an organization that has set out to essentially buy politicians and form its own militias to counteract laws with which it doesn't agree. It's a delicate process for the Mighty Avengers to try to remove Mace from the situation without getting him killed or inciting some sort of war with these guys made more difficult when Ava turns her body over to the Tiger God to allow him to hunt and run free on Mace, making her loads more powerful and more ruthless, less willing to listen to reason. She makes her way to the APRI and attacks, which She-Hulk claims is grounds enough for the APRI to sue them, but they manage to subdue her with a little subterfuge and some well-placed hits. It's not over so quickly for the Avengers, though, as Mace calls the police on them and immediately makes it all look like an attack on him and his group in front of news organizations and the cops and everyone.

The power of one good issue or one good arc cannot be overstated. I was very luke(cage)warm on this book to start because it immediately got off to the sort of "silly captions and silly moments mask a serious book" stuff I tend to take umbrage with for some reason or another (I mostly just hate incongruous tones; there are ways to add humor or levity to serious matters without making it so blatantly obvious, that's one of the keys to writing). It carried on for about five issues with me not really getting anything else out of the book but last issue saw a big shift for me. Things started to actually happen and the tone really started to solidify a little bit better. This issue continues that trend (although it still does the slightly irritating caption-humor I have such a, probably irrational, distaste for) and keeps the book pretty focused, giving it an enemy and putting it into political and physical turmoil along with really helping to establish our heroes. Pretty good stuff out of this one and I can only hope that it continues this way (like the slightly slower turnaround in the DEADPOOL series after an unbelievably hated first arc).

Uncanny Avengers 17, Secret Avengers 16

Uncanny Avengers 17
Remender (w) and McNiven and Leisten (a) and L. Martin w/ Ponsor, Milla, and Molinar (c)

With Exitar ready to move, the Avengers and other heroes on Earth (and even some of the villains) work together to try to maintain a forcefield that would hopefully prevent Exitar from destroying the planet. They buy time for Thor to reason with or kill Exitar, whichever works, or for Wasp to destroy the tachyon dam preventing backup from all over time to arrive. For Thor to succeed, he has to defeat Eimin and take back Jarnbjorn. For Wasp to succeed, she needs to kill Grim Reaper, the last remaining Horseman of Apocalypse. Neither is able to do it in time and, despite a valiant fight and the unity of the world below, Exitar strikes, ending the world almost immediately. Thor escapes through a portal to Asgard-space where he grieves and talks to Odin, who believes that Earth brought this on itself with its in-fighting and inability to unify. This Ragnarok is their own.

I want to get this out of the way up front: I like this issue. I don't love it, I'm not ambivalent on it, I like it. There are a lot of good beats, the fighting is well-done, and it moves pretty well. There's a nice little parallel that I really liked too when Eimin tells Thor that the Earth will be destroyed despite the loss of her brother because, for as much as she loved Uriel, she hates Kang more, which is very similar to the time really early on in the Avengers' existence when Kang, having won a one-time prize of life or death for anyone he chose after defeating the Grandmaster with the help of the Avengers, chose to have the Avengers killed rather than saving his dying love Ravonna. Maybe Eimin was a little too similar to Kang for the Avengers' liking. I've also really liked this series as a whole. I think it's done a really great job being self-contained and still telling a gripping story that feels big enough to be an event without all the crossovers and the hype. However, the problem of being a book in a huge universe like this is that you know the Earth can't really be destroyed, you know that Captain America isn't really dead, along with almost the entirety of the superhero community minus mutants. The journey, then, is what's important. I've heard the TV show Luther referred to as a "how-dun-it" rather than your typical detective "who-dun-it" and it's similar to what's happening here. You know, likely, most of the broad strokes of what's going to happen, in the same way I think we can all pretty safely suspect that Planet X, the new home of the mutants which will finally be seen next issue, isn't actually going to end with all mutants off-planet. Earth probably won't be destroyed, all the heroes of the Earth probably aren't dead, and this probably isn't really Ragnarok (though the release of this issue comes at an appropriate time, I tell you what), but we're in this to figure out how we get to the next point. Because of that, I can only "like" this issue, not love it. We know, for all the drama and all the heartbreak this should cause, it's too big to be real because it's part of a full, huge, and very profitable universe. As such, in literary terms, this is only an inciting incident posing as a climax to get us to our actual climax. The problem, of course, is that everyone knows.

Secret Avengers 16
Spencer and Kot (w) and L. Ross (a) and M. Wilson (c)

Mockingbird is still alive and she tracks down Forson in the AIM labs. Forson, still reeling from how quickly everything has gone wrong here, loses the fight to Mockingbird and loses any control over her he may have had while he hopes that her mind will settle on the personality she truly wants it to be, the AIM personality. Meanwhile, Hill's work with MODOK has helped eradicate AIM from SHIELD and they're hammering out the details of his arrangement with SHIELD. She goes to meet with the Secret Avengers members and accepts Hawkeye and Iron Patriot backing out of the team but not before she uses the code word to erase all memory of this job. Finally, Mockingbird, back to herself again all except for a slight headache and healing stab wound, teams with loose ends unsuccessfully wrapped up Winter Soldier and Quake and the three of them decide that they're free agents.

I've had my complaints about this series and this very week in my pre-game I said that it was a book that often lacked focus and got distracted by its own meandering plot, all while choosing it to be on the list in the hopes that it would have some meaningful wrap-up or something that tied everything together neatly, if not expertly. It didn't seem to do either. It feels, like this entire last arc, very much like a book that was cancelled before the writers were ready and thus had to be rushed out without properly closing a lot of doors. Of course, it's also seeing a reboot in the coming months so it's not exactly like it was a big cancellation deal (this re-launch strikes me as weirdest of the entire Marvel relaunch bunch. DAREDEVIL and CAPTAIN MARVEL, for example, both got swept under a little as they both released before Marvel NOW! so a relaunch makes some sense and there was some major status quo change to justify the new starting-on point). So instead, it's just a book that never really found a footing and that ended in one of the weaker endings I've seen for a book, even one that's set to turnaround pretty quickly. Guys, this is a book that had a surprise appearance by Winter Soldier, a character I adore, and I found his part jarring and incomprehensible. That's what this book is like.

Comics this week

Plenty of 'em out there. This is one of those weeks where I have to believe there's something for everyone because I'm excited about plenty of books, I'm dreading plenty of books, and I'm hitting just about everywhere in the middle on plenty of books. As is the aim of this weekly pre-game post, though, let's hit the ones I'm excited about instead of the others.

Fantastic Four 1
Another Wednesday, another number one. This FANTASTIC FOUR comes to us from James Robinson and Leonard Kirk, both of whom have plenty of history in comics behind them and both of whom are apparently dedicated to uprooting the F4 and shaking things up a bit. This new series has promised to find all sorts of twists and turns for the F4 (including new red costumes). Will it be enough to make them just a tad less boring? We'll all have to see, starting this week in FANTASTIC FOUR 1.

Hawkeye 15
The never not-great HAWKEYE returns as we take a trip back in time from last outing's spectacular issue 16 to issue 15, the book time forgot. Guys, look, don't be confused by this, as far as I know Clint and Barney aren't going back in time (though I'm sure I'll mention it in my full review if they do) I'm just saying that 16 came out before 15 and, look, it's not that great a joke anyway and I wish you guys wouldn't look this deep into it, okay? ANYWAY, back to Clint and Barney and all the drama of New York and the tracksuit Draculas and the Clown! Should be fun to see what's going on with the original Hawkeye after a few months, albeit delightful ones, with Katey-Kate.

Secret Avengers 16
This one very nearly didn't make this list. It's the final issue of this volume of SECRET AVENGERS before it gets an immediate reboot which means it likely warrants some attention here as there could be big changes or big questions answered (largely about what's happening with Mockingbird). Still, though, this has been a book that's often seemed very muddled and very unfocused, one that I was so very excited about at its launch if just for the team it promised to assemble before delving into a story of mind control and mind wipes and basically just being a rather unimpressive black ops team in a Marvel Universe where there are already several far better examples of black ops teams. I guess we'll see if there are any differences between this volume and the next.

Thunderbolts 22
One of the most consistently fun books over at Marvel will likely have its own increased action and drama as Elektra and Punisher, the two least powered people on the T-Bolts, square off against Mercy, the unbelievably powerful killing machine while the rest of the team has to try to kill Guido to live up to their new contract with Mephisto, their actual deal with the devil. Plus, what was Deadpool's addendum to the contract? It would just be nice to know, you know?

Uncanny Avengers 17
Remender's long-game continues as I don't even really know what to say about this issue. There are so many things going on right now that 17 could focus on any number of plots or characters and I'd STILL deem it entertaining. Will we see what's happening with the mutants on the arc? Will we discover if anyone actually lived, as comic book characters are so wont to do, after the events of UA 14? Will we focus on Thor squaring off against Exitar and/or a Jarnbjorn wielding Eimin? Will we see Wasp fighting...whoever it was she was fighting last time? I want to say Grim Reaper? LOOK, there are plenty of things happening, is what I'm saying. Should be fun. Or tense. Likely very tense.

This weeks picks

Kind of a slow week this week. Not a lot of standouts and not many that'll really stick with me but surely enough to fill this list out, right? Right?

Daredevil 36

It's a little hard to add too much weight to this finale as the book will pick up again next month with the same creative team. Fortunately, that's not really why it stands out this week. The fight and the court case are all good, particularly as Matt realizes just why he's protected his identity for so long and just what that protection has meant. There are a couple of really nice pages in the issue but the real driving force is the opening scene between Matt and Foggy. They have one of the best relationships in comics and one of the most unique and it's come through pretty well here as they've repaired their friendship pretty solidly (though it still had its bumps this volume) and the series ends with Foggy, despite the pressure it'll bring on him and the health care it will take away, urging Matt to reveal himself as Daredevil. Very nice stuff.

New Warriors 1

I don't think this was a perfect first issue by any means. I wasn't blown away by it in the same sort of way I was by NEW AVENGERS or BLACK WIDOW or HAWKEYE though, if I compare every book to those, most books will lose. What I really liked about this book, though, is it was a very confident set-up book. Sometimes writers on a new book will try to cram too much in or try to introduce too many storylines all at once. What makes this number one even better is that, looking back at it, it feels like this book very much could have had those problems as it showed a bunch of our new heroes and showed them all up against a new enemy but it never felt overloaded or slow. It moved well, it had a good tone, and I think it's planting seeds that will work pretty well. Very interested to see where this one goes.

Punisher 2

I don't know that this was really the best book out there this week and it certainly makes this list as a benefit of the slow week but all of these qualifications don't mean that this book isn't still worthy of consideration or of checking out. One of the things that this book is already doing really well is one of the intangibles of any sort of literature or media, creating a tone. It's still pretty early and so there's not really a way to even guarantee what that tone is but it's certainly establishing a unique and consistent feel for the series. A lot of that tone is built with Mitch Gerards' art and colors but I think Edmondson has also shown between this book and BLACK WIDOW that he understands the worlds that his characters inhabit. Time will still tell if this is a really top-notch book, more than just a top-notch Punisher book, even, but there are certainly hints of a greater world and greater character development and plot here, all helped by the established tone.

A+X 17, Night of the Living Deadpool 3, Marvel Knights Hulk 3

A+X 17
Iron Man and Broo: Loveness (w) and P. Diaz (a) and Mossa (c)
Captain America and Cyclops: Duggan (w) and Yardin, C. Smith, and Pallot (a) and Mossa (c)

Story one of this somehow still going series finds Iron Man unwillingly taking on Broo for a day, having allegedly agreed with Beast to some sort of job-for-a-day intern program. Tony is, of course, not thrilled to find Broo tagging along with him but Broo grows on him as he helps him solve a couple of science problems before going on to help him defeat the Chessmen, old enemies who have a chess-theme to their get-ups and quips and who shouldn't be a match for Tony but manage to interfere with his suit. When Broo comes in to save him and help him save himself, Tony takes to the alien and decides to give him the day he wants, showing him all around his labs, space, other heroes, etc. It's a sweet little story, one whose highlight is certainly in the banter with the chessmen, and one that altogether probably won't be remembered much past this very day, as is the theme of A+X.

Story two, of course, continues the Captain America/Cyclops team-up, though the two aren't together for most of this issue. They still work together, though, as they attempt to save the Skrulls from Cadre K from Doctor Doom, who has more experiments to run and more Skrulls to probably kill. They fool him momentarily as he comes in, as Cap sticks him with a micro-EMP and the psychic Skrull implants dreams of him beating the Avengers, but Doom figures it out and comes to, though he's still unable to move. Cap informs him, for some reason, that Cyclops and the other Skrulls and Avengers and X-Men previously gathered there are trashing Doom's lab and Doom teleports himself back to his craft from out of his armor, leaving the armor to self-destruct next to Cap and the other Skrull. Before they can head off after him, SHIELD shows up, possibly Agent Adsit, to take the Skrull away. When Cap defends the Skrull, Adsit(?) attacks him, thinking him to be a Skrull. Another piece of the long ongoing story that very nearly makes you care about the Skrulls but can't quite, just from size limitation and the fact that this is a story about Cap and Cyclops, so this story has very little stakes.

Night of the Living Deadpool 3
Bunn (w) and Rosanas (a and c)

Deadpool quickly kills the would-be invaders of the small community and goes to join up with them himself. He discovers that there's a former AIM scientist living among them and interrogates him to make sure he's not trying something evil, only to learn that this scientist's division of AIM, called AIR for Advanced Ideas in Regeneration, inadvertently created this apocalypse. As Deadpool begins to fit into the community, he wonders why his healing factor hasn't erased the scar on his arm from when one of his old fellow-survivors-turned-zombie bit him, even though it clearly flushed out the zombie bit. It turns out, of course, that it simply hadn't flushed out the zombie bit and he wakes in the middle of the night as a walker and turns nearly the entire community before his healing factor does kick in and reverts him back to Deadpool so he can see what he's done.

There's a neat little guilt-based story that's fairly original in here about a man who was a zombie killing his fellow survivors before turning back and realizing what's happened. It's particularly efficient with this type of zombie, which has some semblance of consciousness and doesn't want to be doing what it's doing. Of course, it's coming in the midst of a DEADPOOL book so it can be a little bit harder to see the deeper story through the lighter tone. It's still a decent story and it's stopped being so concerned with making every other zombie reference, giving it room to actually tell its own story. The coloring, black and white for everything except Deadpool and what Deadpool's dealing with, continues to be aesthetically pleasing but it does start to get a little hard to follow the theme of it when Deadpool turns and goes black and white, eventually returning to color when he changes back. Still an interesting book and it's giving Deadpool a few nice little introspective moments.

Marvel Knights Hulk 3
Keatinge (w) and Kowalski (a) and Filardi (c)

A little bit of Nikoleta Harrow's history as we learn that AIM had created (or at least imbued with powers) Nikoleta and she had broken out to ensure that she wasn't held back or destroyed by AIM. Now she's figured out how to successfully separate Banner from Hulk and how, in turn, to control Hulk. As a result of this separation, history has changed and Banner survived the gamma bomb as just himself, getting into the bunker with Rick Jones, though it led to a life with Betty Ross kept under quarantine while the army monitored his home and his health. Eventually Betty dies of exposure to gamma radiation and Bruce tries to run out from his quarantine only to be shot by the army, returning him to this timeline and putting him back in the Hulk's body, reverting down to Banner form and talking with Nikoleta, who is flying their rig right to where the gamma bomb first went off.

This is an incredibly weird story, and not in the sort of good way you'd want it to be. It seems like a whole lot of somewhat interesting ideas stuck together into a narrative that doesn't totally work for it. I'm reading a nonfiction collection by author and one-time comic writer Jonathan Lethem right now and he prefaces one of his essays by saying it's not one of his favorites, that it's included only because he liked the slice of life and character it builds, but that it's not favorite of his because it's a lot of journey with no destination. That's what this feels like. Granted, MARVEL KNIGHTS HULK still has one more issue to go so maybe everything will be wrapped up in a beautiful and thoughtful bow in the fourth issue but it's hard to imagine. It's harder because comic books and comic fans all really tend to like alternate-history things and "what if" ideas (hence why Marvel has their "what if" line) so seeing this alternate-Hulk story not only isn't the first time it's been done, it's not the best it's been done out there. Personally I'm still a sucker for the change we saw in Jeff Parker's RED SHE-HULK last year but there are definitely others and better ones out there. Whether it's fair or not, bringing up these sorts of ideas puts MK HULK in competition with all of these other stories and it comes up on the losing end, particularly sad since MK SPIDER-MAN and MK X-MEN have at least given us something new worth seeing.

Nova 13, Savage Wolverine 15

Nova 13
Duggan (w) and Medina and Vlasco (a) and Curiel (c)

Nova's feeling pretty good about himself after helping a stranded ship that needed a boost, not knowing that the ship was actually a slave trader's ship. These are the things that happen when you're a teenager. Beta Ray Bill, though, knew exactly who was on the ship and is appalled that a Nova would help them. He comes to investigate, having lost the trail on the ship anyway, and he and Nova quickly get into a fight. Nova stands up pretty well to Bill but eventually he realizes what Bill's argument is and the two reconcile, with Nova demanding to come with him to find these slave traders. Bill accepts his help and Sam makes plans for a babysitter, his friend Carrie, to come and watch his little sister while he departs into space.

Pretty solid book. It's largely a fight book pitting Nova against Beta Ray Bill but it gives a pretty good sense of both characters and a pretty good sense of where Nova stands in terms of his power relative to what we know of this universe. He's been up against a number of new foes which makes it hard to judge just how powerful he is (though, you know, destroying a Chitauri fleet in the first arc wasn't a bad read) and something like this, having him stand toe-to-toe with someone the Asgardians hail as a true warrior, worthy of his own Mjolnir-like hammer in Stormbreaker, gives us a sense of the sort of power he has. Their dialogue works pretty well together though the book revolves a lot around Beta Ray Bill's alien appearance (though, I suppose, it makes some sense. You look at that guy and it's gonna take you a little while to get over it). Also nice to see Sam take some responsibility and make arrangements for his mother and decide that he needs to see this slave trader business to the end. Good issue, nothing to particularly note as a downside. Not sure it super stands out but certainly good for the series. I talked about AMAZING X-MEN feeling like a book made for kids and making me roll my eyes at it but I'd say that NOVA is something of an all-ages book at this point and it feels fresh and fun, typically. Follow that model if you're going to make a book that's more accessible.

Savage Wolverine 15
Isanove (w, a, c)

With the death of Elias and the kidnapping of Sofia, Logan is left with little choice but to storm the compound at which Sofia's being kept. He takes out the guard and slashes the face of the outfit's leader, a a man named Sergio, sometimes called Marion while Peter, coming in behind him, shoots the Frenchman Pierre-Anselme in the arm. They hustle Sofia out of there and, with all the kids in tow, head to a brothel in St. Paul to lay low for a little bit. The brothel's owner Dolly, who had a relationship with Logan ten years previous, sets them up with a new car and points them towards Colorado to stay with family. Unfortunately, Marion and Pierre are on the lookout for them and come and interrogate Dolly, killing her when she won't give up any information. Pierre finds the sales slip for Logan's new car and his eyes and ears all over the country track Logan and the kids down by nightfall, with the police taking Logan and Sofia into custody.

Isanove's 1930s crime story continues but, in a somewhat strange if effective move, starts things on a ship headed to America in 1920 as Marion and Pierre, seemingly in their teens or thereabouts, meet for the first time as immigrants. We see their origin for about ten pages of the comic and it lets us understand their ruthlessness and their mentality, not to mention their hero-worship of Houdini, a man constantly in utter control of his body and mind. It's a bit of a jarring interlude as we're suddenly introduced to character's we don't know as young men and are forced to learn about them and about their families in their immediately complex background, not made easier by the fact that we have to pretty quickly learn to distinguish the multiple players on the ship. However, it's not too hard to follow if you can stick with it for its entirety and it rather does give us a good sense of villains who would otherwise be simple gangsters. Isanove's art is a good match for his writing style (helps when you know exactly how your artist is going to draw things and vice versa) though things do start to get a little bogged down here and there as people start to look the same, though constant name reminders (not in a particularly intrusive way, though, in the way where it's like "FIRESTAR will do it!" Geez, I really did not like AMAZING X-MEN this week, huh?). Definitely enjoyable as SAVAGE WOLVERINE, when it's on, continues to be pretty far and away the best Wolverine title.

Daredevil 36, Punisher 2, Superior Spider-Man Team-Up 10

Daredevil 36
Waid (w) and Samnee (a) and J. Rodriguez (c)

Matt Murdock is up on the stand and he's man-without-fearing it as he reveals that he, in fact, is Daredevil. The whole courtroom goes crazy, journalists book it out to file reports, district attorneys let him keep talking (it pays that he saved the man's life not five issues ago...probably, I'd have to look that up and do I look like someone who looks stuff up?), and racist cult leaders exchange dirty looks with corrupt judges. Everything is working to Matt's plan and he continues to confirm that he's Daredevil, giving his origin story and, in the meantime, figuring out who really committed the crime his client is charged with. He realizes just in time that the judge and Ogilvy have called in a Serpent strike team. While the strike team is assembling, Matt tells the audience why he's lied about not being Daredevil, even going so far as to sue people who claimed he was. It's a nice speech that hinges around the idea that telling this lie saved lives and hurt no one so it was well worth it, but suing the newspaper was giving power to the lie and so wasn't. Right before the Serpents burst into the courtroom, Matt reveals that the judge is vying with Ogilvy for control of the Serpents and so framed Ogilvy's son for the crimes committed and tried to kill Daredevil as he investigated. Matt changes into DD and brings down the strike team, managing to protect the DA (the real target of the attack) and Kirsten and expose the Serpents in the justice system of New York. Of course, after everything dies down, he's disbarred for the ethics of his vigilanteism as it ties to his law practice. With both he and Foggy disbarred, Kirsten reminds him that there's only one way it might be possible to be admitted to a different state's bar: if he's practiced in that state before. Daredevil and Foggy Nelson are OFF TO SAN FRANCISCO!

It's a triumphant ending to a really triumphant book for Daredevil, whose rebirth here is every bit as meaningful as his rebirth in Frank Miller's BORN AGAIN. This is a Daredevil who cares very much about what he does and who he is but also isn't willing to go as dark as he's gone in the past, to let the darkness that's surrounded him corrupt him. It's a major status quo change both in terms of where it's landed him and the tone that the book has taken. As cool as the courtroom scene and his fight with the Serpents is, the heart of the issue is in the very first scene of the book where we see Matt discussing his decision to go public with Foggy in his hospital bed. Foggy is entirely supportive of it and gives a really meaningful and heartfelt speech where, though he is certainly afraid of losing the health care coverage he'll lose when they're disbarred (as they both know they will be), he admits that Daredevil's integrity and strength inspires everyone it touches and that he refuses to be the conduit whereby Daredevil loses some of that integrity. It's really touching and it's a wonderful scene for the two of them. Very excited to see where they go next when Waid and Samnee rejoin...next month to kick off with DAREDEVIL 1.

Punisher 2
Edmondson (w) and Gerads (a and c)

Five months ago, Punisher had chased a drug trail to Mexico from New York only to discover that the trail ended with a whole slew of deaths from some untraceable weapon. From there, he ended up in LA going after Dos Soles only to find that the possessed the very same weapon. In his attempts to discover what that weapon is, his sniper's scope shorts out and he attracts some attention from the Soles. They fire on a coyote who leaps out at them and it gives Frank the chance to shoot his would-be attackers. He calms the coyote before quickly adopting it because what other kind of pet is Frank Castle going to have? Later, he dumps the coyote on arms contact Tuggs while he goes to stake out the Soles some more. Unbeknownst to Castle, Tuggs is now being monitored by the new Howling Commandoes, who are desperate to take Punisher down. It's not all bad for Punisher, though, as he manages to save his policeman friend Sammy Stone from death to the Soles' weapon as he raids their warehouse. He's stopped from pursuing the Soles by a lightning bolt and, later, when he's recovered and gotten back into his RV, he's struck off the road by another lightning bolt, landing him face-to-face with the Soles' weapon: Electro.

There's a solid idea here for Punisher as Edmondson defines the street-level hero by showing punisher as someone who handles the criminals, villains, and cases that are too dangerous for the cops and too small for the superheroes. Kind of the perfect embodiment of this is that the big bad he's going to have to face this arc is Electro, a villain who is far too dangerous for regular police but really doesn't register on the Avengers' scale (except for when he breaks other, more dangerous criminals out of prison). He's also a compelling villain because he's a lot harder to just straight up shoot and who can manipulate electricity, which Punisher enjoys using to punish. Hard not to notice here that Edmondson shows another somewhat involuntary pet adoption (to go along with Natasha's not-cat Liho in BLACK WIDOW) and shows Punisher silence and calm a wild dog in the same way Natasha had last BLACK WIDOW issue. This just after a week where he put Punisher up alongside some crocodiles at the same time Natasha squared off against some as well (they may have been alligators, I don't know, I just know that they're equally terrifying). FORTUNATELY FOR EDMONDSON, he's crafting two really interesting books and two intriguing characters in as little as five books combined so we'll let him slide on this limited bag of tricks.

Superior Spider-Man Team-Up 10
Shinick (w) and Checchetto (a) and Rosenberg (c)

It's up to Spider-Man, Daredevil, and a somewhat blind Punisher to stop the corrupted spider-henchmen who are trying to bring down Spider-Man's Spider Island from the inside but that doesn't mean that Spider-Man is ready to believe it wasn't Daredevil or Punisher who brought this upon him. After such a huge betrayal from what seemed to be his men, he is willing to trust no one and still believes he requires the help of no one, making it difficult for Punisher or Daredevil to actually give him that help. As they're beginning to get overrun, Daredevil assures Spider-Man that the only way out of this is to self-destruct the entire floor, leading Spider-Man to believe even more that this could all be Daredevil's doing. However, he also understands the trouble they're in and floods the lair, washing the rest of the bad guys out to sea. Suddenly everything becomes more clear to him and he, to confirm his beliefs, checks one of the betrayers only to find a Goblin tattoo on his neck.

Still a pretty strong issue out of another compelling team-up (featuring two characters who have since gone west and BOY I really hope that Punisher and Daredevil run into each other in California and both are really aggravated that the other came) and one that gives a pretty good look into the fractured psyche of Doctor Octopus, who trusts no one and does not believe in friends or help. Of course, some of that is explained as he thinks back to a time where bullies "befriended" him just to make it easier to torment him at school. I'm not saying that we can't understand why he doesn't believe in friends or in trust, but his madness here does start to feel a little forced. Then again, this is a Spider-Man who has upset the superheroes of the world with his sudden personality shift so I guess it's not hard for Doc Ock to make the leap that these would-be pals would turn on him, especially since he doesn't really have any recollection of what their relationships with Peter may have been. Fun stuff and Marco Checchetto's art continues to really shine just as Rachelle Rosenberg's colors continue to impress.

Captain America 17, Iron Man Annual 1

Captain America 17
Remender (w) and Klein (a) and White (c)

Dr. Mindbubble, the product of the mysterious Weapon Minus program, is loose and his old friend Ran Shen, the Iron Nail, is the first to contact him. They talk about how SHIELD has lost sight of any boundaries and how its power is too great before Mindbubble agrees to do his part to slow its growth. He finds Nick Fury, having lost Falcon, at the bottom of the cliff and quickly mindbubbles him (GET READY, I'm using this as a verb whenever I see fit). Back in New York, Cap and Jet talk about Cap's idealism and how, in Jet's opinion, he could maybe stand to have a little less. Cap does seem to recognize that occasionally his desire to capture and not kill allows greater crimes to happen later but it's not something he's willing to strike right away. He's pulled into a situation wherein a dirty bank manager is attacked by Shen's people, ready to bring him to Shen's dirty bank manager mine. Cap stops them but looks with disgust at the man he saved. He's called back to the Hub by Maria Hill, who informs him of Nuke's explosion and the deaths it caused, including the presumed deaths of Fury and Falcon. Cap blames himself but gets the slightest reprieve when Jet reveals that she can sense Falcon two miles downstream from the site, not dead. MEANWHILE, Dr. Mindbubble has so mindbubbled Fury that Fury attacks a SHIELD base, thinking it's a Hydra base, and "steals" the plans for a new and seemingly indestructible helicarrier.

There are a lot of things to really like about what's happening in this book right now. Among those things is the idea of Dr. Mindbubble. I'm not going to say yet that I think Mindbubble is a great character (though, I can't stress this enough, mindbubble is a great verb) because it's just too soon. However, the idea that Weapon Minus was a SHIELD project meant to counter Weapon Plus is very intriguing and rather goes to Iron Nail's point that SHIELD maybe does have too much power (anyone who's ever read anything with SHIELD in it, except maybe Hickman's work or Steranko's work, could have told you that). Where everything that came out of Weapon Plus (Cap before it was officially Weapon Plus, Wolverine, Deadpool, Fantomex, the Skinless Man, etc) was created for his strength and fighting prowess, Mindbubble was created for his power over the mind, where everyone of them (aside from Fantomex, who takes his own precautions) is susceptible. Actually, you know what, tangent time. In a world where like, EVERYBODY wears costumes that entail some sort of headgear, why does only Magneto, of the major characters, have the sort that blocks out telepathic communication. Sure in SOME cases it makes sense, it may be more likely that Wolverine will WANT to communicate telepathically with, say, Psylocke than that he'll be controlled telepathically but shouldn't there be like, some sort of switch or something that blocks telepathic communication? Like, your head is ALREADY covered, dude, just throw in some lead or something. ANYWAY, pretty good issue, glad Falcon's not dead (though I wouldn't have supposed he was), really like the idea of Weapon Minus to counter Weapon Plus.

Iron Man Annual 1
Two Cities: Gillen (w) and A. Martinez and R. Fernandez (a) and Sotomayor (c)
Orbital: Gillen (w) and Padilla and Hanna (a) and Staples (c)
By Moonlight: Gillen (w) and Marz (a) and Sanz (c)

Three stories in this IRON MAN ANNUAL, or IRON MANNUAL, that all focus around recent events in the IRON MAN universe. The first ties to the recent Iron Man infinite comic FATAL FRONTIER wherein, on the moon, abandoned Soviet probe Udarnik the Shockworker used a new fuel source, called Phlogistone, to build a wonderful city for anyone who would join him and Tony, to prevent the free flow of Phlogistone getting out of hand, tried to keep the peace by pitting prospective Phlogistone manipulators against one another. It ended badly and Tony realized that Phlogistone poisoned humans, driving them mad. Everyone abandoned the city and Tony neutralized the metal. "Two Cities" picks up after that as Tony pleads with Udarnik to remove the remaining Phlogistone from his system. Udarnik isn't exactly on good terms with Tony, though, after the shutdown of his own city left him alone in space again. Tony convinces him by telling him of Troy and the impact it will have in space and reaching to the moon. Udarnik doesn't like it and hates the cruel irony that Tony, who destroyed his city, wants Udarnik to save him so he can finish building his own great city but Udarnik also can't help believing that Tony is the world's greatest hope to building a city like he claims and reaching to space and so saves him, telling him to leave and bring back other people. "Orbital" finds Arno Stark reaching out to Warren Ellis Eli Warren and his New Modernist Army (from that first arc with Extremis, the guys who were in space) to man Troy's geostationary orbital platform. Warren is skeptical and doesn't want to help anything Stark-related (though he doesn't know that Arno is Stark-related, just that Troy is) but Arno makes a compelling case and they agree, though not before informing Arno that Tony had destroyed every piece of Extremis which likely would have had the power to fix Arno's physical maladies, rebuilding him from the ground up. Finally, "By Moonlight" shows us a series of double-page spreads that start nine months ago, with Pepper and Marc's first meeting, followed by one a month later with the two of them on a date, and culminate with a date in Scotland three months ago when Marc proposed marriage and Pepper proposed a business relationship between Marc and Stark Resilient.

Geez, long summary, but remember I'm summarizing three different stories in one issue and (very briefly) one four-part (maybe?) infinite comic so let's cut me some slack, okay? The best thing about this issue, hands down, is how into Tony it gets without even really placing Tony front and center for the three different stories. In fact, he's only arguably the star of one of the three stories and even then Gillen has to cover some backstory that he can't be sure the reader of this comic has actually gotten around to reading yet, even if he's promised to do it and has it somewhere. In that first story, though, Tony is hallucinating about Yinsen, his friend from the day he became Iron Man, and Yinsen pretty explicitly offers up the theme of this issue and it's a powerful one. Yinsen says, as Tony believes himself to be dying (before Udarnik reluctantly helps him), "you're always willing to ask others to sacrifice for your greater good" and it's perhaps the most compellingly true thing about Iron Man. It's hard to argue that Iron Man has done good for this world, that his genius and his, after the Iron Man-creating incident, ethics have made the world a better place. In some ways, that's a part of what can make Iron Man boring if he's not well-handled; we know he's a good guy at this point and we know how nearly unbeatable he can be given some tools. But this, the idea that his egomania and arrogance make him exactly who he is, someone willing to make people give up their dreams to further his own because he knows them to be good, is certainly a compelling take on Iron Man and it's one that I certainly can't find fault with. As if his asking Udarnik to sacrifice his city and pride to help Tony build his own isn't enough, we get the second story where Arno learns that Tony destroyed Extremis despite the good it could have brought into the world. Very neat stuff, worth checking out to get a good sense of who Iron Man is.

X-Men 11, Uncanny X-Men 17, Amazing X-Men 4

X-Men 11
Wood (w) and Anka (a) and Keith (c)
AND Wood (w) and C. Mann and S. Mann (a) and Mounts (c)

A story in two parts as part one, the significantly longer part, finds the majority of the team working to try to figure out what Arkea's plan is and why they've come across an empty boat. They actually do a pretty good job of figuring out what Arkea is up to, based on who she's allied herself with and where the money's coming from, tracing Arkea even to the resurrection of Selene Galio and Madelyne Pryor. Their solid deductions still don't stop the infighting amongst them, of course, not helped by the fact that now the always argumentative Monet is on the team. They also realize that the boat being out there has lured all of them out to it, leaving whatever other targets they might be at unprotected. CUT TO the second part of the story, illustrated by the Manns, which focuses on Jubilee leading the fight against the restored and constantly healing Sentinels. The fight goes well enough but Jubilee does the "vampire mist thing" and suddenly no one can trace where she's gone.

The X-Men aren't the only ones with infighting as Ana Cortes pleads with Typhoid Mary to kill her, worrying about the implications of the things she's done and knowing that she won't be able to keep up with the supervillains as their plans progress. On top of that, John Sublime is asking some pointed questions to Quentin Quire, the care of whom he has been not-so-lovingly placed under. There's a lot here to enjoy and a lot to think about as this book suddenly has real steam. The characters are all strong, the relationships between them are already pretty defined and are growing more defined by the issue, and the threat is becoming more and more real. In truth, the threat and the plot are still the vaguest part about this book, but that's a little to be expected with a new villain and a new team finding its way. It's rare that a team book features a team that feels so fleshed out so early on. Wood is deftly drawing on years of backstory from each of these characters to show that this isn't some randomly assembled team, it's a team meant to work together and who know better than to get hung up on their relationships. Lots of good stuff here and the art (I'm particularly fond of Kris Anka's) is matching the writing really well.

Uncanny X-Men 17
Bendis (w) and Bachalo and Townsend w/ Vey and Mendoza (a) and Bachalo (c)

It's training day for the new X-Men and Magik dumps them off in Tabula Rasa, the section of Montana that Archangel deposited a life seed in back in UNCANNY X-FORCE (but, you know, not the last UNCANNY X-FORCE. Thanks, comics). Everyone toys with their powers a bit and some of them have to square off against highly evolved life-forms. Eva goes through something serious that she refuses to talk about and it's possible she's aged a bit out there. Hijack's cellphone, which he refused to give up, alerts SHIELD to their whereabouts and, after a little bit of time, they show up and attempt to escort them out. Hijack turns their armor against them and they manage to escape before Magik brings them home. Cyclops is unimpressed by the way they handled themselves and particularly by the fact that Hijack didn't relinquish his phone and allowed SHIELD to track them, then didn't admit to his mistake when pressed about it. Unwilling to allow that kind of careless attitude, he kicks Hijack off the team and sends him home.

Here's the thing that's a little impossible to explain. I get why training is necessary and why showing the kids here training is necessary. I also get that they're kids and that they're unexperienced and even that they're very new to their powers. However, I can't believe that these kids would get dumped into some foreign situation and all immediately start back-and-forth dialoguing and talking about who Eva has a crush on (GUYS, it's Cyclops because Bendis can't go five seconds without throwing in a hundred love triangles with a lead male protagonist in his book!) and debating where they are. Of those things, the last one is the only thing I am willing to buy. The rest is just...it's kind of unbearable to read. I've talked at length about back-and-forth dialogue slowing scenes but the worst part is it's not even doing the job it's actually effective at doing, which is creating chaos. If someone who doesn't use that style of dialogue regularly starts using it, it makes a scene more out of control. More word bubbles, depending on the word count inside, can make things seem out of control and harried. If there are too many words, though, it just makes things slow down tremendously. It does that here and it makes everyone fairly unlikeable because everyone is the same and everyone is making this book a treacherous and slow read.

Amazing X-Men 4
Aaron (w) and McGuinness and Vines (a) and Gracia (c)

Nightcrawler and Storm work to free Beast from his rage and manage it just before he strangles Nightcrawler. From there, they set sail in their new boat and Nightcrawler and his legion of bamfs spread out to find the others, first rescuing Firestar and Iceman from Hell, where Iceman had tried to freeze the whole place and Firestar had tried to burn the whole place, before tracking down Wolverine and Northstar in the horrible icy lands of maybe-limbo. There are plenty of reunions and Kurt even explains the history of the bamfs, claiming that they were born in Hell of a union between a giant maggot and a shapeshifter and Azazel found them all starving and fed them his blood, binding them to him. Kurt, however, made a dark deal with them, one that has yet to be revealed, to bring them (or many of them, anyway) to his side and they, in turn, have helped him find his friends here in the afterlife to wage his war against Azazel.

I have combatting feelings about all of this, just as I did with Aaron's WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN. The comic landscape right now is a very different one than its ever been, allowing for books that are extremely dark, books that are much lighter, books that are deeper than ever, and books that are none of the above. I can't necessarily fit AMAZING X-MEN into any of these places and I'm not sure I should be trying to. It's absolutely its own book and I'd like to judge it on its own grounds and not weigh it against a greater universe. At the same time, though, it is undoubtedly part of a greater universe and that reality makes it very hard if not impossible to distinguish it. That greater universe, while certainly not having a unified tone, thus allowing books like X-MEN LEGACY or YOUNG AVENGERS or HAWKEYE or SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN in, tends to feel...I don't know, more grown-up than this book. ON THE CONTRARY AGAIN, comics started in the hands of children and it is sad that, aside from specific made-for-a-younger-audience books, there are no major titles out that kids can really read and get into (maybe SPIDER-MAN but that strays pretty dark occasionally too...like how Peter Parker's archnemesis killed him that time and took over his body). So it's hard for me to get into this book and hard for me to find a place in my brain for this book, as it was for WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN. I like to think I'm still capable of fun and whimsy but GEEZ, it's starting to look like maybe not so much. Oh, and I rather have decided that I don't care for Ed McGuinness' art style after seeing it here and in NOVA and finding all the same problems with it. Gracia's color work is solid here, though, and shows really great range as the issue traverses just about every imaginable landscape and lighting.