Comics this week

Rarely is it as easy as recording the list of comics out this week to find my top five. Sure a couple will come from a cursory glance; titles I like, events, big issues I remember are big, number ones, final issues, etc., but they don't typically all congregate like this. This week found an important launch title, a good series starting a new year, a personal favorite character of mine headlining a new limited series, and two issues I can safely say are two of my most highly anticipated issues of the year, one kicking off a probably great new series and one finishing an amazing series. Did I give it all away yet? What if I say that, alphabetically, this entire post begins at "s?"

She-Hulk 1

Surprise, you guys, I love Marvel. I also love gender parity. So it was a tough couple of years (okay, decades and decades) where Marvel wasn't trusting in female-led books. I'm not going to say "okay, we got a few, all better" but it's very clear that Marvel is taking real, legitimate steps to righting the wrong. SHE-HULK is another example, adding to MS. MARVEL, CAPTAIN MARVEL, BLACK WIDOW, and...god, I could swear there's another one. It'll come to me (or it doesn't exist and so won't). You could even lump HAWKEYE in there as Kate takes center stage aaa much or more than Clint and is just as much the titular Hawkeye as the avenging archer. Throw Charles Soule, savior of THUNDERBOLTS and up-and-coming comics star from both sides of the big two and we should have a solid book in store (FUN FACT: Soule is a lawyer himself so expect some solid law to make its way into the title). WAIT, it's ELEKTRA. That's the other one I was thinking of. That one should be fun too.

Thor: God of Thunder 19

For as old as this series sometimes seems, it's really only gone through two separate story lines since Aaron took over on the title. Thor(s) fought Gorr and Thor fought Malekith. Two stories in three acts and one bonus self-contained story last time out. Now present Thor finds himself embroiled in intrigue on Earth and with SHIELD, no less, as King Thor hangs out with old Galactus (okay, probably "hangs out with" is the wrong turn of phrase here but I'd also read that series). Esad Ribic rejoins Jason Aaron to take our resident god of thunder back to Midgard in what should be another defining run for the series, firmly planted now in its sophomore year.

Winter Soldier: Bitter March 1

Winter Soldier returns in a limited series set sometime between Bucky's "death" and Cap's re-emergence, AKA true Winter Soldier days. So why check out the brainwashed Russian hitman trying to, probably, destabilize America in or around the Cold War? Because it's bound to go a bit deeper than that. Rick Remender tries his hand at Winter Soldier, a character who, despite his popularity and now with about five+ years under his belt,  has only really been handled by Brubaker and Latour, as he tells a story of drama and intrigue that will tie into the events of today, particularly in Remender's CAPTAIN AMERICA. Keep an eye out for the Iron Nail and the corruption of SHIELD as we kick off a limited series that should, presuming it's coming in monthly installments and not, say, bi-weekly, take us right up to Captain America: Winter Soldier. Sound like it might relate? Guess we'll find out.

X-Force 1

Hot on the heels of the conclusion of UNCANNY X-FORCE and CABLE AND X-FORCE, Si Spurrier launches the new underground mutant wet works team. Featuring a considerably smaller roster than its predecessors (even all the way back to Remender's terrific put-him-on-the-map run), X-FORCE promises to be a top-flight series full of twists and turns with exciting character pieces and lots of depth. Looking forward to it immensely and I can't stress enough how much Si Spurrier has totally won me over with his work on X-MEN LEGACY (not to mention the thrilling web/print series CROSSED: WISH YOU WERE HERE). And now Spurrier has Fantomex to control. It's come to my attention lately that Fantomex is a very polarizing character either very loved or very hated. Readers of this blog should know I'm in the first camp and I can't really imagine anyone being in the second. If you are, though, give this series a shot. I'm willing to bet, with almost no indication of the way Spurrier is going to write him, that Fantomex will have something of a fascinating character this time out. Worth giving him another shot, you strange, probably non-existent Fantomex haters.

X-Men Legacy 24

This is it, dear readers. The first comics week of this year saw the end of YOUNG AVENGERS, the book I named my second best book of 2013. Now, as we enter into the second week of the second month of 2014, the top book ends. Both books are unique in that they both seemed to wind down to their finales more based on the writer's wishes than the usual business of it (I don't officially know that that's the case with LEGACY but Spurrier has intimated all along that a story isn't a story without an end). Regardless, it's time to say a very reluctant goodbye to this beautiful and wildly creative book that Spurrier has crafted with such love and such deftness as to make even the woe-begotten son of Charles Xavier and the stammering, oft-nonsensical young Blindfold two of the most complicated and tragic characters in the Marvel Universe. It's a testament to the power of a really well-written and well-executed character study and it's, for my money, one of the best and most satisfying examples of the superhero genre in the past decade, if not longer. Everyone involved deserves untold credit, from Spurrier's mad writing to Tan Eng Huat and Khoi Pham's alternating artistic approaches to José Villarrubia and Rachelle Rosenberg's colors to the amazing Mike del Mundo covers each and every issue. I'm so sad to see it go but so thrilled that it ever existed.