Comics this week

Hey all my buddies, it's the start to another new comics week so it's time to highlight the five I'm anticipating most. There are eighteen new books out this week and more than a QUARTER of them start with the worlds "ALL-NEW," as the list on the right would indicate (unless you're looking at this post sometime after the week of this post, in which case there are hopefully different comics there). Though I am interested to see how ALL-NEW GHOST RIDER 2 is after a pretty strong debut issue, I refuse to put it on this list because there are FIVE "ALL-NEW" TITLES and I kind of hate the "ALL-NEW" designation. The tiniest protest aside, there are still more than enough books to choose from this week.

Avengers Undercover 2
A strong opener from Dennis Hopeless and company put the survivors of AVENGERS ARENA back on the map and now they're reunited to try to save the revenge-fueled Cullen Bloodstone from destruction or worse at the hands of bigger villains than even Arcade because, you know, Arcade isn't that big of a villain outside of his island. The tone and the focus on characters drove the initial series and I'd look for it to drive this one too.

Captain Marvel 2
Carol Danvers has gone to space hoping that the time off Earth gets her in a new headspace. It's a whole new start for Carol Danvers and one that will shake things up a bit for our hero. She's taken on a role for the Avengers as a sort of space warning system, fighting off or alerting the Avengers to threats to Earth coming from space. She's also set to join up with the Guardians of the Galaxy as they continue to gain popularity. Could lead to interesting stuff.

Daredevil 1.50
This is one I'm not a hundred percent sure of as it launches. To celebrate the fiftieth year of Daredevil, this 1.50 issue is a standalone issue that will purportedly give us a glimpse into DD's 2014 from the creators of his current series as well as a few stories from DD's past from past creators. By "not sure of it," I mostly mean that I tend not to put in standalone stories or retrospective stories to this list but I really like Daredevil and I think this one will still matter in the long run. Plus, I'm sure it'll still be good.

Iron Fist: The Living Weapon 1
Everyone's favorite K'un-Lun chosen one returns to the forefront of Marvel comics as IRON FIST: THE LIVING WEAPON takes off. Writer/artist Kaare Andrews will lead Daniel Rand through all sorts of new and, given Andrews' work with Iron Fist before, presumably beautiful places in this all-new (but pointedly not ALL-NEW) series. I love Iron Fist; he's somewhere up pretty high in my pantheon of superheroes. I'm really excited to see where this series goes.

Nightcrawler 1
With the return of beloved mutant Nightcrawler comes the return of beloved X-Men legend Chris Claremont. I'm very intrigued to see how Claremont comes at this new series. He was always a little wordy for my tastes but that was also certainly a product of the times. Now, in a world where comics are more accepted and understood and the artists are able to do more storytelling with a page, we'll see how Claremont handles a brand new series. I'm interested enough that I'm not even going to mention how much I miss X-MEN LEGACY, the book this one is replacing (kind of, anyway. Originally Nightcrawler was just going to take over LEGACY but then they were like "well hey, let's just title the book NIGHTCRAWLER." Regardless, I think Spurrier's LEGACY would have been over anyway).