This week's picks

Tough week to pick the top three. There were a handful worthy of consideration and plenty that weren't (actually, I suppose, that makes it rather not tough to pick the top three). There are a couple books out there not on this list that I'd heartily recommend anyway (MS. MARVEL and IRON PATRIOT come to mind), but here are the ones I'd raise just a little above the rest.

Thunderbolts 26

I liked this one a lot anyway but it gets a special nod this week because it's Charles Soule's last issue on the book he helped really turn around and that he made enjoyable every single issue. It's been a fun team from the start but it felt like Soule took that team and decided to make the book match it, making the book more fun and setting it more in the true THUNDERBOLTS vein instead of trying to go too dark/mysterious intrigue. Check out this issue to see every member die (they get better) and to see a pretty good sendoff for, in the very least, Deadpool, before the book turns over. I have high hopes for Ben Acker and Ben Blacker as they take over on the series (my love for them is well-documented on this site, even if they've only written two Marvel comic books prior to this) but I can't help feeling like it was Soule who helped this book survive to 26 issues as is. Solid issue, great series.

Uncanny Avengers 20

The more I've thought about it, the more I've appreciated what I talked about in my review for this book: the idea that an ongoing is keeping to itself. UNCANNY AVENGERS has blasted past a couple of major line-wide events and shifts and not veered from its course (even though it was spawned from an event itself) and that feels really refreshing in this day and age. I don't want to bash the feeling of a connected universe because I think that can be really cool (though too often the events take advantage of that feeling and steer books off-course while they scoop up tie-in after tie-in) but sometimes it's nice to see a series just stick to its own story. And what a story this one is, huge and sweeping with plenty of characters and possible-version characters and threats as big as the destruction of Earth and the extermination of the human race. With all of that, Remender still makes sure there's time for character moments and quieter beats and it's led him to a really strong book overall.

Winter Soldier: The Bitter March 4

This issue (and this series as a whole so far) kept me invested from the very first page. It's a big action issue with the train crashing and a fight between Winter Soldier and the Drain and between the Drain and Ran Shen and the Winter Soldier and Ran Shen and, you know what, just everyone was fighting, and with the Drain making sure Mila can't fall into enemy hands even if it means losing the formula. Action issues have a tendency, for better or worse (kind of case-by-case there), to kind of lose focus on the characters in the fight. In this issue, though, Remender makes sure the audience is always aware of what everyone's fighting for and how the fight is affecting everyone. It's a really strong series for Ran Shen that gives us a look at the darkness within him and the start of his fallout with SHIELD and it also manages to be a strong series for brainwashed assassin Winter Soldier, who snaps out of it here for what will undoubtedly be a really depressing final installment. Remender's writing is complemented perfectly by Roland Boschi and Chris Chuckry on art and colors. This limited series is absolutely worth picking up.