Leftovers 10-29-14

Pretty short week for full reviews this week but, like I said yesterday, not too many giant books out there. Let's just blast through this.

All-New X-Men 33

The ANXM search through the Ultimate Universe trying to make sense of their new surroundings. Angel and X-23 find each other, Jean leans on the Ultimate Spider-Man, Iceman gets in some trouble, and Beast is rather trapped in Latveria. It's extremely similar to Bendis' GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 15, which featured the Guardians all split up in foreign places, some faced with the unknown and some faced with enemies, in little almost-vignettes to show that they're all confused and lost. Like I said with that one, worth a miss. Total Score: 2/5










Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy 3
Sabertooth has latched on with an army unit and is brutally killing just a bunch of people, even going so far as to kidnap a shorter one per night, dress him as Wolverine, and murder him. His dreams are filled with Wolverine mocking him, telling him that he'll never be complete without Wolverine and laughing at him for never getting to kill his true rival. It's weird and heavy-handed and the art is interesting but often lost me as to what was actually happening. Full-on crazy Sabertooth is not a Sabertooth I have any interest in, though I'm rather burned out on any Sabretooth after a few years straight of seeing him show up what feels like every week. Total Score: 2/5


Death of Wolverine: Deadpool and Captain America 1

Steve Rogers calls Deadpool in to help him thoroughly clean and destroy Wolverine's stuff, insistent that no one should find his genes and clone him (is this regular procedure when a hero dies?). The last piece is a knife used to stab Wolverine that was sold to AIM not long ago. With the clock ticking, Deadpool and Steve launch an attack on an AIM base and secure the knife again. When they return home, Cap leaves Deadpool to destroy the knife. Deadpool, though, returns to Butler's base and considers cloning Wolverine himself. It's a decent team-up, one we could have expected after their arc together in DEADPOOL. It's got a few laughs and some sweet moments between the unlikely allies, but it's nothing particularly groundbreaking, like I thought their first arc was. Total Score: 3/5






Deathlok 1
Henry Hayes is a Deathlok and has no idea. When he's sent on missions by his handlers, he returns mind-wiped, believing that he was assisting Medics Without Borders in war-torn areas. He also returns home to his life as a single father of a teenage girl named Aria. However, things might get complicated as his last mission had him attacking Black Tarantula, among others, who seemed to survive, unbeknownst to Deathlok, and he's drawn the eye of Maria Hill, who covertly promotes a promising researcher named Andrea Hope to active agent, tasked with finding as much as she can about this new Deathlok. It's an interesting starting point for this new series, though its best attribute this issue is actually how quickly it reads. With so much new information and characters and storylines coming at us all at once, this issue could drag, too exposition-heavy to keep us interested. Instead, it moves well and switches locales and perspective a lot, keeping the reader interested, if not yet invested. Total Score: 4/5


Elektra 7
Matchmaker has been killed by the experimentally juiced up Lady Bullseye who can become intangible as she pleases. Still not a problem for Elektra, who allows herself to take a few hits to force Lady Bullseye to become solid, allowing her to stab her then, as she goes intangible, Elektra breathes her enemy in. It's kinda disturbing. Anyway, she defeats Lady Bullseye and returns to Sidewinder, demanding he take her to the Assassin's Guild leader. He leads her to New Orleans where she's ambushed by other assassins she's defeated but are now similarly juiced up like Lady Bullseye with varying new powers. It's a tough fight but she bests them once more, finally making her way to someone at least pulling some of the strings. The guy says he doesn't lead the Guild but he can make this go away if Elektra lets the weird doctor experiment on her too. She, of course, refuses, kills the pair, and returns to Sidewinder to find out who leads the Guild. He doesn't know but believes Bullseye, currently catatonic and in SHIELD custody, does. Elektra sets off to bust Bullseye out. Elektra continues to be great, handling all of the amped up assassins who come her way and illustrating just how next-level she is in this community. The art isn't my favorite here, which is unfortunate because Del Mundo's really was up there. It's also a bit strange that she destroys so many people this issue that could have been issue-long fights. I'm not that upset about it, nice to see a book move quickly instead of trying to milk every fight out, but it's a tad weird in this community. Also, Matchmaker is dead and I hate this book for that. Total Score: 4/5


Fantastic Four 12
Wyatt and Spider-Man talk to Johnny, who IMMEDIATELY comes to his senses and visits Ben, explaining that someone is clearly pulling the strings here and that Ben needs to get out. In Latveria, Valeria tells Doom she has to go home to try to pull her family back together, leaving Doom, who has devious plans once more. Finally, Reed accuses Mr. Eden, with a great deal of exposition because who would ever want to see him work towards a discovery when we could just have him talk about things he discovered off-panel, of engineering the portal opening in the Baxter Building. Mr. Eden isn't really Mr. Eden though, Reed's lab partner Cully is Mr. Eden and he's doing all this because he hates Reed. WHAT A DUMB ENDING. I'm going to give this the very slightest benefit of the doubt here as we all know FANTASTIC FOUR is ending soon, so it's entirely possible these dumb twists and dumb turns were meant to unfold over multiple issues instead of twenty pages, but STILL. We don't care about the GASP, it's not MR. EDEN, IT'S CULLY thing because we don't care or know about either of those characters. Reed accuses him of engineering everything with a ton of evidence we're just learning about NOW, which is like a detective story where we see a moonlighting detective doing his day job then suddenly, apropos of nothing, solving the whole case on the last page of the book. It's all terrible and I do not like it one bit, my friends. Total Score: 1/5


Guardians of the Galaxy 20

FINALLY, the end of Star-Lord's story reveals that an already dying Nova sacrificed himself to transport Drax and Star-Lord back to their proper universe and that Thanos escaped too. There's also some crap about how Nova was in love with Gamora and he swore Star-Lord to secrecy about all of this, which is why he didn't tell Gamora or the crew earlier. If it is indeed the death of Richard Ryder (doubtful, as that old comic book axiom of "we didn't see the body" certainly comes in to play), it's a pretty stupid death; a standard sacrifice with questionable motivation marred by a prolonged and unnecessary admission of love. It's the worst kind of superhero death, cliche and boring at the same time. Then Gamora goes off and sheds a single tear. Total Score: 1/5






Inhuman 7
Black Bolt is still alive and Maximus is using his telepathic powers to control the missing king, focusing his limited powers entirely on Black Bolt. Medusa knows that her husband is alive and sends a pair of Inhuman investigators, one from the old kingdom named Auran and one NuHuman named (by Auran) Nur, to track him down. They eventually do find Maximus and Black Bolt and Auran, knowing that Maximus likely can't control their minds while he's focused so hard on Black Bolt, somehow doesn't realize that Maximus would be willing to use Black Bolt to attack the investigators, which he does, blowing out a huge part of the penthouse they're staying in overlooking New Attilan. Nur, though, may still be alive, ready for the next move. There are some interesting things in here, particularly between Maximus and Black Bolt, but the whole book is dragged down by a lot of exposition and re-explaining what's going on all over the universe wherever Inhumans are concerned. I also kind of like the idea that Soule is introducing new Inhumans all over the place, moving them into our consciousness slowly so he can eventually bring everyone out at once and we won't be overwhelmed. It's a smart play for a franchise looking to build. Still, the writing will have to get out of its own way and start trusting the reader a little more before the book can really take off. Total Score: 3/5


Marvel 75th Anniversary Celebration 1
It's an extra long (and double-priced) book to commemorate 75 years of Marvel, replete with a story about the start of the universe, an old Stan Lee script illustrated by Bruce Timm, a Bendis Jessica Jones story, a Tom DeFalco Spider-Man story, a Len Wein Wolverine story, and a slew of covers from a slew of illustrators for books that will never exist, all credited to Brian Michael Bendis. Is it worth your money? No, probably not, unless you really love Bendis because this book is just chock full of him. It's always nice to see some of the legends like Lee, DeFalco, and Wein, but their screen-time is limited and the stories are somewhat fun throwbacks, nothing you haven't read a thousand times before. Six bucks though? I'm not gonna tell you to spend that. Total Score: 2/5






Nova 22
Nova talks his way back out of expulsion with a reluctant Principal Philbin then goes trick-or-treating with the X-Kids at the Jean Gray School. It's a bit of a reset issue and it works well enough for that with a couple of nice moments and an easy, generic story. Nothing to write home about but not a complete failure of an issue, as I maintain it's important to rest every few issues and let our hero have a slower day now and again. Total Score: 3/5


Thunderbolts 32

Six months after the fall of the Thunderbolts, Red Leader runs his new compound from Kata Jaya, the spot of the team's very first mission. He's plotted his whole life perfectly and now his only problem is that he has a crush on his biographer and can't seem to win her affection. However, all is not well for Red Leader as the Thunderbolts have been gathering intel about the new compound and have led the Avengers there to help take it apart. Red Leader has plenty of plans in place to pick apart his old team but they all crumble when his biographer turns out to be the SHIELD agent Hawkeye had been working with in disguise. She shoots him from behind and the T-Bolts and Avengers win the day, though it's made clear to Red Hulk that none of them want to join him again. It's a fun ending to a book that has certainly had its ups and downs (though mostly ups, particularly from halfway or so on). Deadpool has a particularly strong issue here, though the rest get a little bogged down by the sheer amount of characters and the focus being on Red Leader. Also, Mephisto sends the spirit of vengeance back to Johnny Blaze, to his dismay, which is a fun moment. Total Score: 4/5


Wolverine and the X-Men 11
Melita interviews Spider-Man, Storm, and Quentin Quire about the passing of Wolverine, though "interview" probably isn't the right word. She talks to each of them and gets more from some than others. The Spider-Man bits are mostly fun and work pretty well and the Storm stuff is more or less what you want out of Storm. To be fair, the Quentin stuff is what you can expect from Quentin too, but I still have to ask if we need this much Quentin Quire in our lives. Anyway, strong "in memoriam" kind of arc and, like last issue, it's nice to see so many artists paying their respects to Wolverine. Total Score: 3/5

Leftovers 9-24-14

Okay. I apologize both for my busy week this week and for the upcoming post. Got a lot of apologies to make. ANYWAY, let's get right into and out of it.

All-New Ghost Rider 7

Robbie is still having trouble making his personal life and Eli come to some sort of understanding and he ends up killing a guy to take the money he was owed before another Ghost Rider shows up to complicate things further. Still strong stuff with Smith spending just the right amount of time characterizing Robbie and the neighborhood, though I'm still wary of Hyde's role in all of this. Total Score: 4/5












All-New Invaders 10
Mars attacks? I don't know, man, this book is pretty terrible. They're helped by the daughter of the original Iron Cross who is an Inhuman now and then Torch goes crazy and she promises to help while Mars attacks London and Roger Aubrey, the Mighty Destroyer, literally has a line of dialogue that goes "I'm an incredibly dashing, older gay gentleman, by virtue of which means I'm incredibly vain" directly after he says to Union Jack and Spitfire "A speedster, a young man with a pistol and a vintage motor bike, and a "flamboyant" octogenarian." DOES ANYONE THINK ANYTHING IN THIS BOOK THEY DON'T SAY? Perhaps James Robinson would like to sit beside us as we read his books and explain bit-by-bit what's happening in case we don't understand? Total Score: 1/5

Amazing Spider-Man 1.5

Spider-Man finally beats Clash and we're all relieved because Clash is not interesting nor likable and looking back to this point in Spidey history means Spidey also isn't terribly interesting and isn't really likable so now we can all move on with our lives. Total Score: 2/5














Amazing X-Men 11
Wendigos! They're everywhere! Wolverine is one! The X-Men travel to the realm of monsters where monster Tanaraq is getting supercharged by the Wendigo presence on Earth and where he plans his attack on Earth, even expanding the Wendigo curse to mean Wendigos can exist outside of Canada! Where goes the Wendigo? EVERYWHERE. Pretty good stuff, drags a little bit despite all of the action, but still a compelling story and Yost brings to this book his uncanny ability to nail the voice of everyone he touches. Total Score: 4/5

Cyclops 5
Cyclops and Corsair have fixed the tracking beacon bounty hunters placed on their ship and therefore successfully lure a group to them, managing to outwit them and steal their ships, though Cyclops overrides his dad's plans a few times to show compassion for the bounty hunters. Good characterization of a young and optimistic Scott and now we can continue our journeys with the interesting father-son duo. Total Score: 4/5











Deadpool 35
MAYBE, just MAYBE, there will some day be a week where nary a single DEADPOOL book will be released. But that's not this week so, onwards. Deadpool spends some quality time with Ellie and has to fight a Spider-Slayer Dracula has put his consciousness into, which he defeats handily. He also brings the refugees from Butler's camps to the Jean Grey School and has Beast run medical tests on them, which could complicate things as Hank quickly calls Deadpool back, needing his liver for a vital operation. Bit of a break from the action here as even the Dracula fight has very little stakes (HA) and mostly plays for laughs, which are certainly there if not enough to carry the issue. Total Score: 3/5

Edge of Spider-Verse 3

Dustin Weaver introduces us to Aaron Aikman, the only Spider-Man who has sought out the Spider, injecting himself with a serum that gave him his powers and using advanced machinery to vigilânt around the city. There's a full story here about his laboratory and the woman he loved risking everything to save her daughter but the real story is the twist ending when Morlun shows up and kills Aikman, meaning that just because we're seeing these dudes on the EDGE of SPIDER-VERSE, they won't necessarily make it to the main showing. Pretty good stuff, drags like any of these have when they've had to really give a lot of backstory for one issue, but it holds together somewhat nicely. Total Score: 3/5






Guardians of the Galaxy 19
Quill continues to tell his story to Gamora and explains that they couldn't die in the Cancerverse so their sacrifice had kind of been for nothing, now they had to play eternal keep-away from Thanos with the Cosmic Cube, made more troublesome by the appearance of the Cancerverse Avengers who are all evil and who want the Cube themselves and, sadly, eventually get it. The issue is all from the memory of Quill so it's basically a big ol' flashback where we don't know the full ending but we kind of know maybe half of it (Drax, Quill, and Thanos, in the very least, survive to return to the 616) so kind of low stakes here for a story that's going to last at LEAST three issues. Total Score: 2/5

Inhuman 6

Dante and his new friends Jason (rock-based powers) and Naja (weird-based powers) find their way back to Attilan, now run by The Unspoken, and manage to, with the help of Vinatos, the medical regent of New Attilan, infiltrate The Unspoken's throne room. He still has the Terrigen crystals he found so he's still insanely powerful but Dante attacks him all the same, getting horribly wounded in the fight for his troubles. While Naja continues the distraction, Jason uses his rock powers to destroy the crystals, effectively ending The Unspoken's new reign and restoring Medusa to the throne. Good issue for the NuHumans as everything is set right once again, though Lineage seems ready to strike a deal with the imprisoned Unspoken. Total Score: 4/5






Loki: Agent of Asgard 6
Thanks to some time-and-space trickery, Doctor Doom finds himself face to face at the end of the universe with the original Loki, who derides and denounces him, causing Doom to go back to his own time and search out the young Loki, pulling him into battle at his castle. He ends up trapping Loki, who doesn't want any part of this fight, and announcing that he's captured a god, effectively weakening him by destroying his story. Though things seem lost for young Loki, he secretly brought Verity Willis (eye roll!) with him and now she's prepared to help her friend. I literally have no idea what's going on and what the point of any of this is. Total Score: 2/5

Magneto 10
Magneto has been captured by the Red Skull and is being tortured by Xavier's brain in the hopes that Skull can break him. Magneto tries to hide in all his worst memories, giving us a full tour of many of them, but finds eventually that he cannot keep Skull at bay. Before he breaks, he's rescued by the similarly captured Havok, Rogue, and Scarlet Witch. Pretty sad issue for Magneto, you guys, as we see the worst of the worst, but it follows the theme Bunn has set up for this series, which often goes back to why Magneto fights. Total Score: 4/5

New Warriors 10
The Celestials are coming! The New Warriors strike again at the High Evolutionary and his Evolutionaries. Speedball makes a great Ghostbusters reference! The Eternals show up! Action, hijinks, comedy, drama, and more! Check out NEW WARRIORS 10! Total Score: 5/5














Savage Wolverine 23
A story from Wolverine's past where someone drugs him, slowing his healing factor and tries to hunt him through the woods of his animal-times. He's protected by the runt of a wolf pack but eventually the wolf sacrifices himself to save Wolverine, drawing Wolverine out to murder everyone in sight. Typical Wolverine-in-the-woods story done with maybe a little less flare and heart and with even more hand-holding than some of the others I've seen. Total Score: 2/5

Storm 3
Storm is called to Kenya by a mysterious benefactor saying that he needs her help to bring rain and water to the people there. Though she's wary it's a trap, it's a cause that matters enough to her to send her there anyway. It's not entirely a trap, but it was Forge, with whom she has a rocky relationship, who sent the letter. He swears he can do it and she chooses to trust him, though one of the Kenyans doesn't and his interference sort of sabotages everything, though Storm does her part to sabotage the machinery, demanding that Forge first spend a year in Kenya working on the tech and working with the people so that they can all have a mutual trust and to ensure that the tech will work and not just be an experiment. It's another good issue to characterize Storm, who wants to trust Forge but knows things aren't that black and white. Instead, she comes up with an interesting plan that roots itself in trust and hope. That's what we want to see out of Storm. Total Score: 4/5

Thunderbolts 31
It's Punisher vs. Red Hulk in the final battle of the T-Bolts. It's a huge fight and the momentum swings back and forth until Hawkeye and the Avengers (though the lesser known ones, like Cannonball, Sunspot, and Shang-Chi) show up to break up the fighting. Red Hulk doesn't believe they're the Avengers but Punisher stands down, unwilling to harm the good guys. Elektra turns up to calm Red Hulk, dropping the Leader's body in between them and showing them that he was an LMD and that, in fact, it was the Leader behind all of this the whole time. Ross announces the Thunderbolts are done, leaving the Red Leader victorious for next time. Plenty of fun in this issue as the fight gets more and more elevated. Also fun to see Hawkeye lead his team of lesser known Avengers into battle and to see the Punisher and Red Hulk struggle to understand that they are, in fact, Avengers. Total Score: 4/5

Inhuman 5, Ms. Marvel 8

Inhuman 5

The former king of Attilan, whose name has been stricken from the records and is referred to now as the Unspoken for the crimes he committed, has proposed to Medusa in the hopes of helping her lead New Attilan, though really to find more Terrigen. She, of course, rejects him, but does not imprison him, hoping to live up to her new welcoming stance and to find out the location of Black Bolt, which the Unspoken claims to know. As soon as he's left alone, the Unspoken enters a secret passageway which leads to a secret wealth of Terrigen, a depleted but extremely important resource for the Inhuman community and the source of the Unspoken's powers. Medusa, of course, never trusted the Unspoken and followed him down there in the hopes he would lead her to more Terrigen, assuming if anyone knew of any, it would be him. Unfortunately, he's able to take some of the Terrigen, allowing him to access his tremendous powers (he can pretty much do anything when he has the Terrigen) and he quickly takes over the city.

I've talked a lot about how the biggest flaw of this book is simply the timing. After numerous delays on the front end, this book is coming out about a year after the Terrigen Bomb went off in INFINITY, leaving Soule tasked with defining the past of the Inhumans, establishing the present of the Inhumans, and seeding for the future of the Inhumans, all while trying to do it quickly to keep up an overall series pace. The story itself is pretty interesting and the characters, when given a chance to breathe, can mostly hold their own, but the pacing tends to break down a bit as exposition wins out occasionally, like in this issue when Medusa gives a paragraph explanation of the Unspoken that is clearly only for the benefit of the reader and ends up being clunky and forced in the moment. I want to note here, because I don't think I ever really stress this, that isn't necessarily a dig at the writer; it's his job to tell a story and get people to understand that story and take interest in that story. It may even be an editor saying "hey, we need to explain who this guy is and we don't really have time to ease it out." Regardless of whose fault it is, though, it ends up hurting the book as a whole and it happens a couple of times. Hopefully the series will reach its potential as Soule gets the book to a place where he can feel confident just pressing forward.

Total Score: 3/5


Ms. Marvel 8

Ms. Marvel is having no luck finding leads back to the Inventor but is having luck finding giant Inhuman dogs as Lockjaw finds his way to Jersey and Kamala promptly adopts him. She and Bruno use the Facebook of the mutant teenager Wolverine had been looking for to try to learn more about her abduction. They use the location tracking on her last weird post to find where she was abducted and Kamala learns that Lockjaw is more than just a giant dog who likes hugs as he teleports her instantly to the spot. Together, Kamala and Lockjaw investigate the area and end up in a fight against one of the Inventor's big machines, this time powered by one of the kids she found at the house in Greenville. They take down the machine by removing the power source and she brings the protesting guy to the hospital, making her late for school and drawing more suspicion from her friends and classmates. That suspicion, sadly, isn't allayed as the Inventor sends another bot after Kamala at school after dropping a homing beacon in her bag. Will Kamala and the extremely helpful and great Lockjaw be able to save the school and keep her identity secret? Going to be particularly hard as Kamala can't seem to change her appearance!

Another great team-up as Lockjaw finds his way to Kamala on the orders of Medusa. Though he inspires fear and alarm in everyone else who sees the massive dog walking down the street, Kamala instantly takes to him, giving us another great look at the spirit and character of Kamala. One of the most impressive things about this series is that it feels like Kamala has been around forever, even if the story feels new. It's a testament to G. Willow Wilson's writing that Kamala feels so real and deep after just eight issues. Perhaps more interestingly, I'm not a hundred percent sold on the story or the series villain and I'm still totally onboard with this book as a whole. I think there's certainly still intrigue there for the story and villain but that's been a little less defined than Kamala so far, intentionally so but still potentially problematically. However, Kamala carries the book so adeptly that you're absolutely willing to give the plot a pass for a while, happily entertained by the characters in the book.

Total Score: 5/5

ALL OF THEM

Okay.



Okay.



Okay, so we're back. Apologies for the little break (I may some day take a bigger break but one that's scheduled and doesn't revolve around my axle breaking and my car needing more assistance than my blog). For some dumb reason, I still feel determined to review every book but we're all busy people, we don't need big reviews, particularly the Sunday after the comics have come out. Most of you may already know what books you want! So let's blast through this, super super super condensed version. I may not even mention creators...hold on, I'm getting a thought - start of the week, maybe I'll post all the creators on the side like how I post the new release comics. I gotta update the look of this site anyway. Any suggestions/comments/criticisms? Okay, we're wildly off-topic now. TO THE COMICS, wherein I shall strive to give the SHORTEST REVIEWS I CAN POSSIBLY GIVE.


All-New Invaders 9

The Invaders have been caught off-guard by a bunch of Deathloks and their master, thanks to some sort of AI controlling device, is revealed to be a Martian. The book continues to be horribly slow, to over-explain everything, and to, presumably as an effect of the previous two clauses, seeming have no tension to it. Total Score: 2/5


All-New Ultimates 7
The Ultimates follow Crossbones into the sewers where they run across deformed fellow experiments of Roxxon who have been left there along with a pile of bodies. Geez, now they have to deal with Roxxon and a protracted and uninteresting gang war? This continues to be protracted and uninteresting, though at least something happened this time. Total Score: 2/5


All-New X-Men 31
While the adult X-Men are out of town to figure out Xavier's will, the ANXM find a new mutant named Carmen who can open portals to other dimensions and, in their attempt to help her understand, she sends them off to different universes, namely, it seems, the Ultimate Universe. Wasn't AGE OF ULTRON supposed to knock off this cross-universe business? Didn't BENDIS write that? How many loopholes can we create WITHIN TWO YEARS? What is HAPPENING? Total Score: 2/5


Amazing Spider-Man 1.4
Clash has made something of a name for himself but he's only doing so in comparison to Spider-Man, which enrages him. Finally Spidey invents something that should negate Clash a bit and uses it when Clash attacks the Daily Bugle (they all come there eventually) but Clash breaks it, leading Jonah to call him a real threat and Spider-Man the knock-off, to Clash's delight. Getting a little sick of all of Spider-Man's villains being crazy and wanting attention, is anyone else feeling that way? Total Score: 2/5


Avengers 34

How are we still not out of the As yet? Okay. Captain America gets brought by Iron Lad to the end of time where Iron Lad, Immortus, and Kang tell Cap he has to remain there so he doesn't interfere with events on current Earth that could lead to the end of days. Cap, of course, doesn't take that well and gets the time gem once more, going back to the present and preparing the Avengers for an assault on the Illuminati. Really interesting point to have reached and there's a great classic Cap speech in the middle of all this. Total Score: 4/5


Avengers Undercover 9
The Avengers and other gathered heroes descend on The Pit to attack Zemo and free the former students only to be trapped in The Pit while Zemo and his army attacks the rest of Earth, starting with SHIELD. The bait-and-switch worked pretty well, but it didn't account for Cammi, who broke out of her prison and has the drop on Zemo and his lieutenants. More strong stuff from this series which has reached its sadly penultimate issue. Total Score: 4/5


Cyclops 4
Cyclops and Corsair are running short on Corsair's life-saving medicine, a fate to which Corsair is resigned but about which Cyclops is angry. Corsair has set about trying to teach Cyclops to fight and to live off the land while awaiting rescue but Cyclops has already started to give up hope. Corsair tells him that hope is the difference between the Scott he knew and the Scott on Earth now, that the current Cyclops lost all hope. Not wanting to be that guy, young Cyclops sets about trying to fix the tracking unit the bounty hunters attached to Corsair's ship, which will provide rescue but in the form of bounty hunters. Some solid character work here from Rucka and a nice quiet issue before guns presumably start blazing again. Cyclops and Corsair's relationship is the driving force of this young book and it's well done here. Total Score: 4/5


Fantastic Four 9
Reed has started work with John Eden (ugh) while Johnny is depressed in the Manhattan upper class, Sue frets about the kids, and Thing finds out that She-Thing runs the prison and has an axe to grind with him. I don't know much about Fantastic Four history because I largely don't care about the F4 but She-Thing? Is that what we've chosen to dig up as Thing's greatest foe? There's finally hint of a greater scheme at work behind everything happening but I still refuse to buy plenty of what's happened so I'm unimpressed by a clear hand steering things. Total Score: 2/5


Guardians of the Galaxy 18
Gamora kidnaps Peter Quill and brings him to an interrogation chamber unbeknownst to the rest of the team, where she asks him about what happened in the Cancerverse that allowed he, Thanos, and a living Drax to return. Part one of the story involves Star-Lord and Nova attempting to nobly sacrifice themselves to see Thanos forever trapped but Thanos making a solid argument to Star-Lord about why he should hand over the cosmic cube he's holding. Not much substance, as yet, to this story that should explain some things. McGuinness' art is strong, though, so it's certainly readable. It would be more readable if there wasn't so much quipping in the CANCERVERSE. Total Score: 3/5


Inhuman 4

Medusa has set up New Attilan on the ground near New York and opened it to the public. Thor comes to hang out with her as she explains her reasons for doing so, which are mostly to build relationships and alliances while showing the Inhumans are nothing to fear. However, assassins try to kill her, wounding her handmaiden Elejea in the process. Thor delivers the assassins to Medusa, who learns they are Nuhumans (the convenient term for new Inhumans) angry that they're now different. She offers them a place in her kingdom or the opportunity to leave unharmed and without resistance, showing the people how peaceful and reasonable she can be. Meanwhile, a new and mysterious character named The Reader saves a Nuhuman in China. Plenty happening in this book and Soule is doing a solid job to really make this start feeling like its own culture and own big world, which is very important. Stegman also does really impressive work on these pages. Total Score: 5/5


Original Sin 5.4 - Thor and Loki
As Loki leads the Angels to attack Asgard, Thor summons the storm to him and annihilates his prison, breaking out and immediately wreaking havoc on Heven. Loki does indeed bring the Angels to Asgard but neglects to mention that all the Asgardians live now in Asgardia and that only Odin and The Serpent are in Asgard, finally rousing Odin back to action. Not a terrible little issue though it does drag a little at parts and sometimes the often flowery Asgardian English confuses where it should just push forward. Mostly strong work. Total Score: 4/5


Savage Hulk 3
Jean has the power of the Hulk and seemingly Hulk-strength telepathy now but...wait, it's just a dream of Xavier's as his mind has been manipulated by...wait, it's all happening in Banner's head and the Leader is there with bombs strapped to everyone suddenly and he's ready to detonate Xavier's if he even tries to get into his own mind and...look, I'm not sure what's happening here but I am sure that I'm almost entirely disinterested in it and it still moves slowly, even with a plot that's clearly ramping up. Total Score: 2/5


Silver Surfer 5
It turns out that the barrier around Earth isn't actually real, it's in Surfer's head courtesy of a nearby slumbering Lord of Nightmares. Everyone on Earth has fallen asleep except for Dawn Greenwood, who is drifting off, and it's given the Lord of Nightmares the power, thanks to a rare alignment of the planets, to essentially keep everyone asleep and in nightmares forever if Dawn, Surfer, Hulk, and Dr. Strange don't stop him, which they eventually manage. There's a lot of interesting art and ideas but this one feels a little bogged down by how much Slott wants to do and by this strange mythology. Dawn eventually, I should mention, realizes that she wants to see more of the universe and goes with Surfer. Total Score: 3/5


Thunderbolts 30
Punisher and Elektra fight while the two reminisce, both in their heads and out loud, about their times together. Elektra is a far better fighter than Punisher and doesn't really let him get a moment to rest, but even when he finally does get her pinned, he can't bring himself to kill her and the two separate less than amicably but also with neither dead. As Hawkeye relates everything he's figured out to Iron Man, particularly about the terribleness of the new Thunderbolts team, Punisher calls Red Hulk and tells him that he's next. A pretty good fight scene carries this rather nice break-up issue as the weird relationship that was Elektra and Punisher comes to an end. Total Score: 3/5


Uncanny Avengers 23
The Unity Squad needed a bit of time to recover from everything that's happened, so Janet and Scarlet Witch return finally to everyday life from Janet's family's secluded vacation home to try to put their lives back in order again. Anyone that needed healing or examination was placed in a healing chamber for Hank McCoy to study or heal, though Sunfire remains imbued with tremendous power, Havok's face will never heal again, and Rogue still has Wonder Man in her brain (no one really came out of this alright). Rogue goes a little crazy as the voices and memories she thought she expelled from her brain take over again and she runs rampant through New York until Scarlet Witch catches up to her and swears she'll help her. Meanwhile, Red Skull prepares his next major strike along with Kang's recent right-hand man Ahab. Lots of set-up for the upcoming AXIS and some good closer from the last very long arc make this one a worthwhile read, but not one that feels totally necessary to continue the story. Total Score: 4/5


Wolverine 12

It's another fight in a mall and Wolverine decries Sabretooth's hypocrisy while Sabretooth decries Wolverine's use of armor and they fight and eventually Wolverine powers through his crappy dialogue and narration to defeat Sabretooth and they get the orb back and Death is like "hey Wolvy, see ya soon, like in September's DEATH OF WOLVERINE mini-series!" and I'm just glad another heavy-handed but ultimately ineffective WOLVERINE volume has come to a close and I'm looking forward to Charles Soule's spin. Total Score: 2/5


Wolverine and the X-Men 8
Wolverine and Storm have a date in The World, where time moves differently. They end up staying there a while longer, spending a great deal of time building a life, overthrowing a warlord born of the old Weapon Plus program, and stabilizing the region. They leave after a year with Storm leaving as the queen and Logan as the inspiration for a school and so forth, their love for each other deepened but still unable to overcome their responsibilities with the X-Men. It's not a bad issue and the time jumps make it move quickly enough and stay interesting. It's also the first time in the few years that they've had this on-and-off relationship between Wolverine and Storm where I've felt like maybe it wasn't just something the writers wanted to make work, maybe it is something that can happen in this world. Nicely done, Latour. Total Score: 4/5


GUYS, I DID IT. Why isn't everyone praising me ALREADY?

Leftovers 8-13-14

Hey all my buddies, we've reached the end of another long week and I've reached the end of another string of longer reviews. You know what that means: focusing up to whip out this review dump in under an hour (tricky business, that, considering how many I left for myself. Did you guys realize I hadn't actually reviewed AMAZING SPIDER-MAN or SPIDER-MAN 2099 yet? Because I sure didn't). LET'S HIT IT.

Amazing Spider-Man 5
Slott (w) and Ramos (p) and Olazaba (i) and Delgado (c) and Eliopoulos (l)

Spider-Man and Silk make out for a while until she reveals that she knows he's Peter Parker, which jolts him back into his regular state of mind. Disturbed by both of their actions, he brings her home to try to figure out what should happen next, but they quickly end up making out again until Anna Maria comes home. She tells him that Sajani hasn't appeared to any press events as scheduled and he must do it himself, so he goes on J. Jonah Jameson's new talking heads show and begins to talk about his desire to capture and cure Electro and other villains only to be interrupted by Black Cat and Electro busting on to the set to hold Peter hostage. Silk emerges and fights the pair while Peter changes but Electro manages a hit on Peter that renders him immobile while Cat prepares to unmask him on live television. I still really don't like this Black Cat-Electro team-up and I really hate the crazed Black Cat that's emerged from it. Also, her luck powers seem to be working overtime, as do her luck-based mantras and BOY that never gets annoying. Total Score: 2/5


Avengers Undercover 8
Hopeless (w) and T. Walker (a) and Beaulieu (c) and Caramagna (l)

It's been three months since the kids joined up with the villains and some are ready to join up officially while the others are on the cusp of being in deep enough to turn the tables on their "allies." When the now-together Hazmat and Anachronism decide they've gained enough trust, they escape momentarily to contact Hank Pym and tell him what's been happening. He's not thrilled but he agrees to help them when the moment comes. Unfortunately, Zemo seems wise to their game and brings down each one of the kids not already under his sway (Death Locket seems pretty entrenched already and Cullen is being controlled by Daimon Hellstrom). It's a really nice bit of sleight of hand by Hopeless as he keeps the reader focused on the changes that have occurred over the last three months and on which of the kids will follow through on their original plan before revealing that Zemo already has the drop on them because, you know, in retrospect, of course he does, he's Zemo and this plan isn't foolproof, let alone Zemo-proof. Good issue. Total Score: 5/5


Avengers World 11
Spencer (w) and Ienco (a) and Mossa (c) and Caramagna (l)

The Avengers kids are on hand and they prove themselves by taking down a flock of SHIELD agents before Maria agrees to their help. They go to AIM Island and, with the help of Manifold, take down plenty of AIM agents and use a device to gather the intelligence AIM has gathered and block its transmission. They manage to stick it to one of the bio-networked AIM agents and then distract Forson long enough to escape while the present Avengers head to the White House to defend it from AIM, who have more or less declared war on America after Iron Man's "attack" on Forson on live TV. Mostly interesting stuff here though the re-emergence of the Next Avengers mostly just serves to confuse me as to why they're back and, you know, timeline stuff and the like. Whatever, still doing alright. Total Score: 4/5


Deadpool 33
Posehn and Duggan (w) and Lucas (a) and Staples (c) and Sabino (l)

Deadpool fights off wave after wave of Ultimatum soldiers before their boss Flag-Smasher appears and Deadpool gets incapacitated enough for Flag-Smasher to throw Ellie out the window. Deadpool struggles to his feet and begins his attacks anew, furious and sad, until Genesis shows up to help his ol' pal Deadpool with own pal Quentin Quire in tow. Evan caught Ellie going out the window and the girl is unharmed, which doesn't keep Deadpool from annihilating Flag-Smasher, ensuring he stays alive so no one else picks up the mantle and comes after him and threatening him with horrible consequences should he ever come near Deadpool or Ellie again. Deadpool convinces Preston to take Ellie in and he himself buys a house across the street from Preston to be in constant view of his daughter. Meanwhile, Adsit reveals to Preston that Deadpool killed his own family. Pretty good issue, plenty of fun and interesting stuff here. I don't love Lucas' art, which makes anyone unmasked look fairly grotesque and kind of distracts from the situation at hand. Not bad otherwise though. Total Score: 4/5


Fantastic Four 8
J. Robinson (w) and L. Kirk (p) and Hanna (i) and Aburtov (c) and Cowles (l)

Thing is accused of murder, Sue attacked the Avengers after losing her kids, and Johnny's been booted from his live tour in favor of Robinson's ALL-NEW INVADERS creation Radiance. Thing is moved to a high-power prison facility and Sue and Reed are brought to Eden, a community hovering above Lake Michigan led by a man named John Eden because creativity isn't worth anything, I suppose. This is a book I legitimately finished, planning to read a few more comics upon its completion, and I found I couldn't continue because sometimes books are just too bad. It seems telling that the blurb they took from a Newsarama article for the cover simply says "Marvel's premier dysfunctional family" and not anything lauding this actual series. It seems like something is pulling the strings here on the F4 and you can almost be assured that's true because Robinson basically has Reed say it a couple times without actually saying it because Reed apparently hasn't figured it out yet but is taking liberty to simply dance around it. Maybe they didn't have any space to say it outright because they had already used up all of their real estate on exposition. I really don't like this book. Total Score: 1/5


Hulk 5
Duggan (w) and Bagley (p) and Hennessy (i) and Keith (c) and Petit (l)

Hulk has been injected with Extremis and it's made him incredibly smart, though it made him also shave his hair into a mohawk and start calling himself "Doc Green" so maybe we're meant to question exactly how smart he really is. He's smart enough, though, to have formulated a way to cure gamma-enhanced beings, though the serum won't work on himself. He's realized that gamma-enhancements are too dangerous to have around and he's made enough of the serum and fashioned enough adamantium nanites for delivery to the other gamma-enhanced beings, starting with Rick Jones, who isn't so crazy about the idea. Very interesting new direction for the series as Gerry Duggan takes over the book (a little sad that it's not Mark Waid because I was going to talk about how I met Mark Waid last week and he was delightful and very kind but now I have no idea when I'll be able to mention it). I'm distracted, still, by the mohawk and the name Doc Green but I like a lot of the other stuff. Total Score: 4/5


Inhuman 3
Soule (w) and Madureira (a) and Gracia (c) and Cowles (l)

Lash has taken a few more Inhumans to Orollan, though no one really knows what to make of his cultish ways. Meanwhile, Lineage has sought council with Medusa to tell him what he knows about Black Bolt's plan, gleaned from the information he's received from the voices in his body. Allegedly, something worse is coming for the Inhumans and Black Bolt unleashed the Terrigen Mists because they'd need all the help they can get. Medusa brings a handful of combatants to Orollan to tell Lash about the threats and to warn him off killing any more Inhumans, which he very reluctantly agrees to. Lots of good stuff here and a lot of interesting new places to go but you do have to get through a lot of exposition in this issue to get to the meat of the series. Total Score: 4/5






GUYS, maybe there will be more later but I am burned out and APPARENTLY I really left a ton for myself for today/tomorrow so I'm takin' a break. Love you all, spoilers for the future post: THUNDERBOLTS and X-FORCE are both worth reading. Can't say much else.

Inhuman 2, Ms. Marvel 4

Inhuman 2
Soule (w) and Madureira (a) and Gracia (c) and Cowles (l)

With new Inhuman, or Nuhuman, Dante and sister Gabby successfully in the fold (though they're certainly hesitant about this new life), Medusa moves on to other business, such as securing more of fallen Attilan and staking a claim in the new world. With the help of Captain America, she defends a piece of Atillan from AIM attackers and then broadcasts and announcement to the world, saying that over the Hudson is their place now and that Nuhumans are welcome to join. As her day winds down, one more person comes to meet with her, a possible Inhuman named Lineage, who claims he knows why Black Bolt did what he did and that she's messing things up.

This is something of a tough book to write, and not just because of the production problems it suffered early on. Soule is tasked with getting readers up to speed on the Inhumans as a whole and all these new threats and new challenges. Still, he has to try to develop characters like Medusa, Gorgon, the doctor Vinatos, Dante, and Gabby, not to mention Lash (from last issue) and now Lineage. There are a lot of balls in the air right now and Soule is doing what he can to keep them there or catch them. There are certainly some bumps in this book but by and large it's a worthwhile read. Joe Mad's art is pretty spectacular and his fight art is stunning. Hopefully the book will be a little more engaging when all our players are in place.

Total Score: 4/5


Ms. Marvel 4
G.W. Wilson (w) and Alphona (a) and Herring (c) and Caramagna (l)

Bruno's younger brother Vick fled after accidentally shooting Kamala, still shifted to look like Captain Marvel. Bruno calls an ambulance but Kamala reverts to her regular self which, on top of showing Bruno who she is, heals her. It's not a perfect heal, as if she switches back to Captain Marvel she's still wounded, but she's able to safely stay Kamala. She and Bruno talk about the trouble Vick is in and Kamala vows to help him. She goes home and assembles a costume then she and Bruno meet at the shady house that Vick has been going to, home of, perhaps, new villain the Inventor. A newly outfitted Kamala busts in calling herself Ms. Marvel and takes out, with some difficulty, the robots guarding the place before finding Vick and finding herself face-to-face with the Inventor.

One of the things that has made this book so compelling from the start (and it's something that I think NOVA has hit on a few time in its run) is that it's fresh. You can feel the youth in this book, regardless if the book is actually created by younger people or not. What I mean to say is that this book (and at times in NOVA, mostly during Wells' and Duggan's runs) does a pretty good job putting a realistic kid in these situations. Kamala is fresh and fun and, though she's clearly smart and good, she's undoubtedly still a teenager. It doesn't feel like "this person is writing a teenager!" for the majority of the book. Instead, it feels like simply a compelling young woman. Adrian Alphona's art can't be left out of this. Though G. Willow Wilson is writing a solid Kamala, Alphona's art grounds this series in a way, to such a degree, that very few artists can do. Overall just a really fun and interesting book that feels like it has places to go.

Total Score: 5/5

Comics this week

Another fairly busy week this week with 17 new releases scheduled to hit and some fairly big ones to boot. Still, five stand out, as they ever seem to, from the rest of the pack.

Avengers 30
AVENGERS had slipped somewhat out of my top titles to look for lists but the last couple issues, detailing Banner and Captain America finding out about the reformed Illuminati (or finding out again, as the case may have been), have brought an incredible tension to the book and have kept me on the edge of my seat (does that cliche work when you're reading? I don't really need to lean forward to get a closer look). With AVENGERS 30, I'm looking for more of that.

Inhuman 2
I'm not so sure what to make of this series still but Charles Soule has been good to us since he made his way to Marvel and I don't expect that to change. The biggest flaws in the series thus far have been on the business end; problems launching and shipping have led to a somewhat stagnant feeling behind the main message. Still, hopefully Soule will be able to pull us in with this series as it's clear Marvel has some big plans for the Inhumans.

Ms. Marvel 4
If you're not reading this book yet, it's time to get on board. It's drawing comparisons to books like ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, which is one that people still reference as one of their favorite books all time. Get into this one before you've missed the rush of it and while it's still retailing, miraculously, for $2.99. Also, if the characters, writing, and interior art weren't enough (note: they are), Jamie McKelvie is doing the covers for this series at current and they are amazing.

Uncanny Avengers 20
While the Marvel Universe shifts into ORIGINAL SIN, UNCANNY AVENGERS stays its course, continuing to tell the story it's been telling for a solid 15 issues or so at this point. It's a true epic of a tale, something that's almost impossible to see in Marvel these days. More impressively, it remains good and compelling. Time to head back to Planet X while we push towards the end.

Winter Soldier: Bitter March 4
I've really been enjoying this book so far, an extremely interesting story in its own right but clearly a story that's working to a greater end (it continues to be a story both about the Winter Soldier, always worth reading, and about Ran Shen, current villain of CAPTAIN AMERICA, well before he was a villain and back when he was a high-ranking SHIELD officer). The gorgeous covers and the fantastic interior art have set a tone for this limited series that is rarely seen from Marvel.

Inhuman 1, New Warriors 3

Inhuman 1
Soule (w) and Madureira (a) and Gracia (c)

The Terrigenesis wave has spread across the world and it's brought out Inhumans new and old across the planet. On top of the new Inhumans who experienced Terrigenesis as a result of Black Bolt's bomb, factions of Inhumans have emerged to show off their philosophies. Primarily, that puts Inhuman Lash at odds with Attilan queen Medusa, effectively putting Attilan up against Lash's home of Orollan. Orollan had limited access to Terrigen and thus only evolved people who they thought had earned it and who they believed would help the community with their evolution. As a result, Lash and his Inhumans believe that Terrigenesis is not for everyone, as Black Bolt made it, and he wants to make sure that Inhumans only get stronger with this new wave. He captures one cocoon from Norway and waits for its inhabitant to emerge before deeming it weak and killing it. He then appears at the Des Plaines, Illinois home of a family with some amount of Inhuman DNA in them; the sick and frail mother has enough to trigger Terrigenesis but not enough to survive the process while her son Dante has enough to enter and emerge from the cocoon. Lash believes he's been unchanged and aims to kill him but Dante quickly bursts into flames a la Human Torch and attacks. Though Lash is impressed that he has indeed changed, he believes that Dante (who we may as well just call Inferno at this point) cannot control his transformation and still readies to kill him when Medusa appears to defend Dante and his still-human pregnant sister Gabriela. Medusa forces Lash to leave, though he vows that their paths will cross again, and promises to bring Dante to the remains of the Attilan family.

There are a number of questions to ask about this new series and the aftermath of the Terrigenesis bomb and almost all of them, for me, have to do with process. In this case, is this book going to have enough of an impact to make the Terrigenesis bomb and the new influx of Inhumans worth the wait? The problem with the delay (and I do believe, given what I know of the writer switch and everything, that the delays were worthwhile; you never want a writer who's writing something he doesn't want to be writing as it seems the case had become as the story broke more) is that now we've seen some of the effects of the Terrigenesis wave and, frankly, unless you're a diehard Inhuman fan, I think you're probably mostly over it. Of course, the plan had been to launch this book just after INFINITY and I think it would have had built in impact just with the timing. Now we're rather through the majority of tie-in books to this "event" and we're just starting the core book. While I do believe that the warring Inhuman factions is an interesting story and one well worth watching (hey, I finally mentioned something about this book specifically!), I worry that it may end up being too little too late. Instead of getting a boost from its well-timed release, now Soule and Madureira have to create a better book to actually entice people to pick it up in the first place. Feet to the fire and all that.

New Warriors 3
Yost (w) and To (a) and Curiel (c)

The High Evolutionary explains to Nova that the Celestials had long ago created the Eternals, the Deviants, and the Humans on Earth and that the Eternals and the Deviants fought one another while the Humans grew and evolved, much to their liking. However, all of the mutations and outside effects that have created the Marvel Universe as we know it (mutation, radioactivity, alien experimentation, Atlanteans, etc.) have caused humanity to diverge from the path the Celestials set for it and now they're coming back to erase their mistake. The High Evolutionary, then, is trying to save the world by purging it of the subsets of humanity who differed from the plan. In addition, his Evolutionaries have brought in Scarlet Spider, Hummingbird, and Water Snake (Faira) from Mexico. Meanwhile, Sun Girl and Justice come at odds with one another as they escape cops trying to shoot their new horn-headed pal. Justice believes that they should leave well enough alone and set Mark (horn-headed pal!) up with the Attilans while Sun Girl believes they have to get to the bottom of this. Justice reluctantly agrees to step up and says that their first course of action should be finding Nova. Speaking of Nova, Scarlet Spider manages to summon spiders to the High Evolutionary's machinery, breaking it enough that he can bust out of his holding cell and break everyone else out too. Nova vows to go get help but they're all quickly overrun by the Evolutionaries.

I've been a little iffy as this book has kicked off. I think Yost has done a pretty good job starting to establish his characters and giving us a story that's clearly got pretty big pieces to it but it was going to be a tough tightrope to walk (as opposed to the tightropes that are like, totally simple to walk) building the characters up while also navigating a complicated story. This issue proves that he'll be able to knock it out of the park. Really solid issue, we get a lot of character development with our team and one of the most concise and complete definitions of the Marvel Universe in the High Evolutionary's speech to kick the book off. Phenomenal work to clarify parts of the universe that are admittedly difficult to follow for an audience perhaps unfamiliar with it. Suddenly this series is not just a nice selection of characters melded together by a good writer, it's also a fully functioning story that will very clearly carry itself and which has been really well-defined for such a sweeping story. Check this book out for a great look at some neat and under seen characters and a pretty cool story to boot.

Comics this week

Hey there everybody. Big week for Marvel and for for this blog in general as we get right to Captain America: Winter Soldier, the most anticipated Marvel movie since Avengers for some reviewers (guys, we're talking about me. We're ALWAYS talking about me). Fortunately, particularly after that whirlwind of comics last week, Marvel has chosen to give us a bit of a break so we can get out there and see that movie. Only fourteen new releases this week and even a couple of those are suspect (movie tie-in books and the like). Still, we're champions over here at Marvels (still talking about me) and a week where there are maybe ten legitimate books is still RIPE FOR THE PICKING for the five most anticipated books of the week (the key, everyone, is that they're just anticipated. I don't have to promise that they're good. Though, honestly, thinking about it, most of these ones are set to be).

Black Widow 5
Black Widow, star of the upcoming film Captain America: Winter Soldier, can also be seen absolutely destroying over in BLACK WIDOW, the amazing comic series from Nathan Edmondson and Phil Noto. Join her this week as she goes for round two with her newest enemy, the Hammer of God Molot Boga. Guys, check this book out. I guarantee it'll be worth it.

Captain America 19
Captain America, star of the upcoming film Captain America: Winter Soldier, can also be seen dealing with a villain who won't be starring in Captain America: Winter Soldier over in CAPTAIN AMERICA. Dr. Mindbubble has already proven himself an interesting adversary and I think, as Cap nears a villain designed to counter people like himself, he's only going to get more interesting as things push forward. Remender's taken this book in some crazy directions already and Cap hasn't even had a moment to breathe, something that's been pretty key to the entire run and something that hasn't really happened like this since...well, since Brubaker's Cap-Winter Soldier run. Dude was off the chains then. I may secret review that whole bit at some point.

Inhuman 1
GUYS, it's finally here. After problems in the arrangement and release of INHUMANS, the first issue (following the now somewhat random issues created by Matt Fraction) is coming THIS VERY WEEK. Will the delays hurt it, now that it's coming out after even the slowest of tie-ins to INFINITY and INHUMANITY have all but passed (looking at you MS. MARVEL)? Only time will tell. The Inhumans are typically pretty interesting so it should be a good time to take a bit of a deeper look and sudden superstar Charles Soule seems ready to take us there.

Moon Knight 2
After a revealing first issue showed a little of what we can expect from this Warren Ellis-Declan Shalvey offering and I and I'm sure many others are dying to see what comes next. This book has the potential to really break some new ground and catapult Moon Knight up the ranks of well-liked characters, maybe even enough so to land him a role in Captain America: Winter Soldier (though, in all likelihood, that catapult will come too late to have an effect on a movie that was finished several months before the launch of this new series).

She-Hulk 3
I'll be honest, this one is up here and it's almost surprising to me. It's been a good book through three issues but there are a slew of both good and interesting books on this week's list. I think this one intrigues me in a lot of ways I'm not sure about. I've never been entirely sold on She-Hulk as a character, I'm not entirely sold on the art, I'm not entirely sold on the stories or the growing supporting cast. Thanks to all the "nots" in that sentence, it makes it seem like I'm not enjoying this book. I am though, which is what makes this book so interesting to me. I can't accurately cite why I'm really enjoying this one but I am. So it edges on to this list in front of books like NEW WARRIORS, PUNISHER, and MAGNETO because I'm so flummoxed by it. That's what you want to hear about a book right?


SUPER SECRET UNEXPECTED PICK
MOVIE TO WATCH FOR THIS WEEK:
CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER.

A+X 16, Infinity: Heist 4, Inhumanity: The Awakening 2

A+X 16
Spider-Man and Psylocke: S. Ryan (w) and Parlov (a) and Gandini (c)
Captain America and Cyclops (and so many friends): Duggan (w) and Yardin, C. Smith, N. Lee, and Pallot (a) and Mossa (c)

In our first story (set several years ago), Spider-Man happens to be swinging by a restaurant when he hears a crash. He goes to check it out and finds Psylocke in there, surrounded by sword-wielding men in suits. He helps her dispatch of them but, as she tries to interrogate one, one of the felled men drops a grenade. Spidey stays out of the blast radius but Psylocke ends up impaled by a sword on the ground. Spidey rushes to her side and immediately realizes he can't move her. She doesn't want him to leave for help and so he stays as she tries to hold on to consciousness. Right as it seems like she might be fading, the X-Men show up and take her away, presumably to save her (she's still alive now, isn't she?) and Spider-Man makes his way home. Weird little story, doesn't seem to fit any where but it's a nice intimate look into the superhero community, which I suppose is the goal of this series. The story moves well and the art works well enough for it so I guess I can't complain. Still a little weird though, right?

Continuing the long Cap+Cyclops saga, the assembled team squares off against Cadre K, the Skrulls who were trained by Charles Xavier and who are hiding out on the planet. In the middle of their big fight, Emma Frost realizes that they're not doing anything wrong here and informs the heroes. Everyone stops the fight and they talk for a bit as Cadre K explains that they're just trying to make a decent living for themselves out on the farm and trying to keep the cattle who have Skrull DNA in them out of other farms and out of processed foods in America (some of their farm is comprised of the cattle that Reed Richards convinced Skrulls to be on their first trip to Earth, a move everyone considers pretty jerky). The heroes decide there's nothing wrong with what they're doing (in fact, they'd prefer those cows stay out of the market) and promise to stop fighting against them and fight for them as need be. Unfortunately, the LMD Cap and Cyclops have been working with shows up and reveals that he, Cap, and Cyclops have been infected with nano-Doombots who have monitored everything so Doom is likely on his way to capture these Skrulls. Looks like we'll have to wait a little longer to see a resolution between Cap and Cyclops.

Infinity: Heist 4
Tieri (w) and Barrionuevo, Bachs, N. Edwards, Domingues, and Rauch (a) and Sotocolor and Mossa (c)

The supervillain team-up not in league with Captain Atlas of the Kree (so pretty much just not Spymaster) present have been imprisoned and knocked out so that they can be executed (weird that they're waiting) by the Iron Man soldiers that they helped to steal, unwittingly, for the Kree Empire. We'll get back to that, okay? Anyway, Unicorn goes crazy and manages to break them out of their containment and, with the help of a remote controlled Iron Man who has figured out what's happening here and the help of Blizzard's new Inhuman powers (which apparently act as a battery, so he overcharges a lot of the armors), they manage to defeat Atlas and Spymaster. Not willing to let his pals go down for the fight, Blizzard flies the remote Iron Man out and freezes them both while the others escape. When the pair come to, Iron Man shuttles Blizzard off to jail, where the SHIELD psych team gives him a dream of joining up with the Inhumans on Attilan while Whirlwind and Firebrand start a relationship over again in the tropics.

There was a time this week where I wasn't sure I'd be able to read this book in time to review and, well, I'm kind of jealous of that possible-timeline-Tim. I haven't totally hated this series overall and I don't totally hate this last issue but I certainly don't care for it. There's plenty here that doesn't quite gel for me. First and foremost is the idea that someone from the Kree Empire is deadset on stealing Tony Stark armor and using B-List villains to do it, including hiring Spymaster to coordinate the whole thing. One of the biggest things about the Kree Empire is that they're masters of technology. I don't really see them going crazy to steal all of Tony Stark's outdated armor. I know that might seem like a minor flaw but really, it's the plot point that's driving LITERALLY EVERYTHING we've seen in this mini-series so not buying it means that the whole series is weak. Also, everyone looks and sounds rather the same (aside from Firebrand, who at least looks different, thanks to being the only woman in this series) so it's hard to tell exactly what's happening at any one time. The final reveal that Blizzard is actually dreaming his future with the Inhumans is played like a big and shocking reveal but it's really not that big a reveal and it's not that meaningful because, again, B-list villain who we haven't really grown to love in this series, despite what Tieri might think. Ah well, at least the final piece of INFINITY seems to be over, which is more than we can say for AVENGERS VS. X-MEN, am I right A+X?

Inhumanity: The Awakening 2
Kindt (w) and Davidson (a) and Beaulieu (c)

The assortment of kids (I'd be fine if that was their superhero team name - The Assortment of Kids! Actually, never mind, I'm going to use that one, copyright Tim Nicastro 2014) manage to track down new Inhuman Fiona's new Inhuman brother Flynn after he destroys an apartment building which we learn was the apartment building that housed the jerk kids who nearly tortured Fiona in the park before she flew away. He was doing it out of love and a severe anger problem, that's all! So the Assortment of Kids® goes to meet up with Flynn and Finesse talks him down from his anger, explaining a bit of her history to sympathize. They stage it so that it looks like the apartment building was actually just the result of an Inhuman transformation and then they give Flynn and Fiona a choice of which superkid school they want to go to: Flynn chooses the Latverian School of Science (geez guys, warning bells, huh?) and Fiona checks all of them out to learn she's not alone in the world.

Like the last issue, this one is framed by social media. It's a little less intrusive here as we don't follow the Instagram account of anyone in the book but it's still pretty prevalent as every page shows a weird non-sequiter sort of Twitter conversation between two people who seem unrelated with all of this and it's weird and creepy and I do not care for it. One of the blurbs from one of the creators at the end of YOUNG AVENGERS this week called YOUNG AVENGERS the perfect comic for the Tumblr generation (which I a little resent because I loved that book and similarly hate that generation but I understand what it's saying) and it feels like this book is trying just super hard to be named that. Instead, I think it flounders and gets a little too heavy-handed about these kids not fitting in and finding their place and so on and so forth. On top of it, the art is a little bit weird and kind of makes everyone look super ugly super all the time. Also, I just really can't say enough how much I don't need a Twitter feed going across the top of a comic book. Gross. Hope no one was looking for interesting action from the cover of this one! Plus side: the book that this one advertises at the end of this one is AVENGERS UNDERCOVER, which I'm looking forward to and, more importantly, which isn't this one.

Top 10 new comics to keep an eye on in 2014

ANOTHER SUBJECTIVE LIST! You thought I was done but I CAN MAKE LISTS ALLLLLLLL DAY. Anyway, I find myself really excited by some of the prospects of this coming year from Marvel so let's dive in. I'm only going to be mentioning the new comics that are coming even though I am excited for a lot of continuing comics - you can read my last few days' posts to find out which ones those are. I'm not planning this one out as rigidly as I planned out last year's top 20 so LET'S SEE IF I ACTUALLY HAVE 10.

All-New Invaders
A new Invaders book starring the original Invaders? Dude, I am so onboard with that. The first arc (or one of the first arcs, promises to even bring in Aarkus, the original Vision most recently seen in X-MEN LEGACY and an original INVADER himself. Plus Bucky, Cap, Namor, and Human Torch! Ahhhh, so excited.












Black Widow
Black Widow's one of those characters who, for some reason or another, struggles to sustain a solo book. I'm hoping she's able to sustain this one as she's certainly a character worthy of more airtime in the Marvel Universe and someone that I think fans would connect to more if she had some time to spread her wings. She's also just one of a handful of new female-driven books to be excited about, which in and of itself is exciting.











Inhuman

This one's been pushed back a bit to accommodate a change in writers as Matt Fraction, previously confirmed to the book, has stepped back, leaving Charles Soule in charge. As much as I enjoy Fraction and think he'd've brought something special to the book, Soule has done a bang-up job on THUNDERBOLTS and I think he'll likely do a similar job on INHUMAN. This Axel Alonso column from CBR goes into further detail about the switch and it seems like it's probably for the best (Marvel and Fraction weren't really seeing eye-to-eye on how the story needed to go so it's probably better that Fraction stepped down rather than work on the project he didn't want to work on, though I'm sure his would have been amazing anyway).







Ms. Marvel
Really excited to see a book spawning from CAPTAIN MARVEL, and another female-led book (this one actually booted ELEKTRA from the list when I remembered it too was coming). This one has been all over the place, with various news outlets covering the arrival of a new woman teenage, Muslim superhero. Should be really interesting, looking forward to it.











Moon Knight

I love Moon Knight as a character so I was glad to see that he was getting back into an ongoing. I was even more glad when it was announced that his book would improbably be done by Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey, and Jordie Bellaire. What an amazing creative team. Very excited to see where it goes.














New Warriors

With SCARLET SPIDER gone and Yost seemingly stepping down from SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN TEAM-UP (in the very least, the latest PREVIEWS has Kevin Shinick by issue 11) where am I going to get my Chris Yost fix now? Why, NEW WARRIORS! Also, Scarlet Spider will be joining with that team so I'M COVERED EVERY WHICH WAY.













She-Hulk

I know, I'm as surprised as you that this book is here! Still, She-Hulk is a pretty well-liked character and books that came out in the last year with "She-Hulk" in the name somewhere served me well so I'm happy to give this one a look. On top of that, Charles Soule will also be taking the reins on this one and, on top of a fun writing style he brings to the game, Soule runs his own small law practice so he'll know what he's talking about in the lawyer-parts of the book.











Silver Surfer

Dan Slott and Michael Allred team up to bring us a brand new SILVER SURFER series. I'm a Silver Surfer fan so I'm glad we'll get to see a bit more of him and I'm very interested to see Dan Slott as the writer for another ongoing as he's stuck so firmly to Spider-Man over the last few years. His writing history, of course, is much more varied so it's not like this is only the second book he'll ever have done but it's been quite some time. Here's hoping it's neat!











Winter Soldier: Bitter March

I considered not putting this book on this list in favor of putting another ongoing on here but, I mean, I'm pretty excited for this one and it's my blog so, you know, whatever man. Glad to see Winter Soldier getting a story of his own, a spy story set in the 1960s as the brainwashed Bucky does his business for Russia in something that will tie into Remender's CAPTAIN AMERICA series in some way or another (Remender will also be the writer of this one). Should be a good time.











X-Force

So glad that this worked out so appropriately even in alphabetical order. I get to bookend this list with the two upcoming books I'm most excited about as ALL-NEW INVADERS brings one of my all-time favorite teams back into the mainstream and X-FORCE will bring one of my favorite teams with a solid (and surprisingly small) roster and a phenomenal writer. Si Spurrier working with, among others, Fantomex? Totally sold.











Should be a fun 2014, you guys. And that's just from the books that have been announced for the early part of the year. AND, oh man, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men Days of Future Past and eventually Guardians of the Galaxy are all slated for release this year. Whaaaaaaaat?