Amazing X-Men 5, All-New X-Factor 5, Marvel Knights X-Men 5

Amazing X-Men 5
Aaron (w) and McGuinness and Vines (a) and Gracia (c)

With all of the X-Men by Nightcrawler's side again, they prepare for war with Azazel's ship. Nightcrawler and his friends do what they can to keep Azazel and his pirates at bay but they begin to make a real push against the X-Men and, after Wolverine is stabbed through his back, Nightcrawler is forced to consummate his deal with the Bamfs, the terms of which are still unknown to us. He goes through with it, despite the pleadings of an also-Heavenly Charles Xavier in his head, and the Bamfs pile on Azazel, forcing him to Earth, while Nightcrawler and the X-Men make their way back out of the portal. The deal that Nightcrawler made chained Azazel to Earth, meaning he can't take over Heaven or Hell or anything out there at the cost of his own soul. But hey, Nightcrawler's back!

I still don't really like this arc in its conceit. I think it's a dangerous move to bring Heaven and Hell into a universe that can't possibly abide them. Well, okay, Hell already exists in the Marvel Universe so I suppose it's not that much of a stretch to say that Heaven is there too but the truth of the matter is that Hell works in a somewhat different way than the typical model of Hell. Heaven, then, seems just like a place that would contain the souls of all of the heroes that have ever died and how do you close that door once it's been opened? Obviously heroes don't exactly suffer from overly long deaths, but dropping Heaven into the equation seems both like it's going to bring up religious issues and just be a possible panacea for any deaths that are still to come. On top of that, the scale of the story almost didn't seem big enough; I don't know that it ever truly found its footing here and I particularly don't like introducing Heaven so blatantly with a story that doesn't really shine. I continue to be very torn on Ed McGuinness, who has all the basics of drawing really mastered but whose characters (particularly the women) have really child-like faces (Storm on the cover of this issue terrifies me more than most things in the world). But hey, Nightcrawler's back!

All-New X-Factor 5
David (w) and Di Giandomenico (a) and Loughridge (c)

When Gambit wakes, Danger is standing in his room. She explains to him that his kiss introduced organic counteractions to the programming Nil had done to erase what she once was but that she fears it wasn't enough and needs more counteracting. Gambit doesn't really know what this means and he leaves more than a little shaken. Meanwhile, the introduction of Danger to the team has made things a little trickier around the office as she recognizes immediately that Quicksilver had left through the bathroom window and run somewhere before running back and pretending to be finished with the bathroom based on his heart rate and she deduces that Harrison Snow is having an affair with his assistant when she scans that the assistant has Snow's DNA on her in ways that suggest such an affair. Of course, everyone denies these allegations and Danger is left doubting herself even more. Finally, when X-Factor is brought into a business meeting with the head of an up-and-coming tech business that Snow wants to buy out, Danger immediately recognizes that the man isn't human. As everyone protests Danger's accusation, she plunges her hand through his chest to reveal his true nature. It's the Magus, head of the Technarchy and father of former New Mutant Warlock, who turns up apparently on the side of his one-time enemy Magus as X-Factor faces off against him. Warlock appears to save his father and the two escape while X-Factor tries to put everything together. Polaris decides they need to go see Cypher to understand what's happening with Warlock.

The introduction of Danger to this team has already made the book a good deal more interesting. It's thrown another dynamic in with this team and it's already showing how much more difficult it's going to be to keep secrets around here. With the reveal that Danger can sniff out everyone's little lies, we're able to see just how much of a powder keg Peter David has built with his core three characters and with Harrison Snow, who is still obviously set to be the villain of the piece. In that way, this issue has to be the strongest so far of the bunch and it hints that things may continue to improve as we get a little deeper into a new plot and as we start to establish new members for the team (color me surprised if Cypher and/or Warlock doesn't end up on the team when all of this is said and done). There are perhaps a few too many nerdy references in here for the characters - I have no doubt that they don't sail over the head of anyone reading it but I don't believe that some of the characters would actually make them let alone make them in the situations in which they are made (Snow makes a Doctor Who reference to the head of the other company and then quickly explains that it's a Doctor Who reference for literally no one's benefit in his first time meeting the other company's head). Still, the plot is moving, the characters are coming into their own, and everything's working out one way or another so let's hope this ball keeps rolling.

Marvel Knights X-Men 5
Revel (w and a) and Peter (c)

The dream-Xavier shows up at just the right time as he gives Kitty all of the inspiration she needs to continue fighting and to inspire Krystal into doing what she can to give them an army and to find her way to Darla. Meanwhile, Rogue and Wolverine, their recent fight put aside, re-enter the fray near Darla and manage to keep things chaotic for the young mutant while she begins to panic and tries to use the drugs she got from the head of the cult to up her powers. Kitty and Krystal, leading a Krystal-controlled team of bikers back into the town, cut a swath through the battles and all of the X-Men present begin to get added help when they create their own backups in the form of dream-Storm, dream-Nightcrawler, and dream-Colossus. While the fight rages, Krystal makes her way to Darla and tries to talk her down. Though it's a struggle to convince Darla that she's not doing the right thing here, Krystal eventually succeeds and gets Darla to give up the fight and let the X-Men help her. Finally everything begins to calm down and, to help a little bit more, Krystal convinces the press that everything they'd seen from the outside of these fights were created by a mine cave-in and subsequent explosions from that.

It's a nice little ending for what has been a nice little series. One of the most apparent things about writer/artist Brahm Revel throughout this series has been a true love for the X-Men. He cares who these characters are and where they've come from and, while this story was a sweeping tale about two scared mutants in a town that hates and fears what they are, it's what really drove the story all the way through, right up to its ending with the dream-X-Men team coming to the aid of fellow X-Men Wolverine, Rogue, and Kitty Pryde. The book reads as a real love story to the X-Men while managing to create and craft a story all distinctly its own, aided by Revel's outstanding art. I liked a lot of the things that were happening in MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN (thanks, in large part, to the incredible Marco Rudy art) but I think this series stands a little better as a complete story. Certainly a story worth telling and I think we can safely say, now that the newest batch of MARVEL KNIGHTS books have all been completed, this little experiment of reintroducing the MARVEL KNIGHTS line was a success.

Wolverine and the X-Men 41, Marvel Knights X-Men 4

Wolverine and the X-Men 41
Aaron (w) and Larraz and Nauck (a) and Milla (c)

After his switch from X-School janitor to Hellfire Academy janitor and given his shady past, the teachers at the Jean Grey school decide it's best to part with Toad. He regrets his involvement with the Hellfire Academy as he's come to like his job with the Jean Grey School but he ultimately accepts his fate. As he leaves, Husk apologizes for not remembering him and for going crazy recently but asks to meet him after work for coffee to try to understand what she felt for him. Instead, he intercedes in a breakout by the Hellfire Academy kids currently studying at the Jean Grey School. He's not out to stop them, though, he's out for a second chance. Max Frankenstein wants him to prove it and he pounces on Manuel Enduque and the two leave him for the X-Men to find, with Toad claiming he has to leave while he still remembers what it's like not to be a toad. He and Frankenstein leave on jetpacks.

An almost interesting end to Toad's story with the Jean Grey School but the ultimate problem remains that Toad was something of a joke to start the book and was slowly to become a big part of the mythos but I don't think he ever really got there. In that way, his heartfelt departure from the school and his impassioned plea to Manuel explaining why he needs to leave (while he beats him up) kind of fall a little flat. It's hard when a big emotional issue doesn't have enough of a background on it. Aaron's done a lot to try to make Toad a worthwhile character for his part in this book, particularly seen in retrospect after this issue, but, at the end of the day, it's still just Toad and the audience still doesn't really have a connection to him so this issue, instead of feeling bittersweet, feels somewhat unnecessary and distracting. As ever, I can't speak for everyone but I honestly feel like this series could have ended (as it will next issue before its reboot with Jason Latour at the helm) without addressing Toad and I'd not have been surprised when he just wasn't there next time.

Marvel Knights X-Men 4
Revel (w and a) and C. Peter (c)

After fighting some of their demons, with Wolverine facing down the slew of his enemies borne out of Rogue's memories and Rogue fighting Carol Danvers back in the days when Rogue was busy stealing her memories and powers borne out of Wolverine's memories, everyone starts to get things settled. Kitty starts to learn from Krystal about the history of this town, which mostly revolved around her corrupt sheriff-uncle using her powers to cut his way into the horrible cult at the top of the hill, profiting on drug sales and torturing a mutant. When Krystal tried to break the mutant out, the cult shot him in the ensuing chase. She (accidentally) used her persuasive powers to convince them that mutants were better than them and that that cult's days were numbered. So the cult rededicated itself to worshipping mutants and trying to appease mutants before the last days of mankind. Now everything is going crazy and Darla has teamed up with the cult and they've come across a reconciled Rogue and Wolverine, who Darla wants dead.

Things start to clear up a bit with this town and some of the history comes out. More importantly, we get to see a little bit of where everyone's loyalties lie, which has been a mystery throughout and now it's pretty well revealed. The twists are reasonably good ones and it's a neat little portrait of a small and horrible town dealing with mutants. It can also kind of serve to highlight just how tortured the X-Men are, what with their memories floating into reality, and raining chaos on the town. Brahm Revel's art continues to really drive the book and it works perfectly in tandem with Cris Peter's colors to look unlike anything else on the shelves right now. I think the story probably holds up alright as a limited series even without the impressive art, which is a nice little bonus for this series and one that I'm not totally sure can be applied as much to MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN, but the art really sets this one a step above. In truth, I think I still like MK SPIDER-MAN more because Marco Rudy's art real appealed to me and struck me but I think this one may be a more complete series.

All-New X-Men 22, X-Men 9, Marvel Knights X-Men 3

All-New X-Men 22
Bendis (w) and S. Immonen and von Grawbadger (a) and Gracia (c)

The ANXM team is back from their meeting with the Purifiers and everyone's relaxing their own way. For Scott and Jean (and, inadvertently, Warren), that means arguing about her knowing the future and being upset and Scott being upset and drama and so on and so forth. The fight ends as Jean storms off and is promptly kidnapped by suddenly attacking aliens who, according to Kitty, seem to be Shi'ar. They put everyone attacking them in bubble forcefields and take Jean away in one without a giant fight. As soon as they've left, the Guardians of the Galaxy pop by and realize that they're too late.

Right off the bat the pacing feels a little strange in this one. Things move pretty well for the second half of the book but the first half is largely made up of Scott and Jean fighting across a cafeteria table (and across Warren for comic relief). Though the back-and-forth dialogue is pretty prevalent in this scene, I actually think that it works here because they're meant to be kind of quickly shouting at one another and it doesn't often step into strange asides and quips. Instead, it feels like a real fight. So my problem, then, isn't with the writing of this scene, it's with the length of it. Maybe halfway through it I think it's safe to say it could have ended. There's even an out there that could have still sent Jean walking away and the issue progressing from there. It might be an attempt by Bendis at trying to give just a little more characterization to the three characters present in whatever way he can but it feels like it just overstayed its welcome, causing readers to have to push through the end of a fight they already fully understand and, worse still, to which they know the ending. Still, it's not one of the weaker issues of the series for that, as the pacing almost immediately picks up (though again, I'd say there's a bit of waste in the second half insofar as how often people explain what's happening in the fight, but that's pretty petty, even by my own admission) and the ending paves the way for the now started TRIAL OF JEAN GREY. Solid Immonen artwork on this one but, then again, it's always solid Immonen artwork.

X-Men 9
Wood (w) and T. Dodson and R. Dodson (a) and Keith, Woodard, and Mossa (c)

Lady Deathstrike has moved her operation, along with Enchantress and Typhoid Mary, to a new office in Dubai where she hopes to power her small team up and hopes to bring Arkea to life. The X-Men are trying to track them but not finding much until Jubilee and Karima find a Cortes jet landing in Dubai. Monet is ready to strike and aimed at the top seven floors of the building, all of which are owned by Cortes and seem empty, aside from the villains. Monet blasts through but it's just too late; Arkea has already been revived, taking the body of Cortes' assistant Reiko, and amped up the powers of the other three. Enchantress, her powers fully restored, manages to grab and hold Monet until she loses consciousness while Mary and Arkea escape. Mary and Arkea talk about the X-Men, whose databases Arkea still retains from her first appearance, and it gives Arkea an idea: she begins to take over other entities all over the world (including, possibly, Karima again) and plans to attack the X-Men on every home base she knows.

The stakes are pretty quickly rising here as Arkea comes back online. There's still plenty of intrigue and questions as Sublime returns to the X-Men to help for one reason or another but it's largely out in the open now as the audience is privy to Arkea's rebirth and her plan going forward. The team building and characterization is mostly in the actions of characters as everyone has her role and takes to it immediately, with Jubilee and Karima trying to track Arkea, Storm and Psylocke meeting with Arab superhero and peacekeeper Sabra to ensure their fight with Arkea keeps from starting a war, Monet as the strike force, and Rachel probing Sublime for information and directing the others. Everyone has an individual voice, even as some of our characters have fewer lines and are maybe a little out of focus. Meanwhile, the plot is running full tilt now and our players are largely accounted for, though there are hints that Arkea might be picking up new enemies for her sisterhood, as Enchantress deems it. As X-MEN moves firmly out of the event it was wrapped up in, it's progressing extremely well with Brian Wood doing his "raising all the stakes" thing perfectly as expected. Good stuff, excited to see what comes of it.

Marvel Knights X-Men 3
Revel (w and a) and Peter (c)

As the X-Men onsite begin to see their memories come to life as a result of Darla, powered up by Krystal's drugs, things start to break down pretty rapidly. Tons of old X-Men villains and horrors descend on the town and tensions immediately start running high, particularly from Wolverine, who has apparently gone crazy and is set on killing Darla for what he saw in her memories and what's happening all around them. As he and Rogue fight pretty brutally over it, Kitty tries to get Krystal to safety. Meanwhile, a mysterious group practically running the town and creating the drug that everyone in the town has been using, a mutant drug born of a mutant who arrived in the town some time ago, is ready to jump into the fight and do so by killing the sheriff of the town, Krystal's uncle Jasper. As Kitty and Krystal try to get away, an entity that Krystal refers to as Jasper appears in the car and attacks Kitty from behind, forcing her to phase through the moving vehicle and stranding her on the road in front of a mob of angry townspeople.

The chaos of this book is really ramping up and it's easy to lose track if you miss a single panel. In that respect, the interesting and rather gorgeous art is almost a hindrance to the book as you kind of want to skip the writing just to look at the artwork. It's the sort of book that might take a couple read-throughs to really comprehend (and even then I'm not sure I've got it all) and to really see it. I'm not the type to start complaining about pretty and experimental art in a book. The plot is maybe a little convoluted but this is the sort of story that I'd like to see the results before I officially condemn the plot. I think that it's something that could wrap up really nicely or could go entirely south depending on how Revel moves from here. This serves, then, as a very interesting midway point for the limited series and continues to set itself apart from a lot of the other books on the shelves with its action, its intimate team, and its artwork. Pretty neat issue, looking forward to how this one wraps.

X-Men Legacy 21, Amazing X-Men 2, Marvel Knights X-Men 2

X-Men Legacy 21
Spurrier (w) and Pham w/ Leisten (a) and Rosenberg (c)

David’s newfound sense of self isn’t exactly thrilling everyone close to him…or really, anyone close to him since Blindfold is the only one close to him. He visits her before he sets off on his journey and he lets her into his mind again, explaining why he has to fight the evil Xavier and where he has to do it. It has a lot to do with the psychosphere, the kind of collective subconscious that Xavier is warping and filling with hate, filling the human hivemind with hate and anger. Ruth understands all of this but doesn’t like that it’s David who has to end it and really doesn’t like that David has become something different and strange as she loves the imperfect David. As ever though, David reveals that his visit, though he loves her, was using her to try to bond his remaining personalities, as he’s always stronger and more complete when he’s around her. It, uh, it doesn’t totally work and he leaves her behind while still bemoaning all of his non-participation medal personalities. He goes to fight the gold-skinned Xavier and, despite his growing power, still can’t best him. Xavier announces that it’s worthless, that he was always the strongest piece of David, whatever he might have been in relation to David. David keeps pleading to his strongest powers to join up with him and they keep refusing. Blindfold, still in her bed at Winchester, pleads too. Xavier makes David watch as his hate bleeds into a man on a nuke-carrying submarine who goes on to kill all of his shipmates and launch the nuke before killing himself.

Despite all of the growing plot and the rising tension as the gold-skinned Xavier starts polluting the world and making humans attack one another to pave the way for mutants, everything that happens here is so fundamentally driven by Spurrier’s insistence to make David a fully realized and wonderfully compelling character. Without David’s character, it’s just another superhero-against-insurmountable-odds story, which can be perfectly fine but right now we have extra levels to it because there’s so much happening with David. In fact, by and large, I’m far more interested in what’s going to become of David as a character than I am about whether or not he’ll stop the gold-skinned Xavier. That’s not a slight on the story nor the threat, both of which are impressive, rather it’s a ringing endorsement of how interesting David is as a character and how invested the audience is in him. More great stuff, looking forward to the last few issues, sad that it’ll be ending.

Amazing X-Men 2
Aaron (w) and McGuinness and Vines (a) and Gracia (c)

After coming through the portal, the X-Men are all separated, with Storm, Iceman, and Firestar landing in what seems to be Hell and Wolverine and Northstar ending up in what seems to be Heaven. Wolverine is contacted by Xavier, who kind of explains where he is and tells him not to let go in his fight against the captain of the ship he’s fighting, Captain Jack (??). He does, of course, let go in the physical sense of the plank he’s holding on to (like, walking the plank sort of plank) and falls into what seems to be nothingness. Storm, Iceman, and Firestar look to fight their way out but pretty quickly realize that they’re not the only target of the demons below, who are also not so thrilled with Azazel. They best their adversaries, though it comes with great exhaustion to Iceman particularly. Firestar tries to help him out of Hell as Storm is captured by some of the red bamfs and the captain of the ship leaving Hell, Captain Kid, as in Billy the Kid (??). Watching the ship and ready to hijack and take it over, though, is Nightcrawler.

It’s probably wrong to say that a book is moving slowly after two issues but, I mean, this book is moving pretty slowly, right guys? It’s not that there haven’t been fights or that there haven’t been big dramatic reveals or villains (kind of, if we’re counting the weird ship captains which I’m still not really counting) because there have been. Still, the book is moving pretty slowly, which might have to do with the amount of narration and character explanations that sometimes come with the beginnings of books. In this case, we get definitions of major X-Men like Wolverine, Iceman, Storm, and Northstar, and a perhaps would-be more useful definition of Firestar if it didn’t basically just say “I don’t really know her.” The narration is from Nightcrawler which makes me wish that the issue was just about Nightcrawler already, and not about this weird Heaven/Hell thing. I’m not totally onboard with that, you guys. The art isn’t bad and I’m less bothered this time out by the similarities between this and the first few issues of NOVA (also drawn by McGuinness) which made everyone look a little more childlike than I would have hoped. I guess ultimately I just wish this book, like Aaron’s time on WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN (which I just found out will be continuing without Aaron and will pass to WINTER SOLDIER writer Jason Latour), was maybe a little less childlike than I’ve seen so far.

Marvel Knights X-Men 2
Revel (w and a) and Peter (c)

Wolverine fights off Sabretooth who reveals him to be Mystique to fight Rogue before being joined by Blob and Pyro and a cadre of Hellfire Guard, all of which rings strange to Wolverine. He realizes that something else must be causing it and sees a girl in the middle of the house, holding a gun and hiding from them. He asks if she’s doing this and she tells him that she’ll shoot him then goes ahead and shoots him. He shakes it off and she cuts her arm, making all of the manifestations disappear. They talk to her and, along with Kitty and the girl they picked up last time, determine to bring her with them until they can figure some more things out. The new girl, Darla, reveals that she can pull out memories from people’s minds and manifest them, which led to the suicide of her mother and abandonment from her father. Wolverine accuses her of killing the mutant they’re there to kill and freaks out a bit at her, which makes Rogue a bit suspicious. They probably all should be suspicious of the other girl they’re with but no one is so the adventure continues!

The story continues to be compelling as we get roped into a backwoods world of mutants and drugs and dirty cops and all sorts of other things that Wolverine, Kitty, and Rogue were never expecting. More compelling than the story and these characters, though, is the art, which continues to stand out and really looks like nothing else in comics today. Between the fluidity of the art and the almost-pastel like colors, the panels look almost like paintings, though not in the same sort of ways you get near-painting-like panels in comics occasionally, like I'd say MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN is kind of looking right now. The story itself is good and the new characters Revel has created are plenty interesting, just as it's interesting to see three core X-Men finding themselves out of their depth in a small town, but it's really the art that's drawing me in, again, not unlike MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN.

All-New X-Men 18, Marvel Knights X-Men 1, X-Men Gold 1

All-New X-Men 18
Bendis (w) and Immonen and von Grawbadger (a) and Gracia (c)

BATTLE OF THE ATOM has finally wrapped and the dust settles to find Kitty inexplicably bringing the original X-Men to Cyclops' camp. The team officially moves in and meets their new teammates, some of whom are already at odds with them (at least one Stepford Cuckoo truly dislikes Jean), all while trying to deal with their own problems, most notably the love triangle of Hank, Scott, and Jean. Kitty's still teaching them, they have some new teachers in Cyclops and his gang, and there's drama within the ranks. Oh, and they got new uniforms.

Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely happy that BATTLE OF THE ATOM is over but I still have reservations about Kitty moving the original X-Men to Cyclops' camp, one that she has pretty adamantly refused to take part in and who she, up to now, has by and large been against. I also thought it was pretty weakly defined why she felt she needed to bring them there at all. She's reacting to the fact that the team she's been with for so long didn't trust her to make the best decision for the kids (??) and so she's decided to uproot and move to the militant X-team, despite her previous very outspoken qualms about the X-Men becoming something more militant. As if these two teams were the only two options. ALSO, if this is how things are going to play, why do we have ANXM and UNCANNY X-MEN? Won't they be focused on the same team, now? Argh.

Marvel Knights X-Men 1
Revel (w and a) and Peter (c)

The Marvel Knights line continues with a brand new X-Men book brought to us by Brahm Revel, who brings a noticeably darker tone to this corner of the world. In the first issue, Wolverine, Rogue, and Kitty head out from the Jean Grey School upon reports that kids (noticeably mutants but seemingly a bunch in general) are going missing in a small town in Virginia. Rachel Summers was inadvertently contacted by one of these mutants reaching out for help and now the small X-team is heading out that way to investigate. They manage to find a girl who seems to have pre-cog/persuasion powers and who is running out of a party after stealing drugs from a guy in that party. She flees the X-Men at first but eventually reluctantly joins up with them as they swear she'll be protected. Pretty sure there's something sketchy with her, you guys. Anyway, the gang comes to a seemingly abandoned house giving off a reading of a mutant inside. Wolverine goes through the front to investigate, sending Rogue to the back, and finds himself abruptly confronted by Sabretooth, who I'm actually getting a little sick of.

I like this book at its onset, even if I'm not a hundred percent sure of the story yet. It's already an interesting look at the characters and a darker look into this corner, something we haven't had for a little while now. Most of the books in the X-Men line right now are going for something more of a light-hearted feel, despite the tension of the situation mutants are in right now. Bendis certainly brings a more banter-filled air to the book while Jason Aaron tends to be more light in his approach to a lot of these stories as well. Brian Wood is a bit different but X-MEN hasn't really had a chance to show much of anything yet and ULTIMATE X-MEN (which I just found out today is apparently OVER, most depressingly) doesn't really count as this part of the universe (I mostly mentioned it so I could express sadness at it being over). Revel brings a darker and more mysterious story to the forefront here and his art emphasizes that. The art here is nice, a little more fluid than other X-books at the moment, with darker and more ominous colors from Christiane Peter to really sell the mystery. It's not quite like the art of MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN, which is going for a more experimental tone; this is still very much a comic layout but the appearance of the art looks more in line with indie books than with Marvel books. Very nice though, good opening piece. Still a bit sick of Sabretooth and unsure where this fits, as Kitty is still with the Jean Grey School and, again, is the first to express disdain at Cyclops' branch. Maybe Revel and Bendis should have had a talk.

X-Men Gold 1
Chris Claremont, Stan Lee, Len Wein, Louise Simonson, Roy Thomas, and Fabian Nicieza (w) and Bob McLeod, Walt Simonson, Bob Wiacek, Pat Oliffe, Jorge Molina, and Salvador Larroca (a) and Israel Silva, Andres Mossa, Chris Sotomayor, and David Ocampo (c)

As you might have guessed from that laundry list of legends up there, this is a 50th anniversary X-Men book featuring new stories from in-between-the-lines of old X-Men stories. The legends listed above each wrote a story set to take place between different moments of X-Men history, meant to slot nicely between the plots. It's a nice little compilation and one I can't add too much to, frankly. If you're a big X-Fan, you'll likely be best served checking out this book, even if it's not anything to really add to continuity or character or anything like that. It's a nice idea and a solid piece of X-history to boot. Fun bits here and there and old X-fans will certainly recognize the tones of each writer as not really having changed over time so it'll feel like they didn't miss a thing. Neat little book.

Comics this week

Similar week to last week in terms of number of books out but a little different in terms of books I'm super excited about. There are enough, though, and certainly enough that fit the bill of "important to the line" to make the picks pretty easy. So let's get at (h)it. QUICK HITS.

Avengers Arena 17
We are rapidly approaching the end of AVENGERS ARENA, unquestionably the biggest surprise of the year for me. Sad to see this one ending but glad to see that it will end on Hopeless' terms and not continue. This was never meant to be one that lasted so long and it'll be nice to see where it takes us. The last issue brought us some major fights among the largest group of survivors while our once-villains of the series, Death Locket and Apex, and believed-dead Darkhawk find themselves face-to-face with a powerless Arcade. EXCITING TIMES AHEAD.

Captain America Living Legend 3
I'm still pretty into this book, you guys. I figure we'll find out a bit more about our villain in this coming issue, particularly as Cap gets closer and closer to discovering him and, presumably, recognizing who he is. I like the plot and the art of this series and I've been a big fan of the characterization of just about everyone we've seen, somehow most notably in the people who have one line. It makes a difference as a reader and it's coming across well.

Deadpool 19
I have been rather in favor of this arc, "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly," and I think it's helped to define this series better than any arc prior. At least to define it in a positive way. At least for me. Whatever. Anyway, I think the way the creative team sticks the landing will show us a lot about the way this book will carry on. I'm interested to see it.

Marvel Knights X-Men 1
Another new Marvel Knights book which means another chance for Marvel to reestablish their Marvel Knights line. This one will be led by Brahm Revel (new to Marvel) and he's planning to take this small X-team (seemingly consisting, at the start, of just Wolverine, Kitty, and Rogue) on a bit of a darker adventure. Like I said when MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN 1 came out a few weeks back, this is an important book to establish how the new MK line differs itself from the main X-Men series (plural). It would be hard not to go darker than those books, but I'm happy to see this one will still.

Thor: God of Thunder 15
I'm just on a Thor high, okay guys? It'll probably be neat!