Comics this week

It's new release day which means this post is, SURPRISE, late. But that doesn't mean we can't still get into it. First and foremost, though, big ups to short-titled books this week. With a slew of books like BLACK WIDOW, ELEKTRA, DAREDEVIL, MAGNETO, INHUMAN, PUNISHER, and more, this is one of the few weeks where I'd guess the average title length is only about two words (thrown off, of course, by the extraordinarily clunky AVENGERS AND X-MEN: AXIS and DEATH OF WOLVERINE: THE WEAPON X PROGRAM). Also, I don't usually talk about reprints or anything like that because they serve only to confuse me on the comic list but I want to shine a light on the fact that we'll get a SEVENTH printing of MS. MARVEL 1 this week. How crazy is that? Pretty fantastic though. Okay, so what am I excited about? Well, a good deal, as a matter of fact, but it is tempered by how dumb the current event is (not to mention that said event has a release this week and two books that directly tie-in to it plus several others, I'm sure). ANYWAY, on to the good'uns.


Black Widow 12
I love this book and it's quickly become one of those titles that washes over me with a cool wave of relief right after seeing books like AXIS: REVOLUTIONS or ALL-NEW ULTIMATES or something like that alphabetically. I was feeling down and then BOOM, B-Widz. Knocking it out of the park.


Daredevil 10
Geez, those Purple Kids are freaky. Even still, they're an interesting villain beyond just the fact that they're kids and DD probably shouldn't make a habit of beating up kids. They've all been directly and indirectly created by the Purple Man: directly because he's their biological father and he bestowed his powers unto them and indirectly because the impact he left on their lives and the havoc he wreaked on their upbringing by not being there left them emotionally fragile, even more so than regular children. Also, as I've been saying for three years now, we've got to be seeing the fallout from SHADOWLAND here. Huge credit to Mark Waid for holding off and patiently waiting to deliver greater results.


Moon Knight 9
Brian Wood and Greg Smallwood have already shown the chops for creating this book that Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey built so effectively and so efficiently (they're all helped by the phenomenal Jordie Bellaire on colors) but I'm more interested than excited to see this book for another week. Still trying to see what mark Wood and Smallwood will leave on the characters.


Spider-Woman 1
I'm leery of books kicking off during events (great work, CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE MIGHTY AVENGERS) and, frankly, I'm still leery of Spider-Woman as a character. I've never really loved her but I certainly came to like her more the more that Kelly Sue DeConnick used her in CAPTAIN MARVEL and AVENGERS ASSEMBLE. I also am a fan of Dennis Hopeless so here's hoping that it's the perfect storm of wary optimism that will actually pay off.


X-Force 12
So the team is probably a little more aware of Fantomex's sinister motives now that he's attacked all of them and sworn to kill them only to have Domino reveal herself and save the team. So much happening here and it's all been great through and through. Geez, good slate of books this week, huh guys?

Comics this week

No. I don't want to do this post this week. GUYS, I love this post. It lets me get hyped for the coming week. It lets me look at the comics that are coming and JUST pinpoint the ones I'm excited to read. Sure, it makes me look at a list that might include ALL-NEW X-MEN or FANTASTIC FOUR or whatever else I really don't want to read during the week, but I'm focusing on the books I'm most excited about. And, as if I needed another reason to love this post, it's short BY DESIGN. I only give a couple of refresher lines about why I like a book or what's happening in the book. It's the post where I allow myself to enjoy writing a little more and relax my own review standards a bit.

But this week I'm not even a LITTLE excited about the coming post. I played this game last week, a week with a handful of new books none of which I was particularly excited about, and I don't want to have to go through it again. There are twelve new books out this week. Five of them are tied directly to events (Two SPIDER-VERSE, two DEATH OF WOLVERINE, and one AXIS) and one more (ALL-NEW X-FACTOR) is a tie-in to AXIS. I usually highlight five books a week and I'm refusing right now to give more attention than I have to on events (getting really burned out and Skottie Young posted a teaser image for his variant cover for 2015's AVX event, something I really don't need to see, though, obviously, I loved his cover). That leaves me with six books to choose from, but one is MIRACLEMAN, which I've almost entirely stopped paying attention to; one is DEADPOOL'S ART OF WAR which I'm dutifully reviewing but otherwise ignoring based on the premise and the first issue; one is X-MEN, which is typically pretty good, but is also in the midst of an arc that I'm already deeming too long; one is LEGENDARY STAR-LORD, which I have very little interest in after four sub-par issues that feel squandered; and one is HULK, which I still have some issues with, thanks to the invention of Doc Green and Doc Green's mohawk (though I'm onboard with Red She-Hulk, who promises to show up this week). Quickly we're down to one book. So...

Rocket Raccoon 5
It's been great. Skottie Young is great. Jean-Francois Beaulieu is killing it on colors. Skottie Young seems to tacitly understand that being removed from the rest of the Marvel Universe and taking on a tone perfect for the characters and unique in this universe are keys to the success of this book. Even with the announcement that there's a new cosmic event coming, ROCKET RACCOON wasn't listed with the books tying into BLACK VORTEX (which I think will start being seeded in this week's LEGENDARY STAR-LORD, so that's another one you could chalk up to event tie-in). Brilliant idea, ROCKET RACCOON team. Absolutely genius. Keep up the good work. Please. Please keep it up.