Superior Spider-Man 22, Scarlet Spider 24, Superior Carnage 5

Superior Spider-Man 22
Slott and Gage (w) and Ramos and Olazaba (a) and Delgado (c)

Flash Thompson is back in New York and on the trail of someone going by the name Crime Master, who he had recently fought in his own series and had rather brought his life to something of a stand-still. Meanwhile, Parker Industries has opened its doors and started work. Peter gives his first speech to the scientists (it's practically got super-villain written all over it) and meets with his Aunt May and Uncle Jay to show them around. He's called away from the offices (and from Anna Maria) by his Spider-Army, who alert him to Venom and Crime Master's fight. Venom has figured out that Crime Master isn't Betty Brant's brother, the most recent Crime Master, but some former Maggia guy who bought the name off of Hobgoblin and currently regrets it. Venom pretty easily takes this new Crime Master down a peg and the villain gives up when Spider-Man appears with a small battalion. But he's not there for Crime Master; he's there for Venom. Venom realizes that Spidey probably doesn't realize Venom's a good guy now and eventually is forced to show his face, revealing himself as Flash and hoping that's enough for Spidey but ultimately, this Spider-Man doesn't have any connection to the man and seems poised to kill anyway.

Pretty smooth issue, moves a little bit more quickly than the last handful of SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN issues have and sets us up in a lot of different ways. We're no longer in the Parker Industries funding stages, nor in the doctorate-earning stages so we're able to move a little more efficiently through Doc Ock's newest plans. There's a nice character-defining line from Anna Maria as she points to Peter as someone who's quick to action, someone who goes out and does what he wants done and who takes what he wants taken. It's hard not to see that in stark contrast to OG Peter Parker who was constantly second-guessing himself and doubting himself on top of the difference in action vs. reaction we've talked about a lot in other reviews. There's also some more plot-building stuff than was highlighted above as Wraith discovers that Carlie's disappeared and her apartment's been ransacked with all of her notes on Peter similarly gone. She blames Spider-Man and vows to play as dirty as she thinks he's playing. Meanwhile, Jameson is sick of being under Spider-Man's thumb and supposedly has a plan to get out from under it. Plenty happening, plenty of groundwork laid for the next set of issues, and plenty of character development through it all. Pretty solid work.

Scarlet Spider 24
Yost and Burnham (w) and Baldeon (a) and Sotomayor (c)

Kaine still blames himself for Donald's injury and all of the guilt and the pressure he's felt from the start has reached its breaking point, leaving him frustrated and angry with himself, ready to throw away the Scarlet Spider persona for good. Both Annabelle and Aracely are firmly on his side but Wally feels differently, particularly after finally looking Kaine up in his police database and finding the laundry list of crimes attributed to him. After a long day of wallowing and being unable to burn his costume (unstable molecules), Kaine returns home to find Annabelle there, ready to make him feel better and taking a different and more sex-filled tact. While Aracely tries to not hear what's happening in the other room, she has another strange vision laced with plenty of ancient Central and South American imagery and claiming that either she has to die or everyone will die and the likes. As those events both wrap up, all hell breaks loose as Wally comes in to arrest Kaine, the real Annabelle shows up alongside a rocket-launcher-toting Zoe Walsh (unstable daughter of a Roxxon CEO who blames Scarlet Spider for his death but also has a thing for him from back in SCARLET SPIDER 7 or so), and the revealed-to-be-fake Annabelle transforms into a horrifying monster thing we've probably seen before but I don't remember off-hand. Amidst the chaos, Zoe fires her rocket, exploding the penthouse.

The final issue of Scarlet Spider, issue 25, is just around the corner and it shows here as the rising action really speeds to a climax here, bringing everyone who might want to have at Kaine together at once and then firing a rocket-launcher into the room. For all of its last-second action, sudden characters, and confusion, the issue does a really good job sticking to the themes of the book and getting right to the core of everything Kaine's been going through, perfectly summed up by the critical injury to Donald (WAIT, if Wally and Donald got married, would Wally become Walter Meland because that just came to me and I'll never be happy again if I don't decide that's what's going to happen). He's been going through a lot of this kind of reformed villain stress from the first moment of this book, where he didn't intend to be a hero or to stop in Houston and he can't help thinking about how much better everyone would be if he had stopped, unable to even consider that that wouldn't be true because Houston would have blown up like, ages ago if he wasn't there. A lot of really good stuff and the book develops in such a way that Yost and Burnham really get to explore that stuff before turning the jets on ramping up the action, which also has the added benefit of making the action seem incredibly chaotic and shocking the audience with how quickly it moves. Good stuff, looking forward to the final issue though also pretty sad that it's about to be over.

Superior Carnage 5
Shinick (w) and Segovia, Crisostomo, Ho, and Mexia (a) and JD Ramos and Lokus (c)

Klaw has been killed but it doesn't stop him from being our narrator for the issue. As a being made of pure sound, his death has transferred his consciousness and his abilities into the sound wall, making him a part of everything but with the knowledge that he'll continue dispersing, soon to lose his consciousness in the sounds. For now, though, he watches as Carnage runs rampant in his friend the Wizard's body. He outmatches Spider-Man and knows his secrets, he bests all of Spider-Man's men, he rips the legs from Malus, and he still demands to see his son. One of Spider-Man's men reveals that he's there and eventually Spider-Man is forced to play his trump card. To the Wizard's surprise, it's not Bentley-23 on-site but rather the "son" of Carnage, Cletus Kasady. Klaw explains that he's realized over time that Carnage feels the sort of betrayal a teenager feels, passed around from host to host, wanting to separate from everyone while maintaining some sort of link to someone. However, he adjusts it to include the fact that it's Carnage who has left his hosts behind, evolving and changing, but that he longs for someone he can fully control, someone designed especially for him, and that perfect host then is Kasady. Carnage rips itself off of Wizard and makes its way to Kasady as Spider-Man and his men use a specially designed gun to try to contain him. They can't get it running in time but Klaw uses his remaining power from the sound wall to project unbridled sound at the reunited Kasady and Carnage, allowing Spider-Man the chance to contain him. The book ends with the reveal that Wizard's dementia has stopped and, for all intents and purposes, he's doing better than before now that Carnage has seemingly fixed his mind to an extent; that Cletus Kasady's mind has been similarly fixed from his short time with Carnage, fixed enough at least to wake him out of his coma if not to make him less crazy; and that Spider-Man has Carnage under his control for now.

Solid ending to what turned out to be a pretty compelling and well executed story. I wasn't terribly optimistic at the start after the first issue didn't exactly win me over but Shinick had a story that was pretty good and clearly wanted to play with a couple of characters in unexpected ways, showing Wizard as a broken man who wants nothing more than to impress his son, showing Klaw as an extremely loyal and very capable villain right up to the end, and showing Carnage in probably the most complex light it's ever been cast in. Instead of a somewhat mindless and blood-thirsty beast, Carnage has a whole range of purported emotions that have left it an efficient and extremely calculating killer. There's a lot of really good stuff to this and the Carnage bent, not entirely unlike the Deadpool-based but rather silly series (like DEADPOOL KILLS THE MARVEL UNIVERSE, DEADPOOL KILLUSTRATED, and DEADPOOL KILLS DEADPOOL), aims to continue, albeit with less of a silly tone than the Deadpool books and more of a "oh dear god why is this happening tone," with the next Carnage-based series (following up CARNAGE, CARNAGE USA, and now SUPERIOR CARNAGE) revealed as CARNAGE HOMECOMING. Get ready for a lot more Cletus Kasady.

Superior Spider-Man Team-Up 5, Superior Carnage 4

Superior Spider-Man Team-Up 5
Yost (w) and Checchetto (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Alchemax has hardly opened its doors and already its the site of a supervillain attack as the Wrecking Crew start busting their way in, in search of an experimental particle engine. Spider-Man 2099 is inside getting ready to fight them when the Superior Spider-Man shows up with his own team, his new Superior Six. Finally we learn Doc Ock's plan for his former Sinister Six teammates as the villains he's captured are now working for him, mind controlled to fight and move on his behalf. It is...sketchy, morally, but it's effective. Spidey admits to himself that maybe he brought them out a little too early and he requires a little help from a new Sun Girl (apparently a hero! Wikipedia has little to say of her as yet) to bring the Wrecking Crew down. They scamper back to their boss Lightmaster, who assures them that next time they will have a bigger team to fight off this new Superior Six. Meanwhile, Spidey settles things out at home with the imprisoned ex-villains and Sun Girl, who was knocked unconscious during the fight and brought back to Spider-Island while she recovered.

An interesting repurposing of the Sinister Six that fits with this new do-what-it-takes Spider-Man and which has just the right level of absolute sketchiness and kind-of brilliance. It also slots nicely into the current events of Superior Spider-Man as we catch a glimpse of Spider-Man 2099 (albeit being very ineffective) and the newly formed Alchemax. Clearly there are some big plans going forward in the Spider-Man universe that will involve everything going on right now on both sides of the ball. How the superhero community (and the civilian community) will react to the new Superior Six is still up for debate and won't be answered immediately but BOY, someone's going to have to start realizing that, as off as Spidey's been acting lately, he's branching out into all new levels of crazy. Right? Like, one person will have to be like "hey guys, I know we already scanned him with our non-scientifically inclined people, but maybe we should like, kick the tires again?" Right?

Superior Carnage 4
Shinick (w) and Segovia and Chrisostomo w/Mexia (a) and J.D. Ramos, Gandini, and Rosenberg (c)

Spider-Man was lying in wait for the Wizard, Klaw, and Carnage at City Hall but it turns out even Spidey might not be enough to stop them. They out-power him at every turn before he eventually grabs Wizard, the one clearly in control of the situation (sort of) and escapes with him. He holds him above an ally in an attempt to get him to call off Carnage but Wizard reads his mind briefly and realizes he's Octavius, which causes Spidey to drop the villain onto a car below. Wizard's hold on Carnage is released and Carnage goes to town, killing Spider-Man's minions and following Klaw out to where Spidey and Wizard are talking. Spider-Man admits to Wizard that he is Otto and promises to get him to his son if he controls Carnage and puts him down. Klaw, thinking Spider-Man's attacking Wizard, charges him before being run through himself by Carnage's secret vibranium weapon, taken from Wizard armory. Klaw explodes in a burst of sound, launching Carnage off of Dr. Malus and onto Wizard.

Solid penultimate issue as we get an impressive fight scene with the ever-threatening Carnage managing to put the fear into the typically collected Superior Spider-Man. Wizard continues to shift back and forth between dastardly genius and sad, old man trying to reconnect with and impress his son, adding some pathos for both the character and the crowd who overhears his hopes. Spider-Man, for his part, keeps trying to fight what keeps looking more and more like a losing battle and whose only serious misstep is allowing Wizard to fall after hearing his own secret identity revealed. As Carnage launches from Malus to Wizard, we're in for an exciting last issue that could certainly go any direction and might even keep Wizard, a longtime Marvel villain, from completely losing his mind. Or maybe it will accelerate that EVEN MORE. Who knows? Certainly not me. Absolutely fantastic cover too, one that would certainly makes me interested in picking up the book if I saw it in my LCS. Mission accomplished, you guys.

Morbius the Living Vampire 9, Superior Carnage 3

Morbius the Living Vampire 9

Keatinge (w) and Elson (a) and Fabela (c)

The Rose has shot Morbius with the not-quite Ultimate Nullifier and left him for dead. Becky sees him fall but is pulled back from helping him or checking on him (hint: it's comics, that means he's totally alive). He, of course, tracks Rose back to his secret lair and goes berserk there, killing all his guards before finally being led to Rose himself. The two fight and argue about what's going to become of them now that they've outlived their usefulness to the Rose's employers. Morbius admits that he knows what's happening now but enjoys the catharsis of slaughtering Rose. Morbius does end up talking to Rose's employers and learns that they're mostly in it to develop Brownsville now that Morbius has lifted the residents' spirits. One year later, Becky is in Manhattan hosting an art exhibit focused on Brownsville and dating Michael, who is in hiding (if he's seen, it could somehow mean Brownsville won't climb out of its poverty.

I haven't exactly been a fan of this series from its start or, really, even from its inception. I do think this issue helps a bit because it feels a lot more focused, like it always knew it wanted to be here (I don't know that that's true; with cancellations, sometimes you have to cut your story shorter than you'd like, but this feels more focused). That certainly helps the feel and the flow of this book but ultimately we see that the villains are pretty weak (and still a little confusing), which weakens what we had been seeing too. Also, not to ruin the exact ending of this one for you diehard Morbius fans out there, but it ends with an obvious reveal (Michael is alive and dating Becky or at least still pals with Becky) and the even more obvious and cheesy ending of Morbius saying that he's enjoying he's current plan, the one he hasn't tried before...LIVING. I think my eyeballs actually audibly rolled. People could hear my eyes. It was weird, you guys, and I don't appreciate it.

Superior Carnage 3

Shinick (w) and Segovia and Chrisostomo (a) and J.D. Ramos (c)

The transfer of Carnage on to the brilliant surgeon Karl Malus has been successful and it's left Wizard able to control Carnage, though the control is tenuous at best. Malus warns Klaw that he can feel Carnage trying to overpower Wizard and knows that the moment Wizard slips, Carnage will be in control. For the moment, though, they're going to take on Jameson to take over New York in Wizard's attempt to impress Bentley-23. It's a little chaotic and Wizard nearly slips and loses control of Carnage. When they arrive in the mayor's office at City Hall, they find Spider-Man with a couple of his minions waiting for him.

There's a lot of really good stuff here. It's a lot of what we've seen in the first couple issues as the power of Carnage is overwhelming but the plight of Wizard is still real and well-focused. In addition, we build a little more on what Klaw said to Malus about Wizard being family to him. Here, Klaw asks wizard about his mental state and what happened with Black Bolt and Wizard admits that things maybe aren't great but that he's more desperate than ever to show his son the man he is, not the failure he may have seen all of his life. There are real moments there, especially as Wizard drifts into the past tense when talking about himself before sheepishly correcting himself. Still, the threat of Carnage is a real one and it's one that everyone finds compelling enough to hear Wizard out. It'll be interesting to see where Spider-Man takes this book as the series wraps up (I believe that this story ends with issue four but I'm not totally sure and I tend to question myself when I get this way). There's a lot to like here, not just limited to the writing, though the writing is pretty good and the story is perhaps better. The art is solid and the colors remind everyone of the other two Carnage minis we've had in the last couple years (which featured distinctly different art).

Superior Spider-Man 15, Superior Carnage 2, Superior Foes of Spider-Man 2

Superior Spider-Man 15
Slott (w) and H. Ramos and Olazaba (a) and Delgado (c)

People in Peter's life are getting understandably more suspicious as Spider-Man's raid on Shadowland makes the news. Meanwhile, Hobgoblin is panicking, burned by Kingpin and now in too deep with money problems, he goes to the Tinkerer to get new tech and begins robbing banks to make up the difference. The bank robberies are widely publicized and Spider-Man is astounded to find that his Spider-bots aren't picking up any sign of this Goblin. Green Goblin is wise to this too and directs his growing empire to break up for the time being, choosing to lie low and let Hobgoblin be caught by the fixed Spider-bots rather than risk them finding him. It culminates in a battled between Hobgoblin and Spider-Man and Spider-Man pulling out all the stops to bring him down.

Dan Slott's been building Phil Urich as an important character for quite some time and it's all paying off now. His character hasn't been anything particularly deep, just an incredibly troubled man who happened upon the Hobgoblin identity at a delicate time. Still, as everything unravels for him you can look back and see years of development for the character coming to a head as Spider-Man finally learns his identity and quickly exposes it to the world. There's also talk in this issue of Spider-Man dropping the Peter Parker persona in all and dedicating his entire life to Spider-Man, thinking he could get so much more done without the double life. It's Anna Maria Marconi who keeps him invested now but it's an interesting idea to bring up. Doc Ock has brought everything where he wants it to be, including locking himself down a veritable army of henchmen and a headquarters as well as getting Jameson in his pocket. He could, with no attachment to Peter's life and considering how little of Peter's life is known (or cared about) to the Avengers, abandon the Peter Parker identity at the drop of a hat, cutting out characters who have mattered since the inception of the series. The good thing about Slott, though, is that the prospect of that doesn't enrage me or anything along those lines (though I could see it enraging people more concerned with the welfare of MJ or Carlie than I, if such people exist), it simply opens up another really interesting door for this series. Neat stuff.

Superior Carnage 2
Schinick (w) and Segovia (a) and J. D. Ramos (c)

The Wizard is losing his mind or may have already lost it and it's jeopardizing, or perhaps inspiring, this mission. He's still desperate to control Carnage, which would add a devastating member to the new Frightful Four but is proving difficult to do since Kasady's brain is fried. He brings in a scientist who is keep to their plan but who is unsure it can be pulled off and is very skeptical about Wizard's current state. He reveals to Klaw that Black Bolt messed with Wizard's mind and worries that it's showing, that maybe the genius Wizard once was can never be restored. Spider-Man is aware of some of these happenings (at least that Wizard and Carnage have broken out) but he's currently somewhat undisturbed by that. Both villains are broken and he assumes that he'll have to take care of Carnage once Carnage inevitably kills Wizard. Wizard, after several attempts, still has made no progress on finding a brain to control in Carnage and moves to the next logical step: giving it a brain.

There's a lot going on here that's compelling, perhaps most of all Wizard's breakdown. After his plot involving the FF, Wizard has been seemingly irreparably broken. Spider-Man hints at the fact that whatever Black Bolt has done to Wizard's mind will likely kill him before long. Does Wizard already know that? Is this a shot at a legacy or a suicide mission? How desperate is Wizard to prove something to Bentley-23, who he keeps seeing everywhere and calling to, only to be brought back into the real world harshly. Klaw views Wizard as family (the man's resurrected him enough times); where does that leave him when this all shakes out? Where does it leave the way Wizard thinks about Klaw? All of these questions are compelling ones and they don't even invoke the titular character of this series. Stories with Carnage tend to be incredibly dangerous ones that end in a lot of murder (this one's already had plenty of that) and all of these questions don't even touch on his presence. Pretty solid layout for a mini-series.

Superior Foes of Spider-Man 2
Spencer (w) and Lieber (a) and Rosenberg (c)

Boomerang is out of jail and is trying to get his team in the black somehow. We see a bit of the life of a supervillain here as Boomerang has to meet with his team, with some higher-ups (Chameleon again, who ranks higher than Boomerang or anyone else on his team in the villain society), with his lawyer, and eventually with a judge for a parole hearing. The team debates finding a new member and what their next job should be. Boomerang is still in the hole to Chameleon and the people he works for so needs to direct the team's attention that way. The rest of the team is ready to play but Shocker is on to his game.

There's a somewhat compelling story here made less compelling by the audience's lack of concern for the book's main characters. Hopefully over time they'll develop in such a way that we actually care about what they do and how they end up but right now they're simply C-list supervillains, making it particularly hard to care about them. They're still bad guys but digging up C-listers, while making for a more original and more fun story, lowers the stakes. Spencer's going to have to do a lot to keep those stakes raised and bring some amount of empathy to the characters. If you're a regular superhero book reader from the Big 2, you'll also have to break yourself of some of the preconceptions of how one of these books should be written to read this one. It's aiming far funnier than any other book and, again, the stakes are lower. Superhero books tend to need to push the stakes to their highest over and over again (it's why death is so prevalent in comics, which is why resurrection has become so prevalent) but here our stakes are, as I'v said, fairly low. The writing is typically sharp and pretty funny but there are moments where it comes off as trying too hard and feeling a little desperate. Overall, though, it's a pretty nice read and it moves well. It's a nice break from the tension and drama that accompanies a lot of superhero books and it's a really nice break from the weaker superhero books out there.

Morbius the Living Vampire 7, Superior Carnage 1, Ultimate Spider-Man 25

Morbius the Living Vampire 7
Keatinge (w) and De Landro and Ruiz (a) and Fabela (c)

After the attack by Nikoleta Harrow last issue to steal parts for the Rose's new Ultimate Nullifier from Horizon Labs, Spider-Man and Morbius are on the offensive. Of course, it's not as much offense as they'd like as they're still being set up by Harrow and Rose but it's a start, right? They manage to track Harrow where she informs them that the plan is already set in motion and can't be stopped and, most of all, can't be stopped by them. In fact, she plans to use Morbius as a scapegoat for what's about to come next as Rose, with his new Ultimate Nullifier, sets his sights on Brownsville.

I'm trying this week, in case you didn't notice in the first post of yesterday, to cut down on summary to avoid too many spoilers while also giving enough to let us talk about it all. But BOY, this one seems especially cut down, doesn't it? Well that's kind of because that's pretty much all that happens in this issue. It seems short but it reads relatively well. In fact, I think it's probably about the strongest issue of the series yet. Still, there are things about it that I can't quite put my finger on but hey, let's try it out. There's a scene where Morbius turns on the super science for a minute to help Spider-Man create a device that blocks out his spidey sense to stop Harrow from manipulating it as she had before. I'll grant you that Morbius is a talented scientist so it kind of fits in that respect, but it comes in the midst of a book that has hardly acknowledged that fact throughout and it kind of treats the sciences as interchangeable. I'm not particularly well-versed in Morbius but I was pretty sure he was a different sort of scientist, especially since his start in science was to help him cure his own rare blood disease (which, of course, backfired, leaving us where we are now). Add to that the fact that Morbius still flips between brooding and cracking jokes (it might not even be cracking jokes so much as it is relieving tension) and there's a real disconnect within this character. Maybe it's waved away by saying it's the disconnect between the vampirish thing he is and the human he was, but I have my doubts that's the explanation. Still, the art is solid and helps carry the issue (though boy is Morbius always super ugly) and the story seems to want to go somewhere. We'll let it get there before the book ends, I suppose.

Superior Carnage 1
Schinick (w) and Segovia (a) and Ramos (c)

After his last appearance fighting Venom and Scarlet Spider, Cletus Kasady is pretty damaged. Scarlet Spider isn't really one to pull punches, even if Venom is, and he certainly didn't pull his punches against Kasady. Still, the prison he's brought to holds Carnage in high esteem and awaits the day that he returns. The first half of the book is narrated by a white collar criminal in the prison (thanks to Mayor Jameson's weird treatment of the prison system) who is terrified of everyone there and no one more than Carnage. When he dies mid-book (look, I don't think it's a spoiler that Carnage killed a a throwaway, unpowered character since that's pretty much all he ever does), we've gotten pretty much all the background we've needed. Now we're left to find out what engineered Carnage's predictable breakout. It's revealed that the Wizard is behind it, attempting to reform the Frightful Four with Carnage as the cornerstone in both a grasp at power and a way to impress Bentley-23.

Carnage is, as always, an incredibly brutal book. When Venom loses control of himself as Venom and the symbiote goes crazy, killing whatever is trying to hold it back, we all hold our breath and wait for Flash our whoever else to get it under control again. Carnage is that but all the time, with no regard for life and no filter; Cletus Kasady doesn't seem to have sway over Carnage now, his brain battered into disfunction, but even when he was in control he was a raging psychopath. Now it seems like it's all Carnage, all the time. That somehow makes it more worrisome. The book starts off a little on the weaker side, giving us the throwaway character and making us deal with him, knowing he's not likely to get out of the issue alive. On top of that, there's a weird fascination in the writing with how often he soils himself. The Carnage art is pretty solid, as usual, though often hard to watch. Wizard is an interesting choice as our mastermind and his idea of the Frightful Four is worth keeping up with. I'll be curious to see how this one plays out.

Ultimate Spider-Man 25
Bendis (w) and Marquez (a) and Ponsor (c)

Miles is still having trouble wrapping his head around becoming Spider-Man again. Gwen is mad at him and texts Ganke about the run-in with Cloak and Dagger at the restaurant, making Ganke even more mad at him. Miles can't talk to his girlfriend Kate about it and is still unable to process all the information himself. Meanwhile, Cloak and Dagger are still out in the world somewhere and we get a little more of their backstory as we see a little bit more from the scientists who created them only a week before our story. Finally, Jessica Drew pays another visit to Miles to explain the connection between the two of them, Cloak and Dagger, and so many others.

One of the things you have to kind of come to terms with reading Bendis' books is that there are a lot of words and a very deliberate pace to the plot, which is a nicer way for me to say that Bendis has a lot of waste issues and I still don't care for his style of dialogue. I will say that he very clearly cares about these characters and wants them to act in the way that he thinks they would. I think one of the flaws that comes with that rapid-fire style of back-and-forth dialogue is that no one ends up with a particularly well-defined personality and every personality type kind of bleeds together as people just echo one another. I know I complain about this all the time but it really does hurt the book more than it helps. I think back on books like New Avengers where I really enjoyed this sort of back-and-forth at the Avengers dinner table (though even then I was aware that there were real throwaway issues) but I wonder if I'd go back and feel the same way. I'm not going to actually do that, but I do wonder about it. Still, Miles' break is coming to its end and we're bound to string the Cloak and Dagger story along a bit more but at least Spider-Man is likely to be there.

Comics this week

Back up to over twenty new releases this week which means choosing five for pre-game is a little less ambitious. I'm not recommending half of the books on a given release week, I'm just recommending a quarter or something. Frankly, that's still pretty high, I suppose? Oh well, let's just do it anyway, hm?

Avengers Assemble 17
We've entered into the homestretch of the Enemy Within event as this month will see both this issue and the conclusion a little later on in Captain Marvel 14. Things are heating up as the Kree have, in no uncertain terms, declined to get involved in Yon-Rogg's fight which is a positive in that an army of aliens isn't coming but a negative in that it's made Yon-Rogg more desperate than ever. How he's anticipating to relieve that tension will no doubt start to come to a head here as he continues his assault on everything Carol cares about. On the flip side, Carol has apparently figured out who is beyond all of these attacks and is as mad as she's ever been. Mad can be a good thing for Carol, who lives her life on adrenaline, but it can also make her act impulsively, which she can't afford right now as her flight powers put her at huge risk. Very interesting corner DeConnick's put her in and it'll be exciting to watch how she reacts.

Iron Man 13
Now that Kieron Gillen has recast Tony Stark's entire life and his role in the Marvel Universe, he's ready to give us the next story to tell why it's important enough to find out now. What does 451 have planned for him? What is 451 trying to start/stop? Will Tony play ball? Will he have the ability not to? How much can we trust 451? That's the question at the root of everything. Has 451 worked things to his liking for, as he claims, mostly altruistic ends or is there something even more sinister underneath that we're not privy to yet? These questions, especially the ones about 451, can drive any story that Gillen wants to tell, which puts us in a really nice place going into this one.

Superior Carnage 1
Carnage has gotten a bit of play in recent years, from two specific series he starred in, Carnage and Carnage USA, and a crossover event that ran between Venom and Scarlet Spider most recently. I thought that Carnage and Carnage USA were particularly interesting stories while the Venom/Scarlet Spider one got a little too convoluted. That said, he's certainly an interesting character and it certainly seems like this will pit Doc Ock's new version of Spider-Man (which some may call superior) against the rogue symbiote for the first time. Carnage is an especially frightening villain for Peter, as he's someone without any sort of motive to trace and who has difficult powers to counter and a bloodlust, so it'll be very interesting to see how Doc Ock with his cold, removed demeanor views and handles Carnage. It should add nice layers to both characters.

Thor: God of Thunder 10
The last issue ended with the three Thors failing to defeat Gorr and crashing back down to (an) earth with their hammers strewn about them. Smart money says they're not dead but are they defeated? Gorr has been an impressive enemy for any one of them to fight and after he turned the tables on them last time, it's hard to see how this endgame plays out. That said, we're getting awfully close to the conclusion of Godbomb and Gorr seems ready to detonate. That gives us a nice starting point for this issue which can go a few ways in basic tone and any number of ways in plot and character. Should be fun.

Uncanny X-Force 7
When will I stop putting this on my pre-game list? When it stops leading me to believe we're going to get a lot of Fantomex in the issue. In a way, the division of Fantomex's three brains into three full people has been a bit of a let-down, in that the three brains battling within one body was a great idea that was fleshed out nicely throughout Remender's X-Force. In addition, the one who is so far least complicated seems to be the original Fantomex, which is a bit of a bummer. Still, this issue should give us a good look into what exactly has been happening with the Fantomexes and particularly what's been going on (and what is still going on) with Weapon XIII, the mutant-hunting product of the Weapon Plus program (who was, sadly, also the one who got the misdirect powers, which are awesome). This may not be on everyone's pull list but anyone who is a fan of Fantomex will surely be keeping an eye on it.