So.

Avengersland : Looks pretty similar to last year, aside from some changes to the Avengers Academy group:

• Luke Cage : Still doing his thing, running the New Avengers & the Thunderbolts.
• Baby Cage/Jones : Still not hyper-aged to a zombie death machine!
• Shang Chi pops up occasionally in Secret Avengers.
• Blackpantherdevil : Still doesn’t make any sense to me.   It exists – but I think it’s gotten canceled and is wrapping up soon.
• Storm : Is an Avenger now too!  I forgot she filled in for the FF for an arc, so it looks like now she’s been a part of all 3 of Marvel’s major franchise teams.
• Patriot, Wiccan, Hulkling : Young Avengers have been appearing in the super-sporadic Children’s Crusade series.  I think they are pretty much locked down until that is over.
• Avengers Academy continues to look more and more like the actual kids of today.
• A new White Tiger joined the team, bringing the Latino/a count up to a whopping 2.
• Striker recently came out to one of his new teammates, who also happens to be bi (I think it’s Katie Powers – whichever Powers daughter was in the Runaways arc.)
• Hazmat & Mettle are still around.
• Wizkid is in the supporting cast now.
• War Machine has his own book again – 11 or so issues so far.  He’s also in Secret Avengers sometimes.
• The new Goliath is in Wonder Man’s “Revengers” anti-avenger team.
• Centurius (I had to look him up too) is on the Thunderbolts B team.

Hulkland

• Amadeus Cho has been sadly absent for a while now, although he did appear in one of the Fear Itself minis alongside Spidergirl, the new Thunderstrike, X-23 & the new Power Man.

Xland

• Storm is on two X-teams (Uncanny & adjective-less) and an Avenger, so she’s all over the place right now.
• Jubilee (Vampilee?) is still getting lots of panel time, and a current member of the adjectiveless book.  She also had a decent arc in the Wolverine & Jubilee 4-issue mini-series.
• Karma has been mostly sidelined taking care of that faceless dude for a while.  But – she’ll be back in the Astonishing X-Men next year under Marjorie Liu’s pen – so I’m *really* looking forward to that.
• Dani Moonstar is still kicking entirely too much ass for a non-mutant in a mutant book (;) ), and leading the New Mutants now (Sam is off in Wolverine’s X-Men book in semi-limbo).
• Sunspot is still around as well.  I think I even saw him flying once or twice, so that aspect of his powers may still be around.
• Northstar is (mostly) over/on loan to the Alpha Flight mini-series while it runs its course, but it looks like he’ll be in Liu’s X-team as well.
• Warpath was team-less most of the year, but recently moved over to Storm’s team in the adjectiveless book.
• Richtor is re-powered and still with X-Factor.  His relationship with Shatterstar continues to get page & plot time.
• Monet is also still with X-Factor.
• Darwin has been mostly awol, after one weird stand-alone story.
• Armor was in Astonishing for most of the year, I think.  At the moment she is team-less.
• Daken has had a solo book all year, but that is ending in the next couple months.  He’s still an asshole.
• Velocidad is still with the Generation Hope team
• but Idie is not.  She was the pivot point (?) for the major x-event this year (Schism), and then moved over to being a supporting character in the new Wolverine & the X-Men (which is much better than I expected) book.  She’s gotten a few lines in each issue so far.
• Prodigy is still around (and still powerless, yet I think the Cuckoos restored his memory of the abilities he had copied or something) on Utopia and turns up in a panel or two from time to time.
• Anole had an arc in a limited series this year with Rockslide, and turns up from time to time.  He moved over to Wolverine’s book/school.

Elsewhere

• Misty Knight headlined a new Heroes for Hire incarnation that has already gone under, but followed that up with a Villains for Hire mini in progress.  I’m still pissed/bummed about her child with Iron Fist being unwrote.
• Secret Warriors wound down, and only Quake (who I think is white??) is still around.  So there’s a couple of cool minority characters sitting around in limbo now.
• I want to say the Blue Marvel turned up in a one off issue somewhere fighting Hyperion or something…but that may have been last year.  Either way, I hope he winds up somewhere out of limbo in 2012.  Maybe he was in a panel or two of Fear Itself or something – you’d think something like that would be hard to avoid.
• There’s a new (Latina) Miss America in the Teen Brigade, featured in Joe Casey’s Vengeance series this year.
• Angel Salvadore (still powerless) also appeared in the Vengeance series.
• The new Power Man had a limited series with Iron Fist, as well as appearing in a Fear Itself tie-in mini with X-23, Thunderstrike, Amadeus Cho & Spidergirl.

That’s it for now.  I’ll add more as I remember/discover it.

Marvel has been introducing a decent number of new minority characters in its newer titles (Generation Hope, Avengers Academy, Vengeance, Secret Warriors).  Hopefully some of them stick around.  Also, next year needs more Cho.

I’ve been mulling over canceling some of my long running comic subs for a while now… I haven’t come to any final decisions yet, but the interview with Gillen (of Phonogram & S.W.O.R.D. fame) has somehow made me feel a little more comfortable about continuing to shell out my $4 a month for it.  I think it’s $4… maybe $3… Marvel has mixed pricing these days.  Either way it’s high enough that you have to ask “Is this worth it?”  Even on a title like Uncanny, which I’ve read for more than 20 years (CHRIST!).  Wow, let me ponder that a bit.  Wow.  OK.  Moving on.  Even on a title like Uncanny, which is the flagship X-title… I need something more from it than just average these days.

It’s also worth noting that Gillen had another series announced earlier this week, a revival of the classic title Journey into Mystery (where Thor got his start ages ago) and goddammit if it didn’t actually sound interesting.  I’m trying to keep my pull list small, but I think I’m going to pick up the first arc.

So, that will be 3 ongoings for him – the other being Generation Hope, which is decent so far but hurt by irregular art (IMHO).

Simple, but effective.

Back to Uncanny – Fraction’s run has been a pretty strong “average” IMHO.  It might have been stronger without Greg Land, porn tracer extraordinaire, loitering around and drawing moaning cloned sluts everywhere.  But he was there, so it is what it is.  The Gillen interview doesn’t go right out and say that Land is gone, but it does at least say that the opening arc is all Dodson (&Dodson I assume, his wife does his inking IIRC)!  Terry Dodson’s stuff is quality and has a classic and timeless feel to it.  I can see re-reading his issues in a decade and them still looking vibrant.  Check out his DeviantArt page to see what I mean.  He draws his women busty (no way around that in mainstream comics, I guess) BUT he also seems to draw them a little “thicker” in general, which I think is a nice change.  It gives the faces some real depth and humanity, I think and lends itself well to re-reading with its clean lines and clear figures.  It doesn’t hurt that he actually takes the time and effort to do facial expressions and body positions (see page above) that are actually relevant to the scene.

Facial expressions that convey information!

It *should* go without saying that he can also do great action shots, but plenty of artists can’t.

His faces have a “sameness” that identifies his style, yet doesn’t render them all looking like exactly the same person (see: Greg Land).  See the image below where each woman enough distinct facial features that, with this page as a reference, you could pick each face out later on.   I love the youthfulness of Kitty’s face here, although I think that Hope does look a little too old – it’s almost like their ages have been swapped (see: the size of Kitty’s chest compared to the others – chest size is usually a good indicator of how old the artist thinks the character is, as pretty much all “adult” females get “ample” breasts in mainstream books.  Although… see Kitty in the first image above.).  However, I suspect the image below is more of a pin-up than supposed to represent any existing point in the comic – Jean (I assume the figure in the background is Jean?) and Hope haven’t yet lived at the same time), so I guess the ages can work.

Oops!  I found a colored image and the bottom right figure is Dazzler and Jean is a painting (which I should have picked up on… duh!), so it all works in a relative way.  Also, you can see how the coloring here really helps cement the face as Jean for me, as the pencils didn’t quite get there for me.

OK, so this basically turned into a Dodson lovefest, but that’s OK.  I’d like to see what his work looks like with a different inker (I’ll go looking later, maybe there’s some out there), but I don’t need any extra confirmation to confirm that Rachel Dodson is an excellent inker. It looks like this page may have some before/after inking pages.

Conclusion: I’m looking forward to the Gillen/Dodson era.

Also: Note to self: Go to a Con and get a commissioned sketch from the Dodsons!

Marvel is down to zero ongoing series with black writers as far as I know. Reginald Hudlin was involved with the Black Panther ongoing to various degrees (writing & scripting) until mid 2009, IIRC.
Greg Pak is still there.
Marjorie Liu (of Taiwanese descent, according to wiki) was hired recently (2009?) and has racked up some decent comic credits since then.  She was a fiction writer first (and still is), focusing on urban fantasy/romance – I’ve examined her books in the stores and I just couldn’t bring myself to read one. I may still… eventually, just because she shows such serious chops as a comic writer.

Note: I can’t keep track of all the pencillers, letterers and inkers, so I won’t go into that unless they are a big name draw or something.
Note: I also can’t keep up on every miniseries that comes out, so please let me know if you find anything that you think should be on the list, for better or worse.

Avengersland

• Luke Cage is still running a team of Avengers, and his daughter (with Jessica Jones) has miraculously not been killed, retconned or hyper-aged! Truly a miracle (I think there’s a storyline coming up with Danielle getting kidnapped though… so, fingers crossed that nothing weir happens to her). Not to mention that Luke & Jessica (one of the few black male/white female pairings that I can think of in mainstream comics right now) are still together!
• Luke Cage is also running a second team & book (so he gets a second bullet point!): Thunderbolts. This new version is something like a cross between the original and Ellis/Diggle incarnations, and looks decent so far.
• Shang-Chi is popping up in a few issues of Secret Avengers.
• War Machine & Falcon still pop-up regularly in Iron Man & Captain America, respectively.
• War Machine is also a member of the Secret Avengers
• Black Panther had a couple of really strong arcs, ending in the Doomwar limited. But that left the whole mini-Pantherverse in limbo… so I’m not going to call it a win. Plus, they just killed the Panther God (who is evidently female?) over in Chaos War… (but we know it won’t stick. STILL!)
• Also, the mantle of the Black Panther was passed to T’Challa’s rarely mentioned (before the current series, was she mentioned at all? You got me… the internet says it looks like she was created in 2005.) sister, Shuri.
• Blackpantherdevil: Look, I get what they’re trying to do, I really do. They want to graft some of Daredevil’s audience on to Black Panther like they did with Hulk->Hercules, and while I love the BP character and think he is totally deserving of that audience… THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO DO IT. Hercules made sense, given recent continuity in the Hulk line & the tie to Amadeus Cho. This makes no sense in any possible world. BP abandoning his wife and country in their hour of greatest need to watch over some goddam tiny corner of New York which already has a metric ton of superheroes? No. No. No in any possible world. Bad play Marvel. [Note: This is in reference to Black Panther taking over the Daredevil title & number and running around Hell's Bathroom or whatever DD's suburb is called.]

• 

  The Young Avengers

• Patriot is still with the Young Avengers, whenever they appear. Still kind of (?) with the new/young Hawkeye.
• After making him the Sorcerer Supreme, and a failed solo book, Doctor Voodoo just got offed a month or two ago. Instead of Doctor Strange…. and now his brother is a bad guy? Ugh.
• Hazmat, a new Japanese-American over in Avengers Academy
• Mettle, a new black (black father, white mother – from Hawaii!… wonder where they got that idea?) character, also in Avengers Academy. Unfortunately, his entire body was turned to… metal. So you really have no idea what his ethnicity is from the visuals. I think there’s a TV-trope style name for when this happens.
• Reptil has moved over to Avengers Academy.
• Wiccan and Hulkling, Marvel’s one of Marvel’s few named gay couples (Richtor/Shatterstar have a more dubious status these days), continue to appear whenever the Young Avengers do. Wiccan has a major arc in the current mini.
• Victoria Hand (whom I totally forgot was gay because she hasn’t had any kind of romantic involvements on panel since she was introduced… is a regular in the New Avengers supporting cast.

Spidermanland

• Arana is now Spidergirl, and I think she’s getting her own book again soon.

Hulkland

• Amadeus Cho has co-headlined with Hercules for a while, had a limited series or two, and is currently in the Chaos War limited. I have no idea where he is off to after that – but it better not be limbo! Also, he still has one of my favorite comic book girlfriends.

Xland

• Karma got her leg cut off and got an ugly cyborg leg. In the world of Marvel-tech…she got an ugly ass cyborg leg. She even comments on how ugly it is, yet it’s what she’s stuck with. And she still has no love interest. I think she had one several years ago who got killed? Or something.
  

  Seriously.

• Storm still pops up whenever in X-Men/Uncanny and is a lead in Astonishing, but no plot arcs for her lately.
• Gabriel Cohuelo, a Mexican with speedster powers is one of the new mutants highlighted in Generation Hope
• Idie Okonkwo, a Nigerian with fire/ice powers is another new mutant highlighted in Generation Hope
• There may also be a new Japanese mutant in Generation Hope, but it has yet to be revealed if he is a hero or villain
• Jubilee is in the middle of a major new plot arc (and getting a limited with Wolverine next year to continue it) about becoming a vampire. Cheesy as that is, it will keep her on the page as it gives her powers again and (except for Peter David writing X-Factor with Rictor & Dani Moonstar over in New Mutants) the x-writers tend to ignore the depowered.
• Blade popped up in the X-Men for an arc.
• Armor is still one of the leads in Astonishing, and turns up elsewhere as well.
• Indra was recently featured in an arc in Legacy.
• Northstar is still technically an X-Man, but hasn’t been around much. He’ll be featured in a 4-5 issue arc starting this month in a mini-team of Dazzler, Storm, Pixie, Him & … someone else, I forget. There was a backup story in one of the compilations about his relationship with his boyfriend as well.
• Anole appears frequently on panel, if rarely in a main role, and was on a mini-team in a recent Legacy arc with Rogue, Magneto, Indra & Loa.
• Graymalkin, a relatively new (2009) gay character, was in a few panels… Which is a shame, as I see a lot of possible meat on his story bones.
• Cipher, a new black character (2009), was absent from all but a handful of panels. Also a shame, because she came with some kind of mystery that was never addressed before Young X-Men was cancelled.
• Dani Moonstar still co-leads the New Mutants, and still has no powers. They are definitely going for the depowered-80s-Storm-badass thing with her, and it’s getting there as far as the working thing goes, but I wish she had SOME kind of powers.
• Rictor continues to be a lead in X-Factor, and his relationships with Shatterstar & Wolfsbane are central to the plot of the series. Which you should be buying because it’s the best X-Book out right now.
  

  Countdown to defenestration: 3...2....

• Daken, half Japanese son of Wolverine, and of the few Marvel characters shown on panel being intimate with males and females (Mystique & Rictor being the others?) and who is written so well by Marjorie Liu & Daniel Way that he’s almost interesting, still headlines a series. I just can’t get excited about a “son of Wolverine”, but I have to admit that Marvel is doing some interesting things with the character. For one, I think he’s technically a villain (he doesn’t save anyone, and everything he does is for his own gain) – so his series (which has been running a few years now) is about a villain using everyone he comes across. He has no redeeming moral values or likable character traits typical of a hero. The way he uses his sexuality as a weapon is definitely some new-ish stuff for Marvel – and he’s being (co) written by a minority woman. Lots of stuff going on there.
• Bling! had an arc in X-Men Legacy.
• Darwin has continued to be a regular in X-Factor for the last couple of years, but it looks like he is out next issue. He is one of the few characters that I feel Peter David never quite got a handle on what to do with him. He was basically a blank state to start with, so there was lots of room to work, and I do think David did a good job with what he had but just… never quite got there. He needs an central arc or two.
• Monet, she of the ever shifting skin color, is still with X-Factor.
• Dr. Kavita Rao continues to be a strong supporting character in Uncanny as a member of the “science team”. She just injected herself with a virus though so hey… what happened last time someone did that?

Other places in the Marvelverse

• Misty Knight was in the last Daredevil event, and headlining a new Heroes for Hire series as well. UNFORTUNATELY, her baby with Iron Fist was revealed to be some kind of bizarre “ghost pregnancy” as a result of his crazy chi powers WHICH IS THE LAMEST THING EVER. Because how awesome would it have been for Power-Man/Iron-Fist to both be fathers of biracial children? COME ON MARVEL! I was so looking forward to my kids having a DaughterofPowerman/SonofIronFist buddy book! Seriously Marvel, I call fucking shenanigans! Please fix this with some kind of magical chi-baby or something.
• Black Tarantula & White Tiger (who should receive some kind of award for having those names and being neither white nor black!) were featured pretty heavily in Daredevil over the last few years. Tarantula in particular has had a nice character arc running. Tiger just got possessed and evil so who knows.
• Over in the Ultimate universe, Ultimate Black Panther (who is mute?) was around for a bit, Ultimate Blade is in the current avengers arc and there’s a new black hawk-like dude named Derek Morgan in the nascent Ultimate X-Men in the new Ultimate X book…which I think hasn’t had an issue since Derek was introduced in June or so.
  

  Yo Yo, punching Ares & co.

• Nick Fury’s Secret Warriors introduced several new characters to Marveldom, most of them the children of older villains or heroes. Among them:
  • Eden Fesi : An Australian Aborigine associated with Gateway with similar teleportation abilities. Last I saw, he got shot in the chest and passed out… hopefully he’s not dead (already! :( ).
  • Yo-Yo Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican super-speeder who has already lost bot her arms (ouch!) but had them recently replaced with bionics (and not ugly ones like Karma’s).
• The Blue Marvel, after having what I thought was a nice introduction mini-series, has turned up in a few of the compilation comics. I like this guy and his story. I hope he continues to pop up and someone works him into an ongoing somewhere. Working him into the yearly mega-crossovers would have been nice, but I haven’t seen that happen yet.

…..and there’s other stuff I missed or forgot. At least I hope there is. This are just the ones I could remember.

It’s also worth noting that DC finally gave the new Batwoman an ongoing (after some really great stuff in Detective), so they now have a comic being headlined by a gay woman.

Also, DC put out Milestone Forever this year, which was a return to the Milestone Universe (and actually brought most of the characters over into the DCU proper, but only Static has had a reoccuring role since – he was/is in the Teen Titans) from many of the original creators.

Wow! This took a lot longer to put together than I was expecting, I was hoping to have it up two weeks ago.

So, I called them all except Angel, and only because I saw a quote about Angel being “the last person they would want on this team”.  That will teach me to listen to even pretty direct denials. ^.^  Plus, those wings are either horribly drawn, or drawn deliberately like that to make an image like the one on the left more easily confused with someone in a cape.  I’m going to go with a little of both.

So.  Deadpool in an actual X-team.  I don’t like that one bit.  But hey, I’m willing to be convinced.  I’m not sold on the team make-up at all,  but since I don’t pick up any of the Wolverine books (I was getting Origins in trades but… the ending was just so bleh I not pick up the rest) I’ll let this be my Wolverine fix.

Final image found via Bleeding Cool here, where there’s another image which, along with is parts in Second Coming 2, serves to remind me that Greg Land can ruin anything.  I’m not going to link to it because it’s ugly.  Also, Angel with a gun?  Does he really need a gun with the metal wings!?

Also, the new title is going to be “Uncanny X-Force”.  Which makes no sense to me.  Because… really, simple is always better and when you have a title that works and is simple and conveys a pretty clear image about what your title is, like oh, I don’t know, “X-FORCE“, you want to add a pointless adjective because why?!  I could see if they were trying to run two simultaneous X-Force books or something.  Thankfully they aren’t….

So, what else?

Great Ten, although muddled by art I didn’t quite like, was a great story and it’s a shame it didn’t sell more.  Hopefully it will do some business in the trades and we’ll get a return to it eventually.

Second Coming was decent, and contained not one, or even two, but 3 X-deaths.  I know folks may not count Ariel but hey, they at least said her name when she died.  And Karma lost a leg (now bionic), and  Hellion lost both his hands.  Thankfully he’s a telekinetic.  I guess.  I mean at least he’ll be able to wipe his own butt.  No bionic hands yet though, which seems a bit unfair.

Oh!   Second Coming: Hellbound has been the best crossover related mini I have seen in a very long time.  And it’s not even really related to Second Coming in the sense that it advances none of it’s plot points… it just picks up on a random tangent.  BUT.  If you are a Cannonball fan… which I happen to be… it has some of his best scenes in a long time (although he kind of bumbled around a bit in the first two issues, but the third has some good payoffs).

He gets to take down a powered-up Gambit and Northstar, and even uses his blasting powers to “blast” someone – he hasn’t done that on panel that I recall since he figured out he could do it a decade ago.  Has it been a decade already?  I think so… it was either during, or before the Counter-X run.  Speaking of, what happened to Bedlam?  Oh right, he got killed.  Awesome.  Way to go Marvel at developing minority characters then killing them off.

Anyway, yeah, Hellbound was pretty good.  Pixie is played out as hell right now, but her and Magic get some nice motion in their character arcs.

I’m not sold on the X-Men vs. Vampires stuff yet.  I mean, I don’t hate it but… I just don’t get the point of the new “X-Men” book.  The team has too much overlap with Uncanny/Astonishing (swap Colossus for Beast & Pixie for Armor) to be interesting in a team composition sort of way.  The art is at least decent.  Vampire Jubilee is a different/interesting way to re-power her at least, assuming they don’t just cure her in the end.

What’s up with team of X-Men+teenage girl anyway?  Claremont X-Men + Sprite (then Jubilee), Whedon X-Men + Armor, current X-Men+Pixie.  Do the main X-teams have something against teenage male sidekicks?  How about Anole?  Love that kid, he could use some more screen time.  Or Prodigy!  Then again, Prodigy has the distinction of being a young, interesting, black X-Man.  Every year he doesn’t get killed is a surprise to me (see: Synch, Bedlam).  When they depowered him I figured that was it, but they had a somewhat novel way of repowering him (telpathically unlocking the memories of his stolen skills… giving me a static set of abilities – but better than nothing!).

I dropped all the Avengers books, none of them are interesting.  Thunderbolts was the closest to coming home, but the shop sold out of the first issue of the new arc, and I didn’t want to drive all over town trying to chase it down so… no on that too.

I guess that’s enough comic rambling for now.  Enjoy it non-readers!

I can’t say I was expecting one half of what happened in X-Men: Hellbound 02.  Sure, the stuff with Pixie was clearly telegraphed… but who actually expected them to deal with the Gambit/Death thing in the middle of a major event?  I have a feeling it won’t really be “dealt” with so much as just used to fill some pages (“Oh, the demonic nature of Limbo made it like that, temporarily.”), but we’ll see.  Still, one of the more entertaining X-limited series in ages.

What the hell is the point of Deadpool – Wade Wilson’s War?  Is it a What If? Is it dumb (not “dumb as in funny” but “dumb as in pointless”)?  Yes!

I was extremely unimpressed with Avengers Academy 01.  The “twist” is dumb.  I’m sorry but.  Dumb.  Really.  Christos Gage can do better, and has done better in the past on Avengers Initiative.  Other than that the writer was decent, but not great.  I’m not buying angry Speedball – and how did his powers get back like that?  The art was passable but some faces were kinda ugg.  The lack of carryover threads from Initiative is going to kill it for me.  There’s a little from Mighty but.  I just don’t care about these new characters.  Oh no they are all traumatized and arrgghhh blah who cares?  There are a ton of quality characters from Initiative that they could have worked with.  I’m just not convinced a batch of almost completely new (-1) characters was called for.  I would have much rather seen the Initiative cast in a new “Heroic Age” light – hell you can throw these new kids into the mix in a “special class” but don’t make the damn book about them.

Avengers v? 01 was also underwhelming.  Unlike pretty much everyone else in the world, I don’t really like JRJR’s work.  OMG *GASPHEMY* I know.  The only title I ever liked it on was Amazing Spider-Man with JMS.  When I was younger, when he came onto Uncanny X-Men (issue 300?) that was the last straw I needed to quit (I don’t remember what else I was thinking… I think I was trying to quit for misguided religious reasons).  I remember thinking the art so damn ugly that I had a hard time reading it.   The story is interesting.  Maybe with another artist I might actively like it but.  Meh.

Ultimate Avengers 2 03 was exactly as dumb as you would expect.  People are buying this?  Ultimate Nick Fury is a horrible person with no redeeming values (I don’t think patriotism counts as a redeeming character trait in a story)?

Titans 24 (Or “New Angsty Killy Titans”) is pointless.

I dig the art in Heralds 01 but the characters that gathered for Emma’s party make NO EFFING SENSE.  Does she even know any of those characters in continuity?  Umm.  One random I could see but Scott picked 5 RANDOM women to hang out with his wife and none of them were X-women or… I don’t know anyone that would actually know Emma?  Oh woops I forgot the woman from SWORD was there (hey – they didn’t even bother to intro her on the page where they intro’d the others so I have a good excuse for not knowing her name right now).  She actually knows Emma.  OK, that’s 1.  Of course, the more screen time Monica Rambeaux/??codename?? gets, the better.  But still.  Hellcat was there because the writer did a couple of Hellcat minis… yeah, no.

Shield 02… Leonardo.  I dunno. I suspect it will read well in the trades but I’m having a hard time buying it within the 616 universe.  Nice to look at though.  And it had a random page of text in the middle, which I found amusing.

Prince of Power 02 was good.  It did a nice job of ratcheting up the tension and getting some character work in – although this version of Thor is slightly inconsistent IMHO, but it’s all in good fun.  I dig the last page because my favorite super-hero (ex-)girlfriend is back!  Yes, I want them to get together.

Secret Six 22 was also quite good.  Where does Catman go from here?  Wow.  After some seriously brutal putting down of some metas you know it’s going to be even sillier next time Batman beats him up.

[UPDATE/EDIT: Thread over at Bleeding Cool with a list of the fates of various non-white superheroes and discussion.  I didn't realize the Hawk-douches were supposed to be (partially) non-white.  Or Kyle Raynor...]

Oh, right, Marvel just did that too in Amazing Spider-Man 631… the kid killing that is.  Yes, the Lizard ate his own kid… to show that yes, he really is the Lizard now.  And only the Lizard!  Until another writer changes his mind.  Remember kids (and writers!): comics!

Siege 4 was really bad/dumb/BlackestNight8ish.  It’s like both writers thought of the stupidest possible solution with the least satisfying resolution and went with that.  Also, I could have sworn I read in an interview somewhere that the green on Osborne’s face was supposed to be symbolic… yet it was fucking everywhere in this issue, and someone even commented on it??  The whole power-up->1 panel->Loki dies->throwing a ship can hurt the Sentry->now Thor can knock him out->STFU COMIC!

Ugh.  Ugh.  C’mon Bendis, we KNOW IN CAPITAL LETTERS that you can do better than this.  This was like an after noon of engaging foreplay only to prematurely splatter in your partner’s nose while trying to suppress it resulting in an ejaculation with no orgasm:  no one’s satisfied, and at least one party is probably pissed.

Waitamminit!   Did Loeb ghostwrite this?  Shit :  ANSWER!

Speaking of Loeb – the Red Hulk/Red She-Hulk identity reveals should surprise absolutely no one.  Even though they went out of their way to basically break the chain of clues by having the Red Hulk in a scene with his alter-ego at one point (which I think is an incredibly cheap way to throw off suspicion)… still it was fairly obvious I think.  So yeah, that’s out of the way.  Yay.  Now maybe after this latest round of Hulk event stuff pans out we can get some more Pak-driven stuff.  Sure, I know he’s on board for this stuff (and his issues tend to be better written than Loeb’s)… but there is a huge difference in style and quality between this and the wonderful Pak-driven Hulk stuff from 2-3 years ago.

The way the Constrictor/Diamondback thing fell part in the last issue of Avengers:Initiative (35) was so incredibly, depressingly cliche.  I mean, could they not get a break?  Really?  Would it be that hard to leave them together?  It’s not like anyone else is going to use them for the next couple of years…

The bit with Maxwell Lord and the bleeding nose?  Always?  Oh look he’s got a giant bleeding nose in a giant tub of ice… *yawn*

Did they really go to all the trouble with the bottle city and giving Kryptonians a planet again and like two years worth of story arcs in 3-4 books just to KILL THEM ALL?  I mean, is that where this is headed? *yawn*

Dumbest Marvel retcon in recent memory: The Sentry slept with Rogue.  Because yeah, that TOTALLY makes sense.  Although, I guess if she magically “forgot” she slept with him since everyone forgot he existed then yeah, sure maybe decades of X-Men stories about her emotional fragility and inability to have contact with anyone (possibly culminating in finally getting with Gambit during a power loss period?  Hell, I don’t even remember) make sense… but still, it was cheap and stupid imho.  A much longer and more eloquent commentary HERE with follow-up HERE and note from Mike Carey (who has been doing great work with Rogue for the last few years on his X-Men title).

Astonishing X-Men: Xerogenesis was pretty bad too.  Not liking the bizarre art with uber sex-toy Emma (even more than usual, trust me – the artist actually draws in weird, visible, hand-sized circular nipple pad things that stick out from her ludicrously tight top… do real people wear these??) and strangely deformed everyone else (mostly the women, see above).  Also… there really is no place in continuity for this.  Why?  Because a) Beast is still with them (PAST) and Storm has a new haircut (FUTURE).  So yeah, pointless, skippable title.  Yay!  I’m so glad they moved this to limited series because now my inner compulsive will let me happily skip it.

There’s been some good stuff lately too (the current X-men event, Pak’s Amadeus Cho stuff) but I just felt like being negative for this post… maybe getting my “Dark Onefinemess” out of the way so I can move peacefully into the Heroic Age of Pullbox Commentary. (TM).  Or something

X-Force 26

What else happened?  Hope finally makes it to Utopia.  So glad it only took 4 issues for that.  Karma did indeed lose a leg.  Still curious where that is going.  I’m fairly sure I read somewhere that she’s still around post-xover, so I wonder if it’s bionic leg time or… weird power upgrade?

And Hope’s powers still haven’t kicked in yet – but we know that they will, and they’ll probably be the Phoenix force.  *twiddle*

Mighty Avengers 36 : The final issue of the “mighty” title, and a semi-capstone to the long running Pym/Jocasta/Wasp arc.  I can’t say I was pleased, as it really was a little too much of a “classic” style ending for the way things have been going these days.  Scared off with holograms, REALLY?

I will say that I like that Pym’s quest to return his wife is (I think) failed.  I think it’s good to see the heroes put their all into something (especially something fans would expect), and fail.  I’m sure Janet will be back eventually, but I’m glad it’s not yet.

Yes, it should be obvious that I have less than 0 faith in comic deaths now.  5 years seems to be a max lately.  Bucky & Cypher were the longest running ones that I can think of, and they’re both back.

New Avengers 64 : Another issue devoted pretty much entirely to the Hood.  I’m not as annoyed as I should be, as I think it’s a decent way to avoid sitting around on your ass during a crossover you can’t spoil (although there is a little spoiler in Mighty), and Bendis has already invested so much into the Hood… he’s done a good job of making him a villain you can empathize with (to a limited degree, enough for a villain) – taking him far past the generic thug status of many villains these days.  There’s one more issue in the series, and it looks like it will be adding some kind of resolution to the Hood’s story.  Probably just setting him up as whatever his next incarnation will be, since he’s now sans powers.

Thor 609 : Anything with Kelda in it is gold.  For now at least. I’m sure they’ll wear her out too, but Kelda+Bill were the best supporting character couple in memory.  There’s some weird art choices on a few of the pages – one Asgardian looks entirely too much like Thor with a sword – but overall everything was really solid.  I’m really curious what Loki is going for here, especially when paired with the spoiler from Mighty 36.  Is he trying for a glorious death in battle, proving to the other Asgardians that he was always better than them or something?  I thought he wanted to just destroy it all (see Siege: Loki), does that include himself?  Obviously, whatever happens he won’t be gone for long, as the Thor movie is due out next yearish.

Note: The cover has nothing to do with the content of the issue – I think that’s the battle from next issue. ?

Thunderbolts 143 : The final issue of this incarnation and I couldn’t be more happy.  That it’s over, not that it was awesome.  Next issue we’re back to something actually resembling the original theme of the series (I’ve harped on its loss many times), so I’m really looking forward to that.  Especially Juggernaut’s story.  I’m really hoping they keep his continuity in mind.  Seeing him almost reverted back to a cookie cutter villain (as many writers seem to have a soft spot for that, Frank Tieri for one) was really pissing me off.  The recent Spider-Man arc with him was decent and, I think, sets him up quite well for the Thunderbolts.  Ghost & Ant-Man’s change of hearts here were interesting, and Ghost’s quite unexpected.  So I guess I won’t mind him being around in the next incarnation… the ones I’m annoyed about are Swamp Thing (really??) and Crossbones (no chance or reason for redemption here, just execute him).

Wolverine Origins 47 : I guess something happened in this issue.  Maybe it will read better in the trades?  Glacial plotting.

Ultimate Avengers Whatever The Mark Millar One 01 – It’s exactly what you’d expect from Millar.  I think that pretty much covers everything he writes these days.  Nothing particularly annoying beyond his usual levels, nothing less annoying and more interesting than his usual stuff either.

So this arc has the tagline SECOND COMING * REVELATIONS… I get the tie in part – the anti-mutant forces attacking pretty much every mutant left, simultaneously -  that works.  What I don’t get is the REVELATIONS bit.  What is there to reveal?   Peter David is big on long boiling revelations… hmm, let’s check the solicits.

Next month:

The mutant hunter Bastion has sent the Mutant Response Division and the newly resurrected Bolivar Trask after X-Factor with one mission: Kill them all. And it seems thus far that all is going according to plan. Meanwhile in the jungles of South America, Strong Guy has to form an extremely unlikely alliance if he wants to save Monet from the MRD.

June:

At last! All the members of X-Factor are reunited in this climactic, slam-bang X-plosion of a conclusion as Trask decides to take matters into his own hands and personally direct the forces of the Mutant Response Division into a full blown war against everyone’s favorite mutant detective team!

Huh.  No clues at all.  Not even a tease of a giant revelation (which Marvel tends to do, especially for this book… see July‘s solicitation blurb:

Remember when we warned you about the shocking twist involving Madrox’s baby? Remember when the return of Shatterstar wound up making every comics-related website? Well, that was just a warm-up for the shocking end of this issue. X-Factor gets a new client, a tall green-garbed woman with a deadly secret, but that’s just a set-up for the jaw-dropping final page that’s going to reignite the Internet and have fandom going, “Did you BELIEVE what happened at the end of X-Factor #207?!”

Yeah so.  You got me.  Normally, I would guess that the marketing folks just thought it sounded cool… but X-Factor is usually running a different course… soooo.  Something.

X-Men Legacy 235: Second Coming pt 4: The X-event continues!  People die (a d-list character who did actually feature in a favorite, 8 issue, limited series of mine.  From the 80s.), people get shaken around without their leg (Karma! OUCH.  Somewhere I read that she was getting some kind of a big overhaul… so uh, bionic leg I guess?, the X-Men finally get a clue and start fighting back, and Warlock goes uh… Warlockian.

Still no clues as to what the hell is going on with Hope, although I think it should be pretty obvious from, oh, the solicits for the X-MEN PHOENIX FORCE HANDBOOK (A Second Coming tie-in!).  How the hell is one of their stock reference books being billed as a tie-in?  The hell?  There is NO STORY in those things.  Usually?

Oh, and Greg Land, my favorite “artist” pulled “art” duties for this one.  And it was probably the least offensive thing I can remember seeing by him.  Yes, all the women had the same faces (I didn’t realize X-23 was in the issue until I saw Rogue with her powers later on… I thought she was Psylocke the whole time!).  Yes, there was a near-full page spread of Rogue standing with weird tiny-wings and splayed legs, ready to receive it in the backside and yes I swear that every time I saw a male face I could almost recognize which celebrity he was tracing and  yes, yes it did suck.  But it was slightly less sucky than other issues.  Maybe because I read it really fast, in the car?  Going back through it now I’m finding more and more stupidity…  You know what?  When he’s not drawing faces it’s pretty OK.  As soon as the faces come out it’s ARGOEGUHUHBOOM.  There is a great page with Warlock that I swear is actually another artist.  Oh.  Maybe he just traced that… O.O

Note: The cover at left is not the one I got.  For some reason I can’t find an image on the net (yet) of the non-variant cover.  WTF?

Guardians of the Galaxy 25:  Another strong issue – and the art was great too!  Except for a few panels where someone is drawn getting clearly atomized, yet no one gets atomized?  All the bystanders are dead… so?

So yeah.  Thanos is back.  And he’s pissed.  The one guy that actually wants to stay dead, and Magus had to go and be a dick and bring him back…  We get to see Thanos unloading physically like we haven’t in quite a while, but Quill has one trick up his sleeve… and it’s a hell of a trick.

I think the title is going on hiatus for a few months now.  Or something?  While the next cosmic event – I think it’s the Cancerverse (think a Marvel U where Cthulu-esque things won) vs. 616 – called THE THANOS IMPERATIVE (which doesn’t have the word “cancer” in it) – runs.  Which is kind of a bummer and kind of cool at the same time, because I won’t be spending any extra money to pick up the event.  I guess.

Oh, and I’ll leave you with a cover that I found particularly amusing.  Because, seriously, what the hell is going on with her belt?  Skirt?  Weird underwear?

X-Force to end and relaunch.  Sounds like “Wolverine’s X-Men” meets Secret Warriors.  Teaser image below.

The guy on the right looks clearly to be Fantomex, it’s suggested in the article that Wolverine is the only returning member (and also, that Angel might be one of the last people they would want on the team), so the “winged” person is NOT Angel so… Cloak maybe?  I’m thinking it’s a cloak specifically drawn to look like wings to mess with us.  I mean, in an ideal world it would be Mimic….   And two people with swords. So, Psylocke for sure I’d say – probably the figure in the front.  It looks like bottom left has two swords… which leaves us with Deadpool. UGH. UGH. UGH.  Please no.  What other X-Men have the sword-ninja thing going on?  Honestly I can’t even remember.

X-23 gets her own book.  The artists for the interiors of last month’s one shot was terrible.  If it’s someone who can actually draw something that will interest me, I’ll pick up the first issue – but that will probably be the only Wolverine-”mini-universe” book I touch.  And only because I like Liu’s take on her.

Wolverine’s “real” kid also gets his own book.  Oh, what?  He already had his own book?  Indeed.  It’s just a relaunch for the #1 sales boostCalled Daken: Dark Wolverine or something.  Horrible title, but they had to keep the Wolverine in there to make people care enough to pick it up I guess.  Don’t get me wrong, Liu has done a good job writing Dark Wolverine so far… I just couldn’t care less for the character.

There will be a 3rd (4th? 5th?) “core” X-Men book,  called plain old “X-men” again.  Is that volume 3?  The first arc is billed as “mutants vs. vampires“. Before and after O.O:

Gambit and Rogue together again huh? BLEH.  Interesting to see Rogue in two titles…or will Legacy be forced to shift focus again?  That would be a shame, as Carey has really done a great job of making Rogue actually interesting and not lame anymore.  Oh, and Nate grey looks like an old ass Elvis in the above! Plus… Nate has too much power for a team.  Just sayin.

PS: Mark Millar is, in addition to his other redeeming characteristics, a big whiner.  Oh no!   Someone else at Marvel is using vampires in their books!  The sky is falling!   Nevermind that whole long running MI13 vampire arc… obviously everyone is out to steal Mr. Millar’s high quality “work”.

New ongoing X-Men series scorecard:

Uncanny: 0
Legacy: 0
New Mutants: 0
X-Force: -1
Cable: -1
Wolverine: Origins: -1
Wolverine: Weapon X: -1

“New” X-Force: +1
X-Men v3: +1
Daken: +1
X-23: +1
Wolverine: +1

Grand total: 8 ongoing x-books, including 3 Wolverine-related books, for a gain of +1.  I’m much more pleased with 3 Wolverine-related books than I would be if it were 3 actual Wolverine books (also, he’s still appearing in New Avengers too, so it’s not like he’ll be in less than 4 books a month).  They HAVE to make these books all about the characters… because really we’re just looking at 3 people with the same powers (although different #s of claws o.o).  It’s a challenging situation and I fully expect either Daken or X-23 to fold by issue 13.

Oh, and it looks like Cable is dead. Or at least off the table again.  And I’m not seeing Nightcrawler anywhere…  It’s a shame that’s probably not him (back to his old, two swords “swashbuckling” gear) in the X-Force teaser up there.  BUT WOULDN’T THAT BE AWESOME IF IT WAS? That squiggly thing that I thought was a random ninja ribbon (ninja frequently have random ribbons on their costumes so they can trail in the wind when they hop around) could be his tail.   That would certainly be a stellar follow-up on the seeds planted in last couple weeks.  Not to mention Nightcrawler as the team’s conscience.  Wow.  That would actually be really cool.  So cool that I hope they’ve already thought of it.

Which would mean who dies…. Iceman?  Well, at least he has a built in resurrection clause.

Since I wasn’t buying Cable or any of the Wolverine books (I have was getting Origins in trade due to the whole intentionally finite length of the story but man it’s just kinda bleh, so I may not get them all unless it wraps up smartly) this means I’ll be adding a book to my list.  Oh, wait – almost forgot, I’m dropping X-Men Forever.  Sweet.  The first volume is ending next month or so, and I don’t think I’ll get the second.    It was entertaining but… meh.  Maybe if the art were better.

I may just drop the entire Avengers line though… not that I don’t enjoy them, but picking up two entire lines is just a bit much.  Still, there is some interesting stuff coming up in the Avengers line.  Nova will be in the spyvengers.  Funky, I know.  That same title has Black Widow though, and she’s always annoyed me so.  Oh, it also has Beast!  Tempting.

And, the much expected Avengers Academy will finally arrive… with Justice,  Speedball (no longer Penance), Wasp, Tigra & Quicksilver as instructors.  Looks like it will get the carry over plots from both Mighty & Initiative.  Mighty was running out of steam, so hopefully this will be what those arcs needed.  Then there’s Amadeus Cho’s solo (!) book.  Pak’s Hercules run was fucking brilliant, and I love Cho as a character sooo…. yeah, there’s another one I’ll be getting.

It looks like it will be a good year for Marvel books.

I mean, it’s not like their suddenly going to kill a little girl for shock-effect right?  Yes, I AM looking at you Justice League: Cry for a Longer Title and better writing.

Hulked-Out Heroes 1: This one gets the “There was no reason to print this” award for the year (so far).  A Deadpool-hulk hopping around in time with a brain-addled Thing-pirate (from an archaic FF storyline)? I mean… I GUESS if 7 year olds still read comics then maybe this would be cool?  Probably too wordy for them.  Dumb.

Secret Six 20: Simone continues to knock the ball out of the fucking park.  Once again veering from comedic to gut churning… pretty much the best thing DC is putting out.

New Mutants 12: Part 3 of the return of Hope thing.  Cable’s behavior continues to be stupid.  I get that he hasn’t seen the X-Men in 20 years, but he returned to just about the same point he left.  Soooo dumb.  So obviously an inserted plot device for dragging this crossover out at least 30% longer than it needs to be.  That being said, if you can ignore that it’s a good read and I’m curious to see where it’s going.  Also, the fact that we know someone is supposed to die… with what’s going on they seem to be really pointing to Nightcrawler.  Which is.. bleh.  Couldn’t they get rid of Wolverine or something?

Also, still not seeing a reason to send a depowered Dani out against stuff like this.  She should have been way dead this issue.  I was hoping the Valkyrie stuff would stick – she needs *something*, especially with the way things are going for the x-folks these days.  I mean, they realized how stupid angel was with just the feathery wings (esp. once they took away the healing factor again),  hey maybe Dani can borrow Angel’s spare Soulsword?  I suspect we’ll NEVER see that again.  Hah.

Variant cover  looks nice but the women are bit much, as usual, and EVERYONE looks really constipated.  Seriously.  Look at the posture and faces.  OK, maybe not Warlock – but that’s only because he a) doesn’t have a human face and b) doesn’t poop.

The Flash 1 : About as interesting as watching molasses sit in a jar.  Art is nice though.

Daredevil 506: It looks like Marvel is building the next mini-event around DD.   That should be interesting.  If nothing else, the current direction is at least different.  Also, it’s nice to see that the Hand at least have a motive for letting DD run things because, really, that was a bit of a stretch.