Wolverine vs. Captain America : Haven’t we seen this before?  Shouldn’t the archetypal pairing be Cyclops vs. Captain America?  I guess maybe the outcome of that match would be too apparent?  (Cap, unless Cyclops caught him full on with his guard down or something).  So, I guess this is the “main event”.  Even, I guess. Except that Wolverine will keep getting better, but I suppose Cap could get him down for a bit.

Storm vs. Thor :  I love Storm to death, but there’s no way she should win this fight.  It’s almost silly.  They probably should have done Collosonaut vs. Thor – that’s really the closest thing to an even match I can think of for Thor, and he’d probably still win that one.

Spider-Woman vs. Gambit : The match no one cares about!  No?  Well, OK.  This one is even enough then.

Spider-Man vs. Iceman : The money dictates that Spider-Man win (that and he always wins) but, realistically…Iceman could just freeze the whole room.  Done, end of story.

Captain Marvel vs. Rogue : This one at least has some history to not.  Not that I’m convinced any of this crap will make any sense – although Marvel swears it will – but there’s at least a back story here.  Still, unless Carol is an idiot and lets Rogue get close, this isn’t even a fight.  Seriously.

Psylocke vs. Black Widow : With prep time, the Widow would win.  But I can’t see how that would happen in an actual fight.

Luke Cage vs Beast : Sorry Beast, this would last as long as it takes for him to hit you.  I’m guessing there will be a lot of talking in this one.

Magneto vs. Iron Man : Except for the fact that Magneto is generally a villain, this should never be a fight.  (Unless either party gets prep-time, of course).

Hulk vs. White Queen : OK.  This is uh, interesting.  Hulk’s gonna win that fist fight, so this is going to have to move onto the psychic level, where she’s got a chance.  But, if that’s the case… I dunno, this is the only not like vs like match out of the covers.  I’m confused.  Then again, the Avengers have the Hulk + Thor (for this series at least) – what the hell do you do against THAT?  Namor, maybe.  Since he’s an X-person now?  Namor vs. Thing (see below) is another match that would actually make a lot of sense but that they miss.

Cyclops vs. Hawkeye : Should be Cyclops by a mile, but you know, ambushes and all so who knows.
.

Daredevil vs. Archangel : Umm.  What?  Are we out of continuity here?  I don’t even…

Colossus vs. Thing : I think this one has happened before, and the win went to the Thing.  But, you know, with Cytorrak’s powers on top of his own, this should be Colossus by a mile.

That being said, the premise for this series (or rather, for the main AvX series – this book is simply described as fleshing out the battles from that book, so it’s at least not even trying to be anything other than what it looks like) looks somewhat terrible, even with all the “work” they’ve done to make there be an actual reason for the two big cash co-err teams to do battle.  STILL.  There is something to be said for comics targeted at 7-14 year olds. I mean, we haven’t had anything like Marvel vs. DC in a while (Avengers vs. Justice League was the most recent that I can recall and they, of course, teamed up in the end – still, this could end that way : Everyone vs. Phoenix!).  And the books do seemed to have stirred up quite a bit of internet debate (old school!  x vs y!  Who is the strongest!?), that’s probably a good thing for Marvel.

[Note: All images from CBR article here.]

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.

By the way, Norman Osborn is also dumb and obnoxious and annoying.  He’s racing Wolverine for # of titles appearing in, and has far outpaced (imho) the Civil War Iron Man’s douchebaggery levels.  Please die now, again, thanks bye.

Fantastic Four 568: Typical Millar dumbness of the uber, uber-bad.  Oh gawd he’s so powerful not only did he beat everyone, but he beat us a thousand times already – how will we ever beat him? Who cares?  Really?  Does anyone care about the villain from that weird ass 1980 whatever limited Millar put out a few years ago?  Yes, I know it ties in sidebar with Old Man Logan and all that.  Which is actually kind of cute… but the actual execution so far in FF is lame.

Iron Man 15: This storyline is still running?  Wow.

Cable 16:  K.  Whatever.  We’re aging Hope from 9 to 11, I get it.  Oooo 9->11. HUMMM.  And  Bishop got old – will he finally die now and be revealed as a skrull so we can get RealBishop back?

X-Men Forever 3:  The hell???  I mean, I would say the Shadow King, but I hope not because that’s too standard.  Someone should have commented about the Sabreooth/Wolverine’s dad thing…

Blackest Night 1: I actually bought this one – 1st DC book this year – because the Sinestro Corps War was pretty decent.  I have a feeling turning this thing into a company wide crossover is going to ruin it, but we’ll see.  The first issue definitely starts off with what “makes” an event these days: death and resurrection!  None of the resurrections go as usual though :p.  Curious if they are going to leave the two “big guns” (ok, not really, but they hung out with them a lot) who die at the end of the ish dead.  A wee bit gory for DC though.

New Mutants 3:  Slightly better than the last two issues, curious when/how they are going to repower Dani though – I’m guessing valkyrie somesuch.  Now I suppose I have to track down 1  & 2 in backissue bins.

Mighty Avengers 27: Not liking the “overkill” power levels of the villain so far, everything else was cool though. I think I prefer a “smart” villain plot to massive smash these days I guess.

X-Factor 46: Continues to build towards 50, not getting any worse.  A semi-revelation at the end, shows no signs of slowing down.

I actually wasn’t expecting that. It makes sense – no one really cares about her anymore I suppose.  But still. Well played.  Poor Gladiator.

What else?
Oh, Batman & Robin has lots of potential, in that wild Morrison & Quitely way.  I suspect it will be a great ride, and then collapse into itself when they move onto another project.  Just a guess really – who can carry on a post-Morrison run?  The choice always seems to be regression, retcon or ignorance.

I can’t stand Hal Jordan as a “character”, but dammit if Johns isn’t turning out the best books I’ve seen DC put out – Sinestro War was excellent, and the Blackest Night business COULD be decent.  Except they decided to make a fucking yearly event out of it SO I expect it to suck in that regard.

Captain Britain & MI13 was cancelled – shame if there ever was one.  More than any other book Marvel has cancelled in the last few years, this one has real quality, guts, etc.   There are better books running (X-Factor, the Abnett & Lanning stuff), but none that I can recall being cancelled.  And certaily drek of  lower quality still continuing.

I’m still tempted to pick up the New Mutants series, and the Claremont X-Men Forever potential fiasco but man, money you know.  Maybe if they’d cancel half the x-books I’d buy the rest.  Wolverine certainly has enough titles – Wolverine (Daken),  Origins, Weapon X, New Avengers, Dark Avegers (Daken), X-Force (& girl wolvy), Astonishing X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, First Class, the new X-Men First Class series…um, did I forget any ongoings?  That’s not even counting all the idiotic guest appearances and limiteds.  Of those titles…I only buy 3 so yeah, even that is too much Wolverine sometimes.

Looks like they may be bringing Steve Rogers back already – boo hiss to that if it’s true.

Huge boo hiss to bringing the other Flash back.

Conner Kent was missed, but the manner in which he and Kid Flash “returned” was like  “WTF?  You couldn’t just have Superboy Punch that shit back?”

Let’s see… what else.

The Greg Land cover for the Cap/Mi13 annual is fuckhideous, as usual. It’s not really worth linking too, you’ve seen that face in every single book he’s ever worked on. I suspect that must be his masturbation muse, because it’s really entirely too much, even for a tracer.

Umm.

Stuff. Yeah, let’s call it there for now.

Avengers: The Initiative 14: Unlike Hannibal Tabu,  I really enjoyed this issue.  In fact, I may actually read it again (pssst, that’s really high praise from me, I rarely read something more than once inside 5 years).  While I agree that Triathlon’s (sp?) sudden moniker change to “3-D Man” seemed to come out of nowhere…I have to wonder if it didn’t.  The way he was talking about it it sounds like they got their powers from the same place.  Time for some research…

SNAP!  Triathlon is actually directly related/tied to the original 3-D Man!  Dan Slott, you continuity whore, you haven’t let me down yet!  I love that guy.  And not just because he actually commented on my blog once.  So yes, this actually makes pretty good sense and ties in wonderfully (in the magical comic book coincidence way) with the Skrull invasion bit.

Uncanny X-Men 499 – Nothing too surprising here, but still a nice X-read.  Colossus gets angry…so we’re seeing some of that death rage leaking out maybe?  /eh I dunno.  But yeah, all it all it was decent, and we get a brief connector “sort of” showing us how/why they wind up in San Fran.  Oh, and a new *hood of Evil Mutants is forming….

X-Men Legacy 213 – OK, we know Charlie is going to survive, but I have to admit the end of issue cliffhanger really left me wanting 214!  Mike Carey is also doing a great job (taking lessons from Slott? :) ) on using continuity to create new and wonderful storylines.  Continuity is in no way an encumbrance (in my opinion) to a writer who really loves what he’s working with.  Such a difference between something by a writer of this caliber and something by…I don’t know…Jeff Loeb?

PS. Jeff, isn’t it a bit weird to have the Ultimate universe being secretly invaded by ROBOTS at the same time 616 is being secretly invaded by ALIENS?  Now if the Squadron Supreme universe gets secretly invaded by AMAZONS (from the moon!?) we’ll have a sweet little triumphrate of stupidity.  Hint: It’s cool the first time, and hey maybe even the second time…but don’t do it at the SAME TIME!

In case you hadn’t guessed, I’m finding volume 3 of the Ultimates horrid and trite.  Even Joe Mad’s revered pencils look like…well, shit.  Dark, muddied shit.  Blame is laid at the feet of the colorist, whom I understand will be allowed to finish the series, but will not ever be working for Marvel again.  This is a pretty high priority gig to blow in such a way.  I wonder if they’ll get the pages re-colored for the trades?  That would be sweet, then at least I can enjoy looking at them.

Oh, Sabretooth gets mauled by 2 tigers.  That’s…kinda amusing.

The previews for Ellis & Bianchi’s Astonishing X-men run, on the other hand, look beautiful!  So much of a better use for him than that horrible abomination of a Wolverine story Loeb did.

Runaways 30 – Aww, a somewhat-overused-but-still-touching sci-fi/time travel ending and a new Runaways addition AND gorgeous art means this issue is great.  I think I missed 29 though, going to have to look that up.  Definitely picking up the trades for this.

Rann-Thanagar Holy War 2 – This was surprisingly good – much like …Journey into Space? Whatever that last mini with Captain Comic & The Weird was, which it appears to be following. I enjoy both of those characters, as well as Animal Man.

Young X-Men 3 – Please make it stop. This is so obviously setting up a surprise twist reveal…and if it isn’t it’s even dumber than the Final Crisis retcon because now Cyclops is hiding TWO black ops teams? One of them massively under qualified compared to the other? Whatever. And the tattoo guy is still the stupidest new character to come out of the X-House in years. Combat-Blindfold is pretty annoying too, but that at least I can buy as a power progression and could possibly be interesting at some point. Wolfmutant #47 is also stupid. Die him please.

X-Force 4 - This is picking up. I’m not sure if they missed a page last issue that would make the Rahne plot clearer or what…I have to say I’m excited about the last page though. Really excited. I mean, sure, they 100% forgot about Angel’s new healing factor (the only remotely interesting thing about him since he got the feathers back)…but at least this angle has possibilities.

Trinity 1 – Whatever. PS. You can cancel Superman/Batman now. Superman/Batman/Wonderwoman is enough.

Avengers-Invader 2 – Some parts were quite good, including the usage of the “new” Bucky retro-origin stuff. Some were very silly, like the “New Avengers” deciding to randomly break the Invaders out even though they must know about the whole time paradox thing as well as anyone. I wonder what time period this is set in? Right after Civil War but before Skrull Invasion I guess? After Elektra was discovered? I don’t know, it doesn’t make much sense.

Cable 4 – I’ll always love Cannoball and I’m always sad when they kill him. Of course, explaining how every other mutant on the planet died would have been nice, but I guess that would have been too rational. All in all, not a bad issue, and it looks like things will be picking up pretty nicely though the rest of the year. Hopefully the Bishop thing will be resolved in an interesting manner (sadly I just want him dead now that he’s been destroyed and remade as a raving madman) and we can move on to….I dunno what. No idea where they would go with this thing once Cable stops being chased, so I have a feeling the chase will continue.

Nova 14 – A slightly different angle on a Galactus story so far and a decent read at that. I have to wonder at the inclusion of the weird possessing entity – I’m assuming it’s being done to set the thing up as a re-occurring villain, because if not it’s an awful lot of page time for filler.

Secret Invasion 3- Very good. Good stuff here. We all saw the suggestion posed at the end of the issue coming – the answer though will probably surprise either way. My money is on him not being a Skrull and this being another mindgame. PS. Bendis, you’re breaking the rules you just set for the Skrulls two months ago (and broke right after that with the Sentry issue & the Skrull meeting in the broom closet) again. I doubt any of the deaths in the fight will take, but if they do it’s some pretty serious stuff. Makes me wonder if there’s any point to reading any more issues of Initiative set before this.

Ultimate Origins 1 – Pretty decent. More interesting than the whole Galactus/Secret thing (sadly). They are finally showing how this universe fundamentally differs from 616, and doing it in a fairly clear-cut way so far.

Nothing had a cover cool enough to put up this week.