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-Factor 50 delivered on at least 85% of what was expected – and there was a lot riding on it, so I’ll call it good.  It may actually be closer to 100%, but the final sequence with Doom and what?whereishe? left me confused.  If this was intentional, then OK.  Layla’s “power” is quite interesting, and I have to wonder if it’s come into play at all thus far in the series.  I like the explanation for her prescience (although the several of the early scenes from X-Factor don’t make  a whole lot of sense under this umbrella at all – the one that ended with the bathroom collapsing seems downright farcically impossibly now).  The preview for issue 200 – the “relaunch” looked really, really promising.  I bought 2 copies.  Just because.

Oh, and the majority of the people on the cover above did nothing in the story.  This was allllll about Madrox and Layla.  And Ruby and Trevor Fitzory (I know, right?) a little too.  And crochety Doom (where the hell did he go?!).

Necrosha & New Mutants 6 were pleasant surprises.  Although, …battleCypher is kinda like what/huh/ok/no/yes?  … and I SERIOUSLY doubt that the implied ending is in anyway true, but who knows, people have been dying left and right lately.  OK, not X-people.  In fact, pretty much everyone who has ever died in an x-comic was resurrected in the current X-Force run.  Except for the people I wanted resurrected (Synch!)…ok, yeah, there is only one (Synch!). Everyone else can stay down.  Please.

Speaking of dying left and right.  WOW.  Guardians of the Galaxy 19.  Wow.  Can they even call that a win with half the team dead?  Just wow, balls of steel on those writers I tell you.  And I’m not even mad about it – even though one of my favorites is gone – ?for good?.  If you like comics, especially cosmic ones, you should be buying this book.

Astonishing X-Men 31 was underwhelming.  Mucho.  But, who knows, maybe once it gets into gear…

Thankfully Avengers Initiative 29 continued to whelm in all 7 gears.  Komodo (I’m still holding out on the hope that her and Hardball work it out…) the paraplegic kicking ass with brains, Tigra continuing to just kick ass, Speedpenance getting his cat back (!) and… meeting the New Warriors, finally.  Lots of peanuts riding on the grinder heading into the 30s.

New Avengers 58 on the other hand… this plotline is dragging on way too long.  We know Bendis isn’t going to kill Cage (in fact, I’m pretty sure that the recent issue of Thunderbolts with Cage & Iron Fist takes place after this entire arc).  The Hood/Osborn stuff is moderately interesting, and the Ms. Marvel/Osborn smackdown was somewhat rewarding.  But still.  Finish this up and move on please.

Did I mention that you should pick up X-Factor 50 & Guardians of the Galaxy 19 (although neither will make much sense at all without a substantial reading and time investment in the rest of the series…but it’s totally worth it!)?

Blackest Night 4 was decent, although I think Green Lantern 47 actually beat it.  These panels are awesome.  I guess I’m a sucker for shiny lights.

I really hope all the shiny colored rings stick around.  It would also be handy if some of the current (and future, since we know Guy Gardner goes Red) non-green colored lanterns stick around.  I rather wish Hal had stayed blue – it would certainly make him more interesting.  I guess they’d have to rename the book then :P.

One note:  The colorist seems to have drawn the indigo light as more of a blue, but we already have a blue… sooo… yeah.

The bad news is that I’m totally not going to finish the Gathering Storm tonight.

Daredevil 500: Wow.  Shit actually happens.  One thing I give the DD crew props for is that they are not afraid to bend the status quo over and show it who’s the boss. Matt running the Hand?  In a country where Osborn is the good guy?  That actually has some legs.

X-Factor 48: Continues to be the best X-book.  Now that we’r drawing in on 50, you can kind of see where everything is going – but now how it’s going to end.  I have to say I wasn’t expecting the future villain to be who it is, but of course it makes perfect sense in the context of this X-Factor run.  Talk about tying up loose ends. I suspect there will only be one that gets away (the Rahne killing Madrox & Layla thing.  Not really addressable without Rahne….).

The cheap:

The required “death” in Blackest Night 03 was cheap.  C’mon – seriously?  Have some balls and kill a real hero, instead of yet another hero’s girlfriend.  Jesus Christ.  I mean.  REALLY?

Ultimates 3 02 was kinda cheap too, especially considering it was basically just one long origin issue.  I mean, the character concept for the Ultimate Red Skull is kind of interesting, but it’s not worth paying money to read a bout something so focused on it.  Especially considering there are exactly ZERO dimensions to his character, 2 issues in. Oh, he’s evil.  Why?  He was born evil, we guess.  MM kay.  Dumb.  Millar at his “best” of course.

Marvel Zombies is still going.  I guess there must be a desire to see our favorite Marvel characters get eaten and horribly disfigured.  Barf.

War of Kings – Who will Rule?: We all know how it was going to end, and it was kind of with a whimper but STILL.  Everything DnA are turning out in Marvel Cosmic lately is fucking gold son.  GOLD.

The meh:

Outsiders 22: I’m still not sure why this comic is being printed, but this issue was actually fairly decent.  It’s good to see Geo Force get some screen time, although I think he should change his name to something less 80s-Captain-Planetish with a quickness.  Still, nothing happening here worth $$.

Nomad, Girl without a World: This really didn’t need to happen.  Maybe it will tie back in with the whole two Captain Americas thing (maybe they need multiple layers of redundant sidekicks?) in a month or two but still, MEH.  Oh, and the Black Widow cockblocking the lead’s attempts to meet BuckyCap?  STUPID.  Really, really crappy writing.  Like an anti-Deux Ex-Machina.  “No, you can’t do the completely obvious thing that anyone in their right mind would do, instead you have to waste you time doing something else so we can fill up 3 more issues.” HUH? ( Yes, this should also be filed below).

Titans 17: Not particularly horrible but continuing a long string of one shots about the various titans, which looks like it will continue for at least another 3 months.   Where the hell is this title going with 3 of the “big” names heading to the JLA?  Some kind of merger with the Teen Titans?  I hope so.  Less books is almost always good.

The huh?:

Evidently one of the people with Selene in that Necrosha preview was Dazzler’s half sister.  Wow.  A character I actually had no idea existed.  I’m amazed that character sat dormant for so long.  Is that a limbo record for x-family?

War Machine 09: I guess Norman Osborn wins again?  Seriously?  Yawn.

The drek:

I skimmed the recent Dark Reign Punisher arc.  Wow, the art is horrible.   The skull on his chest is the only way I know which one the Punisher is.  And sometimes you can’t see the skull!

Magog 1: Why does this book exist?

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.

Iron Fist 27: Yes, Danny Rand/Iron Fist will also be a father soon, following in his perennial buddy, Luke Cage/Power Man’s footsteps.  Also of note, and implied by my goofy title, is that the mother of said child (and soon to be wife of Danny) is Misty Knight.  Now.  This is comics.  So her or the baby could go kaput or turn into an alien at any time, for no good reason BUT, luckily no one else seems to care about writing Misty at the moment – so I think they are safe!

Also, this was the final issue of Immortal Fist.  Such a shame, it’s been a great series so far and deserved more than it got (much like Captain Britain & MI13).

X-Factor 45: Answers a question asked by only the most diligent fanfolk (ok, that’s still a lot): were Rictor and Shatterstar together?  Beyond that, the ongoing arcs continue in interesting ways, and things start to come together.

Astonishing X-Men 30:  Something happened here. Forge “died” I think, in a really strange and silly ending that I don’t think anyone saw coming to a story that started looking like something out of 90s Claremont’s and wound up 90s Ennis.  Not bad, but not particularly good, and I think Ellis can do better.

Apparently the entire point of Avengers-Invanders was to resurrect Toro, who no one cares about.  Or the original Human Torch, one of them.  DUMB.  Leading into the new Human Torch mini coming out later this year I’m sure.  The ending was rather horrid – but how else are you going to end a story where the bad guy is omnipotent?

Whatever the current Messiah Mini Event is finally ended a recent issue of X-Force or Cable.  It was actually decent, except that in the end it didn’t mean anything.  Except that Dom killed Kiden in the future.  That’s basically it.  Fun.  Curious to see how X-F will pick up the pieces of Boom-Boom now though.  Shame, she was wonderful with the right writers.  Go NEXTWAVE!

A bunch of Dark Reign minis came out.  They’re all pretty stupid.  The Lethal Legion thing may stir up some interest with the Wonder Man in jail angle though… that last panel was a little creepy.

Daken has taken over Wolverine‘s title, which is good because there was too damn much of one Wolverine – thankfully now we have 3 separate Wolverine’s to spread around.  !?

Now Wolverine’s “main” book is the Weapon X one – doing stuff that would have been in the normal Wolverine book so uh, whatever.  !?

Guardians of the Galaxy 15 was good and ended pretty much the only way it could (on the War of Kings angle), although still somewhat surprisingly.  And I hear the “old” Guardians are returning… that actually makes me very vary.  I think I’ll drop the book if it becomes about them.  Their time is over.  Vance I can take, but the others… meh, they work in the future, not in the past.  For me anyway.

I skimmed through Transformers: All Hail Megatron – it seems pretty decently written, if you’ve got a Transformers itch that the movie just didn’t scratch (which is understandable, as it was mostly trying to scratch your scrotum).

Oh, and I’m not excited about the Psylocke thing either.  How did they pull her out of the time stream anyway?  We’ll see how it goes though…I know the writer really wanted Psylocke – so hopefully he’ll do something interesting with her.

X-Factor 42: Still kicking.  No big plot twists here, but still good times and great entertainment.  Hopefully Madrox doesn’t get back until 50 or so – that seems like it would make a good double size doesn’t it?  The resolution of the Lalya/future thing. Of course I’m still creeped out by the fact that he’s evidently in love with her.  The scene with Longshot is very interesting too – am I reading it wrong or did he roll back time or something?

X-Men Legacy 223:  While I love Mike Carey on X-related stuff in general, somehow this Professor X thing is really wearing on me.  I’m looking forward to see what he has planned for the next way with 226 and moving forward.  Issue 225 has a lot to live up to in the sense that Uncanny 225 was the start of the Fall of the Mutants arc.  Just the numbering on Legacy is giving me flashbacks…this is right where I started reading Uncanny.  I don’t know why that’s weird, but it is.  Anyway, the story itself is actually pretty decent, I’m just tired of Xavier, sorry.  It looks like Rogue has moved on to whatever the next stage in her character/power development cycle will be, potentially driven there by Danger to spite Professor X by doing one thing he couldn’t do? Maybe?  Who knows, either way, 224 looks to be pretty good.

The New Exiles series is off to a good start. The cover is hideous and looks like it was drawn by a 12 year old learning how to draw anime from a book, but hey it’s prettier on the inside.

Plot thread necro from the Madrox limited series!

Buy this book.

and very sad.

and I have no idea where it’s going now.  You should pick it up – although the resonance won’t be near as strong if you haven’t been a long-time reader.  Seriously, this thing has been brewing since nearly the beginning of the series.  Ouch.

I’ll be cutting my pullbox back substantially in preparation for son #2 in the next month or so.  X-Factor will be staying on….I’m not sure what else.  Maybe Guardians of the Galaxy.  Maybe New Avengers.  Maybe Avengers: Initiative and X-Force (who would have thought that would be the continuity whore’s book?????).  We’ll see.

Larry Stroman’s on X-Factor are almost as annoying, but at least I’m more tempted to call what he has “talent”.  I just don’t like it.  I didn’t much like it the first time around on the other X-Factor, and I can’t wait for him to be gone from this one so things can get back to looking human.

Avengers: Initiative 15:  I love this title.  We get a solidifying of Crusader’s status (although he royally fucked up by driving 3D off…) and some Gauntlet action.  Please don’t cancel this book Marvel.  I think I forgot what happened to Rhodey though…need to go back and read a few issues.

New Avengers 43: Another Skrull over-brainwashed a la Captain Marvel, but this one doesn’t end so well.  Or perhaps he wasn’t over-brainwashed, just over-killed before his un-programming kicked in.  Either way it was an interesting read that occupied all of 4 minutes of “Marvel Time” in between SI 3 & 4 or 4 & 5 (forgot to check).

Mighty Avengers 16: How I Became a Skrull, by Electra.  Moderately interesting, not horrible or great.  Even badasses can be taken out by multiple shapeshifters…although frankly it probably shouldn’t have taken that many.

Thunderbolts 122: I totally forgot what happened last month…I think it was the end of that whole mental jailbreak thing and Ellis’ arc.  This one picks up where the Captain Marvel mini ends, and starts off a new writer’s run.   It’s off to a good start, I guess.  If you like this new, super-bitchy version of the T-Bolts.  Which I don’t.  But I’m a zombie I know…just hoping for them to somehow get Fabian or Buseik back on it someday and remove the suckometer from its ass.

Captain Britain & MI13 3: You knew Cap B was coming back…so this is just the obvious, but it’s still good reading.  I can’t figure out what the hell the new girl’s powers are…some kind of wonky tk?  The new costume doesn’t look nearly as cool as it should with all those flags flying around either.  Storywise, good read and worth your money.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3: I’m really enjoying this series and dying to know what the deal with Vance & Starhawk is. I love the Vance-Cap/Guardians-Avengers parallel they set up with the whole ice bit.  Awesomesauce.  I really wish it wouldn’t get dragged into the Skrull thing, but we’ll just see how that goes, maybe it won’t suck.

Secret Invasion 4: Good stuff.  I forgot to buy 3 though.  Doh.

New Warriors 14: The inevitable, arbirtary Nu Warriors vs. New Warriors brawl begins.  Still, the Skrull going ons do make for a nice backdrop & excuse.

Astonishing X-Men 25: Much better story than the last book I read involving Wolverine & Bianchi.

Cable 5: I guess this arc’s over.  I still don’t care.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the premise of the story, but the whole Bishop-as-a-badguy thing still comes off as stupid to me.  I mean, it’s sort of believable in the sense of his backstory, but still stupid in the sense that he never once mentioned this child/person before?  I’m guessing it’s because that was retroactively inserted into his history when history was changed by the prof not dying?  Whatever, don’t care.  Although it has been a while since a good “hero gone bad” story so MAYBE this whole thread has wings.

New eXiles 8:  Stuff happens here I guess. I’ve been bored with Exiles lately; the new characters just aren’t interesting enough, and that last issue (or the one before??) had ABOMINABLE art. fug fug fugly.  This one looks nice at least, and the expected Psylocke plot is chugging along.   I hope we get some actual info on Mystiq…he’s moderately interesting.  New Gambit?  With Sue’s force bubbles?…almost interesting but nah.

Uncanny X-Men 500: God I hate Greg Land’s “art”.  If I wanted my comics to look like goddam cheesecake-Maxim-softcoreporn-bullshit I’d buy something else.  Storywise it’s…well, it’s a hell of a throwback with Mags retconning himself again and hanging out with the High Evolutionary.  Which may actually make a lot of sense considering what’s happened but STILL…we get a revamped Hellfire Cult, “SIster”hood of Evil Mutants AND you bring in a High Evolutionary + Magneto team up in the same issue that you claim is all about “moving forward”?  OK…the last time the title actually tried to move forward was, believe it or not, Claremont’s relaunch after that whole stupid 1 year later thing.  Which could have actually been cool if they let him run with it….but whatever.  Anyway, it’s not a bad story at all, just not what they are claiming.  Yet.

Also, I really hope ArcAngel isn’t back to Angel already. So. Lame.

X-Factor 33 & She Hulk 31: The art in X-F is fucking horrible and makes the issue hard to like.  It mucks with everything.  I don’t think I can make an unbiased judegement.  Although I will say that Darwin is being written like a talky moron…which doesn’t seem like how I remember him from Brubaker’s writing.  Surprisingly I prefer the old version.

X-Force 5: Kinda silly…and evidently Angel’s changes are somehow undone by Uncanny 500 (I’m guessing that’s what his sidebar reference was to???), so I really don’t care – that was the only thing I was really looking forward to from this arc was Arcangel’s return.  Pun intended.  Sort of.

X-Men Legacy 214: Evidently this is getting another title change after the next arc? Hmmmm.  Still, a good story and another old X-villain gets a very modern update this month.  I’m curious about the Wolverine crossover…not going to make me buy Origins again though.  Curious how they’ll package that trade.  Trade’s don’t always play well with crossovers.

Young X-Men 4:  Something about Cypher in issue 5? Umm…ok?  But seriously, FINISH THIS SHIT ALREADY. This arc is tired and stupid.  So is the tattoo guy.  Dumb dumb and probably too powerful by far.  Imagine if he hung out with that chic that popped up in X-Treme who could make tattoos….