Breakdowns:

Since Fantomex was the final reveal, the only surprise here is that Wolverine is not on the cover – I’d assume he’s still on the team?  If not, it might be a bit more interesting.  AoA Nightcrawler was the only real curveball, and I think he was the first reveal.  Looks like Arcangel is either dead or  permanently a villain now.  Well, by “permanently” … you know what I mean.  I doubt an original X-Man will be left dead or evil for long (Have Iceman and Beast died yet?  I forget).

The writing here has been solid enough, and the whole Psylocke as a double agent bit is interesting… but, we’ll see, I’ll probably get the first issue.

Idie!

Although why she is flying in the wacky energy-effect dealio is anyone’s guess.   Massive red herring, I suppose?  Her powers are temperature (fire/ice/etc.)… not wierdo plasma aura.

Beast here kind of looks like Dark Beast (I REALLY hope it’s not Dark Beast.  Ugh)… but I think that’s just an artist thing.

I’m happy to see Iceman in one of the headline books… but Quire… double ugh.  I suspect he might be enough to keep me away.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved what Grant did with him, but I’m just not convinced that anything done since then has been worthwhile.  Also, he’s an asshole.  At least currently… I thought he had repented and reformed at one point?

Kitty & Lockheed back together is always a good thing.  Not digging the costumes so much… sleeveless Wolverine?  Retro Kitty?  Utility strap Beast?

 Oh God. I forgot about Toad.  He’s hiding back there.   Fuck Toad.  Seriously.  Especially new, movie-fied, Toad.  Not that the old toad was anything special, but the whole huge tongue always hanging out bit is annoying.  I’ll take Quire over Toad any day.   Bleh.

So bummed that this will be Carey’s last arc on Legacy.  It’s been such a solid run.  Hell, he managed to make Rogue interesting again!  And even a super-strengthless, groundbound rogue.  Although there were threads about her having access to old powers that haven’t been picked back up yet.  Bummer. I like that Frenzy is sticking around, she has a nice potential arc based on the whole memory of Age of X thing.  She seems to be the only one getting any mileage out of that.

Welcome back Rachel!  A cast of 4?  Going to be one of the 2 or 3 books I actually look forward to.

The only surprises here were Havok & Polaris coming “back”, as it were, but Havok was the first reveal so Polaris was kind of a given.  Looks like.. Darwin’s missing?  Anyone else?  Normally a cast this big might be overkill, but Peter David has been doing really well with the large cast stuff so far, so I’m not worried.

I’m very, very curious how Havok is going to play into the whole “investigations” thing.  I like him as a leader, but I like Jamie way more as the leader for this incarnation of X-Factor… dunno what will happen there, but I’d bet that’s one of the initial plot points.

Looks like soulless Guido is still kicking around… curious where that is going.

I hate to say it, but I kind of hope David takes a swing at the Longshot/Shatterstar parenthood thing.  He’s made some cracks about it on panel, but nothing serious yet.  Just because I’m curious how he’d work that into the whole tapestry he’s got going on.

Still looks to be my #1 X-Book.

Final thoughts on the reboot?

I’ll probably pick up the first issues of each, but currently only Legacy & X-Factor are on my actual pull list.  I may get Wolverine’s book if Quire & Toad are not too obnoxious.  Maybe Jubilee’s X-Men team.   Most likely no: X-Force & Generation Hope.  Everything in between is up in the air.

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!

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.

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.

It was a pretty big week for comics.  Several books that I was/am really looking forward too.  Basically everything except the X-Men Forever issue – which I expect to be decent, as usual, but not stunning.  I don’t think I’ll be picking up the second volume of that one, we’ll see.

Blackest Night 8 - Deciding which book to read first this week was tough, but I figured the “big” event book should go first.  Oi.  Lots of stuff here.  The resurrections are obviously the big thing folks will be talking about.  I’ll just say that I think they are all stupid.  I mean, we knew they weren’t going to leave big guns like Aquaman, Hawkpeople & Manhunter dead.  Bringing back Maxwell Lord just seems stupid – maybe as a way to semi-retcon Wonder Woman’s killing him?

And bringing back the original, boring, burnt out Captain Boomerang? ARGH.  His son was at least kind of interesting – until they filled him full of stupid recently and killed him.  I could care less about the Hawkpeople, their memories, blah.  Bringing back the original Firestorm: DUMB DUMB DUMB.  Leaving new Firestorm’s girlfriend dead?  DUMB AND CRUEL.   The whole thing is going to leave a nasty taste in my mouth – especially if they shuffle the new, non-white, Firestorm off to be replaced by the old school white Firestorm.  It looks like they will be sharing a body though… that actually has some potential.

Bringing back Jade… BLEH.  I liked Kyle + Sinestro’s Daughter.  Did we really need to complicated his life even more? I mean, I know this shit is all about drama but really?  Ugh.  Am I the only one who wants characters to be happy once in a while?  I admit, I have a soft spot for Kyle.  Oh, the art looked really good – especially the surprise fold-out splash page.

Oh, and someone actually says “I think from now on, dead is dead.”  AHAHAHHAH.  AHAHAHAHAH.   Ahhhhh hahahaha.  Yeah, right.

Oh.  This issue was bad.  Just in case my rambling wasn’t clear.  It was pretty, and somewhat entertaining, but just bad in pretty much every way.  Villain was hugeass phantom menace, tons of zombified heroes were completely ignored (for pretty much the whole series), tons of zombified enemies were ignored.  I guess, maybe the whole series was supposed to take place in like, 20 minutes or something? I dunno.  Bleh.  Bummed.

X-Force 25: The other big one this week I was waiting for.  And by “other big one” I mean “the end of the other crossover event that involves a bunch of dead people coming back and tormenting their old friends and people fighting a “dark god of death”"  ANnnnnndbreath.  How crazy that Necrosha & Blackest Night both ended on the same DAY?  Zombie zeitgeistnsnarfin.  So.  It was ok.  A little too easy I thought, actually.  Oh and evil Blink is still out there (but armless?) along with Lois London (Dazzler’s sister, to be in the upcoming Dazzler ltd).  I suppose she might make an interesting villain.  At least it will be something different, as we already have a “real” Blink out there with the Exiles who just may make it over to 616 someday.  Might as well bring “good” Sabretooth with her.  Oh right.  This issue.  Elixer, Wolfsbane, Warpath and X-23 are out of X-Force.  Leaving us with Crazyangel, Wolverine, Domino & Vanisher.  A decent issue.  Better than average.  Art was hard to follow, but that’s always been the way of this.  Compared to Blackest Night, I think this one came out on top – mostly because it avoided stupidtactular resurrections.  For the most part.  And killed a few villains.  Yay!   And one hero turned villain.  Yay.  Done with.  I hope!

X-Men Forever 20: Uhh.  Re: the reveal at the end: Umm?  This is still sort of set in 616… sort of.  So I don’t get this.  Alternate build-up to the Civil War maybe?  The issue was competent, if lackluster, as expected.  Still a bit much exposition, even for Claremont.

New Mutants 11:  Art: ugly.  Characters: horribly written.  Quite obviously not the normal writer.  Worst issue of this volume, hands down.  There were some decent ideas, but very poorly executed.

and in closing…. the beginning of another event:

X-Men: Second Coming -  A good start.  I’m not sure why Cable couldn’t just have stopped when he saw the X-Men taking out his attackers.  I mean… the panel seemed pretty clearly drawn to indicate that he saw the X-Men.  So that was dumb.  Resurrecting pretty much EVERY dead “human” villain in X-Force was dumb.  Using them here is still dumb and lazy, but the story is well written so.    Art was good, although the coloring was a bit too dark for my tastes.  Lots of wasted space in those shadows.  Seriously, resurrecting Hodge, Creed, Leper chick, and other dead annoying dudes was lame.  Hopefully they die somewhere along the way and we’re done done doooone with resurrections for a while.

Once upon a time, a great creative team made Jean Grey interesting as the Phoenix, then killed her, ending that arc wonderfully.  Then Marvel thought it would be fun to do again, and again, and again.  Each time it is less interesting, and more likely to make me not buy whatever book is involved in it.

Once upon a time, a great creative team (or three) brought Emma Frost through a wonderful character arc, ending in marriage to Cyclops, after various struggles with non-heroic tendencies.  Now, Marvel appears to be starting that cycle over.  And each time I see this arc continued, I’m less and less likely to want to buy issues with her in it.

Oh, I also find it hilarious that the one person to get the best of Norman Osborn so far is Aurora.  Aurora.  WIN.

Blackest Night: Titans 01 – I’m sensing a pattern of bringing back un”valuable” characters only to kill them and resurrect them as Black Lanterns (Hawkman/woman, Aqualad guy, and now Hawk) in a vain attempt to ratchet up the drama.  *Yawn*

X-Force 18 : Wow, armless huh?  That’s pretty graphic, even for an x-book. I am pleased that all the almost-dead ex-New Mutants/X-kids from this issue are still alive though.  Kind of a miracle there.  And Necrosha is ticking away in the background… not horrible, not great, but decent.

New Mutants 4: Not stellar, but getting better at least (Sunspot coming on to Amara though??  Aren’t they all like brothers & sisters by now?).  I fail to see why Sam would try and send Dani away though – they’ve been through enough that he would know better.  Besides, Legion was obviously after her for one reason or another, and he can probably teleport….sooo…yeah.

Dark Wolverine 77: Yes, the “dark”-ness is dumb, but whatever.  They’re at least going out of their way to make Daken a character in his own right, which I do appreciate.  Not really my thing though.  Sadly I’m hooked into Marvel to follow certain characters, most of the new ones (especially Wolverine clones) just don’t do it for me.

Justice League of America 36: Wow, when has Vixen looked this ugly?  These issues just feel like filler to me, or like it should be a separate series or something.  Look, I’m not knocking Len Wein…but the story he’s writing does not feel like a good fit for the current run of this book at all.  Plus, the art is periodically horrible.

Wolverine Origins 39: Ok but, umm, Romulus’ 4th claw is really dumb, not to mention impractical and useless (looking).  Sorry Rommy, you have the least cool claws, goodbye!

Wonder Woman 35: Uh, this is the first “good” issue of Wonder Woman I can recall flipping through.  The whole arena/fight club bit is kind of silly but the Pele/whatshisname/Wonder Woman alliance arc is actually really interesting.

Dark Avengers 08: Decently interesting, mostly because it focuses on the X-Men.  Hah!  So I guess Emma wasn’t a traitor…this may counter my comment on Dark X-Men above, we’ll see.  I didn’t see Xavier in the pile of people rescued though, interesting.  Is this the first step in the Cabal’s breakup (finally!) with the only two ostensibly “good” characters defecting back to the angels?  It couldn’t be soon enough.

Avengers Initiative 27: Stellar story here.  It really shines in how much is crammed into one issue without making anything feel rushed. Reading the first “section” I was like “arrghhh is this gonna be the whole issue?”  But then, it wasn’t, and it worked just fine for what it was.  Not to mention that they quoted my favorite Petty song AND a classic Springsteen song…big points there.  The (non-Dark) Avengers books continue to swing for the bleachers.

Woah.  All four “Hulk” titles came out today.  … Little bit odd there Marvel shipping folks.

Hulk 14: If only I wasn’t so morbidly fascinated with waiting for this train wreck to end…yes I keep tuning in, no it doesn’t suck yet.  Nevermind that you get Domino acting horribly out of character, quailing and getting all  obsequious towards RapingHulk, or Wolverine telling X-Force to “Kill everyone” (including Electra, whom he just saved, and the Punisher, with whom he’s worked before).  Wait, no on second thought don’t forget either of those things – they’re just more examples of a what an ignorant writer Loeb is.

Son of Hulk 14: I still don’t get how this other kid is a Hulkchild too.  I mean, Caiera wasn’t even pregnant with him.  Huh?

Incredible Hercules 133: The origin of Amadeus Cho commences.  A little slower than the previous year or so of stories, but hey it’s only the start.  This is one book I’m torn about not buying every time I see it.  Bottom line, Pak is just a damn good writer.

So good in fact that two titles he wrote came out today!  Incredible Hulk 601 was also pretty decent.  We get to see Bruce using his brain (I wonder where he ranks in the “smartest person on Earth” thing that Amadeus is #7 on…I mean Richards must be in the top 3, Doom and Pym probably up there too…), which is nice for a change.  He says flat out that the Hulk will be back eventually (which makes me think, maybe not for a while :P), and now he’s helping his “son” train to kill the Hulk/him.  If only he could kill the Raping Hulk instead… well, there’s another big Hulk-over coming in a few months, so I have a feeling he’ll be back for that.  Who knows though, Pak’s got balls, so a Hulk-less Hulk-over… I wouldn’t put it past him.  Besides, they just imported a 2nd She-Hulk, and there’s a third (red…) one coming in another month or two.  Not to mention A-Bomb & Hulk’s 2 (!?) kids…so there’s Hulk-oids aplenty, we can get by without old green skin for a while.

Guardians of the Galaxy 16: Still good.  Not an over the top awesome issue, but it does have a good cameo by the old Guardians, if you’re into that kind of thing.  Not much else to say.

Project Superpowers v? 1: Was kind of interesting.  They are sure throwing stuff out there fast and furious.  If I was young, and felt like getting involved in a new hero universe, this would be worth picking up.  But I’m not.

Power Girl x: She doesn’t need a comic book, really.  This is grasping.  Superman has like 4 already, and Supergirl has one, and she is already in Justice Society.  She’s just not that interesting.  Is it sad when a character’s defining characteristic is her cleavage?  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I actually find it very interesting that hey, here is a character who is actually supposed to have giant breasts, and it’s addressed frequently over the years – as opposed to every other comic female who is just drawn with giant breasts.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, pointless.

Outsiders 20: This book has gotten boring.  *yawn* Just don’t care anymore.

Avengers Initiative 26: So glad the quality level of this book is holding on.  It’s worth the $3 or whatever it is these days (I try not to look, it just makes me sad ;) ).  Mostly because the New Warriors are in it, without them I would drop it like a rock.  I really just don’t care about ANYTHING Osborne is doing, can’t wait for him to die again.

Runaways 3 12: Speaking of how the mighty have fallen (see Hulk above)… ok it’s not that bad.  But what the hell is going on here?  Runaways 3 has been weaksauce in general, but this latest arc is weaksauce covered in stupidpepper.

Fantastic Four 569: Gorgeous art can’t save Millar’s horrible writing.  While he’s not on the low-level of someone like Loeb, he’s still a hack in the sense that most of what he writes seems to simply be:  “ooo look a shiny thing!” , where the shiny thing is anything shocking.  This issue was almost as poorly written as 600 in the sense of things just popping up out of nowhere.  I honestly couldn’t tell which FF was the main one at several points.  Oh – and if we are to believe those were really alternate FFs…wait, I don’t believe that for a second, unless they were like, the suckiest of the sucky FFs or something – hundreds of them couldn’t even take the 616 FF?  All this for, as someone said “an upgrade” for Doom?  Didn’t he just get one on Waid’s run, and then again later…?  Meh.

Skaar/Son of Hulk 13: So Hulk has TWO kids now?  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not an out-of-ass popping moment, and fits with the flow of the series (I wondered how it was going to keep going with this title…I have a feeling it won’t last much longer if it keeps going in this direction though) – but I don’t get how it makes sense in terms of the pre-existing STORY.  Skaar was older because he aged super fast – this other kid did too?  And, you know, I’d think Caiera would have remembered having a second child, especially with her abilities.

Marvel Zombies 4 04: Not horrible, but not good.

War of Kings: Ascension 04: It certainly does leave Darkhawk in an interesting place … one kid, not guilty of a huge crime, on the run from the universe & the good guys… still not interesting enough for an ongoing, but he will make a good occasional guest star.  Cosmic Marvel has room for a “power armor guy” too, more than “Earthbound” Marvel, so moving him out was a smart play.

War of Kings 06:  A fittingly pyrrhic ending to such a series.  I’m not disappointed, and will be picking it up in trade.  Some interesting things came out of it,  one of them the (hopefully final) death of Vulcan, Marvel’s to DC’s Superboy Prime as far as petty annoyance goes.  Hopefully that sticks, nevermind that how he healed himself didn’t make any sens.  More important deaths include Lilandra’s from last ish – while always a support character, she filled a huge role and will be missed – and Black Bolt.  It will be interesting to see where the Inhumans go with a potentially reformed Maximus, Medusa will lead I guess?  Gladiator as the majestor will be interesting, and really is a logical and fitting choice: his life’s purpose is to serve the imperium, and how better to do that?  Looking forward to the fall out from this one.

Ultimatum 6 & the Requiem Books: The Spider-Man Requiem book was always going to be pointless, as he’s not dead (and revealed to be so at the end), but it was good just in the way JJJ FINALLY turned a new leaf.  Now there’s some “Ultimate” change for you :P.  Then again, maybe now he can rail against the “new” Spider-Man for not living up to the old one….

The X-Men one was just sad, as they took the brunt of the death toll.  So many characters with so much potential, dead.  I wasn’t a fan of Ult. Night Crawler, but the young kids – Cannonball & Sunspot, they died off camera, such a waste.  Frost & Xavier & Magneto all down – so nothing left of the “old guard” of mutants (not counting the weird Nick Fury/man-made mutants thing), and nowhere to go but…up?  I think they’ll be joining the Avengers now.  Cyclops dead instead of Jean is a switch, I guess, finally.  Too little too late though, imho.  At least Rogue has some permanent powers now, I’m not sure why.  I guess Juggernaut died off camera too.  Huh?  I’m guessing Sabretooth didn’t die here, but the might as well just wipe him too.

Ultimatum itself was just as poorly written in the finale as it was in every other issue.  Generally sub-par all around.  Perfect example of Jeph Loeb at his “best”.

The major moment from FF Requiem wasn’t even in the book..I think it was in Ultimatum 6??  That would be Ben’s crushing of Doom’s skull (and what happened to Namor?).  Was it that easy, really?  The rest of the book, meh, whatever.  They’re all still alive, so they will be back.  Nothing new to see here.

So, in the end it took the Ultimate universe what, 10 years to get to a place as different from 616 as it should have been to start, and they had to resort to Jeph Loeb to get there.   I don’t think he’s writing anything else there for a while, so I’m hoping it can only go up.

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).

I love how the writers are willing to kill heroes, yet they are resurrecting villains left and right.  KILL SOME FUCKING VILLAINS ALREADY!!  Kill the ones you resurrected for starters.  Sigh.

Maybe the writers & editors finally realized what I’ve been saying for many years now – what the hell is a guy with feathery wings going to do in a fight with people with claws and lazers?  REALLY?  The healing factor made him decent, because then no matter how bad he got busted up he could regrow – hell I even liked the SoulSword because it completed the “angel/arc” vibe.  Yes, you heard me, I was cool with Angel + Soulsword.

The Hulk-ing out back and forth from pretty boy to freak might be interesting too.

Demon bear slashed car in half from the bottom?  WTF?  I need to re-read that.