The Massive is a book that will likely read better when collected, although one imagines you can say that about any comic book series ever. But in this case, it's a lot about tone and mood, and disrupting that on a monthly basis can have a deleterious effect. But when the trades come, check it out.

Overall, though, Transformers: Dark Cybertron has been an interesting epic, full of dark twists, new surprises and hope for the future. The franchise is in great hands. At least as far as comics go. The movies… yeesh.

See you soon, Otto. Somewhere. And the lessons you've learned here will make you very interesting whenever you resurface.

While it does feel like it's still finding its legs, as you might expect from a first issue, the tone of Silver Surfer #1 feels fresh and inviting for new readers, and not too far afield from tradition to make it feel wrong. Slott is great at comedy, but he doesn't shy away from drama either, so I don't suspect the classic angsty Surfer is being banished completely " although it's possible Dawn might balance that out somewhat if he veers toward the hand-wringing guilt too much. Slott and Allred seem to be trying to show us that the Surfer can be fun as well as thoughtful, even if Norrin Radd would likely never believe that of himself. I'm all for letting them try to catch a new wave and see if the Surfer can ride it for a long while.

Rocket Girl is kind of a blast.

Read Deadpool: The Gauntlet. It's cool comics in computer-face form. And it's buckets of funsies.

Superior Spider-Man has been some of my favorite Spidey business in ages. I can't wait to see how it all comes to a head.

Superior Spider-Man has been a highly compelling work, but its time runs short, so cherish what we have left.

Dark Cybertron hasn't been perfect, but it seems to be putting to bed a lot of lingering old continuity threads from the previous regimes, and MTMTE #27 is a confirmation that the past will soon be the past and we'll be heading off into completely uncharted waters, which is fresh, new, and inspiring.

Secret Avengers #1 is staggeringly good. Kot and Walsh have swished a three pointer in the game of Marvel Now. They are, by far, in the lead.

So, hey, if you've ever been curious about Magnus: Robot Fighter, and you should have, because it's called Magnus: Robot Fighter, maybe give the new Magnus: Robot Fighter #1 a shot when it comes out next week, and see if it's your bag, man. It's solid sci-fi stuff. Not super exciting as yet, but it has promise.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Garth Ennis can tell a fuckin' story. This one isn't as soul-crushing as Fury: My War Gone By, but it sure as hell ain't a walk in the park, neither.

Clark and Lana couldn't be more different, but they share a heart of gold, and you can feel their warmth and sorrow in Action Comics #29. It's good to have a Superman book that makes you feel things again.

Starlight #1 is a great start to the Millarworld universe. Let's hope it lives up to the promise.

Then again, we've been led to believe all this time that Wade was going to get hitched to Shiklah, but then a mysterious vampire lady with an umbrella obscuring her face shows up to wrangle the vampire hobos, and it brings to mind the big Issue #27 wedding photo and the obscured face of Wade's bride, so there could be a bridal shell game happening here. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. Deadpool: The Gauntlet has been a fun ride either way, and of course it takes a succubus to find Wade attractive!

The only thing that gave me pause about this issue was Mr. Knight referring to a hideout as just "a hide," which made me first think he was talking about someone's skin again, but that's so minor it's even beneath a nitpick, and I'm sure that's a thing in the UK or something. All in all, Moon Knight #1 is supremely entertaining and I hope Ellis gets a long run with this book.

Al Ewing keeps things crackling with dialogue and well-thought-out storytelling, while Valerio Schiti gives us a very impressive look at just how capable White Tiger is as she tears through Power Man, Iron Fist, Luke Cage and She-Hulk with an almost stunning ease and a certainly kinetic look. Mighty Avengers continues to be the place to go for the more traditional, banter-filled, character-based superhero team action while Jonathan Hickman's main Avengers book deal with really heavy world-ending plots. It's a great, fun book and it's worth your time.

Lois Lane #1 is solid. While it's not the tone I'd hope for in her own ongoing (should she ever get one), it serves this ambitious story reasonably well.

Jae Lee is back on art duties, so the rejoicing never ends. This is magical stuff, really unique and exciting. Lee has touches of Norman Rockwell and Alex Toth, but never loses his original eye. Dealing with dark subject matter, Lee brings a texture of nightmares to his panels. Things are foreboding, especially with Batman and Huntress, and Superman becomes elemental, almost primal. Nobody works in the way Jae Lee does, which is something you can’t often say about comic book artists.

By the way, there's no mention of the red-and-black outfits, not even some witty aside, and the FF kids are still in the whites. There is a bit of chicanery with the Foundation kids that momentarily breaks up the somber tone of the first issue, but all in all, it's a truly ominous affair. Hickman was able to make this team work by embracing the huge-scale cosmic events this family deals with, while Fraction's run succeeded on its embrace of the gee-whiz fun and interpersonal drama. It remains to be seen what shape the Robinson era will take, but it's probably going to be a bit depressing for a while. Let it settle in.

Slott’s run on Spider-Man has not only been iconic, it has redefined how we look at the character. This is on the same level of greatness as Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns. It’s just that damn important.

Great little story here, with the potential to turn into a great big story – which seems to be the case with Infinite Comics these days, considering that Deadpool: The Gauntlet (another series you should be reading) is introducing someone Wade Wilson is going to marry. Daredevil: Road Warrior is surely be setting up some things that will come to fruition in the West Coast Daredevil adventures, and you'll want to get on board now – because Infinite Comics are cool, Mark Waid is a good writer, and Daredevil is always a great read.

So long, Harvey Dent. You were my favorite Bat-villain, although I'm surprisingly fine with watching you go.

It's good reading, and highly recommended. So long, David Haller.

The resolution of the Agent Preston In Wade's Head should come next issue (as evidenced by the great Watchmen reference on the final page), and after that, the whole Gauntlet business is going to jump to the print book, because Deadpool's getting married to Shiklah in issue #27, and that's gonna make for some seriously madcap hijinks. Seriously madcap! Wait, no, not Madcap, that was the annual. Just lower-case madcap.

Prince Arthur is the type of bastard that Dylan was castigating in his song. One might then wager that he will turn out to be the man kicking the hell out of Henry in Berlin at the start of the issue, because he illustrates he's got more power than his little brother. The notion that superhumans are like nuclear warheads, and their involvement in a war leads to mutually assured destruction, is not a new one, but it's always an interesting one. The Royals: Masters of War promises to examine what happens when duty clashes with responsibility, and the odds are good that it will be pretty compelling when it all shakes out.

Dark Cybertron has been a bit of a mixed bag so far, but Chapter 9 in Transformers: Robots in Disguise #26 is where things get seriously epic. Multiple writers and artists have made for a good but not always fluid read, but now we've got Andrew Griffith back in the saddle, and he's one of the few guys who I've often said was born to draw Transformers. Also, it's got a city punching another city many times.

*Oh, and the letters page reveals that a new Spider-Man 2099 series is likely in the works for later this year! Hot damn! Dare we dream that Peter David returns to write the character he created two decades ago?

Overall, X-Force #1 is promising because of Spurrier, who manages to make us care about characters we ordinarily wouldn't – like David Haller in X-Men Legacy. It's a start not without its bumps (a phrase I chose instead of saying 'it's a bit of a Rock-He start,' so be thankful at my restraint), but I'm still on board.

All in all, the GL/RL #28 stunt was an enjoyable one, if not particularly exciting, giving us a frog lantern and a bit of bitchiness between a ball lantern and a box lantern, as well as dropping a major character into the Red Lantern fray that will hopefully spike its interest levels and get the Reds mixed in with the rest of the DCU.

Superior Foes of Spider-Man is going to need a new name soon, once Superior Spider-Man gives up the ghost. Maybe they'll become the Amazing Foes of Spider-Man. The Spectacular Foes... the U-Foes, no, wait, that's taken. Okay, I'm taking suggestions, but also suggesting that you should be reading this book if you like morally ambiguous good-time comics.

If you enjoy watching the creepy be creepy for the sake of creepiness, you may dig Joker's Daughter #1. She takes the place of psychotic Joker groupie that was vacated when Harley Quinn graduated beyond flunkie-dom, taking it to a new level of ick. Some people are into that. If so, knock yourself out, you've got a new book to read. If not, you probably won't dig this book too much.

Hickman's writing remains enigmatic and learned, and what it lacks in entertaining dialogue it makes up for with aspiration and heady thought. Simone Bianchi does an admirable job of translating these ideas into a vacillating tone of hope bookeneded with despair. New Avengers is by no means a fun book, but it is darkly compelling, and it makes us fret about what the lasting impact of these soul-staining events will have on our iconic heroes.

Loki: Agent of Asgard promises to be a very fun book, one where we root for a classic villain determined to recast himself in a different life and shed the trappings of the big horns. You can bet this will also be a blueprint for a future Tom Hiddleston solo film franchise, too.

Whether Burton or Bishop, Hawkeye continues to be one of the best titles Marvel cranks out. Fraction, Wu, Aja and Hollingsworth are a revolution.

Alex + Ada isn't any kind of exciting, action-packed adventure, nor is it a supremely engrossing drama. But it's got an easy comfort to it that doesn't demand much of any suspension of disbelief, and yet it also brings an awkward, real-life sensibility to a situation we all know is something we'll have to face someday soon " perhaps even within our lifetimes.

Overall, EGOs #1 is a solidly entertaining start to what could be a pretty cool series.

Superior Spider-Man may be telegraphing its end, but if you can read it without plugging into the comic book publicity machines, you'll enjoy it even more as it speeds headlong towards its undoubtedly loud, crazy, and messy finale.

Manifest Destiny so far has been about as pleasant a diversion as a book full of gruesome unpleasantries can be. Time will tell it if unfolds into something more than that. The potential is surely there.

Revolutionary War could turn out to be an interesting revival of a slew of characters that could have been relegated to a bygone era, or it could just turn out to be a short-lived reunion party for the old guard that doesn't mean they'll be back on regular duty anytime soon. Either way, it'll serve as an interesting window into what many of today's British creators probably grew up on.

So how's Gambit? Well, he's certainly not offensive yet. Having Logan run him down like a dumb child helps deflate some of that lame LeBeau "mystique." and making it seem like he's stumbling into something way out of his league also negates that 'too cool for school' malarkey that made him so unappealing. So Peter David and his talent for interesting character work may actually be able to do the unthinkable – make me like a book that stars Gambit. That is some of the highest praise I can offer.

It certainly doesn't stand alone as a story or anything like that, but if some quick hits are what you're into, Point One will provide a nice little variety pack, and will hopefully turn you on to some books with a lot of potential.

Black Widow #1 is a solid start. Let's hope they can find a way to give a supporting cast to a woman who makes a point of supporting herself and no one else.

This is a seven-part series, so hopefully Willingham has enough time to craft a story that breathes. It's mildly interesting at the moment, but not particularly exciting. Perhaps that will change as the tale develops. We're likely to get Kato action in the next issue, after all, and the recent resurgence of Red Sonja makes me curious as to how she'll fit into a world like the one in Legenderry. Also, the Phantom could be really cool, too. The possibilities are fun to consider, but that goes with just about any reimagining of franchise characters in different settings. Willingham's job will be to make that translate into a good tale, and he may just do it.

Revelations #1 is a palatable kind of dark, with characters you can like right away, but it doesn't quite rocket out of the gate – and that's fine. It's got six issues to work with, and not every story has to be a barn-burner. Ain't nothin' wrong with a whodunit.

Overall, though, nothing too exciting or different yet, but The Saviors should make for a leisurely, enjoyable sort of read when it's all said and done.

We'll have to see how this shakes out now that everything's coming to a head, but there's not a lot of cause for optimism that the new status quo for Harvey Dent will be anything but lame. However, Erin McKillen makes for an interesting character , so it's up to you to decide whether or not the new blood is worth the sacrifice of the venerable classic.

Yeah, this whole aspect of Superior Spider-Man is the one thing that I have to willfully suspend some disbelief to go along with – but it's not that hard, because the rest of the book has been so entertaining. Things are getting ugly right now, though, as the friends and family of Peter Parker are throwing down the gauntlet, and Otto doesn't ever take that well. Humberto Ramos is going hogwild, as his exaggerated, hyperkinetic art style is perfect for tentacled goo-monsters like Venom. It's hard to gauge the full impact of this issue until we see what Slott and Gage are building to, but I'm optimistic. With the Green Goblin mucking with Hobgoblin's business, Venom rampaging and the Avengers stepping back in, we seem to be leading to a gigantic clusterfudge of epic proportions, and it's time to brace ourselves for more controversy from the Spider-squad. I'm ready for it.

Mike Hawthorne seems to be having a fun time with the art, which serves the story well. His work is very bright and crisp, and sometimes he gets to draw three Deadpools in painter uniforms smacking each other around like the Three Stooges, or Preston as the Virgin Mary to Wade's sombrero-sporting Baby Jesus. Working on a Deadpool book has to got to be a dream job for the artist, and if it ain't, it should be.

Secret Avengers is an intense book thick with intrigue, but which isn't afraid to spend some time having Taskmaster mock guys named Todd.

The Illegitimates is a cute idea, decently executed so far, but time will tell if it has any legs.

Spencer's dialogue is very entertaining, and it's obvious he enjoys juggling hair-brained schemes and criminal shenanigans like this. It's always a good time when great writers take obscure characters and just have a ball with them in ways that make sense. Plus, Steve Lieber's artwork is a lot of fun, imaginatively detailed and very much in the David Aja Hawkeye vein, which gives this book a very contemporary and snazzy feel. You just feel like you're reading something cool when you open up Superior Foes of Spider-Man, so you should do that. Read it. Keep it going. Because small-time supervillains in a world of big-time superheroes is always an engaging juxtaposition. It's fun, it's funny, and it looks great. What more do you need out of a comic book?

So check into Mighty Avengers, because it's a damn good time featuring a nice mix of very popular characters and folks you don't often see – including a Blue Marvel team-up with Hauptmann Deutschland, The Captain America of Germany. That happens in Mighty Avengers #4. You know you want to see that.

Justice League 3000 #1 is a great way to give a much-beloved creative team free reign to do what they do without having their style crimped by the mandates of the New 52. It could get pretty brutal, as any story where Superman is an unstable jerkwad threatens to be, but I'd guess that Giffen/DeMatteis know that there's more entertainment value to be had in Superman/Batman bickering catfights than in yet another book wherein Superman gets all murder-crazy-go-nuts. That's what will keep this book interesting.

Sure, these are gimmick issues, but Deadpool comics should always be a place where gimmicks can feel right at home. Is there more to come? Will we get a Golden Age issue where Deadpool punches Hitler? We can only hope these folks have more madcap hijinks up their sleeves.

Stokely's artwork is cartoony, but once you settle into it, it serves the story very well, because it's highly emotive and extremely detailed. Six-Gun Gorilla is the kind of book that will read best when collected, so don't hesitate to pick up the trade when you can and follow Blue's metafictional quest to accept his pain and save his universe from a life of desperately grasping for emotional engagement through rubbernecking at the suffering of others. It's a book that has defied expectations, truly provoked thought, and maybe helped a person or two not be so frozen by potentially negative outcomes that they never actually attempt anything that would qualify as living a life.

The art from Joe Bennett in this issue is top notch. The splash page of Iron Man flying over the remains of Mandarin City is gorgeous, and his fight against the Triads running around with Mandarin tech just looks cool, as does the interruption of the press conference that Tony will have a hard time pardoning. So Iron Man is moving forward, taking the space-baby weirdness of the last arc in stride, and giving us some trade dressing that's going to look great on the shelf. Seriously, the "Iron Metropolitan" logo is wonderful, and that's twice now I've referenced how much I like logos. That ain't par for the course, y'know.  I'm guessing the kudos go to Tim Leong, the designer.

Secret Avengers is back on track. It makes me look forward to how this is going to spin into Spencer & Jonathan Hickman's Avengers World.

Overall, Inhumanity is interesting, it does what it needs to do to catch new readers up to speed, and it has me hooked to see what unfolds, and the first issue has prepared me to accept that the classic version of the Inhumans as created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee back in 1965 is probably gone for good. Now, your pizza guy could be an Inhuman, and oh, what a great point-of-view character he'd make for an Inhumans movie"

Acker & Blacker (Bigger & Blackerer?) get points for actually trying to quantify this whole issue canonically, which was really probably just one of Way's writing-style affectations rather than any big plan to have the extra voice in Wade's head mean something. However, they seem to see Wade as more of a surly bastard rather than his trademark wack-a-doodle before the merger, although that might just be to differentiate him from Madcap a bit more, and to make their moody conclusion more resonant. Still, it's a cute, twisted little story that befits an Annual, and they've got good gags " like Thor accidentally killing people and hurriedly claiming "They died warrior's deaths!" " and the art from Evan "Doc" Shaner is suitably balanced between comic booky and cartoony.

I've enjoyed a lot of the intricate plotting of Uncanny Avengers, and I'm really excited to see Doom 2099 getting involved somehow (even if it's the blue-cloaked version and not the red-cloaked President of America Doom), but this should have been a supremely affecting issue, given the events unfolding that have been built towards since the get-go. Unfortunately, if we don't believe in the motivations of the characters, if their actions don't quite make sense, all you come away from the book feeling is a general sense of head-shaking dismissal.

Overall, A Voice in the Dark blends the killing of people with the coming of age and the slicing of life. The first issue sets up the players in what's sure to be an unsettling game. It's taking its time unfolding, with a mild undercurrent of tension that's sure to ratchet up quickly as we watch a person who wants to kill people dealing with a caller who wants to kill herself, which is where the first issue leaves us. It could become something very compelling once it gets its legs.

Regardless, it still feels like an "oh, by the way" sort of character reboot, though. Harvey Dent deserves an epic, but I fear he might be getting the shaft.

It's just really weird overall. It's kind of fun on occasion, but it also just doesn't feel right at all. There are team books where dysfunctional character dynamics make for good reading, but you have to be able to accept the reasoning that they'd stay around each other despite their differences. This book almost makes sense, enough so that you can understand why they'd try it, but always has the undercurrent feeling that this is a Team That Should Not Be.

While this issue doesn't have the sheer joy of Transformers greatness that MTMTE usually has, the Dark Cybertron story has potential, and when Roberts gets a hold of the old continuity elements, he remembers to explain them and deal with them as if they're new to the reader. I've read all of the stuff, and I still need a refresher on the plots gone by from time to time. Still looking forward to Shockwave's master plan " it can't simply be in service of an old crackpot despot like Nova Prime.

But there's still time to catch it while he's doing amazing things with David Freakin' Haller, of all people. X-Men Legacy ain't over yet, and the conclusion promises to be richly entertaining.

Maybe now, Batwoman will get to punch Owlman in the face at the end of Forever Evil, but I'm not sure her greater involvement in the New 52 at large is worth the loss of Williams & Blackman. If nothing else, though, hopefully Director Bones of the DEO will step up to the plate in a big way, too. It's hard not to root for a cigar-chomping guy with invisible flesh to show up more often.

Manifest Destiny #1 promises to be some really solid storytelling, focusing on a time when the world was still a mystery to those who thought themselves above it, and a world which too often valued the pioneer spirit above basic human decency.

Rocket Girl is a very fun, energetic ride, about a girl who's perfectly happy with jumping back in time, setting up shop, and fighting crime with her jetpack while rolling her eyes at adults trying to figure her out. Montclare and Reeder don't seem to be in any rush to slow things down with an origin story. Instead, they've jumped right into the fun and said "let's just watch a teenage girl who means business chump the world for a while, shall we?"

Johnston's story keeps you guessing – you don't really expect things like Arthir getting zapped out of existence, leaving Rascal holding the bloody stump of his arm – and he wastes little time in getting the story in gear. The first issue is a full-on shadow-jerk invasion, after all. If magic and toothy things what go 'boo' in the night trip your trigger, you shan't go wrong with Umbral #1.

The end of this big arc gives us a new lease on Deadpool going forward, and he's actually in the good graces of both Wolverine and Captain America, who have borne witness to his emotional breakdown and can both recognize his potential as a legit good guy. Whether or not he'll manage to follow that path is anyone's guess, but with Duggan & Posehn at the helm (and editor Jordan D. White apparently protecting the best parts of Wade's history, according to the letters page), it feels good to be able to call myself a Deadpool fan again with confidence. It's inspired me to want to re-read their entire run from the beginning – including killing all those zombie presidents.

Superior Spider-Man is the most consistently enjoyable superhero book Marvel's putting out. Two times a month, every month, always a blast. God bless Dan Slott.

After another touching scene between intrepid Kit and the intrepid Carol at the end of the issue, the new Ms. Marvel, aka Kamala Khan, is briefly seen in Jersey City, and we get a hint of her shapeshifty powers when she looks partially steroidal. We'll get plenty more on her in the near future when she gets her own book, and it's up to us to make sure the perception that comic fans are hostile to women is put to bed forever. I'm planning to give each of these female-led books at least three issues before I decide whether or not I'm on board for the long haul, and I hope you'll do the same.

Overall, though, Mighty Avengers is jam packed with entertaining superhero action. Read it, support it, and make sure that nobody can make the dumb argument that non-white characters can't sell a book.

That all said, it's fun getting Ye Olden Optimus back into the mix, and seeing the whole gang starting to get back together now that Starscream's actually asking for help. The art from Phil Jimenez and Andrew Griffith is very solid as well " the double-page splash of the Metrotitan erupting out of the very fabric of Cybertron and absolutely dwarfing Bumblebee and the exiled Autobots is actually breathtaking. So it's up to Roberts and Barber to make sure that this exploration of the past doesn't wind up just rehashing old stories " and they've both more than earned enough trust in their work so far that we can rest assured that it won't be. Elements here are great threads to hang a story upon, and Dark Cybertron promises to shake things up considerably for the whole IDW TF universe.

All in all, Forever Evil is cool, in that same dark, tough-guy tone in which DC seems to be unifying all of their books. Maybe that's why it feels like I've been reading the same thing a lot of the time with DC's stuff – unless it's Larfleeze, it all seems to have the same Dark Knight kind of vibe. It's not a bad vibe, but when it's the only vibe, you can get burnt out.

Manning's a proven storyteller, and it's nice to have some confidence in this book again. It's felt a bit blunt and unremarkable at times, but I still enjoyed the core concept enough to stick with it, and now we're focusing on gorillas with wings, which is inherently fantastic. Also, Borges has returned to handle the art for this arc, and he brings some striking visuals to the proceedings as well, bringing a presence to this installment, which is mostly expository set-up. It may only be for a few issues, but I'm certain they'll be issues I enjoy. Anything that invokes Gargoyles so strongly is aces in my book.

It's possible ARGUS can emerge as a rock-solid part of the DCU. Team 7 didn't take, but maybe this series will.

Giuseppe Camuncoli's art is solid as usual, and Slott continues to make this book goddamned fascinating, constantly reordering and redefining Spider-Man's universe – or 'undoing the web,' as Jessica Carpenter puts it – by shifting the man at the center of it to his absolute archenemy. Make no mistake, the Green Goblin has been displaced as Spider-Man's worst foe. Dr. Octopus has now earned that honor in spades. The debate will rage that the death of Gwen Stacy tops anything Otto has done so far, but Otto has killed Spider-Man himself, taken over his body and destroyed nearly all his relationships, and it's more than likely that somebody close to Peter is going to die before the dust settles. There's nothing the new Goblin Kingpin of Crime can do to best Doc Ock in this competition.

Marco Checchetto does a solid job with capturing all this chaos, but the whole Sun Girl thing was a bit confusing at first. She shows up as a tiny yellow speck, and then a leg getting tackled by Bulldozer, so we don't quite grasp that there's somebody on the scene until Otto mentions a vague memory of punching her once. Also, the introduction of the Wrecking Crew seems a bit awkwardly placed, with Piledriver and Wrecker's intro boxes switched. So it feels like there may have been minor miscommunications going on, but overall, Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #5 is a lot of good time comic book action.

Iron Man #17 is all talk, and artist Carlo Pagulayan portrays it completley straightforward, and it's just fine. We still have a lot to digest with this altered perception of the Stark family… and who knows? Maybe Arno will turn out to be evil Iron Man 2020, and this will all be a lot of hooey and malarkey being used to manipulate Tony. I'm sure we'll know the truth in seven years' time.

Just a little, though, and if we give them the benefit of that doubt, "Lights Out" is a unique and interesting challenge for the Green Lanterns to face, with every element of their mythos being systematically destroyed. Oa is gone. Their Central Battery is gone. Every use of their power kills their environment and hastens the end of all life, and their leader is a bull-headed jackass who sucks and is bad and is dumb. How do they adapt? Do they adapt at all? I can't wait to find out.

Superior Spider-Man is so incredibly great, and much more dynamic than we could ever have thought. He works on so many levels and with so many writers, from Dan Slott to Christopher Yost to Robert Rodi " it seems he's refreshing and exciting for everybody who gets their hands on him. Del Mundo's art remains well-suited for spider-action, and it always seems to be moving. This is one more winning entry in the finest hour of Otto Octavius, and both Fulmina and Ren feel like fully idiosyncratic characters from the get-go, and we look forward to seeing more of them.

Light broke through Hickman's heavy darkness in Infinity #4, and a whole new world of Inhumanity has opened up. Enemies are broken but not beaten. Anything remains possible, but for now, the dead are being Avenged.

Superior Foes of Spider-Man is perhaps a bad name for this book, making it seem like a cheap tie-in to the Superior Spider-Man gravy train and maybe mandating that it can't go any longer than that does without some kind of new nomenclature, but the book itself is a nice look into the everyday lives of the colorful criminals of Marvel's New York. We tend to love these guys as concepts, but Spencer is showing us who they are as people… and even though they're fun to watch, they're not all that likable.

I liked this book at the start, and although Pan makes me nervous, I still want to like Infinity: The Hunt as a spiritual successor to Avengers Academy. Let's hope it earns it.

Fantomex MAX #1 is okay, but somewhat suspect from the get go. It's certainly weird, it could wind up being fun, but it could also become something gross.

The Hinterkind #1 may well lead to something good. But it just as easily could lead to nothing particularly special.

"Lights Out" is off to an interesting start with plenty of potential. Let's see where it goes.

Mighty Avengers is a really fun book, and you should read it if you like awesome super-hero action.

Scarlet Spider doesn't get a lot of attention " the current massive Otto Octavius stunt draws the focus, and it's well-deserved " but it's a cool little book, separate from everything else and making a go of doing its own thing, much like Flash Thompson was doing as Venom in Philadelphia. Sadly, it's all coming to an end for Kaine with issue #25, canceled right alongside Venom. We'll miss both of these books.

I say it every month. Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye is the best fiction in the history of the franchise. It's everything I wanted when I was a kid " it takes these awesome concepts and characters, knows what is awesome about them, and makes them into something, well" more, much more than meets the eye.

Anyway, I suppose there's a chance that, 20 years from now, somebody could reinvent this guy to be cool, as current Scarlet Spider books are doing with Kaine, but it's going to take a couple of decades to imagine a way to do that. Step 1: Ditch the Butt Cape.

Regardless, this is Lex Luthor doing what he does, using people as pawns to further his own ambitions, and one can imagine the lack of Superman made him a little more prone to sacrificing those pawns because no one is around who can put him in check. Enjoying his freedoms and all. The art from Raymund Bermudez is solid, and you really get a sense of how cold Luthor is. Depending on what brand of Lex you like, this could be an awesome issue for you, as his eerily calm ruthlessness definitely brings across a feeling of malevolence " and it feeds into what Geoff Johns had Luthor do to Kord in FE #1. It fits well enough. I suppose I just prefer my Lex to be a bit more perversely inspiring. An antithesis of Superman should be able to hit him where it hurts and make him doubt everything about himself by seeming to be absolutely in the right " but apparently, that's being left to Wraith over in Superman Unchained, relegating Luthor to Montgomery Burns-style everyday villainy a

That right there is some alien bastardry that you can't wait to see smacked down. Hickman has earned the trust that he will deliver that in a very satisfying, yet non-pandering way.

Overall, the issue is pretty fun, with a dark swerve at the end that will likely shift the tone drastically. Still, some of us were worried that the Avengers Academy characters wouldn't resurface again without a claustrophobic trauma forcing them to kill each other for quite some time. At least this time, if they get killed, it will be by bad guys.

If you've ever been curious about Red Sonja, this is the series to read.

It may be a long time before we see Wally West again, but there is a West who is now a Flash, if that helps. Foreshadowing, maybe?

Then again, it could turn out this new Lobo is full of crap, and the "impostor" is going to hand him his ass. Time will tell.

The stakes are very high in Infinity, as is the body count so far. We often complain about character death used as a shock tactic to try to make event books seem more important, but our faith in Hickman is strong enough that if he goes that way and kills someone we actually know, this story is thick enough with intrigue and legitimately-crafted cosmic menace that it will feel earned instead of forced.

The Star Wars #1 is a neat little treat. Non-essential, but if you like the property but not so much the franchise, you may have a good time with this.

Sure, Justice League of America #7.1 is actually a one-shot story about some guy with the same name, but the new origin by Matt Kindt (whose work I normally enjoy) assures us once and for all that the guy we used to like under John Ostrander and Gail Simone's pen is gone for good, and in his place is a completely generic and painfully boring lump they're calling Deadshot. The basics are sort of the same " mercenary with really good aim.

Manning has made his hay in the short story realm, with books like Nightmare World made up entirely of 8-page stories, each with different artists and of vastly different tones, but given the fact that he had through-lines connecting all of those stories to a greater whole, he proved that you don't have to sacrifice the long arc to keep with self-contained short stories. He has an impressively economical way of getting into your gut and finding buttons to press to get your attention and twist your feelings around. Love Stories (To Die For) is the perfect vehicle for his brand of writing. I'm very much looking forward to more of it.

Aside from that nitpick, Spidey Now! vs. Spidey Later! is hitting all my fanboy buttons right now.  I can't wait to see how this all plays out.

As it is, though, Two-Face is little more than a triggerhappy thug with a more striking look than most, and the more masses he murders, the less we seem to give a damn about him or who he used to be, because there's no turning back with this high a body count. Well, there could've been with the New 52 switchout. Too bad nobody thought to do that.

Maybe I shouldn't think about it too hard. It's time to watch the new Bad Guy Earth unfold, this time without Axe Cop to save us all.

My usual refrain remains true. Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye is the best we've ever had it as TF fans. In fact, some of us realize that the history of TF fiction and fandom may mean that James Roberts is a better writer than we deserve, but we never want him to leave. No pressure.

I do like the psychological drama that comes out here, there's something definitely creepy about Butler, and Declan Shalvey's artwork is pretty kinetic and interesting – never a dull moment with this guy. My hopes for a Deadpool revival – a complete one – are ever rising. I'm actually interested in his story and not just waiting around for the next gag. This crew seems to know what's up.

So The Massive #15 is a confusing issue, with a sort of anticlimactic 'uh, okay?' ending to a tense story surrounding runaway nukes. I can't rightly say whether or not this is a stumble or just another building block for Wood's world. Garry Brown's artwork is decent, and Jordie Bellaire's colors really help him excel with environments and backgrounds, moods and tones, even if faces aren't always the best. Still, this has been such a solid book so far that it gets the benefit of the doubt.

All-Star Western #23 helps us settle in to what may be a long haul for Hex in the modern-day… or maybe his connection to Batman will find a way to put him back where he belongs in short order. We'll have to see, but I trust J&J to make it a good time regardless.

Thank you, Secret Avengers, for giving danger cred to my favorite diabolical nerd cult.

… man, it's really hard to stop doing that. But then again, why should I? You just don't get this kind of rollicking frolicking in comics anymore, so it's a gas when you get a book wherein the last panel of the story involves the Dynamic Duo staring out at the reader, with Robin simply exclaiming "Gosh!" over the congratulations offered him for his fine work. Parker is nailing the dialogue and making us chuckle, chortle and cherish the madcap magic of Batman '66.

It's just… cool. That's the word I keep coming back to, and it's hard to really nail that on your first try like Nitz and Smallwood have. There's a fine line there – if you try too hard, you just come off as lame and stupid like Gambit. But if you manage to ride that line and keep it from becoming obnoxious and cloying, you make fans of your readers. Dream Thief has done that for me.

This is good stuff. I have every confience that it will continue to be good stuff to the point of being great stuff.

You won't go wrong if you want to check out The Outliers as well. It's a nice change of pace and a reminder that superheroes aren't everything, and they should never be the only thing.

Avengers #18 somehow accomplishes the feat of amplifying the threat level the team is up against while simultaneously letting us breathe a little bit by seeing them get proactive and take the fight to the jerks, even if it doesn't go so well for them. It's only the first issue post-Infinity #1. We didn't expect them to win.

So X-Men Legacy #15 is interesting and solid, but my head's still spinning about all the tension build-up swerving into a few nice moments and a sudden bang to end it all. It's left us a bit unhinged. Just like David. And if there's anybody I wouldn't mind seeing him going after, it's the smug thing that was once Cyclops.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 is a decent start, but it won't blow anybody away. It doesn't seem to be trying to – it's likely a brightening response to Spencer's dark take. It'll be more of an 'oh, hey, these guys. Neat.' sort of response than anything.

We're past the time when I felt I was reading Batgirl more out of loyalty to Simone than I was out of genuine enjoyment of the book. Batgirl #23 has confirmed that all (or maybe just most) bets are off, and we don't know how far into the rabbit hole we're going to go.

It's also worth noting that the appearance of this Butler character, who has apparently been randomly harvesting Deadpool's organs for who knows how long, might be a sign of some of that compelling drama coming back as well. Regardless, they were able to make me laugh at a guy getting sacked, which you'd think is the lowest form of humor. But no! It works on so many levels!

Vaughan's compelling cast of characters are back in good form, and Saga's return is a welcome one. Sure, it was only a few months, but hey, I missed it and I'm glad it's back.

Infinity #1 isn't something that knocks us out with its first issue, because Hickman isn't that kind of writer. Hickman is a builder himself, and he's letting us see all the threads he's weaving first. Infinity is not a front-loaded book like most event books tend to be. Instead, Hickman is likely orchestrating it so, for once, the last issue of an event series is the one that knocks us out.

I never had much interest in reading about Red Sonja before, but I do now. A writer you trust can work wonders with characters you once dismissed.

Overall, The Movement is certainly moving along fast. It has likable characters and a backdrop of chaotic civil unrest that feels painfully relevant. It may not have quite hit its stride yet, but the foundation is solid. The groundwork is there. The future is promising.

Regardless, thanks to Hopeless and Bunn for maturing Colossus once again after he was torn down to nothingness. Cable and X-Force remains an entertaining read.

Venom #38 isn't bad. Just kind of rote.

I want to like Collider, and it's not actively bad, but its first issue didn't bring the excitement I'd hoped for.

Of course, the book could always sink back into what it was, given that Dex-Starr the Angry Cat has resuscitated Atrocitus, but so far it seems like Soule knows how this book should work, and it's doubtful that he'll regress. Good news for fans of blood-soaked vengeance.

We also have to talk about Alex Milne, the artist who manages to inject an immense amount of detail into the designs of these mechanoids, and colorist Josh Burcham, who is somehow able to decipher abnormal robot body parts in all these intricate black and white panels to know what bits should be which colors. This art is busy, it's kinetic and it's just as dense as the writing, and in that vein, it sometimes takes a few reads to figure out exactly what's happening. IDW takes some heat for the artwork on a lot of their licensed titles, but they do not skimp on Transformers: MTMTE, and that's what helps make this book the best TF fiction ever made.

Captain Midnight #1 isn’t bad, but the creative team needs to step it up and give the veteran hero the respect he deserves.

So far, I'm enjoying this All-Star Western time warp, although I'm holding out hope that J&J will really deliver some truly great moments in a "Future Hex" story, where they've really only got one chance to do Hex In Modern Gotham right and proper, before shoving him into the modern-day would feel forced. Or even more forced than the series has felt thus far with Hex in Old Gotham instead of out west where he belongs. I have faith.

Pulido's artwork here is fantastic. Pop-art styling, funky layouts and even taking the time to illustrate Kate faces in her own dialogue boxes, which makes it feel like an indie-comic auteur's work, not the combined efforts of letterer VC's Clayton Cowles and colorist Matt Hollingsworth alongside Pulido. The artists that work on this book are mightily thorough and anything but workmanlike. I don't know what Hawkeye did to earn this treatment, but he's got it, and it works for him. And her. It works for all the Hawkguys.

Seriously, if you can pull off a line like "the laws of physics can kiss my ass" and make us believe it, we don't need much more out of our comic book heroines. Young Avengers isn't mind-blowing or anything, but it's always right on that cusp of being a total blast.

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say this book is actually superior to the ol' Amazing Spider-Man, but it's relentlessly fascinating entertainment. Our familiarity with the characters has been turned on its ear, or maybe dropped on its head, and there's a sense that all bets are off, and we have no idea where this is going (beyond, of course, the likely return of Peter Parker in time with the movie sequel next year). Imagine what happens if the Goblin turns out to be Harry Osborn again, and Spider-Man straight-up kills him without hesitation, because Ock couldn't care less about Peter's friendship. Or maybe this will turn out to be Gabriel O'Hara, the Goblin 2099, and that's why Spider-Man 2099 is going to come into town thanks to the Age of Ultron effect.

There's also the concern that DC is trying to jump through hoops Marvel's already been through, what with having a civil war between superheroes leading to a long reign of bad guys, but the jury's still out on that particular indictment. It's a comic tradition to take familiar concepts in new directions, so we'll let Johns and Co. finish their story before passing judgment on whether this direction is new enough to matter.

In the meantime, we get this weird, bizarro-but-brilliant version of Spider-Man that may not technically be superior, but is highly engrossing nonetheless. Also, Giuseppe Camuncoli's Lizard looks amazingly weirdo scaly.

Overall, The Superior Foes of Spider-Man #1 kicks a new, fun series off to a bent-in-the-head sort of start. Given Spencer's talent for intrigue and skullduggery, this could pan out into something stellar.

Avengers A.I. #1 is a big letdown – disappointing to read and not all that great visually. Most of what was wrong with it could have been fine and functional if Hank Pym was written like Hank Pym, but instead, he's written like a schmuck, and I suppose he will continue to be for the rest of the year. Joy.

Let me say that again. Jonah Hex is in Arkham Asylum. That is seriously all you need to know to start reading this book NOW. Never mind the irony that Hex had been reluctantly partnered with Amadeus Arkham himself for a long while back in his own time. Come on now. You have to find out how Jonah Hex will react to the Calendar Man.

Besides, the original Billy Batson would want me to give the new kid a chance and let go of all those bad feelings. That's why he was so great.

Not bad. The funky team dynamics and the mystery of the SSV will keep Justice League of America going for a while, likely going places we don't expect – although since the Doctor Light business carries over into Justice League #22, the crossover has already begun. Trinity War's a-tootin'. Put on your seat belts and lets get weirdly metaphysical.

Giffen and DeMatteis are in fine form with their freewheeling piss-take on the greed-fueled MINE MINE MINE lantern, holding over the same tone Giffen had in Threshold, although not connecting at all with the fact that over in Green Lantern and GLC, he's apparently launching an all out attack on Oa. Maybe this is after that, maybe this is before that. We ain't know. What we do know is that if we can't have more Threshold, Larfleeze will hold us over for a while. Hopefully, DC won't see fit to meddle with the formula and will allow the veteran writers to carve out their own corner of the DCU this way. They let Scott Lobdell do it, for pete's sake. Maybe we'll get some resolution to The Hunted stories tied in with this book. Let's hope so.

Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye is just good comics. Not good Transformers comics, but good comics. Long may it rule.

If you're looking for a good, fast-paced ongoing mystery with elements of action, noir and the supernatural, odds are you'll enjoy Dream Thief. It's pretty freakin' cool.

So far, it's a reasonably good start for the new creative crew handling the Emerald Knights. They're getting back to they're actual damn jobs, they're realizing Hal Jordan is impossible to love, and they're dealing with the fallout of some catastrophic storytelling, even if it's becoming even moreso. Green Lantern: New Guardians #9 is all right by me.

Overall, Wild Blue Yonder #1 is entertaining and quite forgivably derivative, and it sets an interesting stage for what promises to be some quality adventure storytelling,

New Avengers #7 is highly charged for a what could be considered a "breather" issue full of talk, and Deodato's art is just fantastic. His Doom is perfect and T'Challa's barely contained anger towards Namor is palpable, as is the dark mood that pervades everything. This is the best Avengers book going right now – it's weighty and bleak, but really damn good.

Uncanny Avengers #9 is just an all-around solid, interesting, compelling book, setting the stage for something epic coming this way – and there's STILL the whole Red Skull/Onslaught thing waiting in the wings.

As of now, it looks like Green Lantern Corps is the book you'll want to check out if you want to read about actual Green Lantern business rather than all the internal bickering and spectrum slapfights. It's not bad.

Six-Gun Gorilla promises to kick it up a notch next issue, now that the title character has made his showy entrance by blowing some heads clean off. You might want to get in while the gettin's good.

Gillen's story remains heavy, and this installment is particularly tense, and he also continues to seemingly apologize for writing any of this in the afterword, reaffirming his desire to find a way to tell a World War II story ethically. White's art remains dark and unflinching " not perfect, but he certainly goes for broke at crucial moments, like showing us the way to kill Panzermensches is putting a bullet in their eyes. ber continues to impress, while giving the reader an ugly, unsettled feeling in our guts, reminding us that despite all the hay made from it in fiction everywhere, war remains hell.

The jury's still out on Iron Man #11 and these new ideas for Tony's origin. This issue in particular is all talk, but we're just not sure what to believe, and we don't really want to believe what we're being told – and that puts us right in our protagonist's jet-boots, which has to qualify as a success. Not quite enough to overcome trepidation, but maybe it can all work out in the end. Right?

The art from Freddie Williams II is pretty solid, if also a little murky here and there. Strong where it needs to be. It might take some time and some doing, but there's enough to like about The Movement that we can bear with it during its growing pains.

Astro City is a nice place to visit. It's good to see the gates are open once again.

Superior Spider-Man #11 is exciting, tense and, given Jameson's deeply personal stake, somewhat emotional – and this is just the beginning of the arc.

Overall, some new blood on the GL books may be what they need. They've had their moments, but they haven't seemed to be consistently compelling lately. Maybe a fresh direction will help. Green Lantern #21 might not be a clean enough break, but hope springs eternal. Wait… that's Blue Lanterns…

It's Mike Mignola and John Arcudi turning in another swift, pulpy yarn that does what it aims to do " be an in-and-out adventure in the dark, murky side of the law. Kevin Nowlan's artwork is fairly bright and clean for a grubby story like this, but it works perfectly, from palooka to his creepy benefactor to the mad scientist to Lobster's scare tactics. The closeups are fantastic. It's a fun read, and although it's quick, I wouldn't call it light, what with all the shootings.

By the end of Avenging Spider-Man #21, we're somehow rooting for Evil Spider-Man to get one over on the good guys, and Yost managing that is a remarkable feat. Go team Spider-Man.

Captain America #7 is the beginning of the end of the Dimension Z travails, and it is succeeding in putting the freak Arnim Zola a lot higher on the Steve Rogers Shit List than he's ever been before, as the connection is now a deeply personal hatred. It remains to be seen whether or not we're going to get a much dirtier, more flawed version of Captain America when this is all over and done.

Cafu and Julius Gopez turn in a solid effort. The Captain Atom work has a dream state quality to it, as though we’re inside his thoughts and seeing his memories through his eyes. The panels outside of Captain Atom is harsher, thicker lines, heavier inks, more in your face color work. Cafu and Julius also know how to maximize panel placement. Some of the sweeping two panel action scenes are epic. If the story here is a bit frazzled, the art helps hold it together.

And just a side note – I know comic book costumes went apeshit with the midriff-baring costumes when Britney Spears first came to power and popularized it, giving comic folks a chance to be fleshy without being cleavagey, but doesn't it seem like that style has passed? Why is Stargirl still sporting that? Then again, I guess it's better that than having her holster up a whipped-cream shooting Katy Perry bra.

Slott's story is kind of fascinaSlott's story is kind of fascinating. As much as I miss standard Spidey shenanigans, this is a compelling and unsettling look into the mind of a villain who is doing something villains never do " live the lives of the heroes they hate most.

Avengers #12 is a very welcome chance to take a step back and process what's been going on so far in this book, and the lasting changes to Marvel's Earth it seems to have brought about. It stimulates the brainmeats without bogging us down with stoic unfamiliarity. Plus, with Hickman bringing in not only Garokk but the High Evolutionary, two essential components of that classic X-Men annual from yesteryear, dare we hope that he has plans to bring forth the forgotten son of Colossus in some fashion? Or maybe Terminus, who may seem more in line with big ideas in general? I'm surely planning to stay tuned to find out.

Iron Man #10 is pretty solid and intriguing, but trepidations about where Gillen is going with all this are holding me back from fully embracing it.

The book ends with a quick shot of shenanigans about to go down in London at the hands of Benedict Cumberbatch, which is something we've seen implied from all the trailers – thus making it a direct lead-in to Star Trek: Into Darkness. If you still can't wait for the film, check out our dueling reviews – will you hate it like Bibbs, or love it like Fred?

ber trades on historical realities for its fiction, although Gillen freely admits that he's certain hardened World War II experts would catch things he's missed or messed up. He also stresses that he's not Garth Ennis, whose knowledge of war minutiae is legendary. Gillen's focusing more on the conflict between humanity and the atrocities they are capable of perpetrating " what that does to a person, and the struggle to keep one's soul in the savage madness of it all. He's right about this not being a book to "enjoy." But it's certainly a book worth reading.

While we're very excited to see Marvel's first live action prime time television series since The Incredible Hulk ended in 1982, there are some things that comics can do that TV can't – and that includes stuffing each episode full of movie star superheroes. Secret Avengers is the place to be.

Avenging Spider-Man may not get to define what happens in the ongoing saga of Superior Spider-Man, but it is giving us a very intriguing picture of the everyday functioning of Otto Octavius in the world of superheroes to which he is not accustomed and ill-suited. While I will enjoy it when Peter Parker comes back eventually, we know he'll have the lions share of all Spider-Man stories in perpetuity, give or take a clone or two, so I'm content to watch this unique look at a different kind of wall-crawler for as long as it continues to unfold. It's disconcerting to read a Spider-Man who hates all the good guys and is a completely arrogant ass, but it's pretty entertaining, too.

Overall, Justice League of America #3 is not a bad issue, but it just feels a bit awkward, perhaps due to the pressure of deadlines, or perhaps because it's a book still finding its footing. There's no call to count it out just yet. There's a Trinity War coming, after all.

X-Men Legacy might be my favorite X-book going right now, and it's set up a fascinating set of circumstances that I've got no clue how Spuirrier plans to resolve. The writing is entertaining, interesting and provocative, and the art might finally be on its way to catching up with it.

Iron Man #9 is mostly set-up, with a cute bad-merc story as its basis. The real verdict will have to come when we know what Howard's revelation is really going to be. The preview looks interesting"

The Movement #1 is instantly fascinating, and with a trusted voice like Simone at the helm, there's little chance it will squander its potential. I look forward to seeing just how broken these characters are when we really get into their heads. It's hard to drop a new book with a cast of all new characters and get us interested in investing in them from the get-go, but Simone's got the moxie to pull it off. To some, I imagine it may come off as heavy-handed, but what is any superhero book if not a heavy hand smacking down the jerks du jour? It's not going to remain as simple as it may seem on the surface " of that, I'm quite sure.

Thank you, James Roberts, for giving us Transformers fans something to point to that will best explain why we love this mythos so much " something that's not cheesy '1980s stuff or offensively obnoxious Michael Bay movies. For as much as Bay seems to worship the concept of 'balls,' he'd never have the stones to introduce this kind of sensitivity into the proceedings. Roberts outshines him by far.

Of the two FF books, it certainly seems like Fraction has a clearer vision of what to do with this series than the main Four. It's a wild and woolly cast of weirdos, and I really like it that way, dummy! YANCY STREET.

Young Avengers is a pretty fun and funky book so far, even when it threatens to get a little too hip for its own room. Then again, it's a tough call sometimes to tell the difference between something seeming a bit "clever" and my own responses tending towards the jaded and disdainful. Despite that occasional question, this series is good stuff.

IDW's licensed properties tend to be a little hinky when it comes to the art, but not the Transformers books. Andrew Griffith does a fantastic job rendering these giant mechs, and I hope he and TF: More Than Meets The Eye's Alex Milne never stop. If MTMTE didn't exist, Transformers: RID would be the best Transformers comic of all time. As it stands, these two books together make fans of legit, non-Bay Transformers pleased as freakin' punch. They've raised the bar, and here's hoping they both keep going at this level ad infinitum.

Overall, it's got some spark with the dialog (something Giffen is good at), but it all feels kind of half-assed. Granted, it's hard to go full-assed at something like He-Man. They have a lobster guy named Clawful, you know, and a guy with a big fist named Fisto. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #1 is certainly a step up from the old cartoon as far as characterization, but that's not saying a whole lot.

Overall, Justice League #19 isn't particularly exciting, but it does set the stage for some potentially interesting developments. We'll have to wait and see if they actually develop.

Perhaps it's strange that the two marquee Avengers " Iron Man and Captain America " are currently way out of their normal comfort zones in their respective books, but for Shellhead's part, it's still kind of intriguing. It's nothing spectacular or fascinating as yet, but there does seem to be some potential.

Anyway, this book has it all. Drama, pathos, yuks, bad romance, bad guys who always say 'bro.' What are you doing if you're not reading Hawkeye? Missing out, that's what.

Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples once again create a great new layer on this story, crafting strong dramatic tension and leaving us with a cliffhanger that won't be resolved for a few months, as the book will be going on a short hiatus. Hell of a way to leave us hangin', though. Prince Robot having a TV for a head is the reason I stuck with the series long enough to learn to love it, as it inexplicably took me a while to settle in, but I'm on board now, as well we all should be.

Overall, Batgirl #19 is a very strong return with a flourish for Simone, and we're glad to have her back. Perhaps we hadn't appreciated her prior run as much as we should have, but now we've seen how bad it can get, and we'll trust her instincts going forward.

Overall, it's an interesting effort from Layman, and certainly a respectable one, but I'm not sure how much confidence I have in Detective Comics going forward.

We never have any idea where this book is going, and it will likely read better if you read collections to get whole story arcs at once. But Dial H is certainly worth your time to experience – and I'm looking forward to seeing if this has any actual effect on Flash comics.

All in all, if we have to Americanize Batwing in order to keep it around, I suppose I can swallow this. Palmiotti said at Wondercon that the new Batwing was going to be much more international and not confined to one region. While I'll lament the loss of the African focus, an intercontinental effort may still be pretty worthwhile. I think J&J can make that happen.

Maybe, once DeMatteis becomes the sole writer of The Phantom Stranger, it'll go in some interesting directions, but for now, the only potential hook the big Trinity of Sin event will have is whether or not it'll monkey with the reality of the New 52 again, and maybe shake out some of the missteps. Pandora's connection to Flashpoint makes that hope hard to dismiss. In the meantime, we'll endure.

Red Team gets right into the meat of the vigilante fantasy wish fulfillment that permeates pop culture, but with an ominous tone that makes us remember that we need to be careful what we wish for.

Anyway, Time Warp #1 overall is a lovely collection of shorts from good people. If you're anything like me, you'll dig it.

Fantastic Four #5AU leaves things in a weird and sort of interesting place, but I have no idea if it will continue in the next issue or if this is some kind of stand-alone tie-in that's just meant to be a sort of quick gut punch.

Maybe it's just a matter of growing accustomed to different art styles, but I found Captain Marvel #11 to be a pretty enjoyable issue. The characters are engaging, the interplay is fun, and whereas I never really had much stock in Ms. Marvel, I find myself actually caring about Captain Marvel. As in, I'm worried about her getting evicted. When I start to get emotionally attached to characters, you've done your job.

It took three issues, but I'm now fully checked into whatever Keith Giffen is going to do with cosmic DC in the pages of Threshold. We may not have Ted Kord back, but we can at least get that flavor that made him famous with a bunch of new characters that DC is not likely to demand to use, abuse and murder anytime soon.

Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #15 is a powerful book. The entire series is a godsend to longtime Transformers fans who have hungered for substance. You never know what is coming with James Roberts, and that's part of what makes this book a must-read.

Fearless Defenders is a very promising bit of good-time adventure storytellling. It's got a fun, energetic vibe that should make most fans of cool superhero comics happy.

Go read Who Is Jake Ellis? first, because Where Is Jake Ellis? drops you right in the middle of things and doesn't really bring you up to speed. Once you do, though, you'll be glad you did, because it's just a very cool read with a good sense of pacing that never really drops into anything trite.

X-Men Legacy #7 is fun times, folks. Hop aboard this weird-ass space coaster. You get a tale of a young dude trying to find his place in the world mixed with the inner-mind story of a man trying to carve a path to sanity, or at least stability.

Science cults, man. There's a bit of that over in Archer & Armstrong this week, too, where brainiacs obsessed with destroying the universe and leaving a peaceful void form their own cult of nothingness and actually succeed " well, they think they do, anyway. A.I.M. may not be obessed with the absence of all that is, but given Forson's screed against greed, we can see they've got some kind of high-minded agenda and that they won't be bought off.

We tend to like these kinds of stories that start with 'the heroes have lost and lost hard, and this is how they figure out how to win again.' We didn't particularly enjoy it in Dark Reign, which dominated everything and went on for an interminably long time, but in its own self-contained, quickly-released book like Age of Ultron, it's much more palatable and much more interesting. This is the first event book in quite some time that I've actually enjoyed.

The "Wrath of the First Lantern" storyline hasn't been the best, but I enjoyed the deep look into the mind and new origins of John Stewart in Green Lantern Corps #18. I'm hoping he'll remain somewhat relevant in the outcome of it all, but it's looking as though All Things Defer To Hal Jordan's Infallible Greatness will be how this all plays out. Yawn.

Some comic books have enough artistic pizzazz to command you to own them in print form. Great Pacific seems like one of those books you'd rather get digitally " you still want it enough to follow the story, but it's not going to be something you pass on to your kids or anything.

BlackAcre is an engaging series from Image worth checking out, even if it's a little hard to take a character named Kellogg seriously as a power player. All it does is make you want Frosted Flakes.

Dial H is a really nutty book that will likely read better when collected in trade form, but I love that I never have any idea what to expect from it.

Overall, this is a decently entertaining book that seems to be approaching a stride. I'm looking forward to the next insane adventure, and to the fate of Piotr Nikolievitch Rasputin, considering the drastic step he takes at the end of Cable and X-Force #5.

Iron Man in the Marvel NOW era has managed to be fairly entertaining despite Land and a general feeling of directionlessness, and hopefully, the space-faring fun keeps on keepin' on with it's Trekky self.

The next issue promises to be even more explosive than this one, capping off the big first-year arc of Transformers: RID with GIANT ROBOT FIGHTS. Well, Transformers are already giant robots, but Devastator and Superion are gestalts, meaning EVEN GIANTER ROBOT FIGHTS! Also, everything's going to come to a head, the future of Cybertron will be forever affected, and more characters are probably gonna die. Hoo-boy.

Matt Fraction is doing entertaining work here " I particularly enjoyed Blarrgh The Unliving " and he's also working with old continuity and keeping it real, which I respect. Putting She-Hulk back in what might be the most real relationship of her life is a nice way to avoid the usual temptation writers have to just play around with her penchant for promiscuity (not that there's anything wrong with promiscuity in general, as long as it's done responsibly). Fraction is having a lot of good old-fashioned yet new-fangled fun in the FF universe. Let's hope he keeps it up.

The story is fast-paced and oddball, the dialogue is amusing and engaging, the mysteries are plentiful and the art is kinetic and very expressive. The superhero stuff is fun, but it's secondary to the mess Devin's getting herself in with full cognizance of it's messiness. I enjoy how quick on the uptake she is, and I also dig how far out there the Answer seems to be. It isn't THAT far, really, but he just comports himself with a casual weirdness that makes us really wonder what the heck the deal is.

Overall, Spider-Man's books right now are a one-two punch of twisted goodness. My reservations at the start about this whole Freaky Friday switch have been put to bed, and I'm really fascinated with learning how it's going to turn out.

A good alpha issue for Alpha #1. This kid's a wiener. Fialkov's got his work cut out for him, making us like the guy enough to follow his story. So far, it's working.

Overall, I'm firmly on board with Superior Spider-Man now that the whole creepy vibe has dissipated. I'm really looking forward to Otto taking on big-time Spider-villains.

Johns co-wrote this story with Andrew Kreisberg, and it's decent enough. Nothing patently offensive, although the names Armando and Francisco still seem a little like... I don't know... swashbuckling Antonio Banderas character names to me. That's just me, though. Otherwise, it's a bit by-the-numbers, but it's fine that way. The art from Pete Woods is solid as well. There's nothing particularly exciting about this book, besides maybe the fact that Waller has a zoo full of botched human experiments and/or people who refused to play ball (including a prior 'Vibe,' a Thunderer of Qward, Pariah, a familiar face in Gypsy and apparently Darkseid's daughter), but hey, it's Vibe. The fact that he has a book at all is remarkable.

This is a very strong first issue for Justice League of America #1, even though there's virtually no action in it beyond the vignettes for each hero. I'm hooked, and I want to see how this plays out.

Anyway, Scarlet Spider is a neat series, and it's not afraid to get dark - and it does so without being simply for the sake of darkness. You should read it.

Thankfully, we're not losing the original cast of characters we all know and love, as their spirit world adventure looks as though it'll unfold right alongside Janine & Co.'s amusing attempts to fill their shoes. If that remains the case, The New Ghostbusters #1 just added another layer of fun to these paranormal investigators, and gave them some welcome gender diversity, too. Plus, Venkman in space. Sort of.

So it feels like Bendis is still getting his feet wet with X-characters, and perhaps he'll make the proper adjustments soon and find the right rhythm. More likely, though, is that this is just going to be how these characters are now, because that's the way he wants to write them. When he gets to play in a world mostly of his devising, like Ultimate Comics or Daredevil alternate realities, we like him. When he's trying to fit into the mainstream 616, not so much. Well, at least I don't. All y'all kept him writing Avengers comics for a decade, so I'm apparently in the minority here.

Overall, Katana #1 is not a bad issue, really. I'm just not sure if there's enough here to get me to a #2. Your mileage may vary.

Now that I can see a general direction, tone and intention for Giffen's Threshold, a sort of cosmic realm that's much like his Annihilation stuff (techincally part of the main continuity, but separate enough from it that those who aren't all that thrilled with the New 52 in general have a place to go within DC to enjoy comics), I'm warming to it more than I did with the first issue, where I couldn't stop hating on the name Jediah Caul. A slight mental adjustment, and I think Threshold is going to be an engaging place to spend some funnybook time.

So MTMTE #13 is a fun romp that's not brainlessly so. James Roberts continues to give me the book I'm happiest to read each and every month, and I hope he never stops.

This book sits in your gut and makes you feel its drama. This are certainly not the old Avengers.

Perhaps if the people very put out by this whole story arc can start reading here, bypassing all the ick, they might be hooked enough to check in for the long haul. Perhaps.

Overall, it seems we'll be getting some solid entertainment from Fearless Defenders. Go team!

Overall, there's enough here to build on, and Lemire's proven himself to be a writer to trust. It's worth a few more issues to see if it's going to go pear-shaped or not.

So, overall, Young Romance #1 is a cute gimmick with a couple of touching stories, but with little resonance. If you're in the mood for it, read it. If not, you're likely not missing anything.

Nowhere Men is still something you can step up to on the ground floor. Get after it, folks. It's going to go to some interesting places, never you fear.

This is one of those books that's likely going to need a lot of support to keep going. Sure, it's got X-Men in the title, but its central character is a really weird one, and we as comic fans tend to like weird characters well enough to enjoy their existence, but we tend not to gravitate toward their books, sadly. Let David Haller be one of the ones to defy that rule.

The Answer #1 has me hooked for the next few. And it's more fun if you imagine Exclamation Point Man's punches make the same sound that exclamations points used to make on The Electric Company.

By the by, the art from Ryan Stegman is odd, because it doesn't seem like the stuff he was doing in Scarlet Spider. Instead, it feels like he's trying to ape Humberto Ramos. That does make for some decent continuity with the old book, but Stegman should really just be Stegman. I mean, Stegman is good.

Batwoman is one of the biggest reasons to buy comics at all, with it being an overall feast for the eyes. But one of the best things going in the medium is hampered a bit by the digital format. The best comics work best as actual hard-copy comics. Could it succeed in a digital form? If designed differently, perhaps... but then it wouldn't quite be Batwoman.

It has Cooke's fantastically perfect artwork - particularly perfect for this retro series as well.

Fraction's having fun, and this time, unlike his Defenders, it's fun we can all enjoy.

Butch Guice is also jumping ship, which sucks. His art has been the backbone of Winter Soldier. Nobody pencils noir like Guice. There is always a mood set within the panel, there’s always a sense of natural movement to the characters. Guice’s so good with character forms and faces that he easily draws specific emotional reactions out of the reader. Graced with an ability for action movement, plus the style and control to make each beautiful pencil count. His presence on Winter Soldier will be sorely missed.

So it's a decent start for Uncanny X-Force #1, and it does warrant a few more issues to find its new footing. Humphries does get kudos for bringing Puck onto a non-Canadian team. That's nothing to sneeze at.

Still, Young Avengers #1 is fun for the most part, and it should get better once it finds its footing. It's just unfortunate that the first issue in the new era isn't really any kind of knockout.

Just like we can probably trust Dan Slott to find interesting things to do with Superior Spider-Man, we can trust Mark Waid to deal with The Big C with the appropriate grace and sensitivity to realism.

I can't believe I care about Kaine. Yost is a miracle-worker. And Avenging Spider-Man should be an interesting ride for as long as he's in control of it.

Brubaker had eight years on the book, and had come to define what we expect when we read a Captain America comic. Remender's take is very much NOT that, and it HAD to not be that. It may seem strange to throw Captain America into situations where America doesn't matter in the least and there's no political intrigue to maneuver through, but it's just different enough to have a decent kind of cognitive dissonance about it. Plus, it's about Arnim Zola, and the only way he was going to make a splash is by doing horrible things to Captain America. And it seems like the worst is yet to come, and one can only imagine how weird Remender and Romita are going to get with this. I'm certainly down to find out.

The complexity of this story keeps us guessing, as we never know what we're going to see out of Saga. Fiona Staples will draw anything Vaughan concocts, and she'll go all out doing it.

While this is a step in the right direction for DC, I'm afraid Insurgent doesn't seem to have much more going for it beyond that. Your mileage may vary.

Scott Kolins' artwork in the backup story fares a bit better than Tom Raney's in the main story simply due to its stylization, but both are solid. Giffen's dialogue is cute and fun, establishing a swashbuckling tone for the proceedings. If you're in for some rip-roaring space adventure, you could do worse than Threshold.

Scarlet Spider has been a very good book about a morally-compromised character trying to fight the good fight anyway. Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that Dan Slott wanted a piece of that action in the flagship book. However, we can't help but feel Superior Spider-Man is biting off too much of Scarlet Spider's niche. Hopefully, they can make it different enough that one won't doom the other.

MTMTE tends to be the more entertaining book, possibly because it has the luxury of focusing on a raucous group of vagabond adventurers on a quest throughout the galaxy, and thus has the freedom to be funnier. RID has the heavier weight of being analogous to real-world sociopolitical problems in tense, fragile societies in the Middle East. Sure, it's about giant robots, but treating them like real people has been key to the success of these two IDW books, and while RID might not be as flashy, it's still a really great factor in the evolution of this franchise beyond just toys and shooting.

These first two issues have been so well-crafted and intriguing, though, that I doubt that somewhat-overused genre element is going to be a hinderance at all. We have no idea what happened to the people who made it through the warp gate, or to those left behind on the space station when things went kablooey. We have no idea what's going on with Ellis' coma, where the hell Walker is, or what ugliness Grimshaw has planned. All this did was give us a touchstone to hold onto while exploring some really captivating new ideas. Calling it now: Nowhere Men is going to be the Saga of 2013 - the book all your cool friends tell you you should be reading.

BlackAcre has the potential to be a very interesting examination of the dichotomy between the haves and have-nots. Or it could just be the standard kind of post-civilization turf-war fare, but given the opening of the first issue in the re-civilized future, I'm guessing Bordreau is going somewhere specific with all of this, and I'm on board to find out just where that might be.

Overall, the artwork DOES look pretty cool, and the elements of the story are fun, but while it's been a pretty solid ride the last few issues, Flash #15 just seems to undercut everything that was crafted so far. It's decent enough, and there's nothing actively bad about it. It's... well, it's just okay.

Justice League Dark #15 is a pretty fun book, though, as it has complete license to get really, really weird out of nowhere. That's magic, folks.

It's a solid start, and that's coming from a guy who has never really liked vampires all that much. When done properly, though, just about any character can become interesting. Morbius The Living Vampire #1 has done that for its star.

The new Marvel NOW version of Iron Man could be really cool if the artwork was anywhere near as engaging as the story beats are. Unfortunately, it's not to be, so the series can't really get much better than noncommittal shrug of acceptance. All is certainly not right with it, but... eh, it's all right.

The jury's still out on Mara overall, though, but it's a #1 issue from Brian Wood. That means it's certainly worth giving a shot.

As a swan song to 50 years of Amazing Spider-Man, #700 does delve into a lot of what makes Peter Parker tick, what makes Spidey Spidey, and proves that strong core character is powerful enough to reform a supervillain once they truly understand it. I can't say this issue knocked my socks off, due to all the unanswered questions and my very real concern that an Otto/MJ skeeve-fest is in the offing, but it is a bold effort, a daring move and it will all probalby turn out just fine in the end. It's not a grand finale. It's just a new story arc. Let's roll with it.

The result so far is that I'm interested. I can't say I'm excited yet, but I'm interested. Let's see what trick is pulled in Superior Spider-Man #1.

Brian K. Vaughan has certainly given Saga legs, balancing the tense threatening bad guy jerk-attack issues with familial drama such as what's going on in Saga #8, working with a limitless galaxy of possibilities with this story. Literally anything can happen, and that's a lot of the charm. I do like having no idea what to expect on each page. I was not expecting a seahorse-guy, that's for sure. But he evens out the crazy with easily identifiable character work, examining longstanding ancestral hatreds and just how hard it can be to open a mind up to a better way.

This book is amazing. Give it a chance, won't you?

So it seems that Thunderbolts is destined to be a book about a bunch of characters I like guided by creators I sadly don't. Way's writing still feels limp, although that may seem moreso because Dillon's work, while technically sound, feels so staid and lifeless. This just means each new issue is going to be a fresh bit of agony for me.

Uncanny X-Force #35 is a great final chapter in a truly epic (in the legit sense of the word, and not the everyday erosion of the meaning of the word now used to describe fails and socks) saga. Remender, much like Jonathan Hickman, is a guy who writes big and ends well. I'll miss this book, and I'm as surprised as anyone that we went out on a happy note.

I'm thinking Sovereign.

If you want some Avengers fun without the complications, look no further. And start with Avengers Assemble #9.

We've got murder, mystery, and mounting police pressure, as well as two men in love with the same dead woman trying to avenge her death, while at the same time dealing with their own devastations. It's a solid, involving pulp story well worth checking out.

The Massive has been one of my favorite books of the year - one that I look forward to each month. It's just really damn engrossing.

For those of us who split the difference, it's going to be one hell of a headache.

It's not Rick Remender's book by any means, but this hearkens back to the origins of X-Force with the big freaky-eyed tactician doing mysterious things and people just glomming into him as he goes about taking care of business. I'm looking forward to finding out the Colossus angle before I offer any final judgment on Cable and X-Force, and in the interim, I hope to hear some entertaining science-bickering between Forge and Nemesis.

BlackAcre #1 is a solid start. It remains to be seen if it'll manage to balance the gritty action with interesting social commentary, or if it'll become more of a standard common vs. wealth struggle. It's worth checking out.

Still, Great Pacific has enough great ideas in it that I'm on board to see where it goes. Something about the pioneer spirit is engaging, even if it's a mess of complications and nastiness on a trash heap instead of braving the wild west. To be fair, it was a mess of complications and nastiness back then, too - and we're about to see all that echoed in this series. Should be compelling reading.

Layman may have hooked me onto another Bat-book with Detective Comics #15. Maybe the more I read of him, the more likely I'll be to take another crack at Chew.

Guess I'll have to be if I'm going to try to enjoy this new Thunderbolts. It's easy to buy, considering all the big names on the team, but it's hard to buy any of their reasons for being on that team in the first place.

"Throne Of Atlantis," which stretches between Aquaman and Justice League, looks to cement this new era of the bad ass Aquaman.

It's the Gage story that makes this issue a great read, though. He loves these characters as much as we do, and he likes to use lots of them at the same time. The more, the merrier, I say.

The Fraction FF era is so far off to a really cool start. It's a great time to hop on board what is surely a great space-time coaster.

It's the same refrain I've had with each issue - Conner's art is breathtakingly wonderful and Cooke's story is highly compelling despite the ludicrous criminal plot. Say what you will (and I have) about the need for the whole prequel project, but this Silk Spectre series gets into your heart and screws around with your emo-stuffs. Just like good comics should.

Nowhere Men #1 instantly clicked for me, and if you give this Image book a shot, maybe it'll do the same for you.

Everything's still very tentative about Harbinger, though (although the Phil Briones art is mostly lamentable when it comes to human faces). It could be interesting, it could be acceptable, it could, it could, it could. But it's six issues in and still all about could. I'd been waiting for Kris to return so I could pass a verdict, but it seems that jury is still out, or maybe they're just hung.

The art is okay, mildly unpleasant at times as I'm not a big fan of Ryp's puffy faces, but solid at other points. The energy in this book is great, though, and it's got enough inertia to take us to the next issue.

So... yeah, time travel confusion, and Walsh's art works well, even though it feels like the same style that's in every third book these days. It's cool enough to warrent a look, though. I'll be getting #2.

Perhaps I don't have the proper street cred to be steeped in 2000 A.D. lore (and feel free to condescend to me if you do and you have unkind things to say about this book), but it's a nice start, with a satirical Robocop-esque feel to the Mega City One society - complete with either incompetent or impudent security robots frustrating their owners

This story first ran in Dark Horse Presents, and a miniseries is to follow. It's freaky enough to warrant further investigation. Just... come on, writers. You're supposed to know how to conjugate the verb 'suppose.'

The lead bad guy in this issue looks like some hipster/stoner dingus, Richard Wentworth himself looks like a 19-year-old poser, and it just feels wrong enough to undercut the effectiveness of any story trying to be told here. Yet, I keep buying it, because I figure it HAS to get cool eventually. That's how much I want to like The Spider.

Extermination is a very cool book full of action, malarkey and subversive undermining of the whole superhero genre, while at the same time celebrating how fun it can be. Go get it!

You shouldn't have that issue. Therefore, if you pick up Saga, you'll probably love it like everybody else does. I'm sure I'll get there eventually. I mean, it's about a goat-guy and a fairy-lady and a ghost babysitter flying a rocket-tree through space and evading TV-headed royal robots and spidery-lady mercenaries who make sex tapes with their merc lovers. And giants with crusty ballsacks. What's not to like, really?

Fantastic Four #1 is a hootenanny of a kick-off. Let's hope this new team can keep it up.

It's a strong debut issue for Thor: God of Thunder, and the idea of a deity-focused serial killer is an interesting one. We'll see if Aaron can stay on track with this compelling set-up.

It was a tall order, trying to get people to give a damn about Legion, but Spurrier's done an admirable job with X-Men Legacy #1. The art from Tan Eng Huat is decent as well, if a bit jagged in its expressiveness, and the colors from Jose Villarrubia also really help to differentiate the weird world in David's mind from reality. It's certainly worth checking out to see if you can get into it.

All-New X-Men #1 is an interesting start, and it has the potential to be absolutely fascinating if it doesn't get too schticky or smugly glib with self-satisfaction. That shoe may indeed drop, but for now, the first one's hit the ground running.

Here's where Simone shines - dealing with twisted people. The shinola is hitting the fan, business has picked up, and when the Joker's involved, the stakes are always at their highest and we never know how things are going to shake out. That's going to make every book Death of the Family touches something you need to read. Batgirl #14 is no exception.

So I'm in for at least the next issue, to see how this all plays out. And if Floyd Lawton can be resurrected with his proper look and then get weird powers every time he dies and comes back, that could be very entertaining. But seriously, ditch the everyday boring loser look. GIVE HIM BACK THE STACHE AND THAT BLACK GREASY HAIR. It's amazing how much of a difference a look can make sometimes in keeping characters from feeling generic.

Shadowman #1 is another solid entry in the Valiant Comics superherouniverse. Go team!

Storm Dogs is cool. I'm on board to see where this adventure takes me.

Here's a swell chance to jump on board the Wade Train once again if you'd checked out for a while. Let the Good Time Charlies roll!

It's disappointing that Gillen is managing to make me an X-Men fan just in time to see him stop writing X-Men. Let's hope the Marvel NOW X-books can rise to Gillen's game here.

There is so much wonderful density in plot and character to digest with each new issue of Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye, and #10 is no exception. Roberts and Milne have both found their calling, and they must never stop telling amazing stories in this world. THEY MUSTN'T. Because this continues to be the book that makes me the happiest every month.

There's nothing inherently cheesy about the world of Eternia - it's a great blend of science and sorcery, a really colorfully interesting fantasy realm. If DC can manage to actually make a Masters of the Universe ongoing series that puts He-Man himself as far in the background as possible, we might just have a really good book on our hands. Even Fisto is cooler than He-Man. Keep that guy off-panel. Make his disappearance a back-burner mystery that Duncan, Mekaneck and Buzz Off occasionally give lip-service to as they struggle in the war against Skeletor's army and Hordak's legions. Masters of the Universe #1 is a great start - let's we can get more like this.

Hop on board the Extermination train, which certainly doesn't sound like something anybody should recommend to anybody, but trust me. It's a fun ride.

Anyway, once again, I like everything around the Flash, and in Flash #13, even he's all right, because he gets to bounce off the Rogues in a fun team-up. Still waiting, however, to find out what's so great about Barry Allen that he was brought back from the dead. I think I'm still holding Flashpoint against him, since I don't get the Secret Six anymore just because he missed his mommy.

We love these guys, too, Mr. Hickman, and we tend to forget that in the greater hype that surrounds the movie stars and event books, but we have to thank you for reminding us why these people are Marvel's First Family, and why this can be considered the World's Greatest Comic Magazine. Or at least one of them. The beauty of this FF #23 reminds us that, in this post-modern age of bitter cynicism and detached irony, the happy ending is now a daring choice - and one that's more than welcome.

It's not the most exciting issue, but it's cool, and this is certainly a solid foundation for what's to come. I'm just not sure I like the design of the Talon costume. Maybe it'll just take some getting used to, but I'm a vocal opponent of the '90s headwrap, and this is dangerously close.

Batwoman #13 shows Willians and Blackman back in top form, and it's a refreshing change of pace from most superhero fare.

The interactions between heroes are so much more interesting than the big events these days, and important little character pieces like this are what carry us through when we get bogged down by hazy plotting. Guys like Gillen can help us make sense of it all.

Cooke's storytelling is masterful, his art is beautiful, and Before Watchmen: Minutemen may finally put to bed my kvetching that this whole project is misbegotten. Yes, most of Before Watchmen feels pointless, and if they actually attempt an ongoing series, it will be unfortunate, but if Darwyn Cooke is involved, it's damn well worth your time. He may have made The Silhouette my favorite character in the whole canon.

Fraction and Aja are just nailing it in this series, and it's a damn good time reading comics.

Finally, a Justice League I can enjoy. At least until Bathole starts bothering me again.

Overall, it functions as pretty much an issue of Previews rather than anything that really needed to exist. New people jumping onto this might be just as confused as ever with all the random jumps to various other characters. It's really nothing more than a meh as a whole, with some bits of intriguing work popping up here and there. I will be checking into all of these books, but this issue is mostly shrug-worthy.

I have no idea where this leaves my favorite X-Man, and I don't imagine this will get much play when he joines Dennis Hopeless' Cable & X-Force book, either. But this is no longer a nice-guy Colossus that can be relegated to the back row of the X-Men class photo anymore. This is a very broken and completely morally compromised man full of anger and loss. So much loss, as detailed in my review of UXM #18. He's not the naive farm boy anymore. I feel really bad for the guy, and I wish Gillen could be the guy showing us what's next for him.

I love that there's a foul-mouthed Spidey. I love that there's a Spidey who'll empty a gun into bad guys if there's a gun handy - and in Houston, there's always a gun handy. I love that there's a Spidey who is looking for every chance he can take to avoid a hard slog toward doing the right thing, and looking for boundaries for that stupid sense of responsibility he hates - whatever lines he can possibly draw so it doesn't extend to every damn situation that comes up. It feels different, fresh and it's really damn entertaining.

Batwing is still good stuff. One hopes it doesn't fall by the wayside due to lack of attention.

It's nice to say I'm on board to keep reading Green Lantern. At least for the short term. Once Baz is shuffled off to Justice League of America, Jordan will likely slip back in and drag everything back to Sucktown.

But overall, Avengers Academy #38 is just a blast, because it's all about characters bouncing off each other, and we comic fans love that stuff - to the point where it's slightly dangerous that we connect with these fictional people like they were our real friends, which makes us that much more upset when their book gets canceled. But Gage is such a class act that he even makes us feel better about it in the letters page - he's heartbroken that the book's going away, but he's happy to see these characters have caught on well enough that other writers want to take them on.

The art from Giuseppe Camuncoli is much more realistic than the kinetic, angular work of Humberto Ramos, but it's still solid stuff, bringing the energy when needed. The players in the game here - two different Hobgoblins, the Bugle, the Labs, Stone, Kingpin, Madame Web - are all leading up to something interesting, and Slott, and Gage, for that matter, are the kinds of writers we can believe when they say they've got things cooking that will knock our socks off.

The art from Darick Robertson is pretty solid as well, which makes the contrast between gritty, violent realism and Disney-fied Happy more fun. It's possible this whole concept will cross the line between clever and "clever," but for right now, Happy! #1 is a goofy blend of overblown crime drama with overblown cutesy fun. No telling where Morrison is going to take this one.

If you want something freaky, Rose & Thorn #1 should do the trick.

Superman #0 raises questions that may or may not be answered anytime soon. Lobdell has indicated that he's got a very in-depth plan for what he wants to do with this title, but there's no telling how much editorial influence may be exerted on him to change that. It's The Man of Steel, and there's a movie bearing that name coming out next year and all. I'm curious enough to check back in for the next issue, but I can't say that's not without reservation. How's that for a triple negative?

It's a good start for Talon, although that costume on the cover is highly suspect. It's dangerously close to being one of those '90s headwrap things I hate so much, but funky cool goggles help balance that out. The jury's still out on that, but it's obviously designed to show us that owls don't always have to be creepy.

The Shadow #5. It's Ennis writing tales of bloody comeuppance. That's always worth a read.

When Batwoman is on, it's really damn good. Batwoman #0 is one of those times.

What started as a neat concept - what if a superhero and his archenemy were alone in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and had to work together to survive scary monsters - has become a more detailed subversion of the entire superhero genre, while seeming to celebrate some of the more ludicrous conventions at the same time.

Read Avengers Academy while it lasts. It is great.

Overall, Catwoman #0 raises a lot of questions and makes us feel some things. It's not really a thrilling new direction for the series, though, but we're not exactly giving it the stink-eye, either. The jury is still out.

The backup story gives us a bit more on the Trinity of Sin build-up, as the Wizard's last act is to find Pandora and apologize for the Council of Eternity passing a foolishly extreme judgment on her for simple curiosity - something that makes us wonder if Black Adam might not have had good reason to kill them all. We also get our first glimpse of The Question, fighting street crime and spouting to himself about his search for answers. Still not sure if making Q into this eternally damned immortal is a wise direction, but we'll see.

For me, Uncanny X-Men #18 is only nine pages long. The rest of it is some wheel-spinning malarkey about Scott Summers being bitchy and showing us that, during the big fight in Avengers vs. X-Men #11, Scott and Emma Frost were also having a lovely dinner with each other on the astral plane wherein they were eating steak glazed with human blood. Whatever, yadda yadda, Phoenix Corruptus ad nauseum. It's all rendered very well by artist Ron Garney, but I've had my fill of Cyclops.

Team 7 itself is one of those books that isn't all that interesting on its own, but you know it's going to play a big part in shaping DCnU history so you'll feel compelled to read it just to know what the new deal is. So there you go.

I really want Cooke and Conner to team up on something else. Something new and wholly theirs so I can stop having reservations and just love the hell out of it. As it stands, I still kinda love this.

Lieberman is constructing a pretty involving story, keeping the kid-angst to an effective minimum and making us come around to liking Dane after the first issue painted him as such a walking catastrophe. It's redemption in progress, and the art from Colin Lorimer is greatly suited to it, with its very subtle colors within a mostly black-and-white look. It's a dark book both in subject matter and moody aesthetic, but Harvest is certainly a story worth your time to check out, should that pique your interest.

So something out there in the strange natural phenomena of Cybertron is forcing groups of mechs to become gestalts? Will the same thing happen to Ironhide and the Dinobots (since Grimlock is over in MTMTE and unavailable to make it a pure Dino-thing)? It's hard to say right now, but Barber's doing a really good job at setting up mysteries and intrigue, and that's why we love it.

Make it happen, Mr. Lapham.

Amazing Spider-Man #693 is interesting even while being off-putting, and Slott's walking a very tight rope with keeping it that way while featuring a character as annoying as Maguire. Let's hope he keeps it going with Part 3 next time out, because we REALLY want to see this brat learn a lesson or twelve.

Archer & Armstrong #2 is fun stuff. Nothing super-hilarious, but I am duly entertained. I must clarify that I haven't read the original Valiant Comics, and a reader did point out last time out that this seemed like a rehash of stuff better told in the previous incarnation. I can't speak to that, but I'd be interested in hearing what other old Valiant readers might have to say about it. As a newbie, though, it's a good time.

The Victories is a five issue minieseries. Whethar it's going to focus on a different "Victory" each issue, or follow the story between Faustus and the Jackal, I don't know. But it starts off pretty darn solid, and certainly very gruesome and rough-edged. If that's your thing, so might The Victories be.

The two of them are teaming up to intervene in some shenanigans involving the Ringmaster and a bunch of high-end criminals who are planning to rob other criminals by distracting them with a fancy circus act. While Fraction drops in some amusing bits (like a Daily Bugle headline that reads "EVERYTHING AWFUL Oh God Somebody Do Something"), the first time he's actually made me laugh out loud comes from Barton's perception of Ringmaster's appearance.

The black and white art from Ekedal is pretty well done, managing to bring home the horrors of war without the striking colors of it. The eyes we look into in each panel are very real, and the level of detail in the backgrounds and each face is quite impressive. I don't know if it's made me smarter, but Think Tank is a pretty cool book, and well worth your time to check out.

The Brent Anderson art is pretty solid, and there's enough here to make us take a look at a second issue next month. It's probably not going to ever be the most scintillating read, but this is likely where all the important stuff about the upcoming "Trinity War" will be revealed, so it'll be crucial. Alas, it's a little hard to shake the notion that defining the Phantom Stranger detracts from how cool he is.

Cooke's illustration is as beautiful as always, and the stories unfolding in Minutemen are the most compelling of all of the Before Watchmen efforts. If you're going to read any of it, this is what you should read.

Phantom Lady and Doll Man has three more issues to fully find its legs, and with all the exposition out of its way, it's got a pretty good chance of doing that. Added bonus, the story of the Bloody Bender Crime Family of Metropolis stretches back a couple of centuries, including a serial killing spree in Kansas in 1872. How much you wanna bet they eventually show up to give Jonah Hex some hell in All-Star Western? I'm up for it.

I want to say Flash Annual #1 will get me back into reading The Flash again, and I'll definitely check out Flash #13 if it upholds the promise of Rogues vs. Gorilla City, but I know that, eventually, all of these bad guys will have to exeunt with a flourish, and we'll be back to focusing on Barry Allen. Then, my eyes will glaze over and I'll forget to buy it again. It's not something I blame Manapul and Buccellato for, though. I have no idea what to suggest to them that would make Barry interesting. He's not cool in Justice League and he's not cool in his own book. He's just okay. He's not really fun, and that's what I'd prefer out of a Flash.

Hell of a way for JLI to end.

"You didn't try to understand me," the Phoenix tells him. "You only tried to master me." Sinister was never going to approach it any other way. The question now is whether or not he'll survive to try to learn from that mistake, or if he's been purged entirely. This is comics, so we have a pretty good inkling of which way that will lean.

J&J hit on all notes, with the Black action, and Hex making deals with Batman's ancestor, and even Arkham gets some hilarious potshots in on the CBers. "Perverse aberrations such as yourselves are the reason societies and religions formed - to elevate us from the fecal-smearing superstitious savagery of our murderous ancestors!" There's nothing better than a well-formed intellectual put-down like that.

All in all, Amazing Spider-Man #692 pretty cool anniversary issue - we get some pathos, some comedy, and a big, thick ol' mess that Spidey's gotten himself into and will have a hard time extracting himself from. It's what Spidey's all about. Let's hope those Marvel NOW goons don't decide to yank Slott from Spidey for the sake of a stunt.

Seriously, take the time and make the effort to get into Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye. It's priority is making the lore the most accessible it's been, without being afraid of actually using it. Plus, it's just really goddamned entertaining.

Overall, it looks like some cool adventure awaits in Godzilla: The Half Century War, and it's earned a reprieve from my previous disinclination to keep up with my favorite lizard's stories.

I was a bit disappointed to notice the indication that this is only a one shot, as National Comics' Eternity is a series I'd probably check into for a few more issues, should they ever appear. Maybe it'll circle back again after the rest of the line-up gets their turn at bat.

Batwoman feels like it's back in the saddle again - not that it was ever really off. It still feels like a breath of fresh air for the series, though, and come on - Batwoman and Wonder Woman. That's gonna be a cool team-up no matter how you slice it.

Hey, it's still sorta fun. And it's not Fear Itself. So let's enjoy what we can. We do like liking things.

It's fun. It's cool. Soy's art, again, is very hit or miss - sometimes cool, sometimes excessively murky - but it's a good time to be had here with Captain Marvel. I'm stickin' with it.

Spider-Men #4 is fun. Let's see if it can be conisistently so.

Despite it all, the crew of the Kapital still have purpose. They still have goals. They still want to make the world a better place. And more of The Massive would do just that for those of us in this particular reality.

Thanks for a great run, sir, and for perhaps the best chapter in the history of symbiote stories.

Yost has kept Scarlet Spider consistently entertaining in its completely reckless anti-heroic action. Artist Khoi Pham isn't quite original SS artist Ryan Stegman, but he's not too shabby when it comes to expressive faces. If you're not on board with this series yet, get there. The impending crossover with Venom will most likely be a wild festival of what not to do when you're trying to be a superhero.

Here's hoping that Beasts of Burden can get its on ongoing series, as it would certainly be a refreshing change from capes, and a much more palatable form for dark stories to take than we usually get in comics.

It's hard to believe something as inherently perplexing as Dial H exists within DC's New 52, but it does, and you should buy it so it will continue to exist there. It may be an acquired taste, but it's well worth the effort so far.

I have enjoyed much of Liss' work before, and I still really want to like this series, but The Spider #4 went off the rails and resorted to clichés and uninspired dialog choices, and it's very disappointing.

Much has been made of Waid's lightening up of Daredevil after the years of needing a stiff drink to cope with reading each miserably dark issue, but DD #16 shows he's not afraid of those depths, either. Samnee and Javier Rodriguez continues the generally brighter look to the series, with clean lines and crisp coloring even when dealing with pitch blackness. They just continue to craft involving stories in this book, and it's well worth all the Eisners it won.

Harvest is a dark, twisted and interesting tale. A volatile mix of life, death, drugs and powerful people doing very bad things.

The Shadow is a series that may be better read in trade form, but it's only four issues in - you shouldn't have a hard time hunting down the previous three, and I would recommend that you do.

Of course, next issue is bringing us Young Avenger Kate Bishop as a potential sidekick, so that might not stick as an idea. Then again, she's just a good archer, too. The lack of powers and lack of punisher-style gunplay could really make this a unique book. We'll just have to see how long this respectable restraint lasts.

So, sure, I've crammed a Captain Marvel review into this Avenging Spider-Man #10 review. They're so closely intertwined, though, that it feels natural, and they're both in support of Carol Danvers as the new Cap, which feels so cool that it should've been done a long time ago. The AvSM two-part tale has been a lot of breezy fun with a nice emotional twist at the end. It's good comics.

This is a great book. I recommend it to everybody.

Once again, Avengers vs. X-Men splits the difference between event-book frustration and doing something new and interesting, which means it's just cool enough to keep us reading, and not going off on endless vitriolic Fear Itself/Flashpoint rants like last year.

All-Star Western #11 is a pretty cool issue of a pretty cool book. I'm very pleased that Gray and Palmiotti seem to get free reign over the Old West of the DC universe, and it's a consistently entertaining read.

Remender always serves up intricate plots with a darkness pervading them - making one wonder if he'll have to lighten things up a little in his upcoming Uncanny Avengers - and his stories are often compelling journeys through the murkiness of moral quandaries. Matteo Scalera's art in this issue leaves some to be desired, feeling rushed in spots while excelling in others. But Secret Avengers is just cool, and promises to get cooler the more it trucks in supervillain society.

Seriously. Best Transformers comic series of all time.

But X-Treme X-Men is a horrible name for anything. Much less a comic book we really want to perform well.

There's nothing quasi about this profundity.

And that brings another 'perhaps' to mind as to why I haven't fully accepted Saga - perhaps it's just that I'm more interested in the ancillary characters than I am in the main protagonists, Marko and Alana. They're cool enough to like, but not quite enough to love. At least not yet. Vaughan has earned all the time I'm going to give him to try and change that.

And I really hope they eventually do something together that's NOT a Watchmen spinoff. I'd like to take the guilt out of this pleasure.

He's not going to be allowed to win, of course - the Avengers have to be the ones to beat them, and we already know this takes place before AvX #8. But Sinister is going to get something out of this, and I can't wait to see what that will be.

Then there's the Shazam backup story that I've been hating on quite a bit, because I strongly disagree with Geoff Johns' notion that Billy Batson was "too perfect" and that he had to turn him into a brat in order to make him compelling. At least the worst of that might be over, because he's now being a jerk to even bigger (and one-dimensional) jerks, even going so far as to protect his foster brother Freddy Freeman from harm. He's still not a character I'm rooting for yet (which is supremely sad to say), but at least the edge is off. That, plus the fact that Black Adam still seems to be the ruthless bastard we remember, with Gary Frank bringing that presence of his to bear with a dark strength, helps make this one of the better issues of Justice League in quite some time.

Darwyn Cooke is bringing his A-game. That's always something to see.

The visceral response to Bloodshot #1 might be what hooks you into the new Valiant. I think it's enough to make me stick with all the books for the near term.

Slott's reputation is that of a light-hearted storyteller, and there's been a lot of that in Amazing Spider-Man that's kept it so much fun for so long. However, he's not afraid to get into the macabre, either, and that's on full display in Amazing Spider-Man #689. It's still got the dense, entertaining writing that so characterizes him, but the wide range of themes and tones Slott can ace really makes us believe that Spider-Man is in the best hands possible, movie or no movie. The comic book has always been where it's at, anyway.

Questionable motivations and suspect contrivances make it hard to connect with the story being told, but there are much cooler things happening here than in most summer comic stunts, so we'll take what we can get.

But it still has to be the Watchmen of an alternate reality to be acceptable. This entire project would likely have been a little better received if they'd conceived it as such, rather than a straight prequel. It would have served the purpose of exploiting these characters without directly trying to change the original story. Sure, Alan Moore still would've thought it sucked, but fans could likely swallow it much more easily.

It's a good set-up, and there's hope for a good payoff, depending on what Sinister's grand plan turns out to be. I'll certainly check in for the next installment.

Anyway, aside from that and the awful incorporation of the mass murder of young girls stacked in a basement in the continued SVUing of popular culture, Batman: Earth One is a solid read, if a dark and ugly one, with interesting canonical tweaks and the potential for more to arise - with D.A. Harvey Dent and new Mayor Jessica Dent ripe for some new stories. But it's Gary Frank who makes it all work.

Thus, there are some mysteries to be revealed that may turn out to be interesting, given Robinson's talent, but He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #1 is a bit disappointing.

The New Deadwardians is a good series, with bright and clean art from I.N.J. Culbard, even if his heads seem misshapen a lot of the time. There's still something enjoyable about it. Worth a look, for sure.

The arc is pretty clear - Billy's been mistreated his whole life, so he's mistreating the world, and when he realizes he's found a home, he might open up and stop being a little piece of crap we want to see get kicked in the junk. Much like the main story, where the Justice League stopped being actively annoying now that they're origin is finished, maybe Shazam won't be so frustrating by the time this story plays out. But so far, this story just feels like it's missing the mark in service of some edict suggesting that being earnest isn't cool enough to properly market this property.

The next issue will likely be the make-or-break for me, but if you're not one to agree with anything I've said above about my reactions to Spider-Men, then go right ahead and pick this up. Bendis has long been a polarizing writer when he's handling big-time superhero shenanigans. Your mileage may vary, as they say.

Planetoid #1 is worth checking out, and chances are The Slab is going to kick things up a notch when we get to see that place.

The concepts are cool and intriguing, the art is fairly snazzy and DnA do know how to work in large-scale interstellar settings. The Hypernaturals #1 is far more approachable than any Legion of Super-Heroes book I've ever read, and it already seems to have an undercurrent of compelling drama that tends to be lacking from LSH (at least what little I've read in my attempts to get into it). These heroes aren't quite shiny and happy, but they're aspiring to it, as far as we know now. Definitely worth a look.

They're in charge of a small crew on a ship with limited resources, sailing waters that have gone from charted to uncharted very recently. In its maiden voyage, The Massive is shaping up to be a very tense ongoing story, full of desolation, mystery and danger. There are no zombies or anything supernatural involved at all, but given the tone and post-civilization setting, one could make an argument for calling this The Sailing Dead.

Nick Roche handles the art for this issue, and his style is fantastic, and so amazingly similar to the equally talented Alex Milne, Roberts' usual artist, that it's almost indistinguishable - and that's a highly impressive feat. Both of them were born to draw Transformers, and I hope they stick with it for a good long while, because Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye is the best series this fandom has ever seen. There's just SO much to see and SO much going on at all times.

Amazing Spider-Man #688, the next chapter in a stellar series of consistently great comic books. If you're not reading this book, I don't know what your problem is.

That's about all I can muster to say about it. It's just that lifeless.

If Tony Bedard is going to have Bones as a recurring character, then Blue Beetle will make its way back to my pull list. The fact that Booster Gold appears at the end, possibly to establish a new Booster/Beetle partnership like what he used to have in the Old More-Than-52 with Kord, is a hint that maybe it'll find a way to tide me over until Bones' next appearance, too. I'd rather read Bones' own title, but that's not happening, so I'll be fine with this. I do have to say that the revelation that there's apparently a TMZ for the superhero set is a horrible and smart idea at the same time. Because of course there would be, even if we hate it for smearing people we like.

Humphries is taking a risk by not giving us the full scoop of his original series, trusting we'll be intrigued enough by the drips and drabs he dishes out and the plight of Heidi that we'll keep on going. So far, it works well enough, but with Heidi being the only likable character so far, it might wear a bit thin if its stretched out too long. It's fairly commonplace for new books to give us the what-for by issue #3, and that's often the threshold new readers will give a new series before deciding whether or not they're going to stick with it, so we'll see what happens then. The first two issues, though, are fairly imaginative with a breathless sort of pace to them, dropping us at the beginning and right in the middle at the same time. Humphries gets a vote of confidence.

Overall, Remender's one of my go-to scribes in the House of Ideas these days, and while I'm sad he's leaving Venom, Secret Avengers promises to keep up the good work.

The much-ballyhooed gay wedding goes off without a hitch. Karma at least waits until after the reception has started before doing... something gross to Ol' Woofie. Having tuned in to check out the hype machine, I'm not sure if I'll continue reading this title now that the big event has happened. It's a good enough book, but aside from being the host series for a social landmark, these last two issues haven't really jazzed me, which may just be a purely aesthetic response on my part. Your mileage may vary, of course. It's a place to get something you don't really get in most other superhero comics. If you dig it, keep on digging it.

WIth Avengers vs. X-Men taking an interesting turn, Avengers Academy #32 takes a step back from lightly satirizing the entire concept and brings us a small-scale personal conflict that certainly serves to illustrate the much larger issue about the Phoenix Five being the absolute arbiters of right and wrong for the entire world. Gage has proven wonderful at this sort of thing, and as always, we look forward to the next issue.

Fantastic Four #607 is a very interesting set-up to what I hope is a revitalization of the Black Panther concepts, and thus maybe we can get a spinoff series restarted once again - hey, maybe that's even in the cards for Hickman's future plans once he leaves the FF proper. We can only hope. If anything merits Hickman's high-minded approach to storytelling, it's the legendary, ancient culture of Wakanda.

Uncanny X-Force seems to be back in the right form. It's even making us feel sympathy for Apocalypse, considering he's in altruistic teenager form being ruthlessly mocked by the other students at Wolvie's school. The dark underbelly of the X-world is where it's at.

Slott writes so densely, and so urgently that he tends to leave you a little breathless, and it's hard to imagine the goofy bits with Mysterio at the beginning are in the same issue as this grisly demise of a cult favorite character like Sable. It's possible he's got a plan to get her out of there, but since he's been building this story for years now, the last great plan of Doc Ock, it had to have a lasting effect somehow, since burning the world is apparently the Phoenix's job over in Avengers vs. X-Men. The art from Stefano Caselli is also top notch, bringing the kinetic energy of Humberto Ramos' work without the distended angles, so it may be a bit more palatable for mainstream appreciation.

I want to hate these books and be all indie-cred about it, but I can't when they're this compelling. These first two books have been really good stories on their own. As long as I keep up the mantra that this isn't a prequel, but an alternate universe where life didn't turn out quite so miserable, I can enjoy comics instead of knee-jerk hating them. With apologies to Mr. Moore, I'll just quote Abed Nadir from Community: "I guess I just like liking things."

If you like the weird stuff like MODOK and the Bi-Beast, you'll probably enjoy the heck out of Dial H.

That's another reason why Morrison tends to get to do what he wants - good or bad, he's a writer whose next move we never see coming.

And as usual, the acidic Hazmat has the best summation of the crux of the problem:

Extermination #1 has me on board for the long haul, with absolutely no reservations. It's going to be messed up and dark, but it'll be amusingly so, and black comedy is wonderful when done right.

Iffy nomenclature or not, it's a volatile mix of questionable personalities - and that's what makes Thunderbolts comics so much fun to read. This one is no exception - especially with the tagline at the end saying "Next: DEATHDEATHDEATHDEATH." Something tells me 'Toxie Doxie's going to run out of moxie.

Culbard's art is very clean even when its depicting fllth, and it's refreshing compared to so much of the muddy art we see in a lot of these stories dealing with darkness and creature mystery. Abnett's made us like and respect Suttle despite his prim standoffishness, and set up this post-zombie society in an interesting fashion. The New Deadwardians is an interesting read if you'd like a less obnoxious take on the classic undead tropes, so check it out while it lasts.

The Ravagers #1 seems to exist entirely to branch out from the Superboy/Teen Titans storyline and not really to involve new readers. It's just kinda there. Not a yay, not a nay, just a meh.