I have tossed around what rating to give this issue" if I had guts I'd give it a 5, based on the level to which I enjoyed it (that is, thinking seriously about dropping it from my standing order at the comic shop). On the other hand, it's written well enough to deserve something more like a 7, pretty much any Jeff Lemire book is going to be a well-crafted, thoughtful read. But there are too many other books that I've been rating at 7 that make it to the top of my read pile well before this one. And I didn't like the art either.

In summary, Avengers #21 is, in my view, likely to be somewhat successful in having an effect upon its readers. The middle parts of events are often the hardest to keep the readers turning the pages over, and without being spectacular, this issue is probably going to propel those who have been following so far to pick up the final instalments. Can New Avengers over in the diamond-boxed corner top it? Stay tuned.

Other than that though, this issue does not move the overall storyline along that much. Tony's ex-partner and nemesis, Mason Savoy, returns in intriguing fashion, and we get some tentative signs that Tony and his brother Chow might be prepared to one day bury the hatchet. Guillory's art is as full of expression as usual; at this point in the series you pretty much know what he's going to (ahem) serve up each issue. With Chew being closer to its end than its start new readers wanting to jump straight onto the monthly books have probably missed the boat by now, but they would be well advised to go check out the available trade paperbacks to get themselves up to speed on one of Image's better series. Chew is its own idiosyncratic pleasure, easy on the gullet, but with enough richness to keep you coming back for more.

Along with Casanova, Matt Fraction's Hawkeye is his best work to date, giving him free rein to try out his 'too cool for school' ideas, some of which fall flat, but many of which work brilliantly. Like Mark Waid's similarly exuberant and scaled-down Daredevilit is hard to know when the novelty and charm might wear off. At the moment though, while I always like seeing the interaction between Clint and Kate, separating them has helped keep the title from getting stale too quickly. Hawkeyeis certainly self-consciously hip, and its use of pop history in this issue (such as name-dropping the sixties LA band Love) continues in that vein. However, in a superhero milieu of ret-cons, rehashes, and every '70s superhero joining the Avengers, it is refreshing to have a series that wants to forge its own path forward.

Where often event-based books are hollow at their core, this one suggests layers. The Infinity Gauntlet in particular often descended into mere sound and fury; I cannot see Infinity falling into the same trap of mistaking pretentiousness for meaning. In part, this is because as I have suggested above, finding meaning is not Infinity's intent, it cares not a jot whether you are inspired by it, only that you are interested enough to find out what happens next. Those teaser movie credits began the third age of Thanos, and Infinity is the promise of those credits writ large.

When I reviewed Infinity #1, I compared it to Jim Starlin's aforementioned Warlockseries, about which I said that the plots were not always resolved in a logical fashion, but that mattered less than the mood and philosophizing. Infinitywas certainly not devoid of these traits, but it followed the more standard Marvel event-oriented route—one can't as easily imagine college kids freaking out to lines like 'We gather the proper tools necessary" and we build'. Even the scene echoing the ending of that Warlockseries seems more staid and less chilling than it did in Starlin's magnum opus. On the other hand, unlike that series, where it felt like the threat had passed at story's end, here it seems as if the stakes are just being raised further. The Avengers seemed to move further and further away from their roots during Infinity—let's hope that the title Inhumanitydoes not mean that the Avengers' own humanity recedes further from view.

Whether it makes a big deal of it or not, Mighty Avengers is breaking at least a little ground by having the first Avengers line-up where the majority of members are not 'white'. Historically, it's a minor landmark in that sense, though like Brian Wood's 'all-female' X-Men it knows that it is the strength of the characters themselves that will determine the long-term success of the series, rather than their demographics. Still, to see Luke and Monica leading their team into battle is to wonder why no-one has ever thought of doing an Avengers title like this before. Could this be what the Avengers look like going forward? Well maybe so, you never know. And hey, why not?

After Moore's story, the rest of this issue is filled out with various background materials about the Marvelman/Miracleman character, and a couple of 1954 tales. Frankly, I did little more than glance over them, and probably so will you (sorry, Mick Anglo). It is the Moore stories, and after that the Neil Gaiman stories, that people have been clamoring for. Nearly anyone who comes to this book will know that there were 'legal troubles' that have kept it out of print, and restricted its readership. Many of those who have read it though would rank it alongside the very best superhero comics, such as The Dark Knight Returns, Born Again, and Watchmen. Now that it has become available to a wide audience again, many others may rank it up there too.

So, who then is our victor? Neither issue will likely be remembered as an Avengers classic, and Infinity overall is turning out to be a solid crossover epic rather than a spectacular one. But it still feels like the main action is going on over in Avengers. It's Avengers #21 by a solitary point.

As its own title suggests, Saga has a lot of elements that readers have seen before, in one form or another. Alana and Marko are the latest in a long line of versions of Romeo and Juliet, while sci-fi is littered with wars, princes, and bounty hunters. But even if we have seen these types of characters and stories many times before, we haven't seen these particular characters before, and we haven't seen this particular story. Vaughan and Staples have done a fantastic job to date in making that point matter, and making their readership invested in how events for this particular group work out. Message-wise, it is not as ambitious as Vaughan's Ex Machina, or even Y: The Last Man. But Saga is no lightweight"instead it is a great reminder that, under the right craftspeople, one family's story can seem every bit as important as the fate of an entire world.

The Manhattan Projects is now entering the period beyond the point where its initial shock and novelty (an issue faced by most comicbook series incidentally—I call it the ‘Twelve Issue Theory') will start to hold less currency with a readership faced with more choices than ever. Hickman seems unlikely to run out of ideas—witness his faintly ridiculous ‘End Prelude' pronouncement following his seventeenth issue of ‘Avengers' this past week—but the pace at which he trots them out is going to be crucial over the next year in determining whether readers will stick with this series for the long haul. At present, there seems to be enough deliciously evil happenings coming up soon to keep the audience glued to this lovingly-designed multi-car pile-up of a story. Science bad? You bet, but also still so very, very good.

Both the final passage of this issue's story and the letters page profess that things have just begun for this era of Thor tales. If that is so, then these first eleven issues have been a promising start. Other Marvel NOW! titles have tended to mainly rearrange the pieces (the original X-Men team in the present day, Captain America in another dimension, Hulk as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, more mutants joining the Avengers) but Thor: God of Thunder has arguably significantly shifted the foundation of the series. The Gorr storyline is over now, but the approach that Aaron, Ribic and Svorcina have established should hold the series in good stead. Just as long as they keep a writer with an epic beard on board…

Readers new to Marvel comics (if there are any) must find this hopelessly impenetrable. This is not comics looking for new frontiers, this is comics crawling through its last days, carrying on when all the good stories have been told, a joyless kind of ‘post-comics'. Marvel Comics can go about proclaiming its NOW!-ness all it wants, it will eat itself if it goes on like this, and while it's both unfair and overblown to lay the blame primarily at Remender's doorstep, you have to wonder what the long-term strategy of this approach is. Long-time readers might appreciate the clever character moments in this issue, but what element of this title is going to appeal to other audiences? Remender's meanderings might work with a ‘pretty drawing' artist like Cassaday, and Acuña's style might work with a more straightforward or original writer. For now though this title is on a fast path to becoming an endnote to the Marvel Age.

Should DC's premier female character have more prominence in her title? Maybe, but it is more important that she has good stories written about her, and Azzarello and Chiang have made readers interested in Wonder Woman that have not been interested in the character for years (or ever). It is the dark reflection of the post-Crisis George Perez reboot of the Amazonian princess, and for the most part it works well. Although next month, Azzarello might have one of his overly subtle issues and I may go back to being utterly confused by it all again. At least the art always looks cool.