Dr. Grandma is just exactly as sinister as she should be and also grills a mean cheese sammich. Victor is awake (don't tell anybody but Molly!), Molly is wonderful, Gert makes a surprising decision. Rainbow Rowell continues to invest these characters with brilliant realism and to unearth drama in the unlikeliest places. Kris Anka's art is confident on characters and makes Dr. Grandma's house look like a notably real and welcoming place. Dr. Grandma herself has the tiniest tinge of ominous foreshadowing in dialogue, plot, and art; I can't wait to see her other shoe drop. more

Nancy and Tippy-Toe get space-kidnapped thanks to last volume's Galactus shenanigans. Doreen enlists the Sorcerer Supreme to help find them, and that means a surprisingly tight connection to Donny Cates's current "Loki as SS" storyline. Ryan North doubles the usual joke content, with delightful absurdities both subtle and blatant on virtually every page. Erica Henderson's art is strong albeit stuck firmly in the distinctive USG style. Letterer Travis Lanham assists with some outstanding onomatopoeia jokes in the back of the issue; Loki's costuming spells make a "COOUUTURE!" sound while more general Sorcerer Supreme magic goes "DITKOOO." So far both the development of the plot and the general gags running alongside it are outstanding.
more

Mayor Fisk draws a police dragnet around Daredevil, but that's nothing compared to his plans for Matt Murdock. Charles Soule starts with a thrilling chase and enhances it with a host of impressive callbacks and foreshadowings. Stefano Landini does a sterling job following the rapid pace and providing impressive scenery, and his character stylings evoke a terrific Eduardo Risso vibe. It's a great story on its own, and the solid tie-ins to important characters from earlier in this volume add so much depth that this issue easily lands in all-time great territory.
more

Frank lands in Chernaya and immediately contextualizes his fight by protecting an awesome farmer from rapacious soldiers. I'm liking Guiu Villanova's art much more now; his War Machine looks better in action. Matthew Rosenberg has loaded some thought-provoking if not exactly Chomsky-deep political ideas into Frank's discussions with Vakha the farmer. The point he's aiming at is "soldiers allowed to do bad things for good reasons will eventually move on to doing them for bad reasons or no reason at all" - not the world's most inflammatory or contentious assertion. (If it seems partisan to you, you should probably dial down your political sensitivity a couple notches.) I'm more concerned with Frank's callousness, which risks crossing the boundary into outright viciousness here. But then, wobbling on that border is where the *best* stories put the Punisher. This story hasn't quite broken through to greatness, but the creators have brought us to the threshold.
more

Teen Jean versus the Phoenix is quite the epic battle, and it drives to an unexpectedly grim conclusion. The script is extremely strong and it navigates a tricky shift in tone perfectly. Alberto Alburquerque's art is strongly reminiscent of Mark Bagley's work in a positive way, but his faces veer a little into cartoony bathos when it's time to illustrate dismay and shock. All in all it's a surprising, satisfying high note for this title to build to, and we're apparently supposed to wait till after Phoenix: Resurrection to explore the aftermath.
more

While dull villain Lee Price Venomizes up Felicia Hardy's gang of c-listers, Spidey and Flash Thompson fall head-over-heels into an entertaining bromance. I have no problem with the fact Dan Slott has torched a little continuity (Spidey and Flash-Venom had an excellent rapprochement at the end of Venom: Space Knight) to maximize the Odd-Couple-ness these two can get up to right now. This event isn't shaping up into a Carmina Burana-backed Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, and that's OK. The splendid little character beats along the way justify the exercise for me. Ryan Stegman's art is both polished and dynamic, and the visuals move the story along smoothly and quickly.
more

Falcon, Patriot, and Dr. Voodoo are united and take a clear run at Blackheart. It all goes great until the shocking final moment when it really, really doesn't. This is a fight-heavy issue and Joshua Cassara puts in hard work to make the art tell most of the story. Rodney Barnes's script is excellent, dialing back the pop culture humor and stiffening the story with excellent thematic links from start to finish. It's a fun, fast read and it definitely makes #4 look unmissable.
more

As promised by the giant stone cover-letters, Cable dies. That makes this a Cable-centric issue, and rightly so. Gerry Duggan unloads a lot of wild ideas on the time-traveling mutant here, and their exciting-but-derivative nature is perfect for the highly absurd tone this story arc is aiming for. It's a very good issue but it's too feather-light to be a great one. Scott Koblish's art, which veers into Ed "Big Daddy" Roth madness at some points, also fits the "good fun but not epic greatness" quality level.
more

Dante finally starts doing stuff. Entire rest of team: "Dante, NO!" But while he's acting foolish and headstrong, Karnak's giving a lot of signs of turning downright *evil*. This is an entertaining and complex ride, but it's playing fast and loose with Inhuman lore (and Kamala's feelings) in a way that's far too likely to rustle fans' jimmies. The art is a little troublesome as well, with both Javier Garrón and Will Robson making too many contributions to the Gallery of Regrettable Faces.
more

The Orphans put magic Wolverine-killing bullets into play, so Laura and pals head to Japan to score some as-yet ill-defined anti-magic mojo off of Muramasa. Tom Taylor drops a cheap Fatality Fakeout at the end of this script which really just emphasizes how the plot is evolving by rote. Juann Cabal's art is clean and shiny and stiff. It tells the story but doesn't draw any positive attention. On the good side, Gabby is back to full force as comic relief, and in this issue Daken bestows the Bestest Codename Ever on her. more

The Leader's sinister plans for Jen and Robyn finally crystallize. They're wonderfully operatic, but his end goal remains hidden. Jahnoy Lindsay's art is growing stronger in an encouraging way. Unfortunately, just as the visuals get good, Mariko Tamaki weakens the characterization work. She gives Robyn a backstory here, and it's an utterly clichéd "bullied nerd worships a hero in all the wrong ways, becomes an easy pawn for the villain" tale. The nuts-and-bolts storytelling is done well, but take a step back and it's definitely sculpting a mountain out of a way-too-familiar molehill.
more

Present-day Maximus mindlinks with far-future Maximus and watches in horror as the Progenitor story plays out to the worst possible end. Go buy Inhumans: Judgement Day to see how the contemporary story ends! Are the Inhumans and Earth doomed? (Hint: No.) After all the wild galaxy-spanning adventures it's been on (Remember when we went to war with the Snarks for two issues? What was *that* about?), Royals closes with a dreadfully safe "Ghost of Christmas Future" scenario. Both the flowery language and the wild visuals fall into an "OK, not great" groove, and here at the end, the entire Progenitor saga looks built out of bog-standard sci-fi clichés.

Al Ewing's closing letter describes Royals (at least in part) as a "eurocomix-influenced far-future quest" and emphasizes the importance of the artists in telling this story. He thoroughly lipsticks that pig and lavishes praise on all of his collaborators, some of whom *really* do not deserve it. I already mentioned on Royals #11 that I felt artist roulette did significant damage to this title, but the point feels even more valid when the writer reveals a goal - telling a "eurocomix-influenced" story - that's more or less impossible to achieve while illustration duties are being hot-potato-ed around the Bullpen virtually at random.
more

Ben has a repetitive chat with Death, the Slingers decide to stick the Scarlet Spider on their enemies list, and Cassandra slides into the middle of the conflict just after (mostly) figuring out Ben's secret identity. The plot is sauntering casually in a cool direction, but at this pace it'll take ages to finish. André Lima Araújo is the issue's guest artist. Even though I've acquired a taste for his distinctive (or dumpy, if you're a hater) art, I believe it makes a generally poor choice for fill-in work and in this title it's an especially bad fit. more

Spooky earthquakes wreak havoc with Wakanda's vibranium, but so far only T'Challa can see the weird squid-kaiju associated with them. This is a fairly satisfying read, but it really does not do enough to clamp onto readers' attention and entice them into picking up the next issue. This is the work of an author who knows with bedrock certainty she's going to tell a six-issue story, no more, no less. The faint sparkles of promise dusted over the story so far are kind of counterbalanced by André Lima Araújo's dumpy art. While his stylized visuals are nicely polished, they convey almost none of the grandeur I want to see in depictions of King T'Challa and his kingdom. more

The Stabby Mutie Brigade is on the verge of splitting up when Warpath gets an urgent distress call: The banana republic of Santo Marco is getting into mutant cleansing in a big nasty way, and their play is backed by super-soldiers with the US flag on their face. That's right, Jerk Squad is going after Nuke, an underdog contender for Greatest Marvel Jerk Of All Time! It's a decent setup. Greg Pak's script goes after it in a by-the-numbers way. Warpath actually gets a slightly interesting role to play, but Domino is still making "let's get paid" jokes, Sabretooth prefers "let's kill suckers" jokes, and Deathstrike is superfluous yet again. Yildiray Cinar redeems the weakness of the script with some outstanding art, keeping this issue just inside the bounds of satisfying entertainment.

Robbie Thompson's attached Legacy pages are the first time anybody's implied in-panel that Stabby Mutie Brigade/Jerk Squad is actually calling itself Weapon X. On the one hand, I'd *love* to see the argument that convinced, well, any of these characters that that was a good idea. On the other hand, I know Greg Pak would soft-shoe it in his current mood, so maybe it's better we haven't seen that scene.
more

The Blue team spends 20 pages in 2099, confirming in the laziest possible way that yep, they sure are on a cross-time caper, all right. Cullen Bunn still thinks that if he stacks up enough deep cut characters, the cumulative "wow, you sure know your Marvel d-list" credit will make up for a lack of interesting story or compelling characterization. It does not. X-Men 2099 weren't all that hot in their original incarnation (gape in wonder at their 90s-tastic codenames!) and this sad revisitation does nothing of note with them. RB Silva dresses it all up in off-brand Immonen-esque visuals. Usually when I make a "this artist looks a lot like this other famous-er artist" comparison, I'm trying to be (mostly) complimentary, but in this case there's a very cold and hollow feeling to the imitation. Like Mr. Silva is grinding Mr. Bunn's script through some unholy machine called the Imm-O-Tron 5000 and collating the results without much care as to their actual storytelling value. more

Cable and company zero in on what looks like a big bad, I guess. Ed Brisson's script tells a functional story but completely fails to offer disinterested readers a reason to care about any of this Externals business. The words in this issue do nothing to stir passion, and the art is actively painful. Jon Malin has two modes: questionably competent Liefeld imitation, and definitely-not-competent rough sketches of too-small characters. Mr. Malin was allowed/encouraged, for reasons beyond comprehension, to block out most of this issue in the second mode. The result is entirely too much of "the somnolescent adventures of five color-globs that look vaguely like Cable's team and Doop," and reading it is quite a chore. more

Pak has not been good to the main cast. Domino & Sabretooth are caricatures and Lady Deathstrike is just a prop. All of these are problems throughout the series. But Domino & Sabretooth's characterization is bleh.

Going into the caricature I mentioned with Domino. The entire opening scene, she's obsessing about money and brings up robbing banks three times to get some. Since when is Neena a common bank robber? Warpath gets a distressed message from an acquaintance in Santo Marco, which sets up their next mission. With that, Domino is excited because Santo Marco has a bank that's notorious for drug money they could get. Neena has been reduced to a money-fetish.

Next is Sabretooth. In this chapter, Creed complains the team is boring because all they wanna do is hunt monsters and not kill them. Since AXIS, Sabretooth has been a good guy. But Pak just made him evil again. Creed is also an assassin, criminal mastermind, hunting & stealth expert, in addition to being a former CIA operative with numerous years of combat training. He's also shown to be able to work on a team and cooperate with others if need be. But Pak ignores all of that and just has Creed around to cause trouble, be hard-headed, and act stupid. This chapter shows it once again. Sabretooth is nothing but an idiot. When they get to Santo Marco, he doesn't listen to anybody & just goes off half-cocked. He charges right into a building of enemy soldiers, runs right into traps, and gets torn a new ass. Numerous strikes for Pak on making Sabretooth into a dumb brute.

Pak didn't seem to know or care about these characters before he started writing them. In addition to how contradictory he is with Warpath's random powers based on whatever the plot needs. Pak hasn't done any of these characters justice. more

Squirrel Girl continues to impress me. I had become irritated with the patterns in the writing, such as the same types of jokes over and over again. But lately, it's been better. I hope it continues to be.

Dr. Strange explains the Exile of Singhsoon, but there are still tons of mysteries on the table. There's also plenty of heart and heartbreak; this is a mighty eventful comic. Let us not overlook, between the "OMG the dog" and "OMG Stephen's ally" shockers, there's also a huge "OMG Stephen did *what* to Zelma?!" surprise. Not only does Donny Cates double up on twists, he also packs the spaces around them with plenty of lovely characterization. Gabriel Hernandez Walta's art sells the emotions and the action perfectly; this is every inch an A-list comic.
more

Black Bolt's return to Earth starts with a New Attilan episode, complete with misunderstanding brawl. It's written and illustrated beautifully, but it's largely another connective episode. It was about to slide down to "good, not great" in my mind, and then we got a firecracker of an emotional scene with Black Bolt and Ahura. It's heartwarming but wonderfully nuanced and it's a firm reminder that these are great creators telling a remarkable story.
more

Cap's quiet heartland tour gets noisied up when an upstart legacy Swordsman catches wind of him and he has to fight to save Sauga River, Georgia. It's a fine straightforward fight in Chris Samnee's best style, and Mark Waid invests the script with wholesome "aw shucks" charm. Simple, but more powerful for it.

The Counter-Earth adventure ends with an emotional hammerblow. It's schmaltzy and foreshadowed and set up oh so obviously, but it *still* lands in the heart as though shot there by Hawkeye. This feels a lot like that point in Hickman's Fantastic Four when … well, you'll know when you hit it. Being illustrated in true tour-de-force fashion by Jesús Saiz certainly helps sell the climax, even if his Human Viv is undercut slightly by looking significantly different than previous artists' renditions. The visuals are quite simply stellar throughout, selling both wham-bam action and highly emotional conversations with equal skill.
more

Kate's Momquest takes a backseat to dealing with the lady who's out for Clint's blood. Kelly Thompson has elected to get some extra mileage out of the Hawkeye Legacy one-shot by recycling her new villain from it. While the imposition gets slightly cheesy at the end (the Secret Empire connection is gilding the lily), overall it works awfully well. Kate and Clint have a seamless chemistry and treat each other as true equals. Leonardo Romero's art is in top form, and he clearly went the extra mile to make the Graumann's Chinese Theater showdown look great.
more

Gwen's attempt to kill Dr. Doom fails, of course. If she had paid closer attention, she would seen this problem coming three issues ago when her evil future self was unable to kill Spider-Man. It's an entertaining fight, though, and it segues smoothly into an interesting meta-moral discussion with the Infamous Iron Doom. I think Christopher Hastings's script stopped a bit short of sticking the landing. Irene Strychalski's art is also short of its maximum potential; her designs for both versions of Doom and for Gwen unmasked all look a little off.
more

Xavier turns the tables on the Shadow King and things start looking better for our heroes - but why is this victory less than complete? And that there at the end, can that really be … ? A fascinating plot unfolds like a flower, and Mike del Mundo's art makes it look a very pretty blossom. There's an undeniable bit of clinical detachment and distance from the characters that holds this issue off of all-time greatness, though. It's A Thing That's Happening and it's surely impressive, but there's no real feeling that it's all that Important to the people it's happening to. That's despite the definitely sky-high stakes involved in the conflict. This is a blast to read but probably not destined for later recall.
more

Venom is literally torn between Eddie Brock and Flash Thompson, starting a satisfying conflict that I've been wanting to see since the end of Venom: Space Knight. The roles for Spidey and lower-billed guest stars are still a little opaque, but this kickoff gives the story a promising start. I respect the quality of Ryan Stegman's art here. I can see that he's tweaking his personal style to line up with Gerardo Sandoval, who'll be illustrating the other half of the crossover. While Mr. Sandoval isn't one of my favorites, the effort Mr. Stegman makes to meet him halfway is impressive.
more

Drax finishes the last first-tier Nova Corps quest and the Guardians don't quite hit the road to go find the next quest-giver NPC. There's quality plot development and good character work, but the Nova Corps storyline feels like an anchor in a negative way. Marcus To's art is a lot like Gerry Duggan's script - packed with real talent, but moving just a touch too fast to drill down and do something truly remarkable.
more

Black Bolt gets his first real opportunity for heroism and kingly sagacity as he leads his family against Elisha. The story as a whole has been very entertaining, but some characters were under-utilized (Crystal, Bentley Wittman) and some (Gorgon!) were completely superfluous. Also, the resolution relies on a nested double example of "my plan hinges on hard-to-visualize hacking so I'm just going to shout about it during a fistfight" that rubs me the wrong way. Phil Noto's art is gorgeous to the end though, and I finish the story *almost* as enthusiastic about the idea of more "Inhuman Babies" adventures as Christopher Priest wants me to be.
more

The Iron Spider draws his Sinister Six closer to prime-time, Miles beats on the Armadillo with weird new powers, and the Bombshells angle toward a showdown. It's a mighty eventful script by Brian Michael Bendis's standards, but it also features lots of indulgent examples of his cutesiest "let's all talk over each other in tiny sentence fragments, that's *super* realistic" dialogue. Oscar Bazaldua's art is dropping some points, too. He's excellent with layouts and high-tech stuff, but the lack of detail he provides on human characters is rough. The issue ends up slightly above average for me thanks to the novelty of the story being told, but the style of the telling leaves so much room for improvement. more