The Black Widow blasts into an action-heavy start to her latest arc, clobbering a horde of super-powered goons in pursuit of her mysterious new antagonist, Apogee. To relieve the action, this issue also establishes longer-term mysteries and introduces a compelling new supporting character: A young pickpocket who tries to lift Natasha's wallet. The pickpocket is elegantly stitched into the action story by the end of the issue; that delivers one nice payoff while leaving a lot of mysteries on the table. The art is solid and continues to echo the groundbreaking work of Elena Casagrande; the script is even better than the visuals, landing right next door to perfect. more

A check-in with Odin points Bill in a new direction, and he's now capably stocked with sidekicks -- Skurge and Pip the Troll. It's a straightforward quest plot and I have some qualms about the characterization (The characters seem to prioritize "make Bill pretty again" too highly). But the art is still fantastic in a scruffy back-alley way, and there's still a powerful empathic connection to the protagonist. Maybe not the most momentous read, but tons of fun. more

MODOK survives a potentially-deadly reunion with his dad -- survives and, indeed, triumphs. This issue finishes off the series' impressive segue from all-out wackiness to heartfelt character study. (It does require one critical moment of sitcom shenaniganry to put MODOK on top, though.) The art is formidable and the script shows that the authors are more than capable of thriving beyond just jumping from joke to joke. All that, and it even stitches the MODOK cartoon characters into 616 continuity at the perfect level -- future writers are free to use or ignore them as they like. more

Miles gets fully stuck into his personal Clone Saga. He gets only a little Peter Parker support at the start (and has to fight a misunderstanding brawl first); by the end, he's on his own. This issue holds to the volume's standard formula: Solid but safe plotting, lifted up by a deeply realistic and empathic portrayal of the protagonist. The B strip is a cute idea with VERY cute art, but the dialogue serves mainly as a reminder that writing good Gen Z dialogue is a lot harder than Saladin Ahmed makes it look. more

Xi'an and Dani bring their Otherworld rescue mission to a (slightly) surprising conclusion. The Shadow King's lost children move forward in their mind-swapping shenanigans in ways that are both heartwarming and ominous. I really like the way this title's plot threads are developing, and the character work is terrific. My antipathy to the art just gets stronger, though; I'm convinced Rod Reis is putting style over substance and -- though the results look pretty in a "discount Sienkiewicz" way -- it's ultimately hurting the storytelling. more

A grab-bag of interesting scenes across decades of Marvel continuity start to sketch out the first hints of an epic story. Sin-Cong and the supernatural feature strongly, and the whole thing feels timey-wimey. I trust Kurt Busiek (perhaps too much), I like the art, and I feel some of the scenes are terrific. The thread connecting them is currently invisible, though. This is a lot of sizzle and very little steak -- but I'm betting it will make a lot more sense in hindsight. more

Kid Cable starts talking to his elders about his Stryfe problem; neither Emma nor Scott is enthusiastic about his "Back to the Future" solution. The Scott conversation is livened up by happening during a bar-fight with some Arakkii mutants. The combination is done well -- but it's also done obviously, a bit of artifice to keep the issue from being entirely talk. I love the art; this is my favorite of Phil Noto's styles. This is a good issue, but it's still a decompressed one with a shortage of plot development. more

Walker clobbers his way to a technical win, with convenient exposition throughout the fight justifying (most of) the characters' actions in the series. Even at the climax, we have to contend with a non-chronological "play-rewind-play" scene structure. I think the author did a commendable job tying up all the plot threads, and the structure, while complex, is well-crafted. The language suffers, though; this issue has some *rough* dialogue. Visually, it all looks decent -- and maintaining a clear narrative flow through a script like this is a tough job for an artist. Georges Jeanty does it well. more

Ben and Reed go on a brief dimension-hop together, but they still have time to join in on the incremental character work that the whole cast is doing this month. Secrets are revealed, future twists are foreshadowed, and quality developments … develop. It's well-drawn and well-written. And somehow I can't bring myself to care about any of it. Some of these latest revelations should land like gut-punches, but they feel like mouse farts to me. more

Ship turns against X-Factor as its mysterious origin suddenly comes into play. Apocalypse watches and sends a freshly-upgraded robo-Hodge to further bedevil the team. The retro storytelling sure is retro -- to a degree I found annoying. But it succeeded in sparking my interest in the Ship mystery, so I've got something to look forward to in the next issue. The character portrayals were solid, too -- a little more so in the words than the art. more

Silk fights the demon-cat from the last issue and, though she doesn't know it yet, Cindy Moon is under attack from another direction. The art's good verging on great. The dialogue is (mostly) good. But oh, that plot and pacing! This issue does very little beyond confirming the suspicions established in #1. And while I like cute/funny stuff in my comics, I like it integrated into the story. Putting the plot on hold to do cute/funny is no good.
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Motivational chats with Curt Connors and Spider-Man convince Ted Sallis/Man-Thing to take some action. Unfortunately, doing so involves a very hinky magical retcon of the character's origin; I don't like that. Meanwhile, the Avengers and the Order of the Web are clobbering bugs all over New York and trying (unsuccessfully) to seem relevant. There's the germ of a workable story in here -- setting aside the retcon issue -- but the storytelling, in words and art, is terribly weak. This is the sort of bottom-shelf execution you'd expect from an out-of-continuity MCU cash-in comic. more

Nightcrawler grapples with the morals of Krakoa, with a comedic slice of Mad Science (from Dr. Nemesis) and a tense psychic mystery (from new Krakoan boogeyman The Patchwork Man) livening up the theology. It's well-written and well-drawn, and the ideas the author wants to talk about are fantastically interesting. Solid characterization, particularly on Kurt, helps ground the Big Thoughts and turn what might be a dry, expositional thought experiment into a compelling personal story.

Like a lot of readers, I've been hungering for this book since the end of Hickman's original Dox/Hox miniseries. The moral and ethical problems of Krakoa's new status quo were so immediately obvious, they demanded exploration. This issue is a whip-smart start to that exploration, and I'll be following the series on tenterhooks to see where the author goes. more

When this comic says, "Karnilla has kidnapped some babies," -- without further explanation -- it splits the readership into two groups. One group will lean forward with twinkling eyes and say, "Does that mean … Is she going to … are they gonna be …" And the other group will say, "So? How many @#$% books am I gonna have to buy before they explain that?" My condolences to the second group, because I think those of us in the first group are going to have a blast with this title. more

Back in her classic costume, Jess leaps eagerly into fighting some street-level bank robbers with an identity gimmick (they're conquistadors) that should just about support a small arc. Simultaneously, though, she ignores Roger at what turns out to be the worst possible time to do so. It's standard-issue Spider-Book content, straight out of the 70s, really: meet some potentially-memorable villains + Soap Opera Relationship Trouble. The execution is outstanding, though, particularly in the art.
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Captain Marvel decides that she has to master magic in order to stop Ove from bringing about the apocalyptic future she's visited. Dr. Strange is not half as helpful as she hopes, so she turns to more questionable instructors. It's packed with all the usual wit and sass, but the plot gives me pause. There are big gaps in Carol's logic, and there are some very reasonable solutions that never come up. I feel the author's hand is a little heavy here, railroading the protagonist down her preferred storyline. On the plus side, new artist Jacopo Camagni won me over with his ability to wring great emotion out of minimalist faces -- though I wouldn't mind a little more detail on costumes and characters. more

I fear we've already reached the point of diminishing returns when it comes to plot complications.

Fabian Cortez gets his "let's not worry about murdering humans" day in court, and it's about as farcical as it should be. Meanwhile, Abigail Brand is engaging in some morally-shady sci-fi realpolitik -- and SWORD's bonkers pan-dimensional "Mysterium" harvesting is about to get explained. Exciting days! The script delivers plenty of material and the dialogue has some real cracking lines. The art, though … it's not bad, it just doesn't land as heavily as it could. My reaction to several panels was, "this would be the perfect place for some impressive art" rather than actually being impressed.

(Plus, per the title, this issue is trying to do a film-snobby thing and evoke a specific movie genre that requires striking visuals, and they're mostly MIA.)
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Spidey struggles to stay relevant as three plotlines develop with minimal involvement from him. Robbie and Tombstone team up to save their kids, Fred goes after the last Lifeline fragment on his own, and Mordo (at Fisk's direction) starts to wake up Kindred. These stories are progressing in interesting ways, but they're conveyed with underwhelming words and art here.

It seems to be a waste to use Nick Spencer on anything Spidey-related other than "Superior Foes." He's practically turned ASM into that, which is a real Catch-22. Hooray, more Superior Foes! But boo, we want real ASM!
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The first two strips are extremely strong, the third lets the issue down hard. That one is just John Carpenter's The Thing with Carnage embarrassingly pasted over the film's monster. I don't even *like* Carnage and I feel like that does him dirty.

The Champions struggle to overcome internal conflict and an ambiguous legal situation. Roxxon, their antagonists du jour, are much more on the ball, rolling out a youth-oriented social media propaganda campaign with plenty of sinister foreshadowing. This issue kicks off with a promising fight scene, but then it just takes repetitive swings at setting up the conflict. The heroes' characterization fits with what's been previously established, at least -- these are still the Champions I love. But again, there's a circularity problem there: The other heroes get shorted by the excessive attention spent on Riri's (admittedly valid) frustrations.

Also, I already suspect that this arc is just a retread of the Roxxon arc from Immortal Hulk, clumsily dumbed down in a way that risks alienating its younger target audience. more

After King in Black, the Avengers have a busy "day off" during which the Vampire Nation and Echo Phoenix plots get nudged forward. I found two genuinely great developments here: Plotwise, I liked T'Challa and Blade's solution to their Dracula problem; on the character front, I loved Robbie stepping up when Maya needs a friend. And the art was pretty good. But as usual for this title, there was also a cavalcade of weaknesses to tip the scale away from greatness. Very few of the jokes worked for me, there was *way* too much Robbie narration, and the promising "time works differently in Avengers Mountain" idea came in dead on arrival. more

Shin and Kiki rescue OG Ultraman Dan Moroboshi from anti-USP terrorists. So far the plot is developing with laborious slowness and not a lot of ingenuity. But on the plus side, both the dialogue and the art succeed in making the main characters sympathetic and endearing. I want to follow them into more adventures, even if those adventures continue to be a little dumb/silly/slow.

I don't know whether this not-so-fresh take on Arthurian mythology is objectively a little dull or subjectively super-dull -- either way, I was not loving this read. It doesn't help that the otherwise-promising characters are all forced to speak in one undifferentiated, super-snarky voice. That's an affliction I like to call "Matthew-Rosenberg-itis," and I hope the cast gets over it soon.

I, too, was dismayed with the art. In the previous issue, the same artist achieved at least satisfactory results by aiming to imitate series regular Joshua Cassara. Here he aims at Bill Sienkiewicz and the results are abysmal. The plot and character work, I thought, were reasonable if not particularly insightful. This issue had the potential to be good. The script is also letting the ideas down, but at least not to the extent that the art is.

This "guest star" turn for Jean Grey is a pretty big disappointment. Soft sass and big mom vibes, blah. (At least Quire called her out on the former.) She seems consistently under-utilized in the Hickman era, doesn't she?
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It's exactly what it looks like, a big anthology of little strips featuring female leads and female creators. Nothing is particularly great, but nothing is particularly terrible -- except perhaps Mariko Tamaki's one-page strips, which deliver the "Cathy Guisewite meets Marvel" jokes that nobody on Earth was asking for. Also, I detect a little less character love than usual for an anthology. It's easy to believe creators and characters were matched by editorial fiat rather than personal preference.

(Also, great job going one-for-five on "cover characters who actually appear in the comic".)
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While Matt fields a prison assassination attempt, Elektra-Devil contends with Izzy Libris for control of the Kitchen. And Wilson Fisk has schemes of his own. The plot developments are well-executed if just a touch decompressed. The character work is solid if not ground-breaking. And the visuals, as usual, are a treasure. This issue falls into this title's usual sky-high groove: It's great, but past performance reminds us that this creative team can do even great-er.
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The Power Pack defeats the Wizard with some basic trickery. It's wrapped up in absolutely adorable details, though, so that's a big win. The art still looks simple and great, and the author flexes a little by rotating through all four kids' viewpoints without missing a beat. A fully satisfying conclusion to an airy confection of a miniseries -- there's absolutely nothing wrong with simplicity when it's executed so skillfully. more

The Cat launches her great heist: the burgling of the Thieves' Guild's extradimensional vault. Except, as the Fox frustratingly reveals, that was never the plan at all. Although I eagerly devoured the twisty plot developments, they came with a little twinge of disappointment. The Fox's motivations and his plan turn out to be mundane and melodramatic. He also has to do a lot of exposition to explain them, but that's excused by two factors. First, it's all character-based information, and second, it's just as novel and important to Felicia as it is to us readers. more

The kids have to go a second round with Hell's Belles in a prison break scenario instead of going to a Dazzler concert like they wanted. The art's gorgeous. There's a lot of prose, but almost all of it is delightful. The main plot isn't moving forward, but we're learning tons about the characters and I for one love it. It seems likely we're going to rotate through each team member as the PoV character in the first five issues. It's a bold strategic choice -- and it might end up hurting the title if the author can't get the plot moving. more