Assault on New Olympus one-shot – Greg Pak/Fred Van Lente + Rodney Buchemi. Both plot and action heavy, this special features a recap of what happened to the old Olympus, the re-union of Herc and Cho, a cameo from the Mighty Avengers, a big Herc and Spider-Man dust-up, another reunion, this time of Herc and his wife, and the revelation of what Hera has planned for humanity. Despite how dense it is, there is a lot of amusing dialog and great character moments. Also features a brief Agents of Atlas back-up by Jeff Parker + Gabriel Hardman which is continued from the X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas mini-series and continues as back-ups in Incredible Hercules beginning with issue 138.
Astonishing X-Men #32 – Warren Ellis + Phil Jimenez. OK, this issue is less derivative of WildCATs vs. Aliens, but it's still pretty unoriginal and overly de-compressed. Seriously, the issue spans something like a 15 minute timeframe.
Black Widow: Deadly Origin #1 of 4 – Paul Cornell + Tom Raney/John Paul Leon. The drastically differing art styles of the two artists help to fully ground the flashback and current events with distinctly different tones. So far, very good.
Deadpool Team-Up #899 – Fred Van Lente + Dalibor Talajic. The first ongoing, reverse-numbered series is here, courtesy of the Merc with a Mouth. Deadpool and Hercules find themselves in a labyrinth lorded over by Arcade and Nightmare, and the boys do some male bonding while battling the voices in their head and their neglected children, respectively.
Deathlok #1 of 7 – Charlie Huston + Lan Medina. The expanded retelling of the original Deathlok's origin is off to a great start. Realistic and detailed artwork makes the callous, celebrity-enthralled future world a viscerally violent experience.
Ghost Riders: Heaven's on Fire #4 of 6 – Jason Aaron + Roland Boschi. The Ghost Rider brothers continue their infernal quest to use the Antichrist child to stop Zadkiel, the renegade angel who has stolen Heaven from God. They're aided by Daimon Hellstrom, aka the Son of Satan, and the occult terrorist Jane Cutter. They're opposed by a pair of empowered madmen that embody the insanity of the situation. Plus a lot of nuns with guns. The reprint of the second half of Ghost Rider #2 from the 70s is really the weakest part of the issue. As much as it tried, the original series never embodied the horror that it wanted to, that the new series does.
Immortal Weapons #4 of 5 – Duane Swierczynski + Khari Evans. The story of Tiger's Beautiful Daughter is the story of women warriors denied their nature and destiny until it's possibly too late. A well illustrated and written fairy tale. The continuing Iron Fist back-up by Swierczynski + Hatuey Diaz is getting batter as it pulls itself together.
Marvel Zombies: Evil Evolution one-shot – Karl Kesel + Adam DeKraker/Rob DiSalvo/Carlo Soriano/Joe Suitor. This special got the Marvel Zombies name because that's the higher profile series, but it really is a Marvel Apes versus Marvel Zombies piece. And the Marvel Apes are more of a focus than the Zombies. Maybe I'd care more about the characters the writer expects me to care about if I'd read the Apes specials, but I haven't. And that should have caused me to miss the first Apes vs. Zombies altercation in Marvel Apes: Prime Eight, but it turns out that was never actually printed as an individual special and instead was serialized online. Don't think on that too hard. This special, without the foundation for the Ape characters, is a fairly haphazard and superficial read.
Nova #31 – Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning + Andrea DiVito. In order to help his former New Warriors teammate, Nova hunts down Darkhawk, who was (somewhat) wrongfully accused of killing Empress Lilandra during the War of Kings.
Official Index to the Marvel Universe #11 – Amazing Spider-Man #436-441, vol.2 #1-36, Iron Man vol.3 #36-77, and Uncanny X-Men #413-456
Strange Tales #3 of 3 – Stan Sakai, yes, THAT Stan Sakai, creates one of the most interesting iterations of the Hulk story. Longshot gets the anime-rave treatment courtesy of Corey Lewis. Peter Bagge's Hulk tale comes to a close. Jeffrey Brown, Jay Stephens, Max Cannon, Jonathan Jay Lee, Paul Hornschemeier, and Becky Cloonan all offer their own weird little takes on Marvel characters. But Chris Chua provides the most bizarre thing I've seen in years.
X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas #2 of 2 – Jeff Parker + Carlo Pagulayan/Gabriel Hardman/Chris Samnee/Carlos Rodriguez. There's more fighting, then talking, then fighting, then talking. Hey, it's written by Jeff Parker so it's all a heaping helping of awesome. Leads into the Agents of Atlas back-up in Assault on New Olympus.
DC
Batman: The Widening Gyre #3 of 6 – Kevin Smith + Walter Flanagan. The relationship between Bruce and Silver is like all relationships between Bruce and a normal woman: the weakest part of the story. Still, the rest is fantastic enough to make up for it.
Doom Patrol #4 – Keith Giffen + Justiniano. Blackest Night hits the Doom Patrol, a team with more than its fair share of deceased members. Confronting their pasts and the failings does a lot to endear this series to me. Plus, more Metal Men fun by Giffen/DeMatteis + Maguire.
Lobo: Highway to Hell #1 of 2 – Scott Ian + Sam Kieth. A nicely violent and surreal trip into the depths of Hell with the Main Man.
IDW PUBLISHING
G.I.Joe #11 – Chuck Dixon + S L Gallant. Still progressing far too slowly, at least we're closer to the Joe leadership figuring out that Cobra does exist and is a legitimate threat.
WILDSTORM
Authority vol. 5 #16 – Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning + Drew Johnson/Mike Miller/Simon Coleby. With their powers returned, what's left of the team lays a super-sized smackdown upon Kaizen Gamorra and completely ignore the character development they've shown over the course of the series. So is it powers that make them bastards, or weakness that makes them self-reflective? With Abnett and Lanning leaving the series, we may never know.















