This Week's Comics - 3/28/12

First of all, my recent absence can be explained in two words: Jury Duty. It's true, Captain Elias answered the call of civic duty (under threat of punishment) and shouldered the waves of justice like an impartial frigate of...justice. It was slightly more involved then the Articles of War, yet there was less wiggle room in the actual sentencing. Regardless, it has ended, and the best way to get back into the ol' routine, is to get back into new-comic-Wednesdays. Here's your Pull List (bit long, mostly Marvel) and my Pick of the Week:



POTW: Avengers vs. X-Men Starts Here! (Kind of.)




DARK HORSE

Angel & Faith #8:  Faith takes on a challenged slayer, an "Irish mob", and the return of deadbeat drunk Daddy. Word on the street is circumstances make her go all stabby again, but I don't believe it. Would be fun though--she was kinda more interesting when she was evil.

DC
Unwritten #35.5:  This comic, aside from being more intelligent and layered and ambitious and beautiful than anything else out there, has been remarkably frequent in its issue releases. Granted, that's due mostly to the DC-favorite-play of ".1" issues, little asides in long stories meant to either draw in new readers or milk more money out of us regulars, but I'm not complaining. This issue, .5 actually, focuses on the mysterious Grid run by the cabal to monitor the fictional entity world, all told through the eyes of a low level Grid employee. Yet another Unwritten mystery we're finally getting answers to. (Impressive when you think how Carey has the series planned out till #100.)

MARVEL

Astonishing X-Men #48:  Marjorie Liu takes over the title and assembles a whole new X-team, sending them to NYC. The roster has ubiquitous characters like Wolverine and Gambit, but it's also got some recently overshadowed, often interesting, and very gay team members Karma and Northstar...which is perhaps why it's been billed as the "most controversial story of the year." Yeah, we'll see.

Avengers #24.1:  The Vision is back. And that's the REAL Vision, not the teen Vision version made out of Iron Lad's (Kang the Conqueror's) armor.  Probably.  And as the original, he's got some unfinished business with his ex-wife and his ex-father-in-law. The cover reminds me of a great old anniversary Avengers issue where Vision, recently stripped of his emotions, wanders invisible through the mansion spying on private interactions. He's always been a great POV character/narrator and I'm looking forward to this story, steeped in Avengers history.

Avengers vs. X-Men #0:  The (obligatory) pick of the week. The fun kind of starts here, though it's really just a prelude. Wanda Maximoff is back, slappin MODOK around like it was nothing (even though she doesn't have her super reality-changing Life Force powers anymore...right?)  But what does her return mean for Hope, the mutant messiah Phoenix incubator? Beats me, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Daredevil #10:  Always a treat, this week Matt Murdock continues his interaction with Mole Man. The cover alone is worth the price of admission, and the solicit saying that Matt's "cracks in the facade start to show"? Yep, that should be interesting too. (No one cracks character facades like Mark Waid.)

FF #16:  Still not my favorite, and I should stop buying it, but I like Valeria a lot, and the preview showed her disliking her future self and feeling let down by the end of the huge Doom/Forever storyline (you and me both sister.) The similarities between her and Layla Miller, what with a grown-up Valeria now in the picture, are getting a bit ridiculous. Someone make a canonical joke about it already.

New Avengers #23:  Billed as the Avengers battle of the year, but what they mean is the NEW Avengers battle of the year, which is not saying much. They fight the Dark Avengers, again, Skaar turns out to be a double agent for Captain America and helps them out, and someone maybe probably dies, again. Let's just move on to AvX, where the team gets split up/reshuffled again, and spends its time getting their butts kicked by the X-Men instead of the villain-of-the-week.

Secret Avengers #24:  Don't love this title, and not sure about it now that Hawkeye is the leader, but curious to see if the new Ant-Man actually died last issue. He was pretty lame and uninteresting, a logical kill-off character, but still it was pretty sudden and not publicized so we'll see.

Uncanny X-Force #23:  The conclusion to the Trial of Fantomex/Otherworld arc. The Captain Britain Corps is falling apart, Betsy is purple-haired and all about grand speeches with an old British syntax, Deadpool is quippy and Wolverine is feral. There's also an enemy Goat guy, I think, still, and Age of Apocalypse Nightcrawler is beginning to seem like a real part of our (their) universe. I just hope Meggan can somehow stick around with the team--crossing X-Force with Excalibur would be brilliant.

X-Men Legacy #264:  Before AvX starts, Rogue's team has to deal with some more fallout from the X-Men's recent past (though that does seem to be the New Mutants job.) Last month it was Exodus, but this month the Mimic shows up, toting Michael/Weapon Omega the schizophrenic mutant-power-eater guy, and asking for help. I expect a back-and-forth power absorption contest.

That's the list. A bit longer than usual, and over-comic-budget for sure, but after a solid week in the Jury Box, I feel like treating myself to whatever superhero comic I want to read. Have a great day.