Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #9

I'm absolutely wild about this whole superhero-boarding-home concept Bendis is working with in the new volume of USM. It may be in opposition to his usual philosophy of treating secret identities in a realistic fashion, but it's adhering wonderfully to a much more important philosophy - the Ultimate line isn't your daddy's Marvel Universe.

I forget what number the first volume ended with, but for Bendis to be, I dunno, somewhere in the area of 130 issues into USM, and still coming up with situations that are nothing like what we've seen from Spider-Man in the past, is nothing short of astounding. In fact, that the premise does strain believability makes it even more interesting. The more hard to believe it is that people wouldn't know Peter is Spider-Man, the more Bendis can't help but drop hints that lots of people do know. Kong figured it out the second he started paying attention, pretty much everyone at SHIELD knows, I'm fairly certain that the school principal knows, and it's almost universally understood that at the very least, Spider-Man lives in that neighborhood and goes to/works at that school. It's very refreshing after the shitty way they handled his unmasking in 616, and I hope it keeps up.

Dark Wolverine #85

I know what I said last week about giving up on the X-titles, but the Romulus/Daken arc that Daniel Way's been running for the last few years, primarily in Wolverine Origins, is another sideline that I've been enjoying - enough to keep up with it, at least. While it's had its slow moments, and its redundancies, Way earned a lot of credit from me with his two awesome Bullseye miniseries a while back, and I've got to give it to him for keeping a storyline this long coherent and interesting.

No matter how well he's written, though, Wolverine the character grates on me after a while, and between this and his role in New Avengers, I'm glad that Origins is close to wrapping up. Maybe then I'll start buying Way's Deadpool again.

New Mutants #12

Like a lot of people, the X-titles were what first got me into reading comics. I finally gave up on them after Grant Morrison lost his mind, and Chuck Austen...well, was allowed to touch them at all. I try to keep an eye on them, though, and Cable and Hope's adventures in the future over the last year or two were the first extended X-storyline in several years that I liked enough to really keep up with.

The downside to enjoying that arc, of course, is that now I feel compelled to read Second Coming, which brings Hope back into the main X-universe (I enjoy adding "X" to words), where things are as ridiculous as ever.

I had a shred of hope that Swierczynski might find an interesting hook to follow post-SC, but apparently #25 is the last issue of the Cable ongoing, so I guess I'll be back to an X-less universe soon enough.

Shield #1

Nightly News and Pax Romana are two of the best comics I've read in the last few years, and while I was very excited to see what Jonathan Hickman would do with the Marvel sandbox at his disposal, he hasn't quite thrilled me yet. Fantastic Four has had its moments, but I have an inherent lack of enthusiasm for the characters - which can hardly be blamed on him, but there it is. Secret Warriors started strong, and still isn't bad, but for some reason, I just can't get into it like I'd expected.

I'm hoping that doesn't happen with Shield, because the first issue was awesome. I was already familiar with the amazing Dustin Weaver thanks to my extensive Star Wars habit, and seeing him tackle so many ancient Earthly landscapes was a treat - though I do miss him on the SW line.

The only thing that seemed weird was the use of Imhotep as the founder of the historical Shield (as opposed to SHIELD) - not that I pretend to know much about actual Egyptian history, but unlike the Renaissance men, the pharaohs have always been portrayed in popular media as dictator assholes. His scene seemed like a one-off, but I'd love to see more light shed on that period in Shield history. Though I can't help but wonder which other historical bad guys I'll be forced to take a second look at.

Joss Whedon's Avengers

So, the day before I put this strip together, it was announced that Joss Whedon, or J-Whed, as I've suddenly decided to call him, was close to locking in as director of the Avengers movie. Being moderately familiar with his style, and his Kevin-Smith-like penchant for using the same stable of actors, I figured it would be fun if he filled the team with his ass-kicking women of yesteryear. Well, the day after I put this strip together, it came out that he's attempting a rewrite of not only Avengers, but the preceding Captain America movie as well. I'm curious how Joe Johnston feels about that.

The real news, of course - only two weeks in, and HAC is already predicting the future! And here I thought developing clairvoyance took at least a couple months.

Marvel Zombies 5 #1

While it's still a shadow of what it was during Kirkman's time, Marvel Zombies seems to be recovering from the mostly forgettable Volumes 3 and 4 and focusing on all the really good stuff. As much as I loved Nextwave's take on Machine Man, MZ 3 went above and beyond when they incorporated that depiction into 616 in a way that actually made sense, and was compelling emotionally instead of being just pure zaniness. I'm excited to see where he goes from here.

Amazing Spider-Man #627

This may only be the second strip, but I think it's going to be a while before I beat this one in terms of obscure references. If you were reading Marvel back in the early '90s, you might well remember the first big tease of the Onslaught event. If not, I think this cover speaks for itself.

Onslaught is interesting to look back on after the last several years of events - instead of one big miniseries telling the real story and the ongoings serving as backup, it involved only a couple huge one-shots to set up and conclude the story, and the whole rest of it carried across the relevant ongoing series. And it went on like that all summer.

The X-titles are still doing almost the same thing with their Messiah Complex and Second Coming events, so obviously this sort of structure hasn't been entirely forgotten; I wonder why the big Marvel events (and DC events, from what I've seen) never get done that way anymore.

Siege #2-3

One of my favorite running jokes during the Bendis Avengers era has revolved around Sentry throwing things into the sun (best one: a door to the Infinite Avengers Mansion), while being annoyed at people thinking that's all he does. Well, after killing Ares, it's safe to say that he has a new thing to be known for - but where does he go from there?