Ah, solicits. No need for me to rush addressing you. You'll still be far away in a week's time. But I'm feeling nice and you've been ever so kind as to include another cover for Nomad: Girl Without A World, my precious obsession.
With that in mind let's dive into the best and worst solicits released by Marvel for October 2009!
MARVEL
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #608-610
What's In It?: “WHO WAS BEN REILLY?”, an arc that focuses on Raptor (a new character who thinks Ben Reilly killed his family) trying to get revenge on the Scarlet Spider. Except the only lead he has is his perfect lookalike PETER PARKER.
Will It Be Good?: Marc Guggenheim is on it, so I have a decent amount of faith in it. However the lead-in annual was a pile of arse. Ben Reilly was best left as an infamous part of Marvel's history.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS: ANTI-VENOM - NEW WAYS TO LIVE #2 (OF 3)
What's In It?: Anti-Venom, perhaps the best symbiotic-thingy outside of Toxin doing that typical "anti-hero waging one-man war against those who have sinned" and such. Difference is this is awesome and fresh just for being Anti-Venom! Oh and The Punisher drops in because he is also an anti-hero and we can't just have a tiny three issue mini focus on the main character and developing him. No that would be TOO WISE!
Will It Be Good?: Yes. Look at the SIZE of that title! The ridiculous nature of that alone guarantees awesomeness! Oh and Zeb Wells, a writer I'm growing more fond of with each issue of New Mutants.
ASTONISHING X-MEN #31
What's In It?: A new arc by Warren Ellis! Agent Brand in a sticky situation involving exploding asteroids and hurtling towards earth! Of course this has to involve the X-Men at some point else Ms. Brand would have taken over the comic long ago. As such they are called into action to help her. Nice.
Will It Be Good?: Warren Ellis rarely lets me down. Even when he completely changed a classic series like Thunderbolts it worked out okay. As such this SHOULD be good. That and Armour on the cover (another of my many 'favourite X-Men') means we'll have one solid element.
BLACK PANTHER #9
What's In It?: More of the most innovative reinvention of the Black Panther since... Well.. Ever I suppose. "POWER" part 3 takes the new Black Panther and puts her up against a super-villain I've never heard of called Predator. I thought it'd be a weird alien who fights aliens or a mutant eating monster, but apparently it's a woman with a whip or something. Whatever. Oh and T'challa is still there on some sort of journey. So he's alive still I think.
Will It Be Good?: Probably. Maberry (the writer) is fresh to the series with this arc and I have no experience of the writer. However this new Black Panther has been consistently good from the get-go so we can assume that Marvel have been careful to uphold such quality.
CABLE #19
What Is It?: “QUEEN CAPTURES BISHOP” Blah Blah Bishop Blah Blah Hates Hope, Blah Blah Cable, Blah Blah NUCLEAR BOMB?! Bishop now has a bomb in his arm so he can kill himself to kill Hope. Man, dude's serious. But then he's pretty sure he's a good guy. Heck at least if he kills Cable (another mutant I like) this horrid series will end. Oh and THE BROOD QUEEN! I was pretty sure all the brood died out when No-Name of World War Hulk fame died. Fuck it I don't care.
Will It Be Good?: NO. Unless Gabriel Guzman is a fucking AMAZING artist this will be a poorly written story with no redeeming features. Swierczynski killed Immortal Iron Fist and now he's driving his OWN SHITTY SERIES INTO THE GROUND!
I checked, he's a pretty good artist. It might be readable.
DARK AVENGERS: ARES #1 (OF 3)
What Is It?: A mini about Ares training agents of HAMMER by Kieron Gillen and drawn by Cary Nord. There might be more to it than that but fuck it that's close enough.
Will It Be Good?: Possibly. Gillen did good work on Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter (kinda) and Nord impressed the shit out of me with Secret Invasion: X-Men, so I'm quietly optimistic about them both handling one of the easiest characters to write in the entire Marvel U.
DARK REIGN: THE LIST: SECRET WARRIORS, PUNISHER, HULK & WOLVERINE
What Are They?: The List is Marvel's answer to "Will Dark Reign ever end?!", supplying a series of interconnected one-shots where in Norman Osborn will try and deal with something related to the Titular characters. So Secret Warriors is taking down Nick Fury, Punisher is taking down the Punisher, Hulk features him trying to deal with... Skaar I THINK, it isn't clear and Wolverine has him dealing with Weapon Plus. Well, wanting to control it. WHICH MEANS WE GET MORE FANTOMEX! WOO!
Will They Be Good?: Yes, No, Yes and Maybe respectively. The Punisher's crusade against Osborn has been bland and that won't change. Everything else however is pretty awesome, between staff and plot. Wolverine is the closest to a guarantee from me, followed by Hulk (unless RULK pays a visit).
DEADPOOL #900
What Is It?: A lie. A brilliant and hilarious lie just to take a jab at some DC comic reaching issue 900 soon. 104 pages, so on so forth.
Will It Be Good?: Probably not. Deadpool isn't funny anymore. In fact he's only really been hilarious when alongside Cable in their combined series Cable & Deadpool. However we have Van Lente lending his talent to proceedings. Oh and our favourite 'not a homophobe' Rob Liefeld (I jest, I jest. He's probably not a homophobe). Expect weird stuff. BUTT STUFF. Ya know... 'cause he can't draw bums without them being large and overly accentuated... Ah sorry that was crap.
DOCTOR VOODOO: AVENGER OF THE SUPERNATURAL #1
What Is It?: Okay, I know that Brother Voodoo is a psychologist, so switching to Doctor Voodoo is fine, but why change it just because he's sorcerer supreme now? Seems kinda weird. Ah well at least we won't have Bendis dicking around with how he should be. So we have Rick Remender telling us a story all about how Jericho Drumm is spending his time as sorcerer supreme. Which is nice. Not enough known yet, let alone who's drawing it.
Will It Be Good?: Come back after SDCC when I know more. I'll get it for the first issue anyway because I know very little about the magic side of Marvel (save Avalon and Captain Britain).
SPIDER-MAN 1602 #1 (OF 5)
What Is It?: Jeff Parker handing us the final 1602 series, this time focusing on one of the better characters from the saga SPIDER-MAN! Norman Osbourne has been treacherous and sent Spider-Man back to Europe or something. I've only read the original series.
Will It Be Good?: I don't know. 1602 was brilliant but without a knowledge of the non-Gaiman spin-offs I can't be sure. Still this is the brilliant Jeff Parker we're talking about so it should be more than acceptable.
SPIDER-WOMAN #2
What Is It?: Comic version of the upcoming Motion Comic. Spider-Woman works for SWORD now and is off to Madripoor. Bendis writing, Maleev on art duties.
Will It Be Good?: Bendis writing says no, Maleev drawing says yes... I'll read the first issue when it comes out I GUESS.
WEB OF SPIDER-MAN #1
What Is It?: Another Spider-Man series which seems to just tie itself up in events happening in Amazing Spider-Man. Features Kaine (a clone guy. Fuck it) and mentions Kraven in the solicit. Kraven is awesome, so let's pretend this could be too.
Will It Be Good?: Kraven appearing in flashback form would be nice. Unless it's Kraven 2 or 3. Still 48 pages is nice. So I'm going to say... Maybe?
X-BABIES #1 (OF 4)
I'm not touching this. But aren't little Shugah and ShadowKitty adorable?
X-MEN VS. AGENTS OF ATLAS #1 (of 2)
What Is It?: Looks like this is replacing Agents of Atlas for a couple of months (with one a month in place of a bimonthly series?) and we can sit happily knowing it's a cheap excuse to raise the price a whole dollar. Still we get to have the Agents face off against the X-Men so they can borrow Cerebra (que?) which will be nice, seeing as they have a history with Wolverine.
Will It Be Good?: Yes. Jeff Parker can do no wrong with the Agents of Atlas. Though my judgement is suspect because I love X-Books too.
DARK REIGN: HAWKEYE #5 (of 5)
What Is It?: FUCKING CRAZY. If you've been following this miniseries you'd know just how completely mental it's been. It seems there must have been delays for it to only get to issue 5 in October but what the hell right? Anyway the conclusion seems to be more of Hawkeye going crazy and more of Ben Urich doing what he does best.
Will It Be Good?: HELL YES. If it's anything other than mental and awesome then Andy Diggle has REALLY fucked up.
INCREDIBLE HERCULES #136-137
What Is It?: BIMONTHLY HERCULES! HERCULES VS THOR! AMADEUS CHO DOING THINGS! NUMBERING THAT WE ALL KNOW NEVER MADE SENSE! WOO!
Will It Be Good?: It has HERCULES DRESSED AS THOR FIGHTING THOR! OF COURSE IT'LL BE FUCKING GOOD!
NOMAD: GIRL WITHOUT A WORLD #2 (OF 4)
What Is It?: My obsession. The second in a 4 issue mini by Sean McKeever about Rikki Barnes. So we get the girl who doesn't want to be Nomad trying to take on Flag Smasher, The Falcon making a guest appearance, and some student election stuff. Sounds awesome.
Will It Be Good?: Do I even know you anymore? OF COURSE IT WILL! CLASS DISMISSED!
NO WAIT COME BACK I'M NOT DONE!
ULTIMATE COMICS AVENGERS #3
What Is It?: Reinvention of the Ultimates. Steve Rogers has gone renegade and Hawkeye and Nick Fury are retrieving him or something and... Wait is that Wasp on the cover? Isn't she dead? And is that Black Widow? WHAT'S GOING ON?!
Will It Be Good?: I DON'T UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!
DARK AVENGERS #10
What Is It?: Shit hits the fan as Norman Osborn FINALLY loses control. We've all been waiting for this and I hope it leads to Dark Avengers ending VERY SOON!
Will It Be Good?: No. Dark Avengers has been awful all the way through, save for a mediocre Utopia chapter.
DARK WOLVERINE #79
What Is It?: The Daken ongoing continues as stuff seems to go wrong for him for some reason. Who cares about the plot? In the end it's the character who makes it interesting and he's still in it. That's all you need to know.
Will It Be Good?: Probably. Daken is an awesome character and it'd take a really bad piece of writing to ruin that.
MIGHTY AVENGERS #30
What Is It?: That whole Unspoken arc goes into high gear with nigh-on every Avengers team (Pet Avengers are busy I guess) joining in for the 30th issue of the best Avengers comic out there!
Will It Be Good?: Yes. Slott is the master of the Mighty Avengers. He knows what he's doing, even if it could end up a cluster fuck.
THUNDERBOLTS #137
What Is It?: A chance for Thunderbolts to save itself from... Itself. The original team throws down, secrets are revealed (like... who is Scourge this time?) and Diggle gets the fuck out.
Will It Be Good?: I don't know. Even with the original team coming back, Thunderbolts is so skewed that any sense of nostalgia will probably die. We need a collapse of Thunderbolts and a new numbering, a new series, a reboot of the original concept. anything but what it's become.
X-FACTOR #50
What Is It?: The comic that pisses off Liefeld fans reaches its 50th issue in style, ending a year long arc and potentially bringing everyone together again (sans Rahne). to say I'm looking forward to this is an understatement. Peter David has plans for this that could blow our ever-loving minds!
Will It Be Good?: Is there a good artist on it? Yes? Then sure.
MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR
Why does this remind me of the WARRIOR christmas poster book Linkara and Spoony reviewed? (link included in this statement)
FINALLY! To all the solicits yet to be revealed (held back till San Diego Comic-con) or lacking cover images:
FUCK YOU!
Posts
This post was fucking hillarious. Well done. What the fuck is it with the cable book. I like cable too but bishop is STILL following them and trying to kill hope, man that story needed to have ended a long time ago. But i know Ill still be buying it. I kinda have enjoyed it for the most part, guess im a mug. I gotta disagree with the Iron Fist comment though I thought Swierczynski did a pretty good job on the title. And it was a tough act he had to follow.
ReplyDeleteX-Factor 50 should be great as always and Im willing to bet that Millars Ultimate Avengers doesnt ship on time. Quite looking forward to the list titles too for some reason and what the reveals will be at SDCC about the x-men titles.
I guess you're right about swierczynski, anyone could have followed up on fraction/brubaker and looked bad.
ReplyDeleteand the odds of ultimate avengers shipping late are the same as the earth spinning each day