Avengers #19 - Prelude to rehash of Dark Avengers

The Good:
Daniel Acuna

The Bad:
Everything else.

Now, maybe I'm being a little critical here, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Bendis has officially become a broken record. During Fear Itself, we had to buy three books full of interview-style talking heads. Now we are finally out of that garbage and we get a prelude to Dark Avengers. Again. Also, Vision's back. Wait, what? Yeah, surprise Cap. Tony's secretly been repairing one of the two most powerful androids on the planet between the panels. Getting back on the sauce must really be helping Stark to focus! let's hope those repairs you made to his AI won't make Vision a lush, as well.

So Cap tries to get T'Challa back on the Avengers, but apparently Hell's Kitchen is more important than, you know, the Earth for The Black Panther to bother considering his offer. Incidentally, daredevil and Panther must be terrible superheroes. The real world version of Hell's Kitchen has apparently gone through so much urban renewal, that it really doesn't resemble the comic version in the slightest, and that was done without the aid of a superhero. So anyway, Panther is all like 'I'm busy motherfucker, go ask my wife!' So Storm, like any proud woman would, stops making sandwiches and flies in to join The Avengers. I really hate Storm as a wife. She's to strong to need a husband, unless it was me, of course. So Wolverine is all like 'Haaaay 'Roro! So super to see you! You been biz-ay? Just hangin' with that team I left a couple weeks ago to start a school that I will never be at because I'm on 4-5 super-teams at a time? Big ups ta all mah haters!'

The Worst:
Hawkeye's movie costume. Just. No.

I give this comic one of Ms Marvel's ass cheeks up for Acuna's art, and two of Red Hulk's ass cheeks down for all the gobbledegook.

Amazing Spider-Man #657

I love books that are comprised of three or four different self-contained stories with samplings of different artists. It keeps my A.D.D. in check. Each of the three stories in this issue represent a different member of the Fantastic Now-Less-Than-Four reminiscing about a memory of both Spider-man and their dearly departed Johnny.

Whether it be Thing clobbering a flaming mud dummy, Torch thinking outside the box and outsmarting both Reed and Peter, or Johnny inspiring Sue to make a villain's pants invisible, they're all stories of Human Torch/Spider-man pranking each other in predictably homo-erotic fashion.

I'm not here to talk about the interior, though.

I just loved this cover.

There's just something simple and enchanting about this cover.

I love the negative space.

Maybe it's some kind of metaphor for Johnny sacrificing himself in The Negative Zone.

Maybe the fallen tail of the "4" is a string on the fourth spot on the team and it is reaching down to Spidey telling him that he has to carry the proverbial and literal torch. Pun intended.

Maybe it's a simile for Peter Parker's likeness to his friend and predecessor on the team. That he is like the spark that will light the fire in the hearts of his bereaved teammates and the tail on the "4" is in actuality the remnant of an "A" for his Avengers affiliation, and that's what is actually falling away as he comes to realize that he may belong with FF and not bear the burdens of both teams.

Maybe it means all of these things.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this.

Maybe.

Maybe Parker figured out Wolverine's multiplicity tricks and wanted to try it out for himself by appearing in every title that Marvel publishes.


Wolverine appearances I know of for this month:
Uncanny X-Men
X-Men
New Avengers
Wolverine
X-Force

Spidey appearances I know of this month:
Amazing Spider-man
FF
New Avengers
X-Men
X-Factor

These two lead very busy lives! No wonder Torch jumped ship!

Wolverine is omnipotent

Sometimes, against my better judgment, I choose to think about Wolverine.

I think about all the adventures he has. He really gets around. Let's take a look at the scorecard:

-He is becoming a vampire in X-Men Volume 3.
-He is on quarantine on Utopia with Mutant Flu in Uncanny X-Men.
-He is on the moon, fighting the Four Horsemen and catching the plague.
-He is bouncing around alternate dimensions with the New Avengers
-He is in Hell

That's THIS month alone.

Now, if Jamie Madrox were in every comic, it could be believable, but Wolverine is not the Multiple Man. Why does Madrox get one mere comic? HE should be everywhere! No wonder Wolvie's got so many enemies and ex-girlfriends. You do not want to be Wolverine's bff. He's saving the world behind your back with someone else. I feel a parody coming along...