Okay, I know I’m a little late here. I still have to write an entry for the books dropping two days from now. And I have yet to summarize my valuable opinions of various reads from the end of April, let alone reveal what I bought last Wednesday (the 7th). So (Slick Rick impression) “Heeeeere we go!”

Alright, I’m gonna be honest. It’s been so long since I read those April comics (like two whole weeks or something almost!), I barely care to recall how I felt about them. New Avengers was kind of a fill-in issue with a semi-reveal at the end about how (spoiler!) Spider-Woman might be a Skrull. It’s been lookin’ that way for a while, anyway, so no big whoop. Avengers: The Initiative, despite the presence of Iron Man, was pretty lukewarm. I’m over this one…hopefully Secret Invasion will consolidate the many Avengers titles a bit (this isn’t even a real Avenger’s book, but you know what I mean). The Daredevil/Tarantula tale was filler, straight up. Not terrible, but unnecessary. I should have known better. And lastly, Immortal Iron Fist put a fitting end the the giant kung-fu showdown that was the Capital Cities of Heaven arc. You gotta love how they have the names of all the crazy moves as captions in the action scenes: Hell’s Last Tsunami, Bastard’s Black Heartcrusher, Mistress of All Agonies, Exquisite Speed Release…yeah! Good times. Oh, I almost forgot. Ultimate Human was whatever. Decent, but whatever.

Now, then (that sounds so oxymoronic). Last Wednesday I bought these:

House of Mystery #1–this one is from, among others, Bill Willingham, creator of the awesome Fables, so I’m checking it out. Vertigo has a pretty solid track record, and I usually cop the number 1’s. I enjoyed it, although this issue mostly just set up the whole concept. A lot of storytelling potential here…could appeal to fans of books like Fables or Sandman. We’ll see where it goes.

Thunderbolts: Reason In Madness–kind of a filler issue, but enjoyable nonetheless, as Norman Osborn gets to really strut his stuff. I don’t wanna ruin it, but it was a small, fun story that plays into the overall Thunderbolts plot.

Invincible Iron Man #1–I think this is gonna be the flagship Shellhead title from here on out, but I’m often wrong. Iron Man is a great character these days, and he’s got his hand in a lot of pots. But this book jumps right into a brand new plot. So I’m not sure where this title fits into the whole Secret Invasion thing, or to what’s going on in the other Iron Man title. Me so confused. Anyway, this book was pretty good. There were three covers…for some reason, I bought the one with a photo of Robert Downey Jr. on it. I guess it’s just ‘cuz I really loved him in Less Than Zero.

The Mighty Avengers #13–this book was mostly Mighty Avenger-free. Instead, it was all about Nick Fury building another secret army. It also featured the artwork of Alex Maleev. So I loved it, is what I’m trying to say here.

Secret Invasion #2–OK, first of all, the little recap at the beginning mentioned more Skrull-reveals than I remember reading about in the first issue. Maybe I need to go back and re-read it. Anyhoo, the second issue was dope, although it left me with more questions than answers. But one thing seems certain, judging from the last panel: our heroes’ situation is about to go from bad to worse…much, much worse.

Avengers Invaders #1–bought it, haven’t read it yet. It claimed to be from the same team that brought you DC’s awesome Justice series. And I guess it is. But it doesn’t featured fully-painted Alex Ross interiors like Justice did. And that’s a pretty big difference, at least as far as presentation goes. So the jury’s still out. My fingers are crossed for this one (which makes it pretty hard to turn the pages).

OK, that’s it for now. I’ll post my pull list for this upcoming Wednesday sometime in the near future. Maybe tomorrow! So now you have that to look forward to. Lucky you…lucky, lucky you.

Bagged and boarded,
Grip