Special Avengers: The Initiative #1 - The first story feels very much like the decision was made to have Komodo and Hardball break up and have Hardball join Hydra, even though doing so would cause the characters to act stupidly and unnaturally. There were some good moments along the way, but there was a lot of "WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?" which kind of ruins a story. The second story was better, maybe because it was more psychological. Tying Trauma to Nightmare could be interesting. I hate to say it, but the first story was pure Gage and the second story was co-written with Slott. Gage is on a bit of a losing streak with me lately. I think the artist, Steve Uy, has potential - the action panels are very stiff but the drawing style is nice and he may get better over time. Heh: Special Avengers.

Age of the Sentry #3 - Mistake.

Fantastic Four #551 - I think my expectations have been sufficiently lowered for this series that i can enjoy it as just silly adventure stuff, and from that perspective i'm liking it now. You'd think another Wolverine appearance would just make me yawn at this point, but i liked that (although i'm trying to figure out the dynamics where Hulk Jr. would call him 'dad'). I'm not looking too hard at the logic or science of the plot; i'm just enjoying this for what it is.

War Machine #35 - I'm thinking this was only bad because it was the wrap up to a three issue story and lots of comic book endings are kind of bad. I'd like to think if this was setting up for an ongoing by Gage, or even if Gage had been given some kind of direction about how to set up for Pak's ongoing, this would have been better. Still, it was bad, and i'm clearly in the excuse making phase of my support of Gage, so something's going wrong. Dude needs a regular series before they burn him out completely.

Thunderbolts #126 - I only have this due to a scheduling kerfuffle, but this issue didn't change my decision to drop the title with the new creative team. I thought the Harry Osborn scene was pretty good; a little over the top but still interesting. I'd like to see more political type stuff like that. The rest of it was pretty bad. Moonstone had no subtlety, Speedball was completely dense, the 'break-up' of Songbird and Radioactive Man seemed forced, and Bullseye was too psychotic.

Not a great batch of comics this time.