Heroes For Hire #5 - Good that we're done with the Puppet Master plot, but i can't say i'm loving this. It's definitely not up there with Abnett & Lanning's cosmic stuff. I'm hoping it'll get better now that Misty Knight is actually awake (and not running around in hospital garb fighting the Punisher the whole issue). But next issue ("Target: Spider-Man!") doesn't look promising. I'm hoping for a mission statement issue, not a Misunderstanding Fight.

Avengers - The Children's Crusade #5 - This is well written. I think the Iron Lad/Stature/Vision love triangle thingy is being developed well. I like how both Doom and Magneto are being depicted. And we're getting somewhere with the Scarlet Witch plot. So i'm enjoying this. One quibble: "We've got Wolverine flying through the air backwards... who's powerful enough to do that to Wolverine?" Uh... lots of people? Including just about everyone else in this issue save perhaps Patriot and Hawkeye Lass?

Herc #1 - This may come off sounding like heresy (Literally!). But i was thinking, maybe if we have to so drastically revamp the Hercules story, it might be better just to take this creative team and have them write some different characters. Hercules had a good run. But there's no reason Marvel needs a Hercules series in publication at all times. Nowadays we know that a series is going to last a few years at best. Maybe it makes sense to take some good creative teams and just put them on rotations of minor characters. We could have Pak and Van Lente writing a series about (and i'll just choose totally at random) Power Pack or Alpha Flight. Or how about Roughhouse and Bloodsport? Twelve issues or whatever and if it doesn't take off, move on to something else. At least it would let the characters dry out a bit between reboots. That said... i enjoyed this issue and look forward to more.

Annihilators #2 - Dire Wraiths! I'm not totally sold on the art, but i'm liking this story. I've never seen Ronan the Accuser quite so snarky, but i can live with it; he's been through a lot. And... Dire Wraiths! The Rocket Raccoon/Groot story i could live without (and i never thought i would say that).

Black Panther #517 - Like Heroes For Hire, this one is losing me. I liked the vaguely Coming To America set-up of this series along with the non-traditional super-villain Vlad the Impaler. And i enjoyed Spider-Man last issue. But generally i feel like there isn't a lot of personality in this book; it's been a little too plot focused (and yet also moving slowly). And if i'm not enjoying the dialogue, i'm going to be focused on things like "Christopher Priest's Black Panther would never have been tricked into a Misunderstanding Fight with Luke Cage", who, by the way, seemed totally out of character and just downright stupid interrupting the Panther while he was apprehending a murderer.

New Avengers #11 - Now, let's get the continuity stuff out of the way first. The Red Skull was in suspended animation since World War II, and before Captain America was dumped in the Arctic. It's 1959 in these flashback scenes, so both the Red Skull and Captain America appearing here must be the 1950s versions: the crazy anti-commie Cap and the communist imposter Red Skull. And so far i'm not really seeing a point in introducing these pre-Avengers Avengers if all they're going to do is go after a fake Red Skull. Also, Chaykin's art stinks. But the scene of Namora straddling a whale on a tidal wave crushing the Nazi base was still pretty cool. As for the modern scenes i feel like we're padding time a bit. We don't need to drag out the suspense of Mockingbird's injury for an entire issue. I'd be surprised if they killed her since they just brought her back, but either way, let's get it going. I do like Deodato's art, though. I thought the panel with the Thing, Spider-Man, and Dr. Strange at the hospital was very good.

Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1 - Special thanks to Wanyas for picking this up for me. But this wasn't very good. Godzilla by himself is never all that interesting; he needs to be fighting other giant monsters (and preferably performing a flying jump kick). The title (Kingdom of Monsters) is promising, as is the cover showing all the other monsters, so i assume they're coming. But the writing was terrible, and the art was just OK, so i don't think i need any more of this. On a positive note, i was pleased to see that IDW comics are building up their shared universe concept by including one of their characters from another one of their books.