I seem to have an insane number of books again. I guess this is two weeks worth? I collect too many comics. Which is a symptom, at least in part, of the fact that Marvel puts out too many comics.

Uncanny X-Men #20 - This one, anyway, is just late getting to me. I liked the scene with Illyana "curing" Colossus of the Juggernaut and the fact that it's all been part of a twisted way of getting her brother to understand her. I also enjoyed the Unit/Danger stuff. And the revelation that Mr. Sinister is still out there and tempting Cyclops come after him is cool too. So basically i'm saying i liked this book, even though it's a wrap-up to a series that i only started reading at the very end because of my belated discovery of Gillen.

AvX Consequences #4-5 - When Magneto said "Well, ladies... villains it is." at the end of issue #4, i actually got a little giddy. We've been talking about how AvX and Marvel's previous events have been doing a poor job of character development and just seem to forcing people into roles to fit a status quo that sounded good at a spitballing session, but i do actually like where some of these characters are landing. I think Cyclops as a radical mutant activist works really well. It's unfortunate that it took some really blunt force to get us here, and this little series shows you how well a writer who can handle dialogue and characterization can make this stuff seem natural. If this level of care was taken in the main series, there would have been less hair-pulling, but at least this series does exist to smooth things out. I should mention that there's a higher level problem with (cranky old man alert) comics today, in the sense that even this series was overlong, light on content, and didn't have great art especially from a storytelling/pacing perspective. But that's a bigger problem than Gillen.

All-New X-Men #1 - Unlike a lot of people on the internet, i actually like the concept here. The idea of bringing the innocent early X-Men into our present to show them a future gone horribly wrong is a nice inversion of Days of Future Past, and i think this has potential. I'm apprehensive of Bendis pulling it off instead of devolving into a series full of talking heads, but i'm hoping Immonen keeps him on track. There are a couple of problems with the concept. One is what i mentioned above; the entire universe had to kind of be warped into a series where Cyclops was a "bad" guy in order for this to work. And the other is that the earliest issues of the X-Men barely focused on anti-mutant sentiment, so it's almost too soon for them to really understand the implications of what's going on today. But i still think this series is promising, and nothing in this issue, not even the Out Of This World mutant, dissuades me yet. Although i will say that a Bendis book always starts off looking good and then goes nowhere, so we'll see.

Avengers #33 - Cute, with badly choreographed fights, but that's a given. I don't know when people's powers started weakening just because they shrunk into the Microverse, but i guess it wouldn't be much of a badly choreographed fight issue without that.

Avengers Academy #39 - I loved this. I imagine some people will complain that we had two downtime wrap-up issues in a row, but this series was never primarily about super-heroics and this was a nice ending.

Avengers Assemble #9 - I've really just about had it with DeConnick over in Captain Marvel, but i actually enjoyed the writing in this book. If the remit of the series is to write the Avengers characters in a way that fans of the movie would recognize, she did much better than Bendis in the first 8 issues and even provided some witty banter. The race to the North Pole or whatever was a little weak, especially as a way to settle the (forced, imo) differences in philosophy between Banner and Stark. But in terms of basic characterization i thought this wasn't bad. It's really hard for me to admit that, too, because as i write this, the face of the Hulk from the atrocious cover is staring at me and it makes me want to say that the whole book stunk because of it.

Avenging Spider-Man annual #1 - This plot would have been a three page back-up in Marvel Fanfare back in the day. A bit of a drag at annual length.

Avenging Spider-Man #14 - Cute but should have been a one-in-done. And since that's all i have to say about that, i'll talk about something that i've been wondering how or if Marvel might ever handle. And that's the fact that science is now pretty sure that some species of dinosaurs, especially the raptors that Spider-Man was fighting, had feathers, but they've never been depicted that way in the Savage Land, for obvious reasons. Do we need to explain that? Do we just start drawing them with feathers and pretend nothing's changed? Or do we stick to the classic look even though we now know it's wrong?

Captain Marvel #6 - Yeah, i just don't know what's going on here. The editors note in the lettercol is raving about feminism; i just see a really awkward and confusing time travel story that ending up meaning nothing. I do like the art better than in the earliest issues but it seems Dexter Soy is back next issue and i think we're done with this book.

Iron Man #1 - Why you do this to me Marvel why you put Greg Land on a Kieron Gillen book why you so bad don't be cruel take it back huh? The thing about artists (not just Land but especially Land) not being able to draw interesting fight scenes anymore is that you can't get me too convinced that the threat is anything spectacular. These AIM agents have Extremis? Well, Iron Man stopped them just by pointing at them. So what's the big deal? Beyond that, i just don't know how long i'm going to be able to tolerate images literally cut out of fashion magazines.

New Avengers #32-33 - That "Brother Voodoo. Shame on you." panel ought to be made into a t-shirt or something. Why isn't there a tumblr page? Issue #33 was basically a "Puppet Master makes good guys fight each other" issue except, again, the fights are uninteresting, even with Oeming on art. I'm amazed that Bendis wants to go out on a Brother Voodoo arc but i guess he's still got the Ultron thing coming up. I really wish they'd make Dr. Strange sorcerer supreme again; having him stand there for half an issue with SHIELD agents pointing guns at him is just humiliating.

Red She-Hulk #59 - So far this isn't really working for me but the problem i think is that Parker really wants to be writing a Machine Man book. Which i'm fine with, but i'm inclined to dislike Red She-Hulk (i demand more adjectives; when will Super Mega Fat Dancing Carpenter Red She-Hulk be released?), so hopefully soon Parker will start working his magic on her.

New Mutants #50 - While it's really nice to see Tyro again, his plot felt really crammed into this story. Which is just wrap-up issue symptom. Two artists in this issue. Felix Ruiz turns on the ugly filter for everyone. "Klebs" is not as obviously awful but not great. Still, as a final issue this was a nice reminder that this was a good series and that i wish Abnett & Lanning had a part to play in Marvel NOW.

Winter Soldier #12 - With this issue i'm thinking that maybe Brubaker has a bit too high an opinion of his character; i don't see him so easily defeating Wolverine or Daredevil. But with Guice drawing it's not like you can tell what the hell's going on anyway, so i guess it doesn't really matter.

X-Factor #246 - Pip!

X-Men Legacy #275 - Another "hah hah, here's another book you liked getting cancelled issue". And like Uncanny X-Men, it's another one i discovered late. But this was a good standalone story, with a fun use of Rogue's powers and a plot that also worked as part of a large theme. Rogueadillnox-Bull was awesome.

X-Men Legacy #1 - I could see how this book might work and i could see people liking it, but it was too much of a jumbled mess for me.

Avengers Assemble: wait, wait. Stark's "new printer" gadget thing is a ticker tape machine? he's over 140yrs behind on that "invention".

the cover is quite horrid. and don't get Wanyas started on how much Banner doesn't look like Banner on the inside of the book.

Avenging Spider-Man: i think mebbe Devil Dinosaur being a character and all should maintain his usual, feather-less look. he's special. but the rest of them should definitely be feathered and colorful. the males, at least.

Capt Marvel: i totally ignored the letter column. now i'm gonna have to go back and read it. i don't care for time travel stories, in general, and i thought it was a weird way to start a series. it seemed like a slow and convoluted plot that required you to sit through alot of exposition for set up.

IM: i pointed out Greg Land's tracing to 3 people at work, and we had a rousing time chuckling about it.

every panel was like looking at ad material where all the subjects got hit with the Joker serum.

and how - HOW does he manage to make something as simple as a person standing in the street talking on their phone look totally stiff and unnatural?

poor Gillen. poor us.

WS: i realized with this issue that what i do is completely ignore the art. i am reading a comic book as if it were prose. when i was looking at the art, i depended 100% on the text to give me a clue as to what was going on and would get irritated that the art was such a disaster, so now i just skip the aggravation altogether.

"you're Natasha's man"??? what the hell is that? like he's never met Bucky before. and who refers to someone as another person's man? did we time travel to the Middle Ages, and i didn't know it cause the art sucks?

XM Legacy 275: so, in direct contrast to how i read Winter Soldier, for this book, i skip all the boring, sentimental dialogue and just look at the pictures until i get to a part where Rogue isn't making some speech about her feelings. right. like a cell block full of violent criminals is going to sit there as you get on your soap box and give a 10 minute monologue on how you found yourself. i'm not a violent criminal and i still couldn't give a shit.

i'd rather read Astonishing X-Men.

XM Legacy 1: i thought this was an ok first issue.