Astonishing X-Men #56 - One of the more annoying things about decompressed storylines is that you often wind up with an entire issue like this devoted to people standing around after all the action is over, just talking about what already happened. It's not a fun standalone read. We started reading this series to see how Northstar's wedding and relationship was being handled, and it's been fine for that (although Kyle's a little bland) but the plot has been really weak and i'm happy to have reached a jumping off point. All this nonsense about Karma's family was just not interesting.

Astonishing X-Men annual #1 - Poor Gage gets stuck writing another downtime talky one shot. I also feel like this is ground that was covered for Kyle already; if we keep dwelling on whether or not he, as a non-powered civilian, should have married Northstar, he's going to start looking really indecisive, almost unstable. As for the reprint of Northstar's "coming out" issue, all i have to say is that anyone who hates modern comics needs to look at that to realize how much things have improved. Comics from the 80s were awesome! But comics from the 90s sucked! And comics in 2000+ have been... better.

Captain Marvel #7 - Yeah, Monica Rambeau! The real Captain Marvel! Nice guest star for this series' second arc, and i thought it was written well. The art's a murky mess but i guess that works for mostly underwater scenes. So far i liked this a lot better than the first arc so maybe i'll stick around a little longer. And what's with the re-emergence of Frank Gianelli? Just a way to prove that we did our homework?

Uncanny Avengers #2 - You can't complain too much about a comic that features Honest John, the Living Propaganda. When i read Remender's Uncanny X-Force in trade form, i found myself saying "I like this, but i wouldn't have liked it in single issue format", because it was too drawn out and uneventful, but still had a lot of cool ideas and fun fights. Same here, basically, except i am getting the single issues. So i'm tryyyyyyyying to be patient.

All-New X-Men<#2 - I was definitely suffering Bendis-fatigue on the Avengers books (more on that soon) and wary of the potential for continuity errors with this series, but so far i'm enjoying this. Sure, it's slow and talky, but that doesn't make it bad. The Bendis dialogue tics are noticeable but, i'd argue, mostly under control. And the premise of seeing the young X-Men react to the good and bad of modern days is fun and working well. Paul O'Brien has noted some continuity problems already, and suggests that maybe the team really just comes from an alternate reality timeline, which i am very open to for a variety of reasons. But, can anyone tell me who the lady on the far right is on the cover?

Iron Man #2 - Ugh. Look, Gillen is doing the best he can here, but words on their own can only do so much. This is supposed to be a comic book.

Avengers #34 & New Avengers #34 - So goodbye to Bendis. I stand by my past statements that his run, flawed though it has been, is one of the best runs of Avengers. A lot of the problems people have with this run are really more about the state of the whole industry at this point: the decompression, the lack of emphasis on actual super-fights, the snark, the event-heavy focus, the disregard for continuity. And i am completely sympathetic to that, as seen in my other reviews. But at the same time, i think Bendis, while firmly in (or perhaps, spearheading) the modern style, did it well and gave us a lot of interesting ideas and concepts and plots. Sometimes not executed well. Good ideas, fun dialogue, decent adventures. Of all of Marvel's "top" writers (Aaron, Fraction, Hickman), he's the only one i can really read, and unlike, say, Millar, his characters do actually have some depth. I know this isn't working very well as a defense of Bendis! But compare to past Avengers runs: Bob Harras, Geoff Johns, Chuck Austen! Busiek's run was decent but also flawed and a little too "safe", and you have similarly flawed runs by Byrne and Simonson before getting back to the really truly good Roger Stern run. My feeling is the series has really been a mess since Stern left and Bendis is the guy that really turned it around. And i like that he gave a lot of prominence to characters like Luke Cage and Spider-Woman, and he made the inclusion of characters like Spider-Man and Wolverine believable. I always looked forward to his books. If the characters were sitting around eating and joking with each other for half the issue, i still enjoyed it; sometimes moreseo than the adventure parts. Anyway, these final arcs were clearly in "unbreaking the toys" mode; bringing back Janet and restoring Dr. Strange... i was half expecting Jack of Hearts to pop back up. The Jam pages didn't work very well in either book and even the fact that they thought it was a good idea exemplifies the problem with illustrating super-fights nowadays, but i understand the impulse. Can't wait to hear the x-fans start screaming now.

Indestructible Hulk #1 - Nice premise, nicely written. Whatever magic Waid was using on Daredevil he's bringing it here too. I like that even using the Mad Thinker as something of a throwaway villain, Waid still made him a viable threat. As for Yu's art... i don't know if it's the different colorist or just Yu evolving or what, but holy crap, i didn't hate it! No one looked like a damn zombie. Looking forward to more of this.

Daredevil #20 - And here's Waid again doing fun stuff. I guess it's kind of insensitive to call it fun when we're talking about sex-slavery and similar things but at the same time it's a storyline involving the Spot so what do you want from me? It's a good book.

Dark Avengers #183 - Well, like Astonishing X-Men this is basically a wrap-up issue but unlike that book i enjoyed it. I'm glad Parker gets to keep going but i'll miss a lot of these characters, especially Ghost and this incarnation of Mr. Hyde. Of course, it's Parker that made me like them so i'm sure the book will continue to be good. Where did we end up with the Juggernaut, though? Last issue i was happy to see him get his powers back, and then this issue they said he lost them again and then at the end he says he still has them but doesn't know for how long.