All-Talk X-Men Weekly #6 - Well, the title isn't too disrupted by the lack of Immonen, although that's partially thanks to the lack of anything really happening. Actually there were a few really wonky pages with panel layouts. Guys, unless it's really obvious, we read down the page and then go up to the top of the next page. You need to make it really clear if we are supposed to read across the page. And there needs to be a really good reason to break that flow. Look at this:

No one will instinctively know to read across that top section. Those panel shapes don't even line up. Looking at this more closely i see a lot of arbitrary panel decisions that seem to be more about the artist being bored than trying to communicate anything (the last four panels on the second page: why do the first three have borders but the fourth doesn't?). Anyway, the art (pictures) looks fine, and there's no action in this issue so no concern about following the flow of an action sequence yet, anyway. I do have some other complaints. On the same spread above, Kitty says that Jean Grey "was in the class in front of me" and also implies that she was a teacher, "a little tough on me. Sometimes." In fact Jean was dead when Kitty joined the school, and by the time Jean came back to life and Kitty was done being in Excalibur and everything else, they wouldn't have had that kind of relationship, if they ever were on the X-Men team at the same time. I don't think Kitty ever had any meaningful interactions with Jean (there's plenty of X-books i'm not at all familiar with but it seems very unlikely). This is really important. The premise of this book is interesting, but it only works if the history Bendis is using is the real one and not stuff that he arbitrarily makes up.

New Avengers #2 - Wow, on the basis of almost nothing, Captain America is suggesting putting together the Infinity Gauntlet? Admittedly i kind of fell asleep during that whole alternate universe lecture so maybe there's something more obviously bad here than every other threat the Avengers have ever faced, but all i saw was a fake Earth get blown up and then the Black Panther captured the lady who did it all by himself. Meanwhile, dreary unengaging dialogue, a glacial pace, wonky metaphysics (i used to think Hickman was kind of like a Mark Gruenwald - continuity minded and good ideas but bad at executing them - but now i'm thinking he's more like J.M. DeMatteis. I was having eye-clawing flashbacks to the time he tried to consolidate the various Satan incarnations during his Defenders run while Reed Richards was drawing all those circles) and a Black Panther i don't recognize. Min said she liked the second issue of Hickman's regular Avengers, so i'm holding off on pulling the plug on this until she catches up, but Outlook Not So Good.

X-Factor #250 - This is what it is, basically. An engaging read about characters i mostly don't care that much about.

Avenging Spider-Man #16 - Now this... this was tons of fun. Really awesome seeing Doc Ock Spidey's reactions to and thoughts about the X-Men. Great! I'm really glad this book exists because i have no interest in reading anything by Dan Slott but i like the premise of Doc Ock in Spidey's body, and this book is not only doing it very well but giving us great team-ups at the same time. Plus a Jackal/Mr. Sinister connection, which is very cool.

Daredevil #22 - See above; Waid does as well as Yost here. Another really fun book. Of course Waid is now injecting a cancer subplot into the fun...

Indestructible Hulk #3 - I haven't read the original Quintronic Man story yet (it's in the pile) but i hope Waid continues to pull these kind of things out, although i hope they're not all quite so throwaway. I'm enjoying this too. Looking forward to seeing the new supporting cast. Yu's art still doesn't really appeal to me but it's gotten better. I was alarmed when i saw one of the new scientists said she could go work for Egghead; i was afraid that either he was back from the dead after all these years or someone stole my idea to make Trish Starr a new Egghead, but i see there's actually a new robot Egghead that appeared in a Dark Reign tie-in (I might even have read it, who knows?).

Kitty's comment threw me out of the book as well. This may be my actual problem with Bendis generally. There's always at least one such glaring thing that doesn't make sense with the history of the characters he is writing, which implies that he doesn't really care about the history of these characters. For me, it's even more obvious in X-Men titles.

ANXM: look, if Bendis doesn't want to get all mired in what happened in the past and making sure he stays true to what happened in previous issues, he should quit bringing in storylines from the past. nobody made him bring the teen x-men in. doing that story pretty much guarantees you either need to know what you're talking about or be ready to be lambasted as a dick.

NA: yeah, remember when Cap found out about the Illuminati and he blew his stack? and when he found out that not only were they meeting as a secret cabal, but that they'd been holding onto the Infinity Gems? now he's going with "let's get the Infinity Gems" as his first suggestion?