Iron Man #8 - I have to admit: you throw some Celestials at me and i'm much more likely to enjoy your book. They were even on model! Add that to Death's Head and a rogue/genocidal Rigellian Recorder and i guess i'm still on board with this book.

Captain Marvel #12 - Still enjoying this although not looking forward to the interruption of the story thanks to the crossover with Avengers Movieverssemble. Thanks to some recent activity on the timeline site, my first thought when Yon-Rogg was revealed as the bad guy was "Hey, maybe he was Mystique's 'Lord'. His silhouette is actually pretty close!", but of course it's madness to expect anyone to bring that up at this point. One thing i wanted to mention is that while i still think of this as DeConnick's book, Christopher Sebela has been a co-writer since issue #7 (the first part of the team-up with Monica Rambeau and also when Frank Gianelli, from the old Ms. Marvel series, was introduced). And that's when we started liking the book. If i recall correctly, it was said in an earlier lettercol that all of the references and tie-ins to Ms. Marvel's old book were coming from Sebela. So i don't know if Sebela would be a good writer on his own (i'd certainly try another Marvel book) but maybe what we have here is a good combination of a "good" writer (or Marvel-acceptable writer) and a continuity-minded writer, and together they make a great comic. Maybe that's a model for the future? Of course, a good editor could also play the second role...

X-Factor #254 - I've gone from "I don't really care about these characters but the writing is good." to "I don't really care about this plot but the writing is good." to "Gee this plot is kind of dragging." to "Now we're going in circles!". Tier will or won't fight the Hell-Gods. The endless Strong Guy/Monet fighting. Everybody just kind of running around and not moving the plot forward. The Hell-God fights, purely physical encounters with Mephisto just sneaking up and stabbing everyone in the back, aren't that exciting either. They are fine for an X-book where i wouldn't expect a lot of mystical coolness, but since the main characters are adrift, the Hell-God War is all we have to look at so i'd want more from a Satannish/Mephisto fight, for example. But mostly i think this needs to wrap up.

Daredevil #25 - Wow. That was the best fight comic i've read in a long time. Really great action sequences - lots of detail and storytime devoted to the actual fighting. And i really loved how every step of the way Daredevil was confident that he had things under control and this trick or tactic was going to turn things around, but he kept finding out that his opponent was better than he thought. Really well done.

Thunderbolts #8 - Missing Dillon at this point. The thing about Phil Noto's art is that it's as stiff and non-dynamic as Steve Dillon's, but it doesn't have that special Dillon look. And that may be part of the reason why i'm finding this second arc a little less cool than the first. The other reason is that the story is definitely paced for a trade. I recognized that with the first arc but i enjoyed the character interactions so much that i still felt like i was getting a lot out of the single issues. And part of that, i know, was just putting this unique group of characters together. So by now we've sort of settled in and there really isn't anything new to say on that front (well, Elektra did shoot Deadpool in the head, but besides that) so now i'm more antsy about the plot moving forward. Only three more issues, anyway.

IM: i think i'm getting inured to Land's art. or mebbe i wasn't particularly bothered because this issue didn't call for a room of women, so no identical faces with giant smiles to set me off.

CM: i somehow managed to miss the fact that 2 people were writing this book. Sebela's input might explain why i didn't like DeConnick's other stuff.

still a fan of the art style.

can we hurry up and give her back her powers, though? and no more time travel. i hope this tie in with Helen Cobb and CM's brain lesion is not going to result in another time caper.

XF: definitely need to move the story along. i'm sort of giving it some leeway and assuming it's not moving because Peter David had a stroke and all. but then he had it all plotted before that happened, didn't he?

DD: remember when Daredevil wasn't miserable and suffering? yeah. that was a good 10 seconds, wasn't it?

you know what really sucks? the villain figured out a way to give someone DD's powers without taking away his sight. in early DD, he spends quite a bit of time agonizing over Karen Page wanting him to go to a specialist for his sight, but worrying that fixing his eyes will take away his powers. plus the requisite "I can't tell her i love her because i can't burden her with a blind man!" stuff. and here's proof that you can have both.

They're canceling X-Factor in 8 issues. This never ending Hell on Earth story ends next issue. Rejoice.

I Peter David was trying his hand at decompressed storytelling. It seems Peter David can't do that.