Fantastic Four #16 - Well, that's certainly over with. I do feel like a big chump for jumping onto this series when Karl Kesel came on board since this series pretty clearly continued with Matt Fraction's plots (as evidenced by him still getting top billing in the credits even for this last issue), and when i jumped on we were in the middle of some hard core alternate reality stuff. I did enjoy the FF half, though.

Secret Avengers #14 - If the Mockingbird retcon, saying that she was actually a sleeper agent from Victorious' Entropy Cult since prior to her first appearance, turns out to stick, that will be really bold. But considering all the mind-wiping going on in this series, i'm not ready to worry about it yet. I have been wondering how this series could be so "Meh" while Spencer is doing amazingly fun stuff on Superior Foes (and i felt that way even before Ales Kot was brought on as a co-writer here), but this issue actually seemed to be going more in that direction, with Mentallo remembering the good times he used to have with Taskmaster and "MODOK enjoys ice cream". But i'm still not even close to loving this the way i'm loving Foes, and honestly i'm a little lost on the plot at this point it's been so long since this story started.

Revolutionary War: Alpha - It was the 90s and i was at EZ Video (which proves it was the 90s) and for some reason there was a comics rack with titles like Hell's Angel and Warheads and some others, and i swear to god Wolverine was on the cover of every one of them. Then later Motormouth and Killpower showed up in Hulk. And even during the wonderful industry crash i bought some Knights of Pendragon at a convention to round out a "10 for a dollar" deal, and from what i remember they seemed pretty ok, and i also picked up some Death's Head II comics because they reprinted some of the original Simon Furman Death's Head comics. So the Marvel UK line had always been on the periphery of my vision but not something i ever really delved into. But when i saw this weird event, with Lanning writing the bookend and Gillen writing at least one of the other issues, i thought i'd take a look. So far, interesting enough that i'm looking forward to getting to 1992 to read and cover the original issues. And it's a good enough intro to these characters and tying it in nicely enough with the more recognizable Pete Wisdom and Captain Britain and a little bit of a conspiracy plot, and it should be a fun weird little detour (oddly at a time when a lot of books i've been getting are being canceled and i'm not making any effort to replace them, so without this my Current piles would actually be really small).

Revolutionary War: Dark Angel - I really love Gillen's ability to work with existing characters to find amazingly relevant literary themes. So like Lanning (re-)introduced the basic Mys-Tech concept, and i see that the idea that Dark Angel was a daughter of one of the Mys-Techians comes from the original series. But creating the scenario where she is now working to pay off the debts that her father owed to Mephisto, with references to the boom 90s and the bust world of today and how children are paying for the excesses of their parents... it's pretty damn brilliant, frankly. I won't know how closely any of this stuff aligns with the original books, but if it's all going to be this good i won't care.

Daredevil #35 - Waid puts Daredevil in a difficult situation and comes up with an interesting way for Daredevil to struggle out of it. Samnee draws a great Electra guest appearance. All great stuff. The only thing i don't like is the Cobra-La designs of the Serpent Society characters (and is that the original Constrictor?) but i don't think that's this team's fault.

Fantastic Four: mebbe one day in the far future when i read all the issues together, i'll understand what happened. from the FF side, i felt like we got thrown into the middle of the the whole Doom the Conquering Annihilator thing with no build-up/explanation for the what, why, and how. and now the stupid Fantastic Four team is back, so we aren't going back to the fun, wacky things the FF team was doing before they got sucked into the Doom story.

Secret Avengers: i thought this was going to be more spy-oriented, what with it involve SHIELD and being "secret" and all. but this AIM story is taking forever and mostly, the Secret Avengers keep getting caught. i did enjoy the Mentallo flashback with the Taskmaster and i've pretty much enjoyed all Taskmaster scenes. but the rest of this story is a mess. again, mebbe when i read it all together, it will seem more coherent. it's like trying to read a novel but you only get 2 sentences a month. i'm ready to drop this title.

Revolutionary War: Alpha: DEATH's HEAD!!!!!!!!!!

Revolutionary War: Dark Angel: i just shook my head when i got to the last couple of pages where Dark Angel's trying to make a quick deal with Mephisto. when will people learn?

Daredevil: you know what my favorite part was? when Elektra pointed out how weird it was to see Matt so upbeat.

Cobra-La. *snicker*

i forgot to mention this earlier and fnord12 told me "it's never too late!" so here you go:

Dark Angel's wearing a chastity belt! why is she wearing a chastity belt?