I'm a bit behind on currents. Here comes the first batch...

Iron Man #20.INH - Nicely standalone for an Inhumanity tie-in. I like the sentient rings, and i liked the analysis of their various candidates (and it's nice to see they have standards in rejecting the Red Skull for his views on ethnic genocide). One thing i haven't loved in the glimpses i've been getting of Inhumanity is the unfriendly rivalry between Tony Stark and Bruce Banner (it's just really stupid for Stark to antagonize Banner), and i did like seeing Arno call Tony on that to a degree here.

X-Men #9 - This has been a fun adventure story. I do really miss Olivier Coipel's art, which was a big reason we were attracted to this book. And the Dodsons are not helping matters. But i'm still liking this. I do like the use of the Enchantress here unlike a lot of the internet, apparently. As a character that was in the Masters of Evil and a participant in Secret Wars, i like to see her integrated more into the Marvel universe and not just dealing with Thor stuff. And i liked seeing her use her physical side against Monet; she's not just a sorceress, she's also a physically powerful Asgardian. I'm also liking Monet too, actually. She's a character i never knew much about since i didn't read Generation X and fell away from the X-books generally later on. And she didn't make much of an impression in Peter David's X-Factor (at the point where i started, anyway). But she's been used well here.

Revolutionary War: Knights of Pendragon #1 - I want to say that this book seems to be trying too hard, with a Zombie King Arthur and his Zombie Knights of the Round Table and his Zombie Exclaibur. But who am i kidding? I love Zombie King Arthur and his Zombie Knights of the Round Table and his Zombie Exclaibur. I do have to say that my lack of knowledge of sports and especially British sports defeated me for the ending, though: i have no idea who G.Knight is, although i do get the basic idea. This book was a weird kind of fun. Good scripting gave me a feel for the characters even though i haven't really read them before (i do recall having picked up a few of the original books in bargain bins but what i most distinctly remember is Black Panther on the cover crying over a dead hippo).

Indestructible Hulk #18.INH - I don't really have anything to say about this except that the way they draw the Beast nowadays is ridiculous.

FF #16 - Wow, this was like a treatise on the Marvel universe. I don't know, there was a lot of continuity in this book. Was it really in the service of a story? Interesting idea on Pym particles - in some ways it's synergistic with Erik Josten, who had powers based on both Pym Particles and Zemo's ionic rays, but at the same time it makes Josten less unique to say that Zemo's work is actually just using Pym's particles a different way. Innovative, in any event but i have to sleep on the implications. For the purposes of this story, i liked it as a way for Scott Lang to beat Doom, even if from here they decide that using Pym Particles that way is unstable and never do it again. And i thought the comments on Dr. Doom's scarring were interesting as well. I have to admit i was skeptical about this FF book when i first picked it up but i am glad i gave it a try and am sorry to see it go. It's been weirdly old school and hyper-modern at the same time, and of course a lot of that is because of Allred, but not entirely. So to the degree that Matt Fraction was involved, i amend my opinion of him accordingly.

Black Widow #1-2 - In my rant about renumberings i mentioned both Hawkeye and Daredevil but for brevity (ha!) i left out an aside where i wanted to say how the funny thing about those books is that their selling point is that they are driven entirely by the unique voice of the creative team. As if that's some innovative new way of producing comics! But lately, it has been. Walter Lawson has some good comments on my other recent rant where he likens Marvel writers to the 90s artists that had more power than the editors. But at the same time the Marvel direction seems very editorially driven, alongside the handful of "Marvel Architects". So Hawkeye and Daredevil really are outliers to a degree (ironically since Fraction is one of the Architects). And interestingly those books have gotten some critical acclaim, and now we're seeing more books that are being explicitly promoted along that line like this Black Widow book. Get on the hot new trend of books not written by committee! As for the actual content of this book, well, Phil Noto's art is interesting (and it seems to have gotten better since his Iceman retcon) but it's not very dynamic and i'm on the fence about it working for Black Widow. The stories are fine spy stuff, but i'm again not sure about the idea that she does all this work but donates the proceeds to charity. Seems unnecessarily complicated. She's an Avenger and a SHIELD agent. She ought to have plenty to do if she wants to do good. But it's an interesting way to keep her in the spy game while keeping her heroic. Honestly i find it all a bit bland but thanks to Marvel's opportunistic publishing schedule (or what Marvel calls the reader trend towards binge consuming) i already have not just these two issues but a third sitting in my second batch of currents, so i'll have another chance to form an opinion.

I have no problem with Enchantress being in X-Men at all. In fact, I like it like you do. I don't like that the hyper-evolved female germ is more powerful than Odin and can turn off a spell of his.

In general, I don't like the idea of magic being just super-evolved science. They both may accomplish the same thing, but do it differently.