Mini-Marvels: Rock, Paper, Scissors - Gotta love the Mini-Marvels, even if i've read most of these already. I do wish they'd taken a few more pages to reprint all of the original three panel strips.

X-Men: Odd Men Out #1 - I bought this because it was Roger Stern and i was hoping if enough people bought this it would encourage Marvel to give him a regular series, but this seems to actually be an inventory story. And it's pretty pointless - it's a retrospective, but those never work out very well. If you have read the issues in question it's just a boring recap; if you haven't, i can't see that these little one panel summaries are of any value. It was nice to see what happened to Agent Duncan and why he basically disappeared in the 80s, but it would have been better to see that expanded on. The second story, it's the Inferno era New Mutants team, but they're fighting a robot Apocalypse who is talking a lot like Poppy did in Fall of the Mutants, so i'm a little confused as to when it takes place. Plus, it was terrible. The art also was disappointing - this looks nothing like Cockrum. Everything is flat and stiff with way-too-grinny facial expressions. You can't blame inker Joe Rubinstein, either, so i don't know what the story is.

Daredevil #109 - Continues to not be depressing, so it's good! I like the political angle, which i think may be Rucka's influence. Surely Dakota North isn't dead, though. Is her father supposed to be an Ollie North analogue?

New Avengers #43 - Bendis writes a good Spider-man. This was good; i like the fact that the Avengers books are basically giving an expansion of the main Secret Invasion series. I actually think the main series may be a little too abrupt if read without the support from these issues. I felt similarly when i re-read the main Civil War series without any crossovers, but with SI these are all being written by the same guy so i think there won't be any of those minor-but-annoying discrepancies.

Avengers: The Initiative #15 - I think the "disoriented by Devil-Slayer's Shadow Cloak" explanation ought to address some of min's complaint about Triathalon's bad approach to the Skrull problem (and did you know that they call him 3-D Man on the recap page? Whatsamatter? Couldn't decide which awful name to stick him with?). So in my review of last issue i talked about how great it was that the writers could jump around however they wanted since they had so many characters to play with. This issue shows a little bit of the downside of that, as Triathalon's plot seems more or less abandoned this issue so that we can focus on Freedom Ring. I'm also a little confused about Skrullojacket's motivation in bringing the Initiative out to fight the Super-Skrulls instead of having them wiped out one by one or something. And wouldn't Freedom Ring try and investigate or follow up on the fact that Yellowjacket is actually a Skrull? Beyond all that (and it may be a lot to get beyond) this was good.

Thunderbolts #122 - Gage inherits the main series (instead of just doing one-shot fill-ins) and starts things off perfectly. He nails the characterization and introduces some cool plot points. It's a shame this series is slotted for cancellation, and that Gage will be off writing for Crossgen or whatever. He's clearly got a lot of love and knowledge of Marvel history, and he's also an excellent writer. He should be on a Marvel book where he can put it all together (and not be saddled with Dan Slott).

Secret Wars #1 - OMFG THIS IS AWESOME!!! I guess it's a little contrived with some powerful entity just throwing all of these guys together but it definitely has some precedence in the MU (could the whole thing just be a ruse by the Grandmaster?). And the groupings are really interesting. Galactus! (and he totally just snuffs out Ultron immediately, which was hilarious). Magneto placed with the good guys, picking up on Claremont's development of the character but creating some real moral tension between the X-Men and the other heroes. Shooter's characterization is sometimes generic but often spot on (Wolverine's response to "We're under attack" is simply "Good."). Zeck's art is a little sketchy but it works. This is going to be fantastic!

Secret Wars? I was looking for that one. How did I miss it? I'm a huge fan of both Shooter and Mike Zeck.

Thunderbolts isn't canceled. It's getting a different writer though.

So just *Gage* was cancelled. Jerks. Or maybe he's the jerk.