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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 3/9/13
This week kicks off Marvel’s new Big Event comic the Age of Ultron…but it’s kind of a slow build so far. We’ll have to see if it picks up in the second issue, which comes out next week. Talk about accelerated shipping. Beyond the big stuff, we’ve got a good collection of quality comics. I think I liked every single issue I read this week, everything from the important titles like Avengers and All-New X-Men down to the smaller stuff like Green Arrow and Winter Soldier. Though now that I think about it, I need to buy more independent titles. Seriously, can anyone recommend any good comics that aren’t Marvel or DC?
But until then, I’m going to stick with the big guns, and it actually surprises me to say that Comic Book of the Week goes to Avengers #7! Where did that come from? I have really had it in for this series since issue #1, but Jonathan Hickman really knocked it out of the park this week. He actually made me interested in the New Universe.
They look just as surprised as I am
Let’s hope he can finally write a solid superhero story.
Comic Reviews: Age of Ultron #1, All-New X-Men #8, Avengers #7, Green Arrow #18, Green Lantern #18, Superior Spider-Man #5, Winter Soldier #16.
Age of Ultron Will Make Us All Believe Again
Believe that Brian Michael Bendis can write a good Event Comic, that is. Marvel and Bendis finally got around to revealing the worst kept secret in comics: that his time on the Avengers will end next year with a 10-part Age of Ultron!
Looks like Ultron also gets a fancy new suit
In good news, Bryan Hitch will be drawing the first half. And Bryan Hitch is amazing.
So basically, based on this interview, Age of Ultron is a story where the evil robot Ultron finally achieves world domination. Pretty fun, right? And from what I can tell, a few heroes like Spider-Man, Hawkeye and Moon Knight (of all people) are left to figure out how to save the day. Because Bendis absolutely loves Moon Knight, even though he couldn’t get his Moon Knight comic series to sell. The series is going to ship between March and June next year, so another quick event, similar to Avengers vs. X-Men. This is a smart way to do it. We don’t want Event Fatigue.
Bendis is definitely excited about it.
“I couldn’t be more excited for this book to hit the stands,” Bendis says. “Literally not a day has gone by that people haven’t asked me about this online. I know that people are looking forward to this, and have voiced so to me, so to finally debut it, and for it to be, I imagine, much more than people thought it was going to be, is very exciting for us. It takes one of Marvel’s classic villains to a level we’ve never seen before, and it pushes our Marvel heroes into a place that they’ve never been before, and gets us to a place in the Marvel Universe that you won’t be able to guess.”
Personally, I’m luke warm about this idea. I’ve never been a particularly big fan of Ultron, and he was already the major villain in Annihilation: Conquest a few years ago. He was defeated then too. However, considering how lame the Serpent turned out to be in Fear Itself, perhaps going with a known villain as the big bad is a smart way to go. Plus it’ll be a relief to have the heroes fighting a super-villain for once, instead of each other.
I’m also not a big fan of Bendis’ events. House of M, Seige and especially Secret Invasion were bollocks. They all basically amount to a lot of pointless build up, all leading to just a giant fight at the end where somebody shouts ‘Avengers Assemble!’ That’s how it always goes. So I don’t have much faith in him to pull this off.
But I can hope…
Henchman-4-Hire 