(The Mysterious Return of) Nick’s Pull List – 2/6/2013

Holy crap, it’s back! Here’s what I read for the week of 2/6/13 (a billion flavors of Marvel, and one of these things is not like the other, one of these things should be SHUNNED AND PERSECUTED).

All-New X-Men #7

Brian Michael Bendis, David Marquez, Stuart Immonen

Quick recap: Hank (Beast) brought the original X-Men to the present to.. er.. something about teaching present Cyclops a lesson about… uh.. plot conveinance. Don’t get me wrong, I like the comic, I like where it’s headed, and I like Bendis’ writing and dialogue, and I guess zany shit in comics is going to happen, and doesn’t always need a logical reason or clear motivation.

Avengers #5

Jonathan Hickman, Adam Kubert, Dustin Weaver

Brian Michael Bendis relaunched the Avengers franchise in 2004, and wrote it for eight long years. Recently, he handed over those reins to Jonathan Hickman, long time writer of Fantastic Four, and it’s very successful spin-off comic, FF, is now the writer of two of Marvel’s biggest books, and what I would consider flagship titles: Avengers and New Avengers.

How many Avengers comics do we neeed? Well, several more than that, even (Dark Avengers, Avengers Assemble, Secret Avengers, Avenging Spider-Man, Avengers Arena, etc), but the two Hickman are on are the big ones, the ones that more or less define current Marvel continuity and push the storyline of the Marvel universe forward.

Anyway, Avengers is great, and just like in Fantastic Four and FF, he has some huge, intricate, well thought out plan that involves planting little hint seeds that will grow into awesome story plants later. Story plants? Shut up, you know what I mean.

Also, he does these drawings, or diagrams, that I dubbed ‘Hicktograms,’ which usually foreshadow organizational changes and things to come. Here’s an example of the Avengers Hicktogram, from Avengers #1:

Daredevil End Of Days #5

Brian Michael Bendis, Klaus Janson, Alex Maleev

Brian Michael Bendis, Daredevil End of Days is a sort of future glimpse at what could happen later in the Marvel 616 universe, with reporter Ben Urich as the protagonist reporter investigating the death of Daredevil Matt Murdock. Urich is a great device for telling a story, something BMB used pretty frequently when he used to write Daredevil and Spider-Man, back in the day. It’s an old trick, but it still makes for a good story. Gritty, street-level stuff. No big superhero fights here, this is more of a noir mystery, and I’m really enjoying it.

Fairest #12

Lauren Beukes, Inaki Miranda, Adam Hughes

Dammit, I thought the storyline would end with this issue, so I could stop buying it. Oh well, one more to go before they wrap up this Japanese mythology storyline, set in the Fables world. (it’s meh)

Hit-Girl #5

Mark Millar, John Romita

BLOODSPLOSIONS! DRUGGED PARENTS! A CHARACTER NAMED “THE MOTHER FUCKER!” That is all.

Iron Man #6

Kieron Gillen, Greg Land

Tony Stark takes his superhero playboy act to space, with awesome and funny results. There’s actually a Marvel writing conference going on as I write this, and previous writer of Iron Man, Matt Fraction, heard Kieron Gillen’s pitch for the next year. Here was his response:

stuff @kierongillen just pitched for his next year on IRON MAN — buckle up, buttercups. good golly. #marvelsummit #sexfro #feelsterrorist

— victor von dude (@mattfraction) February 11, 2013

What a tease!

New Avengers #3

Jonathan Hickman, Steve Epting, Jock

So, back when BMB was writing the Avengers comics, he did a little storyline called Illuminati. No, nothing to do with Steve Jackson, he wrote about a few figureheads in the Marvel universe (secretly) joining together and (secretly) deciding how the world was going to work, starting with locking down the infinity gems and hiding them away. Now, they rejoin to use them to save the word… with little success. Loved it.

Scarlet #6

Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev

I feel like I should be listening to Rage Against the Machine or Body Count while reading this.

Secret Avengers #37

Rick Remender, Matteo Scalera, Arthur Adams

What a spectacularly rushed and unsatisfying finale, which I’m sure isn’t Remender’s fault. Secret Avengers relaunches next month, renumbering from #1. I’m not sure if I’ll read it or not yet. Oh, shit, it’s written by Nick Spencer (Forgetless, Morning Glories), so yeah, I guess I will.