This month’s comics

Best of the Month:

Saga #1: I really liked Brian K Vaughn’s Ex Machina and Runaways. Saga is a solid first issue about a married couple of AWOL soldiers from different sides of an inter-galactic conflict. It has a science-fantasy feel with robots, horned folk and winged folk, laser pistols and magic spells. Breast-feeding on the cover, robots with T.V. heads having half-hearted intercourse and soldiers gone A.W.O.L. from a space war between those on a planet and those on the planet’s moon. I’m in.

On Probation:

Batwoman #7: This issue was weak sauce and has put Batwoman, one of the few DC comics on my pull list, on probation. If the next issue is weak or even mediocre, I’ll drop it.

Batwoman is the kind of B-list character who is situated perfectly to be interesting to me. She can inhabit her own place in the Gotham pantheon and the writers have this rare opportunity to create her own rogues gallery and exposing her to Arkham’s finest. But it just isn’t delivering.

Thor #12: Long-story short. Thor was dead, was being digested in some thing that digests dead, forgotten gods but he breaks out with two other dead gods, both aliens. He returns, kicks butt….etc. But now he has these two until-recently dead alien gods with him. That is the kind of crazy galactic shit that makes me excited to read Thor. Next issue, either wow me with something unexpected or hit me with some dead alien god action or I’m done.

It was the concept of Galactus trying to eat Asgard that brought me to this book. I need that kind of galactic glorious nonsense or else it isn’t worth my time.

Dropped:

Conan the Barbarian #2: I really like the creators behind the book but it just isn’t grabbing me. I’m done.

And the rest:

Avengers Academy #27 and 28: It was nice to see the Runaways again and even nicer to see Pym thinking outside the box, using crazy comic book tech to come up with outside the box solutions to problems. Thumbs up.

Moon Knight #11: This is probably my favorite super-hero comic book coming out, so I’m bummed that next issue is the last one. I would have liked to see what Bendis and Maleev would have cooked up for MK, fighting crime on the west coast with his own special brand of mental illness.

Avengers #24: I’m glad this Norman Osborn business is over and done with. It felt more like his own hubris defeated him than anything the Avengers did. I would have liked to have seen Spider-man have a super-heroic Avengers moment and be the one to have brought Norman down.

Avengers #24.1: I like this .1 issues, little stand alone pieces. In this one Vision tries to track down his wife, faces down Magneto, talks to She-Hulk who feels guilty for having torn him apart while under some kind of mind control…despite being a kind of filler issue, it was emotional and interesting. This is probably foreshadowing for a big role Scarlet Witch will play in the upcoming Avengers vs. X-Men summer event.

The New Avengers #23: This was a big series of fights between the New Avengers and Osborn’s Dark Avengers but the drama for me was hoping that Luke Cage and Jessica Jones’ relationship is okay. I really like the ecclectic group of super-heroes this comic book brings together (Iron First, Wolverine, Spider-man, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Mockingbird, Ms. Marvel (soon to be Captain Marvel) and the Thing). Oddly, the book didn’t feel crowded but it could be that I am just a sucker for big team books.

Avengers vs. X-Men #1: The first issue of this summer’s big cross-over. It didn’t start with the bang of Civil War or even Fear Itself but hopefully it will slow burn into a more satisfying overall arc. For some reason I get this feeling that the Scarlet Witch is going to get in touch with the Phoenix Force, sacrifice herself and bring back Mutantkind. You heard that shit here first.

What was in your pull list this month? What are you enjoying?