Back to it. This weeks pull list.

Howdy,

I had to take a few weeks off to catch up on my day job, so this Wednesday I had to play catch up. Below is the list of books in my pull list for this week as well as a few for the previous week. The following list is organized by my personal interest in the books, in their unread state, based on their previous issues and the current covers. I will also ramble on a little about each book and why I placed it in this order. As I have not read these books I will not be spoiling anything from this weeks comics.


Amazing Spiderman #'s 651 and 652 - I found these to be on the top of my stack for two reasons, I have two issues to catch up on since they are releasing these 3 times a month and I have really been enjoying this run on Spiderman. I read Spidey and all his books religiously for a long time when I was younger but in the last few years we have had more of an on again/off again relationship. Between his "death" and cocoon-like transformation to the brand new day nonsense I just couldn't stay on board but with the last few arcs I feel me and Spidey are back on (for at least a while).

Uncanny X-Force #4 - What can I say, Remender and Opena are knocking this series out of the park. I love me some Remender from his Fear Agent run which also had Opena on it and I am loving his take on this darker X-Men team. This book is right up my alley since the major foe in this first arc is Apocalypse, reincarnated as a child (evil, creepy kids rock!), and I've always liked Apocalypse when he is handled right. What can I say, I have a soft spot for the scale of his plans, this guy always has big plans in the work. I will be saddened to see this arc come to an end this issue but I am sure Remender will deliver on the next one as well.

Avengers #9 - This book gains it's place on the list out of pure curiosity. Unlike with Spiderman, I find my Avengers relationship to be one that has less good than bad. This arc has the return of the Infinity Gems to which I hope they do a better job with than the 1990's crossover "Infinity Gauntlet". I am not a fan of Romita Jr.'s art style but will tolerate it to check out where this story leads but if Bendis doesn't keep me hooked I'm dropping this book (again).

New Mutants #21 - I don't really know why I keep getting this book but I do. It's not that it's bad, it's just fine, I just never really have been too interested in most of the characters in the original New Mutants team. The only member I really have any interest in is cannonball and I can't really even tell you why that is. This story has been interesting at times with the whole return of the Inferno babies but I feel there could be more development with those characters, they are way more interesting to me than the main ones. I'll probably keep reading this book for a while but it's always close to being dropped.

Uncanny X-men #532 - I always buy this book. Good or bad, I always buy this book. I have been reading X-men so long it's just habit. I have really liked where they have taken the X-Men over the last few years. Xavier is on the sidelines and Scott is running the team as he was trained to do all his life and I am loving the decisions they have made with him. Occasionally they wander onto and arc I don't care for but I always hang in there because they usually get back to stories I enjoy. Recently we have taken a jaunt down one of those periods I am not to wowed by but with a new writer coming on with issue #535 when Fraction leaves to do the big "Fear Itself" crossover I might get X-tales more to my liking but we will see. When it comes down to it Uncanny X-Men is the flagship of the X-books, so until I drop all mutant titles I will read this one. (maybe).

X-Men #7 - Well this will be less long winded than the rest. I hope this book improves because the whole vampire nonsense they ran to launch this new non-adjective X-book was not really worth talking about. Yawn. Vampires, really. So tired of vampires. Yawn.

New Avengers #8 - This book has gone from my favorite read of the month for quite a while to just something I read. After the whole beginning of the heroic age this book lost something. This book was great when they were the heroes operating under the radar during troubling and trying times, but now that things are back to normal for the avengers, shouldn't these guys just become regular Avengers or something. I don't know, It just feels like the sales were good so they couldn't cancel it, and if you are not going to cancel it why start the numbering over? I understand the need for multiple Avengers teams but I don't know if I am going to stay on for much longer.

Age of X : Alpha -I feel like we have been here before. It's another X-Men alternate reality that will jump into the regular X-Books and throw things out of whack. Wonder if Xavier will have never been born or was killed to cause this alternative reality? I have not been very impressed by the lead in previews and ads but I could be wrong, after all I was wrong about my high hopes back during Age of Apocalypse. why can't these be done like D.C's Elseworlds? The regular Marvel Universe is on Earth 616 so there are plenty of realities to play in to tell interesting alternate time line stories without tying them to the regular books or redoing the often poor Exiles.

Well that is my pulls for the week. I'll be reviewing my favorite book of the week(s) soon, so stay tuned.

Geoffrey K Boyd