Marvel's November previews reviewed

And now it's Marvel's turn. As always, you can read the full solicits, and look at all the pictures, here. But you can only read me talking about those same solicits and pictures here, where you already are.

Ready?


AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #648
Written by DAN SLOTT
Pencils and Cover by HUMBERTO RAMOS
Blank Cover Variant Also Available
Variant Cover by STEFANO CASELLI
Spider-Girl Variant Cover by J. SCOTT CAMPBELL
Wraparound Variant Cover by MARCOS MARTIN
BIG TIME BEGINS!
Big changes are happening for the Amazing Spider-Man: Bigger threats, bigger guest-stars, and a big opportunity that could turn Peter Parker’s life around! Which cast members are staying and who’s saying goodbye? Find out as we’re introduced to new characters and reintroduced to a number of Spidey villains as they make the triumphant return to the book! Plus: New developments for Mayor J. Jonah Jameson, the staff at Front Line, and The Sinister Six! The next chapter in Spider-Man history starts here! Guest starring THE AVENGERS and THE FANTASTIC FOUR in a giant-sized, 39 page lead feature! PLUS! An All-New Adventure featuring the All-New SPIDER-GIRL! PAUL TOBIN & CLAYTON HENRY bring a tale of action & intrigue, and make a strong argument for why you can sometimes send a Spider-GIRL to do a Spider-MAN’s job…
56 pages/All-New Content/Rated A …$3.99

Now that the big ASM story arc named after an old Whitney Houston song is over, it's time for the next big ASM story arc to begin—and this one is going to be named after an old Peter Gabriel song.

When I first read the above solicitation, I misread “Mayor J. Jonah Jameson” as “Mary J. Jonah Jameson,” and for a fraction of a second imagined that the new-new Spider-marriage status quo was that Mary Jane had somehow ended up to J.J.J. and, for that fraction of a second, got really excited about a Spider-Man comic.


ASTONISHING THOR #1 (of 5)
Written by ROB RODI
Penciled by MIKE CHOI
Cover by ESAD RIBIC
Foilogram Variant by TBD
“Waves are but water, wind but air. And though lightning be fire… IT MUST ANSWER THUNDER’S CALL.” The God of Thunder finds himself battling a mysterious surge of natural catastrophes— hurricanes, tidal waves, earthquakes. At first, the Son of Odin suspects Zephyr, immortal mistress of the winds, but soon he finds that the climactic upheaval must be attributed to a much larger force… EGO, THE LIVING PLANET! From ROBERT RODI and MIKE CHOI! Spinning out of the destruction of Asgard, ASTONISHING THOR is an out-of-this-world adventure—where the entire universe hangs in the balance!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Call me a cynic, but with Thor and Thor: The Mighty Avenger ongoings, in addition to miniseries Thor: First Thunder, Ultimate Comics Thor, Iron Man/Thor, Loki, Warriors Three and Thunderstrike, plus the various Avengers books featuring Thor on their covers (two), Astonishing Thor seems…well, let’s just say less than necessary. (Especially since the Astonishing, Ultimate and Might Avenger flavors all seem to share the same mission statement).
Oh well, I guess they’ll have plenty of trade collections of recent Thor material to sell when the movie gets closer to release.


AVENGERS #7
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Pencils and Cover by MIKE DEODATO JR.
Blank Cover Variant Also Available
Gatefold Variant Cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC
Variant Cover by ED McGUINNESS
Tron Variant Cover by TBD
I AM AN AVENGER!
Plus: another chapter in the oral history of the Avengers!
32 PGS./Rated A …$3.99

Oops! There are so many variant covers for this issue they ran out of room to write any solicitation text!

I wonder what a “Tron Variant” is…will there be drawings of the Marvels in glowy Tron costumes?


AVENGERS: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST HEROES #1 (of 4)
Written by CHRISTOPHER YOST
Pencils by SCOTT WEGENER & PATRICK SCHERBERGER
Based on the AMAZING new animated series! What do you do when the world’s evilest villains attack? Call Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to save the day! In our first tale, CAPTAIN AMERICA and THOR face a threat bigger than BOTH of them!
And in tale two, following the exploits of everyone’s favorite arrow-flinger: HAWKEYE! Brought to you by superstar writer CHRISTOPHER YOST (X-FORCE) and incredible artists SCOTT WEGENER (Atomic Robo) and PATRICK SCHERBERGER (WORLD WAR HULKS)!
40 PGS./All Ages …$3.99

Okay, yes, obviously “another Avenger comic” probably isn’t the first thing that comes to anyone’s mind when they stop and consider what it is Marvel or the direct market or Comics needs right now (This is but one of the ten books with the word “Avengers” in the title being released in November).

But I thought the particular line-up shown on that cover worth noting. The show’s producers apparently went with a somewhat classic line-up, featuring mostly old-school, long-time Avengers, rather than taking cues from the more current New Avengers line-up (that is, no Spidey or Wolive or Cage or Spiderwoman) or the Marvel Adventures Avengers line-up (No Storm, no Spidey, no Wolvie).

Oh! And "arrow-flinger?" Doesn't Hawkeye shoot his arrows using a bow...?


AVENGERS VS. PET AVENGERS #2 (of 4)
Written by CHRIS ELIOPOULOS
Pencils & Cover by IG GUARA
Variant Cover by TBD
THE AGE OF DRAGONS HAS BEGUN. Are the Pet Avengers too late to save the world, and will Lockheed band with them…or join his dragon brethren? Eisner-nominee CHRIS ELIOPOULOS and IG GUARA continue their epic saga of Earth’s Mightiest Animals!!!!
32 PGS./All Ages …$2.99

Hmm, Lockheed vs. a dragon? Yes, that looks like an exciting comic book I want to read.

Hey, speaking of Marvelous dragons fighting, has no one ever written a Lockheed vs. Fin Fang Foom comic before? Because that seems like the sort of thing I should have read by now.


I AM AN AVENGER #3 (of 5)
Written by DAN ABNETT, ANDY LANNING, SEAN McKEEVER, MARC SUMERAK & LUCY KNISLEY
Penciled by TODD NAUCK, MIKE MAYHEW, ANTONIO FUSO & LUCY KNISLEY
Cover by PHIL NOTO
Cosmically charged super scribes Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning take Nova for a spin, planet-side! Now a full-fledged Avenger, the Human Rocket teams up with the Amazing Spider-Man to thwart…a bank robbery? Exes Firestar and Justice discover they have unfinished business to contend with--not only with each other, but with the Avengers, too! Stingray learns that the new Heroic Age doesn't mean a perfect world... even in paradise! And Tony Stark learns not to mess with teenaged angst, especially when its “Stature”-esque in scale!

Wait, Lucy Knisley…? Really? Neat-o.


IRON MAN: THE RAPTURE #1 & #2 (of 4)
Written by ALEXANDER IRVINE
Penciled by LAN MEDINA
Covers by TIM BRADSTREET
4-issue Marvel Knights limited series! A pulse-pounding cyberpunk thriller by Alexander Irvine (The Narrows) and Lan Medina (Deathlok: The Demolisher). The future belongs to Tony Stark. So when a violent heart attack pushes the billionaire playboy and visionary inventor to the brink of death, he’s not about to go down quietly. Enter Stark 2.0 – a fusion of man and machine unlike anything the world has seen before, an entity that will push its host past the brink of sanity as it attempts to recreate the world in its own image. With Stark Industries in lockdown, it’s up to Starks’s associates Pepper Potts and Jim Rhodes to stem a technological virus that might well contaminate the entire world. But to save the day, they’ll need Tony’s help – if, indeed, there is anything left of him.
32 PGS. (each)/Parental Advisory …$3.99 (each)

This does not at all sound like the plot of a book entitled Iron Man: The Rapture. At least, not at all like the plot of a book entitled Iron Man: The Rapture that I imagine when I hear that title.


Two things. First, how is it that Marvel has nothing better for Arthur Adams to do (when he's not drawing issues of Jeph Loeb's Ultimate X-Men title) than to draw covers for an out-of-continuity X-Men spin-off)? Second, that is a pretty awesome belt.




OZMA OF OZ #1 (of 8)
Written by Eric Shanower
Pencils & Cover by Skottie Young
Variant Cover by JAE LEE
Variant Cover by ERIC SHANOWER
Dorothy Gale plunges into adventure again, this time with a talking chicken named Billina. Dorothy and Billina are washed off their sailing ship to face drowning, starvation, and screaming Wheelers, strange men with wheels instead of hands and feet. The multiple Eisner Award-winning and New York Times bestselling team of Shanower and Young returns to Oz with this comics adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s third Oz book.
32 PGS./All Ages …$3.99

I read a collection of the first Shanower/Young Oz book Marvel put out, and it was okay. It put the prose into the comics medium well, and Young’s art was quite accomplished…I had fun seeing his take on various Oz characters. But something about seeing yet another Oz book from this team—the third or fourth, I believe—kind of bums me out.

Don’t get me wrong, these are fine comics and if that’s what they both want to be doing more than anything else then hooray for them, but, I don’t know, I’d like to see Young do something else with his considerable talent in the future as well, and I hope he doesn’t make a whole career out of just doing Oz adaptations from Marvel (Unless he wants to make a whole career out of it; it’s his career…I just think he has an interesting way of communicating in his comics, so if he has anything to say, I’d rather hear him say it, then simply working to translate L. Frank Baum book’s into a different medium).


SECRET AVENGERS #7
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Penciled by MIKE DEODATO JR.
Cover by MIKE DEODATO JR.
Tron Variant Cover by TBD
Dark forces are at work in Hong Kong to reincarnate a great evil...but the Secret Avengers and that great evil's son -- SHANG CHI -- are also on these dark streets! As is a new secret member of Marvel's hottest covert Avengers team! By the all-star team-up of Ed Brubaker and Mike Deodato.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

“ A great evil”…? You mean Youknowho Manchu?



SPIDER-GIRL #1
Written by PAUL TOBIN
Penciled by CLAYTON HENRY
Cover by BARRY KITSON
Variant Cover by JAE LEE
Women of Marvel Variant by JELENA KEVIC-DJURDJEVIC
Spinning from the GRIM HUNT in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN!
Not every fight can get resolved by punching someone in the face…but Spider-Girl’s gonna punch somebody anyway, just to make sure. Follow the swinging adventures of Anya Corazon, the Splendiferous Spider-Girl, as she balances the daily grind of teenage life with the bumps and bruises brought by banging ‘bows with bad guys! Guest-starring the FANTASTIC FOUR and a villain that our hero could NEVER, EVER, EVER defeat. Paul Tobin (SPIDER-MAN, SUPER HEROES) and Clayton Henry (UNCANNY X-MEN) present an all-new hero for an all-new era!
40 pages/8 Page All-New Backup/Rated A …$3.99

Is this Arana’s new codename and costume…? I thought I heard somewhere that she was going to become the new Spider-Girl. If so, it looks like she also grew here hair out t, so as to better resemble the last female Spider-lady who wore a costume similar to that. I think I liked her old hair better. Arana’s old costume wasn’t a very good one, but I think this one might be worse. Yeah, the black Spider-Man costume was something of a classic, but I think it’s been worn by so many different folks by now—including Venom—that it’s lost his sense of the special.

Also, that thing on her costume doesn’t look so much like a spider as some kind of insect, given how long and skinny its body is.


I have nothing to add beyond "Hey, look at this!"


So here's an image of Thor fighting Fin Fang Foom before the rainbow bridge to Asgard.


ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #150
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by DAVID LAFUENTE, SKOTTIE YOUNG, SARA PICHELLI, JAMIE MCKELVIE & more!
Cover by David Lafuente
Variant Cover by J. SCOTT CAMPBELL
Wraparound Variant Cover by Mark Bagley
Not only is this officially the Ultimate Spider-Man 150th issue anniversary, but it is also the 10 year anniversary of the birth of the Ultimate Marvel universe!! Can you believe it?? We can't either! To celebrate, Eisner award-winning series writer Brian Michael Bendis has created this triple size extravaganza and gathered together a stellar lineup of amazing artists!! A reunion of the greatest artists of not only this historic book but of the the entire line of Ultimate Comics. Poor Peter Parker has made such a mess of his life as Spider-Man that the other super heroes are forced to gather together and decide once and for all what to do with the young wall crawler. Guest starring the New Ultimates, the Storm Siblings, Ben Grimm, Iceman, Kitty Pryde and a slew of surprise stars! Also includes reprinting of Ultimate Spider-Man Super Special #1 featuring an all-star artist line-up!
104 pages/54 pages of reprinted material/Rated T+ …$5.99

I guess we can add Switching Back To The Original Numbering After Attempting To Goose Sales With An Arbitrary New #1 to the list of things that the Ultimate Spider-Man book has done in the last few years that the Ultimate Spider-Man book was specifically created to never have to do, like Participating In Intracompany, Multi-book Crossover Events and Rebooting With A New #1.


I'm usually a big fan of Adams' work, but something about this Young Allies variant cover just looks off. I'm not sure what it is, as in most respects it's a typical Arthur Adams piece. I don't know...maybe the mouth finally crept over to the wrong side of the too-tiny line or something...?