Marvel's March previews reviewed

I had intended to put this post together and publish it last night as my Monday post, but for some reason I ended up falling asleep around 9:30 p.m. last night. Was this because I was so exhausted from my long, six-hour day checking books in and out at my library day job? Or because the solicits themselves were so boring they put me to sleep?

You'll have to read them for yourself to decide.

The thing that jumped out at me in this month's batch as the most interesting is that before Brian Michael Bendis will finally step down as the writer of two ongoing Avengers titles, he will first add a third (Actually, counting the ".1" issue of Avengers schedule for March, there will be four new Avengers comics written by Bendis on sale).

That will be Avengers Assemble, which appears to star the Marvel Universe equivalents of the Avengers in the upcoming movie, and it will feature art by Mark Bagley, who previously teamed with Bendis during his Mighty Avengers run.

To help promote the book, Marvel will be offering "Retailer Variants", which, judging by the blank spaces on a couple of the previews, look like bad riffs on IDW's idea of having store-owners allow Godzilla to step on their store on the cover of Godzilla #1, as long as they order enough copies.

So I guess if you order enough copies you can pretend you have the sort of terrible comic shop that is small, cramped and stocks exclusively Marvel comics and overpriced statuettes? Or you can have your name on a pedestal, surrounded by a poorly drawn Hulk and Captain American pumping his fist in the air for some reason? Also of note this month? To me, anyway? I hate these new-format solicits of Marvel, with non sequitur bullet points offering a few salient facts about each, and every single world beginning with a capital letter. Write paragraphs, you damned solicitation elves, you!

Okay, let's see what we got...

Astonishing X-Men #48
Marjorie Liu (W) • Mike Perkins (A)
Cover By Dustin Weaver
Amazing Spider-Man 50Th Anniversary Variant By Tba
• New Creative Team! Best-Selling Author Marjorie Liu And Mike Perkins (The Stand).
• The X-Men Return To New York City, But It’s Not A Social Call.
• Don’t Miss The First Chapter Of What Will Be The Most Controversial Story Of 2012!
32 Pgs./Rated T+ …$3.99

…in which it’s revealed that Wolverine slept with Northstar in the past…?

Why not? He's slept with just about everyone else in the Marvel Universe...


Avengers Vs. X-Men #0
Brian Michael Bendis & Jason Aaron (W)
• Frank Cho (A/C)
...
• The Return Of The Scarlet Witch! What Does This Mean For The Mutant Messiah Hope?
• Three Of The Hottest Names In Comics Kick Off The Biggest Event In Marvel History!
• And Did We Mention Frank Cho On Art?!
40 Pgs./One-Shot/Rated T+ …$3.99
*Issue Will Be Polybagged

Oh so that’s Hope (as Kate said in the comments the other day). That makes sense then, to have the deus ex machina that reduced the mutant population of the Marvel Universe down to less than 200 X-Men and their villains (and put one of Joe Quesada's genies back in one of his bottles) and the deus ex machina that can restore the mutant population of the Marvel Universe and let that genie of Quesada's out of the bottle, on the cover together.

I guess I just didn’t realize that the grown-up Hope had such a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible costume.

I like the background of Cho's cover, if not the overall structure and rendering of the characters in the foreground.

...

Wait, did they say "pollybagged"...?

Sigh...


Jeez Spidey, how could you miss at such close range…? Your web-shooter is only inches away from Cable!

And speaking of Cable—I assume that's him, since this is the cover of that Cable vs. The Avengers miniseries—I guess his character design isn't hopelessly ugly after all. To make it look cool, all you have to do is simply redesign him into Colossus, I guess.


Look at this cover. Look at this cover.


New Avengers #23
Brian Michael Bendis (W)
• Mike Deodato (A/C)
• The Shocking Conclusion To The Dark Avengers Saga!
• Will One Of The Dark Avengers Become A New Avenger?!
• …And Will There Be A Shocking Fatality In The Avengers Battle Of The Year?!!
32 Pgs./Rated T …$3.99

Well there had better be a shocking fatality, if you include a question like that in the solicitation. If someone reads New Avengers #23 in March and finds there isn't a shocking fatality—that is, if the answer is "No, of course not"—then they're probably going to be sort of disappointed.

This is a really rather nice cover by Deodato (I actually thought it was by Neal Adams until I saw the signature), which provides a good example of the basic appeal of Hulk's son. The Hulk + A Sword is a pretty good formula.


Wow, that cover looks stupid.


Nice Arthur Adams cover. It even manages to make Lady Deathstrike look kinda cool.



Ew. What is Kaare Andrews doing?