Marvel's May previews reviewed

Sam Wilson officially resumes being Captain America, hopefully for an in-story reason that is better than the real-world rationale of corporate synergy, in Captain America: Symbol of Truth #1 by Tochi Onyebuchi and R.B. Silva. I'm not sure why the series is getting a sub-title, seeing as there isn't currently another Captain America title starring Steve Rogers to contrast with, but maybe they'll be relaunching a Rogers-focused series in the coming months...? 

I liked what I read of Wilson's previous stint as Captain America, particularly when Nick Spencer was writing it. I guess we'll see how this new series works out; I think much will depend on how Marvel justifies Sam picking up the—or a—shield after abandoning it for his Falcon persona in the relatively recent past. 

I kinda regret not reading the current run of Iron Man, if only because I'm a fan of the Hellcat character and, as the cover to Iron Man #20 makes pretty clear, she apparently has a sizable role to play in the series. I imagine it's all not just stories about the two of them dating though, huh? There's probably also some dumb superhero business and ancient Avengers continuity that gets foregrounded, right? 

Predator: The Original Years Omnibus Vol. 1, a $125, 1,000+ page collection of what looks like all of the Dark Horse Predator comics I remember (minus the Aliens crossovers and, obviously, the Batman crossover), is one thing, but when the hell is Marvel going to start publishing what we all assumed was coming when Marvel acquired the license, new comics featuring Predators stalking various Marvel heroes...? 

Conan leads a team of extremely random characters in the new volume of Savage Avengers by David Pepose and Carlos Magno (the cover is by Kaare Andrews, so don't get too excited based on the above  image alone. There's also a pretty alright cover by John Romita Jr. among the variants, buuuuuut it doesn't look like there's a Magno cover, for some reason...?). 

One wonders if the line-up couldn't be a bit more random though, as it's random, but  random in a "I wonder how Conan met all these folks?" and "Huh, do people really like Anti-Venom and That Character Who Is A Hulk And a Wolverine whose name I can't remember?" and not random enough to be like, "Wow, what a bizarre assortment of characters! I wonder how they will get along?!"

Maybe if it were a Savage Defenders, that'd be more up my alley.

Maybe next relaunch. 

Ugh, I disliked the original 2008 Secret Invasion so much that it was when I finally stopped reading Brian Michael Bendis's ongoing New Avengers-launched mega-storyline, cancelling my pulls of his books and approaching his future works with a much, much warier eye.

 I therefore don't find the prospect of a sequel, remake or revisitation of any kind too terribly exciting, even if this is going to be written by the great Ryan North, whose post-Squirrel Girl Marvel output I've thus far managed to avoid. (Have any of you read any of it? Is it any good? Is it funny? Is it Ryan North-y?)

Apparently Black Krrsantan's few appearances in Disney+ show The Book of Boba Fett  were popular enough to earn him a almost-trade collection in the form of Star Wars Tale: Krrsantan #1. Or, as the solicitation copy puts it: "He thrilled audiences in The Book of Boba Fett—now experience the stories that made him a legend!" 

The $7.99, 112-page comic collects Star Wars #14, #15 and #20 and Star Wars: Doctor Aphra Annual #1, all under a cover featuring an image from the show. 

That's all fine and good, but where's my comic featuring the real breakout stars of  The Book of Boba Fett, Drash, Skad and the rest of The Mods?! (I would also settle for a Garsa Fwip one-shot with a Jennifer Beals photo cover; maybe some kind of Tales From The Sanctuary Cantina, so we can also get a story about how Max Rebo hooked up with what appeared to be one of the guys who used to play in the Mos Eisely cantina's house band...?).

(Programming note: I will talk for hundreds of words about The Book of Boba Fett in my next post. I apologize in advance.)

I'm not generally a fan of this sort of video game-like realism, but those are some nicely pathetic-looking demons on the cover of Strange #3. 

Like Savage Avengers, Jim Zub and Sean Izaakse's Thunderbolts #1 has Hawkeye leading a team that mostly just has me scratching my head as to how they all get together and what they have in common (And also who the hell some of them are, in the cases of the characters named Persuasion and Gutsen Glory). Random, but not random enough for that random nature to be a selling point, at least not for me personally.

Kevin Eastman provides a variant cover for Wolverine: Patch #3. 

The evil Doop that Mike Allred drew on the cover for The X-Cellent #4 is hella scary looking. 

I like this look for Rogue on the cover of X-Men #11. 

Also, apparently Judgement Day is coming. That banner also runs across the top of covers for Avengers #56,  Eternals #12  and Immortal X-Men #3, so whatever "Judgement Day" is, it's apparently not just, like, an X-Men thing, but will involve at least two other teams of characters. 

Based on the cover for X-Men Red #3, Marvel's still going with a logo that makes it look like the title is actually X-Men O Red.