Marvel's January previews reviewed

Think Jason Aaron's Avengers book has drifted too far from the core concept of the franchise, what with its prehistoric Avengers and multiversal Masters of Evil and infinite versions of Mephisto? If so, Marvel's got a tonic for you in the form of Avengers: War Across Time #1, the first issue of a five-part series featuring the original Avengers line-up vs. The Hulk (and Kang), by Paul Levitz (wait, Paul Levitz? At Marvel?!) and Alan Davis. Yes, Alan Davis, so you know it's gonna be something to look at).

How classic-feelling is it going to be? Well, they're using the old time-y Avengers font on the logo, so I'm assuming it's going to be pretty classic-feeling. 

Just out of curiosity, when you hear Captain America: SOL, what do you think of first? Captain America: Shit Out of Luck? Captain America: Satellite Of Love? Or Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty? It's that last one, if you couldn't tell, which is the official title of one of Marvel's two ongoing Captain America titles. 

In Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #8, they introduce a new MODOC-with-a-C, a Mental Organism Designed Only for Control. I think it's hard to be the original acronym of MODOK, the Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing, but I think the gentler MODOC, Mental Organism Designed Only for Conquest worked well too for the all-ages Avengers comics Jeff Parker wrote for a time, but I don't know, maybe "Conquest" is considered too super villainous for today's more realistic Marvel comics, so they're going with "Control" instead...

Tradd Moore's Doctor Strange: Fall Sunrise #3 deserves credit for looking so different from everything else Marvel is publishing in  January. Scrolling through all the covers, it's one of the only times I stopped to think, "Wait, what's this?"

Wait, they really haven't done this cover homage with Miles Morales just yet? January's Miles Morales: Spider-Man #2 will really be the very first time? Huh. Weird.

How common is this particular homage? So common that Savage Avengers #9 isn't the only Marvel comic doing it in January. So too is Marauders #10:

One of the themes for this month's variants is "Classic Homage", which is why there are so many homage covers in the solicits, but still, you'd think they could all at least do different homages, wouldn't  you...?

Gene Luen Yang's Shang-Chi comic gets yet another new #1 with this month's Shang-Chi: Master of The Ten Rings #1. Despite reading the first trade paperback collection or two, I have completely lost track of the series, which has had way too many relaunches than a healthy series should need. This is actually the end of the series though, not another new start, at least according to the solicitation copy, which reads "Gene Luen Yang's Shang-Chi saga comes to its shocking conclusion!" It's an oversized one-shot, which one imagines will eventually make it's way into a big, fat hardcover titled "Shang-Chi by Gene Luen Yang," which is the way to read the story, I suppose, rather than trying to keep up as Marvel published it, in fits and starts.