Astro City #1: Astro City from Vertigo was a critically acclaimed series from Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross that returns for a new montly series. The series followed a number of superheroes who were analogues for classic characters like Superman and Batman, but with a more realistic twist. It was somewhere between the DC universe and the ultra grittiness of Watchmen. This new series finds the heroes of Astro City, like Sentinel and American Chibi investigating a mysterious door that appears. The book is narrated by a character called the Broken Man, who seems to be speaking directly to the reader and breaks the fourth wall by asking the reader to help him manipulate events by focusing on characters and places. It’s super clever and a great return for the classic series.
Shadowman #7: The Cajun supernatural action continues in Shadowman as Shadowman and Baron Samedi form an uneasy alliance to take down Devereaux, the evil Master Darque’s lieutenant in the world of the living. There’s always something new revealed about the world and in this issue we learn that Devereaux communicates with Darque by hooking homeless up to a machine and killing them to open a connection and that Shadowman’s mentor, Dox, has a way weird object called a Devilheart that will let him enter the world of the dead while keeping his body alive.
Avengers #13: The Avengers field trip to the Savage Land was interrupted last week by the High Evolutionary, who reveals he wants to use the alien children the Avengers were mentoring into living batteries. Hyperion, a sun powered super being, has taken a person interest in the kids and unleashes his full power against the Evolutionary and takes him and his giant Terminus robot down, with some assistance from Thor and the other Avengers. Some awesome action this issue and the book is hopefully finding it’s balance of superhero action and complicated, cosmic BS.
Avengers Arena #10: Nico of The Runaways takes center stage this issue as she is the only one whose power could not be manipulated by the psychotic Katie, who controls both a Sentinel and the cyborg Deathlocket. Nico manages to get the rest of the teens to safety and puts up a worthy fight but is ultimately killed in horrific fashion by Katie.
Age of Ultron #9: Some classic time travel craziness occurs in this penultimate issue of the Age of Ultron event. After seeing how equally horrific things are with Ultron and Hank Pym out of the timeline, Wolverine manages to get both a classic costume and heads back to when he was about to kill Hank and convinces his past self to stop and they manage to convince Hank to somehow put in a failsafe into Ultron that would prevent the total annihilation of the Earth they were trying to stop. Hank also needs to figure out someway to forget all of this so he doesn’t cause any damage to the timeline as it was and Wolverine prime allows himself to be taken out by the past Wolverine so that he and Sue can return to the present without causing any paradoxes. We’ll have to find out next issue if things are better or worse but the preview for the final issues shows an all out battle against Ultron, which hopefully the Marvel heroes can win this time.
Thunderbolts #10: The renegade super team is still on the hunt for who is providing terrorists with Crimson Dynamo armor and the trail seems to lead to Elektra’s brother, who she presumed was dead. Venom and Deadpool learn that Dr. Vanko, nephew of the original Crimson Dynamo, was killed in an apparent suicide and the rest of the team is flooded with people getting messages on their cell phones to give them to The Leader, which they first believe are bombs but then find out they are messages from The Leader to himself.
Detective Comics #21: Harper Row, who will most likely be officially joining the Bat family soon, helps Batman yet again when a mysterious assassin arrives to try and kill an important diplomat. The assassin is Mio, one of Bruce’s former flames from his journey around the world during his training, who he believed was killed in a robbery gone bad. It looks like we may be finally getting Rha’s Al Ghul into the new 52 universe, as that who it looks like is Mio’s mysterious master in the shadows.
Green Arrow #21: Oliver Queen goes on a crazy drug trip and learns the truth about himself and his father. Oliver learns that there are seven clans based around weapons and that he and his father are members of the arrow clan. There is a specific weapon for each clan that gives the user enlightenment and power, which Oliver’s father was looking for when he was killed by his protege, Lacroix, who turns to be the assassin Komodo, who has been hunting Oliver for the last few issues. Oliver now has a new quest, to kill Lacroix and two other people and stop them from getting the totem bow.
Swamp Thing #21: Alec gets a mysterious visitor in the immortal warrior Capucine, who demands that Alec give her “sanctuary of the green”, a promise of safety that was given by one of the former Swamp Things. Alec sees a vision of the past when this promise was created but barely escapes from the mysterious “seeder” who has been creating rogue spots of green around the world and is able to pull energy from the green. Alec gets his location and sets out to Scotland to hunt him down.
Daredevil: Dark Nights #1: Matt Murdock is on a time sensitive mission during a brutal blizzard in New York City when a helicopter carrying a heart donation for a little girl goes down somewhere in the city. To make matters worse, Matt suffered a mugging and has lost his memory and does not have complete control of his senses. It seems like it will be a very good mini series and is definitely the kind of mission Daredevil would be taking on.
Thor: The Dark World Movie Prequel #1: If you were wondering what Thor was up to between Thor and The Avengers, this issue of the book leading into the sequel has your answer. Heimdal and Frigga both have visions of Loki on Earth and Odin reveals a Dark Energy generator in the depths of Asgard that he uses to teleport Thor to Earth, in light of the Bifrost Bridge being destroyed. Speaking of the bridge, the loss of the Bifrost threatens to put the nine realms into chaos, as the Asgardians are not able to intervene as the other races put plans into action. The book ends with Thor just arriving on Earth prior to his battle with Captain America and Iron Man in The Avengers.
Thanos Rising #3: More of the extraordinary life of Thanos is revealed this issue as we learn that Thanos in his early adult years alternated between bedding alien ladies and creating bastard sons and traveling the galaxies with a pirate crew. Neither activity fills the void in Thanos’ life and he eventually returns home and finds who, I think, is Death, and asks her to marry him. She will only do this on the condition that Thanos kill all his former wives and children, which he immediately sets out to do.
