April Preview

The main event this month is Second Coming. I've always loved the X-Men and while the recent direction hasn't been completely successful, I did like Messiah CompleX and as I was already following three of the titles involved, it's quite an easy decision to jump into this new crossover, a decision backed up by the very competent launch one-shot.

So, that means Uncanny X-Men #523 (Fraction/Dodson), New Mutants #12 (Wells/Roberson), X-Men: Legacy #235 (Carey/Land [though why, oh why, does Land have to be involved in this?!?]) and X-Force #26 (Kyle/Yost/Choi) will all be coming home [though why, oh why, does Land have to be involved in this?!?].

I'm already following the other series that ties in to Second Coming, so X-Factor #204 (David/De Landro) is also a certainty.

Wolverine: Weapon X #12 (Aaron/Garney): well, nothing more to say.

Guardians of the Galaxy #25 (Abnett/Lanning/Walker): DnA bring in Thanos just to add more awesomeness and chaos to this book.

Nova #36 (Abnett/Lanning/Di Vito): Nova returns to Earth, possibly setting up involvement in the Heroic Age and an Avengers book?

Fantastic Four #578 (Hickman/Eaglesham): I bought the last issue because of my interest in the Inhumans, and another cosmic character in Annihilus is involved this time so I'll check this out, though I don't think I'll be following Fantastic Four regularly.

Avengers vs Atlas #4 (Parker/Hardman and Aaron/Pagulayan): I've really enjoyed this story so far, plus Jason Aaron writes Gorilla-Man!

Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #2 (Pak/Van Lente/Olivetti and Tobin/Brown): Not quite the heights that iHerc was at, but I'm still very interested in what Pak and van Lente have in store for Amadeus Cho.

Now, S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 (Hickman/Weaver), is intriguing and has good looking art, but I'm really unsure about it. Maybe it's partly the history nerd in me that picked up on a glaring (well, to me) historical error in the ancient Egypt segment shown in the preview, but mainly, I'm simply split between thinking it could be as good and high-concept as promised, and feeling that it's not essential for me personally and trepidation over how the history and historical figures will be treated. It will be bimonthly though, so that helps a bit with the size of my pull list.

Well, that was a lot of Marvel there, but there is some DC.... no wait, just one book actually, as Batwoman is off Detective Comics, seemingly permanently now, leaving Batman and Robin #11 (Morrison/Clarke). I'm wavering on whether to continue following this as it hasn't lived up the first arc's promise and I'm quite reluctant to get mixed up in all the Return of Bruce Wayne stuff less than a year after Dick Grayson became Batman and the new direction launched, so this arc will be the one that decides it for me.