The numbers are in and despite the best efforts of Marvel to make “Uncanny Avengers #1” the best-selling comic of the year — twenty covers, getting John Cassaday to illustrate it, twenty covers, pricing the collected edition high enough to discourage tradewaiting, twenty goddamn covers — initial orders will not top those for issue #100 […]

This concludes the Jason Aaron/Steve Dillon run on the title, and effectively closes the door on the story of the “MAX” version of the character as well.  The “Untold Tales of Punisher MAX” doesn’t count because it comes off as an inventory-clearing initiative than an actual effort to expand the title’s audience.  Now that this […]

After the last volume of this series, Matt Fraction would have to work really hard to come up with something worse.  Seeing Tony Stark completely and utterly beaten by Doctor Octopus — for no good reason — still stands as the worst thing I’ve read all year.  Considering that the latest volume of “Casanova” was […]

New year.  New titles.  New creative teams.  New trades.  Let’s get down to it. Demon Knights #16:  Robert Venditti, best known around here as the writer of “The Surrogates,” takes over for Paul Cornell.  As was the case with “Stormwatch” my interest in this title has declined accordingly.  While I liked “The Surrogates,” Venditti’s style […]

This is a western written by Garth Ennis that he did through Avatar a few years back.  As you’d expect from his previous collaborations with the publisher it is quite violent, gruesomely so in some parts, and also hits upon some of his favorite subjects.  In this case, the necessity of hard, uncompromising men to […]

The word out of the New York Comic-Con today is that “American Vampire” will be going on a not-quite-year-long hiatus soon as writer Scott Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque pursue other projects.  This will include a ten-issue mini-series with Sean Murphy and a new Superman title for Snyder and what I can only assume is […]

Rucka’s go at building a “Punisher” series around the title character’s supporting cast continues in a fairly readable fashion here.  It’s not to say that this approach isn’t panning out, but it does feel remarkably subdued for a story involving Frank Castle and I imagine that some of these issues must’ve pretty slow when read […]

I’ve been down on Ed Brubaker’s “Captain America” for quite some time now, but this is a step in the right direction.  Things kick off with an epilogue from “Fear Itself” which explains that Bucky wasn’t pointlessly killed off during the crossover and is now going to use his “deceased” status to take care of […]

I picked this up on a whim at Comic-Con, as it came from the solid creative team of Chris “whole lotta X-books” Yost and Scott “Atomic Robo” Wegener.  The premise, about an ordinary office drone, Dave Sloan chosen by the Almighty to be his demon-slaying agent on Earth also sounded pretty nifty.  Unfortunately, while Yost […]