AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #597 – Is this the best Spider-Man has ever been? I’m going to go out on a limb and say, “possibly.” Spidey goes up against the Dark Avengers, and it ain’t pretty. Joe Kelly knows how to ratchet up the danger to Pete, which he does quite well in this issue. And Marco Chechetto’s art is great, reminiscent of Phil Jimenez without feeling derivative. Plus, we get a clue about what’s going to go down in ASM #600, and it’s both blindingly obvious, and a completely fun idea. Can’t wait.

BETA RAY BILL: GODHUNTER #1 – I want to ruin absolutely nothing about this book, because it came as a total surprise to me. It’s well written, well drawn, and you get a bonus “origin of Beta Ray Bill” reprint. Pick this up.

ENDER’S GAME: RECRUITING VALENTINE ONE-SHOT – I’m still having a hard time getting a handle on the Ender’s Universe, having never read the books, but holy crap, Timothy Green II’s use of light in the art in this issue is stunning. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so cinematic in a comic book before. Whatever I think about the story and plot elements of these Enders books, Marvel is putting an incredible amount of talent on them.

FANTASTIC FOUR #567 – Why? Why must this book be so pretty, and yet so dumb. So unrelenting dumb? So incredibly dumb, it hurts my brain to think about. I love Mark Millar. I love his big, silly over the top action set pieces. And Bryan Hitch’s art is classic. But I wish it wasn’t tied to stories so stunningly un-original, they feel like something I came up with at age ten after reading comics, then playing with my action figures in the yard. “No, Doctor Doom isn’t the bad guy! This He-Man action figure is the real bad guy! And the only one that can stop him is… Rodimus Prime!” Sigh.

GENEXT: UNITED #2 – While reading this issue, I was thinking about the differences between Claremont’s approach to this, ostensibly the future of the X-Men, and X-Men Forever, which you could easily call the past of the X-Men. And he’s taking entirely opposite approaches to the two titles. Where X-Men Forever (and granted, this is based on one issue) feels like it’s purposely going against what would have ACTUALLY happened in issue #4 of X-Men back in the 90s (and will only go further against it from there), GeneXt is almost stubbornly not pushing the idea of the X-Men forward. And just in case it isn’t clear, I’m totally cool with that. This was a review of X-Men Forever, right?

LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS #2 – Ms. Lion is the most important new character in the Marvel Universe. I’m glad I said what we were all thinking.

PUNISHER: FRANK CASTLE MAX #71 – There’s nothing terribly wrong with this issue in particular, other than the fact that it’s a Punisher MAX comic not written by Garth Ennis. Oh, and the Punisher spends the entire issue doing absolutely nothing except squinting his eyes and wondering if anything is wrong. Which is what we all want out of a Punisher comic, right? Frank Castle thinking real hard like?

UNCANNY X-MEN #511 – Love this comic, love what Matt Fraction is doing with it, love some of the plot twists, do NOT like the rushed, ambiguous conclusion. YOu should pick it up anyway, though. It’s original, fun X-Men stories, and how long has it been since we had those. Forever. X-Men Forever.

WAR OF KINGS: SAVAGE WORLD OF SKAAR ONE-SHOT – If you like War of Kings, and also like Skaar, you are one of the ten people in the very small Venn Diagram of comic book readers who will by this book. Congratulations, I hope you like continuity headaches.

WOLVERINE #74 – I can take or leave the first story in this book, which plays exactly like each of the fifteen thousand Wolverine one shots that have come out over the past month. But the second story continues to be one of the best Wolverine stories… Ever. No joke. And the Wolverine/Spidey relationship continues to be totally delightful, even if it smacks of “hey, let’s take the two most marketable characters at Marvel, and put them together to make money I MEAN GOOD STORIES.” Anyway, it should be a law somewhere that only Jason Aaron is allowed to write Wolverine comics.

X-FACTOR #44 – Layla and Madrox together totally creeps me out. That’s all I’ve got.

As usual (well, as of last week and this week, usual), we’ve got spoiler-free reviews of tomorrow’s Marvel Comics today! Be sure to check back tomorrow and leave your thoughts, and we’ll have more spoilery looks on the video shows this week.

BLACK PANTHER #4 – Boy, they sure are taking their time with this “Who is the new Black Panther?” thing, huh? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s competently done, but I think I enjoyed the immense amounts of fun Reginald Hudlin brought to the run before it went to its new numbering. Now it’s all mysticism and gothic intensity, and it’s losing my interest.

DARK REIGN: HAWKEYE #2 – As much as I like the idea of this series, the execution is a little lacking. Whereas last issue had a strong focus on Bullseye wanting to be known as Bullseye, not Hawkeye, this issue jettisons all that in favor of a new psychological take on the mass murdering sai-stealer. Again, it’s not bad, Andy Diggle knows what he’s doing; but I can’t help but think this would have been far better as a one-shot, ala Chris Gage’s Thunderbolts one-shots, which focused on a character, informed the main book, but worked mainly as supplemental material. I also like Tom Raney’s pencils a lot, they’re nice and clean, but he has a bright, almost bubbly flair that doesn’t quite match the realism of Dark Avengers, for example.

DARK REIGN: YOUNG AVENGERS #1 – This should be Young Masters of Evil, right? And it almost is, except for some garbage about, “We’re heroes! No we’re not! Are we? I don’t know!” I love Paul Cornell’s writing dearly, but this is a bit of a mess, mainly because it’s entirely unclear who these young heroes are aspiring to be. The idea is great: young heroes inspired by the Dark Avengers are like the Young Masters of Evil. Except… Nobody knows the Dark Avengers are evil, so it comes off as a fantastic, unexplained coincidence that there’s a baby Enchantress, and Executioner, etc. Hopefully this will clear up a bit next issue, because Cornell (and the idea) deserve better than this first one.

DEADPOOL: SUICIDE KINGS #2 – I feel like I’m coming off as quite the negative nancy this week, so apologies on one more negative review before a few positive ones, but none of this comic makes any sense. Sorry, that’s a little strong, but how hard is it to pit Deadpool against The Punisher? It’s not. You barely need an excuse. Yet this book is bending over backwards to come up with a reason for them to come to blows. Here, I’ll pitch a better comic right now: The Punisher realizes Deadpool is an amoral assassin, and decides to kill him. Done! Goodbye.

GENEXT: UNITED #1 – The first GeneXt series was a nice surprise… Given the complicated premise, that the X-Men had aged in real time in from their first appearance, and now had grandchildren running around with mutant powers, it was surprisingly successful with an old school X-Men feel. Which makes sense, given that Chris Claremont wrote and created it. This issue picks up minutes after the end of the last series, and works just as well. If you want fun, old school X-Men tales set in modern times, this book is well worth a look.

LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS #1 – It’s embarrassing how excited I was for this book, and boy did it deliver. I’m not going to say much other than you probably know from the title whether you want to read this or not. If it’s “not,” let me correct you and say that yes, you do want to read it. It’s the most fun you’ll have reading an Avengers book all month. No joke. Marvel has been killing it with its pseudo-continuity books like Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil, the Power Pack books, and X-Men: First Class; Pet Avengers fits in there quite well, thank you. Also, if Speedball’s cat Niles ends up in some sort of S&M armor by the end of the series, I will kiss Chris Eliopoulos square on the mouth.

PUNISHER: FRANK CASTLE MAX #70 – This is the last issue of the arc, and I haven’t read an issue since Ennis’ run, but it sure does seem like a lot of elements from what good old Garth was doing on the title, without the insane intensity. Ah well.

SAVAGE SHE-HULK #2 – I know a lot of people are mad that She-Hulk (aka Jennifer Walters) was cancelled for this title, and is being replaced by a new She-Hulk (Thundra and the Hulk’s daughter). Too bad none of that is true. She-Hulk was cancelled, but not because of this title. That was a happy accident. And the Savage She-Hulk isn’t replacing Jenny… She’s all over this issue, being as awesome as ever. There’s still a lot we don’t know about this character, and it seems like all four issues are going to be the superhero equivalent of 16 Blocks, but I’m officially on board with the new Thrulk. If you’ve been avoiding the title for any of the above reasons, stop it, and pick up this issue. You’re supporting new characters in the Marvel universe if you do, and single handedly destroying comics if you’re not. That may be a little harsh, actually. And untrue. Maybe.

SECRET WARRIORS #4 – I gotta say, four issues in, and I’m still not 100% sure who all of these characters are, or what they’re about. As a team book, it seems like we may have one of those “The team after the first arc isn’t the same as where we started!” things going on, which is starting to make me think, “Maybe I’ll wait until after the first arc, then!” As a Nick Fury book, though, Hickman and Bendis are rocking it. They have a great handle on Fury, where he’s at, and what he’s about. It’s nice that he’s returned to the Marvel Universe proper in style, with his own, f-ing terrifying Rogues Gallery. That’s not even mentioning Stefano Caselli’s gorgeous art, which makes this book worth picking up on its own.

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ #6 – What can I say that hasn’t previously been said. Every issue is like a work of art. I mean, it is a work of art. Pick it up.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #132 – Goddamn if this isn’t the most consistently great title Marvel has ever published. Bendis is writing this title so well, and so completely owning everything about it, that I can’t imagine anyone else ever writing the title. He’s even writing a great story arc in the face of the monumentally crappy Ultimatum event. And as much as I’m super giddy about David LaFeunte on Ultimate Comics Spider-Man when this relaunches in two issues, I’m going to miss Stuart Immonen’s superb art. I GUESS it’ll be okay that he’s going over to New Avengers. OH WELL. By the way, slight spoiler time, but anyone else think Bendis might (seriously, potential spoilers if I am an incredible genius) kill/get rid of Peter Parker? I could be totally off base here, but I think at least for the first arc or two, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man could probably be titled Ultimate Spider-Woman Comics. Don’t get me wrong, I’m betting Pete’ll come back from the “dead” at some point (and not that he’s dead at the end of this issue, I’m just speculating), but if I’m right, you all owe me cookies.

WAR OF KINGS: ASCENSION #2 – Why is there a comic book about Darkhawk? And why is it so fun? I feel weird.

X-FACTOR #43 – Peter David, as promised, is continuing to do a lovely job of making X-Factor as fun, exciting, and surprising as it has ever been, but there’s one moment in here that totally grossed me out. You’ll know what it is when you see it. In its own way, it’s as shocking a reveal as anything on the last pages of the previous three issues. And that’s not counting this issue’s last page reveal, which is fun and shocking in its own way. In case it isn’t clear, go pick this up.

This week gave us two issues of Peter David’s rather fan-beloved X-Factor, and what’s interesting is that they basically serve as a seminar on what works and doesn’t work in this series.

The former issue, a oneshot about everyone’s favorite nigh-omniscient Layla Miller, revisits perhaps the second largest dangling plot thread from Messiah CompleX and provides welcome answers to longtime fans of this series. It’s a great issue, justifying its extra length and significantly moving forward Layla’s storyline, dealing with the sort of mutant vs. government issues that have always been the major subject material of this series. As a matter of fact, it’s almost a textbook lesson on shared-universe writing regarding the deftness with which David balances the plotting demands of the X-franchise and the narrative demands of the main character. Valentine De Landro is a perfect fit for the material, providing just the right amount of noir and just the right amount of superhero bombast.

This is why I was rather glad I read this special after X-Factor #34, which manages to almost as skillfully distill everything unappealing about David’s X-Factor – ill-conceived and frustrating action sequences (even to the characters! – do we need ANOTHER team-up misunderstanding? It’s not any funnier if all the characters are going “Wow, this sure is a stereotypical team-up misunderstanding!”), tie-in material that rolls in and out without fanfare or major effect, interesting ideas (Darwin as a human-Skrull link) thrown out and never touched on, and a distinct lack of servicing the book’s needs and plots in favor of servicing the Marvel Universe, Secret Invasion and David’s own She-Hulk, with which this X-Factor arc was crossing over. All it really needed were some Star Trek jokes to complete this bizarre shrine to David’s worst excesses.

However, all of this would be passable without Larry Stroman’s astonishingly regressed art style. I remember when he was with this same writer, on this same property, in the ’90s; it was a very visually appealing sort of Mignola/Jae Lee-esque style with imaginative panel layouts. I don’t know if it’s the inking here or what, but Stroman’s art here is a disaster – anatomy that should have been exaggerated instead becoming impossibly distorted, unrecognizable characters (I *still* can only tell that’s Darwin from the dialogue) and overall poor storytelling sense all contribute to the rushed feeling. Maybe Stroman just needs more time to get his groove back. I hope so; I really, really liked early ’90s Stroman. But this is not him.

It’s really interesting how both of these books – branched off of the same narrative trunk, but so completely different – hit this week to provide such a blatant contrast. (It’s also confusing as to why Marvel would schedule things this way, but oh well.) However, while X-Factor #34 is simply a bizarre misstep in a usually consistent series, the Layla Miller Special is a great character piece and an incredibly fun chapter in the same story. The latter outweighs the former.

Layla Miller Special:

X-Factor #34: