I realize that my conservative collecting habits mean that I pretty much review the same few books over and over. I try to mix it up every once in a while with impulse buys, but, generally, you’re going to get a few thoughts on books like The Walking Dead, Green Lantern, and the batch of books in my pull this week: Amazing Spider-Man, Invincible, The Invincible Iron Man, and The (Dark) Avengers. No impulse buys or oddities in the pull this week, but two of  these books did include potential game-changer endings that could lead us into the next big Marvel-wide storyline.

But first…

Invincible #67  continues to test my patience with the series, as two Invincible-free issues in a row have Invincible’s on-again-off-again-villainous father (currently off-again) and hard-to-take-serious Allen the Alien gathering the troops for the final battle with the Viltrumite Empire. While that battle will surely be harrowing and violent like every other big conflict in this series, the lead up has been buddy-movie light. Coupled with Robert Kirkman’s tendency to write overexpository dialogue, the goofiness and lack of action have made the past two issues a bore.

Amazing Spider-Man #609 continues the mostly meh “Catching Up With the Clones” storyline (my name for it, not theirs). Revisiting a lousy storyline to see what has become of the second-rate supporting cast is a bit like watching the deleted scenes on a DVD–good for satisfying curiosities, sure, but you never expected them to be very good. But there is still time for this arc to pick up, and it hasn’t changed the fact that the series as a whole has been really good since the One More Day messphisto. And considering developments in Dark Avengers, we may be getting closer to resolving some of the fan grief over that storyline. Maybe.

And now, in the immortal words of M. Night Shamayalan: The Twists!

The Invincible Iron Man #19, the final chapter in “World’s Most Wanted,” seems to set up the reunion of the core Avengers trio–Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor. The only problem is that Tony Stark is little more than a vegetable after wiping his brain of all it’s secrets about Stark-tech armor and superhero registered identities. This 9-part storyline by Matt Fraction and Sal Larroca helped make this comic the 2009 Eisner award-winner for best new series, and it kept The Invincible Iron Man entrenched in the fallout of the various Marvel events of the past few years: The evil star of Dark Reign, Norman Osborn, enjoying the fruits of his post-Secret Invasion power grab, has been hunting down Tony Stark, as Stark races around the world meticulously eliminating any lingering bits and bytes of data from his armor safe houses and his own brain, all to keep Osborn from getting his hands on the superhero registration data from Civil War. And Civil War is what tore the original Avenging trio apart. So it was nice to see all of the big event ingredients come together in the end, as veggie-brained Stark plays his final hand against Osborn, calling in a favor that gives Doctor Donald Blake–shown in an undisclosed location with the new Bucky Barnes Captain America (who got the shield and suit from Stark and has been romancing regular Iron Man co-star the Black Widow) at his side–power of attorney over Stark. Donald Blake is the secret identity of this guy:

With Bucky Cap leading the New Avengers and the real Cap, Steve Rogers, in the process of a rebirth, look for the Caps , Thor, and Iron Man to work out any past issues, bring the rest of the New Avengers up to speed, and take on Osborn and his Dark Avengers head on.

That is, if the Dark Avengers can make it out of their current plight. The Marvel Heroes mayfind themselves having to save Osborn and company instead!

Dark Avengers #10 saw the other, bigger twist in the Dark Reign saga. Norman Osborn may be the big bad of the Marvel Universe, but that just means his villains have to be that much badder. First, his team had a drawn out battle with Morgan LaFey that saw them teaming with Doctor Doom and travelling through time. Now Normy and his team seem to have stumbled upon a cabal of villains a step above those in Norman’s own evil Illuminati group. Investigating the strange goings on in a small town in Middle America, the entire Dark Avengers team seems to have been neutralized by a super villain who hasn’t been seen for some time, but who played a huge role in the orignal Marvel epic event–Secret Wars. And with all the allusion to that event in the various titles of Dark Reign architect Brian Bendis’s other events that got us to this point (Secret War [singular] kicked off the hero divide that spilled into a Civil War, which unfolded into a Secret Invasion), is it a stretch to think he’s steering us back to where it all began? Rich at Comic by Comic had this all worked out (almost) more than a week ago.

So Molecule Man is back–and he has supernatural villains from various corners of the Marvel Universe at his side. The one that stands out the most to me, and promises a brand new day for a new chapter in Dark Reign (or maybe just the next companywide event) is Mephisto. If he and the others revealed at the end of DA #10 aren’t some sort of illusion, expect everything from Spider-Man’s marriage to the Hood’s powers to the alternaverse army of Doctor Dooms revealed in the recent Fantastic Four  to fold into an event bigger than anything Marvel has done before. The BIGGEST EPIC COMIC EVENT OF ALL TIME!!!

Okay, maybe that’s an overstatement. But it could be cool.