Aldo reads Marvel NOW! (even though you are, and he clearly hasn't learned his lesson)

Bah, my iPad 1 keeps crashing :/

sold

or rather i will be once it's live. Someone update here please?

Once I hear its out of beta I'll shout it from the rooftops.

I think John Cassaday's take on the Red Skull looks really cool. It's got kind of an EC comics thing going on, the eyes are totally crazy looking.

Marvel are making a big deal on "Now!" but really it is the same kind of reboot every 18-24 month thing they have had going on for a few years with new writers on some characters that haven't had a change out of teams for a long time.

I'd like to scatter the tumbleweed around here with some good news, but the Superior Spider-Man first issue is just awful. I was expecting at least a mild okay. It's actually DC-level witless.

Spider-Man is a character in desperate need of some downtime (a la Thor's vacation between Disassembled and the Straczynski book) and is also, unfortunately, the last Marvel character who'll ever get any kind of moritorium, however brief.

Superior Spider-Man seems pretty good to me. It's a kinda hokey situation, but it's done very well.

that All New X-Men plot actually sounds kinda fun to me, tbh

Hah I just came in here to say what a blast All-New X-Men is

Yeah, I'm really enjoying it as well. And ditto for Waid's new Hulk title, which is a little surprising to me.

I found out - but can't find the image right now to show you - that the point at which the old timeline is visited is actually what was going on in a specific X-issue. All-New enacts the same scene with a different layout, so you don't notice they're redoing Kirby/Lee, it's an awesome detail.

Young Avengers anyone? Nice art, but seems like power-pop in comic form (I.e. kids stuff for us oldsters)

It doesn't have the mature seriousness of Daredevil, true.

Affleck-chin.jpg.

I thought it was kind of cool knockabout fun, but I wouldn't put it on a pull list. Then again there aren't many comics I'd consider putting on a pull list these days.

I liked it! But it felt a little square -- NB. So am I -- and needed better jokes.

I thought it was too much "Super Phonogram" which definitely put me off. I liked Gillen on Journey Into Mystery and Uncanny X-Men (though Land makes me want to break his porn tracing hands), but his Iron Man is pretty dire so far and this is not off to a good start.

He's talked a lot about how this is superheroes as pop music, so it doesn't sound like this is necc. your thing (though Phonogram is more Afghan Whigs than Azaelia Banks).

I hate Phonogram with a passion, so any of it's taint sweeping into his super stuff is going to rankle. Shame, because I think he can do good cape stuff that doesn't feel so forcedly precious.

I've heard the Journey into Mystery stuff was great - worth a shot?

Phonogram did not work for me at all. It's like the 500 Days of Summer of comics. Ick.

I'm enjoying Journey Into Mystery quite a bit, but in a lot of the same ways as I enjoyed Young Avengers so YMMV. I didn't think Phonogram was that bad, but then I don't think I read past the first collection.

On balance DC may have better writers than Marvel at the moment, they're just doing a worse job.

His Journey Into Mystery run is a fun adventure with a horrible crossover with Fraction's Thor absolutely mutilates the overall series. Gillen ends it well, but the Fraction taint is strong.

Read a Wolverine and the X-Men graphic novel collection by Gillen and Chris Bachalo that I borrowed from the library - seemed a bit sub-Peter David tbh, but it wasn't terrible either.

Didn't realise Fraction was hated these day - iirc his Iron Man series used to be an ILC fave rave.

Gillen and Fraction seem to have an odd symbiotic relationship - Fraction taking on Thor after Gillen (and running it at the same time as JIM), Gillen following Fraction on Uncanny X-Men and Iron Man.

Fraction is hit or miss for me, though mostly the latter. And when he sucks he SUCKS. I liked his Iron Man for a while - the whole erase and reboot was a fun idea - but it was dead long before it was buried. His Thor was crap from the get go, and his Fantastic Four is quickly ruining all the hard work Hickman did to rescue the moribund foursome. If he ever tops the Iron Fist he did with Brubaker I'll be surprised.

Fraction's up and down, but Hawkeye's been great.

They're both oversusceptible to grating disco dad-isms, but Fraction's a much better joke writer.

xp - Is that the one where Wolverine is now headmaster at Xavier Academy? I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not written by Kieron Gillen.

(I'm not to be honest seeing where there's supposed to be jokes in Young Avengers, other than Hulkling's terrible Spiderman costume?)

Hawkeye seems to be trying too hard for me, and exhibits all the tics I don't like about Fraction's work. I don't find Fraction funnier, but he definitely thinks he's a better joke writer than he is. Gillen knows he's corny and undercuts himself.

You're right Andrew F, I'm getting my Gillen mixed up w/ my Aaron

Fraction's Thor is the first thing I read by him that I didn't like. (I only read the first issue of Hawkeye... it didn't grab me.)

Those first two issues of Hawkeye felt fun but decidedly affected, but issue three (and every issue since) has hit a sweet spot. The car chase in three = yowza.

Hawkeye is currently the best Marvel book I'm reading

New Avengers is the best Marvel book at the moment.

Having recommended Hawkeye, don't pick up the latest one, which was a "very special issue" and is pretty poor. But yeah, from the third issue on the affectations get a bit less annoying (or I just got used to them).

Yeah - those first two issues left me "impressed", if not so much enthralled.

Glad I got over my Miller/Mazzuchelli shock of the first ish and stuck with it. It's tremendous fun. Agreed the new one is pretty weak but it's an old-school comic PSA

Hawkeye, Young Avengers and Wolverine and the X-Men are all amazing, though I'm a bit behind on the last one. Marvel seem weirdly split between stupid 90'ies comics for adolescents and these books where they allow there writers to just do what they want, with great results. I read the latest issue of Captain Marvel, and liked it as well. And I'm a Hickman-stan, so I will check out his stuff on avengers, once there is a bit more of it. He really reads better in larger chunks.

All in all, Marvel could either enter a golden age once all their crap fails, and they greenlight more stuff like what I've just mentioned. Or everything could be derailed by some stupid crossover, and we'll be back to square one.

Oh oh I forgot FF with Allred art is WAU

I'm an Allred nut, but my god is Fraction dropping a steaming load with the story in FF. HORRIBLE.

tbh I couldn't possibly care less about the FF story aside from Ms. Thing's inevitable breakdown

but it looks amazing

I'm really enjoying both of Hickman's Avengers books -- bringing the long-game plotting of his FF run and the convenience of having a cast of dozens of Avengers available depending on the mission, a la Warren Ellis' run on Secret Avengers. Remender's Uncanny Avengers -- eh, not so much, though Cassaday's art is pretty.

Neither FF book has really caught me yet, but as I mentioned on another thread, I'm really digging Waid's Indestructible Hulk.

I really liked the FF as written by Hickman. But this is so horrible -- well, Fraction's whole concept for the Fantastic Four is horrible, but FF is the dregs -- that even the excellent Allred can't make me read the thing anymore. I'll just read X-Statix again; that was brilliant both in writing and art.

I think the concept is competent enough for me to enjoy the art

Haven't read X-statix, been saving the run for a rainy day. Thanks for reminding! It is rainy.

Make sure you start with their short X-Force run. It leads right into X-Statix.

it's more than 12 issues, not short

I still haven't read the final two arcs of Journey into Mystery yet, but there is a whole lot of fun comics in the early part of the run. The single issue story with Mephisto was great and everytime Loki's dog shows up is really funny.

It does tie into the 'macro-Marvel U' and Thor story but not necessarily in a way you have to read Thor or the other series to know what is going on. It just kind of outlines Loki's usual manipulating behind the scenes, except this time as a goofy teenager instead of his usual shown malevolent self.

Yeah, I recently read Gillen's JiM run, and I agree it stands pretty well on its own. I think you only need to get what happens in Fear Itself to get Gillen's JiM, reading Thor isn't necessary, except for the very last arc, which is a crossover with Thor... But if you're buying TPBs, the Everything Burns book compiles all the relevant issues.

Of course JiM might've been even better if Gillen had been given a totally free reign with it, but I guess in these crossover-ridden days you gotta accept you're never gonna get that. At least JiM wasn't semi-ruined by continuous crossovers (no Avengers vs. X-Men stuff in it, for example) like Avengers Academy was. And the final issue of the run was one the most touching superhero books I've read in a while. Gillen managed to end it with a clever, almost Morrisonesque meta-commentary on superhero comics in general, and this series in particular, that was nevertheless heart-tugging too. That sort of balance between clever meta stuff and sentimentalism is pretty hard to maintain, but I think Gillen pulls it off nicely throughout the whole series.

I haven't read Young Avengers yet, but I think want to check it out just to see what Gillen does to Loki next. Don't want to spoil too much, but is YA #1 addressing what happened to Loki in the final issue of his JiM run?

No - it's a #1 and there's already a lot happening - Loki is played pretty mysteriously.