Comics of August 20, 2014

This week’s been good to me so far. I had a nice vacation with the extended family, and the day after I get back, comics. While away, I started re-reading All New X-Men from the start (I just reached Battle of the Atom), and so far it’s worked fairly well as a longer story. I also read a bunch of what if comics that I found for about $1 each, including what if Mr. Sinister formed the X-Men (that one was interesting).

It’s a mercifully short pull list this week, after the large pulling last week. The comics I picked up this week include Storm 2, Ms. Marvel 7, Magneto 8, All New X-Factor 12, Mighty Avengers 13 and Supergirl 34. Here are my first impressions, and links to full reviews will be added when they’re posted.

On a side-note, I’m not sure what they were thinking with this new WordPress post-creation tool set. It loads much slower than it used to, adding tags is far more inconvenient and there really isn’t any noticeable improvement on functionality.

Ms. Marvel 7 review

Supergirl 34 review and mini-rant

Storm 2 is good. While Storm doesn’t usually bother with smaller matters like missing people, a poster catches her attention. It’s a missing young woman who the police have decided not to bother with. Her search has her running into Calypso. The character work is very good, but otherwise there’s nothing all that special about this issue. It’s really just a one-off story that acts as a bit of a character study. If you like Storm as character, you’ll likely enjoy this.

Magneto 8 is fun. Magneto ends up tracking down those he’s been chasing after (the mutant growth hormone cookers), only for SHIELD to catch up with him at the same time. How everything goes down isn’t quite how you’d expect, considering how violent the series has been so far. While this series has been enjoyable for me, I’m not sure if I’ll stick with it if it doesn’t change much. So far it’s basically been Dexter with Magneto. That’s not a bad thing, but I’d like a bit more variety.

All New X-Factor 12 is good. After a few intense issues in a row, mostly involving Georgia’s parents, the series takes a break to focus on characters. Peter David does a great job digging into Quicksilver’s head, covering multiple angles of his personality and motivations at once. The growing suspicion on Serval Industry’s Snow is also growing more intense. While most Peter David fans are probably reading this anyway, this series is worth reading for anyone who could find a superhero team working for an increasingly shady CEO interesting.

Mighty Avengers 12 is good. I fell behind with this series when Original Sin started but I’ve since caught up. After three issues in a row mostly made of backstories (and were-chickens), this one has a lot of action and a cliffhanger with the Mighty Avengers facing off against an extremely powerful villain. The next issue should be intense. From what I’ve read lately, this is the best Avengers title on the market at the time.