KenOchalek

August 22, 2013 9:53 am @player1: Haha, the thing that graphic makes me do is wonder why New Avengers 11 and 12 are positioned so differently. Maybe some Avengers are lost in space in issue 11, hence the distance from the main line of the Infinity? And 12 is right on the surface of that planet graphic... maybe Infinity is leading us to some new world (maybe literally) and New Avengers 12 is our first look at the new status quo of that world. In fact, assuming the alternate Earth incursions happening in New Avengers, I wonder if moving everything and everyone to a new Earth plays a part in the climax to Infinity. (This is why I LOVE Hickman's infographics.... so much fun speculation! I still can't wait to find out who fills in the remaining spots on the outer rings of the Avengers Machine Wheel graphic. Presumably, Ex Nihilo, Abyss, Starbrand and Nightmask make up a few of them, but I believe there are still a couple spots open.)

August 20, 2013 8:40 pm X-Men Legacy is very good and pretty atypical for an X-Men title. All you need to know is that David Haller is the schizophrenic and estranged son of Professor Xavier. He's sometimes called Legion because every one of his multiple personalities has a different mutant power (and we're not talking standard mutant powers like flight or eye-beams -- this book likes to get a bit strange in the best ways). David struggles with controlling his multiple personalities while trying to figure out how he fits into Xavier's legacy. Issue 15 comes out this Wednesday, but 13-14 was a nice little two-part story that shows off why this book deserves more attention. It reminds me a bit of some of Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis' early works -- very British, kind of zany, with some pop-sci-fi and anti-mainstream sensibilities. Like Hawkeye, Daredevil and Thor, it's a book that offers a unique voice in the Marvel publishing line. And it's only $2.99!

August 20, 2013 7:05 pm @AoANightcrawler: While I'd love digital comics to be cheaper (and print for that matter), and as much as I'd also love to see the LCS Diamond pre-order model evolve, I believe I've read that LCS sales are higher now than they've been in a very long time. So while I certainly can get behind calling it an outdated business model, I don't think we can exactly call it dying right now.

August 20, 2013 6:57 am Yeah...Fortunately, I trust Brian Wood's skills as a writer far and above those of the intern/assistant editor who wrote this solicitation copy!

August 19, 2013 6:39 pm I think one of the staff writers (maybe Jimski himself?) interviewed a scanner a while back (search for it, it was really fascinating). If I'm remembering right, the interviewed scanner said they originally saw themselves as performing a service -- preserving comic book stories and art in a format that would allow the work to live forever. But at some point scanning got caught up in some kind of hacker-ish competition environment -- various scan groups would try to more comics, scanned at greater quality, to downloaders more quickly than other scan groups. So it became a team pride thing, time and money be damned.

August 19, 2013 3:56 pm This book is still so solid, and really delivers a fresh voice for an X-Men (and Marvel) series. But if this doesn't make some "hidden gem" lists soon, I'm going to get worried about its future.

August 19, 2013 3:54 pm I think they're building some kind of mystery. I'll admit it wasn't entirely clear, but they deliberately didn't show how the team defeated Arkea. My issue isn't handy, but I think we saw Psylocke about to knife the Arkea-posessed Karima, then a moment where it looked like the real Karima came through, then we cut to the ride home where Karima seems to be Arkea-free and all the X-ladies are being weird to each other. "Game changing events" is typical hyperbolic solicit language, but I think we'll learn what happened in that hospital shook up some of our protagonists. I like that Brian Wood is bringing a bit of mystery into the book -- see also whatever has been going on with Bling and Mercury since the first issue.

August 19, 2013 3:11 pm Well, Avengers and New Avengers are on Hickman's Infinity checklist infographic: http://graphicpolicy.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/infinity_checklist.jpg?w=630 But they're each on separate branches off the main series so I think you'd be okay to skip it. On top of that, I thought Infinity #1 did a good job doling out the necessary exposition for anyone not fully vested in what's come before. But on the other hand, there are lots of books tying in that *aren't* on that checklist, and seeing as Avengers and New Avengers are both Hickman books, they're likely to be more integral than Thunderbolts or Captain Marvel, I guess. So I guess you might just have to man-up and take a risk, dude! It'll be okay!

August 16, 2013 7:55 pm Yup, Waid wrote Flash up to and a bit beyond #100. Also, it seems that Matt Hollingsworth (Eisner award winner, currently being awesome on Hawkeye and The Wake, among others) colored this issue.

August 15, 2013 4:25 pm "Odin Force" is probably an Asgardian euphemism for Odin's farts. Apparently, dude loooves onions.