After re-reading the third-to-last paragraph of last week’s entry and looking at the shipping list for this week from Diamond, I was fully prepared to plant foot squarely in mouth. I didn’t really see much to get excited about and the timing couldn’t have been better to make me look like a dope. But then through some divine providence, two books that weren’t even technically on my pull list were awesome.

So you might remember a while back this little thing called Civil War happened, and one of the books spinning out of CW that everybody was excited about was the “all new, all different” Thunderbolts by Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato. The problem was the book kinda sucked, and even though it was pointing in a cool direction, it never really felt like anything you actually wanted to read. Until issue #120 came out.

It’s been a while so I don’t really remember where we left off but the T-bolts have four unregistered heroes locked up in their mountain base and their captives are using their mind control powers to pit the team at one another’s throats. As the situation hits critical mass, Norman Osborn decides to take matters into his own hands, and by that I mean he pumpkin-bombs the hell outta the place. The whole issue is basically Norman as the Goblin flying around being a maniac and royally fucking up Swordsman’s day. There are like 4 pages of the other characters recuperating from various physical and psychological wounds and the T-bolts’ captives plotting to kill the mountain’s inhabitants themselves, but what this issue is really about is the fact that Norman has finally snapped.

I kiss Warren Ellis’ ass in this blog a lot. He’s my favorite writer in comics today hands down. But frankly this book has been a big disappointment. This issue is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. Warren writing a maniacal, Gobliny Norman Osborn as only Warren really can, with some graphic violence and beautiful Mike Deodato pages thrown in for good measure. I’m not in love with this series and I would not champion it at this point, but if you haven’t been keeping up with T-bolts, at least check out this issue. Feel free to thank me later.

The other book that I feel stupid for not ordering is the first issue of the new Guardians of the Galaxy, by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Paul Pelletier. The series spins out of the recently-completed Annihilation Conquest event, and features basically all of the important characters from that series (Starlord, Quasar, Adam Warlock, fucking DRAX). The first ish is told in semi-flashback, with various members of the team describing how the Guardians formed and how their first mission went. It’s a pretty tidy plot device that instantly catches new readers up to speed on who these people/raccoons are and what it is they’re doing.

The meat of the issue is a fight between the Guardians the and the Universal Church of Truth aboard one of their templeships. They’re trying to crash their ship into some cosmic rift and this big weird Lovecraftian thing shows up, then Rocket Raccoon blows a whole bunch of shit up. We shift back to the team’s base, which is on fucking KNOWHERE, the space station from that Nova arc that’s built in the SEVERED HEAD OF A CELESTIAL, with the TELEPATHIC SOVIET COSMONAUT DOG running security. If that’s not enough for a first ish, it ends with the team finding what is apparently a temporally displaced Captain America frozen inside a block of ice.

Seriously had I known that Knowhere and Cosmo were going to be part of this book, I would have ordered it without a second thought. I talk Nova up a lot in this space, and the first issue of GotG was easily on par with what Abnett and Lanning have been doing over in that book. Plus Paul Pelletier, recently of Nova and FF fame, is along for the ride. I have begun to appreciate Paul’s work a great deal lately and he really seems to be establishing himself with the cosmic/space opera type material. I didn’t believe Nova was going to hold my attention long term, and although I make no presumptions about GotG living up to that book’s quality, I am stoked that we can now look forward to two monthly doses of Abnett and Lanning in Space.

Warren Ellis? Check. Abnett and Lanning plus cosmic Marvel? Check. The only requisite e-blowjob missing this week is Mike Carey writing X-Men Legacy. #211 picks up the thread of Xavier trying to recover the parts of his memory he lost when Bishop capped him. Charlie’s still having visions of all the human wreckage left in the wake of “The Dream” when he visits his old friend from childhood Carter Ryking, from whom Charles telepathically learns that Mr. Sinister (!) was genetically manipulating them both as children. Meanwhile, the dudes at the Hellfire Club are pissed off about the Cronus “device,” somebody’s trying to assassinate the Prof, and a certain ragin’ cajun shows up to save Xavier’s bacon from a bunch of Tom Clancy rejects.

Mike Carey continues to churn out my favorite X-Men stories in years, Scot Eaton seems to improve on an issue by issue basis, and this ish we even get some fantastic flashback art courtesy of Brandon Peterson. Throwing Professor X into a man-on-the-run, Fugitive-esque, even Hulk-esque type of setting seems like it shouldn’t work, but then again I was bracing for the worst from Carey’s run from the outset, and he’s proven me wrong at every turn. Carey simultaneously blends the classic elements that make X-Men a great comic with ideas from out of left field that seemingly have no business being in an X-Men comic. I know he’s played out and probably more reviled than loved these days, but I’m stoked that Gambit’s back regardless.

Also on the racks this week was the first part of the new newuniversal arc by Warren Ellis and Steve Kurth. The “real world implications of superpowered humans” angle has been worked to death by now, especially by Mr. Ellis, but I liked the first volume of the series and the second picks up more or less right where that one left off. Highlights include the posthuman answer to the Last Boy Scout when a power manifestation takes place in the middle of a football game.

Jason Aaron’s Wolverine arc wrapped up this past week with #65, with art by Ron Garney. The arc’s loosely spun out of Messiah CompleX and involves Wolvie chasing Mystique through the desert while flashing back to the pair’s previous association as bank robbers and scam artists in the 1920’s. This issue features some pretty spectacularly brutal violence, and the conclusion was in all honesty rather satisfying, even if the arc as whole was unremarkable. You probably don’t read Wolverine on a monthly basis but I would like to point out that Mark Millar and Steve McNiven are coming on board for the next arc so you might want to investigate a couple issues.

Amazing Spidey #559 by Dan Slott and Marcos Martin introduced us to a new parkour-inspired villain. Parkour is all over the media lately and is honestly kind of lame anyway, but it does give Slott a chance to mine comedy gold out of the “Parkour Luck.” The scene with Jonah wigging out during tai chi class was great, Pete going paparazzi is a nice touch, and I continue to get a kick out of BND week in, week out. Martin has a really classic, (for lack of a better word) comic-y style that meshes with Steve Ditko characters beautifully (see also his collaboration with Brian Vaughn on the recent Dr. Strange: The Oath mini).

His historic, nine-year run on the character is almost over, and Garth Ennis drove one more nail in the coffin this week with Punisher #57. The issue opens up with Frank embarrassing the soldiers out to kill him, the generals and their muscle consequently losing their shit, and Frank using the tracer that was planted on him to draw those soldiers into a delicious little trap. Look I don’t know what else to say about this book. Garth has redefined this character for all time, and it would be something of an understatement to say that I’m going to miss him writing this book pretty severely. At least I have a stack of back issues stretching to about 1999 to ease the pain. It’s too late for me to tell you to buy this, but if you haven’t read this stuff start snagging some back issues or trades.

So Batman R.I.P. started this week with issue #676, by G-Mo and Tony Daniel. In typical G-Mo fashion, there’s about 40 disparate things all happening in one issue and not necessarily in chronological order. The Black Glove seems kinda lame (Dr. Hurt?), but at least we’re already getting some Joker, even if it’s this metrosexual, 21st Century Joker that G-Mo cooked up. I don’t really have high hopes for this storyline and it definitely didn’t start off with a bang. If someone could explain to me what is good about this book it would be much appreciated. I had some faint glimmers of hope at the outset of the Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul storyline last year, but that turned into a big mess and I’m just not on board with the direction this book has been headed of late. Tony Daniel’s art sure is pretty though.

Okay so beating a dead horse as far as the Knights of the Old Republic comic goes, but can we please get someone other than Scott Hepburn to draw this book? His style is so cartoony and awkward and when I think back to those gorgeous Brian Ching and Harvey Tolibao issues I just get really sad. I will not be following the Vector storyline through the other Star Wars comics, but I think the KotOR issues stand pretty well on their own from a story standpoint. #28 has lots o’ raks and mandies and ’splosions going on, plus a big reunion between Zane and Gryph and basically all the other supporting characters introduced thus far. Maybe it’s because it’s the one element of the Star Wars universe that hasn’t been beaten to death in all forms of media, but I’m way into the KotOR timeline and John Jackson Miller has done a consistently good job with this book. Hopefully Dark Horse can get him a legitimate penciller again soon.

What I originally had pegged as kind of a lame week actually turned out to be pretty satisfying on the strength of two books I had basically no expectations for whatsoever. Thunderbolts finally paying off was long overdue, but better late than never I suppose. My interest in that book has pretty much waned, but if nothing else, this issue gave me a little taste of what I was expecting two years ago. Also Abnett and Lanning continue to do more in terms of storytelling with less in terms of character clout than anybody else in mainstream comics right now.

Looking ahead, we have new issues of Cap, JSA, JLA, and Mighty Avengers on the way in less than 48 hours as I write this. I predict Brubaker’s going to keep playing games with my heart, I’m going to talk myself into buying JSA strictly on the merits of the story and the art because the characters are more or less beyond lame (primarily to avoid feeling like a hypocrite), and I’m going to get way too used to the every-other-week schedule Mighty Avengers has been on.

Sorry kids, no comics-related affirmation this week.