Adventure Time 39 – As per usual, Adventure Time can catch one by surprise when introducing truly terrifying monsters.

Amazing X-Men 19 -For what I expected to be just another X-Men versus Juggernaut story, this issue actually had a few unexpected twists.  Cain Marko is once again the Juggernaut, gifted by Cyttorak with more power than ever before, so what does he want to do with it?  Kill Cyclops for murdering his step-brother Professor X, of course, who he apparently cares about this time around, as he “was the only one who ever cared about me.  He gave me a second chance when no one else would.”  The X-Men immediately attempt Juggernaut Plan A to remove his helmet and attack his mind, but… whoa, uh… yikes.  Scratch that!  So Colossus starts fighting Juggernaut hand-to-hand, which even Cain himself points out has never, ever worked, but then a wondrous things happened: Colossus grew as a character!  He decided to stop being so willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of the team, fought smarter instead of harder, and flipped Juggernaut off a cliff!  This next part gets a little weird – while Juggernaut plummets into the ocean, Colossus is, I think, hanging backwards off the cliff by his legs(?), reflecting about how if his life is required to save his friends, then so be it – but then he snaps out of it and hauls himself back up, with an adorable moment of self-reflection neatly circling back to when Storm totally laid into him for being a self-destructive idiot back in issue 15.  I think he’s definitely turned a corner!  This storyline got off to a bit of a rough start, but it wrapped up well.

Black Vortex Omega – The final chapter of the ridiculous, unwieldy Black Vortex crossover, and boy, is it a doozy.  While our cosmically-empowered teammates are holding off the (sigh) “Slaughter Lords” in orbit around Spartax, Kitty Pryde uses her cosmically-jacked-up intangibility powers to “relax my atoms.  My consciousness.  I phased through galaxies and transcended the multiverse.  I touched the consciousness of an infinite number of Kitty Prydes,” which was kinda cool, since they made it a point to not only remember Days of Future Past Kitty Pryde, but also Jewish Ghost Kitty Pryde.  That took some research.  She then phases the amber shell and Brood infestoids off of the entire planet of Spartax, freeing our heroes to say stupid things, and then literally smiles down upon the planet like a benevolent god, all praise and glory unto Kitty Pryde (but yea, thou shalt beware of her mood swings!).  Gara, lone survivor of the previous race annihilated by the Black Vortex like a bazillion years ago, declares that “she alone resisted the corruption of cosmic power” and came back to save them, to which an awestruck Star-Lord asserts that “Of course she did — she’s Kitty Pryde.  My dream girl.”  At which point I thought okay, cool, Kitty nobly sacrificed herself to save all her friends and now she’ll fade away to become one with the universe or whatever.

But nope!  She shrinks back down to human proportions and the next item on the agenda is to assemble our huge unwieldy cast into yet another giant crowd scene just standin’ around gabbing on some planet.  (Haha, look, you guys, Teen Iceman used the word “selfie!”  That’s comedy!)  But hey, you remember how submitting to the Black Vortex was this irrevocable decision that will leave you forever changed and should not to be taken lightly for reals no backsies?  Well nah, don’t worry about it, ’cause Gara can invoke the cosmic rite of do-overs, but warns that “you will not return to the way you once were.  No one can use the Vortex and remain unchanged.”  Which Gamora laughs off, as does, irksomely enough, Teen Angel, as poor Teen Beast (and the reader)’s pleas on behalf on the timestream continue to fall on deaf ears.  And so the others are changed back: Groot has a new look, Teen Iceman is now an ostensibly-gay ice cube, and Beast and Teen Cyclops look the same as before.  Of course the first thing stupid Teen Jean does is read Teen Cyclops’ mind, after which she confides to Storm, “The worst part is… the change didn’t occur in his mind.  It happened in his heart.”  Aw god.

And as if all that weren’t enough… Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde go for a romantic walk in the airless vacuum of space, whereupon Star-Lord asks Kitty to marry him.  I admit to enjoying Star-Lord addressing her by her full name as “Katherine Anne Sprite Ariel Shadowcat Kitty Pryde,” but that’s about all I approve about this turn of events.  I’ll plan on delving in deeper at a later date, but suffice it to say, I feel nothing for this blandly-handsome blond guy who bears no resemblance to Chris Pratt’s character, to his detriment; as such, it’s been fascinating to watch the development of a couple characters engaging in a relationship with no believable human romantic chemistry.  But hey, everybody else seems happy about it, even resident expert on human emotions X-23, so what’s my problem, y’know?  (But seriously, look at this huge unwieldy cast of characters you guys)  The issue ends with a clunky monologue from Kitty — “I found love in outer space.  And that’s when I knew.  The most amazing discovery… is each other.” — but the hilarity isn’t over yet, as Sam Humphries cranks up the schmalz full-blast and Storm asks Rocket Raccoon if he wants to be her date to the wedding and at this point I just gave up.

Guardians of the Galaxy 26 – It was… okay.  A nice classic “giving our heroes everything they want” story.  This issue opens with the Guardians hanging out in a space bar (complete with ham-fisted Bendis-brand sci-fi “comedy”), whereupon Kitty learns that Peter has been elected as president of Spartax without his knowledge or consent, and his flippancy over the situation once again flips her switch from “girlfriend” to “shrew.”  The royal guard show up to escort their missing president Star-Lord back to Spartax, and as he begrudgingly learns that he’s got to deal with this sooner or later, there’s a fun scene where he assigns the rest of the Guardians positions on his presidential cabinet to justify bringing them along — Gamora as legal counsel, Rocket as secretary of raccoon/Spartax relations (LOLOLOLOL), Groot as secretary of agriculture, and so on, while Kitty looks on in silent disapproval.  And now our heroes are faced with giving up their lives of mischief and settling down in royal splendor, each in their own ways, which is unfortunately interrupted by that whole Secret Wars multiversal catastrophe literally looming over the horizon.

But I’d like to talk about one character in particular.  In issue 23 before all the Black Vortex nonsense got underway, at the risk of sounding like a melodramatic fanboy, it only took Bendis one issue to completely destroy everything about the symbiotes.  Am I a particularly huge fan of these squealing slime-monsters?  Not really.  Well, okay, yes, but no more so than most.  My point is that, fan or not, I can tell you what the symbiotes are about: incredible power versus uncontrollable rage and insanity, and whether the one is worth the cost of the other.  It’s Spider-Man, not @#$%ing rocket science.  And Rick Remender actually added an interesting new layer to this dichotomy in his Venom series in the form of Flash Thompson, an alcoholic with no legs who becomes addicted to the Venom symbiote in order to walk again, to literally make him whole.  Which I thought was an inspired new take on a classic theme.

But then Bendis stepped in and botched that all up, giving Venom was given an entirely new armored look, and had the symbiotes (oh, I’m sorry, THE KLYNTAR) (god) assure Flash Thompson that he was just the super-coolest space-hero of all time and all they want is for him to be happy and they apologize for that whole uncontrollable brain-eating psychosis thing, which was just an awkward misunderstanding.  Completely smoothing over every rough edge of the character in service of… nothing.  I think the symbiotes even grew Flash’s legs back, which hasn’t exactly been made clear, and which brings me (eventually) to my main point: since that change, Venom has contributed precisely @#$%-all to this comic and every comic he’s appeared in since.  Would you like to know Venom (Star-Lord’s royal bodyguard, if you were curious)’s single, solitary contribution of note in this entire issue?

“I was just remembering… I had this coach in high school.  He told me I was never going to leave Forest Hills.  I’d really like to call him right now.”

THUD.  What if twenty, or even ten years ago, a comic character was given an entirely all-new badass costume, direction, and (presumably) set of powers… and then just hung out in the background doing and saying nothing for three months?  This would be unheard of, right?  It’s all symptomatic of Bendis’ inherent laziness and inability to get these characters, and why I continue to think writing team books do not play to his strengths.

Inhuman Special 1 -Well, this was definitely the middle chapter in a three-part storyline, so not a whole heckuva lot actually happens: the deranged Red Raven confronts Medusa in order to gain revenge for his people being mutilated by the Terrigen mists (complete with lengthy origin flashback), while Spider-Man and the rest of the Inhumans attempt to arrest their free-fall and clamber back up the floating island to help rescue her.  But I want to give a special shout-out to artist Ryan Lee and his creepy webby rendition of Spider-Man!  He’s just incredibly expressive, not to mention intricate – look at that neck!  I love it when Spider-Man is portrayed as creepy, because he’s a skinny grown man in a head-to-toe costume who climbs up walls and ceilings, which, in real life, would actually be deeply unsettling.  But my favorite writer of the moment, Jeff Loveness, continues to hit me just right with details like the close-up shot of Spider-Man’s misplaced Avengers ID signal card in his futon, and show me someone who thinks this “What would Cyclops do?” digression is anything less than 110% perfect, I will show you a liar.  I am looking forward to the conclusion!

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 4 – You guys, you need to read Squirrel Girl.  I feel like I just want to type that sentence over and over.  We are lucky enough to live in an age where Ryan North is writing an ongoing series in which Squirrel Girl fights Galactus and if you are not reading this series you are doing a disservice to yourself.  For example, while struggling to make themselves heard on the surface of the moon, Squirrel Girl and her sidekick Tippy-Toe each submit their suggestions in classic “are you thinking what I’m thinking?” fashion.  They also address whether or not Galactus indeed appears differently to any species that beholds him, and her plan to dissuade Galactus from consuming the Earth… I don’t want to spoil this for you guys because I want you to experience the sheer joy of this comic for yourself.  Kamala Khan may be a media darling, but she has no chance of replacing Squirrel Girl in my heart.

Wolverines 15 – I remain… not the biggest fan of Juan Doe’s art.  In keeping with this series’ careening from the ridiculous to the sublime, this is very much a treading-water chapter: after the Sabretooth and company handily knocked out Portal last issue, this issue finds the team continuing to just stand around his unconscious body, while below the ship, X-23 and Daken continue their fight against Siphon, the scary monster-thing that robbed Daken of his healing factor.  Oh, and Blade the Vampire Hunter is here, too.  Which is weird, since he’s so semi-present I actually forgot he showed up last issue.  I think he’d even already killed all the vampires by the time X-23 and Daken even showed up, so I’m not sure what exactly he brings to the story?  Perhaps it’s Blade’s unapologetic eagerness to kill this monster that’s been rendered a savage by its ceaseless appetite, while X-23 pleads with Blade not to kill it, since keeping Siphon alive might be the only way to restore Daken’s healing factor.  But if this story is about Daken fighting Siphon in order to become whole again, wouldn’t the story have been better by served by X-23 pleading with… Daken?  But I think the strongest scene of the issue is at the end when Daken checks in with X-23, X-23 immediately calls him out as Mystique in disguise, and tells her, “And this is what’s really gonna keep you up tonight: how did I know you’re you and not Daken?  I’ll never tell.”  Good for her!