Weekly Comic Discussion

Well, I should start by apologizing for missing last
week’s column. Not much came out on Christmas Eve
anyway, but there was the new issue of Previews.
This week is similarly small, although it does
contain the very notable Ultimate Fantastic Four
#1
, and the potentially interesting
Marvelous Adventures of Gus Beezer: Gus Beezer
and Spider-Man
one shot. I’ll be buying and
reviewing both this weekend. Read on to find out
what I’m picking up from Previews for future reviews.

I don’t think I remembered to do this in February, so
I’ll double up here. First of all, The
Pulse
will be written by Brian Michael Bendis
and pencilled by Mark Bagley, the same team that I
love on Ultimate Spider-Man, so I’ll be
picking that up. It’ll use Jessica Jones (from
Alias), Kat (from Deadline), and
Ben Urich (from Daredevil) as writers of a
new section of the Daily Bugle called The
Pulse
, so we can expect to see a lot of J. Jonah
Jameson, too. I’ve ordered the Deadline
trade that collects the four issue miniseries, and I
plan to start catching up on Daredevil and
Alias, as I want to be more familiar with
Jessica Jones, and as I expect Bendis to be doing a
lot of crossovers with Daredevil, as he’s
writing both and using Ben Urich in them. To this
end, I’ve ordered Alias Vol. 4: The Secret Origin
of Jessica Jones
and Daredevil Vol. 8: Echo
– Vision Quest
, both of which are due in March.
In addition, I’ve ordered Daredevil Vol. 6:
Lowlife
from the backlist, and will probably
order Daredevil Vol. 7: Hardcore as soon as
that comes in. I’m adding Daredevil to my
pull list in January with #56, but I won’t read it
until I’m caught up on the series.

In other news, Bendis is writing a quarterly
miniseries called Secret War, also launching
in February, that has nothing to do with the
Beyonder, and everything to do with Nick Fury
starting a war that the government can’t officially
support. It’s fully painted, and will have five
issues, all of which I’m picking up.

That’s three new titles being added, four if you
counnt Ultimate Fantastic Four, so I’m going
to need to drop something to afford them.
Superman / Batman is not the entry-level DC
title I need right now, so I’ll be dropping it after
issue 7 in February. Given the number of miniseries
I’m currently picking up (1602, JLA /
Avengers
, Secret War, Ultimate
Adventures
, Ultimate Six,
Wolverine: The End, Spider-Man / Black
Cat: The Evil That Men Do
if it ever finishes)
I’ll get some relief just because the series are
ending. Of these seven, only Wolverine: The
End
, Secret War, and Spider-Man /
Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do
will still be
going in April, so that should get me the rest of the
breathing room I’m looking for. Ultimate
Adventures
is being collected into a trade
paperback that was originally solicited for this
week.

In addition to these, I’ll also be picking up the
rest of my regular titles, which will continue to be
reviewed in the groups that they’re being collected
into trade paperbacks. These titles are
Exiles, Fantastic Four, Supreme
Power
, Ultimate Spider-Man,
Ultimate X-Men, and (as of the relaunch)
Ultimates. I also plan to pick up the rest
of Sojourn in trade paperbacks. (My copies
of volumes 3 and 4 are already late, while volume 5
should ship in February.)

I think that about wraps it up. I may need to find
room to add New X-Men if the rumours about
Joss Whedon taking over as writer turn out to be
true. (If they are true, I’ll make sure you guys
hear about it.)