The Fic of a Snick

So now that there a bunch of new books out, here are my unspoilery thoughts on the ones I've tried. Roughly in descending order of how much I like them.

Loki: Agent of Asgard - Al Ewing, Lee Garbett
Another Ewing book, which I picked up solely because I liked Mighty Avengers so much, and I have not been disappointed. This last issue involved a Marvelverse retelling of a Norse myth; the retelling featured a rocket launcher. Also a brand new character was introduced in the second issue who is both interesting in her own right and the perfect Loki foil, and I am super excited to see more of her. And have I mentioned the fanservice? *fans self*

Ms. Marvel - G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona
Kamala Khan is a Pakistani-American teenager living in Jersey who idolizes Carol Danvers and then acquires super powers. We're only two issues in, but this book is brimful of HEART.It's pretty much the most adorable thing ever. Alphona's art is a little bit whimsical and hits exactly the right note.

Moon Knight - Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey/Jordie Bellaire
So far this seems to be largely an experiment in form, but oh, what a gorgeous form it is. Ellis is dry and understated, and the Shalvey/Bellaire combo is pretty much my dream team, especially working on something a bit more fantastical like this. Every idea Ellis is throwing at them, they're knocking out of the park.

Black Widow - Nathan Edmondson, Phil Noto
The art here is really gorgeous, especially if you like sort of a dreamy, painted look to your spy action. The story is a bit thin so far; I will likely never be enthralled by one-off spy plots, especially ones that offer so little characterization to compensate. Edmondson's penchant for metaphor-heavy, first-person narration does the book no favors either. However, the continuing plot is finally picking up now, and I like Noto's art even more than I did at first.

Captain Marvel - Kelly Sue DeConnick, David Lopez
Carol Danvers goes to space! I really love the art here, and I think Lopez is by far the best fit tonally for this book out of the many artists who've tried their hand at Captain Marvel in the past two years. However, I think I just don't like Carol Danvers that much. If you do, then you should definitely check this out.

X-Force - Simon Spurrier, He-Rock Kim
I wanted to like this because it has Psylocke and Fantomex in it, and Spurrier seemed like an interesting choice as he comes off his success with the zany fringe title X-Men: Legacy, but I hate the art here so much - SO MUCH - that I can't even tell how I feel about the rest of it. However, we're picking up Jorge Molina for a few issues here soon, and I like what I've seen of the previews for those issues, so maybe there's hope.

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Several people have made noises to me recently about being curious about comics but unsure where to start, and I realized I had never addressed precisely that question before. Here, then, is a list of suggestions as made by someone who's very enthused about comics but only been actively reading them for eight months.

These are all fairly recent comics, some of them still ongoing, which I personally have read and enjoyed and think would be approachable to someone with very little knowledge of comics continuity, either because they're standalone titles (the Image stuff) or because the writers kept away from the continuity tangles of the larger universe inhabited by the characters (the Marvel stuff). I also stuck to stuff that's available in trades, so that you have a hope of acquiring them through your local library. However, they are all also available via Comixology, the one-stop shop for digital comics by the big publishers.

( onto the recommendations! )

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If I do not fall in love with at least one of the new lady-centric solos, I will be deeply disappointed. (I'd give any two of them to get the Immonen/Schiti Sif book back, but possibly that's a bird in the hand/bush problem.)

New series announced:

She-Hulk
Author: Charles Soule. Good news is that he's an attorney and will be writing about Jen Walters being an attorney. Bad news is that he's been on Thunderbolts for a while now, which I hear is terrible.
Artist: Javier Pulido. He's the back-up artist on Hawkeye, so in my head he's the poor man's David Aja, but I suspect I will quite like him when he's doing his own thing and I'm not continually tempted to compare him to other people.

Black Widow
Author: Nathan Edmondson. I hear he writes a lot of espionage stuff. That's all I got.
Artist: PHIL NOTO. Phil Noto is wonderful, including/especially at women. There is no bad here. Just look at this cover.
Additional Notes: FINALLY. That's all, really.

Elektra
Author: Zeb Wells. The CBR fanboys like him. I know nothing.
Artist: Mike del Mundo. I only know him from that Kitty+Tony short in A+X, which I enjoyed the art for once I got used to it. There's definitely a 'getting used to it' factor involved; his art in that was very stylized, with extremely long and flexible limbs, and so on. Based on that, though, I expect this will be gorgeous.
Additional Notes: I only know Elektra from the Jennifer Garner movie (which was 2/3 bad and 1/3 awesome) and I'm not familiar with the Daredevil 'verse at all.

Captain Marvel "relaunch"
Author: Kelly Sue DeConnick. AKA the same author who is already writing it. I expect you'll continue to like the writing about as well as you've been liking it already.
Artist: David Lopez. He's been filling in on X-Men, and I can't say I'm hugely enthused, but it's possible I'm still just mourning Olivier Coipel's departure. He's more mainstream than Captain Marvel's artists have been lately, which I suspect will be good for the book.
Additional notes: "Relaunch," indeed. Given that this book by this same author was switching out artists every four issues or so anyway, why on earth it would need relaunching is a question only the marketing office can answer.

Silver Surfer
Author: Dan Slott. Again, the CBR fanboys like him. I only know him from Superior Foes of Spider-man, which I didn't care for, but I'm willing to chalk that up to the character selection.
Artist: Mike Allred. Because he's off FF, which I'd much rather have instead, but oh well.
Additional Notes: I have only slightly greater than zero interest in and knowledge of the Silver Surfer, but I'm a firm Allred fan at this point, and the cover of #1 is awfully fun. In general, 'fun' seems to be the keyword for this book, and I'm for that.

There were bunches of other announcements, including, for example, a new X-Factor by Peter David and a new Loki solo written by Mighty Avengers author Al Ewing. Surely someone has a full list by now, but you can get an overview from write-ups of the X-Men panel, the Avengers panel, the Inhumanity/cosmic Marvel panel, and the Spider-man + everything else panel.

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