Another tremendous week for comics and it seems that each one I read was better than the last in terms of established titles! There was some disappointing showings from Marvel’s newest numbers ones  though in Hawkeye and The First X-Men, and you got exactly what you’d expect from Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe. For the full breakdown though, check out the Pullbox below!

Marvel – Avengers vs X-Men Round #9 – Hope’s training is still moving far too slowly and Avengers are dropping like flies. With a little help from the rest of the X-Men who are starting to realize that the Phoenix Four are going mad with power, the remaining Avengers attempt a mad prison break to free their fallen allies and one hero prepares for the ultimate sacrifice.

Originally, I was going to do one of the other Marvel #1s in this spot so I could bash them up a bit because they were pretty bad, but between Round 8 and now Round 9 in this AvX event, I needed to mention that this is the first time in literally five years that I’ve rooted for Spider-Man in a comic book. His selflessness and wisdom beyond his years, his ability to overcome all the odds and take tragedy in stride, are traits that made Spidey one of my favorites growing up. He had lost this a few years ago and he still doesn’t have it in his own monthly, but in the various Avengers books Spidey is starting to reclaim what made him great and this book really solidified that. A great read as this event looks like its finally about to come to a head.

Marvel – The First X-Men #1 – Mutants are starting to pop up everywhere and Wolverine and Sabretooth aren’t thrilled with the idea that there are folks who are looking to bring them harm. Not really known for being heroes though, this odd couple does what they do best in busting heads in the hopes of protecting some folks who still don’t know how to protect themselves.

This book infuriated me more than any other #1 Marvel put out this week so although Hawkeye escaped my wrath, this book will not. It blatantly changes what we’ve come to know as the origin stories of Wolverine, Sabretooth, Professor X, and several others just to try to have another book with Wolverine blatantly in the spotlight since he is clearly Marvel’s powerhouse character in terms of sales right now. The dialogue between the characters is not entertaining in the least and the course of action just seems like another blatantly needless origin re-launch that does nothing but confuse people and turn off long-time comic book readers. Even with it being a number one, this book just isn’t worth it.

DC – Batman Detective Comics #12 – Batman finally unravels the mystery behind Mr. Toxic and although he may have a new villain on his hands, he know things could be much worse as Mr. Toxic is about to go atomic. And Batman needs to remedy this situation quickly as an old foe’s return looms on the horizon.

Not the best wrap up of what has mostly been a confusing storyline, it at least had a few intense action sequences and Batman’s new jetpack armor looked pretty badass. Really all this did was delay what fans have really been waiting for and that is the return of the Joker and what he plans to do in the New 52 and what made this comic was the tease of his return next month in the final few pages of the story. I for one cannot wait for next month as all this did was whet my appetite for a real Batman story already.

DC – Animal Man #12 – The epic Rotworld crossover between Animal Man and Swamp Thing starts here in this first chapter. Animal Man’s son has been tainted by the rot and is barely clinging to life and all Buddy Baker knows is that he must enter a Louisiana swamp and put an end to all this at its core. Lucky for him, Swamp Thing has the same idea after dealing with Anton Arcane for the first time since his resurrection.

I’m not a huge fan of Animal Man typically, but this first issue was really well written and made me think I might have been missing something all this time as I picked it up sporadically over its first dozen issues. Of course, it could also be the crossover with Swamp Thing, which also came out this week so make sure you got both chapters one and two of this event folks, which just happens to start in this issue. The build up for this event has been brilliant by DC and I really hope they can follow through now on this amazing foundation they’ve set up.

Image – Spawn #222 – Jim Downing, the newest Spawn on Earth has been using his powers unlike any other Spawn before him, to heal. At least in the public eye. Behind the scenes he is still a Spawn and as he struggles to piece his life together by terrifying every hood who might be connected a lab initiative called ‘The Program’ that took away Downing’s memory and might have given him some of his power, he awakens some old Spawn enemies. In this case, Tremor. But Downing unusually turned his healing powers on Tremor and seemingly cured him of the experimentation that turned him into that monster who now will help Downing track down more members of the ‘The Program’.

I walked away from Spawn for a long time due to the fact that Al Simmons lost all interest to me as a character. But curious as to how they were able to keep the book going for about 60 issues after I lost interest, this new Spawn and the fact he never died, yet has all the powers and then some of Al, has intrigued me. I’m a bit sad though that classic villain Tremor now seems to be no more, but at the very least we still have The Clown! The art is great, the story is very realistic conspiracy theory driven instead of the whole heaven vs. hell aspect that drove Al for so long, and Jim Downing’s desire to do good all the time is refreshing. If you haven’t been reading Spawn for many of the same reasons as me, you might be interested in checking it back out again as it’s definitely piqued my curiosity like it did in the old days.