Diary of an up and coming sociopath

An extra slow week. Normally I like to spend between £8-£12 a week on comics, and if I were to ordinarily find myself in such a slump as this I’d go all out and by a graphic novel or something, but the past month alone I’ve bought Project: Superior, Project: Telstar, Three Sin City graphic novels, a Kevin Smith book, Brian Wood T-Shirts, and the Shake figure. Actually, that’s fucking criminal. I hereby cancel my plans to buy Family Guy DVDs. My point is, though, that in light of this horribly reckless spending, I’ll be leaving it at two comics this week. Luckily, they’re both pretty good.

House of M #2 - Some standard TPB pacing means this issue contains almost nothing that associates it with the previous issue. However, that doesn’t make it bad, even if nothing much happens. It’s an entire issue of short sequences setting up the House of M status quo, with little plot threads beginning to emerge. The altered realities give a good insight into the motivation of the affected characters, and thus don’t seem gimmicky at all. It kind of makes it interesting, then, when we see things like Peter married to Gwen, and MJ off making films, which is something that casts doubt on their current relationship, since if they’re both getting their wishes fulfilled, why did they end up seperated? Questions like that are raised for many characters. I am left intrigued by how the plot is going to progress here, and my previous reservations about the story are a fading memory. I’ve also gained new appreciation for Coipel’s art, which is suddenly reminding me of the Kuberts. A.

New Avengers #6: Breakout, Part 6 - Seems like it’s taken a long time to get here, but it’s finally worth it. This is an Avengers team I truly want to read about. I don’t have much interest in the “classic” Avengers characters like Vision, Hank Pym and Thor, so it’s good to see an Avengers team with a radically altered lineup. It’s especially good to have someone actually tackling the notion that Spider-Man’s a loner who doesn’t work on teams, though, it’d have been nicer if he actually, er, did anything besides crack jokes. Again, all plots moving full steam ahead, the team forms “officially” at the end and the hinted set up for future arcs is intriguing, though not a burning mystery (yet.) Finch does some nice art, not entirely to my tastes, but there’s nothing to complain about. A for the issue, A for the arc.