Picks Of The Week - May 16, 2012

We come to a relatively light week for me as I start seeing rumors of books ending subscriptions from DC Comics.  I’m not sure what’s going on with that, so we’ll have to see what happens in the weeks to come.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

This week takes a bit of a departure, mostly due to the lack of picks I have for this week.

Green Lantern Corps #9 (DC Comics) – To protect OA and the Green Lanterns, John Stewart killed a fellow lantern to stop him from revealing vital information.  Now, the Alpha Lanterns have come to bring him to trial.  How does Stewart’s trial play into the Guardians’ secret plans for the Corps?

Nightwing #9 (DC Comics) – Night of the Owls continues as Nightwing faces off against a Talon of the Court of Owls with a personal tie to him.  Can Nightwing defeat his own great-grandfather?  this issue also reveals a lot of Grayson’s family history, including why he is a Grayson.

 

A Commentary

This week saw a number of Marvel books that are tied into the Avengers vs. X-Men (AvX) event.  Personally, I have grown tired of such events.  Not all events, just events like this one.  I find the concept of having two superhero teams fighting each other unoriginal at best.  And given that this story line also revolves around the Phoenix force, it grows even more unoriginal.

Way back in the 1980s, Marvel ended the Dark Phoenix saga in spectacular fashion.  Knowing what she could become again, Jean Grey makes the ultimate sacrifice, choosing to kill herself rather than let the Dark Phoenix destroy again.  It was the tragic end to a classic story line.  And, even with the return of Jean Grey in Fantastic Four, the story stood, even if Phoenix was now a cosmic entity rather than a cosmic powered Jean Grey.  But, with each subsequent return of Phoenix in one form or another, the impact of the original story becomes that much more diminished.  It would be as if Gwen Stacy were to return from the dead every four years, just to die again.

As for the hero vs. hero story line, Marvel has relied on this concept far too much in recent years.  Civil War turned into a hero vs hero slugfest, as did World War Hulk, and Secret Invasion, and Shadowland.  To fall back on it yet again shows a lack of creativity by Marvel, especially when the series seems to be a sub-par version of a hero vs hero slugfest.  The fact that it has pulled in a number of books I used to enjoy reading (Wolverine and the X-Men, New Avengers, Avengers Academy)  makes me wonder if Marvel really wants me to read any of their titles.  At the moment, I still am reading these books, but the longer AvX continues, the more I doubt that these books will return to types of stories that made me eager to read them initially, and also doubt whether or not I should continue to read them anymore.

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