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 Written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Kevin Grevioux, with Fred Van Lente and Dan Slott
Penciled by Brad Walker and M.C. Wyman, with Jefte Palo and Ty Templeton
Inked by Walden Wong and Victor Olazaba, with Jefte Palo and Ty Templeton
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel Comics
Age of Heroes is a slightly strange mini-series. When Marvel has a new "era" to introduce, they’re prone to releasing an anthology mini-series to tie into the latest banner. With Age of Heroes, though, it’s been a strange mixture of original stories and pieces specifically designed to feed into new mini-series and ongoing series. It’s almost like getting a movie theatre full of trailers for upcoming movies, but you also have a couple of short films interspersed among them.
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 Written by Matt Fraction with Allan Heinberg
Penciled by Whilce Portacio with Olivier Coipel
Inked by Ed Tadeo with Mark Morales
40 pages, color
Published by Marvel Comics
After the conclusion of the "Second Coming" crossover throughout the X-Men family of titles, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the latest Uncanny X-Men. It’s my favorite of the mutant titles, to be fair, but writer Matt Fraction left us with such a nice cliffhanger at the end of "Second Coming" that it’s been hard to not want to see more. And so far? It’s hard to not feel a little perplexed by the choice of artist for the next five months.
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 Written by Greg Pak and Scott Reed
Pencils by Paul Pelletier and Miguel Munera
Inks by Danny Miki and Jeffrey Huet
40 pages, color
Published by Marvel Comics
I’d love it if big comic companies would gleefully advertise "reset buttons" being pressed in the way they used to write cover copy. "Because YOU demanded it: everything goes back to the way it was!" Unfair? Probably. But reading the latest issue of Incredible Hulk, it’s certainly hard to shake that feeling that honesty needs to be employed a little more in an industry that (mostly) seems determined to change as little as possible in their most recognizable characters.
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 Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Kev Walker
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel Comics
When Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley created Thunderbolts some thirteen years ago, they might not have imagined that their book would be one of the few new ongoing franchises at Marvel that would prove to have enough power to stick around. It was a sharp enough concept—villains pretending to be heroes—that even with minor tweaks along the way it’s kept going. Jeff Parker, the book’s latest writer, came on board a few months ago to wrap up the "Dark Reign" era of the title, and usher in the next incarnation of the title. So far? I think this is probably my favorite take on the title since those original Busiek and Bagley issues.
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 Written by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente
Penciled by Reilly Brown
Inked by Terry Pallot and Jason Paz
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel
It might now be over, but I’m still slightly amazed at how good The Incredible Hercules turned out to be. Taking two non-star characters (Greek demi-god Hercules and boy genius Amadeus Cho) and handing them the old Incredible Hulk title as their own? It seemed like a sucker bet, but instead readers found a rare mixture of humor, drama, and poignancy that manages to amuse and enthrall. Having (theoretically) killed off Hercules at the end of the series, a lesser character would go home and call it a day. But if you’re Amadeus Cho (7th smartest person in the Marvel Universe), you go out and get your own mini-series, Prince of Power. Why wait for revival when you can take it over on your own?
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 Written by Stan Lee
Penciled by Jack Kirby and Don Heck
Inked by Dick Ayres, Paul Reinman, George Roussos, and Chic Stone
248 pages, color
Published by Marvel Comics
This may shock some of you, but until earlier this year I had never read an issue of The Avengers prior to the 1980s. It’s been on the list of things to try for ages, but it wasn’t until a recent purchase of the softcover Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Vol. 1 that I finally decided to fix that problem. Now that I’ve finally experienced it? It’s not at all what I was expecting, a book that was simultaneously more intriguing and disappointing than I’d expected.
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 Written by Jason Aaron, Matt Fraction, and Stuart Moore
Art by Mirco Pierfederici, Brendan McCarthy, and Joe Quinones
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel
I appreciate that Marvel has a sense of humor about itself these days. That’s a good thing, really, it shows that they aren’t taking themselves too seriously. But of course, humor is a subjective thing, and parody doubly so. With all that in mind, I’m not entirely sure who at Marvel first thought a one-shot titled Captain America: Who Won’t Wield The Shield? was a brilliant publishing strategy. To me, more often than not it feels like a series of inside jokes rather than something that the general readership might find amusing.
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 Written by Eric Shanower
Art by Scottie Young
Based on the novel by L. Frank Baum
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel
Growing up, I think I read L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Ozma of Oz about 50 times each. The first and third of Baum’s Oz books, both have formed the basis for a lot of different Oz-related projects over the years. But until now, I’d never actually read the second book, The Marvelous Land of Oz. I knew the basics of what happened in it (thanks to Ozma of Oz, which is incidentally a top-notch book that everyone should read) but I hadn’t gotten around to reading my free copy courtesy Project Gutenberg. Fortunately for me, Marvel was happy enough with Eric Shanower and Scottie Young’s adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that they’re now publishing Shanower and Young’s The Marvelous Land of Oz, and it’s definitely the strangest of the three Oz books that I’ve come across so far. And when I say strange, I mean that I love it.
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 Written by Colleen Coover, G. Willow Wilson, Trina Robbins, Valerie D’Orazio, Lucy Knisley, Robin Furth, Devin Grayson
Art by Colleen Coover, Ming Doyle, Stephanie Buscema, Nikki Cook, Lucy Knisley, Agnes Garbowska, Emma Rios
48 pages, color
Published by Marvel Comics
An anthology full of creators fitting a certain demographic is hardly a new idea. We’ve had books specializing in indy comic creators, gay comics creators, and racial minority comic creators. So the idea of Girl Comics from Marvel is hardly shocking or surprising to me; while the name may be one of the less inspired (although you know exactly what you’re going to get, something that was also true with Gay Comix) I’ve generally found that anthologies of this nature for whatever reason almost always end up being slightly better than the average compilation. So for that reason alone, Girl Comics #1 was automatically going to get eyeballed by me.
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 Written by Jeph Loeb
Pencils by Arthur Adams
Inks by Mark Roslan
32 pages, color
Published by Marvel
So many times, a "reset" for a line of comics feels less like something that was actually needed, and more like a chance for some new issue #1s to sell extra copies. That said, the conclusion and re-start of Marvel’s "Ultimate" line was something that I think was genuinely needed. What had started as a stripped-down, easy-to-jump-in line of titles had turned into a mish-mash of characters, continuity, and numerous deaths and resurrections. In other words, what had started as a new generation had become its parents. Ultimate X looks to be the first step towards the new "Ultimate" cleaned-decks approach, and I have to give them credit, it has potential for being just that.
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