Transformers: More than Meets the Eye might be one of the most entertaining comics currently being published.

Civil War again, more secret and more true.
Again, as it ever was: techne versus mores.

Scott is in a future of ashes, a failed Messiah.
Basically, the standard Summers youth camp!

Hickman wanted to write a Green Lantern comic
and the Avengers in the title did not stop him.

All New X-Men #6: Has anybody thought that *this* might be what seeded Cyclops to become who he is?

Batman #16: This Joker is crazy enough, but waaay too organized. He's terrifyingly random, and this is an opera.

Batman and Robin #16: After Battle for the Cowl, I doubt Damian would've walked into it like this.

Indestructible Hulk #3: An in-house supergenius with a scary "combat mode." Maria Hill has gotten herself a pet Tony Stark... Run, Maria, run!

New Avengers #2: For the record, I'd feel much safer with Sue Richards in that room.

Superboy #16: Bruce sure is chatty with the boy, isn't he? Run, Superboy, run!

Extermination #8: Like all arguments, it'd have been a stronger one if it hadn't demonized its opponents first.

New Avengers #1: It's the standard Hickman plot. It's one I happen to like, but YMMV.

The Dark Knight #15: I never thought I'd see Alfred do that.

All New X-Men #5: Beast: Ta-Da! Me: <3

Iron Man #5: If Tony's hypocrisy could be harnessed into energy, it'd make Galactus choke.

The Hypernaturals #7: Give that guy a mask and a country galaxy, and he's Doom.

The Manhattan Projects #8: I think Hickman kind of lost control of things here. Even outrageousness, or perhaps specially outrageousness, has to be tightly controlled in order to be effective (in my obviously subjective opinion). The difference between the first and the (so far) last Manhattan Projects feels like the difference between the early and the later Authority.

I haven't been following the "New 52" much, particularly on the Metropolis-Gotham axis (I don't care much for the Owls thing, I miss Oracle, and the new Superman doesn't feel right), and the Joker's new look... Nah. Definitely nah.

But, that said, there are one or two ideas in this week's "Death of the Family" (the Big Two's nostalgia compulsion is almost sickening, by the way) issues that feel definitely like good, high-grade Joker stuff. Not the way he talks (he's too preachy, I think), but the calling card thing... and the Arkham thing... Yeah. Those were good, subtle creepy.

I swear, if we got single-issue stories with one moment like that per issue instead of huge sprawling universe-changing multi-month storylines every frakking week, I'd read and love the hell out of it.

As an unrelated aside: if Sue doesn't divorce from Reed with extreme prejudice after what he's pulling in the current FF storyline, my (Watsonian) bet is that he has a few hypercomputers somewhere constantly running his psychohistory equations focused what he needs to do to keep her with him without him having to behave like an adult or anything like that. (Which I'd classify as spousal abuse, mind you.)

That, or Sue's as psychologically and emotionally damaged as he obviously is, and they get off in this eternal cycle of Reed being criminally reckless and her psychically (or telekinetically) beating the shit out of him.

And now I've got a couple of very depressing hopefully AU FF scenarios in my head. I need to learn to stop thinking while I'm ahead.

Avengers #32: Spidey snarks, and other non-surprises.

AvX Consequences #3: Scott is still mastermind-y, and Erik is still amused.

Batman Incorporated #4: Talia is still OOC-crazy, and Damian is still a woobie.

Deadpool #63: Wade's power is still applied insanity, and things end up pretty much as you'd have expected.

Exterminantion #65: Red Reaper is still the most fan-servicing character ever, and I still like him.

FF #23: "Here's the thing about rules. There isn't any."

GI Joe Cobra #18: Hypercompetent badasses keep popping up everywhere.

Invincible Iron Man #527: At the end, Tony has the best idea he has had in quite a while.

Superman #13: For a ridiculously superpowered guy with access to pretty much everything everywhere and all the good intentions in the world, Clark still shows quite a lack of imagination about what to do with that.

Fantastic Four #611 was a let-down last issue in that (a) three quarters of the Fantastic Four didn't appear (alright, I lie, you see Sue's shoulders and the back of her head while she's sleeping next to Reed), and (b) Doom was made fun of. Heck, even Reed was pretty much tagging along.

It should have been an Exploration! Story, really. They are the Fantastic Four.

By now, I think Marvel's obsession with Zombies! alternate universes has gone beyond ridiculous, but at least Marvel Universe vs. The Avengers #1 is somewhat better than their average; the choice of Hawkeye as the narrator is a good one, as is their relative de-emphasizes in the gorier side.

But the best comic page in last week's comics was definitely in Uncanny Avengers #1. I don't mean the by-now-standard dance everybody in the Marvel U does when creating yet another Avengers team, I mean ( an spoilerCollapse )

( Spoilers thereofCollapse )

On the other hand, the idea of REED RICHARDS running a private school for dangerously hyperintelligent kids continues to be terrifying and hilarious. It's like the Charles Xavier School of Telepath Ethics, the Anthony Stark Open Innovation Institute, or Bruce Wayne's Home and Counseling Center for Children Victims of Violence. I don't think I'll ever going to get over the fact that it's canon that Reed's parenting skills worry Galactus.

... TPTB have decided that DCnU-Tim Drake is going to never have been Robin.

I think this is a short-sighted move from them (assuming the rumour to be true), but, although Tim-Drake-as-Robin is probably second only to Bruce/Batman in terms of comics characters that hold personal meaning to me, I don't feel as slighted by the retcon as I initially thought I would be.

When you get right down to it, Tim Drake-as-things-other-than-Robin was probably around half of my overall fannish output, right? It's likely that they have also changed his personality in ways that would make me angry, should I read the material, but the change on his resume isn't, on itself, something that puts me off.

The Defenders Marvel book (up to issue #8 in its current incarnation). I hadn't looked at it until recently — I like Danny Rand, but the rest of the line-up didn't really catch my eye — but that was my own loss. Within its boundaries, it's shaping up vaguely like Morrison-lite crossed with the early Planetary books, if that makes any sense (without spoiling things I don't really know yet anyway). Might merit a quick look, if that sounds like your cup of tea.