Comic reviews for the week of 2/8/12

Hot Pick of the Week: Wolverine and the X-Men #5 (Marvel Comic) Jason Aaron Writer Nick Bradshaw Pencils

     Aaron, Bachalo and Bradshaw have had that one-two punch for five months in a row. In the last five months this title has taken the hot pick of the week 3 of the 5 and has ever left the hot list. That is saying a lot now a days with the shambles the X-books are in. Uncanny X-Men has been lackluster since its re-launch and even way before that. The over saturation of X-material just keeps getting worse, Marvel seriously needs to cut the amount of X-titles per month by at-least half. For over two decades the line of X-books has reigned supreme, All the top names either scripted or blazed up with epic art. This book is the blue print for the greatness that used to be X!

Runner-Up:

Star Wars Agent of the Empire: Iron Eclipse #3 of 5 (Dark Horse) John Ostrander Writer/Stephane Crety Pencils

**John Ostrander keeps rolling with this awesome story and I can not wait for Durrsema and his new on-going series Dawn of the Jedi**

Star Wars Crimson Empire III: Empire Lost #4 of 6 (Dark Horse) Mike Richardson & Randy Stradley Writers/Paul Gulacy Art *Another great read for all Star Wars fans*

Green Lantern #6 (D.C. Comics) Geoff Johns Writer/Mike Choi Art *Sinestro is Bad-Ass*

Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega #2 of 5 (Marvel Comics) *Another great book to complement the regular series by the same title*

Artifacts #14 (Top Cow/Image) Ron Marz Writer/Stjepan Sejic Art *I was a little upset when the Marz/Stjic team left Witchblade, this will satisfy my fix month after month*

Spawn #26 (Image Comics) Todd Mcfarlane Writer & Cover/Szymon Kudranski Art

*20th Happy Anniversary Image...You still got it!!!*

Snake-Eyes #10 Cobra Command Part 5 (IDW Publishing) Chuck Dixon Writer/Alex Cal & Beni Lobel Art *The whole line of G.I. Joe books have been on the hot list for a couple of months now...Great material*

Honorable Mention:

Demon Knights #6 (D.C. Comics) Paul Cornell Writer/Diogenes Neves & Robson Rocha Art

Grifter #6 (D.C. Comics) Nathan Edmondson Writer/Scott Clark Pencils/Dave Beaty Inks *Still a strong showing for a book usually on the hot list...down a notch this month*

Legion Lost #6 (D.C. Comics) Fabien Nicieza Writer/Pete Woods & Matt Camp Art *Have not liked the direction of this book since the first issue. The story is starting to pick it up, but I find it hard to put this anywhere in the same league as the first series by Abnett & Lanning*

The Incredible Hulk #5 (Marvel Comics) Jason Aaron Writer/Whilce Portacio Pencils/Lenil Yu Cover *Still no sign of Marc Silvestri??? Anyone???*

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic: War #2 of 5 (Dark Horse) John Jackson Miller Writer/Andrea Mutti Pencils

Not So Hot:

New Mutants #37 (Marvel Comics) Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning Writers/David Lopez Pencils *I am a big, big fan of DnA from Legion Lost to Guardians of the Galaxy. I just can not get into this book what so ever, this is not the New Mutants I grew up to with such greats as Claremont/McLeod/Sienkiewicz/Simonson/Blevins/Nicieza/Liefeld and others. I just do not agree with the direction of this book and the team just does not gel such as past New Mutants nooks. Anyone agree? Disagree? Let me know!

X-Men #24 (Marvel Comics) Victor Gischler Writer/Al Barrionuevo Pencils/Cam Smith & Michel Lacombe Inks

*The X-books just do not have the charisma they used to, other than Wolverine and the X-Men and X-Men Legacy I can do with the other titles at times I think to myself. What happened to the days where you had a progressive continuing story in these books. Do people not have the attention span to keep up with a book that has a story arc that is more than 3 to 5 parts. I want stories where eight months down the road where you have a back-up story that explodes into an epic storyline. What happened to the back-up story that just hovers on the horizon and then blows up?

Dungeons & Dragons #15 (IDW Publishing) John Rogers Writer/Andrea Di Vito Art *Lets mix it up IDW, how bout a different story-lines in different campaign settings. Throw in some Forgotten Realms, then go on to Spell Jammers and the always awesome creation of Dark Sun*