Not-So-New Comics: The July 4 Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Astonishing X-Men #13:  As excited as I am to see Rosenberg take some of my favorite X-Men -- particularly Dazzler and Havok -- off the shelf, this issue still brings with it some of the problems of the previous arc.  We're again dealing with a character -- then Professor X, now Havok -- who has supposedly returned but who isn't exactly their old self.  Here, Alex has allegedly been cured of his "inversion," but he's now "just" a raging asshole.  He ruins an Avengers operations by leaping into battle without enough information, tries to recruit Kitty's students for a new team without running it by her first, and tells Beast the two of them have disappointed everyone they've ever known.  If Rosenberg's goal is convincing me he isn't himself, he's succeeding.  That said, almost everyone else is also an asshole, too:  Tony Stark is incredibly hostile to Alex in a mutantphobic way, and Kitty apparently doesn't believe Alex's moral code was inverted (even though she seemingly had no problem with her ex-fiancé's turn as a destructive Phoenix).  At some point, I'm going to have to start rooting for some character Rosenberg writes.  Otherwise, I'm going to drop this series, Dazzler or no Dazzler.

Avengers #4:  I’ll admit I’m confused at this point.  She-Hulk and Thor retrieve a vial containing Ymir's blood from Asgard’s treasury, and Thor seems to think it can help fight the Final Host.  However, Odin is skeptical.  Dr. Strange and Tony discover the Eternals have killed each other after some sort of rage; with his dying breath, Ikaris tells Tony the Celestials intended for them not to watch over humanity but to “cultivate” them as a pathogen.  Ikaris does...something to Tony, telling him only the Uni-Mind can stop the Horde.  Meanwhile, Carol and T’Challa learn the Horde vibrate on the same frequency as the Dark Celestials.  Beyond all that?  I’m not really sure.  Loki tells Cap something about the Progenitor, but I didn’t totally follow.  Aaron is a good enough author that I'm sure he'll get us an explanation soon, but I admit I'm a little impatient at this point.

Batman #50:  I'm working on a piece that attempts to synthesize this issue and "X-Men Gold" #30 into a dissent to DC and Marvel refusing to allow their characters to grow.  For now, I'd say simply that I'm not quite sure how much long I'll be reading the Bat-books.

Captain America #1:  I eventually stopped reading Coates’ “Black Panther” when it started to feel more like an obligation than a pleasure.  The ideas were great, as Coates forced T'Challa to confront his innate acceptance of his right to rule.  However, the execution was...boring.  Coates is much stronger here.  First, his Steve Rogers is more human than Waid’s and more recognizable than Spencer’s.  I can’t remember the last time we really saw Steve struggling with something; even Remender had Steve accept his fate in Dimension Z too heroically.  Here, Steve is still reeling from the fact America doesn’t trust him, an outcome of “Secret Empire” I honestly thought Marvel was just going to ignore, given Waid’s lack of focus on it.  But, Coates isn't just tell a story about Steve needing to earn back America's trust.  Coates makes it more difficult by (correctly) asserting this particular occasion isn’t really a match for Steve's skillset.  General Ross calls Sharon off the bench because he needs her to look through the chaos that consumes the post-S.H.I.E.L.D., now-Trump Washington so they can take on America’s enemies.  Steve might make short work of the Nuke cyborgs that start blowing up Washington in this issue, but it’s going to be Sharon’s tradecraft that finds out why they were dispatched in the first place.  It leaves Steve feeling adrift at a time when he needs a mission to justify the trust he thinks America should have in him.  That's a story I'm excited about reading.  But, Trump’s presence is also felt elsewhere, as two mysterious figures take on a HYDRA dissident group in Russia.  In so doing, Coates reminds us it’s not just American-based threats that have pushed us into the chaos of the moment; Russia helped.

Nightwing #46:  Percy is telling a pretty solid story here, as he brings our fears that technology is starting to control us to their logical conclusion.  That said, I'm still not sure how Mirage's technology works.  In his initial struggle with Wyrm, Dick implies he faces a Matrix-esque decision:  he can live in the virtual reality the Phantasm device offers him at a cost of his memories or he can fight it.  I'll be honest that he doesn't really seem to have a choice here; after all, Wyrm's spiders have taken over his neural network.  He tries to destroy the Phantasm device, but Wyrm uses his control over Dick to prevent him from doing so.  Instead, Dick jumps out the window and that apparently does the trick?  Presumably the spiders lost their power over him when he moved outside Wyrm's wireless range, but I'm not sure how he managed to override them long enough to get there in the first place.  At any rate, Babs saves him from his fall as she was sufficiently disturbed by the Phantasm device to make haste to Blüdhaven.  Not surprisingly, they learn Dick's new client is likely behind the scheme and he seems to be killing off his former classmates.  (The only problem here is that he looks about 16 years old and his former classmates look like they're thirty years older than him.)  Although the details are somewhat lacking, Percy is still telling an interesting story that forces us to think about what sort of freedom we'd be willing to surrender to live in the "perfect" city.  If he can explain away some of the questions I have here, it'll be a solid start to his run.

Star Wars #50:  I was waiting throughout this issue for Leia to show that she knew Trios to be a traitor.  At some point, I expected Trios to be exulting in her plan, only for Han and Luke to appear before her, revealing Leia had suspected her of treachery all along.  Maybe General Organa of "Star Wars:  The Last Jedi" would've seen that coming.  But, Gillen reminds us we're dealing with a different Leia.  General Organa becomes the woman she is because this Leia learns the lesson she learns here.  Gillen masterfully builds the tension throughout the issue; as the title of this arc ("Hope Dies") implies, I lose hope as Willard's ship explodes, proving Leia has been fooled.  I cannot wait to see where we go from here.

X-Men:  Gold #31:  Despite Kitty's assertion to Piotr that she explained why she couldn't marry him, I'm still not really sure what that explanation is.  Guggenheim implies Colossus understands, but it would help if I, the reader, did.  All she told him last issue is their history prevented her from marrying him, because history, not love, is the foundation of a marriage.  That didn't make sense to me last issue, and it still doesn't make sense to me now.  But, whatever.  Piotr exits, stage right, and Guggenheim throws us immediately into addressing Rachel's recent changes.  We learn Mesmero has been manipulating her for months, which seems like a stretch.  Has Mesmero always been this powerful?  Really?  At any rate, he immerses Rachel fully into her hound persona, and she hunts down the other X-Men as if she were in "Days of Future Past."  I can't say it was a terrible issue; it's definitely better than the previous arcs.  But, I just feel like we keep drifting randomly from story to story with no real sense of coherence.  With only five issues left in this series, I guess it doesn't really matter.

Also Read:  Avengers #4; Ben Reilly:  Scarlet Spider #21; Dungeons & Dragons:  Evil at Baldur's Gate #2; Infinity Countdown:  Champions #2