Book of the Week

Welcome back comic book fans. The world of comics has been heating up lately with so many controversies popping up. We're going to get away from all that briefly and celebrate my book of the week.

I figured I'd start listing the books I read each week so you'll have an idea of my reading tastes as well as the weekly contestants. For the week of June 13th I read: Amazing Spider-Man #687, Avengers #27, AvX: VS #3, Fantastic Four #607 (yes, you read that right, I picked up a F4 book), Spider-Men #1, X-Men Legacy 268, X-Men 30, Batman 10, Cobra #14, and The Strain #5. I would have read Dancer #2, but I was unable to get a copy of it.

This was definitely a good week's worth of reading. As I was reading them, it was good book after good book. I had that feeling I get, quite often to be honest, when I'm reading a good book and this great feeling of fanboyism hits me and I say to myself "damn I love comic books." It was sweet...until I got to Avengers and The Strain. Neither book did anything for me. I have one question regarding this issue of Avengers, isn't this the Secret Avengers team? It's a not a secret anymore, they've invaded the main book and did not entertain me. And reading the Strain made me question my wanting to read the rest of the series. So it served a purpose in that I suppose. Back to good books.

My runner-up for the week is definitely Cobra. An all around good book. If you aren't reading it, I recommend it. As for the winner, it's a book from a series I was starting to lose faith in up until 2-3 months ago. Say hello to my book of the week: X-Men Legacy #268.

One quick note: even though it does carry the AvX banner and displays the Phoenix Force Five (or whatever Marvel's newest radio sensation is called) on the cover, the story doesn't deal with that beyond the first two pages. Now usually, I'm quick to say "this issue doesn't have anything to do with the event." Well I can still say it here, but in this case, it's not a complaint.

I've talked about how X-Men Legacy hasn't been that great until recent issues. The beginning of Christos Gage's run did bring Exodus back into the spotlight. I've always been a fan of Bennet du Paris. After that, we got Weapon Omega and I just wasn't feeling the book. But when AvX hit, Gage was ready to roll. So now to this book.

Why do I like this book?

I like this because we get a personal story with Frenzy in the spotlight. She hasn't been around for too long and we've never known much about her past. Here's a character whom for most her existence was a baddie in opposition to her current teammates. She's since transitioned to being an X-Men and while her attitude can sometimes reflect her past, you can sense her heroic side.

Her connection to a villager during her mission here is expertly told through Gage's writing and the work of the art team: David Baldeon, Jordi Tarragona, and Brian Reber. The story carries multiple emotions including rage and Baldeon handles them well. They come attached to various issues of social justice, which let's be honest, aren't easy issues to tackle.

One visual note: as I was reading I noticed how many panels Baldeon had Frenzy looked up and to her right. I don't see there being anything really wrong with that though. It was just something I couldn't help but notice and figured I'd point out.

If you can, I'd recommend the previous two issues of this series as well as this one. If you did read this, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Other comments welcome as well. Happy reading.