Top of the Pile - 10/10/12

Uncanny Avengers #1
Written by Rick Remender
Art by John Cassaday
Inks by Laura Martin

Since I’ve been out of town, it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve posted. But I’m back and into my regular swing of things. This week I picked up 8 books and the big title this time is the first in the Marvel Now! Reboot, Uncanny Avengers.

Marvel is doing a huge multi-title reboot and after the last one of Avengers vs. X-Men, having them come together in some way seems the obvious direction. The book starts off at Charles Xaviers’ funeral with Cyclops in prison and Havoc asked to join the Avengers by Captain America (because “someone has to stand up and represent the mutants.”) Also some of the other highlights in the book include, Rouge and Scarlet Witch getting angry with each other, Wolverine eulogizing, and a couple of brains removed from corpses (which is really pretty gruesome).

It’s been a long time since I’ve read many X books. But it looks like Rick Remender has written for both the Uncanny X-Force and Secret Avengers titles for a while. So he knows the lay of the land when it comes to Marvel. And with this book, he is starting to lay the plans for the next story arc. We see which character is stealing brains. We see the characters begin to deal with the loss of Professor X. And we see the fallout from the previous Marvel mega storyline AvX. Remender has many different ways to go and he seems to have some good ideas.

And with John Cassaday doing the art, there is no loss of clarity in the story. Cassaday’s style is clear as always and enhances the plot wonderfully. I like that his depictions of superheroes isn’t exaggerated in any way. They look like fit normal people. (Thor is a little beefier, but he is a god after all.) I’m sure other artists would do just as fine with a book of this scope, but having Cassaday on it makes it that much more pleasurable a read.

As for picking up more of this title, I think I’ll hold off. I’m already spending a little too much of my budget on comics, so picking up a new book with the potential of having cross title storylines is more than I could handle. But if I have the opportunity and funds at my library, I would pick up the collected volume for our collection. But with the level of violence in the book I would not put it in the juvenile area. The teen shelves is where this title would go.