yay, I'm finally caught up with Spider-Man

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #11-19 (written by Peter David, pencils by Todd Nauck and Scott Eton, inks by Robert Campanella, Rodney Ramos, and John Dell)

I enjoyed those three stories. While they aren't outstanding all are solid and entertaining action-adventures with Spidey and some of his classic villains. All are set during Civil War and the direct aftermath, but not closely connected to any Civil War plots, except for Peter's identity being known. In the first several Mysterios appear at the school, mayhem ensues, and Flash deals with Peter as Spider-Man, the second, is set after Peter changed sides to oppose registration, and the government employs the Vulture to fight and capture him, but it's mostly irrelevant why the Vulture is attacking Peter just then. In the third The Sandman seeks Peter's help to exonerate his father from the murder of the alternate Ben Parker, so that also brings the future Spider-Man story to a close. Actually I liked the last least, probably because I wasn't too fond of that earlier plot in the first place. There's also a strange school nurse with a spider affinity and spikes like Peter's new poison stingers, so I assume she's the spider-creature from Spider-Man: The Other.

I've read somewhere that Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is going to be canceled soon in favor of ASM coming out more frequently, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand I like ASM better, and having it come out more often with more room for a single, consistent Spider-Man plot arc isn't bad, on the other hand FNSM seem to have hit its stride and provides decent adventures with the classic Spidey villains, and it's kind of nice to have a slightly less angsty break from ASM.

Amazing Spider-Man #539-541 -- Back in Black (written by J. Michael Straczynski, pencils by Ron Garney, inks by Bill Reinhold)

I kind of hate it that I'm now caught up so that I have to wait for the next issue again, especially with cliffhangers. But I like the story so far. Peter is hunting down those responsible for shooting Aunt May, and it's fast paced and tense. Peter being pushed to his limits, not just from the assassin shooting Aunt May, but also from Captain America's death and from being hunted himself, comes across as very believable here. I also like how he keeps in contact with MJ. And I'm curious what will happen during the fight with Fisk. I mean, Fisk isn't going to die, especially not since this seems to be set before the whole FBI deal in Dardevil ended, so he obviously survived, and I don't see Peter dying yet again either, but still.

One random quibble though-- what is it with comic rats having canines?? I've complained about this before, but let me say again: rats are rodents. Their incisors are plenty sharp, but they just don't have canine teeth, nor are any of their teeth pointed. Giving them canines doesn't make them look more scary, it just looks ridiculous.

I'm reading X-Men comics for a change...

Astonishing X-Men #1-21 (written by Joss Whedon, art by John Cassaday)

I wonder whether I shouldn't have waited for the final issues to come out before reading. Now that I'm faced with a cliffhanger again, I remembered how irregularly this came out for a while. Still it was entertaining so far, and I like the mix of an overarching plot that's coming to a conclusion in the final issues, i.e. that alien world that is convinced by some prophecy that an earth mutant will destroy it, which makes for a nice mystery keeping you hooked, and the subplots threaded into that.

Though the subplots didn't all work equally well for me. The one with the mutant cure was pretty cool, but I didn't really get into the sentient danger room thing as much, though it wasn't bad. I have to admit that the Hellfire Club stuff left me mostly confused, as I had no idea who all these people and their history with the X-Men were (though I have come across some in fanfic), and I didn't know anything about this Cassandra Nova character and her history with Emma Frost. Eventually I read with a couple of reference and overview websites open and skimmed those to get the gist, but I still felt lost. How did anyone manage to follow superhero comics at all before reference websites?? Anyway, I suspect readers familiar with the background may get more out of this (or hate it for messing with something, I guess that's always a possibility).

Still, even with my confusion the basic suspense worked for me, or I wouldn't have bothered looking up all these Hellfire Club people and their history and powers in the first place. Also I'm inclined to like this X team because it has Cyclops, Wolverine and Beast who are among my favorite X-Men characters.

so, sometimes I wonder about the audience for this LJ...

I've started to wonder whether anyone is actually interested in reading me ramble about comics. I mean, these posts get even fewer replies than when I talk about watching tv, which of course doesn't mean automatically that I bored my audience to death, but it does make me wonder. So here's a poll:

[Poll #1015992]