Marvel announce over a gadjillion books for you to buy in April (info here).

Spider-Girl #97 has the line ‘He’s back by popular demand!’ in the blurb. Isn’t this the comic that is being cancelled at #100 after years of near-cancellation due to low numbers? What does popular demand mean then? The editor, his wife and their tennis partners?

Black Panther is looking for a lady. According to the blurb, ‘the outcome of which will send reverberations throughout the whole Marvel Universe.’ Not sure how, exactly, but I can’t help but get the image out of my head of T’Challa saying, ‘Once you’ve had Black Panther, you’ll never go back.’

Moon Knight looks like an interesting attempt to reinvigorate an old Marvel character, even if they do use the awful cliché of ‘back and badder than ever’. Shudder. I’ve never heard of Charlie Huston, but the blurb sounds like it has a good angle on the character, and I do like David Finch’s art, which would be well suited to a dark tale. I’m not sure whether to buy it in serial form or wait for the trade; I want the New Avengers trade but the price doesn’t seem pan out, as it looks like the price I will be able to get it for (~£9.50) is the same as if I bought the individual trades (£1.70 x 6 = £10.20). Surely one of the reasons for getting the trades out is that people would be willing to pick them up if they are cheaper?

I can’t get my mind out of the gutter when I see the words ‘The Package’ and ‘Special extra-sized issue’ so close to each other in the Wolverine #41 ad copy.

Is Marvel following the DC Identity Crisis format of having a handful of mini-series as lead in to the main event? If you are thinking about following the Annihilation event, you have to get 4 four-issue mini-series. That’s a big investment. And, with the exception of Giffen, the creators aren’t exactly big names, and Giffen isn’t exactly A-list. Did it work out for DC? Am I being cynical? And should we call it Ann Nye Al Ashun or something equally new?

Avengers and Power Pack Assemble! should win a merit award for cheek. What sort of system have we wrought for ourselves when Marvel has to dispense what is, in effect, a Power Pack continuing series in the form of mini-series with guest-starring names on the cover? It’s quite sad, really, but at least it’s out there. Not that I’ll be getting it, but that’s not the point (although the ad copy seems a little desperate: ‘Don’t wait for the digest … Join the Pack now!’)

Why, dear God, do we have Marvel Milestones: Beast & Kitty Pryde? Why? Why? Someone explain it me. Please?

I’ve already pontificated on Wolverine: Origins before, and I stand by my gibberish rantings there.

I’m surprised they haven’t done it before now – Uncanny X-Men Omnibus vol. 1 HC, collecting issues 94–131 of The Uncanny X-Men, Annual #3 and Giant-Size X-Men #1, in colour no less, a whopping 272 pages of Chris Claremont reshaping modern superheroics in some of my favourite comic books of my teenage years. A hardback for a hundred bucks? I won’t be getting it, but it gives me a warm tingle to know it’s out there.

The trade paperbackization (I can invent words if I want) of Marvel’s back catalogue continues a pace, even collecting early The New Mutants (I don’t think it warrants the ‘Classic’ tag – the Bob McLeod stuff was quite stiff and Claremont’s stories quite pedestrian. It didn’t kick off until Bill Sienkiewicz came on board and things went crazy – see Dave’s eloquent post for evidence), which goes to show that nearly anything will get reprinted these days.

Talking of collecting everything into trades, The Young Avengers #1–6 gets collected; I might give it a try, based on some good reviews around the blogosphere.

And I’m spent for another month. Time to write something else.