March! The wonderful month of March, coming in like a lion and out like a lamb! Yes, as we all away from the Christmas cold, let’s look ahead to the month of March, free of One More Days, Messiah CompleXs and World Wars. Okay, maybe a little war in secret.

For you see, we’re getting the SECRET INVASION SAGA, proving the next big Marvel event will not be televised, but instead it will be 32 pages and FREE.

From the solicitation, it sounds like this will be the best and brightest behind-the-scenes treasure map to the storyline said to have been in the works for years. “From their first encounter with the Fantastic Four, through the epic clash of the Kree/Skrull War and the destruction of the Skrull Throneworld, all the way to the recent Annihilation War and subsequent invasion of Earth, the time line of known Skrull activity is made clear so effective battle plans can be drawn.” Wow. Even being so far away from the first real salvos to the Secret Invasion, this seems like a goldmine. Does this mean the plot’s going to be so convoluted that a free road map is required? Will this just be a repository for ads of books past and issues yet to come? Does it matter ’cause the darn thing is free?

And what is up with this cover? On one hand, I want to call MS. MARVEL #25 for being a misleading cover preemptively, trying to grab headlines when just hitting the #25 and three year mark is pretty good for a mainstream Marvel Heroine’s solo book (meanwhile, Amazing Spider-Girl will continue to wow us on the AU front). We’re going to get a lot of misleads, wrong turns and red herrings every corner we turn through Secret Invasion, so I’m just prepping myself for cynicism when it comes to an OMG SKRULL! cover.

But on the other hand… man, that would explain a heck of a lot as far as characterization and power levels. Let’s face it folks, Carol Danvers hasn’t exactly been knocking them out of the park recently. Her leadership skills in the Mighty Avengers and even her own book have fallen short, her sudden need to be the best of the best after House of M seems a little out of nowhere, she seems a little out of place with old friends… I think a Skrull reveal might do the character some good, let her start fresh a little stronger and for Heaven’s sake, keep her powers straight as she seems to be headed for another turn as Binary. Like a new Battlestar Galactica sleeper Cylon, it could be a great play by the Skrull Empire, giving them a major player within the Marvel heroes and a rather powerful one at that.

Mind you, I’m saying all this now and three months is a long time… but I’m still going to say this may be the most important issue for Ms. Marvel since her new attitude from House of M.

So what’s the spread on Marvel’s Mightiest Heroes for the Secret Invasion? Pokes and prods at the plot finally out of the way, books catching up to current plotlines and ON MY GOD is that TWO Mighty Avengers books in one month??

Why, yes! MIGHTY AVENGERS #10 and MIGHTY AVENGERS #11 seem to be solicited for the month of March, moving plot like a bullet train in the wake of Frank Cho’s former deadlines. Seeing this, I once again wonder if Mark Bagley is even human at this point and not some crazy awesome drawing machine. All the splash and pizzaz of the Mighty Avengers team, some time travel, Doctor Doom and “an ending you’ve never seen in the history of Doom!”

One, ‘history of Doom!’ is an awesome phrase and two, that’s a tall order for a character who’s been around so long. Think he’s a Skrull? The more this book comes out on time and catches up to the rest of the Marvel Universe, the more I think the Avengers just might be viable players in the thick of things rather than lone constellations outshining one another. Suddenly, with the promise of two issues, there’s a little bit of hope for a swift and active storyline.

Oh, New Avengers #39 is going to have a David Mack story about Echo.

Anyway, back to Secret Invasion. Unless something big happens in New Avengers, Spider-Man will be both part of the problem and the solution as he’ll be running with the underground Avengers team and… doing his laundry? Brand New Day keeps a’rollin’ as the next creative team, Bob Gale and Phil Jimenez, describe the kind of story I’ve been waiting for from Spidey for what seems like far too long: supporting cast plot hooks, familiar faces and new to-the-point peril and- get this -Peter Parker being a pretty good guy. Remember that? Looks like he’ll be defending a soup kitchen and taking care of his life that doesn’t involve crazy demon pacts or ancient spider totems. It’s amazing that sometimes, just a straight-up Spidey story can be far more spectacular than some major ‘this-story-changes-EVERYTHING’ event. While Spider-Man should certainly be part of Secret Invasion and help out with this strange tale of alien subterfuge, I’d also like the see the guy get a break and take care of his own business. Looks like the best of both worlds, people.

Speaking of taking care of business, BLACK PANTHER #35 will catch up to now (since Black Panther and Storm left the Fantastic Four a couple issues ago in the FF book) and bring T’Challa home. Hoorah! These two have been on a world tour/fill-in job for the Fantastic Four since they got married! Let’s give the king a chance to rule with his new bride. I’ll be glad to see some business-taken-care-of here too.

There’ll be two new teams on the rise in March, starting with an all-new Defenders line-up in THE LAST DEFENDERS #1 (of 6). Now, at first I thought this way going to be one of those ‘The End’ style tales where creators imagine an end to a beloved team or character but, bad crack the sales of the last regular Defenders title aside, it looks like we’re getting some new faces for a new in-continuity team. Colossus, She-Hulk (okay, maybe not so in-continuity), Blazing Skull and Nighthawk look like the foursome ready to dole out the action for ‘a specific policital purpose’ (their spelling error, not mine). Considering the line-up, it would be hard to consider them a part of the Initiative since She-Hulk’s still pondering her fate as a heroine and I’m sure Colossus will be running with the X-Men crew (going to Russia this month, actually; more on that later), but a specific political purpose makes me think that Tony Stark might have a hand in things, maybe even Gyrich.

The other new team on the scene is, and get this, Power Pack. No, really! POWER PACK: DAY ONE #1 (of 4) has Fred Van Lente and Gurihiru (practically Power Pack’s personal penciller by this point) restarting their origin to contain less magical space ponies and make it a little more palatable for modern kids. Maybe in another few decades we’ll have to do it again and rewrite the rewrite to make them contemporary again, but I’m just glad to see the Power kids still hanging around. The Team Up minis they’ve done have been fun and I’ve been happy to hand them other to kids who seem equally happy to read them.

Also in the fun enough for a kid (but strong enough for a fanboy!) is the new WOLVERINE: FIRST CLASS #1 which has a very old school setting early eighties Kitty Pryde and Wolverine team-up stories. Sure, poor Jubilee’s gotten kicked to the curb as we go back to Logan’s first girl sidekick and this book will probably have less demon ninja antics, but the odd couple setting they explain has me expecting this book to go over like a barrel at Niagra.

More on Marvel’s Merry Mutants? Not so fast! X-MEN: LEGACY #209, the retitled Ajectiveless X-Men still has its secrets, though you got me on what in the world they could be by now. What do you mean ‘CLASSIFIED UNTIL THE END OF MESSIAH COMPLEX’? The last couple descriptions of this ‘new’ book make things look like an anthology series so what’s to classify? There’s nothing wrong with a good ol’ fashioned collection of early stories of X-History, so unless there’s an Exiles-like component here, I think the picture we have is fine and honestly, the word ‘Classified’ just makes me nervous.

Maybe this paranoia has some grounding, as I’m not really sure where the X-Men are headed these days. Think about Messiah CompleX, then read this solicitation for UNCANNY X-MEN #496 and see if you can spot the change in theme: ‘Cyclops and Emma Frost adventure to the strangest land of all – San Francisco. The city has transformed into a bizarre version of itself circa 1968, complete with VW Bugs, flower power and hippies as far as the eye can see. Will they be able to lure Angel back to reality? Or will they succumb to their groovy desires and embrace the love generation forever?’

Wha? Everything up to this point has been rather doom and gloom, last mutant baby, terrible beasts ready to rip your heart out, children dying by the bus load, ‘Will the Dream survive?’, evil despots in space and now… hippies? Really? I can sort of see it if you think that the main mutant books are being taken back to a simpler time for the X-Men, back when they could have a groovy adventure and face the Brood within issues of one another, but then again the rest of the description goes on to mention that ‘Colossus (with Wolverine and Nightcrawler in tow) returns to Mother Russia’. This always spells bad news, though they’d be hard pressed to fid a member of the Rasputin family they haven’t killed or cursed by this point…

I’d be amiss (or a Mrs.! ZING! Thanks, I’ll be here all night, tip your waitress) if I didn’t mention the new LOGAN #1 as no one had mentioned it to me until I read the solicitation for March’s new books. How could a new mini-series staring the most lucrative mutant of all, written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by 100 Bullets’ Eduardo Risso slip under the radar? Did it just sort of slip in with the rest of the Wolverine books when I wasn’t looking? Sadly, while I like the creative team a lot, I think I might have missed it because it really did slip in with the rest of the Wolverine books, the description not really challenging what’s being written in his other two solo titles. Armed with new memories, check. Returning to old battlefields, check. Shocking revelation, check. Best he is at you know the drill. I’ll give it a shot, but it’s got a lot of competition.

A couple other odd tidbits:

X-FORCE #2 starts its solicitation with ‘With one of their own already fallen’, so let’s play who’s not on the cover!

Yep, it just doesn’t look like it pays to be a cat-woman in the ol’ MU.

Warren Ellis Brings Back Pete Wisdom in ULTIMATE HUMAN #3 (of 4), ULTIMATE X-Men #92 brings back Onslaught and Stryfe. ULTIMATES 3 #4 (of 5) calls itself “The most-talked-about series from superstars Jeph Loeb, Joe Madureira and Christian Lichtner” probably because there’s no other titles with that creative team to talk about. WWH AFTERSMASH: WARBOUND #4 (of 5) catches my full attention by name-dropping the Leader. You just can’t kill that guy, no matter how many last speeches he gets. PUNISHER #55 marks the beginning of the end for Ennis’s Punisher, while WAR IS HELL: THE FIRST FLIGHT OF THE PHANTOM EAGLE #1 (of 5) is the start of War for Garth Ennis. He’s just the best at what he does, and what Ennis does is full of war-torn goodness.

I can’t say the cover for CABLE #1 does anything and just might take the cake for the month of March. I can’t look at that baby and take the book seriously, let alone the retro costume, bringing back bad memories of little feet, huge shoulder pads and guns shaped like toasters. I don’t care how in danger Cable is or how important his new mission is, look at that baby harness.

The trade selection looks familar as a lot of books coming out are from storylines currently in progress this month. The IRON MAN VS. DOCTOR DOOM: DOOMQUEST PREMIERE HC brings a smile to many faces since the time-traveling Iron Man and Doom through King Arthur’s Court and the far-flung future (a great turn of phrase) is a fan-favorite. NEWUNIVERSAL: EVERYTHING WENT WHITE TPB collects NEWUNIVERSAL #1-6 in a softcover format, which would be really awesome if there were issues coming out (ZING!) and the EARTH X TRILOGY COMPANION TPB looks pretty neat to me. Being a fan of this rather esoteric ‘trilogy’ and knowing its roots as a series of sketches and half-formed ideas, a 200 pg trade of all the background info on Earth X, Universe X, and Paraside X sounds like a cool idea… though 29.99?

(I would like to note that Not Appearing on this List is the collected Daredevil issues of Bob Gale, a short story arc from 2001 that would be great to sit next to his first issues on Amazing Spider-Man. And to think I was promised a trade at Comic Con!

Welcome to March 2008, folks. Let’s hope it’s a good one without any fear (okay, just a Man Without Fear). Enjoy your holiday of choice with my pick for best cover of the upcoming March, ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST #5 (of 6).

This sexy cover and more featured in the full March solicitations here. Excelsior!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Marvel, News & Views, The Fifth Color, Version 1.0 Blog@. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.