Ultimate Comics Avengers 2 #1
Writer: Mark Millar
Penciler: Leinil Francis Yu
Inker: Gerry Alanguilan
Colorist: Laura Martin
Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99
Release date: April 28, 2010

And we have a new winner for most unwieldy title ever. Not that it has anything to do with the quality of the book, but Marvel should really drop the “Comics” part from their Ultimate titles. I’m just saying. Anyway, let’s talk about the actual issue — Ultimate Comics Avengers 2 #1.

Nick Fury continues to assemble his team of black ops super-heroes, and this issue he goes after the Punisher. We see him do his thing in brutal fashion, until Fury is able to trick the Punisher and arrest him. The Punisher is then offered a choice, join the Avengers, or go to jail, and I think we all know what Punisher’s answer is, (otherwise, we’d have a pretty boring series).

I’m kind of surprised Mark Millar hasn’t written more stories featuring the Punisher before. He seems like the perfect character for Millar’s style of over the top violence, and Millar makes good use of him here. This is a Punisher who is the best at what he does, and what he does is shoot the crap out of a ton of people. The first eight pages of this issue are an orgy of violence, and are filled with classic Punisher action. It’s a Millar-written story, so it’s not surprising that the action is well done.

Siege #3
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Olivier Coipel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colors: Laura Martin
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99
Released March 17, 2010

The march towards Marvel‘s Heroic Age continues, and with this issue of Siege we finally get the moment that many fans”¦okay, even that is saying too much. There are so many awesome moments in this book that you can’t turn a page without a surprise, and I don’t want to be the one to ruin those moments for anyone.

I will just say that Brian Michael Bendis pulls out all the stops, and fills the issue with a lot of great dialog. As I said with the last issue, the shorter story length is working very well for this series, forcing Bendis to cut to the chase and focus on the big moments. A problem I had with Bendis’ last two event minis, House of M and Secret Invasion, was that they dragged in the middle. This series does not have that issue, and is much better because of it.

Siege #2
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Penciller: Olivier Coipel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colorist: Laura Martin
Cover: Olivier Coipel; Gabriele Dellotto (variant)
Marvel Comics
Price: $3.99; Release date: February 3, 2010

As much as I enjoy Brian Michael Bendis‘ work on a variety of titles, his big event work at Marvel has generally left me cold. There weren’t a lot of things wrong with series like “House of M” or “Secret Invasion” per se, but the stories were never as exciting to me as they should have been. I think a lot of that can be blamed on their length. Fortunately, Bendis and Marvel made the wise decision to make their new event “Siege“ only four issues, which I think has forced Bendis to cut all the filler and get straight to the killer. And as it turns out, that killer is the Sentry.

Siege #2 finds Norman Osborn’s attack on Asgard in full swing, but unfortunately, he loses control of one major player, just as the Avengers are planning their counterattack. Ares has been one of Osborn’s big guns, but when the god of war finds out that he’s been played for a fool, he decides to take Norman out. Unfortunately, Norman has another big gun, and calls in the Sentry to take on Ares.

Earlier this month, I was lucky enough to visit this year’s Baltimore Comic-Con.

Now I can go on and on about how great the convention was. I could say how awesome it was to meet Terry Moore, Steve Lieber, and Marc Silvestri. I tell you how nice it was to see Cliff Chiang, Khoi Pham, and JG Jones again. I could also tell you how great of an artist colorist Laura Martin is but why not show you guys in a series of photographs?

Enjoy!