Following up what I call one of the best three runs on Fantastic Four ever (Kirby/Lee, Byrne and Hickman for those keeping score at home), we have Matt Fraction penning both Fantastic Four and the FF titles. I have to admit I was expecting to be let down. It’s near impossible to follow up excellence with excellence. (Those types of things are left to the Niners and the Packers) But none the less, plenty of my fellow collectors stated I would not be let down and that I have to patient and let Fraction do his thing. So I did. Six issues and an Age Of Ultron later, we finally have some goodness to talk about.

I’ve been collecting comics for over 22 years and for the first half of my comic collecting career, I was an avid X-book reader. (DFu can attest to that) X-books and Bat-books dominate my collection and I can’t say with any certainty which I have more of, but let be known that I haven’t read an X-book, outside of Deadpool, in over 10 years. I left the X-Men prior to Claremont taking them to the X-Treme and Morrison bringing in the New. As you can see I’ve been out of the game for awhile. Of all the Marvel NOW! titles, I was the most reluctant to grab up any of the X-books. In my mind I was done with the mutant soap opera. I didn’t care anymore about who was in love with who, who was a villain or hero this time around and I was sure as hell was done with all the damn X-book crossovers. But thanks to Adam and DFu’s persistence and positive spouting about Wolverine & the X-Men, I gave in to my fickle comic geek loyalties and scooped up the Marvel NOW! X-books and came to fall in love with my old favs all over again.

Marvel NOW! has finally kicked off, and I’m putting my best foot forward and checking my biases at the door. I’m jumping in head first for the opportunity of finding some diamonds in the Marvel rough. The truth is I’ve been dying to get back into my Marvel characters, and it is my hope that with the success of DC‘s New 52 that Marvel will step up to the plate and deliver some relaunches and creator shake-ups worthy of the competition. This is my High/Low of the Marvel NOW! Asgardian Tales… Don’t forget your drinking horn… you’re going to need it.

Character Cross-overs are nothing new to Comics. So it’s no surprise that DC is about to release the proverbial cross-over hounds this Oct-Nov. The first positive statement I will make about this “Thank the Cosmic Gods… that this isn’t a Universe-Wide Storyline.” (I still have a Blackest Night hangover)  While Marvel is just now finishing up it’s year long Universe commitment to Avengers vs X-Men Mega Cross-over, DC is taking us into year two of the New 52 by bringing out the old baddies in a few mini-verse cross-overs.

I am one of the biggest Geoff Johns fans I know. I love what he did with JSA, the Flash and especially Hal Jordan and the GL Corps. He has a great knack for understanding what drives main character(s), villain(s) and supporting character(s) alike. The man has a strong sense of comic continuity that I, as a hardcore comic geek, love to yammer on and on about. He is able to strip out the useless and make sense of the ridiculous. His Green Lantern Vol 5 is shaping up to be the best Hal Jordan/Sinestro story ever told. I am however getting a little nervous as we start in on The Rise of the Third Army. But before I start in on how I’m not quite ready for another Green Lantern ‘Big Event’, I’d like to break down High/Low’s of Geoff Johns GL continuity.

DC’s The New 52: JLA

If you read comics, then you are aware of DC Comics bold move to relaunch it’s entire universe. A lot of very good storytelling has come out of this event. 9 months in and it’s only getting better for most of these titles. DC took a risk and it’s paying out in dividends for readers. Right now I’m reading 12 of them regularly and still pick up new ones here and there. (Earth 2 and World’s Finest are pretty good!) Even more exciting is the fact that the old baddies are starting to show. Flash is visiting Gorilla City and Aquaman is hot on the trail after Black Manta! So with the New 52 in full swing, here is my Best and worst of the New 52.