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Picks this week...   Among the “top tier” Marvel characters, Cap is right at the top of the list for me in terms of favorites. I’ve always enjoyed reading the many long runs by great writers like Mark Gruenwald or Mark Waid. Like Superman is for DC, Cap is the character bigger than himself in the Marvel universe. He stands for more than just beating the baddies, or a cool shield. He stands for the best we can be. As Americans, sure, but just as people too. In the new mini series: The United States of Captain America, writer Christopher...

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Picks this week...   Warning: this title is definitely for mature audiences only, and most definitely not for kids. In the new indie comic, Vinyl, published by Image Comics, we first meet Agent Ruiz preparing to again meet a suspected serial killer, trying to force him to slip up or tip himself off that he’s in fact a killer. The only problem is, agent Ruiz came out of retirement to help on the case, hates Walter, the suspected killer, and is kind of a grumpy curmudgeon. Basically, his people skills are lacking. So, when Walter arrives, very friendly and aloof,...

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Pick this week...   Kids love chains, really big guns, cool creatures, and lots of action scenes. Spawn has always had those things in abundance, all of which continue in the first spin-off title of the new interconnected Spawn world: Spawn's Universe. Featuring four new stories, each with fantastic artists on board, ranging from Jim Cheung, Brett Booth, Stephen Segovia and Marcio Takara, each story is written by the creator of Spawn himself, Mr. Todd McFarlane. In the longer main story, we see Cogliostro get captured by a group of warriors from Hell, disguised as Humans. It seems thanks to...

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Pick this week...   The importance to the opening of a story cannot be understated. Especially in a comic book, which in itself has a very limited amount of time to hook us in and keep us wanting more. So, when a character I had never met before opens a Supergirl comic narrating to us about the cruel and senseless death of her father, at the hands of a man named Krem “of the yellow hills,” I was instantly interested and emotionally connected to the story. After literally pulling the sword used to kill her father from his body, Ruthye...

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Pick this week...   The Hickman era of X-Men continues into its next phase. The last two years has seen numerous chess pieces that have moved slower than many of us expected after the amazing start that House of X and Powers of X were two summers ago. Of late, the pieces definitely seem to be moving a bit faster. Hickman’s final four issues of X-Men (18-21), and the most recent issue of Excalibur, all gave a ton of momentum and insight into where things are going. And at the end of the day, I think two things; first, Hickman...

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