Ms Marvel Annual was the only Marvel Comic I picked up this week and I LOVED it!
It was a fun story (with some GREAT one liners) and I always dig it when Spider-Man interacts with more "serious" heroes!!

I don't read Amazing anymore after OMD so it was a nice treat to see Spidey again!!

Mmmmmm Nah, I wouldn't remember his threat afterwards anyways

I think the only thing I would have a hard time adapting to would men with boobs and lots of teeth courtousy of Liefeld.

You forget the tiny or no feet and any and all the girls around you would have bigger packages then you. Not to mention sales in you would drop in a steady fashion.
On the plus side, you could walk down the street in top-heavy armor sporting huge guns that fire bullets that somehow keep their casings on.

Does Boom Boom talk like your Nextwave self though?

According to Marvel's website, new issues of Ms Marvel are set to come out from now through November at least. Currently the series is stuck as an SI tie-in, but it moves away from that after one more issue.

She does. The art isn't Immonen, but is similar to Nextwave as well.

Now for some reviews -

X-Men: Manifest Destiny #1 of 4 - Rated 6
Nothing spectacular here. Story #1 - Mystique disguises herself as Iceman's ex Opal and poisons him with a neuro-toxin and tries to kill him on route to San Fran to meet the rest of the X-Men. To be continued. Story #2 - Boom Boom tries to stop a villain named Nuwa from robbing a store, but fails. Later she finds Nuwa's "FaceSpace" page (Facebook/MySpace), which explains Nuwa's power is to make people sleep. So she goes to fight Nuwa again, but this time defends herself with coffee and wins. Story #3 - And Karma misses Kitty and has lost control of her powers because she's too emotional and keeps having angry outbursts.

Secret Invasion: Front Line #3 - Rated 6
Nothing special. Ben Urich keeps telling the story of how the Skrull Invasion looked to the man on the street, and Skrulls on the street and in Stark Tower keep hunting and killing people who try and escape. Ben and the group of people he has met up with try and run through the subway tunnels to get to Grand Central, but running into the Rolling 7s, a street gang, who shoot one of them.

Amazing Spider-Man #570 - New Ways to Die Part 3 - Rated 8
The better this story gets, the more I worry about what comes next.
Venom and Anti-Venom fight in the FEAST shelter. Spider-Man butts in, gets beat on until the civilians are out of the way, and then decides to stay out of the way. Martin Li, owner of the shelter, has some serious security equipment hidden in there. Menace attacks Bill Hollister, but decides it's pointless if Bill's passed out and takes off when the cops get there. Spider-Man just tries to keep innocent people out of the way of the Venom fight. Norman tries to keep the other Thunderbolts out of it until after he sees how things work. Anti-Venom is somehow curing Gargan of the Venom symbiote, like how Brock is now cured. Brock thinks he and Gargan were good men before the symbiote got to him. Then he thinks the same might be true of Spidey, and tries to cure Spidey. And while doing that he finds Spidey has irradiated blood, and decides to cure that too. Norman is watching intently when Menace shows up and confronts him.
I half suspect Menace is Harry.

But the question is, would you enjoy it more without the OMD/BND retcon? I would. Simply change some issues in the background, and it could be so much better. Now the issues consist of 80% good stuff (main storylines, Kraven's daughter, Brock's return), 20% bad stuff (main setting from BND, Spidey's identity, MJ, Aunt May, Harry).

Mr_JTR beat me to the tiny feet. Don't forget the concave shinbones and thin lines on every surface that are supposed to look like texture but just make it seem that a truckload of mechanical pencils exploded nearby, showering all the characters with lead.

I'm surprised people aren't talking more about Invincible Iron Man. I think Fraction and LaRocca are creating the best Shellhead vibe we've seen since Michelinie and Layton circa "Armor Wars." If only Fraction will STAY ON THE BOOK. I'm getting really tired of Marvel launching a book with a big-name writer (Huston on Moon Knight, Ellis on Iron Man) only to bait-and-switch us after an arc or two.

How I miss the days of Busiek on Thunderbolts for 50 issues followed by Nicienza for 50 issues.

I wonder if they will finally make Iceman the Alpha mutant hes supposed to be after this manifest destiny arc?

I'm curious about this Anti-venom...Is he another Venom knockoff or is he kinda cool?

yes yes let us know of the anti-venom.

I went back to my shop and picked that upbased entirely on your description.

LOVED it.

thank ya much.

It was actually 33 issues for Busiek and then 77 for Nicieza (counting the Avengers/Thunderbolts crossover).

But I get your point. I know Ellis only ever does 6-12 issues on stuff that he doesn't create or own, but Marvel really has been leading with a great team on new series and then transitioning to carp. I doubt they're doing it on purpose, but it does stink. Especially when Ellis and Granov only did the first arc of Iron Man. Even if Granov had stayed on it would have been better.

You just knew I was going to be the one to answer that, didn't you?

Anti-Venom, so far, is... well, basically, he's Venom. It's Eddie Brock underneath, doing the exact same things he could do as Venom. But instead of trying to kill and eat the people he feels are evil or wicked, he's trying to "cure" them of what makes them that way. Like trying to cure Gargan of the symbiote, or trying to cure Spidey of the symbiote remnants or his irradiated blood.

It's only been the one issue so far, but so far it's just classic Venom attacking from a different angle.

PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #23 - We come back to where we left off with The Wrecking Crew taking out a S.H.I.E.L.D. convoy transporting the captured Punisher who has a bounty on his head posted by Jigsaw.
While Bridge and crew help save Frank' butt Jigsaw goes through some issues feeling he needs to eliminate his arch-nemesis because he is in love with him and it just isn't natural. Eventually Rhino (acting like Punishers best buddy in the world) comes in helping Castle, who eventually gets a hold of the mystical crowbar, and Jigsaw and Wrecking Crew get taken into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody.

The Punisher even had his shot to take out Jigsaw for good once again but a moral dilemma keeps him from skulling the villian with the crowbar. Frank gets such a conscious he even turns himself back over to S.H.I.E.L.D..

Back at Bridge' headquarters we find out the female Punisher under Jigsaw was actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and has been left a bit traumatized where she helps Ian, the fake Punisher that had framed Frank for murder, shoot Jigsaw stone cold before both are taken into custody. We will see if Jigsaw has finally been placed into a box in pieces.

I still don't exactly get what Fraction was trying to do with the deeply entrenched in the Marvel Universe Punisher. Without the crutch of working in the big events I am still left underwhelmed. The last two arcs leave me scratching my head and if I didn't like the character so much I would likely drop the title after this arc. Not sure where his magic went when it came to this title but a new writer steps in next issue and hopefully they do something that doesn't make the MU centric Punisher come off like a cartoon. Though the next issue ties in with Secret Invasion so can't say I have to high of hopes.

The only difference would be that MJ wouldn't be Jackpot.

I like Jackpot.

So meh. I hated OMD as much as anyone else, but honestly, the stories are great right now so whatever, I'll deal.

I can totally see why others don't want to read it, but it just doesn't bother me that much.