The Incredible Hercules is the one good thing to come out of World war Hulk. It's one of a very few comics that can hit all the buttons from Action, to Drama, to Comedy.

Tarnish

Okay, I haven't gotten through all my books yet, but I think I've finished all the Marvel stuff -

Secret Invasion X-Men #3 - Rated 5 - Nothing great. X-Men keep fighting Skrulls. Nightcrawler talks to the Skrull bible some more, and it tells him mutants are His children too because they are changed. Nightcrawler tells Beast, who realizes they could use the Legacy Virus as their doomsday weapon against the Super Skrulls, but it wouldn't stop there. He asks Cyclops "How do you feel about genocide?"

Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #3 - Rated 9 - Everyone's pretty much covered this. Lafuente needs to be made a permanent Spidey artist. I love what he's doing over in Hellcat, but this issue just looked amazing. And finally! It looks like Mysterio won't be a joke anymore.

Iron Fist #19 - Rated 7 - Also been well-covered. The series started going down for me when Aja didn't finish the art for the 7 Capital Cities arc. This issue brought it back up a little though. The action was great.

Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes #1 - Rated 3 - I didn't even really read this. It has nothing to do with anything. It's basically two Elseworlds tales of two other dimensions where the X-Men investigated the ghost box and the story ended differently. And the second story was some sort of Steampunk dimension where everything was old-fashioned. The art by Adi Granov was gorgeous as always, but I couldn't care less about the stories.

Marvel 1985 - Rated 8 - I'm not sure how my rating of this compares to others, but what I did with this series that I never do, is that I put it down after the 2nd issue, and then sat down last night and read all 6 cover to cover at once, instead of one by one as they came out. And the series is really enjoyable that way. I figure I'll get it in trade when it comes out. It's nothing exceptional. It's predictable. But it's solid writing and art, and with some really stand out moments. I just loved it.

Ultimate Captain America Annual #1 - Rated 7 - At least it explains things. T'Challa was the youngest son of T'Chaka, and he challenged the panther when it should have been his older brother doing it. He got his throat slashed open by the panther for it. His father made a deal with Weapon X to save T'Challa in exchange for some Wakandan tech. Then Nick Fury started SHIELD and shut down Weapon X and saved T'Challa, but because of the damage to his throat, he couldn't speak. Nick told T'Chaka that T'Challa was now SHIELD property. Then, years later, he gets Cap to start training with T'Challa because he thinks "The Black Panther" could be as good as Cap with the right training. And when Cap asks Fury where he came from, Fury says Wakanda is just a small village and they saved T'Challa from it, and they think his father might have done the damage to his throat. But T'Challa types the truth for Steve, about how he wants to go home and see his father again but Fury said he couldn't. So Steve tells Fury he's having Panther join the Ultimates, but they actually smuggle him into Wakanda and Steve pretends to be the Panther. It actually made sense, which is more than I've come to expect from Loeb.

Thor #11 - Rated 8 - Very good stuff. I liked seeing Thor talk to Steve. And I really liked the idea that with all the politics flying everywhere right now, people would be saying "Captain America would vote this way", when in truth, he always stayed out of it. And I like how Thor gave him a minute of silence and respect in his own way.

Amazing Spider-Man #575 - Rated 7 - Not as good as Ultimate was this week, but still really good. Hope Joe Kelly sticks around. We get a new supporting character, Norah Winters, who has some great interactions with Peter as that kind of says-everything-she-thinks-and-means-it character, and Hammerhead comes back, working for Mr. Negative, and he's a lot badder than ever before. To quote Spidey himself, "Why aren't you a joke anymore?"

Captain America: Theater of War - Operation: Zero Point - Rated 8 - Some Steve Rogers as Cap in WWII stuff. Quite good. But I didn't think he had the round shield back then?

Incredible Hercules #122 - Rated 9 - Just another great issue from beginning to end. I love the Delphyne Gorgon character, and this interaction between her and Amadeus Cho - "You know you're talking to the seventh smartest human being on the planet?" "Ha Ha Ha Ha!!... Wait. Are you serious?" "Yes." "Who told you that?" "... Soap company contest."

Secret Invasion: Thor #3 - Rated 8 - Blake picks up the hammer and turns into Thor and beats the snot out of the Super Skrull. Fandral drives his blade in and Thor hammers it all the way through. But it doesn't kill her. She merges the axes she carries back into Stormbreaker and throws it at the town of Broxton. Thor flies into its path and takes the blow, recovering Stormbreaker in the process. He returns it to Beta Ray Bill, and together they beat the Super Skrull back underneath Asgard. And then, Thor commands the floating city to fall. And it crashes to Earth, crushing the Skrull into paste. And with the battle over, Thor and Bill work together, just the two of them, to lift Asgard back into the air. With that taken care of, they help the town of Broxton get everything together again, and then Bill says he has work to do and answers to seek, and he and Thor go their separate ways.

Nova #18 - Rated 7 - I think I'm just finally getting tired of Skrulls. It was good. I don't think I care for Quasar hitting the flask to recharge though.

You really missed the point of this.

Though, you didn't read it, so it makes sense.

The story has little to do with the X-Men and everything to do with the villian of the piece.

I might go back and read it to see if it captures my interest. Unlike others, I've loved Ellis's take on the Astonishing X-Men, but I just couldn't get started on this "companion" issue. Could also be Alan Davis's art. Never been a fan.

Yeah it made no sense to me. I kept thinking I'd missed an issue or something. And half the book was the storyboards??

Exactly. Basically half an issue for $3.99. I turned the page and thought, "Huh, this is an odd place to put a page of cover sketches," and then the book is over.

It would have been a lot easier to figure out if it just had the "What If" label. As in "What If Pyromaniac Dude Fried Scott instead of Logan?"

I loved the X-Society though. Steampunk X-Men are full of Win.

Don't think we got Incredible Herc around here though, I'll have to check some other shops to get it.

It wasn't a what if?

Alternate realities and such don't neccesitate what if. We are dealing with the writer who crated The Bleed.

Point taken. But the eyes wouldn't have crossed quite so much. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing steampunk X-Men around more, though.

Subtlety doesn't work well with the X-Men.

Largely because the readers aren't expecting it

Claremont trained us not to expect it.

If he wanted us to wonder - Is Gambit good or bad? - he would just write a story where Gambit does something questionable, and Rogue would think to herself "Is Gambit good or bad?"

Didn't the first story explicitly say that it was about Earth-616, though?

Just got the time to read my books for the past two weeks and I must recommend this issue of Thor. The part with Thor interacting with Steve's ghost is quite well done and doesn't belabor the whole death of Cap issue. Plus, it's always fun to see the Warriors Three (though Fandral was missing) in some fun. Loki machinations are running along smoothly as evidenced by her smile at the end.
Hopefully you picked it up.