Ryley’s Pull List 2/8/12 - Marvel Comics

• CAPTAIN AMERICA #8 - Something’s wrong with Cap and he’s being left powerless, so will he be able to survive against an oncoming onslaught of villainy and whatnot? Probably. But the point is, how is he going to get out of this, and how’s he going to solve this whole “I keep getting tiny and losing my powers” problem? 
• INCREDIBLE HULK #5 - Hulk VS Banner! It seems like it’d be the obvious victory, but Banner’s done some wacky stuff while he’s been away on his Gamma Experiment Island. But there’s plenty going against Banner as well… and that means more than just the Hulk being after him, so we’ll see what happens. 
• JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #634 - Post-Fear Itself, some pretty crazy stuff is going down for little Loki. His brother is gone and nobody but he remembers him, and now all of the Fear Gods are getting together and causing a huge amount of mess for our little God of Mischief. Loki teams with Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, to bring down all this mess. 
• SECRET AVENGERS #22 - After last months intro issue Rick Remender’s run on Secret Avengers officially begins here. I’m not going to say much more… but Christ is it going to be awesome. Also; Gabriel Hardman on art. OH MAN I’m excited about that!
• VENOM #13.1 - Last week began the months Venom event, and this week we continue with part two, written by Rob Williams. I’ll guess this issue lends focus to Ghost Rider, who’s playing a pretty big role in this seeing as the villains are tied more so to her than the other characters involved. Anyway, if last weeks issue was any indication, it’ll be awesome, and it’s well worth the read. 
• WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN #5 - Kitty Pryde’s suddenly pregnant and according to that cover it might have something to do with the Brood? Well, that can’t be good… Jason Aaron’s awesome X-Men series continues here, and if you haven’t gotten into it yet I suggest you jump on at any point you can. So that means now. 

Also, the final issues of Black Panther and PunisherMAX are shipping this week. 

Top 50 Modern Comic Artists - Jae Lee

So I’ve  gotten curious, what with all the recent cancelations happening (recently X-23 and Ghost Rider, along with Black Panther and PunisherMAX ending), what other series might be on the chopping block. I think X-23 was the most popular book, with sales numbers in the 24,000’s, but just to exaggerate a bit I’m including all the series that are currently selling under 30,000 units. 

The lowest selling title that still has above 30,000 was Captain America and Bucky. The rest are as follows (not including mini series or Icon books):

• Journey into Mystery #329 - 28,054
• Journey into Mystery #330 - 27,701
• Deadpool #35 - 27,552
• Moon Knight #6 - 27,493
• Hulk #42 - 27,025
• Deadpool #44 - 26,878
• Punisher #4 - 25,847
• Hulk #43 - 25,514
• New Mutants #32 - 25,364
• X-23 #15 - 24,043
• Thunderbolts #164 - 23,712
• X-Factor #226 - 23,569
• Avengers Academy #20 - 23,412
• Ghost Rider #4 - 21,060
• Daken: Dark Wolverine #15 - 19,759
• Daken: Dark Wolverine #16 - 19,472
• Generation Hope #12 - 18,424
• Black Panther #524 - 18,248
• PunisherMAX #18 - 17,541
• Herc #9 - 13,190

Cancelled/ending series are crossed out.

So the cancelations haven’t hit anything above the 25,000 mark yet, so that might be the sales number Marvel is looking for on their series. Especially if they’re not long running series (i.e. Thunderbolts, X-Factor).

In my opinion, this doesn’t bode well for Daken and Generation Hope. I can’t see Daken lasting too much longer, especially since X-23 is already gone, but I think it’s sticking around slightly longer since the recent solicit claimed that it’s reached the story it’s been leading to through the entire series. As for Generation Hope, with Gillen leaving the title it seems to me that it’s going to have less of a chance at staying safe. 

Let’s just hope that we don’t see New Mutants cancelled, because I believe that’ll increase worry for many other series staying on the shelves. With these numbers it’d see like Hulk and Punisher wouldn’t be far behind.

sales numbers via 

WHAT’S COMING IN RYLEY’S MAIL?

• GHOST RIDER OMNIBUS BY JASON AARON - I’ve never read Ghost Rider before. In fact, the only exposure to the character I really have is from the Nicholas Cage movie, so… yeah. Anyway, I’m always up for reading new characters, and since this is by one of my favorite writers it just seems like something I needed to have regardless. I’ve seen mixed reviews of the volume, but something tells me I’ll be on the positive side.
• INVINCIBLE IRON MAN HC VOL 1 - Even though I love the hell out of Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man series, and I have been reading it for quite a long while, I’ve actually never read the first seven issues. Seeing as the upcoming arc looks to be revisiting characters and story lines from that first arc I figure I better read it sooner than later, and what better way than in a hardcover that also collects twelve issues I HAVE already read? No worries though, as I got this for about $12, which is actually less than if I just bought the trade for the first arc. That’s pretty damn awesome in my book. Plus I have an easy way to reread this Worlds Most Wanted arc, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. 

This book drops this week, and I just wanted to bring it to attention. 

I really don’t want to add any more books to my repertoire, but this one has it’s positives and negatives, so I’m slightly curious.

First, it’s written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who have been responsible for the very critically acclaimed Cosmic Marvel books including Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, War of Kings, Realm of Kings, and the recently finished Thanos Imperative. I’ve not yet read any of those, but I do plan on going through them at some point in the not too distant future. 

The series takes place after the Shadowland event, and sees all sorts of street heroes from over there come together and reopen the Heroes for Hire business. We’ve got characters like Ghost Rider, Electra, Moon Knight, Iron Fist, Punisher, Misty Knight, and several others, so there are lots of fan favorites here. 

My problem is that I’m not a big fan of any of those characters, and I’m unsure how effective DnA are at writing them. Also, the book is a $3.99, so if I’m wanting to start on another ongoing it’d have to be a $2.99.

In the end, I think I’m going to have to pass on this one, but I have a feeling that with DnA behind it with artist Brad Walker, who joined them on Guardians of the Galaxy, this book is going to receive some praise.

What does everyone else think? Are you going to pick this one up this week?