Mighty Thor, Strangers in Paradise XXV, Invincible Iron Man, Archie

New comics from last week.

Mighty Thor 706

They didn’t kill off Jane, which I’m happy about.  Jason Aaron spends practically the entire issue cutting between Jane refusing to enter Valhalla and Thor performing extreme defibrillation on her heart.  Aaron finishes it off with an Odinson/Jane conversation and a final farewell to Thor. I wish there was a better way to differentiate her from Odinson than “the female Thor.”  She stands on her own as Thor, and shouldn’t be reduced to a gender. I’m sorry that this is Russell Dautherman’s last issue, as Aaron returns to Odinson with a new #1 issue and a new artist next month.  This will be fun to re-read.

Strangers in Paradise XXV 3

So little happens here, and it would all feel like fluff if Terry Moore wasn’t so good at this comic book thing.  The art and characters more than make up for the lack of plot development. Katchoo’s loneliness at being separated from her family and Francine’s solitude, even as she tucks the rest of her family in for the night, are so effectively rendered by Moore’s pencils.

I was just saying that I would be perfectly content if Infinity War had been nothing but the heroes interacting with each other, no bad guys or story necessary.  This is the SiP version of that, and I’m perfectly content.

Invincible Iron Man 599

This is the most disappointing of Bendis’ last batch of Marvel comics, and it makes me sad that he’s finishing his tenure with this title instead of Spider-Man or Jessica Jones.  He splits this issue between three threads, allocating insufficient time to any of them. I’m thoroughly unsatisfied and approaching unhappy. It’s been like three straight months of this.  I’m pot committed at this point, so I’ll get the final issue. But it’s entirely possible that I should have dropped this half a year ago. Re-reading will tell me if I stuck with it for too long.

Archie 30

All setup as everyone heads to the prom.  Moose and Midge have a cute scene together.  This title’s on the bubble, and there’s a good chance I drop it after this arc wraps up.