A Quietly Declining May

As far as new things I'm planning to add, May is offering slim pickings. There's quite a bit that's falling off from April into May. Empowered: Soldier of Love wrapped up in April. Patsy Walker, aka Hellcat and Great Lakes Avengers both appear to be gone.

Pause for a moment to pour one out for Hellcat, which is 'surprisingly not canceled' no longer.

. . .

OK, moving on. Cave Carson is still going and his cybernetic eye is on the loose, which sounds strange. Copperhead is there, there's the Real Science Adventures mini-series, Steven Universe if issues 2 or 3 have changed my opinion on it.

And then there's Marvel, which has decided to (hopefully) bring HYDRA Cap to a close with Secret Empire. Where Cap openly admits his connection to HYDRA and tries to take over the world. No doubt a mistake on my part to assume the heroes will defeat Cap. We're probably in for a year of HYDRA ruling the Earth, like Norman Osborn being Boss of All Superheroes, but with comic book Nazis.

Anyway, Deadpool's out of its crossover with other Deadpool-related books, but it's doing another of those $10 issues, and then Secret Empire tie-ins commence, so still not picking it back up. If I'm lucky, the remainder of the books I'm buying will stay well out of the event. I don't think I'm that lucky. Ms. Marvel seems a sure bet to get dragged in (although May's issue is Bruno-centric, so that'll be fun), probably Nova as well (if I'm even still buying Nova). Based on what I've read about where Ben Reilly's at post-Clone Conspiracy, it's hard to see him sufficiently giving a shit to get involved, and Iron Fist is off doing his own thing. Squirrel Girl exists in its own bubble, ignoring this crap. Gwenpool (the character) is presumably smart enough to keep herself and her book out of it. Although, hell, I may not even be buying half those books by then.

The smart play, if I'm smart, will be to drop any book for the duration of the tie-ins. Screw hoping the creative team can spin crap into gold. And Marvel's throwing a lot of crap out there. I can appreciate they're hoping to find that next Daredevil/Hawkeye/ Ms. Marvel, the surprise book that really strikes a chord with an audience. They're getting some new creative talent in the mix, which is good for them, and hopefully good for the writers and artists (in that maybe it makes more people aware of them and seek out their other work). But there's just too many damn books. How do you pick out the stuff that's actually worth your time?