Firstly, a quick note of apology. If all goes according to plan this post should go up live on Friday night (15th March), scheduled in advance. I myself will be spending a few unscheduled days without net access, ahead of an engineer arriving on Wednesday to deliver a fibre optic connection. Unfortunately I have not had a chance to schedule a Cover of the week, for this Sunday. This feature will therefore be taking a skip week. Many apologies. Blame my rubbish phone line...
In other news, some of you may have picked up Age of Ultron #2 this week. I will admit to not having done so myself, but I did see the image which Bleeding Cool pasted up on Wednesday, and one thing did grab my attention from Bryan Hitch's artwork:
Many familiar faces there, but one in particular gets a good positioning near the page join:
Yup. One Brian Braddock. But most interestingly NOT in his Alan Davis designed costume, which Rick Remender put him back into for Secret Avengers. That's the MI13 costume, which Hitch of course was involved in designing...
I did get a bit excited about that. A momentary hope that maybe, just maybe, another part of Remender's retrofit might get pushed aside. That we might have the more intelligent, mythos simplified, stand out hero version of Captain Britain back.
Sadly, no. Bryan Hitch started work on Age of Ultron the better part of 2 years ago. The uncoloured image of that photo wall first turned up as preview art LAST year. It's from before Remender put him back in the classic duds... :(
But it was a bonus to see MI13 period Brian again, I suppose. We miss him.
So, I hope you've all been picking up Iron Man, Avenging Spider-man and Avengers Arena this month. Granted Death's Head has been very much a background presence so far in Iron Man, but his guest appearance in Avenging Spider-man #17 was inspired. What looked at the outset to be a cameo turned out to be a full appearance, complete with a visit from the Time Variance Authority, no less!
I'm not going to spoil this week's Avengers Arena #6. But for a second issue running the Braddock Academy kids are the focus. A lot more development for Nara and Anachronism, this time. And one hell of an ending. If you've not been reading this book so far, you really have been missing out.
Speaking of which, did anybody happen to read the Jean Grey School Memo at the back of Wolverine & the X-Men #25? You might have missed the following:
Too right, they're missing...
You'd have to credit the Braddock kids with having the advantage in that match, mind. We live and breath Football ('Soccer' for American readers) this side of the Atlantic. ;)
That's all for now.
See you when the network is restored... :)
Mark
