Newsarama’s got a preview of the first few pages of the finale to X-Men: Schism, the big second tier event Marvel’s running alongside Fear Itself… or maybe it’s the third tier event; in the Spider-Man books, Marvel’s running Spider Island, or: “Deadline? Um… Fuck It; EVERYONE’S Got Spider Powers! I’ll Be At The Bar Until My Check Clears!”

I’m gonna be honest with you: I don’t really follow the X-Men. That’s Amanda’s department. But I like Jason Aaron’s writing (If you’re not reading Scalped, you’re failing at comics), so I’ve been reading this one and generally enjoying it because you can’t go wrong with stories about evil children. Because ALL CHILDREN ARE EVIL; they steal your freedom and your beer and comics money for frivilous things like food and pants. That’s why I encase all my children in latex and flush them down the toilet before they can whimper at me. But I digress. Because I have been drinking. Anyway…

Just came across this (Hey, it was a long weekend, and I live 250 yards from a liquor store, a bar and a comic store. I’m only human. A deeply, deeply broken human) – Marvel published a live blog of a conference call between writers Matt Fraction, Cullen Bunn, Christopher Yost and Marvel Executive Editor Tom Brevoort where they talked about the upcoming followups to the Fear Itself storyline: The Fearless and Battle Scars.

Go check it out for details from the horses’ mouths (And for some pretty art from Mark Bagley, Paul Lelletier, Frank Cho and Art Adams), but the nuts and bolts are that, no matter what happens with the Serpent in Fear Itself, the Hammers of The Worthy are still gonna be kicking around, in areas like Utopia, New York, the ocean and other far-flung areas that, purely by coincidence, are the perfect locations for heroes and villains to easily locate them so they can punch each other.

I was honestly kind of pissed when I first finished Secret Avengers 16; I tossed it on the table and said, “Thanks Warren, but I read it when it was called NextWave.” Then I remembered a few things:

  1. I LOVED NextWave and:
  2. I am a cynical mouthy douchebag prone to bitching prior to thinking, and:
  3. I hate your face. Fuck off.

Secret Avengers isn’t as over the top as NextWave was, I’m guessing because you can get away with being over the top when you’re dealing with characters nobody cares about. After all, it’s okay if Monica Rambeau stomps the testicles off of Forbush Man because even in the ranks of seriously antisocial, Mom’s basement dwelling superfandom, I defy you to find anyone who cares about what damage occurs to those testicles and / or the foot after the kick. Seriously, why not have Machine Man be a shitfaced misanthrope? Before that, he was forgotten. Which would probably make you a shitfaced misanthrope. But as usual, I digress.