I have yet to really throw my hat into the ring for comics you should be reading.  But this is not fair, because you should be reading Uncanny Avengers, written by Rick Remender and art by John Cassaday.  (Though he’s mostly doing the covers right now, a different artist has taken over and holy crap I will get to that)

This book is good.  And I mean (please excuse my french) DANG good.  Issue #09 just hit comic stands yesterday and if that number of issues to catch up with scares you, please wrap that fear up in a little blanket and put it to bed.  This is just nine issues of excellence that you get to enjoy.  Uncanny Avengers has been an incredibly fun mash up of Marvel histories that never seemed to overlap before.  Avengers.  X-Men.  Though two delicious flavors that anyone could assume would taste great together, neither has really had a lot to do with each other.  But now we’ve seen more and more overlap, in a brilliant way.  After the events of Cyclops getting the power of the Phoenix, and making huge mistakes with them (a very important figure in the X-Men comics died, and with a giant “I TOLD YOU SO” on top of it), Captain America realizes that he can’t just stand by a let mutants  be treated with the open hostility and, let’s face it, RACISM that they have had to deal with alone.  So he decides to start mixing the teams.  I mean, what is the difference between a Super Human and a Mutant?  Better PR?

So he puts together a team made up of Avengers and X-Men:  Thor, Rogue, Scarlet Witch, Havok, Wolverine, Wasp, Sunfire, and Wonder Man.

But just like the conflict, the solution is not without its own problems.  Because Rogue and Scarlet Witch?  They kind of hate each others’ guts.  Wolverine?  Might have murdered his own son.  Havok?  The brother of Cyclops, the most hated mutant on the planet.  Sunfire?  Kind of always been a jerk.  Wonder Man?  He’s a pacifist!  Thor?  Well Thor is rad and if anybody knows me, they know that Thor can only be more awesome in the hands of awesome creators.

In the first issue, the main villain they have to face is the Red Skull!  And he’s a straight up Mind Controlling Nazi!  Its B-movie enthusiasm and pure enjoyment, married to interesting interpersonal conflicts.  One of my favorite moments is in issue #09 when Rogue and Scarlet Witch fight it out…. PHILOSOPHICALLY!  That’s right!  They fight with words, and thoughts, and debate each other on whether Mutants should behave like humans with powers, or if they should be held in different societal regard.  What?  Read the comic and see which argument you find yourself leaning toward.

Did I mention how incredible the art is?  John Cassaday is my go-to for just quality character design and emotional complexity.  And the dude knows how to make a punch look very painful.  When I heard that he would be on this book, I geeked out with quite the mighty geeking.  And then I heard that someone else would be filling in and I wasn’t sure what to think.

They announced it would be Daniel Acuna, and THIS is how his art looks:

Acuna is now one of my favorite artists, hands down.  And if my sources are right, Mr. Acuna does ALL the art, from pencils to ink to color.  The colors are gorgeous, and his style has this amazing digital oil paint look to it, its very hard for me to describe it, so I decided to show a few more pages so that you can appreciate the art for yourself.

And now for one of my personal favorite pages in all of Acuna’s art, let alone all of Uncanny Avengers!

In summary:

Uncanny Avengers is part awesome, part insane, part philosophical, and ALL NEW and ALL DIFFERENT.  Buy this comic!!

Again, Thor cuts off an Evil Bear’s head!  Get on this!