Comics Roundup for 1/2/13

Hellboy in Hell #2 - While reading this, it occurred to me that this sort of thing would have scared the bejeezus out of me when I was a little kid.  Don't believe me?  Well, Jack Kirby's Demon used to freak me out, so this book which has a hero who goes down to hell and sees his dad, Satan, would certainly do the trick.  I like the fact that there's no Marvel Comics style ambiguity with who that big bad guy is.

Anyway, I was really looking forward to this series, and I only liked the first one well enough.  This issue really picks up the pace though.  I love how dead serious and almost pseudo-poetic all the characters are, and then you've got Hellboy with his rather gruff way of speaking.  Example bit of dialogue:

Hellboy:  Who's in there?
Faceless guide character:  Satan.  The enemy.  King of the rebel spirits, king of the world, lord over all the powers of the air.
Hellboy:  Yeah.  I've heard of him.

Mignola's also really back in the swing of things, art-wise.

New Avengers #1 - Why don't they just call this Avengers:  Illuminati?  I think the only reason why they call it what they call it is because it's more likely to sell with that title.  Whatever.  I liked this issue well enough, and even though some online reviews panned it for focusing too much on just one member, I was fine with that.  Basically, The Black Panther runs into a pretty serious problem, so he has to call in the Illuminati, which now includes Captain America.  I'm interested enough to get the next issue.

All New X-Men #5 - What Wonder Woman was to DC's "New 52", this title is to "Marvel Now".  I actually didn't even get the first issue when it came out, but the artwork inspired me to pick it up.  Four issues later, and I'm looking forward to this one the most.  I have a feeling it's going to be one of those books where I don't have much to say other than "I liked it" - mainly because there are only so many ways I can explain how I appreciate that this book attempts to get to the roots of what makes the X-Men what they are.

Batman Incorporated #6 - Speaking of running out of stuff to say, here's another book where I like it but don't have much to say about it beyond that.  I wonder if this book will continue once Grant Morrison departs.  Seems to me like Scott Snyder is the bat-writer to beat nowadays.