Yes, that’s right folks – you’re joining us for one more week full of panels, and one that’s the last Week In Panels for the foreseeable future.

Sad news is I got an email from Gavok earlier this week telling me he and David Brothers decided it was time to put 4^th Letter out to pasture. Expect to see a farewell article from DB up in the very near future with details. Between This Week In Panels being a 4^th Letter thing and not having a suitable blog of my own to fall back on, this means the end of ThWIP for the foreseeable future, too.

On the bright side, I’m joined for one last session of out-of-context images by Gaijin Dan, Matlock, and of course Gavok. Amusingly, Gaijin Dan’s panels also see the last of the long-running Naruto, which has me jokingly blaming the end of that series for the end of This Week In Panels.

Shall we get to some panels, then? Yes, let’s get to some panels.

One more time into the breach we go!

All-New Captain America #1

(Rick Remender and Stuart Immonen)

Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #5 [Gavok’s Pick]

(Rick Remender and Terry Dodson)

Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #5 [Matlock’s Pick]

(Rick Remender and Terry Dodson)

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I am Groot!

I am Groot, I am Groot, I am Groot.

I am Groot; I am Gaijin Dan, I am Gavok, I am Matlock, I am AnarChris.

I am Groot, I am Groot, I am Groot, I am Groot, I am Groot.

I am Groot.

Action Comics #36

(Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder)

Amazing Spider-Man #9 [Matlock’s Pick]

(Dan Slott and Olivier Coipel)

Amazing Spider-Man #9 [Jawa’s Pick]

(Dan Slott and Olivier Coipel)

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TGIThWIP!

You’d think that with Comic Con behind us, things would be back to normal. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong. Gavok wanted to join us again this week, but his computer tried to launch a rebellion against mankind this week so he had to spend his free time trying to put a stop to that before it turned the world into a post apocalyptic wasteland.

You know, priorities and all.

Even with Gavok busy trying to save the world, I’m still joined by Gaijin Dan, Matlock, and AnarChris, so things are still a lot closer to normal all the same.

I think my own computer may be thinking of joining Gavok’s in rising up against me, so how about I get on to panels so I can take care of that before my own week is eaten up, too.

Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #2

(Rick Remender and Adam Kubert)

Batman and Robin #35

(Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason)

Batwoman #35

(Marc Andreyko and Georges Jeanty)

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Know what time it is? Of course you do, because it says what time it is right up THERE!

It’s WEEK IN PANELS TIME!

Joining me this week, as always, are Gaijin Dan, Gavok, and Matlock. Oh, and AnarChris. We have some panels from him this week, too.

Big week for my picks. I actually managed to beat out Gavok with the number of panels I have. Though that’s partially because he didn’t manage to get to Multiversity this week. Which is a shame, because it’s a really good issue.

However, he did have something else he wanted me to share, an article he wrote that’s basically a readers guide to Deadpool where he’s sorted through and picked out the good stuff.

Side note – while I recognize that Gavok’s read WAY more Deadpool than me (frankly, he’s probably read more of just about anything than me), I do feel inclined to say that while I agree with him that Deadpool Corps was a bad joke to be avoided, I think the Deadpool Corps prologue issues were actually pretty decent.

As it so happens, it’s also a surprisingly timely article as well, but as for why, I’ll tell you once we get through this week’s panels…

Avengers #35 (Gavok’s Pick)

(Jonathan Hickman, Jim Cheung, Paco Medina, Nick Bradshaw, and Dustin Weaver)

Avengers #35 (Matlock’s Pick)

(Jonathan Hickman, Jim Cheung, Paco Medina, Nick Bradshaw, and Dustin Weaver)

Batman and Robin: Futures End #1

(Ray Fawkes and Dustin Nguyen)

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We’re at the tail end of Original Sin as an event. I think we just have that last issue of the Thor/Loki tie-in and we’re done and we can move on to Axis. Axis can go either way, but when it comes to Original Sin, I’m of the opinion that it may be the best Marvel/DC event story in at least the last decade.

The miniseries itself was strong. It wasn’t the best ever, but it’s a good standalone story, which I can’t say the same about Infinity. Don’t get me wrong, I thought Infinity was amazing, but that’s only because I’ve been reading Avengers and New Avengers from the beginning and if you don’t do that, you’re kind of lost. Original Sin just felt like a remake of Identity Crisis that tried to be over-the-top instead of mopey. Instead of a sudden, out-of-nowhere ending where “THAT LADY BE CRAZY!” we got something more interesting. In fact, the events surrounding it are still rather ambiguous and the moral debate between the characters of Fury and Uatu are quarantined to the mini itself. It’s not like Civil War where every single comic for nearly a year is arguing one point against another.

Also, there’s the tie-ins. Sometimes events can be murder with tie-ins because we’ll get the same crap over and over again. Secret Invasion, World War Hulk and Blackest Night were stories where the tie-ins felt like the same thing over and over again. You read one, you read them all. Original Sin had a gimmick of heroes discovering shocking secrets, but they didn’t go the easy way out and make it create a rift in every single relationship. Instead, we only get Captain America’s current hate-on with Iron Man, which honestly has very little to do with Original Sin anyway and was going to happen regardless. Even the Hulk tie-in where it’s suggested that Iron Man created the Hulk out of spite ended with a sweet ending that highlighted the movie-mandated friendship between Stark and Banner.

For real, Stark emotionally yelling at Banner and bitching him out for thinking everyone would be better off if he was dead was such an awesome scene.

“Never say that! Never say that, you $#(@ !$#%!”

“Don’t make me angry.”

“Then don’t make ME angry, Bruce! You always make me so damn angry!”

Another awesome tie-in came in the form of this week’s Deadpool #34. I wrote a review of it here, but the gist is that it’s a soul-crushing issue that goes into one of the more messed up moments of Deadpool’s past. It’s one of the darkest moments in the character’s history. Luckily, being a Deadpool comic and also a Brian Posehn/Gerry Duggan Deadpool comic, it’s also hilarious otherwise.

The gimmick is that it takes place during the early 90’s. Scott Koblish proceeds to make it 90’s as fuck, doing his best Liefeld impression. The characters look right, but one of the best subtle running gags comes with a piece of missing anatomy that we’ve all come to recognize Liefeld for.

Spot the missing feet.

During this entire flashback sequence – which is all but three pages of the full issue – we never see a single foot. As great as that is, the real punchline comes from the ending, where we return to the present and a regular art style. Behold.

Of COURSE that’s the first thing we focus on.

Another Week, another Week in Panels! Which is full of Panels!

As mentioned, and if you didn’t see it, Week in Panels was in fact given a shout out over at Nerdist last week. It’s pretty cool getting a referenced over at a bigger website, so big thanks to Charles Webb for that.

Meanwhile, in this weekly edition of Week in Panels, things are absolutle chalk full thanks to the help of Gaiji Dan, Matlock, AnarChris, and Gavok. Gaijin Dan should probably be happy that his usual manga contributions were given a special note in Webb’s WiP shout-out. Lots of double – and even triple – representations on display.

So, yeah…YAY!

Now that I’ve successfully patted us on the back hard enough to cure us of any choking hazards that might have coincidentally been happening at the exact same time, let’s get on to panels, shall we?

Action Comics: Futures End #1

(Sholly Fisch and Pascal Alixe)

Angry Birds Comics #7

(Paul Tobin and David Baldeon)

Avengers World #1 [Gavok’s Pick]

(Nick Spencer and Marco Checchetto)

Avengers World #1 [Matlock’s Pick]

(Nick Spencer and Marco Checchetto)

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Ooga Chaka

Ooga, Ooga, Ooga Chaka

Ooga, Ooga, Ooga Chaka

Ooga, Ooga, Ooga Chaka

It’s This Week in Panels! That weekly thing where we…take single comic panels for… summarizing.

I’m feeling real hyped right now…for a certain movie….Guardians of the Galaxy…believe it, it’s a thing!

Alright, that’s probably gone on long enough. Helping keep this column full of panels this week are Gavok – the Thief, Space Jawa – the Thug, Gaijin Dan – the Assassin, and Matlock – the Maniac.

And now it’s time to get hooked on some panels.

Afterlife with Archie #6

(Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Francesco Francavilla)

All-New Invaders #8 (Gavok’s Pick)

(James Robinson & Steve Pugh)

All-New Invaders #8 (Matlock’s Pick)

(James Robinson & Steve Pugh)

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It’s time for This Week in Panels! The weekly segment where my wonderful contributors and I all take the comics we’ve read over the course of this week and cut them down into one panel. One representative panel that tries to explain the issue. We’ve only been doing this for… oh shit, 250?! Christ.

Yes, it’s Week 250. For nearly five years I’ve been doing this series. I started this back when Old Man Logan and Blackest Night were still going on. I originally got the idea during the short time I was writing at Pop Culture Shock. I did a bunch of one-paragraph comic reviews every week and I hated it. How many times can you write the same review of Ed Brubaker’s Captain America?

A few years before that, one comic site I can’t remember (probably Newsarama) had a preview of an upcoming issue of Civil War. Rather than show several pages, it just showed a handful of panels without context. I found the whole thing more intriguing than if we got the regular style of preview and I guess that just stayed with me. Another thing that stuck with me was when people would talk about the first Agents of Atlas series. One thing I’ve read once or twice was that it didn’t matter what you had to say about the comic in terms of opinion. Just show the panel of a 1950’s robot running down a hallway carrying a talking gorilla while said gorilla shoots four guns via both hand and both feet. That says everything.

I figured that I read a bunch of comics on a weekly basis, but nobody really had any interest in my opinions. Why would they? I’m just some guy on the internet. Worse than that, I’m a guy whose favorite character is an alien-wearing journalist-turned-hobo with delusions of grandeur recognized for being one of the poster boys of everything wrong with the 90’s. My opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. Why talk about what I read when I could just show you in its purest form and let you decide for yourself? I suggested the This Week in Panels idea to David and he put a cigar out on my face. I took that to mean, “Yes, go ahead.”

ThWiP has been very good to me and I was happy to see that it got enough regular readers and regular contributors. Gaijin Dan and Space Jawa especially, who never missed a beat when it came to sending me their stuff. I’m glad to see my idea was vindicated and it kept enough people interested.

With a heavy heart, I’m announcing that after 250 wonderful weeks, I’m stepping down from This Week in Panels. It sucks, but I need to move on. One of the things about starting ThWiP was that I wanted to do a weekly series for the sake of proving to myself that I could hit a regular deadline. And I did. Unless there was a hurricane or some kind of power-destroying storm, I hit the update every Sunday. Then I got my position at Den of Geek US, which has responsibilities beyond just writing articles. Plus my main job has been keeping me busier and busier. ThWiP updates went from regularly happening over the course of Sunday night to late Monday night or even early Tuesday morning. Simply put, I actually have real deal deadlines to deal with now.

Hell, I haven’t written a non-ThWiP update for 4thletter! since WrestleMania happened. I kind of need to rectify that and I have only so many hours in the day.

ThWiP isn’t done-done, at least. Space Jawa, otherwise known as Michael Stangeland (or as I keep accidentally typing, “Strangeland”) will be taking up the mantle. Personally, I can’t wait to see what he’s capable of.

Anyway, I still have this 250th update to do. We got me, Gaijin Dan, Matlock, Space Jawa, Was Taters, AnarChris and Dickeye. Let’s go down the road one more time.

Action Comics #33
Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Rift, Pt 2
Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru

Batman ’66 Meets the Green Hornet #4
Kevin Smith, Ralph Garman and Ty Templeton

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Hello, party people. It’s time for ThWiP starring myself, Matlock, Gaijin Dan, Space Jawa and AnarChris. Yes, a new person for once. Crazy.

The true highlight of this week is New Avengers, which is awesome mostly because of Namor. The dude absolutely owns every single panel he’s in, so it makes sense that he gets the spotlight in both choices this week.

She-Hulk and WWE Superstars both nosedive when it comes to the art this week. The stuff in She-Hulk is especially disappointing and the panel I chose is one of the better looking moments. Seriously, there’s a part where Tigra is talking about how sexy she looks while actually appearing as Lion-O in drag after a bender. It’s just not my bag.

All-New Invaders #6 (Matlock’s pick)
James Robinson and Mark Laming

All-New Invaders #6 (Gavin’s pick)
James Robinson and Mark Laming

All-New Ultimates #3
Michel Fiffe and Amilcar Pinna

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Hey, now! Getting closer and closer to hitting 250. This week I did a review of Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist and… nothing. Because I’m locked in a world of getting endless overtime at work. Great for the wallet, but damn if I have zero energy to write or do my DDP Yoga.

My boys Gaijin Dan, Matlock and Space Jawa are back with me this week. Lots of Charles Soule with a couple Parker and Robinson books mixed in there. Just how I like it. I’ve mentioned before that Red Lanterns is pretty much the best book DC has right now, right? Because it totally fucking is.

All-New Invaders #5 (Gavin’s pick)
James Robinson and Steve Pugh

All-New Invaders #5 (Matlock’s pick)
James Robinson and Steve Pugh

All-Star Western #31
Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Staz Johnson and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

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