Weekly comic books are a big part of my life and below is a list of what I’ll be picking up this Wednesday along with cover artwork and previews courtesy of Comixology’s Pull List app.

At first glance, I thought I only had two books on my list this week but upon further inspection it turned out to be four. Part of me is determined to get it back down.

• AGE OF APOCALYPSE #7 – There’s a good chance I’m not buying this. I fell behind almost immediately on this series and although I’m caught up I’m not sure this is an AoA story I want to read.
• AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #693 – I jumped in with #692 after a long stretch of buying and not reading while hoping in vain to catch up. I’m really not sure what to make of this Alpha story, but regardless I’m most likely ending my collection with #700.
• FIRST X-MEN #2 – I’m a sucker for Neal Adams’ X-Men, but this is a story that I can’t get behind. Even though Christos Gage has a history with this type of stuff, the whole thing’s a retcon that’s sure to cause trouble for the backstory of every character involved. I’m only making things worse by buying it.
• X-FACTOR #243 – Even though it’s shipping in a light week, this would be my top book no matter what else was on the shelf. Polaris’ history revealed? Come on! I’ve been looking forward to this issue since the moment I heard Peter David mention it.

Check back every week to see what’s on My Latest Pull List and please share your thoughts on these titles and everything you’re reading this week in the comments.

C.M. Punk’s latest turn as a heel was cemented last week with a brutal assault on Jerry “The King” Lawler. Punk’s reception tonight in his hometown of Chicago is expected to remain overwhelmingly positive regardless.

Last week’s Raw saw C.M. Punk showed definitively that he was no longer walking the line between good and evil as he goaded Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler into a fight and then proceeded to brutally beat him inside a steel cage to end the show. Regardless of the direction of this storyline, a large part of the audience still cheered Punk. With such headway made to show this new side to Punk’s demeanor, tonight’s Raw eminates from Chicago where Punk will absolutely be received as a babyface. Will he apologize for his actions or give his reasons for attempting to teach Lawler the meaning of “RESPECT!”

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Even at his worst, C.M. Punk should be better than demanding respect and attacking Hall of Famers like Jerry “The King” Lawler. We’ll see how much lower he can stoop tonight in Oakland, CA.

Last week’s post-SummerSlam edition of Monday Night Raw exhibited some incredibly lazy storytelling as well as a near-interminable length clocking in at 3 hours and 14 minutes. (Apparently we need this. Who knew that this was a thing? Now it’s not just about the game and how you play it, but how much time you spend playing the game.) With this kind of time being put into the product, storylines need to have more direction. There’s too much focus on buzzwords (RESPECT!) and not enough consistency with characters and fleshing out the actual plots. It’s something that we can hope they either overcome, or find something shiny to distract us with.

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WWE Champion C.M. Punk kicked off Raw 1001 to great effect, but the start of the three-hour era was otherwise rocky at best.

It’s easy to find people talking about Raw 1000 and the consensus seems to be that it was a raging success. Here at the Warm Up, we’ll be watching for all the weeks that follow and with that in mind we’re more concerned with the long game. Week one of the next thousand episodes of Raw was not without it’s weak moments last Monday. It was better than most but hopefully tonight doesn’t drop further off a very familiar cliff.

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Raw is not War, nor Jericho, nor is it Monday Night Raw starring Brock Lesnar. It’s the YES Network presents AJ’s Kiss of Death.

Tonight Raw pulls into CM Punk’s favorite venue THE PEPSI CENTER in Denver, Colorado. Let’s hope AJ doesn’t share his love of the soft drink because I think we had our fill of her last week. It’s a shame mainly due to the fact that AJ has become and important figure in the WWE landscape and the positive reaction to her has led to overkill. The current WWE status quo is a far cry from where things were heading into last year’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view that featured C.M. Punk on the final night of his contract taking on John Cena for the WWE Championship.

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