Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men #600 arrives in comic shops today and its release is enough to bring me out of self-imposed exile. In addition to bearing a landmark issue number, the book is also the long awaited finalé to Brian Bendis’ three year run on both Uncanny X-Men and All-New X-Men, and sports no less than twelve different covers. That merits an evaluation here on MLD as both a Marvel Milestone issue and as part of our ongoing Standard Deviations series looking at variant covers.

Read on for a discussion of the covers, the numbers, and more.

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After six months, Marvel’s Summer blockbuster Avengers vs. X-Men wrapped up its twelve issue run last Wednesday. As the conclusion ushers in the publisher’s line wide “refresh” known as Marvel Now!, we’re taking a look at how the latest event held up.

Obviously, spoilers for the series may follow so if you’re behind in your reading be warned. You may want to make sure you’re up to date quickly though as Marvel Now! begins today with the debut of Uncanny Avengers #1 by Rick Remender and John Cassaday.

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With DC Comics’ “New 52” dominating comic shop shelves this month with more number one issues than any other time in history, other titles that are launching right now couldn’t have more competition for readers’ attention. This week, we’re going to try to shine a light on some other big titles that are launching this month, beginning with last week’s Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1 by Brian Bendis and Sara Pichelli. It’s part of an entirely revamped Ultimate line-up from Marvel, and as a jumping on point it’s hard to do better.

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Last year we spent some time talking about the relaunch of Marvel’s Avengers line here at MLD. These series introduced the publisher’s new Heroic Age that introduced new lineups, new creative teams and new threats. It was a good time to give all of these titles a shot. Some of the books really captured my attention, others did not, but they all have their appeal. As we gear up for this year’s Fear Itself crossover, the books are wrapping their current arcs and headed for some changes that make now a good time to revisit them.

Some spoiling may occur.

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I had the chance to get away over the last few weeks and made a serious effort to avoid anything resembling work. As a result, I managed to read a few comics that have been laying around this place for a while. This was the same plan I attempted last year, but as you’ll see, my reading list has changed quite a bit.

Last summer, I took a fairly eclectic mix of books away with me in a little box, and I even started writing this post about them. All the big names were there: the X-Men (X-Men Forever #1, Dark X-Men: The Beginning #2, New Mutants #2-3), some Marvel Cosmic stuff (Nova #26-27, Skaar: Son of Hulk #6-12, War of Kings: Savage World of Skaar), a few Avengers (Mighty Avengers #24-27, New Avengers: The Reunion #2-4, Ms. Marvel: Storyteller), even some things that aren’t normally on the reading list (Batman and Robin #1, Warren Ellis’ Ruins).

What I came away with after reading all this is that  I should have never continued with Mighty Avengers after Brian Bendis left the title. Everything else was rather satisfying, but it solidified my decision to stop buying a lot of books. One of the stand outs that I didn’t mention was Amazing Spider-Man: The Short Halloween by SNL’s Bill Hader and Seth Myers. It’s a fun book, but remembering it makes me sad about what I’m coming away with this year:  there’s just too much Amazing Spider-Man each month.

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