The Ballad of Captain Jughead

Jughead #4

Jughead has become convinced that Principal Stanger and all the new teachers are secretly training everyone to become secret agents. Everyone else thinks this is ridiculous, of course. But with his suspension over, Jughead returns to school and is quickly chosen as the practice target for dodgeball practice in P.E. The resulting bludgeoning has him dreaming that he’s the infamous Slackbeard the Pirate, who is captured by a pirate version of Stanger. When forced to translate a map, he and Dilbert Doiley forge a fake map so they can grab the real treasure for themselves. The dream gives Jughead an idea — he enlists Dilbert to bug Stanger’s computer to find out what he’s up to. Does this perfect plan have a chance of succeeding?

Verdict: Thumbs up. We’ve certainly come to expect this series to give us a funny and clever story that still manages a great level of high drama, and this issue certainly doesn’t disappoint. For a kid worried that he’s being turned into a secret agent, Jughead sure is doing a great impression of a secret agent…

All-New All-Different Avengers #5

The Vision has upgraded himself to be able to display holograms — and he uses this new ability to get Ms. Marvel kicked out of the Avengers! And when Nova accuses Vision of treachery, he gets thrown out, too! The remaining Avengers soon find themselves fighting a minor supervillain called Equinox — but he’s manifesting time-shifted clones, and the Vision finally turns against the entire team. How can the Avengers come back from this?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I guess it’s just a Marvel mandate that the Vision is going to be incredibly creepy in every comic he appears in. I expect Ms. Marvel and Nova will be back quickly — I rather suspect this is part of some long-range plan by the Vision to deal with the current crisis. Oh, and one of the best things about this issue is the look at Kamala Khan’s Avengers fan-fiction.