Halfway through the 700-800 reading block of the Chronological Reading Order for Marvel's 616. It's been tough. The last few issues of the 600-700 issue block was amazing, ending with Spiderman's 50th Issue and story arch of 'Spiderman No More'.
So it was always going to be a bit of a tough act to follow, sadly they didn't even try. The order restarts with A LOT (around 15 issues) of Thor flashback stories, which I've had little interest in since the beginning.
I find Thor to be the most dislikeable of all the heroes created so far, he's so arrogant and self-righteous, I'm not sure how anyone can tolerate him. Yet, almost the exact same character of Hercules I really like, because he seems to have a ton of fun being a God/Titan.
Thor's supporting characters are pretty interesting though, and they're the only thing that really saves the Flashback issues. Loki hasn't really evolved much, yet.
The Hulk has been floundering too over the last few issues of Tales to Astonish, and he's just had a REAL bad run of issues where everyone and their dog manipulates him to destroy something.
Puppet Master and Loki both takes turns to directly influence the Hulk's mind for their own ends. However, I really enjoyed The Hulk attacking Asgard and it led over to the first of the new Hulk issues - yay!
Namor has went from being one of the most interesting characters to another love triangle confused fool. He's spent his entire life waging war on the land, yet decides he better make sure no one is attacking the land living... but bumps into the Hulk and persuades him to attack them... it was odd.
Avengers has been really good, if only because it feels like it has a true continuity with lots of call backs to previous issues and even standalone issues from other lines. Captain America has retired as Steve Rogers, something that has been on his mind for a while across Avengers and Tales of Suspense, so it was interesting to see it finally play out. He did this because he wanted to marry Agent 13, but she broke his heart when she said she couldn't - for 'reasons'.
Magneto has returned, as has the Black Knight! I REALLY like how they've handled the Black Knight. He's went from a throw away villian in Iron Man, to suddenly having this really interesting back story that has affected other people - his Nephew and co-worker. That's all linked in with how Magneto has returned to Earth too. It's pretty clever. Magneto plays Wanda and Peitro like a damn fiddle, and uses the United Nations as the bow to manipulate them into leaving the Avengers and joining his Brotherhood of EVIL Mutants.
Yes, he actually called them the Brotherhood of EVIL Mutants. Oh well.
If Avengers hadn't been as good as it has been, I don't think I'd have managed to get through as much of the current order as I have so far. However, the Avengers are currently on their knees, as it's interesting to see how the group dynamic is dealing with Captain America retiring, Magneto returning with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver defecting back to the Brotherhood of EVIL Mutants.
Oh and Pym has decided he wants to be Antman again.
Pym's character has been a bit of a disaster really. He seems to change his mind back and forth every 10th issue on just who he is and what power he's going to use. He's been:
Ant-Man
Giant Man
Retired
Goliath
Ant-Man again.
In fact, I feel like I've probably missed someone/something out. The writers have tried to give reasons for his decisions, but they either never follow through on the reasons or are quickly forgotten. If anything I feel like Pym is heading for a mental breakdown at some point.
There's been no Spider-Man so far, but I was treated to a 40 page spectacle of Daredevil's first annual... which featured a great retelling of all his best moments... I cried.
There's been very little to do with Tony Stark/Iron Man too.
Oh and the X-Men continues to be bad. They've been trying to rescue Professor Xavier forever from Factor Three. It's a shame as the story started off really well, with Xavier trying to save his brother Juggernaut from the bands of cyttorak and the curse they've placed on him. However, things go wrong as Factor Three have planted a mind trap in Juggernaut that triggers when Xavier starts to probe. OH NOES!
So, I'm sitting there thinking 'wow, what a great setup! X-Men is finally going somewhere!'.
Oh, how wrong I was. The X-Men assemble and quickly decide they need to save Professor X... and then take 13 issues to even attempt to anything about it (I might have lied here). At one point they even do a fund raiser so they can afford tickets to go to Europe so they can save him (I'm not lying here).
Thankfully they do finally save him from Factor Three, and as a reward Professor Xavier decides that now's the time for Jean to show everyone the new costumes she's been making... seriously.
I'll leave you with this image that made me chuckle.
I love that he Cap discovers that Steve Rogers is a bloke that just likes to sit at home in his Wifebeater watching TV. A True American!