“The Prince of Winterfell” feels very much like a calm before the storm episode. We know from trailers (and from what the characters are saying and doing) that “Blackwater,” the much-hyped battle we’ve been waiting for all season, is on the way next Sunday, putting this week’s hour, by default, into prelude mode. So, with all the anticipation built up over what’s going to happen next week, how do you keep this week’s episode relevant and compelling and more than just a placeholder? Answer: don’t try. Just tell your story.

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(Welcome to Comics Rewind, a weekly column devoted to discovering – or re-discovering – great comics published some time in the past. Here you will find looks back at comics published in every era, from the Golden Age to the Modern Age, as well as retrospectives on the work of important comics writers, lists of “essential” comics, and evaluations of important works, as well as works worthy of a second look or a wider audience. Enjoy!)

Like most of his work, Grant Morrison’s lengthy run on Batman has its fair share of detractors. Some of it was just too radical for longtime fans of the Dark Knight, particularly when Morrison decided to place a gun in the Bat’s hands for the final act of Final Crisis (something I, as a Batfreak, still defend, but that’s another column). Even with his very first issues on the book, he was challenging us to accept new truths of the Bat-verse, by giving Batman a true son.

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Last week Avengers vs. X-Men stepped away from being a simple battleground and became a kind of quest story. This week that quest continues, and the Marvel architects face the challenge of keeping us hooked on their story without relying on superhero vs. superhero spectacle. With heroes on both sides scattered, and the tale shifting from slaughter to search, can Avengers vs. X-Men stay strong as it moves beyond the simple premise its title implies?

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“A Man Without Honor” might seem at first glance to be rather tame and dull compared to the plot-heavy Game of Thrones episodes we’ve seen the last few weeks, but looks can be deceiving. With a few exceptions, the hour is a string of extended, emotive conversations between key characters. They chronicle realizations, denials, shattered dreams and ambitions, and they do it (mostly) without the benefit of a high-fantasy plot device to propel things along. And yet it’s still compelling, so compelling that it’s proof that even if the dragons are absent, Game of Thrones continues to fascinate.

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(Welcome to Comics Rewind, a weekly column devoted to discovering – or re-discovering – great comics published some time in the past. Here you will find looks back at comics published in every era, from the Golden Age to the Modern Age, as well as retrospectives on the work of important comics writers, lists of “essential” comics, and evaluations of important works, as well as works worthy of a second look or a wider audience. Enjoy!)

SPOILERS! Those of you who’ve seen The Avengers at this point will understand why I’m approaching this book this week. It’s timely, don’t you think? The truth is I’ve never been as well-versed in the exploits of the Mad Titan Thanos as I’d like to be, and now I’ve got a nice opportunity to remedy that. There’s really no better place to start than The Infinity Gauntlet. It’s not the first Thanos story, but it is one of the biggest, and the set-up for the Infinity stories that follow. It’s also the story that set the Mad Titan up as one of the most formidable and epic-worthy villains in the Marvel Universe, and it’s a damn fine comic.

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This is an exclusive party we’re having here. Well…it’s exclusive in that it’s only for the several million people who’ve seen The Avengers in the last few days. Now that the flick is out and shattering box office records, we thought we’d take some time to talk about all the little things that make the flick one of the coolest things ever to hit the big screen. In my review of the flick, I noted that Joss Whedon is a master of small moments. There are dozens of them in this movie, but I’ve narrowed it down to my 10 favorites for easy web-digestion (is that a thing?). If you’ve seen the movie, check it out. If not TURN BACK NOW. Seriously, there are MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS UP AHEAD!

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It was a week of disruption on Game of Thrones. All the things we got used to seem to be suddenly and dramatically shifting, which only makes things more interesting. The same brutality that made the show notorious last season (and popped up again last week) is rearing its ugly but captivating head again, and characters are being forced to make daring new choices and face hard new truths. Like “The Ghost of Harrenhal” last week, “The Old Gods and the New” is a plot-heavy whirlwind of an episode with plenty of juicy details to talk about, and plenty of blood to soak your brain in.

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(Welcome to Comics Rewind, a weekly column devoted to discovering – or re-discovering – great comics published some time in the past. Here you will find looks back at comics published in every era, from the Golden Age to the Modern Age, as well as retrospectives on the work of important comics writers, lists of “essential” comics, and evaluations of important works, as well as works worthy of a second look or a wider audience. Enjoy!)

I was casting about all week for what I should write about this time out, and other stuff got in the way, most notably the talk on futures studies I was asked to give this morning that I then had to research and outline. I didn’t really have a fully loaded single entry in the pipeline, but then I thought about The Avengers and I realized we are giving a hell of a lot of love to corporate comics this month, aren’t we? So I figured it couldn’t hurt to throw some love to the little guy.

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The odd thing about reviewing a movie like The Avengers is that it could be total crap, but so many people will walk out going “EXPLOSIONS HULKSMASH THORHAMMER STARKQUIP BLACKWIDOWBOOBS WHEEEEE!” that it won’t matter if it is total crap, or even TOTAL CRAP. There’s a hefty amount of built-in cool to this flick. Just the idea that we get to see all of these characters on the screen at the same time, with this much money and this much build-up beneath them, is enough to generate a little, well…let’s call it a tingle. That means it sort of doesn’t matter what I or any other film writer has to say about it. Then again, if it turns out to be a good movie – or even, dare we hope it, a GREAT movie – well, then we get to have the fun of talking about just what makes it so great. Well, spoiler alert: The Avengers is a great movie. Here’s why:

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At some point Marvel was going to have to address how exactly Avengers vs. X-Men isn’t just another Civil War, and they were going to have to do it in a way that wasn’t just a self-assured press release. The only way they’re really going to convince us that they’ve done something new here is to do their convincing in-story. I’ve been pleased with the story so far, but Avengers vs. X-Men #3 is where the event really starts to become something more than a superhero vs. superhero bloodfest. It’s an important turning point, but does it pay off?

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