I was really worried about this comic.

Writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost officially take over Amazing with this issue, and while I know them as great writers, the bulk of their work together has left me cold. I want to make this clear: this is not a slight to their talents. Their runs on New X-Men and X-Force sold quite well, and had their fans - but their stories edged toward the bloody end of things, and I’ve never been a fan of violence for the sake of violence. Anyway, suffice to say, I was worried that Amazing would go from a generally easy-going story style, and jump right into the gore. While the opening of this issue did very little to assuage my fears, the bulk of the comic retained a lot of the style Jason Aaron had given it. The characters still have fun with one another (Nightcrawler’s “How exciting!” comment pulled a big smile on my face), and the danger encountered in this issue never goes to gratuitous lengths, which I appreciated.

The bulk of the story concerns a trip Wolverine takes to Canada, and what he finds there. There’s a bunch of Alpha Flight stuff that I know a few folks are going take a liking to - although some of the bits near the end send off some alarm bells. I can’t really give much more detail as to what, but suffice to say, there’s some danger at play here that involves the Wendigo. Or Wendigos. Which is not a spoiler. I mean, the storyline is titled World War Wendigo. So.

This issue will be the last we see from Ed McGuinness on the title - at least for the foreseeable future. He’s moving over to Guardians of the Galaxy for a spell and will soon be replaced with Carlo Barberi - known for quite a library of work on Deadpool. While it’s sad to see him go, we get a lot of great imagery, with inks by Mark Farmer, who gives McGuinness’ line quite a different feel than his regular collaborator, Dexter Vines. It was really neat to see that, and I would love the chance to see more of this team together - again, not that Vines is not a good inker (he is), but it’s just neat to see something a bit different from McGuinness.

Amazing X-Men #8 goes on sale tomorrow at fine comic stores across the world, and at ComiXology.