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It’s the middle of May, which means that the TV schedules for fall have been released. There are seven – count them, SEVEN – live action comics-inspired television shows set to air on cable networks this fall, and I, for one, couldn’t be more excited. It’s no surprise to anyone at this point that ABC’s hit Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was renewed; its numbers have been solid, even if the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier did leave a lot of people wondering what, exactly, that show was going to be about. As it turns out, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. dealt with the fallout in a way that will make for an action-packed second season – and, by the end of the season, had redeemed itself somewhat in my eyes from some of the mistakes it made earlier on.

I’m going to say this flat out: You should be reading Lumberjanes. I know that everyone’s got things they like to read and things that they don’t. Some people really love superhero comics; others are into the horror genre. Most people aren’t going to look at a piece like Lumberjanes, because it looks like it’s aimed at young girls. I’m here to tell you that you should pick it up anyway.

Are you ready to talk about Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Let me tell you, I’m so ready to talk about Captain America: The Winter Soldier. As you’ve probably guessed: massive spoilers ahead. I’m going to be talking a lot about the movie and the characters, so if you haven’t seen the film yet and want to remain spoiler-free, bookmark this article for later! There are a lot of things I could talk about with regard to this film: the little nods to longtime comic fans, the choices they made about Steve Rogers’ characterization, the way they frame the story, how well the first and second Captain America movies parallel each other. They’re all great topics, and to be honest, I could probably write a sizable amount about each of them… but the thing that I really want to talk about is how incredible Cap’s supporting cast is.

There are a lot of similar-sounding terms thrown around when talking about comics. We’ve got reboots, revivals, relaunches, retcons… they’re all important terms, but if you’re not familiar with what each one means, it can be really confusing. A reboot is the resetting of a universe. A “hard” reboot is something like DC’s 2011 New 52, where all of the canon and continuity up to that point was tossed out the window and they started fresh. A “soft” reboot would be more along the lines of Marvel NOW!, where a lot of books are started over again at #1, but the continuity is kept intact – it’s more of a place for new readers to jump in than a fresh start. Soft reboots even tend to reintroduce some of the characters’ origins, history, and motivations, where a hard reboot pretty much just starts from square one. A relaunch, on the other hand, is when a title that had previously been cancelled gets a new run. A relaunch technically is a revival – of a book, a character, or even a name; in some cases, it’s a combination of two of those, or even all three. Relaunches also tend to involve at least a little bit of retconning, or changing of retroactive continuity. Basically, a retcon is changing something in a character’s past and pretending it’s always been that way – like the retcon of Iron Man’s origins, which brought them from Vietnam to Afghanistan to make it more modern. With these terms in mind, let’s talk about Captain Marvel.

I really love reading comics about teams. Individual titles are interesting. They let you get a sense for what a character thinks of him or herself, and they show you what that person’s thoughts and actions are like when they’re interacting with a few other heroes, but for the most part, they’re about solo crime-fighting activities or what the character does with their family or friends. Take the current run of Hawkeye, for instance: it alternates between Clint and Kate (and occasionally Pizza Dog) taking on their own enemies, but it also has Clint dealing with relationship issues and his brother showing up, and Kate leaving home and moving across the country. The book focuses on who they are as people, as it rightly should – it’s a book about them, after all. Team books are different. Where individual titles give you a sense of who the characters are as people, a team book gives you a sense of who they are as heroes. Batman on his own is different than he is while he’s part of the Justice League. Iron Man’s behavior in his solo title is different from how he behaves in a group dynamic. Team stories show what I feel are more honest interactions – ones where the heroes aren’t hiding their skills behind civilian identities or lying about who they are. Even in the case of heroes whose civilian identities aren’t known to their teammates, the hero in question – let’s just call him Batman, for sake of discussion – is still more able to be honest with his colleagues as Batman than he is in his day-to-day life as Bruce Wayne, head of Wayne Enterprises.