Look, Ma! Another black-and-white cover for All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder! Imagine how late this series would be if they actually had to colour the covers!!This week's haul actually counts as exciting, so let's get 2 R!
Action Comics # 862 - Geoff Johns and Gary Frank continue the terrific "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes" story that's pushed this title very close to the top of my "must read" pile. The central plot - that a bunch of isolationists in the 31st century have succeeded in making most people think that 21st century Superman was really an Earthman, in their attempts to further fuel anti-alien hostility among the populace - is so off-the-wall that it actually works! I've loved every page of this run so far!
All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder # 9 - Is it terrible to admit that I'm actually starting to enjoy Frank Miller's tour de force blitzkrieg of the Batman mythos in this title? Oh, sure, the writing's totally ham-fisted and over-the-top, but at least Miller has a clear vision of this particular Batman, which is of course part of what worked so well in The Dark Knight Returns. I may actually miss this series when it ends... OK, maybe not!
Batman # 674 - If I had any idea what Grant Morrison was up to in this current storyline, I'd probably enjoy it even more! Apparently Joe Chill's back in continuity - or something - as Batman's haunting him while lying on the edge of death. Ummm... OK?
Justice Society of America # 13 - It seems like it's been a long time since we had an issue of JSA, but then it dawns on me that # 12 only came out 3 weeks ago... and is sitting in my big stack of unread comics! Which means... come tomorrow, I'll have 2 issues to read!! The Kingdom Come Superman story continues, and it's been good, though a bit slow, so far. I might worry, except that: In Johns, We Trust...
Legion of Super-Heroes # 39 - Not to be confused with the Legion running around in the pages of Action Comics, because that's actually a completely different incarnation of the group - and DC keeps promising to explain that away, soon, in the form of an event of some sort - this one suddenly transformed into Jim Shooter's playground overnight. After reading Shooter's first two issues, I was left scratching my head about just why all of the characters' speech patterns changed between issues! "Continuity be damned!" screamed Dan DiDio, as he scampered down the halls of DC Comics, red-circling heroes' and villains' pictures on the wall with the promise of "wrecking them all... or die trying!"
Captain America # 35 - So now we have a new Cap - OK, forget the spoiler warnings: it's Bucky, damn it! - and you just know things are going to go as smooth as can be for him, right? Or not. In the capable hands of Ed Brubaker, with Sharon Carter, the Red Skull, the Falcon, Iron Man, and an economic collapse weirdly similar to what's going on in our universe, I'm content to just sit back and watch the show.
Daredevil # 105 - And in the other corner... also, Ed Brubaker! It's amazing that two knockout Bru titles come out in the same week, but the mysterious machinations of the Scheduling Gods at Marvel Comics are not for mere mortals to question. So DD's wife has been charged with murder, and we know that it's a frame-up by the villain, Mr Fear (and so does ol' Horn-head) but how to prove it, how to prove it? And why, in the back of my mind, can't I seem to stop thinking that it's really Kilgrave the Purple Man who's behind it all? Oh wait.. because I'm a comic geek, that's why!
Thor # 6 - The last open-ended J Michael Straczynski Marvel title keeps plugging along. The news over the weekend that JMS would be doing work for DC soon sparked equal measures of delight and trepidation, with one pundit in the latter camp worrying that we'd soon find out Lois Lane had had a child with Lex Luthor years ago (in reference to the Spider-Man tale JMS wrote that claimed Gwen Stacy had had twins after sleeping with Norman Osborne... yeah, it was really that dumb!) I'm enjoying Thor well enough but it's not deserving of all the praise it's been getting, in my opinion. Then again, I've never been much of a fan of the Thunder God outside of The Avengers, so maybe that's all it is.
Ultimate Spider-Man # 119 - I started reading this title - for the first time! - on the San Francisco trip last year. I might've considered dropping it by now, except that it's the only Spider-Man title that features a version of the character that's at all familiar (thanks to my exposure to him in The Ultimates and elsewhere), and so I've switched my loyalty over to it for now. Like most of the Ultimate titles, you get the barest of plots each issue, but at least they're entertaining.
Nexus # 100 - The big one! Originally scheduled to come out last fall (or was it last summer?), it's finally on the books, coming out tomorrow! Nexus' return in # 99, all those months ago, was pure delight for this long-time fan of the character. It felt like no time had passed since the days when Nexus was one of my favourite unconventional (i.e. non-superhero) comics, and so it's too bad that any momentum was lost by the incredibly long delay for this second issue. I know that illustrator Steve Rude did a bunch of extra material for the 100th issue, and I just hope that's all that contributed to the lateness. Regardless, I'm jazzed about picking up this gem tomorrow!
[Edit: I missed one!] Criminal Volume 2 # 1 - This makes 3 - count 'em, 3! - Ed Bru titles coming out of the Marvel Machine in one week! I'm not sure how I missed it as I read over the shipping list for the week, but overlook it I did! Fortunately I saw a reference to it elsewhere, and went scurrying to check to see if it was true! So this is the re-launch of Criminal, with... changes... that I'm not entirely clear on. But it doesn't matter; I was so into the first volume that I can't not love this one, can I, now?
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