This was a pretty decent week. I had 13 books and they had a B average. Image was the Publisher of the Week. Captain America #28 was the Book of the Week. Black Canary #2 was the Shit Book of the Week.

Marvel

Marvel had a pretty good week. They had the Book of the Week in Captain America #28. They had a B+ average over 5 books.

Captain America #28 - Wow! This was really really good. This is certainly one of the best books on the shelf month after month. I'm really excited to see where this goes.

Rapid Fire

1. What the hell is in that letter? I have to know and I have to know now.




2. Is it weird to find Sin attractive? (The character not the concept)




3. How many people is that guy going to hypnotize? damn




4. Nick Fury is the shit. We need him back "above" ground.




5. Silencers (the opening scene) was awesome. I love the dialogue and I love Bucky's internal narrative.

This was really amazing. A+

Ultimate Spider-Man #111 - This was a fitting send-off for Mark Bagley. This was an amazing, funny, touching, and interesting story. Bagley will go out on an incredibly high note. I've had a lot of admiration for Bagley for a while now. It's true that he's not in my small group of favorite artists, but I respect him a lot because his art is above average and the book always comes out on time. Bendis really gets Spider-Man. A

WWHulk #2 - This was pretty good. The story was a bit wonky in places. The art was as well. I'm still in and I'm still excited but this particular issue could've been a bit better. B-

WWH Front Line #2 - The first story in this is really good. The second was barely readable. The third was kind of amusing. It's worth it if only for the first story. B

The Initiative #4 - This issue was ok. I'm kind of getting fatigued by reading the same stories over and over and just having them be a bit different. This had good points though. The art was terrible. Absolutely disgusting. C

Image

Image had a light week. They brought it though. They were the Publisher of the Week with an A average.

Sidekick Summer Spectacular #1 - This book is really funny. I wish that there were a Sidekick ongoing. This issue had everything that you could possibly want: bondage, transvestites, retarded superheroes. A

DC

DC had a mixed week. They had the Shit Book of the Week in Black Canary #2. They maintained a B-/B average over 7 books.

Robin #164 - This story was really good. It's the setup for the fight that will begin in the next issue. It should be cool. I'm even starting to kind of like Killa Nilla.

A little.

A real little.

Don't push it that's as far as I'm moving on that one.

Speaking of things about the book that I'm never thrilled about, let's talk about the art. I can describe it in 1 word: shitty. It's seriously bad. This issue would've gotten an A if not for the art. B

All Flash #1 - If this is any indication of the level of quality that we can expect during the Waid run then all of us that are reading it should be very happy. This was a great story. I LOVED what he did to Inertia. I'm interested in Wally and what happens next. The art was good but jumpy with the artist shifting.

Can anyone fill me in on the imagery from the last few pages? I was kind of lost. A

Amazons Attack #4 - This was ok. I'm beginning to tire of the story a bit. It feels to me like it could be over by now but it just isn't. Woods continues to underwhelm on art. B

Countdown #41 - This was ok. It wasn't their best issue yet. I'm still very happy with it overall though. Dennis Calero's art was pretty shitty. It kind of takes a lot to stand out as a 'bad' art week on this book and this did.

I really liked the Rogues stuff. They need more pages immediately. Their story fascinates me.

Someone needs to kill Jimmy Olsen. Absent an upcoming death, I may be forced to become a comic book character and kill him myself. Jesus Christ! Who cares?

Mary Marvel is the shit and deserves WAAAY more than 1 page. Hey, let's give her Jimmy Olsen's pages! Who's the person watching her through the purple crystal? Anyone???

I liked the Monitor Jim, Donna Troy, and Jason Todd stuff. I don't like that they've named Monitor Jim "Bob" though. I'll choose to ignore it.

I hate the whole Holly Robinson "Hangin' with Ms. Quinn" storyline. It just isn't interesting to me.

The Karate Kid needs to wax off out of my conciousness. I don't care about him at all.

The backup story about the Multiverse was cool as usual. I'm going to miss these when they switch over in a few weeks.

I'm left feeling that there are a lot of elements of Countdown that I really like and some that I'm not into. It seems that my opinion of each issue depends on the mix of the two.

C

Black Canary #2 - Yeah, I don't know about this one. The first issue was entertaining enough. This issue though - not so good. I'm rather annoyed with the writing and the art.

The art - There are several panels where Wonder Woman looks like an alien. People's head just don't hang in such opposition to the flow of their bodies. Merlyn's eyes change color on nearly every page. Does he have magic eye color changing powers that I don't know about? Black Canary looks like Victoria Jackson in several panels. This would be fine if it weren't in stark contrast to the cheesecake-ish panels where she's entirely ripped. In still another group of panels, she looks like a cross between Paris Hilton and Gwenyth Paltrow. Honestly, I could nitpick the art for another two pages. Let's just say it sucks and move on.

The writing - My apologies to Tony Bedard's parents, this isn't going to be very nice.

Is it really necessary to hammer home what a sexist prick he thinks Ollie is in the flashbacks? I think it's pretty clear. The ass-grabbing comment was unnecessary. Ollie is incorrigible, but he's not a jerkoff.

Also in the flashbacks, he portrays Ollie as very bumbling and I'm not really interested in that picture of him. I like the competent Ollie that we're used to. The scene where he has all of his goofy trick arrows spread out on the floor and he's fumbling around for the right one is insulting.

The scene with the League of Assassins is terrible. There is so much hacky exposition that you could actually choke to death reading it. It just sucked.

Then, the League of Assassins invade Sin's high security school for bad kids(really) to kidnap her and she kicks all of their asses at the same time. This isn't nearly enough of an amazing feat for an 8 year-old so she ended the scene by beating up the police and crying.

Then, she gets kidnapped by Merlyn dressed up as Ollie. Oh by the way, Merlyn has an entirely new eye color again when he kidnaps Sin.

This was not good by any stretch of the imagination. I care about the characters so I'm inclined to continue with it but I'm uncertain about it.

F

JLA #11 - Holy shit! I nearly dropped this book because of how bad it has been. This issue was amazing.

Meltzer's writing is spectacular here. The basic story is that Red Arrow and the Chicken Lady (how could I possibly remember all those characters' names?) are trapped in the rubble of a fallen building that also happens to be under water. The narration and the dialogue felt breathless, disorienting, and at times desperate. I know just what he was going for and I picked it up as he laid it down.

The art in this was fanF*ckingTastic. Seriously, the pencils, the colors, and the layouts were world class. I don't think that I've felt this positive about the art in a single issue since Maleev did New Avengers #26. A

The Spirit #8 - I love Darwyn Cooke's stuff so much that if he wrote and drew a book called "Fred gets beaten with a pipe wrench for 22 pages," I'd read it. This is so funny and so pretty. I love the schlocky goodness of it all. They save the city and their own lives by UNPLUGGING the nuclear bomb. That's hysterical - I don't care what anybody says. A