This was a pretty good week. It was lighter than I would've liked but there were some solid performances. I had an overall average of B this week. The Book of the Week was JSA Classified #26. The Shit Book of the Week was X-23 Target #6. The Publisher of the Week was DC.

DC
DC had a very light but very great week. I had 3 DC books. They had an A- average. They gathered both the Book of the Week honors with JSA Classified #26 and the Publisher of the Week honors.

JSA Classified #26 - You ever read a book that reminds you why you read comics in the first place? That's how I felt about this book. I genuinely can't remember the last time that I picked an issue out of my stack and had more fun reading it. This was astonishingly good.

This was the first issue of a two-part story that features Wildcat on a campaign to take down an underworld crime ring. After winning a fight against Sportmaster, he discovers an underground club where they offer wagering on hero/villain fights. This issue ends with the leader of the crime ring conspiring against him. The next issue should have one hell of a fight in it.

This story really underscored a lot of the reasons that I love Wildcat so much. I'm not going to turn this into a 2000 word Wildcat essay or anything, but he's written very well in this. He's an honorable, noble, old school bad ass mother****er. There's a scene in the book where he's fighting Sportmaster and he's got him beat. He decides that he has to keep the fight going long enough to hurt him bad enough to make him retire. He doesn't do it because he's a bastard. He doesn't do it because he hates him. He does it because Sportmaster is past his prime and he fears that he'll soon be killed by one of the bad guys that he runs up against. I could keep going all night about how great he is but I'll spare you all that tonight.

The story was written by Frank Tieri. I haven't read too much of his stuff before and as such this is certainly my favorite story of his so far. The pencils were done by Matt Haley and they were great. The inking and coloring were done by Jerome Moore and Dave Baron and it was awesome. There were pages where the inking and coloring were world class examples of greatness.

A+

JSA #6 - You know, I've been really into this book so far. This issue had it's moments but overall wasn't so great. I feel the taint of JLA on it. Taint is, for several reasons, the most appropriate word.

Let's give the rundown. Ok, when the book launched I had absolutely no idea what was going on. It didn't matter though. It was fun and cool and I was into it. I began to understand it a little bit right before this crossover started. Then, I went back into total confusion. I was beginning to regain my footing until this one. There are large chunks of the plot that I can't even describe to you because I just don't ****ing get them.

This is an inherently bad crossover for one major reason: the number of characters involved. There are approximately 4000 characters between the JLA, JSA, and the Legion. It's crazy and this one ended with a little blurb about the next issue having a new member named Citizen Steel. What the ****? seriously.

The art was great. B-

Countdown #48 - This was really great. I'm really into Countdown to this point. I find myself spellbound during the Marvel family scenes and I'm also really into the Jimmy Olsen stuff. I really expected to not be into the Olsen stuff so that makes it even cooler. The History of the Multiverse backup story is really cool too as I don't know as much as I'd like to about the DCU.
A

Dynamite
Dynamite had itself a rare week and one of its books found its way to my stack. They had a B+ average.

The Boys #7 - When DC dropped The Boys months ago, there was much speculation about what exactly was in issue #7 that DC refused to ship. Well now that I've seen it I think that it's pretty clear. This book has always been glaringly more vulgar than anything else that they're putting out right now. This issue takes it even a bit further. One of the storylines in this issue deals with Tek-Knight. Tek-Knight is a superhero who has suddenly developed a compulsion to rape people, animals, and inanimate objects. Tek-Knight has a boy sidekick that he has to send away so that he won't rape him. Tek-Knight has a former boy sidekick named SwingWing. Who is Tek-Knight really? It's pretty obvious that Garth Ennis was taking a shot at Batman who is one of DC's premier marquee characters.

Mind you, I'm not complaining. I actually find it amusing from the standpoint of not being able to believe that Ennis thought that he could get away with it. Certainly it's also understandable that DC wouldn't want to publish this. Overall, I'm glad to see it back. B+

Marvel
Marvel had a very light and very mixed week this week. I had 3 Marvel books and they had a C average. They had the Shit Book of the Week in X-23 Target #6.

X-23 Target #6 - I am so glad that this is over. This mini started out pretty good. The first 5 were fun, pretty, and enjoyable. This issue was a piece of crap. It was such a dissatisfying ending. Stupid. F

Illuminati #3 - This was ok. It looked very nice. I wasn't so into the story but it didn't suck. C

Daredevil #97 - This is a great book. Brubaker's still the man. I like this storyline and I like the overall direction that his stories have taken. I can't wait to see how this story ends. Lark's art was beautiful as usual. A