BATMAN INCORPORATED #8—The perfection of the Burnham cover is a little bit false advertising, but I had a nice time in the cold stilted Internet 3.0 that Bruce and Babs and those other guys cooked up. Really appreciated the DIGITAL JUSTICE namecheck, at that point, really was already yelling it at the pages, and all with the wringing of the hands, like. Not up to encapsulating the greatness of the moment when Barbara first roars in, me with no clue who this month’s team-up’s with. I frankly almost thought she was going to start in with, “And thiiiiiiis is pretty much the show for next month with Gail. OR IS IT?!?!?” Tricky stuff.
BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #5—Ah God, I have no one but myself to blame for this, but for whatever reason, when I hit the captions on the first page, the voice of Cartman dropping the faux-Rorschach Coon narration just barreled in out of nowhere, so while I can definitely report that reading this issue was an entertaining experience, I certainly recommend approaching it from that perspective. This has got to be a joke. Right? Satire?
BATMAN: GATES OF GOTHAM #5—Huh, there sure seem to be a lot of DC finales coming out today for some reason. This excellent mini finished strong and then managed to dial right back in to up-to-the-week continuity, Bruce is coming back, Dick. Bout time to hit that there changing room, old chum! Cassandra jumped Drake’s bones, right? There’s no way that didn’t happen after the break. This one was a wonderful effort all around, everything you hope for out of your Bat-mini.
AMERICAN VAMPIRE #18—Fresh off the Harveys, Snyder & Albuquerque serve up the best slice yet. This right here is a ride.
JOHN BYRNE’S NEXT MEN, VOLUME TWO #9—It all came to this! ? Built and built and then appeared to sputter out on the final pages. A gentle cliffhanger, we’ll call it. Need to hit all nine of these soon, but after #30 from volume one, this was a really really quiet way to leave off.
KICK ASS 2 #3—THEY TURNED HIM INTO A DOG??!?!?
CAPTAIN AMERICA & BUCKY #621—This is better than most things have any right to be. To the shock of absolutely no one, Samnee & Breitweiser are murdering every page, staking most in the heart, even. You get the fleeting sensation that, despite all those Eisners and the acclaim and the Eisners, a small part of Ed Brubaker still cares about what he’s doing, if only for a few pages at a time.
UNCANNY X-FORCE #13—Tommy hasn’t given it to me, but #11 and 12 are insane! Brooks and Currie are a revelation. Logan’s opening monologue in #12 might be my favorite of his. The tenderness! I should probably borrow #13 just real quick now.
****
BEST OF WEEK: HICKMAN. FF #9/ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATE ISSUE #ONE: FOREVAH ULTIMATE—Yeah, I’m done trying to figure out which individual issue is better, this way is much easier and has generated the ripple shock of a Morrison-written issue of Batman careening off-panel with an unprecedented Bronze medal. So many great things about both of these issues. The best page of the night is probably Doom askew introducing Richards to the FF, but the structure of ULTIMATES is so much more flawless. Starring Samuel, of course. I mean, required by law, now, right? Does anyone dare read word balloons attributed to Ultimate Nick Fury and not have them shouted at you by Jules Winfield, usually somewhere between 6 and 7, at the very least? But yeah, ULTIMATES might actually take it, the effect of which is like what that first issue of ASTRO CITY did for the absolutely-true-to-life application of Being Superman? This does that for Being Nick, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. & The Avengers. Exceptional. Pushes forward the dust first kicked up by Ellis/Hitch AUTHORITY. And there were those couple of just perfect lines, Tony calling the guy My Jarvis, and I forget the other one, but this whole thing felt like coming home. I guess next I want Hickman to start in with his own PLANETARY.
I leave you with this shot from FF #9, which, even though he left this "MORTAL PLANE OF EXISTENCE" seventeen years ago, is still pretty Kirby.
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