It’s pretty great. What kind of asshole wouldn’t like a pulp, noir superhero story? You? You stupid asshole?

It’s Brubaker and Phillips, the same team that does Criminal, so you know it’s gotta be awesome.

Go read Incognito!

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #18
I like how it’s progressing, though for some reason I had a hard time remembering exactly where I was last time, perhaps because of the intervening JSA Annual with Powergirl stuck in Earth-2. The book’s as solid as ever, and I didn’t see a couple things coming, so it gets points for that. Recommended!

IMMORTAL IRON FIST #18
It’s not bad. Not bad at all. There’s a little of the Iron fist magic that’s subsided since Fraction and Brubaker left two issues ago, but, like the last issue, this one’s still running of their momentum and storyline, so it’s quite good. The art, sadly, has taken a downturn in my opinion, though some of that may be due to how the hell do you draw a dude with a head in his neck amirite? That said, if they keep the book going like this, I’ll happily keep buying it.

MIGHTY AVENGERS #17 SI
NEW AVENGERS #44 SI
These continue the trend of Bendis filling in the hows and whys of Secret Invasion, and I’m still enjoying them. New Avengers shows just how far the Skrulls went in order to enact this invasion, and I suspect if Reed Richards ever finds out, he’s going to get might pissed. The smartest man on Earth is the key to the Skrull invasion, though he doesn’t know it.

Mighty Avengers deals with Skrull Pym, well Pyms, actually, and how they keep going off the rails. Apparently there’s something inherent in Hank Pym that keeps making Skrull duplicates go native. Is it ‘cos he’s unbalanced, or is he maybe more heroic than we give him credit for? I guess we’ll find out.

I liked New Avengers better (which is a trend), but I’m also interested to see what Pym’s destiny is. Also, I’m fairly sure this issue is Bendis’ way of addressing a possible continuity gaff that showed up a couple months ago when Pym was in two places at once, but if so, that’s really impressive turnaround time.

Good books this week, overall.

AIR #1
I bought it ‘cos it looked weird, and had a Neil Gaiman quote on the cover.  It’s a weird story about a flight attendant with acrophobia who ends up in a plot by an anti-terrorist group to hijack an airplane.

Yeah, so it is weird, but interesting and enjoyable.  I’m interested to see where it goes, so I’ll pick up the next one, if I see it.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #41
What do you expect?  It’s more pulp serial goodness, and after what seems like a year of being trodden down, this one ends with a pretty grand triumph.  Which, of course, still leaves me wanting more, just like ever single issue of Cap since Brubaker took over.

Damn it.

BATMAN #679 RIP – Truly, I cannot look away from the car crash.
Oh Grant.  Grant.  Grant.  Grant.  You’re a crazy sumbitch.  This book is markedly better than the preceding ones, in that it is actually coherent.  (I was going to say “makes sense”, but that’s not entirely accurate.)  There’s a bunch of interesting stuff at work in this book, and we find out the Batman of Zur En Arh is essentially Batman without Bruce; it’s a “backup identity” set up by Batman in case of extreme psychological attack.

Sounds cool, right?  Until you think about it a bit.  What the hell?  Backup identity?  Batman planned for what happens if he gets broken psychologically and somehow managed to arrange for himself to go crazy in a very specific way?

…okay.  Also, Batman is carrying a baseball bat, which he beats people with, which is a great pun.  Oh, Grant, you scamp.

GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY #11
Another fun and light-hearted romping serial adventure.  The League of Assassins has nothing to do with the Assassins League, and Batman’s got the R’as al-Ghul to prove it!  Essentially, we find out how this whole arc began, though the big reveal at the end had no impact on me because I didn’t recognize the character involved.  Oops.  Way to not know stuff, Foo.

SECRET INVASION #5
This is still the best crossover / big event we’ve seen in years.  Agents Brand and Maria Hill both kick some butt and the heroes begin to rally.  There should’ve been more time invested in building up the Ronin / Mockingbird relationship again, but I guess there wasn’t time with so much going on.  The result is still pretty satisfying, but could have been better.  I still look forward to watching Clint go all Bullseye on everyone.

I can actually see how the heroes are going to get out of this, though I kind of hope they do something more interesting than “Let’s kill all the Skrulls!”  I’m also surprised at how readily people seem to just off the invaders.  I guess war is war, but at least I haven’t seen Spider-Man kill anyone.

SECRET INVASION RUNAWAYS YOUNG AVENGERS #2 (OF 3) SI
This book’s far better than the last, which was basically a recap of the main book with a couple side scenes of the Runaways and Young Avengers thrown in.  Here the main thrust of the book is shaping up, and it’s looking to be a decent finish.  As usual, the best scenes come from Molly and her awesome dinosaur hat.  (“Princess Powerful Powers… Activate!!)  Particularly good is the scene where she thinks the invasion footage on the TV must be fake.

ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #11
Angel is screwed.  That’s really all there is to it.  I keep wanting to drop this series, as it’s not nearly as good as the Buffy comic, but at the same time I find it’s not bad enough to give up on.  It’s actually pretty good; it just doesn’t capture the feel of the show as well.

Anyway, I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, or how the whole thing is going to play out, so I’m putting that in the positives column.

The Eyes of Justice forum is down due to domain expiry. It should come back in a little while once we’ve gone through the usual rigmarole. Fear not!

In other news, I’m suffering from a little carpal tunnel, which is annoying. I’m trying to do exercises to work my way through it.

Also, on the comic review front, I had two very light weeks (I bought maybe two books), and didn’t really feel they needed a review so I skipped it. Horrifying!

Normal service will resume shortly.

Captain America #40 – Cap vs. Cap!
As usual, Brubaker leaves me angry and wanting more! This is a great issue. The promised knock-down, drag-out brawl between 50s Cap and new Cap takes place, and they really go at it. Fight delivers! Meanwhile, at evil HQ, Sharon is trying to get free and has a fight with Sin.

This issue is an action beat in the ongoing Captain America serial, and Epting’s back to give it his best. Good stuff, and, yes, another cliffhanger. Damn Brubaker.

Mighty Avengers #16
It’s funny: I almost thought I’d bought this book before, but I realized it was just that I’d recently read the first issues of New Avengers, so the Electro conversation that starts it was so fresh in my mind. Elektra hires Electro. We finally know.

It’s a decent issue. It’s mostly action, with a big Elektra fight, and more of the Secret Invasion-patented “side issue fill in”. We find out the whens and hows of Skrullektra.

Like the previous ones, it’s enjoyable, but not really necessary to the main storyline.

Moon Knight #20
This one’s a giant-sized issue, also containing the two issues of Werewolf by Night where Moon Knight debuted. Those books are from 1975, so set your expectations to lots of expository dialogue and old-school art. To be honest, I got tired of reading after the first issue. I’ll finish it later.

The actual issue of Moon Knight is pretty good. It’s a flashback from 1994, so it really has nothing at all to do with the current Moon Knight status quo, and is basically just a one-off featuring Werewolf by Night as a kind of tribute to Moon Knight’s debut thirty-three years ago. All that aside, it’s actually a decent story, if pointless overall.

GREEN ARROW AND BLACK CANARY #10
It’s still awesome. Batman’s awesome. Green Arrow’s awesome. Black Canary’s awesome. Even Plastic Man’s awesome. The whole thing’s basically one long fight scene, Team Arrow vs. “The League of Assassins”, but it’s a good fight that does what really good comic fights do: it advances plot and shows off the characters involved. This isn’t just people knocking heads; it’s people knocking heads in ways that show you who they are, including Batman using a number of sneaky moves and planning, and Canary showing that she’s more than capable of being a threat.

Good stuff.

SECRET INVASION #4
I’m still diggin’ this. Sure, it’s not as high-brow as Final Crisis is (trying to be), but it’s got enough twists and turns so that it’s keeping my interest and not just dealing out brawls for the sake of brawls.

This issue follows four basic plotlines:
1) Nick Fury and his Howlin’ Commandos
2) The Skrull armada (and Agent Brand floating outside), who’ve got Reed Richards stretched out like a bedsheet
3) our heroes in the Savage Land pulling themselves back together
4) The return of… well, that would be telling, right?

Fury’s a real battlefield general, making the hard decisions and making his new Commandos into a real threat, and I’m dying to see what he’s got planned next.

Oh, and the two heroes making their entrance into the fray at the end? I can hardly wait.

ETERNALS #2
To be honest, I mostly buy this for the art. I like Daniel Acuña’s art. Which is funny, given that I bought the previous series for the exact opposite reason. Surprisingly, I like the writing in this one better than Gaiman’s. This one just feels more streamlined.

Anyway, it continues from the first issue, with the Eternals and the bad Eternals racing to find the protoform Transformers… I mean Eternals, in order to recruit them to their side. We also get more backstory about what the whole Eternal/Deviant thing is about, most of which kinda went over my head, but I think is related to Annihilation.

I like it well enough to keep reading.

JSA #17
This book is still better than JLA’s been, and there’s no “action” in the entire thing! Gog’s making good on his promises, and the JLA comes to check in with the JSA. All in all, this is really just more setup for whatever inevitable twist is to come, but it’s an effective setup, because I’m kind of interested in just seeing what miracles Gog can accomplish, even if I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a dark turn to come.

I think this is just about my favourite DC book right now. The characters are interesting and have little quirks about them that the JLA seems to lack. Even the Golden Agers seem more interesting than their modern counterparts have been written lately. It’s good to see substance winning out over flash. (Not THE Flash.)

My only complaint about this book is that I noticed a typo and a case of aural homonymism. (At one point, Starman mentions someone’s “repetoire” with someone else; the word should’ve been rapport. And, no, it wasn’t due to his craziness.)

Oh well. Just more proof that even the best writers need good editors!

DETECTIVE COMICS #846
I already like this more than the actual Grant Morrison RIP. Dini builds a character portrait of Hush that is somehow believable, despite the fact that he’s constantly mutilating himself just to sharpen his focus. He also introduces a character that recites Aesop’s fables and has him act as counterpoint to Hush.

I’m not sure why this is all listed as an RIP tie-in, as the events of that book are only mentioned in passing and Batman is clearly not in the super-retarded Zur Enh Arrr place he is in Morrison’s book. If anything, this seems to take place before the events of RIP really started up. Bruce and Jez Jet (I still hate that name) are an item, but she’s not around and Bruce isn’t drugged up and crazy.

That’s probably why I like it.

BATMAN #678 RIP
What the fudge, Grant Morrison? Someone get the man an editor, now. After a confusing first issue, and a less confusing, but overly-suspension-of-disbelief-demanding second issue, we’ve got this. Apparently, Batman has been given drugs and is left in the street in regular clothes to, what? Break his will? Chip at his sanity? Destroy the Dark Knight? I dunno.

I had a hard time with the art, too. Robin looks like he’s 20, so I thought he was young Bruce. I guess Tim’s following leads and trying to track Bruce down. He asks Nightwing for help, but that doesn’t seem to work out and something happens with Dick. By the end of it, the Black Hand have “won” and it looks like 3/4s of the Bat-team (including Alfred) are down and out, and some crazy crap happens and I’m just left scratching my head.

What the hell. This thing is totally disjointed and utterly unintelligible if you’ve not read the preceding issues and probably all the weird old Batman issues that he’s referencing, and I honestly think I hate Grant Morrison a little bit right now.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #16
It’s pretty good, but the “Return of Fray!” thing is almost a lie. This is a bridge issue between the previous arc and this arc, and it unfortunately feels like a bridge issue. Things happen, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a lot of stuff that I felt could’ve been replaced with the Indiana Jones red line and dot on a map. It’s worth picking up, if only to see what happens to Dawn, and to find out how Buffy ends up meeting Fray.

AVENGERS INVADERS #3 (OF 12)
This one keeps pace with the previous issues. Namor has a showdown with himself, and Bucky continues his plan to break Cap out of their cells on the SHIELD helicarrier. I’d prefer it if they released these as 6 double-sized issues rather than 12 issues, because it feels like relatively little gets accomplished, but the whole thing is interesting enough to keep in reading.

SECRET INVASION FRONT LINE #1 (OF 5) SI
This book isn’t like Civil War Frontline, in that it’s only one story, and focuses solely on Ben Urich. I didn’t read World War Hulk Frontline, so I don’t know if that was like this, too. It’s a decent enough read, giving more of the man on the street view of the big invasion event, and setting up a few tangentially-related stories that I assume will play out against the back drop of the Skrull Invasion. Definitely not necessary to those only interested in the main SI plot.

ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #10
I’ve been of mixed opinions of the After the Fall series. I feel like they haven’t really gotten back to the feel of the series as well as the Buffy comics have, but I also recognize that that’s kind of the point, too. It’s not the same. They’re in hell, Gunn’s a vampire, Angel’s not, and Wesley’s dead. Oh, and they have a dragon. The story finally picks up after the battle against hell’s lords, and I suddenly realize that I missed issue 9. Nonetheless, I soldier on.

As best as I can tell, Lorne’s now the master of Hell.A., and Angel’s determined to do what he always does: help people that need it, despite no longer being vampire strong, and using magic to cover this fact up. Anyway, the whole thing twists and turns like a Whedon story should, and offers some snappy dialogue, like a Whedon story should, and the end of the book makes me want to keep picking up the series.