What are you picking up this week?

A page.

Bravo, sir.

-The Boys #3
-The Other Side #1
-Jonah Hex #12
-Criminal #1

Cameron Stewart and Terry Gilliam are both doing signings in town this weekend; probably catch both of them.

The Boys #3
Battler Briton #4
Fantastic Four #540
Giant-Sized Wolverine #1
Irredeemable Ant-man #1
Detective Comics #824
Doctor Strange: The Oath #1
A Nightmare On Elm Street #1
X-Men: Phoenix Warsong #2

I haven't read the latest issue just yet, but if you like Batman: The Animated Series, Paul Dini's current work on Detective Comics is much in the same vein.

52 WEEK #22
ALL NEW ATOM #4
DETECTIVE COMICS #824
MYSTERY IN SPACE #2
OMAC #4
OUTSIDERS #41

I forgot the latest Secret Six last week, so I'll grab that too...

middle of the road week for me:

Y: the last man - 50 -
Fantastic Four - 540 -
Criminal - 1 -
Doctor Strange: The Oath - 1 -

This week is thin, but good:

DMZ #12
Powers #20

and, finally

Dork! #11

This should be a sticky.

Anyhow, August 1st.

Good stuff this week. Jason Aaron's Scalped comes out in trade #1; think Casino meets Thunderheart with very good writing and bleak art (in the good way). Vertigo.

The 3rd Elephantmen oversized hardcover; The cover art by Ladronn is itself worth the cost.

Punisher 50: The return of Barracuda.

Midnighter #10, written by Keith Giffen.

there's more, but I'm broke.

METAL MEN #1 (OF 8)
ACTION COMICS #853
COUNTDOWN 39
DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BORN #7 (OF 7)
DETECTIVE COMICS #835
JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #8

and The Buffy issue that came out last week.

I'll probably just pick up World War Hulk 3. And I read that the new Illuminati is about how they dealt with Morrison's Marvel Boy. I could be wrong, but won't that be the first time that mini has been referenced by any other title?

Nextwave fans might be interested to note that Aaron "Machine Man" Stack guest-stars in Ms Marvel this week, in all his snarky glory.

And while it pretty much goes without saying that Spider-Man/Red Sonja is a silly piece of cross-promotional marketing, Mike Oeming absolutely nails Spidey in this issue. Shame he's not one of the new rotating ASM team.

Let's see...this week I picked up Faker #2, Casanova #8, the new DMZ, Powers 25 and Batman 667.

The Batman book is gorgeous. JH Williams can do no wrong, as far as I'm concerned. Plus, the story's a fun take on Ten Little Indians, and continues Morrison's packing of the title with faux-Batmen.

I also picked up Runaways volume 5. My wife and I are catching up on this, and enjoying it very much.

Yeah the issue is pretty fun and looks great, but I'm getting kind of sick of the faux-Batmen stuff. In the previous 'arc' it was very much 'A Christmas Carol' type of thing with the gun-wielding psycho Batman, the unstoppable juggernaut Batman, and the futuristic son of Batman so there was something to it. While I'm sure this will all come together nicely, for now it's tedious seeing all this shlocky Batmen.

Well, I haven't really bought an issue since that terrible text piece issue, so I guess I missed those.

Besides, how can you hate the Knight and Squire?

I thought the latest Batman was a lot of fun too. Especially Williams' art. Gorgeous and fun as he gives each faux Batman a different influence. An obvious Chaykin homage for The Gaucho, for example. McGuiness for the Knight and Squire. Azbats for Wingman. And I thought I spotted Toth, Gil Kane, and Breyfogle homages in the bunch.

I've others to read this weekend. Two Fisted Tales Vol. 2 and Alan Moore's WildC.A.T.s for collected editions, new DMZ, and Hulk. And, sigh, Countdown.

Which reminds me, has anyone figured out what's up with Morrison's recent obsession with multiples? Multiple Grundy's, multiple Man-Bats, multiple Batmen, multiple Supermen, and multiple Bizarro's, etc.

Oh they're fun characters, but obviously they're supposed to be crummy Batman wannabes and, aside from the Australian one and the Knight, they're all pretty lame so far.

About all these guys, have they ever appeared anywhere else?

Isn't it just him paying homage to the numerous incarnations of all those characters? At least the main characters, that seems to be the case.

Also, where did the multiple Grundys pop up?

I haven't picked up my pulls for this week, but last week I got a bunch, some of which have already been named. The most interesting one was She-Hulk #20 (I think), in which Dan Slott crams in all the plots he's not going to be able to get around to now that he's leaving to write Spiderman. Which is a shame, because he'd set up an extended Howard the Duck riff that he had to rush through, and he touches on a story in which She-Hulk needed to defend the Marvel Universe from a cosmic editor who wanted to replace it with the Ultimate Universe. Good stuff, I'm going to miss Slott writing this title.

The Knight was a member of the Ultramarine Corps in Morrison's run on JLA Classified.* Squire appeared there, as well.

Knowing Morrison, I'd bet these are all forgotten Golden/early Silver Age characters in the Batman mold. EDIT: Yeah, The Batmen of All Nations.

*I guess the Ultramarines got out of Qwewq, huh?

The Klarion the Witch Boy mini.

Thanks for the info.

The Highwaymen #3; waiting on Wasteland #11.

Jesus it's been forever since an issue of Y: The Last Man came out. Or at least, it seems that way.

Only 3 issues left, but it is DRAGGING now.

Goddamn! If anybody out there is still reading Ennis's THE PUNISHER, than...damn! THAT'S how you end a 50th issue...The return of Barracuda would've been enough to please me, but that last page literally changes everything for Frank. I am very much looking forward to this arc.

The final issue isn't hitting until January, so we'll be waiting awhile.

I'm picking up Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus vol. 2 this week. My bank account will disapprove, but dammit I have to own every one of these motherfuckers.

(Also, the first issue of the new Lobster Johnson miniseries. Naturally).

I've been debating whether to double-dip the Fourth World stuff (since my originals are packed up and not easily accessible), but I've heard people express some dissatisfaction with the quality of these reprints. What's your feeling?

I love 'em, personally. They're essentially put together exactly like DC's Archive editions. The paper quality is akin to how it was with the originals, the color hasn't been fucked with, etc.

I don't have the originals, so I've always wanted good color reprints of the Fourth World series (the greytone books DC put out several years ago were cheap, but...cheap. The greytones were problematic).

They look pretty spectacular to me. I'm glad I held off on buying more of the greyscale collections (oddly, the only one available in colour was Jimmy Olsen) so it's not a full-on double dip for me.

Also...I mentioned this before, but I hear rumours the final volume will present The Hunger Dogs in un-fucked-with form for the first time ever. Sweeeeeet.

THAT is awesome.

As far as the greyscale books, I admit they got better as they went along, but you can tell they had no idea exactly what they were doing on the first New Gods collection...the greys are far too dark and muddy.

I got Vols 2 and 3 of the Kirby Fourth World Omnibus on order with TalesofWonder. A must have.
Last night I picked up the DC Showcase "Adam Strange" volume. Good,Silver Age Cheesy Sci Fi Goodness.

Did he get a sex change?

He's tied to a chair, and Barracuda is dangling his infant daughter in front of him.

Picked up the new Midnighter - in his newly returned civilian guise, Midnighter returns to his middle-American hometown, now a centre for fascist, paranoid activities; promising story arc.

Also the new Scalped #9 - Aaron does not disappoint. The story focuses on the bright-lensed observer we've seen on the periphery of the events thus far; he is revealed as a failed activist leader, a Rhodes Scholar who came back to the Rez.

Speaking as someone who was never into superhero continuity, Dan Slott's swan song on She-Hulk #21, which "fixes all the continuity problems of the Marvel Universe", was a hoot. Though the explanation he comes up with made me think of Lucy Lawless on The Simpsons: "Whenever you see something like that, a wizard did it."

Anybody catch the latest Y: The Last Man? I never thought I could get sad from a comic book...I mean, hell, I almost KNEW it was coming, but still...it just made me kind of depressed afterwards.

Sunday I bought:

Mouse Guard, the hardback vol 1.

BPRD Garden of Souls - all of them.

BPRD Killing Ground #1

Lobster Johnson #1

Hellboy Makoma #1

Hellboy Darkness Calls #2-5

Hellboy Weird Tales TPB's 1 and 2

Invincible #'s 42,44,45.

Picked up Stormwatch PHD #11 - the next-to-last Stormwatch PHD in history.

In the "buyer beware" department, I thought I'd mention (since it's not at all clear from the packaging), that DC's "Wedding Special" has fuck-all to do with the wedding of Black Canary and Green Arrow (beyond some bachelor party goofing around). Instead, it's roughly the first two issues of Dwayne McDuffie's new run on Justice League of America, shoehorned into 36 pages, with a cliffhanger ending, to be continued in the next issue of JLA. Cute book, but the marketing's cheesy enough that I can't be bothered picking up JLA to read more.

And that's a shame. Honestly, if they're trying to sucker me into becoming a JLA reader, do they really think that I'm wondering if Wonder Woman will be rescued or not? Come on. If this book will get me onboard JLA, it would be due to it being a GOOD book. They should have had them tell a complete story, then when I'm feeling positive about the new creative team, hit me with a big fullpage ad letting me know that there's more of the same on sale in JLA every month.

But treating me like a sucker just turns me off. Not like they care, but they lost a potential new JLA reader by doing it... and it was completely unnecessary.