Action Comics #866

It was a slow week, so I picked this up even though it's not on my usual pull list. I was burned by the first title with the "Sightings" logo, the recent Justice League issue featuring the new Libra, which turned out to be a tedious gabfest with an unnecessary Libra cameo. So I was a little cautious buying this one, but I'm always looking for a good jumping on point for titles with good writers, and Geoff Johns certainly qualifies. A lot of this issue has the kind of newspaper shenanigans that make Amazing Spider-man a fun to read but unnecessary pleasure lately, and sets the stage for this summer's Braniac story crossing over both Action and Superman when that title's new writer James Robinson comes aboard. Good enough to check in on again next month.

Secret Invasion #3

I think event-fatigue is finally getting to me. After Civil War and the godawful Countdown, I've finally had enough. Even in the morass of the credulity-punishing end of Infinite Crisis I never considered dropping a Big Event Book. But I may have reached my limit.

Almost everything that happens here happens too fast to notice it, it's like the comics equivalent of the shaky-cam, MTV style cuts that are dominating action films right now. The one Actual Thing That Happens is curiously similar to what's being advertised as the big revelation in Battlestar Galactica this week, oddly enough. But Bendis couldn't have known that, could he? Are he and Mark Verheiden buddies or something?

This project really needs to get control of its scope if it's going to have any chance of remaining on my pull list.

Final Crisis #1

Ok, well it didn't blow my mind like Seven Soldiers #1, but how often does that happen? People say "there's a lot going on here" about particular comics all the time that it's lost all meaning, but there is A LOT going on here.

I'm still unclear about the status of the New Gods. The Newsarama review implies that aspect takes them out of the story, but I think Morrison and co. manage to effectively retcon the recent abortion of a miniseries, "Death of the New Gods," and I couldn't be happier about it.

Not quite the rollercoaster of psychedelic superheroism I was expecting, but still, not bad at all.

Batman #673

Who the hell is Bat-mite? What's going on? He's in a coma now? This series seems to have lost its way. Let's hope we can pick up the trail next month.

New Avengers Annual #2

Ok, this series is finally going somewhere. After a couple of issues of spinning its wheels with a curtailed Hood story and a lot of monosyllabic fight scenes mixed with ridiculous parenthetical jokes, it seems like New Avengers is at last moving into Secret Invasion territory. Let's have at it.