Oh come on! It’s a Federal Holiday! You can’t really expect me to review stuff tonight, can you?

Just for the sake of tradition, though…

 

 

And that’s what I’m thankful for!

Truth be told, between catching Santa at the end of the Macy’s parade and the yearly overdose of tryptophan–and the pies! The wonderful, numerous amount of pies!–I haven’t even finished reading through my stuff for this week, with the exception of another fantastic Pfeifer / Lopez Catwoman, a great issue that sees Matt Wagner’s return to Grendel, and what is seriously the best Archie story I’ve read in years in Tales from Riverdale Digest #25:

 

 

Because seriously: If you thought that Dilton making a symbiote from Reggie’s cells and being taken over by his inherent obnoxiousness sounded like an awesome concept, just wait ’til you see the scene where it’s finally defeated by the sonic attack of Veronica yelling at Archie.

Plus–and this is crucial here–there are footnotes explaining where he got Reggie’s cells in the first place, which can mean only one thing: Archie Continuity. Truly, this is a brave new world.

 

Beyond that, though, there are a couple of things I’ve gotten through that are well worth mentioning, and chief among them is this:

 

 

I think it’s safe to say that every fan of things that are awesome should be reading The Goon, but fans of the book might’ve noticed that it’s been a while since we’ve gotten an issue. This, I imagine, can be chalked up at least a little bit to the fact that Eric Powell was busy with art chores on the Bizarro World story from Action Comics, but if you told me that he’d spent every minute since the last issue working on Chinatown, I’d believe it, because the end result is something truly fantastic.

There’s a three-word inscription from Powell on page one that just reads “This Ain’t Funny.” and unlike the rest of the series–which is largely marked by Powell’s great slapstick comedy–it lives up to it. With the exception of one beautifully executed punchline, there aren’t a whole lot of laughs to be found in this one. What you get instead is a gut-wrenchingly brutal story of the events that have made the Goon the cold, hard tough-guy that he is today, and believe me: It’s a heartbreaker.

There’s one sequence in here where Powell gives the book over to five pages of stark, full-page shots of the Goon’s face as he just breaks down, and if you’ve forgotten how good an artist Powell really is–which might be likely, given that he keeps the quality of his work so high that you just get used to his beautiful pages after a while–the way these pages hit you like a punch to the stomach make a great reminder.

It’s beautiful in every way, and if you like the Goon–and if you don’t already know you like The Goon, then trust me: You like The Goon–you’re gonna want to get it.

 

That said, it’s not the best thing that came out this week. And neither, believe it or not, is the new Fourth World Omnibus (Volume 3) that hit shelves on Wednesday, just in time for your Black Friday shopping enjoyment.

No, the greatest thing to come out this week was, in fact…

 

 

XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS: VOLUME ONE: CONTEST OF PANTHEONS!

 

I think I speak for the world here when I say this, but finally, the prelude to the mind-blowing Dark Xena–or simply “The Word,” as we call it around here–has been collected in trade for your reading pleasure.

And really: Every page I think it can’t get any better, but man, when I got to the part where Xena and Bruce Campbell fight a giant blue Egyptian that’s obviously based on the WWE’s Triple-H, I realized that my definition of “quality” had been officially eradicated and replaced with something better. Something… pure.

John Layman, you are a Hero of the People.

 

And that’s all I got for you tonight. As always, feel free to discuss whatever you’d like from this week’s haul in the comments section, but there’s a pumpkin pie a-callin’ my name from the kitchen and after that, I plan on doing some serious sleeping in to celebrate the fact that I’m not working on Black Friday.

Tomorrow, however… it begins again.