Okay, folks, embarrassing confession time: When I was twelve and Super Street Fighter II came out on the SNES, I totally had a crush on Chun-Li, to what I would consider to be a completely inappropriate extreme.

Sort of explains a lot, doesn’t it?

But enough reminisces of chldhood! It’s Thursday,a nd that means it’s time for another round of the Internet’s Most Freudian Comics Reviews! Here’s what I picked up this week…

…and here’s what I thought about ’em!

Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil #1: Y’know, I don’t know why they didn’t just call this thing what it is: Marvel Adventures Super-Villain Team-Up.

Actually, I do know why: Because they wanted it to sell, and the Marvel Adventures titles–despite often being the best versions of the characters on the stands–don’t really fly off the shelves, presumably because they’re kid-friendly and comics, as we all know, are serious business. But I’ll get into that some other time.

What matters tonight is that Doc D and the Furious Fiends is a Marvel Adventures title in all but name, and that’s a good thing. Just like he does in those books, Paul Tobin turns in a fun, continuity-free story of a Doctor Doom who shows up and just starts kicking the crap out of a gang of super-villains, rather than sitting in a basement waiting to be told what to do, and then polishes it off with the promise of the Circus of Crime next issue. And also, Iron Man fights a bear with a mop. Which is to say that Iron Man, with a mop, fights a bear.

Either way, it’s pretty rad, and I’m sure it’ll tide us over until Marvel Adventures Mopfightin’ drops in June.

El Gorgo! #2: Okay, this one’s cheating a little since it didn’t actually come out this week–it actually dropped January 4–but since I haven’t had a chance to mention it yet here on the ISB, I’m doing it now: El Gorgo! is without question one of the best comics you can read.

Long-time ISB readers and fans of things that are awesome might recall that I loved the first issue of Mike McGee and Tamas Jakab’s tale of a gorilla rock star luchadore super-scientist–for what I think are pretty obvious reasons–but I’ll confess that I was actually a little surprised that I liked the second issue as much as I did. Not because I have doubts about the creative team’s talent, but because the kind of manic energy that went into their creation is hard to keep up for twenty-four pages of one issue, let alone two. And yet, here we are with “Terror On Titan!!!” (that’s right: three exclamation points), a time-bending, dinosaur-fighting, face-rocking epic that lives up to the first issue’s potential and more.

McGee’s script is just flat-out fun, with a self-aware deadpan rhythm that only heightens the weirdness of his plot, full of lines like this:

EL GORGO: Perhaps we have not met!! You are bat-winged, lizard-faced, woman-sacrificing, reflexively sadistic would-be-world-conquering evil–whereas I… am EL GORGO!

And then he gives the bad guy a Double Axehandle. But as crazy as the scripts can get, Jakab’s art has the perfect, Kirby-inspired style to pull it off, with pages that are always solid and occasionally beautiful.

Of course, one of the best features about the book is that it’s completely free to read online in three formats, with a hard copy available at $3.95 plus shipping. Not just because it’s always nice to get something good for free, but because McGee and Jakab are the prime example of what the Internet can allow you to do with comics. They’re literally two guys doing it for themselves, and they’re putting out a project that’s better than a lot of what you’ll find from any of the major companies, and I don’t mind telling you that as someone who’s trying to do the same thing with my stuff, they’re an inspiration.

With El Gorgo!, Jakab and McGee are using the Internet as their proving ground, and when they hit it big–and they will–the people in charge are gonna kick themselves for taking so long to realize it. Give ’em a read.

Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #2: The long-delayed Superman Beyond #2 finally hit this week, and while it would’ve made a hell of a lot more sense for it to come out before Final Crisis #6, I still thought it was a hell of a good read.

The nature of fiction is something that Morrison’s been playing with for his entire career. It’s a theme that runs through virtually all of his major works, to the point where some–Animal Man and The Invisibles spring to mind–are entirely built around exploring new ways to incorporate the fourth wall into the story itself, and that’s exactly what he’s doing here.

The basic beats of the plot–Superman fights, saves world, loves Lois–are all things that we’ve seen before, but the way that Morrison treats Superman as exactly what he is, a fictional character designed to win against evil, is something that you don’t get a whole lot of, and it’s I find it very appealing. Again, it’s stuff that Morrison’s done before. The entire point of JLA: Earth 2 is that The Justice League Always Wins, and it’s no coincidence that Batman RIP–which opens by literally telling us that Batman and Robin Will Never Die–was almost immediately followed by the release of a book where Batman dies.

Batman’ll be back. We all know it. Morrison knows it. DC knows it, which is why they put out a collection this week of all the other times Batman died and came back no worse for wear. And the same applies for everyone: We had Wally West as the Flash for twenty years, and comics just couldn’t let go of Barry Allen. We had Kyle Rayner for ten before Hal Jordan came back in a story that explained he’d been gone because–I shit you not–a giant yellow space bug lived in his head and outwitted God. It’s fiction. Anyone can come back for any reason, and to believe otherwise is the mark of an immature reader.

And yes, I realize the irony that the lecture about immature readers is coming from a guy primarily known for liking comics where guys in costumes punch sharks in the face, but hey: I know what I like.

Anyway, Superman Beyond doesn’t do that, and as a result it’s the exact opposite of Dan Didio standing in a room asking a bunch of fanfic writers how excited they’d be if Dick Grayson was the New Batman For Reals This Time You Guys. I don’t want to get too fannish here (too late!), but in putting that idea at the forefront of his comic and casting Superman as the guardian capital-F Fiction created to protect itself, Morrison strips away that last bit of artifice and treats us like we’re grown-ups who know how lowercase-f fiction works. And I thought it was great.

3-D still needs some work, though.

Mighty Avengers #21: With this issue, writer Dan Slott takes over Mighty Avengers, and while I’m usually a pretty big fan of Slott’s work, this thing did absolutely nothing for me.

When you get right down to it, I think the problem is that I just really don’t care about most of the characters that make up his team. I mean, sure, I like the Hulk and Hercules, but the rest of the team… USAgent? Don’t care. Stature and the Vision? My least favorite characters from Young Avengers. Jocasta? Only when she’s being romanced by a whiskey-drinking, zombie-chopping Machine Man. Scarlet Witch? Didn’t care even before she was reduced to a plot device in a one-piece. And Hank Pym? Could not possibly care less, and to be honest, the whole thing where he’s the new Wasp just strikes me as being monumentally goofy, and not in the good way.

Even the villain, Quicksilver turned evil by the Darkhold and used as the host body for Chthon, is the kind of throwback to c-list Marvel titles and their attendant villains that Slott excels at and that I usually like, but this time… nothin’.

All of which begs the question of why I bothered in the first place, and aside from the fact that I’m a guy who actually wants to read a book about a team of super-heroes, it’s like I said: I’m a fan of Slott’s work. Over the past five years, that guy has been turning in underappreciated classic after underappreciated classic, and the Avengers seemed to be the next logical step. And hey, raining blood seemed like a pretty good idea when Slayer and Matt Fraction did it, so why not?

But in practice, it just sort of sits there, asking me to care about Hank Pym whining through an issue in a red and yellow tail coat, and there are some things I cannot do.

Punisher (Frank Castle) #66: Okay, first things first: This issue marks what is quite possibly the most complicated renumbering ever. I went through it before, but for those of you who missed it: Punisher War Journal (v.2) was relaunched with a new #1 as The Punisher (v.8), while The Punisher (v.7) was changed without being relaunched or renumbered to The Punisher: Frank Castle (v.1), which was necessary because… You know, I really have no idea. I’ll get back to you on that one. Basically, the net result was that now, the MAX series has one of the worst-designed logos in comics. Seriously, it’s like they just put “FRANK CASTLE THE” above the regular logo in boldface Times New Roman, put a stroke around it, and then knocked off to grab some lunch. I mean, I’m not as design-oriented as a lot of people, but really.

Once you get past the needless complexities and the logo, though, this issue’s actually really good. So good, in fact, that I thought Gregg Hurwitz had stepped his game up astronomically before I flipped back to the cover to find that it was actually Duane Swierczynski, which made a whole lot more sense. Swierczynski is, after all, the guy who took over scripting Immortal Iron Fist after Matt Fraction and, despite my initial skepticism, has been doing a pretty bang-up job with it. And the same goes here, because while this is essentially Crank with the Punisher standing in for Jason Statham, it turns out that that’s exactly what I’d like to read. Who knew?

Uncanny X-Men Annual #2: Chad told me yesterday that he’d seen someone refer to this as the best comic that Matt Fraction had ever written, and while it is pretty good, I’m not sure that anything and wrench that title away from Mantooth, the story of a Kung Fu Gorilla and his battle with the World’s Greatest Grandpa Robot. Still, it does hold the distinction of being the Matt Fraction comic with the most focus on Emma Frost in her underwear (more than usual, I mean), so I suppose that oughtta count for something!

And that’s the week. As always, if you have any questions or thoughts about something I read this week, or if you just want to chime in with an opinion on Jeff Parker’s highly enjoyable Mysterius the Unfathomable or discuss how this week’s issue of Tiny Titans justifies the existence of the entire series, feel free to leave it in the comment section below.

Hey Black Adam! What’s it called when somebody hits you with their foot?

Eh, close enough.

After all, who has time for correct spelling when it’s time for another round of the Internet’s Most Grammatically Forgiving Comics Reviews! Here’s what I picked up this week when I wasn’t on the phone telling people we were out of Spider-Man…

…and here’s what I thought of ’em!

Amazing Spider-Man #583: For those of you haven’t bothered to read the sidebar, I work at a comic book store, and while I don’t usually get into the details of my day job here on the ISB (mostly because Mike Sterling already has that market cornered), I gotta say: This thing here was a clusterfuck.

Here’s what happened: Back when it was solicited, there was no mention of the Barack Obama content, and while the fact that there was an Obama cover was mentioned on the Final Order Cutoff, it came during the hectic Christmas/New Year’s period where there were three weeks worth of FOC instead of one. There’s certainly a chance that I might’ve missed something, but to be honest, I found out that there was actually going to be Obama content in the issue at the same time as everyone else, which was about six picoseconds before the phone started ringing from people who wanted to get their hands on a L@@K VALUABLE COLLECTIBLE RARE ITEM!!!

Needless to say, we didn’t have enough to go around, and although there’s a second printing, signs are that we’re going to be running pretty low on those too. There’s a third printing on the way, but it has to be ordered before the second printing hits shelves. From the standpoint of a retailer, the whole thing is nuts, and looks like a diabolical plot to jack up sales on the (possibly overordered) second and third printings while cheesing off the general public by teasing them with the underorderd first print that was gone in seconds.

As a reader, though, I’ve got to say that it worked out a lot better than I thought it would. I’d assumed that the back-up was a rush job that was knocked out to meet an Inauguration Day deadline so they could most effectively capitalize on the zeitgeist, and while it certainly might be, it’s at least an entertaining one. Admittedly, it’s entertaining in a Spidey Super Stories sort of way, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that “Barasket Oballma” didn’t get a chuckle out of me. The art too was better than I thought: I like Todd Nauck a hell of a lot (as both an artist and a writer), but he’s not really the guy you go to when you want photo-realism, and so it can come off as a little jarring when you put Nauck’s “fist bump” panel next to the Phil Jiminez cover. Taken as a whole, though, it’s not bad at all.

As to the main story, well, it’s by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson with a John Romita Sr. cover, and there’s really nothing more to say about it.

So yeah: The book itself was a good idea that was done pretty well, but as far as getting into people’s hands? What a headache.

Captain Britain and MI-13 #9: I’ve mentioned before that Paul Cornell’s Wisdom, which led into the current series, had something just a little bit off about it. It’s one of those books thatsounds like it’d be awesome–Kitty Pryde’s ex-boyfriend fights an army of interdimensional Jack-the-Rippers! The secret origin of Killraven! Shang Chi guest-stars!–but in practice, it didn’t quite live up to its potential.

With Captain Britain, however, Cornell seems to have really hit his stride, and along with Leonard Kirk (of the original Agents of Atlas mini-series), he’s turning in something that’s quickly and quietly become one of Marvel’s best titles. It’s still got the high concept elements that I loved from the mini-seres–Mindless Ones rampaging through Birmingham!–but done in a way that’s even better than it sounds.

But again, I’ve said all that before. I’m just bringing it up now because this is a comic book that ends with DRACULA IN HIS CASTLE ON THE MOON–last seen in the pages of Dr. McNinja: Punch Dracula–saying “prepare phase one of the assault. And get me Doctor Doom,” and that is one hundred percent rad. If you’re not already reading it, you need to be.

Final Crisis #6: Quick warning: This is a review, and as such, it’ll have some spoilers if you haven’t read the comic yet, so keep that in mind. Anyway:

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone at this point, but man, I thought this issue was great.

I can understand that it’s not for everyone, because so many huge swaths of the book–like the inclusion of the Miracle Machine, a Macguffin from the Silver Age Legion, or the way Morrison’s set up the Question as the inspiration for OMAC’s faceless Global Peace Agency, or the fight to the finish between Tawky Tawny and Kalibak that only Andrew and I have been demanding–are specifically geared to what I want to read. I still maintain that it’s not as complicated as a lot of people are making it out to be, but I’ve gotta say: You’re probably going to get a lot more enjoyment out of it if you’re someone who loves the Legion of Super-Heroes, Jack Kirby’s ’70s DC work and DC third-stringers.

And as the last four years of the ISB will show, that is exactly what I am.

Of course, the big deal with this issue is what goes down with Batman, and I gotta say: Batman breaking his one rule and sacrificing his life in order to save the universe by out-drawing the Omega Effect and shooting Darkseid with a time bullet? That shit is off the hook, son! Of course, the standard boilerplate about death in comics being about as lasting as a fruit fly applies–especially with the fact that the Omega Effect can bring people back to life as well as killing them–but still, a pretty cool scene.

Almost as cool as, you know, the first time Batman and Darkseid fought to the death in a comic written by Grant Morrison.

GI Joe #1: Everyone’s favorite daring, highly-trained Special Missions Force relaunches this week under writer Chuck Dixon–or as the Action Age’s Chad Bowers put it, “GI Joe written by comics’ greatest Republican!”–and I gotta say, I’m a little disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, I generally find Dixon to be a perfectly serviceable writer (if not a spectacular one), and I imagine that GI Joe plays to the guy’s strengths, and I’ve got to admit: While bringing a mysterious high-tech object found in the middle of a bunch of dead bodies to your top-secret headquarters and letting your best soldiers poke at it with sticks might not be standard operating procedure for the military, it’s definitely in keeping with the Joes. And to be fair, I do like that he’s re-establishing a love triangle between Snake Eyes, Duke and Scarlett, but there’s a pretty glaring omission in this thing:

No Cobra Commander.

No Baroness.

And most importantly, no Destro.

Step it up, IDW: I need some wrist rockets in my comics.

Invincible #58: Normally, the comic that I pick as the best of the week has something out of the ordinary going on with it to push it over the top, but this one doesn’t. It’s just a really good comic book, and the fact that that’s not out of the ordinary ought to give you an idea of just how good Invincible is.

Which isn’t to say that it’s perfect. I’ve had my problems with the book in the past–including a distaste for the gory fight scenes that was apparently notable enough to get me namechecked in the letter column–but by and large, they come from the frustration of seeing a misstep from a book that gets it so right so often. And it does get it right, and this issue’s a perfect example of how.

In this month’s letter column, Kirkman talks about how this issue was structured on a sixteen-panel grid, and while that’s not something that I really noticed until it was pointed out–seeing as layout’s often best when it doesn’t call attention to itself–it’s a format that lends itself very well to the book’s strengths. After all, this is a book that has one of the best supporting casts in comics today, and with that much space to fill, he’s able to devote time to nine different subplots without shortchanging anyone, while still moving things along with a great teaser at the end. Structurally speaking, it’s like Kirkman figured out the best aspects of what I find so appealing about Bronze Age Marvel books, stripped out everything else, and then used it as the foundation to build one of the most enjoyable super-hero comics ever made, and then gave it to Ryan Ottley, whose art is pretty much perfect.

So yeah, nothing all that out of the ordinary, as long as you don’t consider being one of the best comics on the stands something to write home about.

Punisher War Zone #5: Okay, bear with me here, because what I’m about to say might sound crazy. You know how this story’s based around Ma Gnucci supposedly returning from Hell and regaining control of the Mafia so that she can get her revenge on the Punisher? Right, well, wouldn’t it be totally awesome if instead of the whole thing being a plot by the new Elite to mess with the Punisher’s head, that actually was what was going on, and you had a story where there were demon mobsters rampaging through New York, and the only way to stop them was for the Punisher to regain those crazy angel powers he had for like five minutes back in 1998?

Okay, well, maybe not awesome, but come on: Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon come back for their last Punisher story, and it’s about Angel Punisher? That would be hilarious.

And that’s the week! As always, if you have any questions on something I read this week, or if you just want to talk about the Actual For Real This Time Final Issue of Manhunter and its strange-but-good everything-works-out-okay ending, feel free to leave a comment below.

Seriously, though: Garth Ennis Angel Punisher. It’d be great.

Welcome to the ISB, 2009!

Hope you survive the experience!

That’s right, folks, tonight brings us the New Year’s first installment of the Internet’s Most Auld Acquainted Comics Reviews, and my resolution this year was to write shorter intro posts.

Thus, here’s what I got this week…

…and here’s what I thought about it!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #21: Before I get started with a review of this issue, I think a few words about the last arc are in order. Over on Twitter, someone–and forgive me, but I don’t recall who–said that it was like a six-issue brick wall that the series ran headlong into, and that’s the best summary of it that I’ve seen. For those of you who weren’t reading it, the story was a crossover between Buffy and Fray, the far-future slayer that Joss Whedon created for comics while the show was still running, and man. It was rough stuff.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a big fan of Fray to begin with, but to be fair, I read it back before I’d watched the show. I got it for a friend of mine for Christmas one year, and because I’m a terrible but well-read friend, I figured I might as well knock it out before I wrapped it, and I wondered ever since if I would’ve liked it better once the show had a chance to grow on me, which it did–not unlike a fungus–once John Ritter showed up in Season 2. “Time of Your Life,” however, pretty much proved I was on the right track, and also showed that Whedon could teach even Jim Shooter a thing or two about writing mind-numbingly annoying future slang. Seriously, I read every issue and I’m not even sure what happened in that damn thing. Buffy went to the future to get her axe back and then it’s all a blur. Fray’s there, and Willow’s evil and in charge of the Demon Mafia or something, and then they fight and I think Evil Future Willow died? But then Buffy went back in time and maybe none of it never happened because a time paradox is a lazy writer’s best friend? All I know is that there’s no real flow to it, and it comes off as not so much a story as just some stuff that happened one time, but maybe didn’t, and so I don’t really give a fuck.

I say all this so that you know that this month’s issue is facing a pretty steep climb. You’d think that a bad story would make for an easy act to follow in the same way that a really good story can make the stuff that comes after it pale in comparison, and while that can be the case, it’s not here. Buffy Season 8 is meant to be just that, a single story made up of multiple arcs, and while it was running along at a decent clip up through the highly entertaining Wolves at the Gate, a story as bad as “Time Of Your Life” and last month’s Jeph Loeb issue (which was actually pretty decent, until a caption on the last page suddenly made it one of the worst pieces of fiction ever committed to paper) can completely derail things and make it a lot harder to build the momentum back up.

Thus, “Harmonic Divergence,” which was hobbled at the gate like a three-legged racer whose partner was catatonic, morbidly obese, and currently standing in a bear trap. There’s a lot stacked against it, and while a spectacular issue could’ve had a shot at blowing away the previous bits, the fact of the matter is that this one is just not very good. And I don’t mean that in the way I usually do, as a codeword for “horrible,” but just that: It’s just kinda there, with a plot that’s tepid at best and probably sounded a lot better as a hook than the focus of something you actually had to write down.

Invincible Iron Man #9: All you really need to know here is in this issue, Tony Stark quotes Caddyshack, which makes it the new Best Iron Man Comic Ever.

Beyond that, though, it’s still a pretty solid issue. One of the things I’ve heard more than anything else about Matt Fraction’s work on Invincible Iron Man is that it’s made Tony Stark likeable again after he was cast as the villain of Civil War, and while that’s more or less true, it doesn’t stop with Iron Man. In dealing with the fallout of Secret Invasion, Fraction’s taken the opportunity to flesh out Maria Hill, too, a character that I’ve never really thought much about, because she’s been so damn annoying every time she showed up. But compare the interaction in this issue to, say, the end of Civil War, when Tony Stark orders her to go get some coffee for no other reason than to be a total dick. In that, they’re caricatures; in Invincible Iron Man, they’re actual characters, and it makes for a pretty darn entertaining comic book.

Now if only it ended with Pepper Potts turning to the camera and saying “Hey Everybody! We’re all gonna get laid!”

Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files: Storm Front #2: I didn’t review the first issue of Storm Front when it came out, but the overall impression that I got from it was that it moved fast. Adapting a novel to comics can be a pretty tricky proposition, and as we’ve all seen from the Anita Blake comics, it’s easy to go wrong when you’re deciding what to leave in and what to cut out. For the first issue, the solution Mark Powers–formerly of GI Joe fame–apparently hit upon was to just leave as much in as he could, and the result was something that I described to my friends as an audiobook read by the guy from the Micro Machines commercials.

Even stranger, the chapter break came when Harry was getting ready to call up Toot-Toot the Fairy, which isn’t exactly the height of suspense. Admittedly, the target audience for the comic probably isn’t going to be surprised anyway since they’ve read the books and there’s only so much you can do in the space, but four pages later, when Morgan shows up and threatens to decapitate the hero? That’s a cliffhanger, and if I’d been interested enough in Welcome to the Jungle to keep following the comics but not read the novels, I would’ve been far more intrigued by that than Harry setting out some bread for a fairy.

That said, the second issue does proceed at a much more relaxed pace, and it’s a better read for it. Morgan might dress a little nicer than I figured him for, but the scene where he shows up is well done, with menacing conversation and a couple of almost slapstick punches. The scene with Bianca, too–while a little clipped–does the job pretty well, although the handkerchief bit–my favorite part of the novel–could’ve been staged a little better. All in all, not too shabby. Sure it’s a little unnecessary, but what adaptation isn’t?

…

Besides Conan.

Marvel Zombies 3 #4: This right here is everything you need to know about Marvel Zombies 3:

I gotta say: I love this book. Everything about it, from the way Fred Van Lente swept aside the humdrum melodrama of MZ 2 and Dead Days and brought back the most appealing aspect of the original to the way that it’s as much a sequel to Nextwave as anything else. Or maybe that’s unfair. After all, the original Marvel Zombies succeeded largely on its use of dark comedy and gross-out humor–a fact that John Layman twigged to when he did the surprisingly enjoyable Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness–and that’s what comes back in full force in MZ3. But on the other hand, Machine Man blows up a zombie Lockjaw by stuffing a grenade into someone’s brain and playing fetch so that he can go make sweet robot love, and… yeah, that’s totally Nextwave.

In any case, it’s phenomenally enjoyable, and while I heard a couple of people complaining about how it ends with a big, anticlimactic teaser for Marvel Zombies Four, I say bring it on. I mean, seriously: “The Midnight Sons must return”? That’s like turning over the safety of the universe to Team America and the Black Marauder. It’s gonna be a hoot. Because if we’ve learned anything from this one, it’s that even though Marvel’s taken a novel idea and done it to (sigh) death, there’s still a lot of fun to be had here.

Secret Six #5: You know, I always wanted more full frontal nudity in my DC Universe books, but not like this…

Not like this.

And that, as far as I’m concerned, is the week. As always, if you’ve got a question about something I read this week–or even something that came out over the holidays, if the burning desire for knowledge strikes you–feel free to ask about it in the comments section below.

In the meantime, I’ll be busy with my other New Year’s Resolutions: To stomp more yards, and step up 2 more streets. Wish me luck!

Action Comics #872: Long-time ISB readers might recall that I’ve had a little difficulty with Geoff Johns over the years–and even now, I’d rather sit down with the original run of Youngblood than read Green Lantern or Justice Society–but I’ve got to admit that what I’ve read of his Superman stuff is pretty darn good.

I’ve mentioned my surprise at how much I enjoyed Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes before, and while I really only picked this one up because I couldn’t resist catching the comeback of Bob Kanigher’s most ridiculous creations–and the fact that they’re Robert Kanigher’s most ridiculous creations oughtta tell you something–I was equally surprised at how much I liked this one. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from it; I’m waiting for the collection on the Brainiac story and I’m only keeping up with the Superman parts of “New Krypton,” but I was able to follow right along. And not only that, but the story hit just the right beats: I’ll admit to being thrilled with lines like “I’m not like every other human, Brainiac. I am Lex Luthor” and the reveal of Reactron’s Kryptonite heart.

That said, it’s not a perfect story. It reads like Johns got distracted with really nice Brainiac/Luthor and Kandor stuff and then had to cram the crossover stuff into the last few pages, which suddenly kick up to a choppy, five-panel layout. I imagine he’s going for the effect of capturing the confusion of battle, but it just doesn’t work. And while there is the almost mandatory lurid scene of decapitation that we’ve all come to expect from Johns, Pete Woods manages to class things up a little bit. Still, it’s the kind of story that plays to Johns’ strengths, and while I just popped in to see the Creature Commandos, it got me interested in the rest of it as well.

So just one question: Where’s R.K.?

Final Crisis #5: I’ll be honest with you, guys: Pretty much everything I said about the last issue still stands, so there’s really no reason to get back into it except for one thing: Even the sight of Motorcycle Frankenstein could not get me as stoked as seeing a Pseudo-People Factory that made OMACs.

If a section is evacuated and/or destroyed against impossible odds in the next issue, I will freak out.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #1: This week, Gillen and McKelvie’s music-as-magic series returns–in glorious color!–and while I wasn’t surprised that I loved it as much as the first series, I was pretty much shocked that I managed to catch most of the music references too.

I mean, sure, The Pipettes were a given–I talked about my love for them in general and “Pull Shapes” in particular, the song around which this issue’s based, back when it was solicited–but man! CSS? Le Tigre? I actually have those albums! Heck, I even made a Long Blondes reference last week on this very blog. And considering that the only reference I was really hip to in the first series was a minor character’s love of the Wu-Tang Clan, I’d say that’s a pretty drastic change.

Point being–and yes, there is a point beyond just assuring you that I am, relatively speaking, one of the cool kids now–this is the first time that I’m experiencing the book as I imagine that it’s meant to be read: With the songs that they’re talking about playing in your head as you go, rather than just getting them in the footnotes afterwards. And it’s great.

It’s easy to say that McKelvie’s the star on this one, because–let’s be honest here–this is a book about a hipster chick dancing in a club, and that’s something he’s pretty damn good at drawing. But beyond that, the clean lines and expressive faces that make his work so enjoyable in the first place are on display in every panel. But when I read through it the second time, Gillen’s story work came through beautifully, from the–pardon the expression–beats of each scene to the obvious-but-still-fun metaphor of dancing as magic that makes people happy to the more subtle stuff like a character that speaks only in lyrics. Admittedly, it lacks the bitter know-it-all protagonist that made the first series so easy to identify with, but it more than makes up for that by being just that darn good.

Plus, there’s a backup story about the theme from Back to the Future, and I think we can all agree that that’s rad.

Punisher: War Zone: All right, folks: I can write about getting the retro-dance-pop references in the indie darling comic all night, but when you get right down to it, I’m still a guy who just really, really loves the Punisher.

Specifically, the Ennis/Dillon Punisher. Sure, I might have a lot of affection for the 80s action movie fun of the Mike Baron stories and I think Circle of Blood is probably a little better than most people give it credit for, but I’ll go to bat for Welcome Back, Frank as one of the best and most fun comics I’ve ever read, period. And while the later Ennis stories of the MAX run are solid (if formulaic) in their relentless darkness, there’s that element of very, very dark humor that’s completely absent.

Here, though, it’s all back, in a sequel to WBF that doesn’t miss a beat, right down to the fact that it’s got a guy named Schitti who’s involved in a monkey-attacks-genitals incident that is, I kid you not, based on actual events. Immature? Of course, but it’s also hilarious, and completely fitting for the follow-up to the story that gave us the Punisher slugging a Polar Bear. It’s a hoot, and if the first issue is any indication of how the rest of the story’s going to go, there’s no reason to doubt that it’s the closure to Ennis’s nine-year run that I’ve been wanting ever since i found out he was off the book.

Secret Six #4: There’s a heck of a lot to like about this comic, mostly springing from Bane’s interaction with other characters, but what really stuck out to me was, and call me crazy here… Well, did anybody else notice that Junior talks a lot like Herbie Popnecker?

X-Men and Spider-Man #2: You know, a book where Black Costume Spider-Man teams up with the mid-80s X-Men to track down Mr. Sinister is one of those things that if you told me a year ago I’d be reading and loving it, I would’ve thought you were hepped up on goofballs, but here we are, and this thing is a hoot. For those of you who missed the first issue, the deal here is that Christos Gage and Mario Alberti are doing a series of team-ups between Spider-Man and the X-Men at different points in the characters’ history, sort of like a more serious version of Dan Slott’s phenomenal Spider-Man/Human Torch from a few years back. And while the first one didn’t do a lot to grab me, this second one hits just the right notes.

The story functions as a sequel of sorts to both Kraven’s Last Hunt and Mutant Massacre, and brother, does it read like it–but in a good way. Christos Gage manages to capture the exact beats of the mid-80s not-totally-crazy-yet Chris Claremont in a way that echoes the style of the time perfectly, and while it’d feel weird anywhere else, getting lines from Dazzler–yes, Dazzler–like “Hardly. Not when my light-sheild can deflect your energy harpoons” adds an authenticity to it that only makes it more fun.

And Alberti’s art amazing. It’s the first I’ve realy noticed of his work–although Wikipedia informs me that he did some covers for Shadowpact, which I’m sure I have around her esomewhere–and it blew me away in this issue. The panel layout, the motion that he gives to the fight scenes, it’s all beautiful and engaging, to the point where I find myself completely hooked in a story about Mr. Sinister that has Dazzler in it. And that alone is a hell of an achievement.

And that’s the week. But before we go, there’s one more thing I’d like to discuss:

This month has brought us a new Zuda competition, and while I’m sure you’re all tired of me shilling after I talked your ears off about Planet X last time, there’s one up there right now that you just have got to see: Rob Osborne’s The Accountants.

Some of you migh remember Osborne as the creator of The Nearly Infamous Zango, which I really enjoyed, and now he’s turned his sights to… Man, I don’t even know how to describe it, except to say that the first time I read it, I was in tears when I got to the last page from laughing so hard. It’s different, it’s funny, it’s easy to read in that weird-ass viewer program they’ve got over there… it’s got it all. It’s in first place right now–as well it should be, if you ask me–and if you head over and give it a read, I’m pretty sure you’ll understand why.

As for everything else, well, as always, any questions about something I read this week can be left in the comments below, and while I can’t promise that I won’t insult you for voicing a dissenting opinion, I’ll at least try to do it in a reasonably festive manner.

After all, it’s Christmastime!