Snatching a handful of comics from the top of my most-recently read stack, in no particular order…
Teen Titans #32: Why do I torture myself? I picked up the Captain Carrot/Kid Eternity arc and was sorely disappointed, and this alternate angles/extended scenes edition of Infinite Crisis #4 was like a self-inflicted kick in the nuts. Here’s hoping One Year Later returns this series back to the strong character-driven stories of its first 18 issues, as Johns has claimed he’ll be doing.
DMZ #3: What do you do with a series that you really want to like, but find yourself continually disappointed with after each issue? You drop it. Period. Part of the problem, as with Local, is that I simply don’t like the lead character, Matty Roth. If I were a character in DMZ, I’d shoot him.
New Thunderbolts #18: A consistently entertaining read, Fabian Nicieza has such a handle on his characters that it allows me to ignore the fact that I’m unfaimilar with a lot of the series’ backstory. Lines like Nighthawk’s, “Y’know, even the weirdest day I spent with the Defenders was sane compared to you people…” make my inner fanboy smile. In a just world, New Thunderbolts would be outselling New Avengers.
G.I. Joe: America’s Elite! #8: Hate on 80s licenses all you want, but Joe Casey’s spin on the toys I used to shoplift from Caldor as a pre-teen is like cotton candy on the tongue. And I really like Stefano Caselli’s exaggerated faces.
X-Factor #3: You really have to wonder if Bendis had any clue what would become of his House of M deus ex machina, Layla Miller, if in fact he had any plans for her at all. Call me a hater, but I have trouble believing David isn’t simply making lemonade out of lemons here, as opposed to following some grand plan that was hashed out at one of those infamous retreats of theirs that begat Disassembled and Civil War. In one sequence at the end of this issue, David makes Layla the second most interesting character in this series, behind only Madrox. Good stuff!
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