Every week I go to the comic book store (Comics Ink at Overland and Braddock in Culver City, CA, hey Steve and Jason!) and grab a lot of comics. I sort these into two piles -- the "buy" pile (things I intend to spend money on, most often a small pile) and the "read" pile (often huge, including lots of stuff I don't actually like but wanna stay well informed about). In no particular order, here's some thoughts about all that.

NOTE: This daily column (that was the big announcement, my daily work as Comic Reel reporter for CBR) is screwing with me, I totally missed the "porn Avengers" issue, #71. Blah. My bad, dawg. Moving on ...

Fables #18:
A delightful, self-contained story featuring Bigby Wolf in a less gruff manor than expected and a fascinating look at one section of the Fables community. Linda Medley's art was a bit exaggerated -- Bigby's face looked elongated on pages four and five -- but really leapt when it addressed the "historical" aspects of the story. The very brief glimpse at the forces of The Adversary (he's like freakin' Doctor Claw or Maris on Frasier, I'm dying to get a look at this guy) was also enlightening. Willingham almost never disappoints, and this issue is another solid one in his seemingly endless stream of hits.

G.I. Joe #22:
Hail hail, the gang's all here. Skimming over the insanely stupid reasonings behind the core conceits of this issue's story, everybody's favorite snake-themed emperor is back (as you can see from the cover) and he's got twenty pounds of whup-ass in a ten pound bag. The Joe Team, in almost Steven Grant-esque form (check his issues in the Marvel run of G.I. Joe for a look at the "win by accident" stylings) don't catch on until waaaaaaaaaay too late, costing them dearly. As well, the idea of a lone convoy of two tanks and minimal air support as the conveyance for a threat that has the Pentagon's top brass soiling their dress greens ... that's goofy. I'm normally a big fan of Blaylock's take on the team, but there's enough plot holes in this to drive the Roling Thunder through. Ah well, there's some fun action scenes, and Cover Girl's tank got a little less dumb ...

G.I. Joe Frontline #15:
On one hand, you can feel that Devil's Due really went a long way to make a "Black" issue. On the other hand, they got some amazing talents -- Gary Phillips and Jeremy Love -- to do it. This somewhat predictable but still well-told tale of generational escapes from the streets is done with a great deal of authenticity and a fair amount of poignancy, especially given the almost foregone conclusion. The backgrounds leave much to be desired, but the core artwork and story remain solid. Worth the money by a nose.

Transformers Generation One Volume II #6:
Shockwave's dirty secrets as ruler of Cybertron come to light, and he gets (somewhat predictably) ROTJ Palpatined. The war is back on, with an old favorite brought to light on a last page teaser (Dreamwave needs to go ahead and just make this an ongoing), but Optimus and his gang make it happen. When the endings are so predictable, I don't consider them spoilers, and the art is so good that I wish the coloring didn't look like the lighting director from The X-Files was in charge. Somewhat emotional good times reminiscent of the Transformers movie in tone and scope.

Transformers: War Within 2 #1:
The much more intimate days of the early Cybertronic Civil War have a new player, The Fallen, who recruits some nasty Decepticons to his side. Why this guy got written out of the annals will surely come to light (although, again, everything is hella darkly colored), but he looks damned pretty and Grimlock continues his climb towards becoming the most complex character in the canon. Furman is doing it right here.

Capes #1:
Robert Kirkman travels the same path as The Power Company in presenting a "firm" of metahuman heroes, but it's somehow much more entertaining because it's almost purposefully goofy. Mark Englert's Larsen-esque stylings help reinforce that winking Silver Age style, and I was amazed to see this book make the jump from the Read Pile (I'm surprised that anything makes the jump, really). The central conceit is very similar to ABC's 10-8 -- a grizzled African American veteran "on the job" helping teach a rookie the ropes. As I can enjoy that show as fairly harmless, if well done, entertainment, Capes likewise doesn't overshoot its mark, keeping it light. Another fine bit of work from Kirkman's solid Image catalog.

Punisher #33:
When one book makes the jump, I think it's weird. When two do it, I have to reread things to make sure I'm not going soft. I'm not -- this is the real deal, baby. Spider-Man, Wolverine and Daredevil team up to take down the Punisher ... who does something you'd never expect in a million years. The mean humor of the original Ennis run (the modern classic "Welcome Back, Frank") is here, balanced with a high body count and tons of shells littering the ground. I was so happy with this, it demanded to come home with me, so here we are.

Buy Pile Breakdown: Despite less-than-thrillin offerings in the nostalgia comic front, two jumps from the Buy Pile make this a week worth remembering.

Then there's the stuff on the "read pile" that I don't bring home ...

Ultimate X-Men #38:
This issue was surely Bendis-riffic (i.e. possessed of the snappy dialogue he's famous for) but also interesting from an action point of view, delivering some Wolverine (as so many adore seeing) and some solid characterization. Fun stuff, for revisionist history.

Batman: Death & the Maidens #3:
Why am I not enjoying this more? The "new foil" Nyssa seems insanely predictable, and I keep wondering why she's not as transparent to the characters in the title as she is to me. If this is, as they say, the last Ra's Al Ghul story, perhaps that's for the best.

Frankenstein Mobster #0:
After all they hype, I was expecting this to be crap. However, if you're a fan of the kind of genre noir that comes out of Moonstone, this will be the cat's meow, a bit of fun with cartoony art and a fun story. Who knew? It didn't entertain me as much as Capes did, but I could see lots of fans glomming on to this.

Crossovers #8:
"Archetyke." Bwahahahahaha! Robert Rodi continues to bury the horrible stinking corpse of Codename: Knockout with another funny, well done issue. Most of the cats are out of the bag, but it keeps getting more and more fun (if more and more inbred, as in jokes rule the day) as time goes on. I love reading this ... but it's not quite good enough for my money. It's close, though.

Hulk #62:
"Look, Hannibal, Disco Hulk!" my comics pusher Steve exclaimed when I saw the cover. On the last page is a detail that made me believe Jones has gone too far now, one which irked me to no end (especially as it kicks my favorite run of Hulk squarely in the cojones). For every fun bit of "Hide in Plain Sight" there's some madness like this. A usenet poster noted that Jones even took away Doc Samson's ability to shrug off bullets. Not happy ...

Crux #29:
My notes jokingly say, "Atlantis Attacks!" A whole city full of super powered, self-righteous do-gooders is now loose, and that can't be good for somebody ... probably the Negation, as their forces catch the hammer, and the "corporation" that owns Earth. Fun, but padded.

Iron Man #73:
My notes simply say, "smarter." Miller balances action with thoughtful, Lyon's Den level dialogue and pacings (TV shows seem so much like comics these days) with a central conceit -- reported widely, Tony Stark for Secretary of Defense, replacing Dell Rusk (Red Skull), deposed in Avengers -- that actually makes more and more sense as you read along. Just enough realistic grounding to make you say, "okay," and enough zaniness to be a solid adventure. I'm happy ... this could make a good TPB, unlike that Vegas Bleeds Neon crap.

Tokyo Storm Warning #3:
Yeah. Warren let me down on this one -- a lot of ambition, but an empty payoff. I see, from the ending, that the clues were there all along ... but I don't care. I never got to care about the robots (which I wanted to do) nor the human characters (which I didn't, really) as everyone was, in the words of his own Spider Jerusalem, "here to go." Eh.

Fallen Angel #4
There's some nice shows of power and some real dramatic confrontations, as this title finally starts to gain momentum after three slow burn issues. I actually started to care, which is a feat, and David seems to be getting his groove back on this new title.

Runaways #7:
The hype is warranted -- this title is good. Again, almost good enough to buy. The "team" acts together, and keeps moving forward. I could see this as a well done syndicated hourly show. I kind of like this book, I'll admit.

El Cazador #2:
I remember long, hot Saturday afternoons, coming in from playing or throwing rocks at unliked neighbor kids, sitting down in front of the VHF channels and watching old pirate and adventure movies. El Cazador feels a lot like that. However, in its almost uncanny accuracy in evoking that mood, its decompressed storytelling style surely doesn't make the individual issues a good idea, as they don't have enough story to really be "good," a fairly common complaint about many Marvel and CrossGen books these days. Mmph.

1602 #3:
"Trivia-riffic," my notes say. The identity of the Grand Inquisitor can no longer be questioned, shades of Alpha Flight have come down to play, and I keep waiting for this book to show the insight and delicacy I expect from Gaiman. I'm bored.

Micronauts #11:
This final issue was mostly fighting, with a none-too-surprising betrayal as the central plot point that will lead to the "new" series with a new publisher. Blah. I was never happy with Jolley on this book, and I'm happy he's done. I used to really like (and buy) this title before he came on. Oh well.

Paradigm #11:
I hadn't looked at this title since it started, and I remembered telling MoviePoopShoot.com's Chris Allen that I was gonna try to expand my horizons. So I opened this, and it had okay (if over-inked) art that was well done and showed a command of craft. The dialogue was ... well ... it was okay as well. The issue itself, however, was (to quote another customer at the store) "impenetrable," despite a sizeable recap page (that did nothing to identify who was who, alas). Maybe I'm not the reader for this stuff ...

Tom Strong #22:
The Crisis cover homage wasn't the only zany thing here, as Alan Moore closes down this storyline with a bang. Bittersweet and complicated, fans of the Silver Age goodness of Savage Dragon should be eating this up.

Ultimate Six #3:
The most common thing I heard was, "Didn't an issue of this come out, like, last week?" That's Bendis for you, the James Brown of comics. This issue kept pace, showing more facets of Ultimate Nick Fury (who I like much more than the original, as I prefer Ultimate Cap over his whiny Marvel U counterpart), scared the socks off of Peter Parker, and put Hank Pym in the ICU. Solid work here, but again, nothing I'd spend on ... as of now. I believe what it would take for this to make the jump is for somebody, anybody, to do something ... "unthinkable," perhaps (and more than Waid's anticlimax with Doom).

Two Step #1
Girl Spider Jerusalem meets Asian Pete Wisdom. That's basically the whole book. It was fun, but nothing special.

NYX #1:
The thing I noticed most was the coloring, which leapt out to me, vividly (something I rarely notice). My notes say, "slow but textured," really meaning something. So much of the Marvel U is back in high school, makes me wanna remember my locker combination.

Sentinel #7:
Another title that I bailed on early, I can see the appeal to some readers -- particularly skewing younger. The manga-styled artwork is open and accessible, and the story has a kind of Iron Giant appeal. Not my bag, though.

Read Pile Roundup: Rough seas even without a naked Hank Pym crawling up Janet Van Dyne's breasts, and reading through felt like a real chore this week.

This week leans towards being a bad one, due to the sheer difficulty I had getting through everything. I hope the new column isn't wearing down my resistance ...