My Faith in Frankie #1:
This is my favorite comic book of the week. I picked it up solely on the strength of the writer, Mike Carey, who's about a 75% shooter over on Lucifer. I then grokked the concept -- a girl with her own personal god -- and got interested. About ten pages in, I just sat the book on the buy pile. It's a really intriguing, enchanting story with a clearly depicted female protagonist and a fascinating narrative device. Carey's style of storytelling is drastically different from Lucifer or even Hellblazer, and I found it simply charming. I found myself liking Frankie (the female lead) a great deal, and finding her "personal divinity" Jeriven (the god of heart's fire) even more fascinating. My comics pusher claims this is only a mini, and I'm hoping it can keep up the quality and not let me down like that Blood & Water disaster last year.

Elektra #31:
Everybody's favorite half-naked ninja balks at the idea of slicing up a prepubescent, but what she ends up doing is considerably more hideous. Robert Rodi is crafting some intelligent storytelling here, and continues to put behind him the horror of Codename: Knockout (one day I may forget ... no, I probably won't), and Will Conrad (working with Sandu Florea) is doing somre really solid artwork here as well. Even the dark colors were clear and not muddy, by Ian Hannin -- he should teach the Dreamwave kids something. I was very satisfied with the end of this three part storyline.

JSA #56:
Months before this issue came out, I expected I'd be buying it. I've not bought an issue of JSA since before that Mordru/Eclipso/Obsidian mess, but I'm a huge Black Adam fan (the Power of Shazam fascinates me, honestly) and watching him lead a Squadron Supreme-esque takeover, with a title for the storyline as intriguing as "Black Reign" (which always gets me singing "The Next Movement" by The Roots, "... black rain comin' from the sky looks strange/ the ghetto is red hot, I'm steppin' on flames ..."). This is more personal than political, as Adam has crafted the desires of a squad of bored and disparate metahumans to serve his own somewhat altruistic goals. It's a fascinating balance -- I mean, Adam could make a case for himself being a hereditary heir, entitled to rule the nation of Kahndaq (i wonder if that has anything to do with Jenette Kahn ...). His cold efficiency and clear thinking is a refreshing change from the kind of brainless berserker Adam that I've seen in the likes if War of the Gods. As with Thor and "The Reigning," I'm anxious to see how far Johns (who's got a lot of bad issues in the last year to answer for) is willing -- or able -- to go. It was good seeing Adam's team in action, and I enjoy what's happened with Brainwave Jr. (he'll always be Junior to me), Northwind (I have the action figure, he's basically Kingdom Come Hawkman) and Atom Smasher in particular.

Star Wars Tales #18:
Normally these special anthologies have too high a suck-to-cool ratio, but in an all Boba Fett issue, it's hard to get it wrong. Boba Fett -- from childhood to old age -- kills people and hunts them down and talks bad about their mommas. What's not to like about that?

Y The Last Man #18:
I'm not absolutely certain what happened at the end of this issue, but it alarmed me. The story is proceeding happily west, with Pia Guerra's always consistent artwork back without missing a step. Yorick is most amusing to me because he almost never knows what's going on until almost the last minute, which has made his character a fun one to watch. Another solid issue in a near-uninterrupted string of 'em.

Buy Pile Breakdown: A great week, with JSA and Star Wars Tales making the long jump on a day when my money was quite short.

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

Supreme Power #6:
The dialogue crafted here made this one a star -- Hyperion and The Blur chatting was some of the best reading I've done in weeks. The "World's Finest" page (as my comics pusher Steve called it) was an amusing read, showing that Nighthawk's perspective is similar to Malcolm X: "All of them aren't guilty, but most of them are. Most of them are." I am really enjoying the balance that JMS brought to the characters in this issue (and there's more to come, whew!) and the only thing that kept me from buying this is my long-standing resistance to "Ultimized" and decompressed stories of this caliber, which end up costing me more than I'd enjoy spending. Close to the cut, though.

Authority #9:
Just as he's about to get the boot, Morrison is starting to settle into the rhythms of the Authority -- the snotty banter during fights, the quick cut action, and the Doctor for special effects that'd made Jim Cameron blanch. If not for the wholly cardboard adversaries (and the fact that this fight borrowed much from Millar's Americans battle), it would be good. Close, though.

Avengers #77:
Chuck Austen starts his run with an issue that's, as my notes say, "not too shabby." The Hawkeye/Captain America dialogue was a little goofy, but the dialogue elsewhere (especially the scenes with the scarred mother) was spot on. Jan's showing her range, which was something of a surprise (but let Hawkeye get off the issue's best joke) and I was almost ready to take the Wrecking Crew seriously, until I remembered they were the guys who got beaten by Damage Control, and that they went all the way to England to do a bank robbery. In costume. Morons. Anyhoo, it was a tolerable bit of superheroing with some rough edges.

Batman: City of Light #4:
This title is weird, with horrible characterization on the Bat (detective work he could have handled in a panel has taken four issues of digging by Oracle) and the Pander Brothers are not bringing their "A" game on this series at all. I keep reading it to see what hamfisted screw up will come next.

New X-Men #151:
Silvestri has barely lost a step, gorgeously depicting yet another horrible possible future for the students of Xavier. Morrison writes an almost wholly linear tale (shocker!) with the aforementioned fine work by Silvestri, getting ready to close down the strangest run on an X-book possibly ever. I enjoyed it, but as with all X-future stories, you know it will come to naught (especially with Morrison headed to DC exclusivity), which kind of deadens the fun going into it.

Brit: Cold Death:
Wow this one was good. Kirkman's super-assassin is a fascinating force of nature, an unrepentant professional killer with no qualms nor hesitations about what he is, a plainclothes Ultimate Captain America. The zany things he goes up against -- and some of 'em are pretty zany -- are never explained, never considered, because he's just going to kill them all anyway. The only thing that stopped this from being a buy pile title was how short on money I am this week -- I could easily see going back for this one.

Brath #11:
This title reads like a history book. A junior high history book. A badly done junior high history book. Empty and emotionless, and the title character appears nowhere in this issue. Ready for the woodchipper, I say.

Thanos #4
Thanos smash! No, seriously, a Lord Abyss-esque "mystery" character that eats dimensions chats away with the reader for the first few pages, pulls Galactus' strings (dumbass) and generally deus ex machina's this issue out of being interesting. Good luck Giffen indeed -- Starlin will be gone in two issues.

Plastic Man #2:
Another surprise -- a really, really good issue with zany gags, great dialogue, kinetic artwork ... what happened between the subpar #1 and this? Anyhoo, Woozy Winks goes spandex and Plas gets a partner, while his horrible past comes to light. Fun fun fun, harmless action that I'd honestly say can be good for readers of all ages. Again, only money kept this one in the store (I had an expensive December, I'll be fine in a week).

Negation #26:
My notes have one word: "spooty." That's a joke that, literally, only my ex-wife would understand, so I must elaborate. Whenever an episode of Star Trek would feature an attractive alien guest star, I would quickly surmise that somebody on the show was gonna get some "space booty" or "spaceman love," depending on gender and/or my mood at the time. My ex-wife had a strange prelediction of combining words into goofy combinations, so when Voyager or something would come on and Harry Kim would get all flustered in front of some scantily clad alien babe, she'd ask, "Is it spooty time?" or something like that. Anyway, long story short, Evinlea and Bobby Charon ... I can't even type it. It's a good issue, but unintentionally very funny as well.

Rose & Thorn #1:
This one almost slipped off my radar altogether. Gail Simone totally Year One's (or is that "Ultimizes?") the concept, with a slightly decompressed look at the split personality heroine. I enjoyed it, but it was still only "okay."

Wolverine: The End #2:
"Mysterious," my notes say. Wolvie's a lot more subtle than you'd probably remember ("Wine Lover" is my favorite part) as he chases the ghosts of Weapon X. Again. Look, does anybody care? I don't. Argh.

Superman: Birthright #6:
I should call this Smallville II: The Saga Continues. Fluffy bridge between the show and the comics. Lex (who's much more Animated Series and much less Michael Rosenbaum) offers "proof" that Supes is an alien. Oooh! More Ultimatization, but good if you're into all that.

Voltron Volume 2 #1:
The team's handlers get all Starfleet (circa Insurrection) and perform a funny jack move. I liked this, and this title has been a lot more interesting than I expected all along. Even your boy Sven is getting some pathos. Who knew? Still not good enough to buy, though.

Mystique #9:
This gets better and better -- Vaughn is on a roll. Mystique beats the hell out of a viral-powered mutant (great line, "I'm immune to everything." Mystique: "Even Toyotas?" POW! Heh) but gets outmanuevered in an issue with action and smarts aplenty.

Read Pile Roundup: One of the most enjoyable read piles I've seen in a long time, regardless of buzzkills like Brath, City of Light and what have you.

A really great week for comics all around, which is a pleasant surprise and a good start to a new year.