My Faith in Frankie #3:
Mike Carey's cutesy little tale of adolescence and divinity takes a slight turn towards the serious, as the minor god Jeriven gets very badly tricked and has to deal with it. This story is very smart and very crisply done, and this issue reads well, showing the fall of Jeriven and the systematic hoodwinking of the wholly unprepared Frankie. Had Jeriven been less good at his job of being her personal god, the subterfuge that led to his downfall may never have occurred. But that'd be less entertaining for us, wouldn't it? More fine work.

Captain America and the Falcon #1:
Christopher Priest is back. It's a little weird watching Bart Sears' working, as every jawline looks vaguely similar and the styles of The First are readily apparent. Christopher Priest's normally byzantine scripting is streamlined for the "normal" audience, and the results are outstanding. Sam Wilson has clearly picked up where Geoff Johns left him in The Avengers, enhanced powers, cooler attitude and all. Captain America here remembers that he's a soldier, and the characterization on The Falcon echoes speech patterns of people of African descent (making a point circuitously by telling a story) in a way I'm not sure many writers could grasp. There's a decent dose of action and some interesting plot threads here, but as much as I enjoy Sears work, his ultra-close ups and pin-up stylings seem a bit unusual for the title.

Y: The Last Man #30:
Wow. Brian K. Vaughan pulls an amazing trick in getting inside his protagonist Yorick's head, taking some fairly difficult-to-explain plot developments over the last two issues and weaving them into a narrative tapestry so ... evanescent and diaphanous that I literally leaned back and gasped when I read it. I then reread the last twelve pages again. Very good work, and Pia Guerra is back in fine form. Wow.

My Flesh Is Cool #2:
I was a little disappointed in the second issue of this black-and-white series. The central conceit of the series, a powerful drug called "go" which allows its users to leave their bodies and assume the already-occupied body of someone else. My problem is that the title jumps at least three months and possibly as much as a number of years between issue one and this issue, and the plot developments that happened therein are described, after a fashion, as sprinkles of data in later pages. The jarring leap in storytelling combined with some less-than-clear artwork (I read page three twice to get its meaning, for instance) don't back up the strong stylistic work done in the first issue. Still, there's kinetic action happening here, some slick and fascinating storytelling in a high-octane issue that is still entertaining. I'm still interested in this series, but I'm not as jazzed as I was last month.

Star Wars Empire #17:
This title jumped from the Read Pile, partially on the basis that it is actually about the Empire and partially because I bought the last issue. This tale of Imperial forces trapped on a world of "savages" is strangely similar to accounts of the Boers against the Zulus in South Africa. However, there's no advent of a gatling gun-like wonder weapon coming to save the Imperial forces from the wholly overwhelming numbers of the Amanin. The sad thing about the Empire, and about many totalitarian regimes, is that advancement based on merit becomes secondary to advancement based on working the system. Why is this important? Well, it placed people like Commander Frickett (dead in the first few pages, no real spoiler there), Captain Bex and Captain Gage at positions of authority, able to command men to their deaths. There's plenty of those deaths here. The lack of military precision and simply obeying orders ... it's funny and sad at the same time. This is an interesting issue with real tension and some of the horrors of war, showing one character (Sunber, the functional protagonist) come to harsh realizations, show courage under fire and experience the consequences of cowardice. Surprisingly solid work from Welles Hartley on scripting, with the always solid Davide Fabbri's talents excellently showcased in this intimate work.

G.I. Joe Reborn #1:
Another Read Pile jumper. I'm just gonna go ahead and start calling this "Ultimate G.I. Joe," because that's what it is. Freed of the restraints of "continuity" and historical facts (Doc's a woman now, for instance), the often thought-provoking John Ney Reiber is able to carve a new G.I. Joe team from current flexible legal structures, also creating real pathos and characterization in fairly small amounts of space (Rock 'n Roll's origin is the most heartbreaking to me ... wow, even typing that it looks weird, but it's true). Not content to merely take the scenic route towards old story guideposts, this issue shows Reiber and crew boldly setting course for undiscovered country, and I'm on board for the ride.

Buy Pile Breakdown: Mostly great work here, two jumps from the Read Pile, with even the less than compelling works having significant stylistic or visual elements to keep me interested.

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

Superman/Batman #7:
After the ghastly showing last issue, this time the story is merely dumb, not insulting. Robin and Superboy (isn't he in the 31st Century?) are sent to recruit the new Toyman to be Batman's gadget builder, to save the teenaged Japanese genius from a life of crime. This ends up in a giant robot battlesuit fight in a Japanese city against John Corben. It makes about as little sense on the page, but at least it's got some goofy charm to keep you from hurling it away from yourself. Clawing at the low edge of "acceptable," but not really grasping it.

Supreme Power #8:
Fight! Fight! Hyperion versus Doctor Spectrum, and it's a doozy. I still have to keep flipping back to the cover, as the tone (if not Gary Frank's crisply depicted characters ... however, they all do seem to kind of stare, wide eyed, at everything) is so similar to Rising Stars I forget how that title became the new Battle Chasers. Outside of the fight, nothing much happens here, which is sad as I'm still waiting for the introduction of Power Princess, and both the Black characters (the speedster and the Batman homage) have disappeared into the background. On the other hand, I'm not sure I could see all of these characters ever teaming up, as Squadron Supreme did, and that may be all right. Interesting, but still not worth the money.

Batman: City of Lights #6:
Dumb. That's really about all I could say for this. Batgirl is oddly characterized, Batman is so wildly out of character it's ridiculous, and even the cops got dumber. Pfah.

Unfunnies #2:
This title is ... well, it's disturbing. It's not entertaining, which is weird. This issue doesn't seem to advance any grander plot points or propel a story along. It's shocking and disturbing and I'm sorry I read it. Eww.

Swamp Thing #1:
My comics retailer Steve adored this issue, but I found it only "merely adequate." Alec Holland's consciousness no longer inhabits the ridiculously powerful Swamp Thing, which is bad news for any of a number of people, for any of a variety of reasons. I know this, largely, because I know the character and some of the backstory. Had I been new, even given John Constantine's abbreviated recap of the entire Swamp Thing history, I'd still be scratching my head at it. Interesting, but surely not worth the money.

Red Star Vol. 2 #4:
Speaking of uncompelling ... I read along and forgot why I used to like this title so much. There was a lot of emotive screaming, and some vague symbolism ... but it has none of the "snap" or "zest" of the early issues that so captured my imagination. I was bored, and that led me to have to leave this issue in the store (after its looooooong delays between issues forced it on to the Read Pile in the first place).

Thessaly Witch #2:
Bill Willingham is a master at dialogue and pacing, moving even scenes where nothing really happens along with entertaining results. I got all the way to the end, happy and entertained, when I realized that the two plot threads were insanely simple, yet took the whole issue to resolve. A neat trick ... but not as strong as his other work from the view point of a literati (I promised I'd use that word in this week's reviews) and only quirky enough to get close to making the jump, not actually doing it.

Alpha Flight #1:
Another close call that almost made it home with me. Scott Lobdell puts a great deal of energy into capturing the Giffen/DeMatteis magic that made Formerly Known as Justice League such a delight. However, the strain is a little evident, when a dream sequence takes place late in the issue that's very difficult to resolve from the real action, as it has no different visual stylings. Worth watching, as a "zany" super team is something I look for, but this issue didn't quite hit all the marks or stick the landing.

Authority #10:
The Authority are the de facto rulers of the world, but in the bright primary "colors of our culture," as Jack Marlowe said to them in the Coup D'Etat crossover, they are still trying to deal with everything in broad, elementary strokes. The real complex nuts and bolts work of what they're taking on is still settling in on them, and Morrison either doesn't have the will or the skill to get down into the trenches with these characters. Hawksmoor, being surrounded by "interns" who need "signatures" summarily ignores them ... forgetting that such an act could tie up billions in funding to, say, free clinics or after school programs and so on. The Midnighter gets farther and farther from his brilliant strategist roots, devolving into a brutal pugilist with no interest in what happens past the next punch. Apollo is merely a straw man of a character, there to do magnificent things on cue and stay quiet the rest of the time. On, and of course the Doctor is there to make everything right, as much as he can figure out anyway. On it goes ... I don't like this Authority, and it takes them too seriously, as they are all fairly ridiculous concepts to begin with. Plus, most insulting of all, when discussing energy with "big oil," the developments in Jack Marlowe's book, Joe Casey's WildCATs 3.0 go all but ignored. In the words of Jack (as in "in the Box") to a chef in a commercial, "you're better than that."

Star Wars Infinities: Return of the Jedi #3:
In an accomplishment I thought impossible, the Rebel Alliance in this series is even dumber than the one from the movies, leaving Han permanently blind, Leia and Luke together on the Death Star, facing Vader and Palpatine, and the whole Rebel fleet heading into the well known trap at the sanctuary moon of Endor. Blah.

Monolith #2:
This story is going slowly, in too decompressed a fashion. Everything from this issue could have happened in, say, eight pages, and combined with the maybe ten pages worth of material in the first issue, the whole first arc is maybe one good issue in strength. Now, when you're looking at scenic Bryan Hitch vistas, or getting up close and personal with Frank Quietly art, that's fine, take your time. The work here is simply not that compelling.

Thor #75:
The snail-like pace of this title makes Monolith look like it's in NASCAR. Thor's Odin-sleeping, okay. Magni is "just like his dad," fine. Let's get on with it, already!

Plastic Man #4:
Taking a turn for the grittier, and that's not a bad thing, with an issue that's not great but not shabby either.

Thanos #7:
I was extremely close to bringing this issue home. Keith Giffen has an excellent ability to set an alien environment (but throws it all away when an alien said he wanted to be a "Samaritan," as if there were a Samaria in space that would lead to the same cultural context as what we have for it in the western Judaeo-Christian influenced world) and has Thanos do some really zany things, mostly going "boo" and scaring people because he's Thanos, and then having one of the weirdest encounters with an ex-girlfriend I ever saw, where she basically tries to get him back. Mad, mad stuff here. If Marvel hadn't just swapped writers on Mystique after I started buying, and scrapped Crimson Dynamo after I started buying, I may have had more faith in Giffen's chances, but as it is, I'll watch from the sidelines.

Superman Birthright #8:
Lex in high school with Clark threw me for a loop, and Lex manipulating his father into the Smallvile move was ... kooky (almost Silver Age-ish), but outside of that fragment, this title still reads -- in tone, at least -- very much like a bridge between the Smallville series and the Superman mythos proper. Lex here is in rare form, funny and tragic and interesting all around. Young Lex, somehow, has become much more interesting to me than his eventually mad older self. Eh.

Hard Time #2:
The smallest fragments of prison's horrors are shown here, as this issue shows improvement over the last and the grim tone reflects the subject matter. What's difficult to convey is the sheer tedium of prison life, as it's hard to do and still entertain readers. I'd be more interested if any of the characters could inspire any emotional connection (one seems like he's just there to spout cliched "rules" and eventually die to move the protagonist towards some cathartic climax).

Read Pile Roundup: It seemed more boring than it was, but there's a serious need for just plain editing in these books.

So, How Was It This Week? A week that's firmly in the "it was okay" range overall, despite two jump books. If I had more money, Alpha Flight, Thessaly Witch and Thanos would have all come along for the ride.

The Buy Pile is a weekly collection of comic reviews done by Hannibal Tabu (www.operative.net), originally published at UGO.com.