WildCATs 3.0 #21:
The new and improved Grifter and his own personalized Covert Action Team spend most of the time shooting up ... well, a lot of western Europe. Even Grifter admits this is meant more for marketing reasons than strategic ones. There's also some weird stuff going on with the Agent formerly known as Wax and those crazy kids at the National Park Service, and despite nobody noticing the right way to spell "Illinois" on the last page, this is a zany, interesting issue. The only thing it's missing is the cold, android kookiness of Jack Marlowe, and given that the bean-counters have already doomed this series at number 24 ... ah it makes me sad. Good issue in the here and now, though.

Captain America & the Falcon #3:
As pretty as some of his work is, I'll be glad when Bart Sears and his oversized character maquettes are gone. The "anti-Cap" is still somewhat confusing. The plot thickens as Falcon makes it to Miami, Cap's still trying to piece together all the clues, and all the players in this game have yet to be revealed. I've said before that I enjoy Christopher Priest's sometimes labyrinthine writing -- which, by the way, is considerably more linear and clear here than at most points of his widely acclaimed Black Panther run. Really smart, challenging material in a market that regularly kills smart, challenging material. Mmm, sad again.

Y: The Last Man #22:
Brian K. Vaughan continues what's becoming a real tour de force run on this series, where the characters develop quite well in their desperation to make it across the country towards what they hope will be a solution. The amusingly named Dr. Mann confronts her own fears an inadequacies, Yorick faces the music and Agent 355 isn't as tough as she needs to be when it all comes down to it. Goran Parlov's pencils are close enough in composition and style to not make me miss Pia Guerra, and there's just enough story here that I'm glad I'm not "waiting for the trades." Fine work, and since it's a Vertigo, the kinds of numbers it sells are actually sustainable.

Buy Pile Breakdown: I got no beef with the content, all pretty good, but it makes me despair for the state of the industry's standards a bit ...

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

Swamp Thing #3:
In Jack McKinney's Robotech book series, the functional "last" installment introduced "anti-Protoculture" as a radical new thought. I was both intrigued and then shortly after exasperated as it went nowhere as a story element. Well, a similar motif plays out in this month's Swamp Thing where Alec Holland's prodigal daughter discovers that she's done so much poking around in the Green, she never knew there was a lot to do in the Red. "Huh?" Seems while the Green is a kind of energy continuum for all plant life in the world, the Red is the same for all flesh. Which is even zanier because the newly Holland-free Swamp Thing has lain the smack down on the elementals of air, water, fire and earth, as well dominating his own Green domain (whether those are called The Plaid or The Magenta, I don't know). The Red is his last stop on the way to planetary domination and the end of humanity. Typing this all out, somehow, is a lot more interesting than this month's issue itself, but I did get a good joke in, turning to Jason and saying, "This month, the role of Swamp Thing will be played by Captain Planet!" Nothing special here.

Alpha Flight #3:
The "recap" page was the funniest thing in this issue, with a cast of characters who remind me of, oh, NBC's Coupling or Good Morning, Miami. Everything in this book is really trying, but it just doesn't make the cut. This talky issue explains some of what happened to the last Alpha Flight, introducting a specie that could well be Marvel's answer to the Khunds. But with every character mugging and bantering furiously, it's hard to know why I'd care.

Thessaly: Witch for Hire #4:
I found the finale to this mini cute but lacking some kind of punch. The "end" of the allegedly unkillable Tharmic Null was so much of an anti-climax that it happened off panel (no major spoiler there -- title characters rarely get whacked permanently, especially not immortal ones). Willingham seems to have wrapped this one up in a hurry, which was a let down but not a major one.

Negation War #2:
Evinlea showing up on Elysia with a veritable horde of Lawbringers was the highlight of this vastly talky, procedural issue. Samadahl Rey travels the galaxy, bringing together all brand of Sigil-bearers to serve as an army against the hordes of the Negation. That could either have been a review or the solicitation copy. I'm still not sure how Danik and Solusandra got so much more powerful than their Atlantean comrades, and there's still story threads thrashing around wildly, moving set pieces here and there for upcoming scenes. A peppy, wild read but not really a coherent one yet.

Firestorm #1:
I was really, really surprised to like this as much as I did. ChrisCross' pencils look even better than I'm used to them looking with John Dell's intricate inking. Plus, in what has to be the shocker of the week, the story's pacing and scripting by Dan Jolley are spot on, providing a near-perfect balance of character development, action, plot development and nuance. The solitary reason this issue is still at Comics Ink is that I've leapt on bandwagons before and gotten tossed off. If issues 2 and 3 are this good, I'll buy all three and be on board for some time -- take that to the bank.

G.I. Joe #29:
Cobra's security is so porous that it's embarrassing. The G.I. Joe team fairly painlessly inserts a covert agent on to Cobra Island who then beams all of Cobra's digital goodies back home. He has a more challenging time getting out (he's not out by the end of the issue), but it's pretty funny. Of most particular interest to me were Destro's "unaligned" movements, schnackering the government of Sierra Gordo (old time fans will remember that country) and establishing an all new power base for himself. Jerwa's close to getting me back on board here, but he's still a little looser around the edges of the plot than I'd like.

Hard Time #4:
I was stunned to see some splashes of color in this otherwise monochromatic issue (I've complained at length about the Focus line's coloring choices). The story kind of veered around a bit here, but it did manage to keep my interest a little more than normal. Which is to say, this issue approached the door of adequacy and politely knocked on the door, without being let in. A step in the right direction, though.

Invincible #11:
More talky, but the horrible realization of a few months ago finally comes to light. Still, it took a lot of pages to explain a fairly simple (yet hugely spoilerish) point. The next issue, if the series is any indication, will be all fight scene. Still, interesting enough to read, but far too uneven to purchase.

Plastic Man #6:
I closed this issue, which introduced a lot of characters I didn't fully grasp until near the end, and said, "that sucked a$$!" The trite ending, the contrived change of heart, the coincidental story element that popped up out of nowhere ... combine that with some of Baker's least readable art, and this issue is a stinker. Yow.

NYC Mech #1:
My notes say, "Adequate but vague." I am, I suppose, to take at face value that New York is inhabited by robots and not people. No indication given to the state of the rest of the world, let alone why. Okay. But when they engage in Jim Mahfood-esque antics with none of the real joie de vivre that his work inspires, it's just drab. I liked the art, I found it okay, but it's a long way from making a trip past the cash register.

Thanos #10:
My notes say, "Interesting but unclear." The good parts are very solid and entertaining handling of Thanos whenever he's on panel. The bad parts were that he was barely on panel, and not in the good Wonder Woman way, but the bad Silver Surfer way. Giffen's run has been dramatically inconsistent here, and while I really enjoyed issue numbers seven and eight, the storyline has been unable to keep me on the hook.

Strykeforce #2:
In a kind of empty, early 90s way, this is a great book. Shooting, blowing up of things, et cetera. The internecine conflict of Killawatt as the group's appointed Judas is also entertaining. The characters, however, are insanely shallow and the art is merely serviceable. I can see that certain fans would flock to this, but I'm not one.

Tom Strong #26:
In the most eco-friendly issue of the week (and coming out against Swamp Thing made that a tough competition), Tom Strong negotiates with the laws of physics in an issue rife with coincidence, comedic jabs and calamity. No, it's not Alan Moore, and the kind of ham fistedness of the story attests to the vacuum of his absence, but it's not bad.

Uncanny X-Men #444:
Wow. Claremont really is trying to will the comics world back to 1989, all by himself. After that wildly cliche drama he's running in JLA, he's practically rebuilt the mansion in a panel, brought back a "baseball game" sequence that easily could have been set years and years ago, slapped an Austin Powers reject outfit on Rachel Summers (who just "appears" along with Kitty Pride) and manages to field more mutants than a nuclear plant next to an elementary school. There was so much bad here that it boggled the senses, and again it's only bad today -- fifteen years ago, this would have been groundbreaking material. That's really sad.

Read Pile Roundup: Some ups, some downs, but even with Claremont in there, nothing I can't forget in a few minutes.

So, How Was It This Week? Philosophically a depressing week, but on pure content, it's a wash, with good (and relatively cheap) purchases and a speedy, tolerable Read Pile.

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