Thor: Loki #1:
If you'd have turned to me a year ago and said that Robert Rodi would be writing some of the most compelling stuff on the stands, and under a Marvel banner no less, I'd have laughed in your face. "The Codename: Knockout guy?" I'd have managed between guffaws. Wow. In an Empire-esque turn, Rodi looks at what happens after Loki finally wins and conquers Asgard -- it ain't all it's cracked up to be. Moreover, Esad Ribic is on fire, conveying such meaning and depth in even silent panels that he's surely becoming a star of an all new level right before our eyes. Even the numerous "poster" pages (made more apparent by the artist sigs on them) work in the narrative structure. The very smart parllels Rodi has Loki see between his own childhood and his new dominion over Asgard are clever, and the "run this tiresome kingdom for me" has all the "heavy is the head that wears the crown" sentiment of kings since forever. Loki's Ally McBeal/Scrubs/Andy Richter Rules The Universe mental divergences work well, even without a specific framing reference. Really interesting stuff, especially when you get to wondering about that last page.

Y: the Last Man #24:
The irony of Yorick finally giving into temptation at a church is almost as surreal as when I had a vehicle broken into in front of just such a house of worship. Talky but with good movement, and I like the difference in coloring for flashback scenes (also pretty well bracketed by full narrative stops and captioning). A good issue, but not the best. A marginal buy, especially this week.

Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe Avengers 2004:
I'm scared to admit that you could almost put "Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe" on a phone book and I might buy it. By combining trading card power descriptions with the classical styles (if even somewhat inconsistently applied here) there's a real Dragnet quality to the work that I like a great deal, and is very informative. Now, the idea that Tony Stark is twice as smart as T'Challa may seem a bit wonky (Stark almost maxes out the whole thing, which makes it weird to think of how many times he's been knocked on his armored butt). I like reference books like this, and while I may disagree with some of its conclusions, it's good to have authoritative resources like this in my collection.

WildCATs 3.0 #23:
The Coda are in a much bigger fight than they realize, as Agent Orange re-enters the fray jack Marlowe teleports in the middle of yet another sentence, and Cole Cash's decidedly un-covert action team continues shooting up the Greek countryside. Soo many plates are kept spinning in such a careful and elegant fashion that reading this issue is like watching a magic show (with disappearing and everything). A fine, fine work and its impending finale fills me with dread at its passing.

Buy Pile Breakdown: Vaughan's Y didn't carry the weight as well as I'd have liked, but rousing otherwise.

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

Starjammers #1:
If you've read and liked the opening book to Kevin Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns, you'll probably enjoy this out-of-continuity exercise in stuffy empires versus space pirates. A dinner party is a convenient expository device to set up a lot of the ways and means of what's going on, and a nice balance of characterization versus action is struck. Entertaining space opera stuff if that's what you're looking for, but it didn't do anything special for me.

Tom Strong #27:
In another sweet but saccharine tale lampooning himself, Tom Strong ends up in the dreams of a woman who can affect reality while she sleeps (shades of Nightmask ... yeah, I liked some New Universe titles, what of it?) and solves problems with some brains. The strange character that escaped her dreams is the most compelling and mad thing about this story, and his last panel is wildly inventive, but as a whole there's better confections than this on the stands.

Thor #82:
Volstagg is skinny. If there's any clearer sign that hard times have hit the Norse gods, I can't think of it. Thor tries to lead his people out of a doom that seems as certain as sunrise with varying degrees of success. Oeming has a command of the timbre and feel of Asgardian characters which is really impressive, and Andrea di Vito is whupping some massive behind on the artwork. However, the lingering questions of the missing Odinpower (which seems to be just the thing here) as well as some surprises that didn't stay dead make this a head scratcher.

Queen & Country #25:
I didn't even expect this issue this week, which made my hard economic times even more challenging. I posed the "justify your existence" test to it and was pleased to find it a wholly divergent tale of Tara taking a vacation. There's maybe four pages about "the job" worth noting, and all easy to catch up on in future issues. You get some really interesting character work on Tara, meeting her mother and getting her some sex in Switzerland. Likewise, the art was crystal clear and very good at telling the story (if somewhat sparse in the backgrounds). It's a throwaway story in my mind, still, and I'm happy I read it and didn't bring it home, as it would have infuriated me.

Thanos #12:
I'm very surprised to read that Tom Brevoort is the editor of this issue. On the cover, it says "Samaritan: Part 4 of 6." If you've been reading along, you know this is part 6 of 6, and the inside "recap" page reminds you of that. Odd. That glaring error aside (I still haven't forgotten there are no Samaritans nor any Samaria in space that would mean the same thing), Thanos is again not what he seems, and when his labyrinthine schemes come to light it's a delight. Fun all around, but in a somewhat muddled way that everybody might not enjoy. I found it mostly acceptable, but that's a long way from getting to the cash register.

Thundercats: Enemy's Pride #2:
As a test, I had Alice (again, I call the sub counter guy by little girl's names) read this issue. He stood gape jawed. "It's smart!" he exclaimed. "It's ... interesting! And Snarf gets smacked, who wouldn't like that?" Writer John Layman is peeling aside the goofy veneer of humanoid cats and making an almost Shakespearean drama of very simple materials -- the chess like bit about the usefulness of the Thunderguard is fascinating, and the "new" abilites of the Sword of Omens make for some surprising melodrama. If this were an ongoing, this would have me looking to buy in at the next issue, and the fact I just wrote that about a Thundercats comic susprises me so much, I'm just gonna lay down for a little while now ...

Invaders #0:
Okay, back. Conservative political ideals again rear their head, as the Invaders could be subtitled, "George W. Bush's Avengers." The Thin Man, an impressive power I've somehow never heard of, is pulling strings and running things in a way that is too mysterious to really hook me, but too arrogant and self-assured to dismiss. The Avengers fight the new Invaders as the latter team invades and overthrows a foreign power. Somehow, the Invaders manage to win (even though the "I'm the Secretary of Defense" line Tony Stark trotted out was very nice in that sequence). The art could be a little more clear, and I felt the inking could carry more of the load than it does. Worth watching.

Voltron Volume 2 #7:
A goofy mind control detail of info clouds an otherwise really riveting betrayal as the Lion team goes hunting. The soap opera energies are at full blast here, which isn't bad but is worth noting. The issue is entertaining but not special, the art consistent and unremarkable.

Fantastic Four #515
On the other hand, Weiringo's art practically leaps off the page in that old Ed McGuinness way I like so much as the newest Frightful Four lays the smackdown on the Richards family. There's a really complicated father-daughter thing going on here as well, and Waid here does the "soap opera" thing in a way that feels more "headed somewhere" than "chugging along." I still can't put my finger on why this never seems to get bought, but it's still not making the cut by the barest of margins.

Birds of Prey #69:
A jump from the Buy Pile. Again, I was mad broke this week, so sacrifices had to be made. Even though Huntress was really well-used here, the "return" of Vixen (isn't she dead?) was sudden and (in my mind) not done as well as it could have been. Of course Benes makes every angle and every curve a thing of beauty, but I don't feel I missed much skipping a month for money reasons.

Alpha Flight #5:
Reading this issue, I figured out what the problem is. It's not the jokes, which are (or could be) funny. It's the pace. This series, every one of the five issues I've read, is moving about half the clip it should be. When it was announced, it was likened to the classic Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire JLI. If you remember that series at all, jokes flew fast and furious -- there was never a line of dialogue left unturned if there was a laugh to be had. Here, the exposition is heavier and the "actual events" in the story not too many. Pep it up and this title could be a contender, with Centennial alone.

Swamp Thing #5:
Reunited and it feels so ... well, kind of pointless, I guess. Swamp Thing gets it together only to get all David Byrne and scream, "my God, what have I done?" An okay comic in a sea of 'em.

Supreme Power #11:
Smallville is a dangerous series. In the same way people (as Warren Ellis often points out) adopted the panel structures and superficial aspects of Watchmen without taking on the more complex levels of characterization and background, the Tom Welling-fueled series has inspired numerous attempts at recapturing that moment. The 3rd season finale is played out between Power Princess standing in for Kara and Hyperion staring dumbly in place of Clark. All this with the mystery of Doctor Spectrum remaining mysterious. The part between the speedster and Nighthawk fascinated me, but that might just be because I'm Black. I kind of got the idea this was all going somewhere, but it seemed somewhere too familiar so I left it at the store, with vague reminiscenses of Rising Stars (my retailer actually got some pencils and script pages from the "next" issue from Diamond, which I claimed had to have new CrossGen and Battle Chasers issues stapled to it).

Transformers Generation One Volume 3 #6:
As I feared, too much too fast. The Sunstorm storyline is resolved -- sort of -- in a way I felt gave short shrift to the character and the plot. The pretty art was about the best point, as Starscream did something so out of character, I blanched. This franchise has surely lost its way, and its devotion to the "six issue TPB friendly" format is making for poor creative decisions in storytelling.

Powers #1:
There are no more heroes, and the cops are dangerously outgunned. Aside from sounding like vaguely like a comic book proposal I've floated around for a few years, it returns to the Aaron Sorkin-esque dialogue that Bendis is well known (and sometimes reviled) for. Banter is supposed to be doing characterization work, but I don't feel that goal was achieved. Grim, worth reading, but as a "new start" less than compelling, as a part of the madness of the series was the "popular attention" that was once paramount, and now everything must operate in the shadows due to the new presidential dictate. Again, entertaining but not special -- I get better plots and dialogue on Law & Order for free.

Transformers Summer Special #1:
As a "Generation One" fan, and seeing no "Robots in Disguise," this book felt really thin to me, giving too little to everybody possible. I just glaze over at Beast Wars or Micromasters continuity, and the megatron vs. Predacons story here was more sizzle than steak. Feh.

Firestorm #3:
Another drop from the Buy Pile, for the same reasons that Alpha Flight isn't getting it done. Too little in too much space. The lead character moves maybe a hundred yard total in the whole issue, and there's only "action" in flashbacks. Not bad, but pacing is the real McGuffin for this series.

Read Pile Roundup: Nothing worth noting.

So, How Was It This Week? Rough money wise, rough reading, rough decisions. Still, the high quality drops from purchasing made the read pile shine, so we'll call the week as a whole good.

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