Lucifer #53:
My favorite thing about this issue is Lucifer's acknowledgement of concepts and ideas older than the ones he works with, as a threat to Yggadrasil the World Tree threatens both his own creation and the abandoned, dissolving one of his father. He teams with his brother Michael for one last time to take on Fenris and his team of world-enders. I liked a lot of what happened here, especially Fenris' unique plan to get to the bottom of things, as always enjoying Peter Gross' anbd Ryan Kelly's spooky but smart artwork. Smart, fun stuff that still is open enough to bring aboard neophytes.

Human Target #13:
Christopher Chance tries to stick his finger in the dam and stop the flow of Mexican children into sex slavery, while trying to patch up his relationship with his "wife," who (technically) is the wife of a dead man whose identity Chris assumed. Confusing? No. You don't have to know Mary's history to know her relationship with the chameleon Christopher Chance is complicated. The costume changes are fairly well-handled, so you can see who the title character is, even if the people in scene with him don't. The core story is emotional and forcefully told (using Saint Jude as a throughline was deft), and the only spots where I fault Javier Pulido's art is on details -- a sunbathing Chris and Mary look downright weird. The creepiness and virtual hopelessness of the overall situation cast an ill and apropos pall over the ending, and this is smart, challenging comics at its best, in ways reminiscent of the "Business" issue of Transmetropolitan.

She-Hulk #6:
Having "Wizard Book of the Month" and a new artist advertised on the cover made me pause, but it was all for naught. Dan Slott knows his freakin' book, and the pacing and moments here were so picture perfect, I expected the panels to start moving in slow motion as Vonda Shepherd sang in the background. The character Awesome Andy is handled extremely well here (hard for a character who can't talk), and She Hulk's battle with scores of super villains was done in a both clever and entertaining fashion as well. i liked what Paul Pelletier and Roland Paris did with the art, showing some more ranges of facial expressions for the title character, especially on page 10. There's also a great usage of the really dumb supervillain Eightball that I adored, Awesome Andy beating a miniaturized Sandman (who, by rights, got whacked in Identity Disc #1) with a vacuum cleaner, and even an appearance by Damage Control, the hallmark of any Marvel book that's gonna be funny (thanks Dwayne McDuffie for inventing them). Another great issue in a series that has yet to miss a step (yet somehow is still in danger of cancellation, I hear -- what's up with that?).

Robin #129:
Wow. Bill Willingham is like the Barry Bonds of comics, and having him on this title is like having Bonds batting at a little league field. The action is perfectly handled (this is a crossover issue, but I didn't even realize that until the third time I read it), Tim Drake's emotions became my emotions, and when two particular mob soldiers died, I felt it as a loss. Guiseppe Camuncoli's angular faces, looking over their brows, didn't always seem the best choice, but the brilliant scripting and plotting more than made up for any visual deficiencies. A leap from the Read Pile, and a new Buy Pile regular.

Astro City Special #1:
Of course this jumped from the Read Pile -- I should know betterm since Busiek always brings his "a" game (pun intended) to his own playground. A retired hero named Supersonic is dragged back into costume and into action, and things are very different for him now. His characterization, done mostly in inner monologue (which works way better than, say, Austin Powers') almost levitates off the page, and Brent Anderson commands the visuals of Astro City from the large scale of a flaming landscape to the intimate moment of two old friends getting to understand one another. I've never seen even a single page of an Astro City issue/book/whatever mis-step, and this month is no exception.

Buy Pile Breakdown: An incredibly worthwhile sixteen bucks, not a problem in the pile.

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

Supreme Power #12:
My retailer was walking around telling people, "This is Alan Moore good!" I think he was overselling it a bit, as it more reminded me of the old Larry Hama issue of G.I. Joe called "Tryptitch" (and that's where I learned that word -- I rushed to look it up at the time), which ran three complete storylines in one issue, doing one as all top panels, one as all mids, and one as all bottom panels, throughout the issue. JMS does it four the hard way, telling the story of Hyperion/Power Princess across the top, the arrogant and embittered Nighthawk in the second slot, Doctor Spectrum and his handler in the third one, and an icky plot point story at the bottom which I will not disclose for spoiler reasons. It was all aptly handled (the G.I. Joe one had more story in the issue than this does), and I do enjoy Power Princess' lawlessness (which foreshadows seeds of a "Squadron Supreme Uber Alles" and possibly Nighthawk's eventual rebellion against it), I found Hyperion's righteous anger perfectly tempered by his wholesome upbringing, I found Nighthawk too determined for his own good and I found the last story, as noted, just icky for no reason I can explain (but the core offense is one of the few crimes I can not mentally justify, either). A very, very good set up issue, but not exactly great yet and not the "end of a storyline" my retailer believed it would be (as he expects a "team" setting to start in 13 ... that should be interesting).

Birds of Prey #72:
This week, several DC comics were poly-bagged with a special CD-ROM for the new film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I turned to the owner Steve and the counter guy Jason like, "what up?" They both shrugged, saying they wanted to read some of the books, but couldn't because they were too good of business men to screw with product. I couldn't argue with that. So starting with Birds of Prey and including a few others, I didn't get to read 'em because DC tricked some movie studio out of money, convinced that people would care. Sorry for any inconvenience (although, coincidentally, Lucifer was my only polybagged purchase, as Human Target and Robin were not, so who knows what happened there).

Daredevil #63:
Natasha gets a good (long) speech, Matt gets a rude surprise and an assassin named Quinn turns out to be a kind of fanboy. The talkiness is turned up to "whoa, nelly" in this issue, and the sparse action is bracketed with what felt like fields of chatter. That volume of talking (especially since a lot of it explained events of the last two issues) seemed really ham fisted.

Classwar #6:
I was more angry at the ending (which I would content isn't an ending) than anything else. There's a really nice Wag the Dog moment, lots of people catch the hammer and the evil aspects of this US government (including a president who shakes his naked penis out the window of the Oval Office) really go a long way to prove a point. To be honest, the kind of simply evil-because-we-can-be G-man villain is getting to be cliche to me, and the erratic arrival of this mini (which seemed to be running for the Planetary Award) didn't help. Any interest I had -- especially in the interplay between the members of the Enola Gay supergroup -- has evaporated like the island nation they went to invade.

Star Jammers #3:
I actually started to, against my will, get into the characters here. The "lead" gets a different perspective of his beloved Galactic Empire (that's not the name of it, but the similarities are so much I expected Palpatine to cripwalk on panel any second) and the dirty pirates make themselves out as desperate men fighting for freedom. I suppose, in some way, that made me relate to them -- the idea of a massive, gun-wielding empire oppressing people who aren't like them seems like something I'd see on the news, or on my block. The space opera is surely derivative and Dark Horse has a host of Star Wars books covering the same basic ideological ground with varying degrees of success, but this is solidly "okay" (which, as you know, is not enough to get me to buy it).

Falen Angel #14:
Poly-bagged, and therefore unreviewed (and that's an albatross this series did not need).

Fantastic Four #517:
Reed Richards, as I predicted he could, has worked himself out of bankruptcy -- in, what, three months? -- given just a couple of inventions. For some reason, that's impossible for the Marvel Knights Reed. Uh huh. Anyhow, the Avengers' event has spilled over, with even Halloween (screw that it's early) affected by the "missing" heroes, and when some mystery power decides, "let's take Manhattan," the authorities are reluctant to call the FF in fear of a PR backlash. Meanwhile, Sue is out on the streets doing her baby Green Lantern routine and nobody knows just what's happening yet. Which sums up my read: interesting, and with Waid's crisp writing a steady, soapy stream of "follow me to the next issue" plot points, but like Savage Dragon, a good book that's just below what I need to buy it.

G.I. Joe #33:
Bobby Ewing called, he wants his plot device back. General Hawk daydreams a different future after Cobra Commander capped him in the back last issue, and then wakes up to a rude surprise. The dream sequence had too many changes to valuable licensed properties for me to believe it, especially with its length, and after I watched the Denzel remake of The Manchurian Candidate I felt like Jerwa could have messed with our heads more effectively. That may be an unfair comparison, but that's why Jerwa gets paid a lot more money than I do -- he has to come up with the ideas, I just have to read 'em. For now. (Zany side note: my retailer keeps telling me, "I can't wait for you to have a comic, so we can all harangue you about it!" Fantastic ...)

Invaders #1:
John Walker, reading pages from the Ultimate Captain America handbook, is one of the most interesting things in this issue (and the whole premise) as the Union Jack/Spitfire romance seems staggeringly yawn-inducing, Namor (even with pants) isn't so impressive when he follows orders, and they haven't let the probably crazy Flaming Skull do anything really fun yet. Plus where's that zany Thin Man? Stomping a middle eastern country flat is no problem for these guys, but watching them talk about it makes me think that a tighter editing leash should be used.

Manhunter #1
In a week I feel was inspired by past weeks, a frustrated DA breaks into the way-too-underguarded evidence LAPD locker and strikes out for justice as a vigilante. Yes, that was part of the damned entertaining Mighty Love a few weeks ago. It was wholly harmless, too boring to be innovative, too serviceable to suck, a testament to mediocrity.

Dr. Spectrum #1:
The bulk of the issue takes place in the mind of the good Doctor (called such for his "surgical" attitude to problem solving) between the crystal bonding to his hand and getting him in the ambulance. A trip through his origins and past to give a better sense of who the character is, it did little to make me connect for two reasons: first, he's a wholly shmuck-like and uninteresting guy, aside from being a government killer; and second because it read like a "this is your life" montage created to serve a purpose more than a story. Nah.

Plastic Man #9:
A few months ago, there was a time travel story in Captain America that was entertaining and made sense (I can't believe I just typed that). Kyle Baker should have taken notes -- this is a mess, trying to whack Abraham Lincoln and save all of time, but ending up with a lame Scooby Doo style switcheroo at the end. This issue shows why this series has been so hit and miss -- the art is perfect for the subject matter, but the stories are so goofy and wrongheaded that maybe only a very small kid could find them entertaining at all. Which is hard for me to say, because I freakin' love Kyle Baker (in the way a fan adores work, nothing weird and stalkerish ... gonna stop this parenthetical phrase ... now). Ah well ...

Cable/Deadpool #6:
Wade Wilson and Nathan Dayspring Summers are now inextricably bound -- I won't tell you why or how, because that's not the kinda reviews I run, buddy. Suffice it to say the somewhat limited premise of this series now has a very sound and logical foundation upon which to rely, and Cable has a lot of his mojo back. Some cute Deadpool moments (never enough for me), a lot of "whoa, Cable is cool" moments and a fairly implausible solution to the big bad the story was building up. Not bad, but not good either.

Savage Dragon #113:
Fists were flying through most of the issue (and even the backup) as Dragon tossed himself in harm's way, sometimes leaving his plucky bride behind. This turns into a real problem by the end of the issue, and the set-up for the big marketing push for Dragon was established. This issue (and the series) packs plenty of old-school Silver Age nostalgia for those who are always complaining about how "today's" comics are done, while still keeping enough edge to keep more modern minds entertained. The backup about Mighty Man (I think that's right) feels like it's driving around and looking for Miracleman's address (or at least Junior), and has some charm, even if I don't know how far it can go (i.e. the "Spiral" storyline in Thor a while back ... and I think Loki got lost in that one ... sorry, I digress). Interesting stuff that -- again -- just barely misses the line for my bucks.

Adventures of Superman #631:
Poly-bagged, and therefore unreviewed.

Thor: Loki #3:
Los Angeles' own DJ Jedi told me that he's interested in the story here -- which even he admits lost a step from last issue after a stunning debut -- but it's so beautiful he can't help but buy it. I'm very close to that attitude, as Loki confronts his failings this issue and makes some hard decisions to try and divorce himself from his "fate." Reading along, as the Prince of Lies taunts a captive Thor again, calls Odin into account for bad parenting and creating the monster that would one day take over (a really fascinating passage and take on the myth), I just kept thinking to myself, "he hasn't whacked any of these guys yet? What is he, an Adam West Batman villain?" It's all handled convincingly though, and the more I type the more I wish I'd actually bought this issue. Oh well.

Ultra #1:
There are very few clues that there's anybody with "powers" in this issue, until nearly the end. In a wholly textured "set-up" issue, I found out more of interest from the "interview" with the lead character (placed where a lettercol might go) and the "ads" featuring the characters than the "story," such as it was. I had no problem with the art nor the muted coloring, and I'm still interested, but I almost believe they could run a whole issue of peripheral features and it'd be more interesting than this.

X-Men: The End #2:
The last time I reviewed this mini, I was less than complimentary. This issue isn't quite as bad, but plays like an extended "What If?" based heavily in current (ha ha ha ha) "continuity." Scott and Emma run the school and raise their kids. Okay. Kitty pryde is running for something in Chicago, with Rachel Summers as her campaign manager. Yeah. Nightcrawler's an actor, Wolvie becomes Ororo's naughty wet-nurse ... blah balh blah. I get it, it's the freakin' future. The problem, however -- the Brood and Shi'ar Imperial drama -- seems ... I dunno, kind of retro, kind of "been there, done that." Oh, I see, Chris Claremont wrote this. All I need to know, tossed.

Read Pile Roundup: Despite Kyle Baker letting me down, the polybags and being mad at Classwar there was more good than bad.

So, How Was It This Week? With an all-star performance from the Buy Pile and a good week of reads, we'll call it a win (and a real one, not like one of those crappy USA Olympic Basketball team ones).

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