Black Panther #5:
A dozen fighter jets in the air against the Rhino and the Black Knight. Batroc the Leaper and Ulysses Klaw in the royal compound of Wakanda. I gotta tell ya ... I had a lot of concerns about Christopher Priest's T'Challa, but he certainly wouldn't be getting his tunic handed to him like this guy. Also, apparently, Wakanda has been moved from its landlocked former position to having a beach on the east side of the country (which makes no sense whatsoever, because if Wakanda was so hard to conquer, modern warfare of coastal shelling and submarine combat would have made a position on the east coast of Africa downright untenable). Once you get past those problems of story logic, John Romita Jr. is on fire -- his opening splash with the Rhino is amazing, and the hilarity of an army of ... well, I'm not gonna tell you what kind of army marches into Wakanda, but it's ugly and funny and kind of sad at the same time. I like Reginald Hudlin, I want to like this issue, but after five I am no closer to knowing "Who Is The Black Panther?" than I was before. I knew Christopher Priest's T'Challa -- brilliant, flawed, afraid, dangerous, smooth. This guy? No idea. That's frustration beyond all the pretty pictures Mssr. Romita can throw at me.

Legion of Super Heroes #7:
The dark undercurrents of the thirty first century take center stage, as the bright shiny optimism of the Legionnaires takes a hit in the face of the threats hiding in the shadows. The action takes a team to Colu, home of the universe's smartest people, who have a wholly unpleasant experience. Brainy proves himself smarter than even I could imagine, gets some really remarkable lines of dialogue, and makes Chameleon one of the most useful people in the galaxy. Fine work all around, and with the shadow falling on the Legion's optimism, it makes their almost inevitable victory all the more inspiring. Another great issue, jam packed with story, damned entertaining.

Noble Causes #11:
The two main storylines here intersect in a way I can only consider delicious, with more twists and turns and emotional confrontations in this issue than in a week of daytime dramas. I was very pleased at how much panel time my main man Frost got, and I liked the way the two plots tied together. I can't say much more without spoiling a lot, but I was very pleased with this issue.

Neverwhere #1:
A very mild jump from the Read Pile. The central story -- a chase narrative, like Stephen King's Dark Tower series, for example -- is simple enough. But Carey, evoking Gaiman's thorough prose, works magic in even passing phrases. "His name was Ross, and the point of him was that he didn't matter." "They would take her, at their terrible leisure." Simply wonderful. The story lets go of that kind of beauty early on, going in through dialogue and Glenn Fabry's often disturbing visuals (loved the sense of "vertigo" at the end, cute on many levels). I liked the simple charm of it, I like Gaiman and Carey in general, so I went for it on faith (something I have in very short supply, admittedly). We'll see if it can keep it up.

Wargod #1:
Another mild jump from the Read Pile. I bought this book on two bases -- my nebulous involvement with the publisher, and my own personal spiritual path, which is based on what was done in ancient Egypt. I take looks at this -- like Menthu by Hometown Productions for example -- with a grain of salt, since they almost all rely on Greek spellings of names and the limited perspective you can get from Budge and his contemporaries (whereas I prefer the Egyptology of Diop, ben Jochannon and so on). With all that preamble, this book could well be Menthu -- an Earth-born mortal is chosen to fill the role of "Horus" (imagine a Jesus figure that kicks butt and is a warrior figure as well) in fighting his father's evil brother for reasons of spiritual and cosmic significance. It takes the basics of the "Horus" myth and plays it out in a vaguely supeheroic fashion. Which, again, is pretty much what Menthu did, except that title rooted the human in South Central Los Angeles and focused more on the life outside the power than the myth itself. I liked the art a lot (mostly the backgrounds, which are very detailed, although I was too lazy to translate any of the hieroglyphs to see if they said anything), I found the coloring a tad too dark for its own good, and Steve Dutro's lettering choice for the "godspeak" was a really bad idea. I also don't get how they got "Sutekh" as the translation for what's commonly known as "Seth" (but I know as Set), but hey, whadda ya gonna do? Not bad ... but at five bucks, even with the 48 pages (and it does feel hefty), it was notoriously short on actual story (like, who was this guy before being chosen?) and I'm always amused at treatments that use a symbol of life as a weapon.

Astro City: The Dark Age #1:
Using two brothers as a framing device, Kurt Busiek spins a tale of Vietnam-era Astro City that's murkier than an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. The madness of otheworldly battles is cast in the light of "stuff that happens on TV," and inspires a sense of anarchy in one brother ("Superheroes wailing on each other -- giant spiders in Dallas -- trolls piling out of the sewer in City Center -- you gotta laugh. Like it matters, right? Like anything matters") as it inspires worry in the other ("... any of it would be okay by itself, but all together, with the Old Soldier thing, it says one thing. We're not in charge anymore. They're pushing us around, telling us what to do. And it doesn't make it better that they're right all the time"). Such a layered and nuanced story, depicing a flash point forcing Astro City to confront its central dichotomy ... it's just amazing, with brent Anderson turning in his regular star quality work.

Buy Pile Breakdown: Even with the frustrating illogic of Black Panther, it was a good week.

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

Avengers #6:
Apparently "the government is evil" is a theme tying many books together this week, as the Avengers take down a S.H.I.E.L.D. cover-up squad and find some pretty unpleasant mining (oh, and slavery too!) in the Savage Land. It got so ugly, even Captain America was convinced to accept the presence of Wolverine, who he considers morally reprehensible (despite working side by side with him with the Infinity Gauntlet and about a grillion other things). Pretty, with Spidey getting some good one-liners in, but not very substantial as a story.

Robin #139:
Much to his surprise, Tim Drake takes a somewhat surprising step towards becoming the Bat in the first few pages, and then gets a job offer that's even more disturbing at the end. If Max Lord''s goofy behind can become a criminal mastermind, heavens forbid that Tim Drake ever get a bad idea in his mind. I liked Willingham's plot here, with Robin showing a lot of smarts (almost too many smarts) and going about his work in an almost clinical fashion. But, somehow, I found it a little creepy too.

Captain America #7:
Taking a breather from the "is he or isn't he" shtick, we take a look at the truly pathetic last days of Jack Monroe. What a downer -- abandoned by everyone, even the super soldier formula in his veins, he wouldn't have lived much longer anyway. Poor bastard. Oh well.

Otherworld #4:
This issue took me a very long time to read, jam packed with both mountains of visual detail and legions of words on every page. As vapid as I felt the early issues were, this one is all meat (and pretty determined to get out of Crux territory) which I feel was disserviced by the montly format. There's simply too much going on in the depiction of this magical caste-based society and its struggle, and why it had to recruit normal people from the modern world when they have freaking Merlin walking around and spouting pseudo-profundities. I can see myself sitting down with the trade for a good, long time, and just soaking myself in the rich imagery and (now) intricate backstory. But in a monthly book, it was like a homework assignment.

Dream Police #1:
On the opposite end of the spectrum, JMS turns in a kind of ... well, dull police procedural set in the world of dreams (which looks suspiciously like New York, from a certain point of view). It's kind of cute in its echoing the rhythms of classic Dragnet (down to a policeman named "Thursday"), but so? Harmless, but a better fit for nostalgia fans is most of Moonstone's output.

Ultimate Fantastic Four #20:
The Ultimate Mad Thinker is a jealous brainy girl with rage management issues, and she gets trumped up by a finale so quick I had to read it twice to make sure I didn't miss it. I mean, she went down like a sack of wet hair. I was embarrassed for her, especially trying to sell a drugged up UFF (like that'd last) for a mere $900 million (she coulda gotten more in ransom, if not for her delusional desire for revenge). The close, with an opening for the much-hyped "crossover" storyline, was awfully easy, in my mind.

Queen & Country Declassified 3 #1:
Throwing the struggle in Ireland into stark relief, this issue features virtually no familiar faces (and I've been reading Q&C since issue #1) and mean dealings in a "war" that's been virtually unceasing since the time of swords and chainmail. I liked the subject matter, but the characters were too thin for me to care about, and the story too predictable (the IRA wants to blow something up, the Brits want to stop them, much hilarity ensues).

House of M #2:
What if? scene. Another What If? scene. How about a What If? scene? This deluge of looks in at "another way of seeing the Marvel universe" makes "Heroes Reborn" look like Shakespeare by comparison. Ooh, mutants rule the world! Ooh humans are discriminated against! Ooh, Captain America's old! Ooh, Dazzler's the new Oprah! Ooh, Piotr never left the Rodina, Hank McCoy and Tony Pym work for Tony Stark, Ororo's a supermodel, Janet Van Dyne's a famous designer, Namor's the first mutant (nice, edit Apocalypse out of your finer world), and so on and so on and so what? There's no story to speak of, just an endless set of framing instances, to check in on where everybody is. I don't care.

Killer Stunts #2:
Not a bad issue. I like the art, I like the percolating subplot with the possibly evil feds (see, told you it was a theme), but I found the "emotional" scene in the restaurant empty, and the meeting staggeringly boring. This title has been best at go go go action, and it tries to talk its way into something, ending up at Boredom. Art's pretty, it's a well crafted piece of work, but not doing very much.

Spider-Man House of M #1:
This issue, by itself, is only mediocre. Peter Parker became the world's biggest wrestler, parlaying his fortune into a Reed Richards-style fortune (convenient that the FF are dead in this "continuity," hahahahaha) and keeping JJJ around as his personal whipping boy. That includes buying Oscorp specifically to dismantle and disable its weapons program. I liked this smug Peter Parker even less, and when a probaly Osborn Goblin teams up with a likely foe, I welcomed their attempt to topple the Spider. But what was worst was when a guy at the counter said, "I just buy Spider-Man books, I'll just read it. It can't be that bad." I went nuts. I screamed, "see, that's what they rely on, your slavish devotion to the property that makes you unwilling to stop buying no matter how ridiculous the content! You buy that book, the terrorists win, another newborn is tossed into the fire, another innnocent kitty is sodomized somewhere in America! If you buy that book, Jesus will frown at you!" I don't even know why I was so suddenly incensed at yet another big publisher crossover dreck issue, but to see it in front of me just set me off, somehow. Oh well. The issue, itself, is just mediocre. The idea behind it is downright depressing.

Teen Titans #5:
Speaking of depressing, the Outsiders and the Titans have lost Superboy to his "father" Lex Luthor (who planted programming in the clone way back in the Cadmus days, that sneaky bastich) and left them to fight a team of Superman robots (the same kind that killed Donna Troy), launched of course by an evil Braniac 8 (whose been hiding as Indigo on the Outsiders) from the future. Got all that? Superboy, under Luthor's thrall, comes back to help stomp his former friends into paste, and both teams must band together to ... something. I kind of zoned out around then. I guess they're gonna try to save Superboy, sure (who I still say would have been better off in the 31st century), but this was pretty much fighting and shouting from cover to cover, with fairly hamfisted attempts at tugging emotional strings (if the final page had been set up with more than a disturbing sex scene, maybe it would have resonated more, but well, it didn't).

Ultimate X-Men #60:
Ultimate Deathstroke went down faster than the Ultimate Mad Thinker, with most of this issue centering on flashbacks and Ororo dealing (sort of) with her larcenous past. Eh.

Hellblazer: Papa Midnite #5:
An unsatifying ending made the whole exercise something that could have been better handled in a Who's Who entry. I get it. Papa Midnite did bad things. He's no hero, he's murky. Ooh. Right.

Supreme Power #17:
The main story -- Hyperion -- got little panel time (and the story I'm most interested in -- Nighthawk -- got none) as Power Princess showed her obsessive side, Doc Spectrum is in love, "Kingsley" (who I guess should be Amphibian I guess) gets jealous. Oh, and of course, the feds are evil, giving our Mark Milton a surprise he does not like at all. Eh.

Read Pile Roundup: After one of the worst weeks in my romantic life, this was an additional punch in the face.

So, How Was It This Week? Given the failure of Black Panther and despite two mild jumps, this week will go in the "loss" column.

The Buy Pile is a weekly collection of comic reviews done by Hannibal Tabu (www.operative.net)