Grading the Comics - December 3, 2008

Hey folks,
As Jeff points out in his comment, it's been awhile since I've done my usual reviews. So let me cue up what I'll be reading this week and (with luck) catch up later today/tomorrow on the huge mass of stuff I read last week.

UPDATED! All right, I have read my list for this week and here's what I think. (Drum roll please.)

• AUTHORITY #5 - Continuing the post-apocalypse storyline, this features the Engineer racing to save a handful of refugees from "Warhol fever" victims in the wreckage of the Carrier, while her teammates both help and hinder her progress. Sets up some nice ongoing tension within the ranks. B
• BATMAN #682 - a true Final Crisis tie-in and (I hope) the wrap up to RIP, this is a brilliant done-in-one about Batman's career--the start, the early days, the advent of Robin, the painful aftermath of Robin's departure, and the notion that something very wrong is happening inside Batman's noggin. Better than #681! A
• BOYS #25 - Wee Hughie learns more than he wanted about the expansive "G-Men" and their myriad franchise teams, while Mother's Milk talks about the job and Butcher contrives something interesting in the name of research. B+
• JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #21 - the $h!t is hitting the fan, boys and girls, with Gog setting a price for his miracles and the JSA deciding if they're going to pay it. And Superman-Grim punches a lightning bolt. Classic! And this is NOT yet the end of the story--that happens next month. A
• MARVEL ZOMBIES 3 #3 - as Machine Man confronts (and rips through) legions of Marvel zombies (including lots of the Inhumans, Ghost Rider, et al), Jocasta finds what they're looking for, even as ARMOR finds that they have a mole from the zombieverse. Solid storytelling and I like it MUCH better than MZ 2. B
• SECRET INVASION #8 - Wow, what a wrap up. Fans will love it or hate it; I thought it was pretty damn good. A major death very early on, a gigantic shake up to the status quo, and Iron Man pretty definitively falls from grace. A few loose ends and a heartwarming moment or two, all of which launch us into DARK REIGN, coming soon! A+
• TERRA #3 - interesting story, setting up a subterranean culture (something that AQUAMAN got around to doing very, very late) that justifies spending lots of time underground. Plus Terra explains her origin, Geo-Force gets slapped around some and "Diamond Boy" has some ups and downs of his own. B
• TERROR TITANS #3 - lots of fighting but not much to show for it, except an already-spoiled reveal on the last page. Three more issues of this? C-
• TRINITY #27 - again, not a lot happening. If this weren't a weekly, I'd have dumped it by now. C+
• WHAT IF... HOUSE OF M - "No more powers." Kind of says it all, except that a very old and very evil supervillain has an ultimate weapon that the nonpowered heroes can't fight. A pretty good look at what the heroic do when they don't have powers to prop them up. Plus a backup that'll run through all the What Ifs: What if the Runaways had become the Young Avengers? B
• X-INFERNUS #1 - Magik is back (okay, the Darkchilde is back; not exactly the same thing) and she's kicking butt. Colossus wants to go after and rescue his little sister Illyana but it looks like she doesn't need rescuing. Who does? Oh, probably the whole X-team, once a teleportal opens up in the wake of Pixie's discovery. Nice to see S'ym and Nastirh back again too. B+

And that's it for this week. Thoughts, comments, agree/disagree? I await word from you.

Drew