Comic book reviews for the week of September 22nd, in six sentences (or less)

Best of the week

Walking Dead #77

Unless it’s a particularly strong haul The Walking Dead is almost always going to walk away with the best of the week. A story about the ongoing saga of the zombie apocalypse? It’s like they’re writing comics just for me now. Events in this series always seem to either be building to a chaotic confrontation or spiralling wildly out of control. This week has liberal smears of the latter as the survivors must determine the final fate of a spousal abuser in their midst.

Avengers #5

I’m not by nature a Marvel fan. I used to read AMAZING SPIDER-MAN for a few years but gave it up because…well…after awhile it just seemed to reek of sameness, month in and month out. And this whole Civil War\Secret Invasion\Dark Reign\Siege thing? Pass. Too many minis, too many books, too much money. But JRJR on THE AVENGERS, I’ll give that a shot.

The Flash #5

Geoff Johns continues to build on the world of Barry Allen, by drawing from the creative well he knows best – The Rogues. It’s a good read and while Manapul’s art doesn’t seem like it would necessarily be suited to the Flash visual aesthetic, it always surpasses my expectations. But I’m continually hampered by the fact whenever I read this book I always have to ask myself, ‘why can’t this be Wally West?’ And that just feels like a privileged fan boy complaint (well, this isn’t MY Flash). It just seems a shame that they’ve dropped an old legacy character into the exact same boots as his replacement, without bothering to really examine what makes the two men different.

Green Lantern Corps #52

I didn’t think this title would continue to make my pull list with the departure of Gleason and Tomasi, arguably one of my favourite creative teams in recent history. The argument could be made that the writing and artwork has slipped a bit under the tenure of new creative team Tony Bedard and Ardian Syaf. But perhaps that’s just because, freed from the go-go-go pace of Blackest Night ,the title now has to find its niche in the larger DCU. Anyway, I’m willing to keep going with GLC on an arc by arc basis. Especially as the next arc deals with the criminally underutilized Qwardian weaponers.

Justice League of America #49

Oh hey, I didn’t realize when I picked this up at the store that Mark Bagley was no longer doing the art for this book. Is that a permanent thing or just temporary? Cause I just realized that a large reason why I was still reading this was Bags’ pencilling.

Ultimate Comics Mystery #3

This title spins directly out of the events of Ultimate Comics Enemy . You know, rather than asking readers to go leaping from mini-series to mini-series, the Ultimate universe would be well served by a single ongoing title, (a straight up ULTIMATE COMICS UNIVERSE maybe). I have a deep seated unease of mini series because they’re often a dumping ground for ideas and plot threads that are then abandoned and ignored in the ongoing titles. Although admittedly the Ultimate Comics world does a much better job of ensuring that developments in Title A are carried over into Title B.

Ultimate Comics Spider-man #14

It’s comfort food, light, fluffy and with just enough substance to keep me satisfied. Spider-man, freed from the shackles of decades of continuity and allowed to just live his life, without having to reference the MANY tragic milestones he’s faced. Here the Clone Saga and the Death of Gwen Stacey are just plot points, not millstones tied to the character’s neck.