Hey everybody! Hey Dr. Nick!

 Cosmic Guard #1 1 (always got to give a jim starlin book at least one issue)

 CVO Covert Vampiric Operations Human Touch #1 (covert vampire operations? kinda cool)

 Doctor Cyborg Outpatient GN 1 (goofy name but oeming worked on it)

 Doctor Spectrum #1 (i'm a little skeptical but will give it a shot since i'm enjoying SUPREME POWER so much)

 Ex Machina #3 (engaging book so far)

 Humankind #1 Land Cvr 1 (will give it an issue)

 I Am Legion The Dancing Faun 1 (ww2 story with art by cassaday... could be interesting)

 Olympus Heights #2 1 (enjoyed the first issue... zeus as a badass)

 Quantum Rock Of Ages #1 1 (back issue... have heard good things about this series)

 Remains #4 1 (let's see if niles actually moves the story forward)

 Silent Assassin Understanding Trauma 1 (sci fi tale)

 Singularity 7 #2 1 (pretty cool first issue)

 Small Gods #2 1 (a week old... pretty good first issue... heard it already sold for television)

 Supreme Power #12 1 (really enjoying this though i shouldn't be)

 Ultimate Spider-Man #64 1 (ditto)

 Ultimate X-Men Vol 8 New Mutants TP 1 (vaughan has made me want to find out what happened before he got there)

 Ultra #1 1 (i'm dubious but will give it a shot)

So far, just these two.

I never get my comics til Thursday or Friday.

Dave Pruitt didn't do it... until Thursday or Friday.

Post 'em then! : )

DC Comics Presents: The Atom #1

In the non-comic category I got the DC Direct 1st Appearance Batman

Here's what I picked up:

Charlton Action Hero Archives, vol. 1

Astro City Special

JSA: Strange Adventures #1

Plastic Man #9

Terra Obscura, vol. 2 # 1 (Tom Strong spin-off)

I Am Legion: The Dancing Faun (No, Brenden - you weren't the only one who picked this up - just one of two. )

Fantastic Four # 517

Ultimate Spider-Man # 64

Steve Rude's the Moth #4

Me , Fabrice and maybe Flavio are going to the comic shop this friday. have no Idea what I'll get until I'm infront of the books themselves.

Just joined up guys...!

Slow week but some great books:

MANHUNTER #1: pretty cool...interesting female lead and we jump right into the action..we can feel her frustration as a DA in the DCU and copperhead is pretty scary...the last page is brutal and is quite a surprise...i will be sticking around for a few issues to see where this goes..but so far so good...7/10

XMEN the End #2: i had low expectations but for those of us who followed CC run in the 80s..this is a cool story that seems to want to bring in all the old crew, wrap up old storylines and tell a fun tale. Lots ofX-Kids popping up..Nightcrawlers daughter, a junior Xavier (I think), etc...fun stuff and CC best work on an Xtitle in a long time...recommended for old school Xfans...8/10

Human Target #14: mystery, pathos, action, intrigue, emotion....this is truly a MATURE book...Milligan is an underrated writer that deserves more attention...one of the best books out there month in and month out...check this out people...10/10

Supreme Power #12
Classwar #6
Astro City Special
Savage Dragon #116
Adventures Of Superman #631 (which came polybagged a cd-r of the Sky Captain movie trailer)

5 comics for a total of $17.20, that comes out to $3.44 an issue. Y'know, when I was first buying comics on my own (as opposed to having my parents buy them for me) they were .60 cents. Just think, I could've bought 28 comics for the same amount of money back then.

Two for me also. Didn't know the HB Charlton Archives came out this week. Have to go back.

Bob, nice to see a fellow Terra Obscura fan (all two of us.)

Identity Crisis #3 (I was on vacation)
Green Arrow #41 (ditto)
DC Comics Presents: The Atom
Terra Obscura Vol. 2 #1

Just one for me. Astro City Special.

hey JR - whats Classwar about..? Ive been hearing good things about it...let me know...

thanks!

Hey, if anyone has NOT tried Astro City yet, The current special is a good example, and a great jumping-on point. I cannot recommend this series strongly enough.

You're welcome.

I don't quite remember where I first heard about this 6-part miniseries, it may have been in an issue of Wizard, or maybe on Millarworld. Anyway, it sounded intriguing, so I went to pick it up. My LCS had #3, which had just came out, & #1 on the shelf, & they told me about another store I could go to to get #2. So I was able to read #1-3 one after another, which probably made it read better for me than if I had bought each issue when it came out, since apparently it had an erratic shipping schedule, with #2 coming out 2 months after #1, & #3 coming out 4 months after #2.

I dug it. It's one of those "superheroes in the real world" type of stories that can be excellent when done right (or absolutely horrible when done wrong). It's published by an independant British company called ComX, which explains the bad shipping, since they're still small. But then the artist got hired by Marvel to draw Captain America, so they had to get a new artist to draw #4, but then halfway throught that, that artist also got hired away, so they had to look for another artist. This lead to it being another 8 months before #4 finally came out. #5 came out a month later, & now, 2 months after that, we get #6.

Silverbulletcomicbooks.com has done some reviews for the series which I think are pretty spot-on. You can go to that website & look it up under "reviews archive," but if you don't want to risk too many spoilers, I'll just post a few words from each review, before giving my final analysis:

#1: "The American, the premier superhero of the United States, rebels against the government. He publicly humiliates the president, while friends broadcast his message to the nation. That message: "You are being lied to and controlled by a secret alliance of political and corporate masters. Now I'm going to expose them". The government sends out the superhuman team of Enola Gay to kill The American. Although they may not have to . . . "

#2: "The american government is teetering on the brink, resignations left, right and center, all due to the American's revelations last issue. The President realizes (finally) that maybe he's not as in control of the country as he'd like to be - there are more powerful men influencing everything he does - and, at the moment, he's safe, but is in no way indispensible...how to distract the country's attention from domestic problems?"

#3: "After a short flashback to when both Isaac and The American experienced an epiphany that what they had been doing was wrong and needed to be challenged and changed, we see that the US President has a plan for recapturing his popularity; to do with an invasion of revolutionary Glenada (i.e. Grenada). American and Isaac are there also, they're trying to gather enough evidence to incriminate the US government in the backup of a corrupt dictatorship, not to mention take the opportunity to burn up some nasty drug-fields. A momentary lapse allows a CIA agent providing evidence to escape and report back to base, and he just happens to know where The American is hiding out..."

#4: "The plot is rather less involved in detailing the actions of The American (said rebelling Superman) (other than a lovely opening sequence) than in detailing the actions in his fellow superhumans in tracking him down, and filling in some background on how exactly these superhumans came to be - think Captain America after a lot (and I mean, a lot) of trial and error."

#5: "...it still works and reads very well - it's just not as good as #4; I guess that's the problem with setting such a high benchmark for oneself, it's hard to hit it consistently."

#6: "What's not to love about a book containing this exchange, in the Oval Office, the Pres, his secretary, and his new superpowered bodyguard Jefferson are talking about a decision the Pres has just made, when:

President's Dog: YELP!
President: What the fuck was that?
Jefferson: Uh...it appears that my left leg has just eaten your dog.
Secretary: Now there's a sentence I've never heard before."

****************************
So, like I said, it's an interesting concept, & is quite well-written, but one of the complaints, which I must agree with, is the "been there, done that" vibe you kind of get from it, but that's more of the fault of the book's schedule. In the year & a half it took for this series to complete, we've seen many of these same issues ("real world" superheroes, political & corporate control of superheroes) dealt with in books like The Ultimates, Stormwatch: Team Achilles, Wildcats v3.0, & especially Supreme Power. In fact, the ending to Classwar #6 is quite similar to the ending of Supreme Power #9, which is unfortunate since it was written well before that.

Plus, the ending is a bit too open. I read an interview with the writer way back in the beginning, & he had said that he really sees this as two 6-part arcs of one complete story, & had #7-12 already mapped out, but that's a problem here, since it leaves you in a way that makes you curious what happens next, but due to the problems in getting this book out regularly, there might not be enough of a demand for a 2nd miniseries.

But, like I said, I did enjoy it for what it was. An 8 on a scale of 1-10. So, if I were to recommend this to anyone, it would be with the caveate that you wait until December, when the trade paperback is supposed to be released.

Just my opinion.

If you were in Australia, the same bunch of comics would cost you in the high twenties - yes, over $5 a comic on average. Even with the exchange rate, I saved money on my comics when I was over in the States last year...

Thanks JR - I may check it out...Trevor Hairsine did the art for a few issues...he's the guy currently doing Ultimate Nightmare with Ellis...very nice art...

Ultimate Spider-Man #64
Marvel Age Spider-Man #10
Mary Jane #3

<i>Mary Jane</i> is actually a pretty good all-ages series. It's no <i>Spider-Girl</i>, but it's entertaining.

-Comp

DATABASE!!!!!!

what's up, man? long time no chat.

are you reading AMAZING FANTASY? or is it an affront to all SPIDER-GIRL lovers everywhere?

AMAZING FANTASY would be ok if it were - ya know - better written and more interesting.

B DIDDY!!!!

I saw you reference me a couple of times on the Byrne board. I wanted to e-mail you and say hello, but I didn't know your address.

<<AMAZING FANTASY would be ok if it were - ya know - better written and more interesting.>>

Exactly. I gave it a shot, two issues, but it's hardly even tangentially related to Spider-Man, holds no interest beyond that, and even theoretically threatens <i>Spider-Girl</i>, so I'm dropping it. I say "theoretically" because this is clearly not a book that will achieve great sales or sustain readers, no matter how heavily it's promoted. You don't take six issues to tell the origin of an unestablished, and uninteresting, new character.

-Comp

Why did they decide to call it AF? IDONGEDIT.