Saucer Country #1-14 is right up my alley, a blend of sci-fi and politics, as a presidential contender is convinced that she was abducted by aliens. The series is a bit low on the answers, focusing on people trying to understand forces beyond their comprehension. I am definitely looking forward to any follow-up series.
JLA # 22-26, 28-31,34, 36-41 and JLA Classified #1-3 is the rest of Morrison’s run on the title, where the sense of grandeur in one moment leads to confusion in the next. Still it’s often quite fun, as he considers the difficulties of living up to the highest standard set by the Justice League.
While reading Happy #1-4, I kept thinking it was written by Garth Ennis or Warren Ellis. Tonally, it seemed to fit them better, although it’s also likely that it’s because they’ve worked with artist Darick Robertson so much. It’s a crazed Christmas noir story of a hitman who starts hallucinating a magical blue unicorn.
Captain America #247-255 is Roger Stern and John Byrne’s brief run, which includes some of the best stories in the series’s history: Captain America For President (where the point of the story is about why he won’t run), an update of his origin and a battle with a Nazi vampire. Young Allies Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1 and Captain America: Forever Allies #1-4 featured Stern’s return to the title, as he focused on the Bucky Cap, as well as allies and enemies from the golden age era. It was a fun, different type of story, even if it was kinda painful to see Stern trying to deal with the staggering racism of the source material.
Captain America #261-264, 267-270, 272-300 is JM Dematteis’s run on the series, automatically of interest to Spider-Man fans, since many of these characters reappear in that title. You can really see Dematteis getting better as a writer, as he starts coming up with worthy enemies for Cap, and dealing with topical issues in a non-preachy manner.
Secret Origins #44 and Detective Comics #595-597, 601-614, 616-617, 621 feature more of Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle’s run. We see more of the traditional rogues and Bruce Wayne, which makes the book a bit more generic than the CSI: Gotham approach of the first few issues, although it remains consistently satisfying, and they introduce a lot of concepts for later writers and artists to take advantage of.
Legends of the Dark Knight #65-68, 149-153 and Batman: Crime and Punishment feature Dematteis’s take on Batman. With these three stories, the Batman/ Spider-Man one-shots and the Resolution OGN, you could make the case that JM Dematteis is one of the best Batman writers ever. “Going Sane” is Kraven’s Last Hunt for Batman, as the Joker has a breakdown after he believes that he killed Batman, who is nowhere to be seen for months. With “Grimm” he makes the decision to focus on Robin’s early days, merging the stories of two villains, an eccentric who could have been in a 1960s Robin solo story, and a more traditional Batman rogue. “Crime & Punishment” focuses on Harvey Dent’s daddy issues, which were introduced by other writers. The art by Scott Macdaniel is fantastic, although the ending is too pat,
Wolverine (Marvel Now!) #1-2 is Paul Cornell’s biggest comics project yet, as Wolverine faces a creepy villain he can’t just stab to death. Alan Davis’s art makes it all even better.
Total: 1559 Comics Read So Far
Best Comic I read this month: Tossup between Journey Into Mystery #545, the conclusion of Kieron Gillen’s Young Loki saga, and Captain America #253-254, possibly the best vampire story in comics.
What Would Spidey Do? 