Well, at least you know that I AM writing about comics, what with that eleven thousand freakin' words on the latest Tilting at Windmills. I swear, I'm dancing as fast as I can!! But how about some recent funny books? In no particular order:

FANTASTIC FOUR #554: Its been a while since Mark Millar wrote a regular continuity, non-event funny book that wasn't a short-form specific storyline, and it is nice to see him handling a straight-ahead superhero narrative again. There's nothing especially earth-shattering about this first issue, but that's just fine with me -- this is the basic level of quality that one of the "main franchise" titles of the Marvel (or DC) universe should be. There's a little confusion about just WHEN this takes place (eg: that line from Wasp about Hank and the Avengers, muh wha?), but who really cares. Spiffy art by Bryan Hitch rounds this out to a nice GOOD package, and I think it is worth your three bucks.

NEW AVENGERS #38: Secret Invasion, smecret invasion, its probably better to think this as an issue of the late, lamented ALIAS, and it is a terrific one. An easy VERY GOOD.

ASTRO CITY: DARK AGE SPECIAL #2: BEAUTIE: Well, that's what my invoice calls it, at least. Nothing particularly tied to the "Dark Age" storyline, however. Maybe its because that storyline feels like its been going on forever (well, only since August of '05), its nice to have a return to what feels like "prime" AC to me -- character-driven pieces that stand alone. I thought this one worked very well, especially with Brent Anderson's art -- there's a wonderful stiffness in his depiction of Beautie, and there's a really nice beat in there where she turns to face someone, or at least her head does. A very solid VERY GOOD.

SALVATION RUN #4: Ape versus Ape is cool and all, though I really have to wonder what they're thinking in killing off those particular characters. Yes, yes, they're "silly", but that doesn't mean they couldn't have something interesting done with them. Pretty sub-EH.

TINY TITANS #1: Who the heck is this aimed at? Kids won't get the in-jokey DCU references, adults are going to think this is too far below them. I really really don't get the thinking on this one (except maybe that they're paying Cartoon Network for the Titans Go! license, and don't want to pay that any more, and figure they can replace the book more or less equivalently), but it is basically cute enough to call it EH.

Sheesh, its taken me 3 hours to write up 5 comics, between the customers today. I'll try to be back next week with something more substantial....

What did YOU think?

-B