Bendis and Morrison ALWAYS come first

I'm off to a good start this week: five whole books wrapped and ready to go. AND I had stacks of work to do at my real job, so I'm awesome.

New Avengers #41 was pretty good. I don't have the book in front of me, but I feel as if there was a note in the first issue of Secret Invasion that explained why Ka-Zar and Shanna weren't around, but I may be making that up. Still, for those who don't read interviews, this issue wraps up some dangling plot threads that showed up in issue #1 or 2, giving New Avengers a cohesion and sense of continuity. That's just nice.

Final Crisis #1 is kind of a slow start. As with so many of these event books, you have to take on faith that the next issue will show that the first issue was good because, on its own, it's kind of weak and scattered. Plus, the Dr. Light/Giganta thing felt forced and out of place. But still, there was plenty to like and it did feel self-contained (unlike Infinite Crisis, which felt like a summary of other books that happened to be going on at the same time) and JG Jones is just an awesome artist. As a bonus, it did feel like Countdown (a 51 issue series that told five issues worth of story) had a point. Not a big point, or even a good one, but a point nonetheless.

All-Star Superman #11 is a very good issue that fails to live up to the last issue (if you haven't read All-Star Superman #10, we can't be friends because it is the greatest single issue of 2008, no question), but that's okay. It's still very good. Good writing, plotting, art. A solid package. When the Absolute Edition comes out (and it will come, no doubt), that's going to be a volume to have.

Batman #677 was the third Grant Morrison book released this week. If only WildC.A.T.S. #2 had also been released... But I digress. I'm excited about this book because, for a year or more, it felt like he was spinning his wheels: weak plots, blown deadlines, art that was barely good enough to be called dreadful, and no apparent direction. This is him pulling it together. He doesn't save or even justify the earlier issues, but he is finally telling a story he cares about and has a sense of purpose again. Some of the ideas that get name-checked are intriguing, but I am guessing (hoping?) these are lies planted by the Black Glove.

King-Size Hulk #1, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of the other books on this list. It's a decent story, lots of big action, just like the Hulk series, but there's no point to it all. The art is great: Art Adams doing more than two pages of interiors is probably worth $5, plus you get Frank Cho and Herb Trimpe to boot. But the story is filler, just mindless backstory that was unnecessary in the main title, so why tell it? I do hope another issue of Hulk gets released, though, because Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness at their most Jeph-Loeb-and-Ed-McGuiness-iest is just good times for everyone.