That's why they're called "Business Socks"

I was not looking forward to this week, but it actually turned out okay in the end. I'm not NEARLY as pessimistic as Matt. Which is weird because I tend to be hard on my books. So, what'd I read?



We'll start with Trinity #2 which is just a great book. Allow me to justify that a bit, though. The story itself, along with the writing, plotting, and art, are okay. Mark Bagley's storytelling and page layouts are more safe and less interesting than his work on Ultimate Spider-Man and Kurt Busiek is kind of on auto-pilot. What makes it great is the way the series is expanding. See, with 52, DC published a weekly comic and had no idea what to do with it so they purposely set up every DC book to not cross over with it by making them all fast forward a year (terrible idea). When 52 turned out to be really good, DC scrambled to kind of tie into it but the titles didn't hit until the last few weeks.

So then Countdown came along and DC went out of its way to tie that into EVERYTHING, from "Green Arrow"'s "wedding" (which, I mean, REALLY?) to the death of Impulse (spoiler?). And it failed because it became more a summary of what was happening in other books than a book on its own (weak) merits. Even to the end, you had four spin-off series running with Countdown. So that didn't work.

So what does Trinity do? You can't have it tie in to nothing because then there may be alleyways you want to explore but can't. You can't have it tie into everything because then people feel ripped off that they have to buy a dozen books just to decode what is going on. So Kurt Busiek TIES IT INTO ITSELF! Rather than say "Go buy [book X] to understand why Green Lantern is fighting a grazed Grape Ape", the book gives half the book to the "Trinity" and the other half to filling in the blanks that you just missed. It doesn't interupt the flow of the main narrative by flashing around among dangling plots, it acts as an appendiw, it's own tie-in mini-series. Which is great, which is why I say it's great.

Not so great: Superman has a solar system appear in Metropolis, Wonder Woman fights giant robots, and Batman deals with mass hallucination in Gotham (?!?). And Superman actually says something like "Clearly all of these events are related to that dream we all had." How did he come to that conclusion exactly? It's such a Superfriends line ("An earthquake? In California? Clearly Lex Luthor is involved!") I lose a little respect for Kurt Busiek. Still, really good.


Booster Gold #10 was all kinds of good. Again, I like time travel, so I'm biased. But this answers unanswered questions from the original series like "Whose flight ring does Booster have?" "How does he have Brainiac 5's tech if Brainiac 5 is from 500 years in the future?" It's just great. And, if you weren't aware that those questions existed, the BEST way to spend 16 dollars is to pick up Showcase Presents Booster Gold, which collects all 25 issues of the original series plus crossovers plus his story from Secret Files. Totally worth every penny.


Amazing Spider-Man #562 has really great art by Mike McKone, who should just rotate with Marcos Martin on every issue of Amazing from now on. He's great, and he's not strickly DC and if ever there were a book that felt like it needed McKone's art, this is it. (Kevin Maguire would also be nice.) I like where its going and I hope that, well, the Spider-double becomes Spider-Man's full-time sidekick, because THAT would be something.

Now, my problem with the issue: at the end of the issue, there is a blurb about two associate editors who are leaving Marvel. Molly Lazer (who I swear has been there since the 80's) gets a very nice "We'll miss you." Then, Aubrey Sitterson (who's been with Marvel since the mid -90s) gets the shaft, being blamed for everything that went wrong with Amazing Spider-Man over the last five years, especially "One More Day". They also make fun of the poor guy because he's working for the WWE (which I can guarantee pays better than Associate Editor for Marvel). It's a very mean-spirited send-off to someone who, I'm sure, worked hard and gave a couple years of his life to Marvel.


Captain Britain and MI-13 #2 is really good for most of the reason's Matt already mentioned. It looks like this may be an ongoing (I swear it was solicited as a 3 issue mini) which has me excited. I will disagree with Matt, though. First, I don't think it's a spoiler to say Captain Britain (or at least Brian Braddock) dies in the last issue. It would be a spoiler, though, to say that the, I think, Pakistani woman is going to be the NEW Captain Britain, which is weird not because she's female or Pakistani, but because the title is called "Captain Britain", but it's not the Cap we've seen for 30 years. Second, it's a fun book that's well-written, well-illustrated, and may actually surpass the event it ties in to. Plus, as mentioned last month, it benefits from having a solid plot rather than a list of ideas cobbled together. And, to top it all off, it has competant, consistent art. Just go buy it. Now.


Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust is another one of those anthology one-shots I enjoy. Beginning to end, this is good stuff. Even the Captain Marvel bit (which is actually the According to Hoyle definition of "superfluous") is engaging and does a better job explaining that bit than the mini did. (though, if I may rant, at this point everyone knows the new Captain Marvel is a Skrull so, really, why bring him back with all the fanfare just to reveal it was all BS?) The other stuff, though -- Agents of Atlas, Agent Brand from Astonishing X-Men -- were just good. Well, except maybe the OTHER Cpatain Marvel bit (the Grant Morrison-ified one), which was decent but drawn well. Definitely worth buying for anyone reading the main series.


The Twelve #6 is WAY better than Avengers/Invaders. That is all.


X-Force: Ain't No Dog is a Wolverine one-shot that didn't make the last batch with a neutered Warpath story tacked on. I know Scalped is good and all, so why did Jason Aaron turn in such a watered down story for the only active Native American superhero? Maybe he's waiting to do a mini-series about the guy from Thunderbolts that put Bullseye in a coma.

Guy Ritchie's Gamekeeper: Volume 2 #4 came out this week and it was prompt. The most exciting thing, literally, is that there is an add for Virgin Fest on the back cover, which takes place in Baltimore.


Local #12 came out, too. If the rest of the series had been as good as this, it would have justified the three years it took to produce. Megan redeems herself while the book keeps its super-depressing tone in place. Despite that, this is still a good series and anyone who hasn't been reading it should definitely get ahold of the recently-solicited trade (pre-orders preferred, I'm sure).


And finally, Doktor Sleepless #7. I really like Doktor Sleepless. I'm not really sure if its an ongoing (as originally proposed) or not because this issue says "To be concluded", but I dig this book. If anyone has read Mister X, this is more or less the same premise: crazed genius returns to a city that he built from the ground up and does crazy future-science stuff. This book, along with Black Summer, are interesting, too, because up until now, Ellis's Avatar stuff has been atrocious (yes, even Black Gas, and especially Black Gas 2 with its zombie-orgy scenes). he now seems to have his own id in check, producing random, bizarre books that are more like what he would produce for Marvel if they made a mistake and let him be himself. So, again, if you are coming late to this, look into the trade that will be out...eventually. It's pretty good stuff.