At an alarming pace, running away from his face: Graeme finishes out 7/5, bald-head style.

So, Zuda Comics, huh? Why'd they go with that name, I wonder? Although I have to admit that I found Newsarama's interview with Paul Levitz about it curiously honest - Did he really admit that DC should be the last place you look to for innovation these days, or was I reading too much between the lines...?

While pondering that, let's look at the dying world of print:

ACTION COMICS #851: Pretty much an issue of filler with the exception of the last few pages - and that really wasn't where I thought the Luthor subplot from the Annual was going, thankfully enough - but when filler comes with a pair of 3D glasses, I'm pretty much sold. Okay, but I do feel sorry for those who looked at this without rose-colored (well, and blue) glasses.

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN #8: Surprisingly, not so great, and I'm not entirely sure why not. Normally I'm a sucker for both Morrison and Quitely and also Bizarro World stories, but this felt incredibly light and lacking on new ideas or surprises, for a change. Technically, it's still head and shoulders above almost every other superhero book released this week and still Very Good but I really expected more from this.

BLACK CANARY #1: Paulo Siqueira proves rather adept at the kid-centric portions of this somewhat unnecessary miniseries (Admittedly, I say that partially because Gail Simone isn't writing it; I loved her take on Dinah in Birds of Prey, and even though Tony Bedard follows it closely here, it's still not enough, dammit), but ultimately it still feels like retcons are being used to manufacture fake drama instead of trying to make an interesting story about Dinah herself. Okay, but it could've and should've been better.

COUNTDOWN #43: Hibbs told me as he rings me up for this week that he's suddenly realized how badly this is going to read in trade, considering that this week's issue is all about the death of the Flash, which happened in another series altogether and wasn't even referenced in this book before last week. And he's not wrong, but that portion of the book was still more interesting than almost all of the actual Countdown-centric scenes that we got this issue. That said, everything is starting to pick up slightly, and I wonder if that's just because we're two months in and Dini et al always intended to start slow and speed up, or if it's down to the presence of new co-editor Mike Carlin, who joined the book with this issue. Either way, still Eh.

FAKER #1: I think I liked this, but to be honest, it all kind of rushed by without making too much of an impression - I feel as if I need to read the next issue (which will take me a third of the way into the series) before I could honestly say whether or not I thought it was worth my time, which leaves me somewhat ambivalent about the experience. Nonetheless, it's more proof that Mike Carey is a surprisingly versatile writer (Again, compare and contrast this to his X-Men, Re-Gifters or any other things released that he's worked on in the last month) and Jock is an engaging, if left-hand-biased, artist. Okay, I guess?

NEW WARRIORS #2: You know it's a bad sign when the thing that catches your attention most about a book like this isn't that - gasp! - the New Warriors are depowered mutants with new superpowers but that the book namedrops and uses the logos of MSN, Yahoo and Google. Between that and the Old Spice logo usage in recent books, it looks like Marvel has dived straight into the world of product placement with no fear whatsoever. Ah, this brave new world, etc. etc. As for the story itself, Eh; pretty much as you'd expect.

What did the rest of you think, anyway?