Business meetings early in the morning that run until mid-afternoon? Not so fun. Especially when you have lots of other stuff to do in the rest of your day...

52 AFTERMATH: CRIME BIBLE - FIVE LESSONS OF BLOOD #1: Goddammit, I really wanted to enjoy this much more than I actually did. I like Rucka's writing in general, and have (partially accidentally, I have to admit) followed his take on Renee Montoya since his Detective run, but there wasn't enough in this issue to keep my attention; it felt like a cheap dark humored short stretched out to issue-length, with some foreshadowing that I hope doesn't mean the series will end with the Question becoming a follower of the Crime Cult. More Eh than I wanted it to be, sadly.

THE DEATH OF THE NEW GODS #2: Ignoring the DC Nation page at the end of the issue that officially announces what everyone's been expecting - that this is only the death of this version of the characters - and also the seeming disconnect between Countdown's revelation of Darkseid as the big bad behind the death of the New Gods and his behavior here, the main thing I got from this issue was another helping of my dislike for Starlin's art. Everything else was just Okay.

INFINITE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: Yeah, yeah. So it's cute that it shipped on Hallowe'en, but still - That means that this book has a one day sales window. Good work there, DC. Equally good work on the relatively Eh quality of each of the (too short to really get much momentum) stories contained within; with the exception of Mark Waid's Flash tale, everything else just kind of passed by in a dull haze...

IRON MAN #23: Try as they might, I can't take any scene where Tony Stark says "RAH!" in frustration seriously. Sad to see that the whole "Everyone thinks he's mad, but seriously he's more awesome and right than everyone else in the entire world and by God he's going to prove it" deification of the character continues, as well. Eh.

SPECIAL FORCES #1: Kyle Baker's new war comic, in a weird way, illustrates the difference between old-school satire and new for me; Army@Love may be unfunny and more dated, but you can tell that it comes from some genuine heartfelt place... but this feels cynically put together, from the exploitative T'n'A to the Frank Miller-esque narration to the media-literate jokes (The first line of the book is "The black guy dies first."); it reads as if it's Baker's idea of what the audience wants in a comic, rather that something he wants to create. That that works better for me than Army@Love probably says something about me as an audience, but I found this mix of bad manners and pessimism full of black humor and highly enjoyable. Good

Next week: The final issue of New Avengers: Illuminati ships, just so we can see how shocked everyone is at Elektra being a Skrull...