FCBD last weekend, editing an interview that Spurgeon conducted with myself, participating in the first Savage Critic roundtable, getting a first draft nailed down for the next TILTING, and this morning I taught a comics class to Ben's 1st grade class (yay to using words like "juxtaposition" and "onomatopoeia" with 6 year olds!), how do I even have time to breath any more? Regardless, best bang out some reviews on the quickstyle before I start in on this week's FOC...

I'm not but halfway done with this week's books, but here's some quickie thoughts:

ASTRO CITY THE DARK AGE BOOK FOUR #4 (OF 4): 16 issues and 5 years later, thank god this is over. I can't say that I've liked more than a scene here or there of any of this, really -- I'm VERY ready for the book to go back to Done-In-Ones forever and ever after. I did like the "epilogue" though, and the redacted original pitch is sort of entertaining if you play mad-libs with it. Overall, though? EH

BATMAN AND ROBIN #12: Damn, now that's a sexy issue of Batman, and I suddenly lurve Damien to pieces. I really really want Dick to stay as Batman. Does anyone (other than licensees) actually want Bruce Wayne back? The only sour notes for me are Talia -- I don't get her motivations at all any more, especially with Ra's running around too. But, hell, who cares, this was the strongest issue since #1, and I thought it was fundamentally EXCELLENT!

BRIGHTEST DAY #1: Kind of more of the same as "#0", just with fewer characters. I have a lot of hope this will end up being 52-ish (52 took like a dozen issues to really get good), but I ain't really feeling it yet. On the up-side: we didn't get allocated on the rings, so that should sell a few funny books... This is solidly OK.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #35 TWILIGHT PT 4 (OF 4): I can't say as though I really understand all that's going on with Buffy and Angel and what it all "means", but this has been a rocking arc, and this was a rocking end to that rocking arc. That alternate cover is also 31 flavors of awesome -- not even for the main image, but because they bothered to replicate the TRU banner ad that was on the original. I have warm fuzzies for this book right now, much like I did in the first few arcs. VERY GOOD.

iZOMBIE #1: I don't understand the "i" like Apple's trademark, I didn't really like any of the characters at all, but it's only a buck so that's good. My real ire is that this book was "previewed" in many Vertigo comics the last month, but what the previewed was the LAST pages of the book, so when I got to that point I was all "WTF, I've read all this before!" Dumb dumb move. Mildly OK.

PILOT SEASON STEALTH #1: This is the first of these "Pilot Season" comics I've read yet (after... 8? of them?) where I was actually interested in what happens next, and where, when I got to the last page I thought, "Well, give me the next issue already!" The premise here (superhero with Alzheimers) almost certainly can't be sustained for more than 3-4 issues, but I was intrigued by the set up. Solidly GOOD.

SUPERMAN WAR OF THE SUPERMEN #1 (OF 4): Interesting choice to wipe the slate in the middle of the issue rather than at the climax, but given that there's only 1 or 2 ways the entire series can resolve, I'm not finding a ton of suspense in here. Still, it was strongly OK action comics.

ULTIMATE COMICS NEW ULTIMATES #2: My suggestion is just don't read any of the Captain America captions, because they don't seem to fit the Ultimate Cap at all, and they're very clunky anyway. Without all of that narration, this was actually pretty GOOD, but with them it was fairly AWFUL. I'm weird like that.

That's all I have time for today... hopefully more before the end of the weekend?

As always, what did YOU think?

-B