Like el Jefe said, it was Tzipora's birthday this weekend, so I'm drowning for time -- gonna try to cover the items Jeff didn't.... HERO SQUARED XTRA SIZED SP #1: It's wordy, yes, and the middle sequence kinda dragged on, but, overall I thought this was a terrific start, and I hope they continue it. Parallel universes and slackers and comedy ahoy. GOOD.

WARREN ELLIS SIMON SPECTOR #1: And Ellis' "5th week event" (hahaha) comes to an end. Might have been nice if it all had shipped in the same week, though. Shouldn't these be returnable, really? I thought SIMON SPECTOR was probably the least of the 4 books, but that might be because "The Man" is the least compelling of the four concepts -- when heroes are perfect and unstoppable, there's not too much drama there, is there? Still, nothing worse than an OK from me.

WARREN ELLIS ANGEL STOMP FUTURE #1: Easially my favorite of the 4 "Apparat" titles, perhaps because it has the most cleanly "Ellisian" voice -- Warren does "Turn to the camera and think about technology out loud" bettrer than almost anyone. This "felt" like TRANSMETROPOLITAN, and the earlier issues, at that. Ryp's artwork is bloody fucking lovely and insane, but suffers a bit, I think, from not being colored. On most pages there isn't much of an "anchor" for your eye to fix on TO check out the insane little details everywhere. When Ryp does, say, porno, it works fine because there's usually lots of naughty bits to center your eye on, but in a dense SF-driven world like this, there's a lot of blurring going on. However, one really wonders how he has gone all of these years without being snapped up by a more... respectable publisher -- he's got all of the density and sight-gaggery of Darrow, but, apparantly, he's twice as fast at LEAST. Either way, perfect art choice for the voice of the book, and I thought this was two great creators at the top of thier form. VERY GOOD, and, all things considered, my PICK OF THE WEEK.

NIGHTWING #101: Rather than "Nightwing: Year One" it's more like "Robin: Year last". Nice to look at, competently written, my only problem was I kinda felt I had read this issue like 99 times before. Yes, yes, Dick and Bruce fight, we KNOW that one already. So, let's go with a very very high OK.

ULTIMATES 2 #2: A very solid issue, and I like the way it confounded my expectations by NOT having the fight scene where it might otherwise, and seeming to be serious about executing the Hulk. I really think they should, too. An easy VERY GOOD.

MAJESTIC #1: Well, I don't see the point of the book, or really the audience either ("modernly told silver age superman stories without superman" I guess.. and that's, what, 79 people in America?), and I really can't see it lasting more than 12 issues, but, having said THAT, it was pretty solid, with very nice art, and well-written "big ideas". I'm even going to give it a low GOOD. But it probably won't have a #13.

X 23 #1: Well, so she's not Wolverine's clone, but his "genetic duplicate", and, the script really really seemed to think this was some kind of big difference, and it just felt, dunno, kinda defensive or something. But, god, why? Why do we need a She-verine any way? With a belly ring? Jeff deeply disturbed me on Friday by saying something like "They were probably thinking, 'A character as cool as Wolvie, except we can fuck her! Woo!'" which immediately made me want to get very very drunk and curse humanity forever. I don't think this character adds anything, and it seems... oh, I dunno, cynical? or calculated, maybe. I also really felt I'd pretty much read THIS before, too -- "scientists create unstoppable killing machine then are surprised when said machine, y'know, is unstoppable and kills everyone" Really, as an individual comic, it was probably OK, but the underlying concept and lack of imagination on display here drops me way down to an AWFUL.

In terms of the PICK OF THE WEAK, I'll go with something Jeff handled: CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON #11. It hurt my little head trying to follow all of the permutations of characters and I think Priest should stop trying to be SO clever, darn it.

Only place I really disagreed with Jeff's assessments was on MARVEL TEAM-UP #4. I thought it was a god damn good DC comic. I can't even defend that statement really, but that's how it felt to me. GOOD.

For the BOOK/TP OF THE WEEK, I'll go with Andi Watson's LOVE FIGHTS VOL 2 TP it's charming stuff.

OK, now back to sorting through BookScan numbers for NEXT month's TILTING...

-B