Ben's asleep now!

The best part of him climbing up on the shelf is that he doesn't have the foggiest notion of how to get himself down, so he'll start crying about that, and I haul him to mother earth, and what does he do? Yeah, try to get back there right away. He understands there IS gravity, but he doesn't quite get how it works yet....

Still, I got him down for his afternoon nap, so back at my in-box....

KINETIC #5: There were a couple of books that really REALLY made me wish I had a column during the hiatus -- issue #4 of Kinetic was one of those. Wonderful quiet story about the reactions of his mother as her world shatter and changes around her, and all of her preconceptions are discarded in a moment. Kinetic started really slow, probably too slow, but it has really come into its own now, and is one of the most emotionally satisfying comics on the stands. This is "the next Sleeper" or "the next Runaways" -- the kind of book no one is reading, but they really should because they'd just love it if they did. Very Good.

FANTASTIC FOUR #516: I liked the first part of the arc, I thought the second was OK, but here at part three, I think it should have been a done-in-one. Nothing wasn't said here that wasn't said last issue. Eh.

SUPERMAN #207: This book is running the trajectory almost exactly opposite Lee's Batman run -- started strong (though less so than we anticipated), but it's bleeding readers every issue. I kinda don't even think this will be Top 10 by issue #12. Far too much blabity-blab talking about stuff that only tangentially matters ("faith" is a great topic for Superman to undertake -- setting it in this context robbed it of almost all of it's real-life human resonance). After six issues of Batman and 4 of this I think it's fair to declare what we all guessed going in -- Azzarello really doesn't "get" how to write super heroes. (which is fine, not everyone should / does)  Lee is a great artist, but the underlying material is so unremittingly dull and oddly paced that I just have no interest in this. Eh

SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT #12: And so the stealth reboot ends. I sadly found the whole thing to be a bit preposterous, and largely unnecessary -- this last bit of Luthor's big master plan was just dopey, and wrapped with a real whimper. Plus, trying to fit it into continuity with the offhand "You know Luthor will find a way to beat the charges" just hurt my tiny little head. I really don't think this added anything new or majestic to the legend, so foo. On the other hand, the last two pages, though slightly torturously arrived at, where a really touching bit of "closure" on the K-side. I liked that so much that I'm going to be a big softie and give the whole thing an OK.

FUTURAMA #18: Reasonably funny (Go, Ian Boothby, go -- how come I'm the only reviewer who ever says what a fabulous writer this guy is?), but doing extended storylines in a quarterly comic book is really a bad idea. Good.

DC COMICS PRESENTS HAWKMAN #1: I really thought the first three of these (Batman, Adam Strange, and GL) were really awful, so I'm glad to say this one was pretty charming. The Cary Bates story (w/ Byrne) brought back Earth-Prime (Did Cary "invent" that? I have strong memories of him starring in a JLA one... but I'm not sure if that is the first one) and the Kurt Busiek (w/Simonson) one had a decent Silver Age "feel", and ended on a sweet note. This isn't great comics, but it's decent stuff, and the strongest of the batch. OK.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #3: Joss has, I think, found his legs (fingers?) with the characters -- some razor sharp characterization, and some really fun scenes (Scott and Nick Fury aboard the Helicarrier, or the excellent Danger Room sequence) made this issue crackle. This is the first time I think I've ever found Scott an agreeable personality, because too often "all work" = "boring dick". Not here. This is great stuff, and I think I might even like this better than the mad-wild Morrison run. Excellent.

Right, that's it for the mo... gotta read more, but since Ben is asleep and Tzipi is out, I'm going to go grab an hour of City of Heroes instead. Probably a bit more tonight.

-B