Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

DS’ Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Green Lantern #54 – Out of a very solid week (my reviews were, unusually, B’s and A’s), Green Lantern takes the crown. Hal Jordan, arguing and bickering with Sinestro and Carol Ferris, while they all try to figure out an impending doom, was just awesome. And the collection of the entities from the different batteries cranked up the tension and mystery. Tune into Brightest Day!

Most Anticipated: Brightest Day #3: The last installments of the Brightest Day event (GL #54 and GLC #48) have me chomping at the bit to see what happens next.

Other Top Picks: Red Robin #13, Red Hood: Lost Days #1 (of 6), Adventure Comics #12, Thanos Imperative #1, Avengers Prime #1, Darkstar and the Winter Guard #1

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Madame Xanadu #23 – A solid conclusion to a really fun arc.  Great art and continual little winks and nods to its readership make for a great time, along with a cast that is universally lovable.

Most Anticipated: iZombie #2 -With a first issue that was almost entirely introduction and set-up, I don’t think we’ve really gotten enough to sink are teeth into from iZombie.  Hopefully this issue will give us more to gauge.  For this reason, this issue carries much of the same excitement for me that #1 did.

Other Picks: Brightest Day #2, Sweet Tooth #10

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Amazing Spider-Man #632 – A combination of GREAT art with a really nice reimagining of a classic Spider-man rogue (The Lizard) to make him much scarier than he used to be.  ASM has been on a great run for the last 6 months or so.

Most Anticipated: The Thanos Imperative #1 – I was looking forward to Thanos Imperative: Ignition last week and it was really good.  Marvel doesn’t keep us waiting by bringing out the first issue of the Cosmic event this week.  I can’t wait.  This will be the first book out of the stack this week!

Other picks: Red Robin #13, I, Zombie #2, Dust Wars #1, Bulletproof Coffin #1, Avengers Prime #1

Brightest Day #2 – Review

By: Geoff Johns and Peter J. Tomasi (writers), Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark and Joe Prado (artists), Vicente Cifuentes, Tom Nguyen, Rebecca Buchman, David Beaty and Patrick Gleason (inkers)

The Story: The twelve resurrected are still trying to figure out why they’ve been brought back and what’s going on. Hawkman and Hawkgirl discover something more menacing about Hath-Set. Boston Brand (the former Deadman) sees some really weird stuff happening around Aquaman. And something is definitely wrong with Firestorm.

What’s Good: Each of the episodes (Martian Manhunter, the Hawk-couple, Firestorm, Deadman/Aquaman) has momentum and as the mystery deepens, each becomes more intriguing. Johns and Tomasi continue to deliver pretty crisp, realistic dialogue (except for some of Brand’s whining). They have obviously mastered the creation of tension. They also knew how to drive things up a notch with the final double splash page that has to be seen!

Artwise, once I got over the changing styles (5 artists and 4 other inkers), I found a lot of quality work that held my eye as I read. Since I don’t know who drew what, I can’t give credit, but the team drew some evocative effects, especially the Jason-Firestorm connection, the Firestorm Matrix, the Hawkman/Hawkgirl splash page, and the final, surprise splash page.

Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

DS’ Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne #1 – Morrison started us slowly in his 6-part saga, but the adventure, and the anticipation built up around it, were enough to propel this book into first place in my pull list.

Most Anticipated: Brightest Day #2 – I want to find out what’s up with these resurrected heroes and villains and these echoes of the powers they had when they were black lanterns. Brightest Day ain’t as bright as it sounds!

Other Top Picks: Superman: War of the Supermen #3, Legion of Superheroes #1, Atlas #1, X-Factor #205, X-Men Legacy #236

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Dark Avengers #16 – It may very well be my love for Victoria Hand talking, but no comic made me happier in what was a ginormous Wednesday.  A great conclusion and the best of the three big Bendis books this week.

Most Anticipated: Zatanna #1 – With Avengers #1 and Legion of Super-Heroes #1 also coming out this week, as well as the start of a new direction in Invincible Iron Man, this was a tough, tough decision.  In the end though, my love for Zatanna (which goes back to Alan Moore’s “A Murder of Crows” arc in Swamp Thing) wins out, given that it borders on being completely irrational.  The fact that this is a total labor of love on Dini’s part also bodes well, as does what I’ve seen of Stephane Roux’s artwork.

Other Picks:Avengers #1, Legion of Super-Heroes #1, Invincible Iron Man #26, Ex Machina #49, Brightest Day #2

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Amazing Spider-Man #631 – This is really shaping up to be a great little arc with (one of my favorite rogues)….The Lizard.  Plus, the months long teasing for The Grim Hunt if finally starting to feel appropriate.  Bonus is that we get Chris Bachalo on art!

Most Anticipated: Invincible Iron Man #26 – Matt Fraction’s Iron Man story has really excelled for the last 2 years by letting Tony Stark be off on his own.  I’m very curious to see how good this title can be now that it will need to be more tightly integrated with the rest of the Marvel U.

Other picks: American Vampire #3, Haunt #7, The Walking Dead #72, Avengers #1, X-Men Legacy #235

Joe’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: The Sentry: Fallen Sun – Just kidding!  This was horrible. What, are you nuts?! The Sword #24 – There were a lot of good comics this past week and a lot of them were final issues.  While they all did a pretty admirable job of tying up their plot-lines, this was the only one that did so and managed to surprise me at the same time.  Good stuff.

Most Anticipated:Avengers #1 – I’ll bite.  I’m curious about where the Avengers franchise is going in this stage of the game and this is definitely ground zero for the new direction.

Other picks: Brightest Day #2, Ex Machina #49, Walking Dead #72, Invincible Iron Man #26, X-Factor #205, X-Men Legacy #236