Buy Pile Report: Everything but New Gods

You know that song "Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places"? No? Well, you know that Eddie Murphy sketch where he's Buckwheat and he sings "Wooking por Nub in all de wong pwaces"?

Well, either way, this week's comics were a whole big ball of unexpected. The first of which was our earlier Buy Pile Report, on the pleasant surprise Death of the New Gods #1 was.

The next surprise came in Justice League of America #14... well, I wasn't totally shocked, since I haven't been too high on Dwyane McDuffie's JLA, but still, this issue missed the mark big time, again. While on the one hand, McDuffie's Injustice League has succeeded at capturing all of the Justice League except Supes and Black Lightning, this whole story just has no sense of a grand scheme. All these super villains assembled to do... what, exactly? Piss of Superman? There is no sense of danger or tension in this book -- no feeling that the JLA has to actually stop this Injustice League.

All we get in this issue is Lex Luthor harrassing Superman, while the JLA is trapped and the Injustice League stands around twiddling their thumbs. All this evil assembled and the best they can do is trap heroes and confine them, not even kill them. And the only Hero they choose to torture -- Geo Force -- is the only hero readers have been begging to leave this book!

I want to make a new rule in comic books -- no more assembling super villains into one team unless they are going to pose a MAJOR Intergalactic threat. Cough cough - Sinestro Corps - cough cough.

Brave and the Bold #7 was surprisingly poor also. I had high expectations for this issue, after Mark Waid's first six-issue arc was so impressive, but this issue was a complete waste of time. The majority of the issue simply goes back and forth from Wonder Woman telling Power Girl to use patience to Power Girl telling Wonder Woman she just wants to punch things. And while this characterization would have suited Kara 15 years ago, she's grown into a level-headed leader (The Justice Society's Chairwoman, for God's sake) since then. With this issue entirely dependant on the give-and-take between the two women, Kara's poor characterization made this issue pointless.

But enough disappointment. The pleasant surprise of the week was Ultimate Fantastic Four #47. While I've still come to the conclusion that this series has become irrelevant, everything about this issue worked for me. Reed under alien control, neglecting Sue. Thing and Johnny standing up for Sue, trying to pound sense into Reed. Sue, being the strong character that she is, heading off on a mission without neglectful Reed, and finding a whole lot of danger in Russia from an organization led by the Ultimate version of the Red Ghost. It all worked for me -- and best of all was the art. I've hated most of the UFF artists for the last two years or so, but Mark Brooks' pencils were spot-on for how this book should be drawn.

While I'm still unsure of whether or not Mike Carey has turned a corner and is ready to make this series worth Reading again, this issue seems like a promising start to a good Fantastic Four story, and who can turn that down?

Another surprise -- this one I'm kind of indifferent to -- was X-Men: Emperor Vulcan #2. While this second issue provided an intriguing new wrinkle to the rich X-Men/Shi'ar history books (Now the M'kraan Crystal is, in fact, stolen by the Shi'ar and their 1,000-years ago owners want it back), it's clear that this series won't be what I want it to be. With Alex Summers and company out in space looking to take down Gabriel Summers, the Shi'ar Emperor, I was really looking forward to some good brother-brother conflict and some good Starjammers-Shi'ar conflict. However, it's looking like this is going to be a "let's re-write the history of an alien race" story" instead.

While I am not complaining by this change, these first two issues have been solid, it's still not exactly what I signed on for. Hopefully after Gabriel and Alex's little truce, we'll get to see the knock-down-drag-out brawl we paid to see.

And we've saved the best book of the week for last, which was no surprise to us -- Captain America #31. While this issue wasn't big on plot development (Brubaker hasn't exactly been rushing through), what we got was a step by step account of exactly what Dr. Faustus had to do to brainwash Bucky -- and it wasn't easy! What I liked about it was, so often in comics it's just "Oh, the bad guy brainwashed him," or "Oh, you must be under mind control," but rarely do you see exactly what the villain does to the hero's mind to put him in such a mental state.

The last shocker of the day was, of course, the big reveal at the end of the issue -- a reveal so big that I wouldn't dare spoil it for those of you who haven't read this book yet. Go out and buy it, darn it! And for God's sake Brubaker, hurry up with issue #32, it's been 4 hours since I read issue #31 and I've waited too long already!