Buy Pile Report

This time last night I was lamenting the lack of a top-tier title in this week's new comic books.

As it turned out, there were more than a couple middle-tier titles with top-tier content this week.

And first off, congratulations are in order. With the release of Salvation Run #7 this week, we have our first and only complete and completely unharmed "Countdown" tie-in mini-series. And, the finale, while flawed, had a couple of memorable moments we can only hope carry over into the next few years of DC comics.

Now, I know that you're thinking you know all you need to know of this story's ending already, since the book's tardiness spoiled the fact that most of the villains make it back alive. But, you don't know under what jaw-dropping circumstances that return happens. A good portion of the book is spent with the villains in an all-out brawl with the parademons, a fight that I really wish artist Sean Chen could have pulled off better. While the narration of Captain Cold talks of these bad guys doing every dirty gruesome thing they have to in order to survive this war, the art does not do the parademons -- a notoriously mindlessly vicious animal of an adversary -- justice here. As a result, the fight looks pretty lame.

And yes, Lex's machine works, he creates a portal back home... but the way this machine is powered will make your jaw drop, especially when you realize he and Gorilla Grodd had been planning for the machine to work this way the entire time. What results is a feeling that the villains are returning to Earth a whole lot more serious and cut-throat than they ever have been before -- and that could make for some GREAT comics in the coming years.

Speaking of dangerous villains, Action Comics #866 began the arc called "Brainiac," which will completely revamp the character. And if you haven't jumped on board with Geoff Johns' "Action" yet, now is the time. Most of the issue is spent further re-establishing what kind of a character Clark is, showing him interacting with several members of the Daily Planet staff (and Gary Frank's art here is a spot-on Christopher Reeve recreation), before he comes face to face with a Brainiac robot toward the end of the issue.

Yes, there isn't too much action (no pun intended) here, but the character moments are fantastic and the feeling you're left with as the issue ends is that Brainiac is not going to waste any time here sending in the big guns to fight the Man of Steel. Issue #877 cannot come fast enough for me.

I also give high honors to Johns' and Jeff Katz's Booster Gold #10, an issue that pays off nearly every piece of story the writers have been slowly building to for the past six months. Not only do Booster and the Justice League square off against the Time Stealers, but we learn why Booster's Dad has suddenly become an arch-villain and we even get to see Skeets (the unsung all-star of any Booster Gold story) kick some rear. And despite all that story going on, there's still room for a good deal of organic plot explanations (like, for instance, when each of these villains were plucked from) and the normal humor we've come to expect from this title (like Daniel Carter punching out Brainiac 5 one second, and getting distracted wondering why his skin is green the next).

This second to last issue for Johns and Katz also resolves the fate of Ted Kord... at least it seems like it resolves it. I'm not going to go into details here, but I'll simply say the scenes are very well done.

There's one last DC book I wanted to make note of: Green Lantern Corps. #25. I've been loving the stories in this book since "Sinestro Corps. War." I think the writing has been holding its own with Johns' main GL title. However, artist Patrick Gleason has really been killing the book for me. For so much alien-world carnage going on in this book, Gleason is really not at his best when drawing big, hectic fight scenes. His work just isn't clean and detailed enough. It all just looks like a muddled mess, and as a result, an already sort of hookey story (a talking "Mother" Black Mercy?) gets pushed over the edge into ridiculousness. The art just couldn't sell the serious situations the Ring Slingers faced here.

Moving on... I only bought one Marvel title this week, but I think I made the right choice. Secret Invasion: Who do you Trust? #1 provided me with a grand-sweeping cross-section of the Skrull situation that has at times been missing from the main "Secret Invasion" book. We first saw Captain Marvel's thought processes leading up to his attack on the Thunderbolts (he wasn't mind-controlled after all!), we watch a fun Beast/Wonder Man fight in which neither thinks the either is who they say they are, we see Marvel Boy's plans to take action against the Skrulls (although I really hope the Kree don't get too involved), and two more stories that really made the book for me:

In a story featuring Agent Brand floating through space after the Skrull attack on SWORD's home base, Brand looks back on her previous interactions with the Skrulls and pieces things together in her head -- which, of course, makes her royal pig-headedness pretty pissed off. I really enjoyed the fact that they explained here a little of what "He Loves You" means. I know in the main Invasion book Bendis is hopefully going to clarify this, but just to learn about the Skrull religion here really made the story for me because it felt relevant.

The same with the last story which I also enjoyed, as the Agents of Atlas took on a horde of Skrulls and won. Aside from simply being a great bit of action, by the end of the book the Agents make a discovery/proclamation which I think is VERY important to fully understanding the invasion -- the Skrulls honest to God think what they are doing is for the best of humanity. There's no evil in their hearts (which, begs the parallel to the current terrorist threat America feels, if that wasn't evident already). Again, this book works because several of the stories make you feel like your "Secret Invasion" experience is better for having read it -- something Marvel tie-ins often lack -- so do yourself a favor and pick it up.