The People’s Publisher

Hey all,

Well it was a small week for me with only a handful of books but here is your Between The Staples Best Bang for January 23rd.

This weeks comics come to you from Hourglass Comics in Port Moody and Astonishing X-Men leads the pack so lets get to it. As always ranked top to worst and this week, we have the heads of the original X-Men to help with the visual rankings.

Astonishing X-Men #24 (Marvel) - This is classic X-Men done right. This is a good heroes saving the world comic book done right. The pre-climax climax reaches its hot and crazy end with everyone making a push to stop a giant missile from being shot at the Earth from the alien race. Its X-Men who stand tall to save the world and not just their little painted corner of the Marvel Universe. This is what makes the X-Men special - moments of this band of mutants who everyone fears saving the bloody world. Joss Whedon hits this one outta the park for a grand slam and I look forward to the final issue of his run in the Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men next issue!

Fantastic Four: The End trade paperback (Marvel) - Classic Fantastic Four done correctly. Brilliant artwork and story by Alan Davis with great inks by Mark Farmer and a nice old school story which collects the 6 issue mini series and seemed to involve everything under the FF sun properly done. Do I care that this may or may not be cannon (in with current Marvel Universe continuity)? No. It was a great story I will read and re-read again and again. Well worth the money!

Star Wars Legacy Vol. 1 trade paperback (Dark Horse) - I skipped these issues due to not picking them up on a monthly basis but I really wanted to read them and being a big Star Wars geek, I loved them. Great art and I enjoy the future aspect of the Star Wars universe.

Gotham Underground #4 of 9 (DC) - Nice behind the scenes of the Gotham crime world. Penguin, Whale and Mannheim all slowly making their marks for the city. Nice art and story. Enjoyable.

Teen Titans #55 (DC) - Stunning artwork and the story is slowly crawling out of the junk it has been in with some actual character building. My biggest problem is the love story with Tim and Cassie, I just don’t care so I found that boring otherwise it was a pretty decent issue.

Crime Bible: Five Lessons of Blood #4 of 5 (DC) - The new Question goes back to Hub City and meets up with Charlie’s old flame, Myra, and seems all tied into the Crime Bible. A decent story with decent art. Doesn’t really make me want to read the final issue though.

Ultimates 3 #2 of 5 (Marvel) - Yeah. The art was still all mucky and I hated the SPX lettering through-out the book. Story was okay but nothing earth shattering, I guess if you have a hard on for The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants than you would enjoy this issue. Personally when I saw the last splash page was Ultimate Wolverine, I think I came to the conclusion that this title might not be worth picking up. Unless Wolvie is joining the team than I am not into the big cross-over that this seems to imply.

X-Men #209 (Marvel) - Mutants fight mutants. Cable pussy’s out. Bishop steps up and shows he has a pair. Gambit becomes good again. Rogue lives. Mutants die. Xavier is dead (for now). X-Men disband only to reform in Uncanny X-Men #500 (see X-Men on Wikipedia for that answer). End of lame storyline. End of buying anymore X-Titles. If you really want to know more about how I feel, check out the comments in this article on For The Love of Comics website (good blog!) here:
http://www.fortheloveofcomics.com/2008/01/24/x-men-messiah-complex-the-final-chapter/#comments

Countdown #14 (DC) - Superboy Superman/Prime freaks out. Jason puts on the Red Robin costume and mass fighting ensues. *yawn*

Titles I didn’t pick up this week: The Order #7 (even though I did like the cover), Legion of Super-Heroes #38 (last issue did nothing for me), and Cassanova #12 (sold out, I think, I couldn’t find it on the shelf).