So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Rollo Tomassi]

22 books this week because I pulled a couple out of the dollar bin. Also, I was helping my neighbor, a third grade teacher, get her classroom ready for the coming schoolyear and thus didn't get to the comic shop until after Noon. By which time Transformers had sold out. Here's what I got.

Alpha Flight 1. Got it in the dollar bin.

Amazing Spidey 667. Spider Island begins!

SpiderIsland Cloak&Dagger 1. The duo fight a bunch of Spideys and stuff.

SpiderIsland Deadly Foes oneshot. Two stories focusing on Phil Urich, the new Hobgoblin and one on the Jackal, the evil mastermind behind SpiderIsland.

New Avengers 15. A FI tie-in from the POV of Luke and Jessica's nanny SquirrelGirl.

Batgirl 24. FINAL ISSUE. Best book of the week and the best "DC Final Issue" of August. Wraps the entire series up beautifully.

Batman 80Page Giant 2011 oneshot. A bunch of stories that are ultimately irrelevant in light of DC shutting down their comics publishing after 73 years.

Batman and Robin 26. Some wacked one-off inventory story about a bunch of French loonies nobody has ever heard of. An awful FINAL ISSUE.

BatmanThe Dark Knight 3. Also from the dollar bin. Its been so long since I bought and read issue 2 I forgot what's going on.

Detective 881. A fabulous final sendoff for DCs flagship title. Its sad this book has come to an end, but it went out with style and class.

Birds of Prey 15. FINAL ISSUE. An inventory issue with the girls fighting nazis. Not bad, but nothing noteworthy.

Booster Gold 47. FINAL ISSUE and Flashpoint tie-in. Booster finds Flash and tries to 'fix' the timeline. Subsumed by the event and not a very good finale to BG almost 50 issue run.

Ghost Rider 2. FI tie-in. Jury is still out on this one.

War of the Green Lanterns Aftermath 2(of 2). The Guardians kick everyone off Oa and then proceed to give Ganthet a royal ass beating.

Incredible Hulks 634. Didn't read it.

Marvel Index 1. Ghost Rider, Wolverine, and Punisher begin the third volume of the Index. What's cool is that I have all the Wolverine and Punisher issues right from the beginning.

PunisherMAX 16. The conclusion of 'Frank'. Although its not bad writing, I must disagree with Aaron's characterization of Castle. Its plausible enough, but it doesn't ring true and somehow takes away from the original version.

Red Robin 26. FINAL ISSUE. Tim vs the man who killed his father. Considering this is the end of the DC Universe, the book could've gone a different route and been the issue everyone talked about for years afterwards, but instead it pussies out and Tim lets Digger live and so this issue will be forgotten in a week.

The Stand: Night Has Come 1. The final series begins. Flagg kills Judge Farris and Dayna, but can't 'see' Tom Cullen.

Teen Titans 99. Every Titan ever shows up on the last page leading into next weeks final issue.

Vengeance 2. The non-event Event plows ahead.

X-Men Legacy 253. The team defeats Legion's final splinter persona, and then the team immediately heads into deep space to look for Havok, Rachel, and Polaris without even stopping to catch their breath. Good fun storytelling.

[anarky]

Red Robin 26. FINAL ISSUE. Tim vs the man who killed his father. Considering this is the end of the DC Universe, the book could've gone a different route and been the issue everyone talked about for years afterwards, but instead it pussies out and Tim lets Digger live and so this issue will be forgotten in a week.

Y'know what would've made it better (and I can say this even without reading it)?

If Boomerang were somehow in league with Obeah Man (who killed his mother). And Tim didn't kill either, but let slip some info about something between the two villains that led to them killing one another.

[Rollo Tomassi]

You're partly correct. Tim sets up a convoluted array of activities that leads Digger to Mr. Freeze in the hopes that Freeze will kill him off. Tim's reasoning is that at any of the 'steps' in his plan, if Harkness just made the 'correct and decent' choice he wouldn't be walking into his own death trap and Tim wouldn't be responsible for what happens. But in the end, he has to go in and save his life anyway. And Bruce figures out what he had done and gives him the stern lecture at the end.
It wasn't a bad issue, but amidst the cacophany of DC shutting down forever and removing itself from comics entirely, what could have been an 'Oh shit!' Issue just gets lost in the shuffle with its own mediocrity.

[jjreason]

I'm falling behind. Likely haven't been to the shop in 3 weeks.

[anarky]

But if it were Obeah Man, it would be far more poetic than Mr. Freeze. Even more poetic if Lonnie Machin were to come out of his coma, beat the shit out the General, become Anarky again, and were the guy who provided Tim the info he needed (since Tim was solving the case of the Moneyspider when Obeah Man killed his mom).

(God damn, that Grant/Breyfogle run was classic.)

And he's about the only dormant character who hasn't been dusted off (unless he appeared in Power Girl or Fear Itself last month, which wouldn't surprise me).

[jjreason]

Reading this thread convinced me to go. Before the product though, I have a little story. I think my comic shop might suck. The guy has set aside for me, on many occasions, things I "might like". Usually I buy them, just to say thanks for thinking of me kinda thing, and about half the time they're ok. What he also does is forget issues of my main books from time to time. Like all of a sudden I'm supposed to track down Daredevil from 3 months ago because I realize it's not here? Like Fear Itself 3 which is now sold out everywhere I go? Grrrrrrr. A pull list is meant to prevent just this. Today I get to the store, my FF7 has a purple marker mark in the 2nd white F on the front cover, but I'm supposed to buy it? I left it at the store (he wasn't working today)..... and of course there are no other copies for me to grab. Now I get the fun of tracking this book down too.

But enough. I only spent $30 so there's the silver lining.

New Avengers 15 (FI)
Black Panther 522 (FI) (canceling this book)
Secret Avengers 15 (FI)
Cap & Bucky 620
ASM 666
Punisher 1
Secret Warriors 28 on EP's recommendation & finally
X-Men Jizzum 1 (2 was nowhere to be found even though I believe it came out this week)

[Rollo Tomassi]

Congrats on dumping Black Panther. That shit is heinous.

[jjreason]

Just sent the message now canceling it and adding 5 DC books for the first 4 issues. I simply cannot quash the curiosity.

[Diabolical]

Punisher 1. This is an issue that can be read and reread and enjoyed. And in fact, it needs to be reread to understand it. You have to work at it and EARN the story its telling. An excellent start to the new series.

Sound like I'm gonna have to back and it another look or three.

Last Week:
Batman: Arkham City #4
The Boys #47
IZombie #16
The Punisher #1

This week:
Batman and Robin #26 - This starts in the middle of a story, so I had to go back and make sure I didn't miss an issue. And I agree, it pretty much sucked.

Big Shots Spotlight: Moon Knight, Daredevil and Puinisher - Waste of money. Just fluff interviews and previews of comics already out.

Morning Glories #11

Punisher Max #16 - Terrible end to decent arc. The sudden turn of Big Jesus made zero sense, since he was clearly out to kill Frank. And the escape felt heavily edited - "Oh, we escaped and I killed Big Jesus." - that part of the story is at least one more issue. Unless Aaron has no idea how write a prison break.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I bought 15 books this week, and Ben picked out 5 more, for a total of 20. An alarmingly large portion (five) of those were FI tie-ins. Also, I bought more than my usual share of DC books because they were final issues. Some were good, some sucked.

SpiderIsland:Spider-Girl 1. Spider-Girl has powers again thanks to the Spidey Island event, and is targeted by the Wasp Order from her old ongoing. And is then saved by Hand ninjas working for the Kingpin. Because Wilson ALSO now has Spidey powers and needs Anya's protection from the Wasps.

Avengers 16. FI tie-in. Didn't read it yet.

Avengers Academy 18. FI tie-in, Didn't read it yet.

Batman 713.FINAL ISSUE. Shockingly mediocre "morality" tale that delivers up the brainstorm that Batman isn't about "beating up people" but he's about helping those who can't help themselves. Well, duh. Sorry to see such a grand series go out with this limp turd of an inventory story.

Batman RetroActive:90s! oneshot. Grant. Breyfogle. Nuff said.

Captain America 2. Some weird reality warper from Cap's WWII days is back and is now a terrorist of some sort. Or something. I am shocked McNiven has delivered two issues in as many months. Shocked I tell you.

Daredevil 2. Daredevil fights Captain America. A good second issue. I'm liking Mark Waid's run so far.

Green Lantern Corps 63. FINAL ISSUE. A coda to the entire GL franchise. Spotlights various Lanterns as they cope with the fallout of the War and what happens next.

Iron Man 507. FI tie-in. Drunk Tony tries to figure out how to coat his armor in Uru Metal. And Pepper "Rescue" Potts fights the uber powered Grey Gargoyle in whats left of Paris.

Justice League America 60. FINAL ISSUE. Much like every other issue of JLA I've mistakenly purchased during Robinson's run, the League is sitting around all emo and mopey and they all decide to quit the team. Seriously, I've bought like five or six random JLA books in the past few years, and every fuckin' book is the same.

PowerGirl 27. FINAL ISSUE. By far my favorite "DC last issue" of the week. Calculator springs 3 death traps around the world, and gives PG exactly sixty seconds to choose which one to combat. PG saves all three in under a minute, and tracks down the badguys in their hidden lair with a second to spare. The issue literally takes 59 seconds. A really fun sendoff to an underdog series. Oh, and the best part, is she manages to detour and save a cat in a tree. I thought that was a clever dig at the that whole Superman debacle a couple months ago, when the "Grounded" storyline ditched an issue because it had a positive Muslim SuperHero in it, and DC claimed they scrapped the issue because Supes saves a cat in the opening pages and DC said they were "trying to get away from the hokey aspects" of Superman's tropes. Or something.

Journey Into Mystery 626.FI tie-in. YOung Loki dupes both Surtur, AND the Destroyer Armor into helping him in his mischievous quest. Another excellent book. I highly recommend this series to everyone.

Ultimate Fallout 1, 2, 3, and 6. Ben picked these out. Didn't read 'em.

Venom 6. He picked this out as well. Although I'm EUUCH on Remender, it is a Spidey island tie-in, so I'll at least read it.

X-Factor 224. Rahne's baby is born (well, she barfs it out "Athena from Zeus" style) and immediately turns on the badguy whos manipulating everything thus far and eats him. Mean little ankle biter that. The Hela tried to clain the little bugger, but he ends up in the care of Jack Russel, AKA Werewolf By NIght. Needless to say, to be continued...

Uncanny X-Men 542. FI tie-in. Remember that image of Colossus donning the Juggernaut helmet and everybody goraning and saying words like "creative" and "bankrupt" in the same sentence? Well, that happens this issue, and it's actually a better story device than I expected. It worked. Also, the possessed Juggsy is still tearing theough the X-Men like off brand tissue on his way to Utopia. oh and HOLY SHIT, this is the Penultimate issue of the series.

X-Men Schism 3. The new Hellfire Club trounces all of the X-Men's heavy hitters (Emma, Namor, Magneto, Colossus...and they also trounce IceMan. Zing!) Cyclops and Logan's "schism" grows wider as Cyclops sends one of the students into harms way, and Wolvie takes umbrage.

[Diabolical]

The Boys: Butcher - Baker, Candlestickmaker #2 - The origin of The Boys leader continues.

Daredevil #2 - Hopefully it'll just take some getting used to, but I'm having a tough time adapting to Waid's version of DD. He doesn't act at all like the DD I've been reading for the past few years. Its almost like its a new guy under the horns. Not that change isn't good, but it feels too drastic too quick.

Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine #3 - The uninfected battle the infected in a mass rumble until Johnny Storm goes nova and kills a bunch of peeps. And Hulk bites Wolverine's arm off.

Batman Retroactive 80s - Ain't read it yet.

Batman Retroactive 90s - Awesomeness. Minor gripes - a few corny lines from Grant and not enough of that awesome Breyfogle-style cape.

[vynsane]

i haven't bought comics in months... and it feels weird.

[jjreason]

Did you quit Vynnie or just not getting to the store?

[vynsane]

well, finances mainly were the culprit, though i found some money to buy LEGO with, so it may be that i'm just transitioning from one hobby to another. i'm still interested in a bunch of titles, just don't feel the need to buy them right when they come out. figure i might be able to pick up runs on ebay or at local cons or something. hellboy and atomic robo are probably the only ones i'm still raring to get on release day. i want to renew my subscription to spidey, but haven't yet. i'm also interested in picking up the new ultimate spider-man starring miles morales as the webslinger.

[anarky]

I've got an "almost got 'em" story worthy of that classic B:TAS episode.

Today, we took Anarky Jr to San Diego to a pizza place. It's a chain that's better than Chuck E Cheese in all respects, the most important being that the food is not only edible, but the best damned pizza buffet I've ever seen. We went there because it was a dinner with Mrs A's extended family. So, anywho, there's a Borders in the mall, and Borders is in their death throes, if you're living under a rock. I'd gotten an e-mail on Thursday that graphic novels finally got to 40% off, which is the point where I'll start biting on the scraps they've got left, since Amazon is usually no more than 30% off. I didn't bring my list, but wanted Transformers Vol. 2 in particular, since Rollo said the series got way, way better after I dumped it when Vol. 1 sucked so badly.

So, they've got more than I expected. I find a few CDs (I start grabbing anything that looks interesting) and a shit-ton of graphic novels and paperbacks still on the shelves. I don't have my list of needs with me, but grab Batman: The Brave and the Bold Vol. 2, Y: The Last Man Vols. 3-5, and iZombie Vol. 1 (since DB has praised it, though, since he's the Anti-Nark, I probably should've avoided it like the plague or something). I realize I've got way more in my hands than I want to spend, and start putting back the CDs that I'd grabbed more because of the sale than because I wanted them, winding up with the six books, an old Elvis Costello album, and an old Lucinda Williams album. The family's waiting in the car, and I realize it's been about 20 minutes inside. I start looking for the cashier... and find it when I see a line of about 100 people waiting.

So, everything went back on the shelves. Probably won't make it to that particular Borders again before it's gone, though I'll try to hit up the two nearest me at some point in the next few weeks.