What I Read This Week

The War That Time Forgot #6 -- Things get weirder (if that's possible) as it becomes clear that something even more bizarre than soldiers from different eras of Earth's history are trapped on Dinosaur Island, as it we get our first glimpse at just who is pulling the strings!  Bruce Jones' story has a lot of different elements to it, like an ensemble television show, but it comes together pretty nicely, and pairs up nicely with penciller Al Barrionuevo's consistant linework.  This should be enjoyable for fans of DC "weird" stuff or the classic War characters.

Captain America Theater Of War: Operation Zero-Point -- In the midst of the European Theater, Captain America is ordered to extract a Polish scientist who is trying to defect to the US.  But to rescue this man, Cap will have to face down the Nazi's new squadron of flying saucers and a German commandant who is both machine and man!  The Knaufs and Breitweiser deliver one hell of a slam-bang one shot for the Captain, with double crosses, super-science, and good old fashion fisticuffs.  Breitweiser's art is insane, depicting everything with a harsh reality which is perfectly suited to this sort of story.  

Marvel Apes #4 -- Marty Blank, AKA The Gibbon, along with the other outcast apes, must stop Captain America and his vamprific Invaders from opening the portal to the mainstream Marvel Universe and feasting on an all-you-can-eat blood buffet!  All this plus the Watcher Watcher.  Kesel and Bachs' miniseries has been high on the silly, but high on the fun quotient, too.  The conclusion does not disappoint, plus sets up the opportunity for a followup as well as introducing a new hero to the Marvel Universe, whom I am sure we'll see more of soon enough.  The "blogosphere" may have decided that this series "sucks," but obviously your mileage will vary.  Worth picking up the trade if you missed it.

Captain Action #1 -- The new Captain Action, son of the original, must single-handledly take down the all powerful team of superheroes who claim to defend the planet, but are actually the vanguard of the insidious extraterrestrial Red Crawl.  As the proper launch to the new series, this is alright, although much too short, as there are backups for both Fant'mas and Mandrake the Magician to fill up space.  I think I will pass on this "modern" series, though if Moonstone puts out any more "classic" adventures like the novella First Mission, Last Day, then I will pick them up.

Project Superpowers #7 -- The Superpowers fight against the F-Troop while the Fighting Yank makes the sacrifice which will either redeem him for his actions or curse him for all eternity.  The first chapter of the new Superpowers universe wraps up in pretty satisfactory manner, closing out the main thrust of what was set up at the front end while still keeping some things mysterious (including just who is running things, and who the other Superpowers are).  A better issue than the last couple, but I think I am going to pass on the next wave of titles.

Nova #18 -- Deep under Project Pegasus, the seige by the Skrulls continues.  But Nova and Darkhawk get some unexpected backup in the form of... Wendell Vaughn, the original Quasar?!  If you had told me that an issue of Nova would have guest-starred Darkhawk and Quasar as well as being a tie-in to a big crossover event, I would have told you it was published in 1993.  But here we are, and even more amazingly, it's really good.  Just goes to show that sometimes doing action superheroics is just fine, thank you.

The Pick of the Pile was Captain America Theater Of War.  I definitely felt that this was worth the $3.99 price point, considering the length and quality of the story, plus the great if not "name" creative team.

So what did YOU read this week?