What I Read This Week

Black Lightning: Year One #4 -- Things get progressively worse for both Jefferson Pierce and Black Lightning, as the true power and history of The 100 is revealed.  But will this new information do him any good if it puts his family in the line of fire?  The series takes a weird sort of left turn here, as the traditionally urban/"street level" Black Lightning is tossed into something a bit grander in scale.  I'm not sure how I feel about the revelations herein, but the work itself is nicely done, with Hamner's art as strong as ever, balancing nicely with Van Meter's crisp dialogue.

Outsiders #15 -- The new team has been assembled, and now they get their first briefing... and it includes going completely off the grid for the entire length of the "tour of duty!"  Combined with the Special from last week, the team is now on very firm ground, with their mission and the characters well established and ready to go.  I wish there was some action this time out, but the way Tomasi handles all of the various characters is more than enough to make this Outsiders fan happy.  (Continuity to both the previous storyline as well as the old school Outsiders helps, too.)  Artists Lee Garbett and Trevor Scott do a very good job in differentiating all the different folks, as well -- can't wait to see them put the crew into action.

Tiny Titans #13 -- It's Pet Club Day at stately Wayne Manor!  But when Alfred steps out to go to the store, it turns into a laundry emergency of epic proportions!  Doesn't reach the levels of last month's FINALS CRISIS but otherwise it's business as usual for this terrific series.

Guardians of the Galaxy #10 -- Blaastar continues his attempt to seize 42 as a portal to Earth, while the rest of the Guardians are dumped into the middle of the firefight.  Meanwhile, Adam Warlock seeks to turn the Universal Truth Church towards a different path.  Overall a pretty good issue, with some funny bits (Earth heroes and space heroes simply do not mix very well), but the subplot kinda fell flat, and overall I thought the entire thing was pretty average.  Still, average GOTG is better than the vast majority of everything else Marvel puts out, so take that criticism with a grain of salt.

X-Men: Kingbreaker #3 -- The other War of Kings book this week sees the Starjammres, both free and imprisoned, working to face the threat of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard and deal with Emperor Vulcan, while the Shi'ar themselves have problems of their own to contend with.  Definitely suffers from being the tail end of the middle act, with a lot of moving of pieces and players to the right spots for the finale, but still, I liked it.  I especially liked seeing Polaris in sort-of her classic costume as rendered by Dustin Weaver, which looked a lot better inside than on the cover.  The next issue promises a huge blowout which should be fun!

The Pick Of The Pile this week is Outsiders, mostly on the strength of how Tomasi handles the characters as well as the team's setup.  Kingbreaker made a strong play for it but the new Outsiders take the day.

So what did YOU read this week?