What I Read This Week

Still trying to catch up on the comics from the last two weeks... the pile keeps growing!  Being sick and travelling aren't helping, let me tell you.

Blackest Night: The Flash #1 -- Johns and Kollins are back, but its a new Flash and a new set of rules this time out.  Kollins' work is even more stylized than it was on Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge, and this does (unfortunately) spoil some of the ending of Flash: Rebirth, but generally I thought this was a well-executed tie-in and I am very much looking forward to seeing the next part.  And Kollins on Flash is always a benefit.

House of Mystery #20 -- Cain has come to reclaim his house, but the Conception have other plans for it.  A fairly weak blowoff, with a new direction but little in the way of explanation.  Yeah, I know, "mystery," but part of the charm of this series had been actually giving the mysteries, ya know, answers.  A pat resolution hurts this issue, but the second story is fabulous.

Red Tornado #4 -- It's Red Tornado and Red Torpedo versus the Air Force... and then Red Volcano and Red Inferno!  Action-heavy issue which does the best it can with not a lot of plot.  One of the problems I have with the ubiquitous six issue solo miniseries is that these stories generally fit better in four issues (like they were back in the 80s and 90s), so you get issues like this, which are not bad but somewhat light.

Warlord #9 -- It's "spring" in Skartaris, and as newcomer McBane documents it, the residents of Shamballah muse about the past and the future in a land where there is no measurement of time.  There's a shocking amount of sex and nudity in this comic -- but somehow it's not naughty, but appropriate.  Anyways, this is a heck of a neat comic, a lushly illustrated interlude before the next story begins which demonstrates everything great about Grell's title.

Iron Man vs Whiplash #1 -- Tony Stark -- on trial for genocide!  I'm not sure where this fits in continuity, because its not quite the movie, and it's not quite the comics, but it's cool, and that's all that matters, although Whiplash's new costume is several kinds of riduclous all at once.

Re-Read pile: Blackest Night: The Flash, Warlord, Iron Man vs. Whiplash

The Pick Of The Pile is Warlord, which was a total throwback in an incredibly good manner.