(Editor’s Note: There are pop-up’s a-plenty in the Best Book column today. I highly recommend clicking all of them, as they are very important to the overall experience.)(And also, they’re funny as heck!)

Secret Avengers #16 gotta lotta love a couple of weeks ago.  Wasn’t my pick for Best Book of the Week, but it certainly ran away with the Best Book of the Week Poll. A crushing victory over my pick of Flashpoint #5. I did like Secret Avengers #16. Nominated it. Enjoyed it. And I’m very happy that Warren Ellis has come onboard Secret Avengers to write a series of one-shot adventures.

So, I will be picking SECRET AVENGERS #17 as my Best Book this week. Thought it blew issue #16 away and was flat out awesome.

The plot is this: a demon tractor trailer is careening through towns abducting people out of their homes via electromagnetic levitation fields; it basically shoots wormholes out its sides. Steve Rogers and his Secret Avengers — Sharon Carter, War Machine and Valkyrie, this time around — have to stop it.

Commander Rogers breaks out Quincarrier Zero and the Secret Avengers fly off to confront the Demon Truck!

Watch out, Commander Rogers! Here comes Marko, a crazy cyborg in a souped up bi-plane, to head you off! Yes! Pilot Marko shoots stupid yankee zillion-dollar plane right in its stupid bluddy face! Oh no! Our weapons are out! What can we do now? Time for Extreme Separation Protocol! An awesome double-page spread! Midsection is nominal for powered landing. Engine section is on guidance. And the tail section? They throw bluddy airplane bum at Pilot Marko? Yep, they did. Kaboom! Bye, Marko!

Then we got a three-page sequence of Captain America on his motorcycle busting out of the Quincarrier’s midsection, Valkyrie summoning up her war horse, and War Machine launching, as the attack on the demon truck commences!

It actually doesn’t go very well. A sonic attack thwarts Valkyrie and her horse. Steve Rogers basically gets run over. And War Machine gets blown away. Never fear! Commander Rogers implores the members of his team to get their act together. And they do.

Valkryie splits the demon truck in two! And War Machine returns to lay waste to the cab section and cyborg #2. Goodbye, demon truck!

Pace was off the hook. Action-packed from beginning to end. My man Warren! Mix in a Star Trek saucer separation, a tractor trailer from Death’s Head garage, and Mean Machine’s power dial, and you get one action-packed romp! Loved it.

See ya!

Rusty