Best Book Nominees for Wednesday, Oct. 12

You are now entering the Full Disclosure Department! For the first time in a really, really long time I actually had some difficulty finding nominees this week. Didn’t think the books were bad. Thought all the DC #2′s were actually pretty good this week. No real bombs. Although I did not even attempt Legion Lost. The Marvel haul was fine. Plenty I enjoyed. But to be honest nothing really blew my socks off last night. It does happen occasionally. But don’t fret. Still got 10 nominees for you today. With reasons!

AMERICAN VAMPIRE SURVIVAL OT FITTEST #5 (OF 5) – (Be)cause it was a very good ending to a very good mini-series. Agent Book got the cure for vampirism and Cash goes out fighting. Mr. Snyder is now two for two with offing his main characters. Skinner Sweet. Dead. Cash McCogan. Dead. Can’t wait for American Vampire #22! It’s hot rods, poodle skirts and rock ‘n’ roll as American Vampire goes screaming into the 1950s!

BATMAN AND ROBIN #2 – ‘Cause Damian is still awesome! Snatched a bat straight out of the air. Squirrshed him and tossed him down into the depths of the batcave. Alfred looked on with both a disapproving scowl and tears in his eyes. And what’s up with the dog? Where’s Ace the Bat-hound!

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER SEASON 9 FREEFALL #2 – ‘Cause it’s really good. Loved the "phfting" of vampires. Yes. When you stake a vampire it goes "phft." And while they must have "phft’d" a vampire in Season 8, I just don’t remember it happening and it seemed like a new thing to me. Which just shows once again that they are taking Buffy back to her TV roots. And I must add, you do not have to be a die-hard Buffy TV fan to read the Buffy comic. It stands on its own quite nicely. Read it up!

CBLDF LIBERTY ANNUAL 2011 #4 – ‘Cause it supports the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and had a three page Cowboy Ninja Viking story! Does anything else really matter?

FRANKENSTEIN AGENT OF SHADE #2 – ‘Cause I thought it was better than the first issue. People have been remarking about Frankenstein having a Hellboy/BPRD feel to it. I would have to agree. Monsters fighting monsters is always good. And I must say the DC books this week most certainly came out fighting. Resurrection Man vs. Body Doubles. Grifter vs. his brother. Batgirl vs. the Mirror. Demon Knights vs. a prehistoric horde. Heck, I think Deathstroke killed everyone that appeared in his issue! It was non-stop action from beginning to end! And while I enjoyed the frenetic pace that DC threw at me this week, it was all very exciting, just remember to breathe…

GREEN LANTERN #2 – ‘Cause Sinestro was punking on Hal. "Despite the ring’s capabilities of creating anything you can imagine… you never imagined a better world, did you?" Nope. Too busy creating green airplanes. And boxing gloves. And rhinos. Which has always been my problem with the Green Lantern world. It’s just a little goofy. Anyway. Sinestro saving the people on the collapsing bridge, and the bridge itself for that matter, was awesome. As was him slicing Sinestro corps member 3215 in half. Appreciated the no-nonsense approach. Although I’m not so sure about heading back into space so soon…

JOE HILL THE CAPE #2 (OF 4) – ‘Cause the Cape has rapidly turned into one evil bastard and they are not holding anything back. Mom is number one on the hit list. Tried to burn his brother’s face off.  And now he has a chainsaw.

PUNISHERMAX #18 – ‘Cause on the depravity meter this week, nothing came close to beating the Punisher!

SHADE #1 (OF 12) – ‘Cause it jumped into the story with absolutely no explanations and by page five I was totally into it. Then Deathstroke showed up with the biggest sword ever. Yes, ever. And chopped Shade’s head off!

SUICIDE SQUAD #2 – ‘Cause I thought it was better than issue #1. Harley is great but it was really all about Deadshot. Which is fine by me. Loved when he whacked Voltaic to cover up the massacre. Thought it was the Suicide Squad not the Kill your Teammate squad!

X-MEN REGENESIS #1 – ‘Cause I want to talk about it. And as we are already in the Full Disclosure Department… the prehistoric grudge match between Cyclops and Wolverine was pointless and actually quite stupid… and the whole reason Wolverine is leaving the team… Cyclops sending children into battle… is also quite stupid and totally forced… nevertheless… there were positives. And while the why it happened was bad, the how it’s happening I thought was pretty good.

Liked seeing Wolverine and Cyclops talking to various X-members and their reasons for staying with Cyclops or leaving with Wolverine. Everyone was in it. Iceman. Psylocke. Colossus. Kitty Pryde. Storm. Emma. Even the Beast. And most importantly the reasons the characters were giving for staying or going… were in character! The scene with Rogue and Magneto was great. The answer was so obvious and all the characters did was laugh at the question. Perfect.

I also liked that X-MEN REGENESIS #1touched on various X-titles and just not characters. Here again, we do get into positives and negatives. They did give away the ending to the current story in X-Men Legacy but I thought it was important that the characters were included in this issue. They also cut out the Generation Hope pages in Regensis #1 and put them straight into Generation Hope #12. Which you could say is lazy and/or paying for content twice but once again it was an important scene in both books so why not be consistent with the portrayal.

And while I didn’t think the X-Universe was that out of whack, if you are going to reorganize the X-Universe, it needs to be as all encompassing as possible. And that’s were I think X-MEN REGENESIS #1succeeded. It set the stage for what is to follow. We’re rebooting. Here’s the characters. Here’s the situation. Rachel Summers may have summed it up best, "Of course I’m going back to the school! I’ve been in space forever! I didn’t even know we left the school!" And if you’ve been lost in space as of late, it told you all you need to know. Get ready for some new #1 issues. Get ready for a new start. The X-Men are rebooting!

See ya!

Rusty