Best Book Nominees for Wednesday, Nov. 30

Andy got me sucked in to watching The Fabric of the Cosmos. It’s part of the Nova series on PBS. Here’s the official synopsis of the show:

"The Fabric of the Cosmos," a four-hour series based on the book by renowned physicist and author Brian Greene, takes us to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time, and the universe.

It is highly entertaining and informative. Talks about time travel, quantum mechanics, the existence of a multiverse. Just touches, scientifically, on a lot of the concepts we see week in and week out in comics and on TV.  Just watched a Stargate SG-1 rerun of Carter getting sucked into a parallel universe. The Big Bang Theory throws a lot of physics references around. Rasl is deep into Nicholas Tesla and alternate worlds. And this week’s entry into Top Cow’s Pilot Season contest was THEORY OF EVERYTHING #1. Here’s the first page. It’s a murder mystery featuring… alternate universes! And also the last of the Pilot Season books for 2011. Voting opens on December 5th! I’m going with The Beauty. Catching an STD is not necessarily a bad thing. Instead of pain, suffering and becoming a social pariah, you turn into a beautiful person. And the world is full of beautiful people!

Nominees! It was a light week. Coulda stretched. SPACEMAN #2. THUNDERBOLTS #166. STAR TREK #3. (Don’t laugh, it was pretty good.) But decided against it. So you only get eight this week.

ANGEL & FAITH #4 – So ends a very good first arc. The Mohra demon blood will not be bringing Giles back to life. And if you thought Wolverine channeling Professor X was funny, Angel channeling Giles was downright hilarious!

COBRA ONGOING #7 – Girl fight! Okay, it was three highly trained GI Joe women pitted against a Cobra spy but, nonetheless, GIRL FIGHT!

DAREDEVIL #6 – So ends a very good first arc. They sure are making a big deal of Marcos Martin leaving the book. Virtually apologizing for it on the letters page. He is a great artist but so is Paolo Rivera and I think the title will continue to excel without any problem. Marcos is headed for another top secret project from Marvel and the internet rumor mill is awhirl with a potential Howard the Duck/Dazzler team up!

FABLES #111 – Looks like Winter is going to be the new North Wind. Looks like Bufkin got hanged! His attorney was great. He opened with, "The quicker you confess to all your crimes, the sooner I’ll be in a position to negotiate the most humane form of execution for you." And ended with, "Congratulations, Bufkin! You’re going to be hanged today" — "Oh? And that’s good news why, exactly?" — "Because hanging is very humane. I argued them down from having you eaten alive by Tiger Beetles, because I’m just that good a lawyer."

GOBS #3 (OF 4) – Mentioned my love of Gobs and basically anything by Richard Moore in the past. Always worthy of a shout out. I do like it a lot. The Chip trade came out this week, too. Enjoy!

ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #4 – Another excellent issue. Thought Ultimate Thor was going to bite the dust, too. But no. The high octane, large scale production that has been the Ultimates toned it down a notch this issue and settled into a status quo. The City has stopped its outward expansion. Conquering Europe seems to be enough at this point. You leave us alone and we will leave you alone is their new mantra. And I thought it was the right direction to take with the title. The pace was so fast, the world would have been conquered in two more issues and this ain’t a mini-series! Loved the Asgard bits. They may all be dead but we’re not done with them yet. And even liked the big reveal at the end. Read it up!

UNCANNY X-MEN #2 – The return of Mr. Sinister has been great. He’s totally toying with Cyclops and his team at this point. And I do believe he’s as powerful as he’s being portrayed. Gonna be interesting to see how they eventually defeat him. Although the best part of the book was probably Hope as a sharpshooter. "What kind of idiot actually puts a target on his forehead?" was a great line. Now I’m rooting for an X-Men/Walking Dead crossover so we can see who is a better shot: Andrea or Hope?

X-MEN LEGACY #259 – Does get downgraded as it’s set before Uncanny X-Men #1 and Wolverine and the X-Men #1 and a large chunk of the issue is devoted to Rogue’s decision about which team to join. Really should have come out a month or two ago. But that’s an editorial snafu. The issue itself was great. Seems a psychic hitchhiker came back with the team from outer space. And the whole second half of the issue really built up the anticipation as to who this mysterious hitchhiker might be. It was really well done and I couldn’t wait to find out how it was. Thought it might be Phoenix. Or maybe even Nightcrawler. Turned out to be Ariel. And I will have to google her to find out exactly who she is/was but it was still great.

Conversation on Sunday. Finally! Sale starts on Wednesday. Hurrah!

See ya!

Rusty