It was the fifth week of the month and a DC skip week, so the overall title count was way down this week. Although I didn’t think the quality of the books was down at all. Lots of perennial favorites came out firing and I found 10 nominees for you without any problem. Andy will probably have a more difficult time finding 20 titles for the Best Book of the Week poll on Friday. I think I only read 22 books TOTAL this week…

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #680 – Spidey in space! Johnny Storm guest starred. And since Johnny returned from the dead he’s had no time to catch up on his favorite TV shows. So… he’s watching some serious TV. Spidey shows up. He needs to borrow one of the Fantastic Four’s rocket ships to get to space and wants Johnny to join him. Johnny doesn’t want to go. Johnny wants to watch TV. Spidey ruins it for him. Martinez wins Dancing with the Stars, the Cardinals beat the Rangers in the World Series, the Packers beat the Steelers in the Super Bowl and THEY’RE STILL AT HERSCHEL’S FARM! I do love the Walking Dead. I also love busting on the Walking Dead. And seeing a bust on the Walking Dead in Amazing Spider-Man is a beautiful thing! 

AVENGERS #23 and NEW AVENGERS #22 –  I’ll nominate them both. Avengers was probably a little better overall. New Avengers had better bits. Mockingbird punching Victoria Hand in the face was great. I can’t believe you just punched me in the face. I can’t believe you can’t believe it. Very Hulk-heavy books. The Red Hulk went on a rampage in Avengers while Skaar "Don’t call me Hulk Boy" Son of Hulk gave us a very surprising twist at the end of New Avengers.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #6 – Definitely wrapped up the story arc. Knew it would as we are moving to present day action with issue #7. Enjoyed as always. Cool bits once again. Wonder Woman put a sword in one of Darkseid’s eyes. Aquaman put a trident in the other! Loved the white-out splash page. And if you were still wondering why Cyborg is on the team… wonder no more! He saved the day! But — isn’t there always a but with the Justice League? — they still haven’t really formed the team. And while I appreciated the Super Friends line, the Super Seven line was atrocious. And the novelist’s bookend narrative? That came out of left field. And his “new” novel — featuring Starro on the cover?! — that gets published months, if not years, after the events we just watched unfold. It just didn’t work for me. Heck, if you just change the last page from a novel to the front page of the next morning’s newspaper I think it works a lot better. Anyway. Also liked the back up story featuring Pandora the red cloaked woman we saw in Flashpoint. Totally willing to read more about her. But. There it is again. But. The Phantom Stranger says to Pandora, "You rewrote history." No Pandora says, "I realigned it." Rewrote, realigned, rebooted. I don’t really care what you call it. But saying things like that only adds to speculation that the New 52 is not going to stick around forever and has the ability to be rewrote, realigned or rebooted again in the future. And I have no idea why you would want to open/re-open that can of worms. Heck, I shouldn’t even be talking about it…

SCALPED #56 – The first issue of the last story arc of Scalped. So sad. "Trail’s End" part one. Opened eight months after the end of last issue. Still got some loose ends to tie up but it looks like pretty much all epilogue from here on out. Which is fine by me. Gonna end great. The sun came out! The Rez was shining in all its glory. You could actually see what was happening! Red Crow has turned out to be the star of Scalped. I sure hope he doesn’t throw Dash under the bus. Think it would be a little out of character and he’s a better man than that.

SHADE #5 (OF 12) – Does it again. Back to back nominations. Last month’s issue set in World War II about Nazis and industrial espionage was excellent. This month? Vampires! We meet La Sangre. Shade’s vampire “daughter.” Seems he saved her as a little baby way back in 1854 from vampire pirates! Plot really centered around Shade’s grandfather dying of leukemia and their efforts to find some of Shade’s blood. Story is really wide ranging, lots of information is being passed along and at one point Shade says to the dying grandfather, “you know more about this than I do.” Which is sorta how I felt reading it. Cause I know virtually nothing about the Shade character. And I think that if I did, some of the things that happened or were said might resonate a little more, but it doesn’t matter. The story is so well done. The story is so interesting. Sucked me right in. Loved it. Javier Pulido (Spider-Man, Daredevil) comes on board as the new artist for this three-issue story arc. Loved the art too. Read it up!

WALKING DEAD #94 – Carl and Jesus have a chat. Rick is not pleased. Don’t worry, Dad, if he was a bad guy I would have shot him! Go, Carl, go! Jesus can not only karate kick walkers with both hands tied behind his back but he can magically untie his hands anytime he wants! Go, Jesus, go! Welcome to the Hilltop! With the TV show in full swing and all the publicity Walking Dead has gotten over the past year or so, you might think the buzz has died down but it hasn’t; people still come into the store all the time and ask us if the Walking Dead is worth checking out. Are you crazy?! It’s awesome! Read it up!

So… does the awesome Walking Dead #94 win my vote for the Best Book of the Week? Much like Chew it’s highly unusual when it doesn’t. Alas, much like Chew last week, Walking Dead comes in second this week. So what does win? What about the equally awesome Scalped #56? Nope. Third place goes to Scalped. Ever since I re-read the Invincible trades I’ve been diggin’ it more and more and I could easily go with Invincible #89 this week. Nope. Fourth.

The best single issue of the week and my vote for the Best Book of the Week goes to Shade #5. It was great!

See ya!

Rusty