Welcome back to ComicRankings’ weekly breakdown of reviews for the latest new releases. Before we get started, I’m pleased to report we have our first conversion — Brian from Ponderings of a Media Junkie tells me he’s changed his review rating system so that can be included in ComicRankings. The guys at Panels of Awesome have also said they’ll start implementing scores for all their reviews for the same reason.

And now, some commentary before we get to the complete breakdown (click here to jump to the sortable table with all scores)…

BIG NAME CREATOR-OWNED DEBUTS
This week saw new #1’s of several high profile creator-owned series, namely the debuts of Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass and Jeff Smith’s RASL, as well as Volume 2 of Ed Brubaker’s Criminal.

Kick-Ass #1 was by far the most reviewed book this week, seemingly grabbing praise from every direction. 13 Minutes went so far as to say, “Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. cut right to the chase and hit us with the most enjoyable first issue of 2008!” At the opposite end of things, lone dissenter Between The Staples gave the book a 20 — but with this many positive reviews — a CR record high of 19 — one low score doesn’t even really affect the end result: Kick-Ass ended up with an average score of 83.1. This issue certainly grabbed everyone’s attention, and as much as everyone enjoyed this issue, the excitement seems to be even higher for what Millar & Romita Jr. could possibly have in store for future issues.

Despite being well-reviewed (84.1 on 10 reviews), the future for Jeff Smith’s RASL remains more uncertain than for Kick-Ass. Even those who loved this issue had questions, and more worringly, concerns, especially in regards to the quarterly schedule; Paul O’Brien at X-Axis gives the debut a 90, but goes on to say, “This reads more like the first 32 pages of a graphic novel than the first issue of a serial. And I’m sure it’s going to be an excellent graphic novel. Whether I would buy it in this format is another matter entirely.” Though Don MacPherson at Eye On Comics offers the following: “One could argue that Smith provides us with little more than a series of teases, offering no answers and no clear plot direction. And if others are like me, the audience will lap it up and come back begging for more.”

Like Kick-Ass & RASL, Criminal 2 #1 is another high-profile creator-owned #1 out this week. Scoring 94.9 on 8 reviews, it pretty much crushed the competition. Which is only to be expected — Criminal Volume 1 was an Eisner Award winner, after all. In fact let’s take a look back at that series’ blazing glory:

MANGA FOR COMICS LOVERS

Here on PCS, Senior Manga Editor Katherine Dacey writes an occasional column called Comics For Manga Lovers spotlighing books like The Red Star, so we’d like to return the favor and suggest a look at Del Rey’s Yozakura Quartet (79.5 avg), which was adapted by the former New X-Men team of Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir. Good choice, says About Heroes: “Defilippis and Weir are the perfect team to adapt this great superhero teen book. Having experience with New Mutants and New X-men….teen angst is right up their alley.”

And Comic Book Bin says, “Yasuda has managed to do something not done often in manga – Japanese comics – and that’s create a superhero comic that could fit in with American superhero comics. Even with its Japanese setting, Yozakura Quartet reads, feels, and looks like an American independent comix scene spin on teen superheroes.”

That’s all for this week’s commentary, below is the complete list of scores. Email me or post your feedback in the comments, especially if you’re looking to have your reviews added to CR’s database.

New Release Reviews – Feb 27, 2008

Click on any title to view all scores and review excerpts for that book. Click column headers to change sort order. Score indicates a book’s current average review score, # indicates number of reviews for that book currently in the CR database. Titles with more than 4 reviews are bolded.

Please note that the scores shown below are as of this writing — you can click here for the automatically updated list