A quick look at the best and worst new comics. Our taste makers this week include David Brothers (4thletter.net), Jason Michelitch and Erin F.

PAN: Countdown #27

We’re nearly halfway done with this series, and very little of note has happened so far. Trickster and Piper? Still on the run. Holly and Harley? Inexplicably still hanging around the Amazons. All those important teasers DC released back during convention season? Dealt with in other books, rarely mentioned in Countdown. As a lead-in to DC’s next big event, Countdown is doing a wonderful job of trying to dampen my enthusiasm for Grant Morrison and JG Jones on Final Crisis. Hook us up with some plot development or something, at least! Grade: D - David

PICK: Cromartie High School, Vol. 12

I haven’t read Cromartie since volume four, but I plan on purchasing the entire series… eventually. At first the all the monkeys and robots and the Freddie Mercury character riding a horse were mind-blowingly hilarious, but after a few books, it’s impossible to keep upping the ante on weird crap. It looks like Cromartie ends with volume 16, and you know what? Maybe the world is better off. If the series kept getting weirder on an exponential scale readers’ brains would literally explode. - Erin

PICK: Justice League Elite, Volume 2

Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke’s run on JLA is pretty much the best run since Grant Morrison left the book. I loved it without reservation, and Justice League Elite was their swan song. Kelly took the basic conceit of your generic edgy super-teams, defined here as “heroes who are willing to cross lines other heroes won’t,” and flipped it around. Instead of heroes who are willing to drop down into the much, we get heroes who are pulled down into it by circumstances. Do they give up and give in, or do they stand tall and stay strong? Justice League Elite examines that with a cast of true-blue heroes, reformed villains, and entirely new characters. Mahnke’s art is expressive, his action scenes suitably busy, and his characters attractive. Daredevil, Casanova, Black Panther, Moon Knight, and Flash all came out this week, but Justice League Elite volume 2 is still my pick of the week. Grade: A+ - David

PICK: Moon Knight #13

This is Charlie Huston’s last issue as a solo writer, and it is a doozy. This done-in-one tale shows exactly what happens when Marc Spector goes to try and register for the SHRA, but also gives us glimpses into the wreckage that he’s made of his life and those around him. We get to see a couple of old, old friends make a return appearance, and to great effect, to boot. Even better is the fact that Huston, despite leaving the book, is still building the myth. A fistful of new questions arise during the course of the book, leaving his new co-writer with plenty to follow-up on and readers with plenty to argue about. Plus, we get an appearance from The Profile, one of the most interesting Marvel characters to pop up recently. Tom Coker’s art fits the mood of the story perfectly, and he sells everything from interrogation to assault in the streets perfectly. This issue is easily the best of the run, eclipsing even the first issue, and well worth a try. Shock Value: A+ - David

PICK: Powr Masters, Vol. 1

In many ways, POWR MASTRS is just the first chapter of another straight fantasy-adventure story. Giant talking cats get shot by arrows, people change their shape on a moment’s notice, and a warlock prowls in the background (and the backstory). But anyone even casually flipping through this first volume would recognize that Powr Mastrs is anything but average or normal. The thin-lined art shifts its form (much like a number of the protagonists) from purposefully crude, almost child-like pictures to beautiful, detailed depictions of monster faces and exotic forests. While occaisonally making for momentary confusion in the storytelling, the uncertain nature of the art is the perfect compliment to the story’s bent whimsy, putting the reader into unfamiliar visual territory and creating a sense of the absurd and the fantastic that would be impossible with “realistic” art.

The story rests on classic archetypes: young masked man Subra Ptareo embarks on a wandering quest, and finds himself in a strange land populated with people of a fantastic nature. Not much is explained in the book, but it is satisfyingly tantalizing – we know that people change shape and that there is a ceremony called “transmutation night”, but we know no details; we see menacing shadowy figures and hear about a strange robotic threat called the Mechlin Men, but we are unclear as to what might pass for “good” or “evil” in this world; and in a scene that might double as a subversion of the oft-discussed “tentacle sex” cliche, we get a fascinating glimpse at the rituals of this weird society paraded before us. The plot is much more concerned with introduction of characters and themes than with any overall advancement of events, but since this is the first of (presumably) many chapters, that’s more than appropriate.

There are moments of odd humor, and an “anything goes” feeling inspired both by the sketchbook energy of the art and the stream-of-consciousness feel of some of the storytelling choices. Do not be fooled by appearances, though – this is a finely crafted work of fantasy, which deals in surreal moments and big ideas in a way that i suspect will reward multiple readings, and which promises even more fuel to ignite the sense of wonder in following volumes.

Shock Value: B+

- Jason

PAN: Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Superman Prime

A continuity refresher with a big fight in the middle of it. Nice flashback art by Jerry Ordway is the only legitimate positive quality I could find, although I had a lot of fun watching the tortured lengths to which the writing went to avoid the name “Superboy”. For those who don’t know, the family of Jerry Siegel recently had a court rule in favor of their owning the copyright to the character of Superboy, so DC can’t use the name anymore. Which is the main reason for this book’s existence, it seems – to rebrand the character as having never been called “Superboy”, but just being someone who always referred to himself as “going to be Superman someday”, which is a heckuva logo to have to fit on a magazine.Though not any more so than the one already on this comic, I guess.

I really can’t rag too hard on this book – it’s just not for me. I don’t give one hoot about Infinite Crises or Sinestro Corps-es-es, and clearly this book is doing something for somebody. It’s probably a very successful example of the kind of book that it is trying to be, but it’s a prime example of exactly the kind of superhero comics I hate with a passion.

There is one phenomenal scene, though, in which Superb-…sorry, SuperMAN Prime sits on the ground and bursts into tears, and then defends his wussy ways by yelling “What? Boy’s can’t cry?”. That’s pure gold, baby.

The back-up story looked like it was about a demon squishing the head of a baby, but even though it was drawn entirely by Jerry Ordway I didn’t have the energy to read it.

Shock Value: D Unintentional comedy saves it from flunking.

- Jason