Sinestro’s got a point. Halloween is a busy time for geeks and parents alike, so I’ll keep this week’s dose brief.

With a double dose of DC Undead (Green Lantern and Blackest Night shipped–both were solid), I didn’t expect my favorite read this week to be so far removed from the Halloween spirit–yet somehow, amidst all the ghouls and gore, my favorite comic moment would be a simple superhero beatdown. But when the Dark Avengers came a-sniffing for Bucky-Cap in New Avengers #58, the star-spangled substitute showed them why he is more than qualified to weild the sheild:

I agree with Ares.

Ultimate Cap didn’t have such a bad week either, as he tussled with Nick Fury’s new team of black-ops ”heroes” in Ultimate Avengers #3. And what a team? The new Wasp plays human bullet to assassinate a roomful of baddies, the new Black Widow is Snake Eyes with lady parts, a new “smart” Hulk has been grown in a lab, a creepy new Hannibal Lecter-like Spider-Man fills the quickly-becoming-cliched role of mysterious team member with the unknown alias,  and Ultimate War Machine is a transformers with attitude!

I was surprised to see the epic Fantastic Four debut of Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham wrap up so abruptly. Those two creators are still on the book, but they seem to have closed the door (at least for the time being) on the League of Infinite Reeds, infinity gauntlets from around the multiverse, and foot-racing Celestials…all so our Mister Fantastic can spend some more time with his family. Noble…but Sunday brunch with the kids won’t make for the same kind of excitement we’ve grown accustomed to from this book.

The last book in my pull this week actually does fit this spooky season–FVZA: Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency is a 3-issue horror book from Radical Comics and (according to Radical) based on a website, http://www.fvza.org/. Written by David Hine and illustrated by Roy Allan Martinez, FVZA is creepy, violent, sexy, and gross–and it manages to put just enough of a spin on vampires and zombies that it is complementary to, rather than derivative of, True Blood and Zombieland. Check out this preview and decide for yourself.