Another full pull for me this week, and hardly a bad book in the lot.

You may recall from earlier in the week, I loved me some Giant Sized Old Man Logan. I even went so far as to suggest that the mini-series could be the best–or at least my favorite–comic of the year.

But then I read the rest of my weekly pull, and remembered just how good Greg Rucka and JH Williams’ run on the Batwoman-centric Detective Comics has been. The previous issue wasn’t as good as their stunning first issue, but this latest–issue #857–was great. Stellar art, excellent action, and a tense, tight plot involving weapons of mass destruction, jumping from planes, rapid-fire character development, and plenty of face kicking. I still couldn’t care less about the Question backup story, though, which I suppose could be considered a knock against the book as a whole.

Another comic contending for book of the year is Fantastic Four, which I started reading again this year for Old Man Logan-mastermind Mark Millar’s run, but I’m definitely staying for the Hickman. New writer Jonathan Hickman (along with artist Dale Eaglesham) has actually one-upped Millar’s think big, then go bigger approach to the FF with what has so far been a great ride, with a focus on Reed Richards learning that maybe there is such a thing as doing too much good. or maybe just too many Reeds doing all the good.

We can’t forget Marvel Zombies Return–yet another good time that I’m having with a mini, and this one is weekly! I won’t pretend this book is in contention with any of the above for “best of the year,” but it has been a blast. True to it’s name, it is a definite return to the twisted fun of the original Marvel Zombies series.

I loved Amazing Spider-Man #606, too. I know for some it may feel like the creators are just repeating beats from old Spidey continuity, which might be considered a step back. But I missed the boat on the original Spidey/Black Cat episodes from back in the day, but I’ve always liked the idea of that relationship, enjoyed the way it was recently reimagined in the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, and welcome it back to the comic proper. Black Cat has a fun personality to read and, as far as drawings go, she’s not too hard to look at either. It’s also worth noting that Mike McKone’s artwork in this issue is right up there with the rest of my favorites for the week.

Speaking of great artists and spider-themed spandex, I picked up the print version of the Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev Spider-Woman on a whim. See, I tried watching the motion comic version–which was the whole big deal about this comic in the first place (it was  written and layed out specifically with the motion comic platform in mind), and I didn’t like it. I couldn’t get through more than a minute of the motion version…something about the slow pace and the not-what-I-expected voice acting turned me off right away. I guess I just like my comics on paper, though, because reading it the way comics were meant to be read left me liking the book just fine. I’m a fan of Bendis, even if all his characters sound the same and all his books are decompressed. I’m an even bigger fan of Bendis when he’s writing for Alex Maleev, who manages to compliment the scripted mood, character beats, and bursts of action so well. I’m willing to stick around for a few issues just to enjoy the creative collaboration, even if I don’t know that I particularly care all that much about story they’re telling.

I also don’t care all that much about the plight of the Marvel mutant,these days, but I do think Matt Fraction is, at the very least, writing the best Cyclops I’ve read in a while. Uncanny X-Men has been on the cusp of droppage for a while, but there’s always some clever twist or strong character moment that tricks me into caring just enough to come back the next month. Fraction’s Cyclops won me over for at least one more issue.

Robert Kirkman will get me back for another issue, too, for Invincible, but this week’s issue #66–focusing on Invincible’s dad spilling secrets about the dwindling Viltrumite empire to Allen the Alien–was all exposition and quite dull. It’s all big important information that will be relevant later (you know, when characters get back to punching faces off), but the issue felt like a space filler.

And speaking of space fillers…what happened to my one-time favorite comic–Mike Allred’s Madman?! I picked up issue #17, which I think is the last issue of the current series, before some sort of relaunch I absolutely will not buy. What a self-indulgent load of boring, unentertaining blecch. The art is beautiful and playful and quirky as always, but it’s the writing that kills it for me. I am so happy Allred has taken to doing more work-for-hire art in the Marvel and DC Universes, because either I grew out of Madman or the book has just gotten dumb. I guess if you read it as a lost chapter to Red Rocket 7–rather than a relevant or representative part of the usually adorably awesome Frank Einstein’s–you might not hate it as much as I did…but I didn’t like RR7 all that much either. C’est la vie.

That’s all for this we…Oh, I almost forgot–New Avengers #57. The fact that I forgot it, even though it is in the stack of books I keep looking over at as I write this, doesn’t reflect well on it, but I promise, I didn’t dislike it. But it was only an okay read. Despite a ton of characters, good and evil, getting all sorts of sreentime (pagetime?), and assorted subplots related to Dark Reign threading through this book each month, not all that much of anything ever happens in this series. It is the worst example of Bendis’ bad habit for decompressed storytelling. Stuart Immonen is a welcome addition to the creative team, illustrating Bendis’ ongoing epic about the kitchen table in Bucky Barnes’ safehouse/Avenger’s HQ. If I were pinching pennies, this would definitely be another very droppable book, simply because it feels like it goes nowhere each issue, no matter how good (or okay) each issue is. 

That is all for my week in comics. How was yours?