Eden GN- Pablo Holmberg offers up a collection of short one page stories that manage to capture more emotion and beauty in their brief four panel layouts then many creators can offer in entire novels. The art is clean and simple yet very emotive, and Holmberg can leap from heartwarming to gutwrenching with such ease that you’ll find yourself rereading pages again and again. The only problem is the $16.96 price point for a small trim book that’s a relatively fast read. Don’t let that scare you away though, this is well worth it. A-

Avengers/Invaders TPB- I actually really like Krueger, Sadowski, and Ross, so it’s kind of disappointing that this was a truly painful read. Disjointed storytelling, a needlessly convoluted plot, and boring dialogue make this an unnecessary package especially with the $34.99 price tag. Seriously, the story can’t make up its mind as to who the villain is so they just cram a bunch of them in there. Considering Ultron was the first villain the Mighty Avengers fought immediately after the Civil War I don’t really think we needed to see him again so soon but I doubt editorial bothered to think twice about this. In fact I’m a little surprised they didn’t toss Kang in here for good measure, thankful for sure, but still surprised. This series suffered from the same problem Project Superpowers wallows in, which was mostly that they felt the need to parade golden age characters around but don’t know what the hell to do with them. If it’s not outright bad then it’s just boring, and at that point you kind of need to just give up and let someone else try. D+

Batman Arkham Reborn TPB- The first chunk that collects the Arkham Reborn mini-series was actually pretty interesting and I always feet that Hine’s strength is in psychological horror (if you haven’t checked out his series Strange Embrace I would strongly recommend it). The last two chapters in the book are a little disjointed since a bunch of stuff occurs in another series, so while you have Hine still writing it you pretty much have to assume some important stuff happened and just roll with it. Jeremy Haun’s art compliments the scripts and creates a good deranged atmosphere throughout. Considering Doctor Arkham is kind of a prop of a character that just pops up from time to time, it’s nice to see someone actually play around with him and give him a new role in the Batworld. B