Weekly Reading Pile: Week of 7/28/10

Thor The Mighty Avenger #2- I’m going to go ahead and just say this is straight up the best new series Marvel is publishing and that you need to be reading it because it is awesome and made of all things good. Great story, great art, great sense of humor, great great great. A+

Green Arrow #2- A bit of a pick up from the first issue, but it’s perhaps a little too grounded in all the Brightest Day stuff for anybody just checking it out for Green Arrow. It felt like an incredibly fast read though, so hey at least it was only $2.99. Kinda just a boring title so far though. B-

Buzzard #2- It looked like Powell was attempting something new with his art here, and in some spots it worked giving it a neat rough feel and in others.....well, it didn’t. Especially towards the end, his lines and forms just looked a little half-assed. Story was still interesting if a little quick, but as a whole it just felt like the quality dropped. B-

Wonder Woman #601- I really wanted Straczynski’s run to actually interest me, and while the overall plot is fine it just feels like it won’t actually matter for anything in the long run. It feels like the Age of Apocalypse honestly, where we get to play in an alternate universe playground for a little while but one character remembers the way things ‘should be’ and whoops, after defeating the big bad we go back to the way it was. It feels like a cheap gimmick and unfortunately Straczynski does rely on those sometimes. I love Don Kramer’s art though. B-

7 Psychopaths #3- This gets my vote for best mini-series of the year so far, even though this is technically three years old. The story here ends in such a way that makes perfect sense without being painfully obvious, and again Sean Phillips’ art is fantastic. If you haven’t picked up the previous issues I would recommend doing so or at least grabbing the trade. A

Secret Avengers #3- Well it’s about time we saw that Nova wasn’t a pushover, even if he is mind controlled. I’m impressed with how good Brubaker plays with a cosmic story. It’s not like I thought that he couldn’t, but it’s nice to see keeping in mind his darker crime work and his time with Daredevil and Captain America. Kinda want a little more to happen in each issue for the price point, but still an entertaining story. A-