We’ve hit the end of August with some intriguing books on the market:

- I gave Avengers another shot with issue #4, but it still didn’t gel with me. Too much funny dialogue detracts from the story and whatever it is, John Romita Jr’s art is lacking in detail in some areas.

- Action Comics #892 continues Luthor’s quest for the Black Lantern energy. A continually good character study of the popular DC villain from Paul Cornell, although Pete Woods’ art took away from some of the action scenes. I expect more when you have Deathstroke as a guest star.

- Superman/Batman #75 gets a super-sized special and while the main story from Levitz is decent enough, it’s the back-up pieces that steal the show. Anybody who’s read the Luthor/Joker 2-page short here knows what I’m talking about.

But when it’s all said and done, Justice League Generation Lost #8 is the clear winner. Judd Winick and company has made a believer out of me with this series of many former Justice League Int’l alumni banding together to pursue and capture Maxwell Lord. Each character gets standout moments and the dialogue between them is laugh out loud hilarious. It says something when this bi-weekly series has enough chops to compete with the main Brightest Day book (and sometimes surpass it).

In this week’s episode, I touch upon a little bit of The Sixth Gun #2, a book from Oni Press that came out last week but was only able to get recently. This book peeked my interest back on Free Comic Book Day and I looked forward to the day they’d continue the Wild West saga of this mysterious gun.

From there, we get into the slim pickings of a week in books what with Comic Con here in full force. Even so, Brightest Day took the prize by putting focus back on its strong sub-plots (No Hawkman!) and teasing some revelations to come. I even give props to Johns and Tomasi for getting me interested in Firestorm again. This makes it all a great set-up for what’s to come with the big reveal behind the purpose of these characters’ resurrections in issue 7.

Enjoy the show!

We’re days away from San Diego (the comic world in general, not us – we’re glued to our desks playing Pokemon) and I felt it good to review what the 1st half of 2010 brought to us from the lands of Marvel and DC. This site has devoted a lot to DC books as of late, but there are still a few good Marvel showings that came out that weren’t Avenger-related. That being said, we really felt DC gave a lot to the readers from both its superhero and Vertigo imprints.

Enjoy the show and all the best to those attending San Diego this year!

Despite heavy competition from Return of Bruce Wayne and surprisingly Green Arrow, I have to give this week’s Quick Pick to the continuing adventures of Scott Snyder and Stephen King’s imaginative take on the vampire mythology. I’m running out of words to say about this series, so let’s just say it’s off-the-wall fun and carries a good amount of emotional depth to it. King here finally seems to come into his own in his back-up tale after 3 issues of him adjusting to writing in this medium. We’re getting just enough about Skinner Sweet and what his new breed of vampire brings to the table and yet not enough that we get to keep coming back for more.

Enjoy the show and go pet a vampire when you get a chance

With Avengers #1 officially kicking off the Heroic Age and Brightest Day #2 once again bringing the Geoff Johns awesomeness, you would think it would come down to these two in the front running for Quick Pick of the week.

Then comes along another stellar Vertigo series that re-energizes the vampire mythology. Scott Snyder and Stephen King are amazing in this new portrayal of the popular creature and Rafael Albuquerque has superstar written all over him with the styles he brings to both talented writers. The whole series screams of the theme defiance, both in what the main characters are doing against the traditional European breed of vampire and in what Snyder and King are bringing to the table against the many other TV and movie series that are already portraying them.

Enjoy the show and give me your thoughts on the series!