I’ve been way to busy today to do proper write-ups for each issue. It doesn’t help that I had a sur­prise addi­tion to the pull list either. Ss usual I’m grab­bing Wiz­ard Magazine.

Hell­boy: In The Chapel Of Moloch

At my local comic shop I’ve been put down for ‘any­thing Hell­boy”. So I’ll auto­mat­i­cally pick this book up.

Final Cri­sis: Rage of the Red Lanterns #1

Of all the Final Cri­sis tie-ins this has to be the one I’ve been hang­ing out longest for. Just check out this pre­view over at Newsarama. Amazing.

Final Cri­sis: Sub­mit #1

Another FC tie-in. Unlike The SI books, these tie-ins have actu­ally been enhanc­ing the main sto­ry­line, so I haven’t regret­ted buy­ing them.

Jus­tice League of Amer­ica #26

I was right on the verge of can­celling this book, but then they suck­ered me back in with a sto­ry­line that fea­tured both a god and Else­worlds styling. Damn their hides!

Legion of Super Heroes #47

Three more issues left. I’ve been a bit crit­i­cal of this title in the past but I finally fig­ured out what had been bug­ging me. The story had been mov­ing at a glacial pace. Now with an end in sight all plot lines are start­ing to come together.

Trin­ity #22

I don’t usu­ally emote when I’m read­ing comics (is there some­thing wrong with me?), but last week’s Trin­ity was an excep­tion. Ori­gin sto­ries for two of the three bad guys and a not-so sur­prise reveal for the last.

Aston­ish­ing X-Men Ghost Boxes #1 (of 2)

Two issues into this series and we get a spin off mini. Is that some sort of record?

Avengers Ini­tia­tive #18

This book just keep going from strength to strength. The main draw­card for me is that the cast is largely made up of a bunch of unknowns. With no shield of invin­ci­bil­ity around them, like the rest of the Mar­vel sta­ble, these guys could die at any moment.

Ulti­mate Cap­tain Amer­ica Annual #1

I wasn’t look­ing to buy this book. But the comic guy dropped it my bag, so I fig­ured I might as well check it out.

X-Force #8

Still not a big fan of what they’ve done to X-23’s char­ac­ter. There’s still a lot to like in this book how­ever. A legion of the X-Men’s great­est eneimes ver­sus five of the X-Men’s more vio­lent members.

DC’s Final Cri­sis and Marvel’s Secret Inva­sion both land­ing in the same week. The same thing hap­pened when issue 3 of FInal Cri­sis shipped. At least this time Mar­vel hasn’t loaded the week with 33 other titles. That wasn’t nice at all.

Final Cri­sis #4 (of 7)

Issue 4 finally arrives! (sorry). It’s been a long wait, but I’ve been enjoy­ing the series too much to com­plain. I’m prob­a­bly the only per­son who’s lov­ing FC and not com­plain­ing about the change in artist. Check out the new improved Dark­seid there. Doesn’t he look like the long lost brother of Baron Ünderb­heit from Ven­ture Bros:

Trin­ity #21

Really, really, really lik­ing this series. Not a whole lot more I can say about it.

Ms Mar­vel #32

Last issue ended really strangely, with Ms Mar­vel promis­ing to kill Nor­man Osbourne. It was set long after the end of Secret Inva­sion. So who the knows whats going on there. Now it looks like they’re jump­ing back in time back to write what looks to be a Secret Origin-type story for Ms Marvel.

New Avengers #46

Both this and Mighty Avengers are still play­ing catch up with infor­ma­tion we don’t really need or have already fig­ured out on out own. That said both books have actu­ally been writ­ten and drawn pretty well.

Run­aways vol3 #3

I’m lov­ing that there’s a reg­u­lar sched­ule so I can keep track of things. It’s annoy­ing that the kids don’t seem to have done any­thing now that they’re back in the present.

Secret Inva­sion #7 (of 8)

This has the be the sin­gle most decom­pressed minis­eries ever writ­ten. One day of event spread over 8 issues? Bendis, you’ve out done yourself!

Thun­der­bolts #125

Seems like only last week I was read­ing issue #124. I’ll put that down to the neat writ­ing and easy to fol­low art. Chris­tos Gage’s writ­ing has been absolute per­fect on this book.

Uncanny X-Men #503

Who is the Red Queen of the Hell­fire Cult? My guess: Made­lyne Pryor. I can’t wait for Greg Land’s run on this title to end though. Look how bor­ing that cover is. He could’ve at least made the two girls looks like they were part of the play­ing card instead of plas­tered over the top of it.

X-Factor #36

Still slump­ing since Mes­siah Com­plex. It’s the art more than any­thing. I don’t know what they were think­ing, bring­ing on a guy who draws in a ugly, sketchy style to draw a noir book. Luck­ily this appears to be his last issue. Good­bye, Larry Stro­man. You will not be missed.

X-Men: Legacy #217

Part 2 (I guess) of the crossover with Wolver­ine: Ori­gins. part 1 was a retconner’s delight, so I don’t see this being any different.

Angel: After The Fall #13

This comic has the strangest release sched­ule. It’s been seven weeks since the last issue. Before that it was three weeks between bites (yuk yuk). I haven’t found an image of the cover yet. The IDW site isn’t nearly as organ­ised as the Mar­vel and DC ones.

About time I saw some Final Cri­sis books come in. The last time I saw one of the offi­cial tie-in books was way back at the end of August. A lot of good stuff this week.

Booster Gold #13

The first 12 issues of this book have been fan­tas­tic. Some light­hearted adven­tur­ing through time. This issue and the next are writ­ten by a guy who has been quoted as say­ing that he’s going to change the tone of the book. Why?

Final Cri­sis: Legion of Three Worlds #2 (of 5)

The first over­sized issue was fan­tas­tic. Superboy-Prime blasted to the end of time from his alter­ca­tion with the Monarch Guardian dur­ing the events of Count­down the Sine­stro Corps War is sent back in time to the 31st cen­tury where he dis­cov­ered nobody remem­bered who he was. The Legion of Super­heroes has recruited two other alter­nate ver­sions of them­selves to help bring him — and the Legion of Supervillians — down.

Final Cri­sis: Rogues Revenge #3 (of 3)

This hasn’t been a true tie-in to the Final Cri­sis event, but it’s been enter­tain­ing none the less. Even with the  dis­con­nect between this and The Flash. But con­ti­nu­ity isn’t really a bug­bear of mine any­more I’m just happy to be enjoy­ing the story.

The Flash #245

Not sure what this new sto­ry­line is lead­ing to, but The Flash did fight a giant bug last issue…for what it’s worth.

Secret Six #2

It’s a shame Cliff Chi­ang only did the first two cov­ers for Secret Six. They’ve been very, very good. Gail Simone has been great on this book too.

Trin­ity #20

I under­stand why they started this book with a main story and backup. With no Bat­man, Won­der Woman or Super­man those backup play­ers are now at the fore and the book hasn’t suf­fered at all for it.

Aston­ish­ing X-Men #27

I can’t even remem­ber when the last issue of this came out. Looks like we’ll be suf­fer­ing through the same delays the last team put us through. War­ren Ellis really does write the shit out of Emma Frost though.

Mighty Avengers #19

More flash­backs to how the Skrulls began their infil­tra­tion. This Cap­tain Mar­vel died recently in the main book, so I’m not sure what dwelling on his past will accom­plish story-wise. Again, it looks like no actual Avengers will appear in this book.

Secret Inva­sion: Front Line #4 (of 5)

Lov­ing the cov­ers in this mini, but the story has been a bit too thin for me. I haven’t con­nected with any of the char­ac­ters sadly, but like I said: nice covers.

Young X-Men #7

I keep for­get­ting to remove this from my pull list. At least this one seems to be another stand alone issue.

Another light week (not count­ing the six col­lected issues within the Iron Fist trade). I have a feel­ing the wal­let is going to get hit a lot harder start­ing next week. Of course I have been wrong before.

Iron Fist vol 3

I pre­ordered this not real­is­ing it was the hard cover. Not a prob­lem though as it isn’t that much more expen­sive than the soft cover of vol­ume 2 I bought a few weeks back. Cur­rency shenani­gans and all that. These are the final issues of Brubaker and Fraction’s amaz­ing run, so I’ll be sure to savour them.

X-Men: Orig­i­nal Sin

A lead in book for a crossover I’m not all the inter­ested in. X-Men:Legacy has been pretty decent, but I gave up on Wolver­ine: Ori­gins after about 5 issues to do it’s medi­oc­rity. If this crossover doesn’t bring down X-Men : Legacy it will be a miracle.

Green Lantern #35

This must be the finale to the Secret Ori­gin sto­ry­line. It feels like it’s been going for­ever. Not that it hasn’t been inter­est­ing. But I’ve been hang­ing to get back to sto­ries fea­tur­ing the new Lantern factions.

Green Lantern Corps #29

Fun fact: I mis­pro­nounced “corps” wrong once about 15 years ago and copped flack for it from friends right up until about 5 years ago when they finally for­got about it. Oh! Is that a Star Sap­phire on the cover?

Trin­ity #19

Much like Count­down, Trin­ity has segued into an Else­worlds tale. Unlike Count­down this story has actu­ally been good. After Trin­ity is done, can some­one get Mark Bagley on a Power Girl book? Just look at how awe­some he drew her last issue:

Irrefutable proof that I’m not a total cock up when it comes to gardening:

I’m not 100% sure what that is (because I didn’t label the rows in the veg­etable gar­den) but if mem­ory serves that lit­tle patch of green will, hope­fully, one day become car­rots. Of course there’s every chance it could be cucum­ber, egg­plant or water­melon. But I’m fine with that. I just hope it’s not grass. That would be a real kick in the teeth.

Only time will tell.

I really shouldn’t have laid on that last shov­el­ful of top­soil. The clay, rocks and other mis­cel­lanea that it con­tained stick out like sort thumbs. Every now and then I’ll flick a rock, plas­tic jig­ger or piece of cloth out of the patch and into the neighbour’s yard. At a rough esti­mate I’d prob­a­bly need around 46,789 hours to get down and sift out all the offend­ing crap. While it doesn’t seem to be a big issue for the plants, with­out the layer of crap the veg­etable gar­den would at least look a bit more presentable.