Dropping in on the discussion of the Cecil story in INVINCIBLE #50:

I think that story would have been a ton better if it had ended at the point where Cecil shoots those guys and then Immortal says "What have you done?" rather than trotting the rest of it out.

i'm with Spud. i don't think we needed the backups. what we did need was more pages for the main story and less Cecil crying "OMG, they're killing him! stop the zombies!" The Cecil character is a joke now.

I'm not sure yet. It's definately sad times for Punisher fans right now like me. Punisher War Journal hasn't been that good lately and Matt Fraction is leaving the book in a few months which means the book will probably be trash with Rick Remender on the book( probably the person dragging the book down right now). And then Ennis is leaving Punisher Max in a little while too.

This probably means that both Punisher books are about to be crappy in a little while. I'm still a Punisher fan though, so I may stay on Punisher Max for a few issues after Ennis leaves just to see if it's readable.

I can see where you are coming from. I still have to look at the regular issue seperate from the back-ups because they are. As far as the issue being a let down, I don't know, I suppose it could have been better. But then what comic can't be? I'm not saying this issue was perfect, but I still had some fun with it and I'm looking forward to the next few issues.

Agree to disagree I guess. Let's just hope the book gets even better. I think that is something we can agree on.

Yeah it was a great issue. I'm looking forward to this arc as well. Geoff Johns is definately one of the best writers in comics!

Yeah I can agree with that.

the guy taking over MAX is reasonable. he did the Foolkiller mini. i know i was critical of the first issue way back when i was still doing Battle of the Century, but the mini was actually pretty good in the end. i'm definitely picking up issue 61.

Yeah, it won't be Ennis, I don't think anyone can touch Ennis' Punisher now or ever. But I'm probably going to drop War Journal as soon as Fraction is gone and stay on Punisher Max. I'm hoping it will be at least fun. And if it's written by the Follkiller guy, does that mean Punisher Max will get even more gory? Maybe.

I mean, Remender's only been on for the last two or three issues (I think the second issue of the Jigsaw arc), and the quality started to drop before that when Fraction was still on the book solo (basically everything after the Kraven II storyline has been subpar). And Remender's a damn good writer. I think Fraction's been spreading himself way too thin lately, and Punisher seems to be the book that suffered for it. I wouldn't be surprised if the quality improves once Remender goes on his own.

yes, agreed.

Hmm, yeh you know you may be right. Fraction has been writing too much lately and Punisher has been his worst book. Remender has been writing the book less than I thought sorry. I've never read anything that Remender has done. It may get better I'm not sure. Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

Bruce Castle Archives: Batman Under the Hood Vol 2

Review: Ultimate X-Men #95
Bruce Castle Quickies 3

So this is the second trade from Winick and crew dealing with Jason Todd’s return. So you get an issue giving a flashback showing you who Jason Todd was. Batman understands now that it is Jason Todd he’s dealing with. He’s investigating his coffin and he determines that no one has ever been in it.

Avengers/Invaders #2 (***1/2)
Batman: Detective Comics #845 (****)
Justice Society of America #16 (*****)
Midnighter #20 (*****)

Why did they wait till the very last issue to give us this? Wow. I bet if each issue of Midnighter was this psychotic, it wouldn’t have been cancelled. What a waste. I feel like this book never really got off the ground, even with the fun Hitler story Ennis wrote to open the series. My take on Midnighter is that he’s basically Batman if Batman actually acted the way a man like Batman would actually act. Get me? He’s Batman from the Bob Kane era with a modern S&M twist. We’ve seen hints of this before, in Authority, and I expected that version of the character to receive further exploration in this ongoing. But unfortunately, it doesn’t really happen till this, the final issue. As I said, what a waste.

http://readrant.wordpress.com/2008/0...ew-roundup-29/

So this starts out at a look at the same castle that they showed at the end of the last trade. A man wearing ZINCO gloves enters the castle and discovers the three characters that were awakened last trade. He explains to them that he met Rasputin and he told him to basically get a life. So he wants to help them out. We’re introduced to a few new characters at the B.P.R.D. and they are going to split into two groups to investigate Giurescu castle and we of course get some background on everybody. So they drop Hellboy out of a plane near the castle and he has a jet pack on. He keeps trying to start the jet pack but it is not responding. The jet pack explodes and we see that printed on the jet pack is the word ZINCO. Man this is like ACME. The issue ends with Hellboy crashing down on the place we saw earlier and the Nazi Ilsa Haupstein is not happy.

http://readrant.wordpress.com/2008/0...ake-the-devil/

by Desiato

I was a big fan of Planet Hulk. I’ve got that big awesome oversized hardcover on my shelf, and I think it stands quite well as the sort of superhero book that isn’t really a superhero book. Not to mention the Warbound’s notion of honor through battle, which is a literary trope that I’ve loved ever since I became enamored with the work of Homer, Plato and Sophocles. It was a book that had everything going for it. But nothing lasts forever, and Planet Hulk ended on a high note, with issue 105 being one of the best of the entire 14 issue run...

http://readrant.wordpress.com/2008/0...son-of-hulk-1/