A Number of Them

I've been working on Volume 4 of 52 for a couple days. Yesterday I bought 4 more things to read.

Buffy Issue #9 - I know I didn't like the last issue, but I figured it would be a short read so stopped reading 52 and read this. The conclusion of this story was actually pretty good. I'm a little confused on why Giles has no interest in involving Buffy and why they aren't talking, but whatever. The whole Faith trying to connect with the psycho misled slayer was pretty cool. I'm a little disappointed that the plot is another lets get rid of all the slayers. If I think about the show the season plots were mostly hell on earth and now they are end all the slayers. Oh well.

The Exterminator Vol. 2 :Insurgency - This was the book I wanted to read. I little disappointed. The transition from volume 1 to 2 was rough. I'm sick of all the evil lesbian executive stuff going on at Ocran. Maybe its so we won't care that we know there is a character working there, but the readers know nothing about the company or its mission other then its sinister; and there are lesbians. Quick summary, this most mostly fast moving sequence of events. AJ seems to be back from the dead, but isn't AJ rather someone else. There is a new love interest and the possible love interest saved in the first volume becomes the company book keeper. The coach roaches are organized and waging warfare against the city. The Bug-Bee-Gone crew seem to be the only exterminators for all of LA. And the police lieutenant keeps getting mysterious injuries. The pacing just didn't match the first book and it seems like the interesting dialog is disappearing. Lastly I was really taken out of the story when it took a couple hours to get from LA to Berkeley and the welcome to Berkeley sign showed this nice hill instead of dense suburban bay city.

After that I went back and finished 52 since I was mostly done with 52 Volume 4. Reading the conclusion was interesting. Time went forward backwards and all around. Most of the story lines were wrapped up. Still confused on why a few things happened, like why Dingby was after the person who was controlling the person impersonating Dr. Fate. It seems like we know why Wonder Woman and Batman are okay, but no clue why or when Superman got his powers back. Also why did Wonder Woman need a new identity? Bascially Booster Gold saves the day and there is lots of time traveling. Black Adam take on the entire world because he's killing millions of innocents because Intergang went after him and there is a new Question. Intergang mostly seems to be getting out of this scott free. Stupid. I'm not sure how people stayed intereested in this as a weekly comic, it was confusing enough reading in four volumes over a few months.

I'm currently reading Scarlet Traces: The Great Game. The art seems slightly better then the first book, but I havne't directly compared them. This story seems more interesting so far, but maybe it's that I know the world better so I got into it faster. We'll see.

And the last thing to read is Channel Zero which is Brian Wood's first work. James from Isotope had interesting things to say about it since it was the first work, mostly that its obvious that his background is illustration and he hasn't quite figured out comic book story telling, but he still thought it was fantastic.

I'm still working on America's Best Comics.