New Comic Day March 30

Sorry for the lack of updates folks: school has been tying me up quite a bit. There are three new posts about the comics I've gotten in the last few weeks.

The following comics/magazines are ones that I purchased today:

Astonishing X-men #9

The first six issues were pure gold, everything you could possibly want in an X-men book. This new arc where the Danger Room comes to life seems a bit too Matrixy to me (ie. people versus machines) and it has shifted gears from character development and interaction to more action based instead of a good mix between the two. We'll see where Whedon takes it.

Ultimate Secret #1

Another bandwagon book, but this one seems to be much better than Ultimate Nightmare and hopefully it won't be a big letdown. I'm an astronomer so some of the more scientific aspects of the book greatly appealed to me.

DC Countdown

This 80-page giant is a big set up book for what's going to happen in the next year or so in the DC universe. It's told from the prospective of the Blue Beetle and after reading this issue, it makes me want to get "Formerly known as the Justice League" to find more about him. It's somewhat of a self-contained mystery story and does its job of interesting you in the various spin-off mini-series leading up to Infinte Crisis in October. It casts a dim light on some of the first string characters because it shows they are kind of snobbish towards the lesser known heroes, even though they're all fighting the good fight. I'm not sure if I'll pick up any of the mini-series, but if I had to choose, it would likely be the OMAC project cause it's all about Batman. Also pick up JLA #115 for the beginnings of Batman vs. The League with regards to his mind wipe.

Marvel Knights Spider-man #12

This finishes Mark Millar and Terry/Rachel Dobson's run on this title. The arc had its ups and downs for me (I stopped getting it after #8 then picked it up again later) but overall no real complaints. It's a hint that Peter's life isn't going to get any easier, because all his villains are beefier now thanks to Osborn, but this doesn't really concern me, because I don't follow regular Marvel Spider-man much anyways. This was also a more weighty take on the web-slinger without the witty banter, which I'm not sure is a wonderful thing (whew, that's alot of "double yous")

Secret War #4

Since this book has been so late, I've kind of lost interest in it. I expected to see the heroes in Latveria performing this secret mission, but instead we get muddled references to it and some techno-villains in New York with Daredevel babbling "What's going on? Why are you doing this?" I think it was a case of Brian Micheal Bendis just hashing something out while he was sitting on the toilet, and so far that's where I'm thinking of sending this piece of malarky: straight down the crapper.

Wizard #163

So after the debacle of putting two issues out last month, Wizard is back on track providing losts of meaty info about the industry. I haven't gotten through it all yet, but there is an interesting Alex Ross article about his favorite pieces as well as a big teaser for Infinte Crisis.