Gail Simone pulls off a terrific reversal in Birds of Prey 80 (DC), gathering up subtle bits of characterization from throughout her run so far. The plot wraps up the “Hero Hunters” arc, as Black Canary, Huntress, and Oracle try to sort out what’s up with violent vigilante Thorn. It’s fine, but the action can’t compare with the interpersonal fireworks. They’re surprising, but they’re also very rooted in what’s come before. Character-driven action laced with smart comedy; you can’t go wrong with that.

Captain America 4 (Marvel) is kind of an in-between issue in writer Ed Brubaker’s introductory “Out of Time” arc, but it hardly feels like filler. Cap and his SHIELD colleagues attempt to put recent events into the context of new developments and find themselves faced with new mysteries and dangers. Meanwhile, Cap keeps flashing back to World War II, bewildered by some memories he doesn’t recognize. The art, by Steve Epting in the present-day scenes and Michael Lark in the flashbacks, is splendid. This is easily one of the best books Marvel produces.

Catwoman 41 (DC) starts with a scene of a man trying to beat a woman to death as he recalls delivering a similar fate to a dog. It’s rendered in lurid detail. I have no idea what follows this scene, because I couldn’t be bothered to read the rest of it after such a thoroughly revolting beginning. A content rating wouldn’t have been the worst thing that happened to this particular issue.

I’m not quite sure how writer Brian K. Vaughan manages to juggle 9/11 flashbacks, subway monsters, and a meditation on the politics of gay marriage, but damned if he didn’t pull it off in Ex Machina 9 (Wildstorm). Vaughan also makes terrific use of his large and varied cast, letting his supporting characters have vivid, telling, and surprising moments. Penciller Tony Harris, inker Tom Feister, and colorist J.D. Mettler do lovely work rendering the range of plot and character elements.

As I may have mentioned, I really like Manhunter. That said, even I have to admit that writer Marc Andreyko might try and avoid courtroom scenes in the future. (Or he might watch a few more episodes of Law & Order.) As the trial of Shadow Thief continues in Manhunter 8 (DC), D.A. Kate Spencer calls a couple of witnesses for testimony that would be entirely appropriate for the sentencing phase (being devoted to victim impact) but doesn’t seem to have any place in actual trial proceedings. Aside from that stumble, there’s plenty of material that plays to the book’s strengths. Kate’s alter-ego, Manhunter, tries to keep Shadow Thief alive to stand trial (and face the death penalty), meeting stiff resistance from contract-killer Cheshire. I love how Kate isn’t particularly good at super-heroics, relying on borrowed tech, luck, and a willingness to fight dirty. Andreyko also takes time to flesh out Kate’s relationship with her blackmailed tech support Dylan, who’s developing nicely as an unsavory foil to the book’s unsavory lead.

Teen Titans 22 (DC) is kind of all over the place. It starts with some self-loathing narration from Raven, which doesn’t really go anywhere. Then it focuses on Dr. Light who, while completely despicable, isn’t entirely wrong about the way he’s been violated and what that says about the heroes who did it. In typical Geoff Johns fashion, Light’s gimmick-villain status now seems to have morphed into some kind of shaky, pseudo-mystical relationship with the forces he manipulates. Following this, and with no set-up, Johns introduces yet another iteration of Hawk and Dove, who don’t let a confrontation with a violent super-villain distract from their expository conversation. In this particular era of comics, it’s kind of odd to complain about too much happening in a given issue, but all of this stuff just doesn’t come together.

Wonder Woman 214 (DC) is a mostly superfluous conclusion to a crossover with Flash 219. Writer Greg Rucka tries to establish the dynamic between the heroes – aw-shucks Flash and regal Diana – as something unique and telling, but he doesn’t seem to try very hard. It’s just as well, because they don’t have any distinct chemistry. Even less successful is the dynamic between Cheetah (a very boring villain indeed) and Zoom, who have nothing in common and generate no thematic or interpersonal sparks. The plot follows Flash and Wonder Woman being pounded by Cheetah and Zoom respectively, until the antagonists leave themselves open to defeat. I did like Diana’s “of course you’re a villain, idiot” exchange with Zoom, but there’s not much to recommend the issue otherwise. And while artist Drew Johnson has many skills in his arsenal, visually rendering super-speed is not among them. Since three of the four principle characters use it in this story, that’s a bit of a problem. I hope we can go back to the soapy Mt. Olympus stuff next issue. Even bitter, student council president runner-up Veronica Cale would be preferable.

In terms of pure comics pleasure in pamphlet form, nothing this week can match Young Avengers 2 (Marvel). You heard me. It opens with Iron Lad explaining his circumstances to Jessica Jones, Captain America, and Iron Man, and writer Alan Heinberg manages to find a fresh approach to Kang and his time-travel shtick. The rest of the issue catches up with Patriot, Asgardian, and Hulkling as they fumble through another super-heroic adventure and try and figure out precisely how this masked vigilante thing is supposed to work. In the process, they run across the spunky debutante from the first issue and, quite promisingly, Cassie Lang, daughter of one of the cannon-fodder heroes from Avengers: Disassembled. As the cast shifts into place, Heinberg does a terrific job dropping in interesting twists, providing sharp and revealing character moments, and lacing things with just the right amount of absurd comedy. Fast, funny, smart, and fun, this book is a wonderfully pleasant surprise for me.

Tokyopop wins the race to be the first publisher to turn up its nose at CMX in the name of marketing. It’s in an interview at Newsarama, where they announce that they certainly won’t be covering any boobs when they publish Tsutomu Nihei’s Blame! Here’s a snippet:

“None of the pages will be censored like DC did with Ten Ten [Tenjho Tenge Vol. 1],” project editor Luis Reyes told Newsarama. “Tokyopop does not have a reputation for censoring at all. There were two instances on the Initial D series (volumes 1 and 9) in which we partially covered something on approval from the Japanese publisher. However, since then, we have never been in the practice of censoring books with the possible exception of Tokyo Tribes, which was actually censored by the artist himself boldly as a kind of statement against the fact that otherwise we’d have to sell his book shrink-wrapped.”

Except for those two times, they’ve never, ever censored! And one of those times, it was a bold statement against manga condoms! “Censored by the artist himself boldly” sounds like one of those joke translations of movie titles from foreign markets, doesn’t it? Perhaps I meant to type “wins” earlier.

To be fair, they lost me at “cyber-punk,” which is a phrase with the awesome power to make my eyelids droop. Throw in “dystopic ruin” and “very powerful gun,” and it’s like a glass of warm milk.

I don’t know if Nihei’s past work on a Wolverine mini-series will go any distance towards a crossover audience. It isn’t like there are a shortage of Wolverine mini-series out there (just ask Paul O’Brien), and I don’t remember Snikt! making much of an impression.

In my post about Tokyopop’s Rising Stars contest, I seem to have fused Derek Kirk Kim (Same Difference and Other Stories) and Eric Kim (Love as a Foreign Language). My only defense is that either would serve the point I was making, and that I was twitterpated by a fog of admiration for both. Or, I’m just kind of stupid. (Thanks for the anality, Joe!)

Speaking of the Rising Stars thing, Immelda Alty at Love Manga has weighed in on her favorites. (I agree with her completely about “The Perfect I Love You,” which could have fit quite neatly into SOS or a similar shojo anthology.)

At Comic World News, Shawn Hoke details his budding crush on manga in the latest Past the Front Racks. As with so many innocent comics readers, Planetes was his gateway drug. But Shawn proves he’s no poser by admitting he’s mainlining the hard stuff: Hikaru No Go and Imadoki! It’s a great primer for any comic fan looking wistfully but hesitantly over his shoulder at the shelves of digests as they pick up their weekly haul.

I’m inching ever closer to brainwashing the awesome Lea Hernandez into actually doing a comic about a vet student who treats mythical creatures. Help pick a likely publisher, won’t you? (My first inclination was to say Top Shelf, but that might be because I’m still under the influence of the second volume of Owly, which should be registered as a controlled substance.)

Pirates and zombies and ninjas, oh my! These are some of the unsavory characters who show up in the entries in Tokyopop’s Rising Stars of Manga contest. The work of twenty finalists can be found here. You can also vote for your favorite in the People’s Choice Award.

There’s some nice work in the entries on display. I found that my favorites tended to avoid ubiquitous stylistic elements (sweat drops, sound effects, etc.) and stereotypical manga subject matter (short-skirted magic girls, brawling legendary heroes). The artists took a range of approaches to the short-form entries. Some put out what seem to be pilots for ongoing series. A couple entered stories that could serve as the concluding chapter of long-form epics. The strongest were stand-alone offerings, going for a beginning, middle, and end in limited space.

The topics are all over the map, too. There’s straightforward comedy, sword-and-sorcery stuff, battle morons, slice-of-life drama, and even one that verges on ero-guru (the erotic grotesque). (One unintentionally skated near ero-guru. I’m looking at you, “Chibi Zombies.”) And there’s plenty of shôjo on display, from stand-alone romance, to the slightly supernatural, to family drama.

My vote for the People’s Choice Award went to “Can I Sit Here?” by George Alexopoulus. It’s a stand-alone story that makes excellent use of its shorter length by focusing on a small, deeply emotional story. Alexopoulus narrows in on the efforts of a college guy to actually speak to the pretty girl he sees every day at the bus station. It’s sweet, funny, and focused, and Alexopoulus’s art is very appealing. It’s like a cross between Derek Kirk Kim (Love as a Foreign Language) and Sena Aritou (IWGP). The protagonist’s increasingly frantic search for courage results in some nice flights of fancy to give variety to the otherwise clean, expressive art.

I had a lot of fun looking through the entries. Can’t wait to see what other folks think of them.

Newsarama has a couple of interviews up that intrigue me for one reason or another.

Versatile writer Andy Diggle talks about his thrilling, space based Adam Strange mini and drops an interesting nugget:

“Dan Didio said right at the outset that the whole thing was going to lead into this big Rann/Thanagar War crossover event,” Diggle said. “The only thing that wasn’t clear at the outset was whether I was supposed to actually start this war myself! I didn’t find out exactly how the war was supposed to get started until I was well into writing the series, which meant I had to do a certain amount of fancy footwork to get the ending of my story to work. But that’s just the nature of the job, you just have to roll with it.”

That sounds like a rather unsettling experience for a writer. Diggle doesn’t sound too perturbed about it, and surely no one walks into a gig at DC expecting too much autonomy of storytelling. Still… “Oh, and work this plot element in so we can do a big summer mini-series. Thanks!”

The interview with Tom Brevoort about Marvel’s upcoming House of M all but screams, “This time, we decided to use an editor.” Brevoort made some decidedly unenthusiastic remarks about Avengers: Disassembled, and he doesn’t seem to have revised his opinion much. He takes a tightrope approach this time out, saying that House of M was developed when Disassembled was well underway (avoiding tarring it with the same brush?), stressing that it won’t be the same kind of crossover story (the phrase “red skies” is never used), but stopping short of saying that every chapter will be necessary for comprehension.

This is going to be one of those projects where I’m more interested in what people are saying about it than the project itself. The actual plot – whatever are we to do with Wanda, now that bitch crazy? – doesn’t appeal to me at all, and I don’t have any faith in the way writer Brian Bendis handles this particular character set. But there should be some juicy on-line bitchery, and that’s free.

On the list of things about which I’m optimistic without qualification would be Seven Soldiers: Guardian, at least based on the preview from Pop Culture Shock. Subway… pirates? Grant Morrison is going to break my heart before all this is over, isn’t he? Just tell me. It will be easier in the long run.

Dave Carter at Yet Another Comics Blog got my week off to a good start by picking my entry as runner up in his Spider-Girl contest. Free comics for geeking out over Becky Wahlstrom? No down side. Thanks, Dave!

Now, let’s see if the comics industry will do its part to keep me cheerful. What does the New Comic Book Releases List portend for Wednesday?

DC and its various tentacles do pretty well by me: Birds of Prey 80, Ex Machina 9, and Manhunter 8. Marvel offers up Captain America 4 and Young Avengers 2, two titles I like much more than I thought I would.

None can compete with Top Shelf, however. They unleash the awesome power of Owly in its second volume, Just a Little Blue. (Speaking of Top Shelf, today is the last day of their crazy sale.)

Can you stand one more look at the CMX/Tenjho Tenge kerfuffle? Sure you can, because this time it’s by Paul O’Brien at The Ninth Art. O’Brien doesn’t generally cover manga, either critically at The X-Axis or in his Article 10 columns, but he does a very nice job hitting the low points of this particular situation. I particularly like his lawyer’s-eye view of the CMX brand statement:

“CMX advertises its material as ‘pure manga – 100% the way the original Japanese creators want you to see it’. This has the faint whiff of a slogan that was coined by an editor and then carefully revised by the legal department. You’ll note that the promise is to deliver the comics the way the creators want you – that’s American readers – to see it. It’s not a promise to deliver the comics in the form in which they were originally published, although it’s carefully phrased to look like one at first glance. In practice, it seems to mean nothing more than that the original creator has signed off on the changes.”

Elsewhere, the latest Flipped is up at Comic World News. In it, I ponder the eternal question: why should manga publishers care what the Direct Market thinks of them? It’s like a homecoming queen fighting desperately to become secretary of the gamers’ club.

Okay, so my hometown comic shopping wasn’t a raging success, but in compensation, The Comics JournalSpecial Edition:2005 (the manga-licious one) is here. Actually, it’s sitting at the post office waiting for me to pick it up, but that’s closer than it was before I left, so…

Catching up with manga happenings is sooooo much easier with bloggers like the folks at Love Manga. David Taylor does a delightful news roundup here.

Johanna Draper Carlson catches up on some of her favorite manga titles at Cognitive Dissonance. It’s always kind of spooky how close our manga tastes are, and it certainly makes me sit up and take notice when she praises a title I haven’t tried. Which means I need to pick up Cheeky Angel sometime soon.

James Shee at Reading Along reviews Doubt!! James and I always seem to diverge slightly in our reaction to certain comics; we either like the same things for different reasons, have a split opinion on a title based on the same elements, or some other variation of that. So it’s always interesting for me to read his well-written reviews about titles we’ve both read.

Yay! Lyle at Crocodile Caucus likes Whistle! Whenever I praise a book and someone tries it, I always worry their response will be, “What was he on?” So… relief!

So I’m visiting my folks this weekend, which is nice but not especially riveting, and I’m taking the opportunity to hunt down some different comic shops in the area. And if any of you were looking for the most byzantine organizational system for trade paperbacks and OGNs, you may rest now, for I have completed your quest.

Instead of a big shelf unit of trades and OGNs, there’s one long shelf that winds through the entire shop, past back issues and racks of pamphlets. It’s like one of those urban legend snakes that takes up residence in a crawlspace and grows so big that it winds all the way through a house. And it’s ordered like Previews… DC, Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, and “the rest.” Sometimes, “the rest” is ordered alphabetically by publisher. Sometimes, not so much. And, to be honest, “the rest” (which is what I was most eager to look through) ended up fitting comfortably in the same amount of space consumed by their selection of Ultimate Spider-Man trades.

So that was disorienting. I couldn’t really let myself consider their manga selection too carefully, because it seemed to be concentrated into two categories. First, manga that has managed to make a crossover impression with comic book readers (i.e. Planetes). Second, panties-and-smackdowns manga. So that part seems to be a work in progress.

Fortunately, there was a Barnes and Noble nearby where I could grab the first volume of Buddha by Osamu Tezuka, which comes in a gorgeous hardcover package. (I know that’s not really here or there, and Tezuka would be classic wrapped in a gr0cery bag, but it seems much more sensible to give the high-end packaging treatment to work like Buddha than, say, Ultimates.)

Unrelated to comics, I love Turner Classic Movies. The cable provider back home doesn’t carry it, much to my bitter regret, so I always end up watching hours and hours when I visit the folks. (Thanks for nothing, and fix your name, American Movie Classics, because it’s a big, fat lie.) I know if I had TCM at home, I’d never again be able to say “there’s nothing on TV.” Sigh.

There’s no underlying theme this week, unless “really enjoyable comics” counts. Heck, it works for me! (Comments may contain spoilers.)

I’m over my little fit of pique with DC’s “nothing stands alone” marketing ploys and am back to being utterly taken with Adam Strange (DC), which hit its sixth issue this week. Writer Andy Diggle writes some of the best cliffhangers in the business, and the whole exercise has the compulsive excitement of a movie serial. Better still, each individual chapter is satisfying on its own terms, packed with action and story, but specific to the who’s-who cast of DC’s outer space characters. Diggle is taking tremendous advantage of the possibilities of a monthly publication schedule, and the wait to find out what happens next is a big part of the fun. Artist Pascal Ferry’s visuals are kinetic, varied, and gorgeous, as usual.

I wasn’t crazy about the first chapter of the current “Jack Be Nimble” arc in Fables (Vertigo), continued in this week’s #35. In the conclusion, writer Bill Willingham gives the events more weight and interest by focusing more closely on Jack’s motivations. He also gives the caper some unexpectedly ominous consequences, which is nice. “Jack Be Nimble” will probably never rank very highly on my list of favorite Fables stories, but I enjoyed it more than I initially thought I would. And, heck, it only took two issues, which is a nice change from the current mania for done-in-six.

The little details of police culture and character work help Gotham Central 29 (DC) overcome the kind of story I might not otherwise enjoy in this title. (It’s got a heavy focus on super-shenanigans, and I prefer more of a street-level approach.) Writer Greg Rucka follows up on the fallout from his “Half a Life” arc, and he draws some nice divisions between beat cops and detectives while reinforcing what ultimately links them. He also does a solid job of introducing some of the supporting cast of The Flash without taking readers too far out of Gotham Central’s noir-steeped world. The ending all but genuflects in the direction of Silence of the Lambs, but we’ll see how it turns out. It’s probably not the kind of compliment artists dream of receiving, but Stefano Gaudiano does a tremendous job of capturing the visual style that Michael Lark gave this book.

Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight 1 (Vertigo) takes a familiar premise (hero from the past is flung into a baffling future) but does it with such style and energy that it doesn’t really matter. Writer Grant Morrison packs the comic with action and character, and he does it in a way that’s imaginatively specific to protagonist Sir Justin and his crumbling Camelot world. Beyond being enjoyable in its own right, it bodes well for the other six diverse heroes who will get the Seven Soldiers treatment. Artist Simone Bianchi’s art is beautiful, creating a wonderfully unique take on sword and sorcery adventure. Extra points to the fine work from colorist Nathan Eyring, who employs a rich, vivid palette.

I actually liked the huge tonal shift in Street Angel 4 (Slave Labor Graphics), and I think the willingness to mix things up is one of the book’s greatest strengths. The fifth issue is back in familiar territory while taking a more focused approach to narrative than I’m used to. The sequences detailing Afrodisiac’s heroic history are creative, but the cleverness of visual choices and sly in-jokes don’t detract from their usefulness (and ultimate sincerity) as an introduction. This is apparently going to be the last issue of Street Angel for a while, and I’ll certainly miss it. Creators Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca have done splendid work with this title.

I’m still not quite prepared to talk about Vimanarama (Vertigo) at any length, preferring to wait until the whole series is out. I will say that I’m enjoying it a lot. Writer Grant Morrison has put a sweet, quirky romance in the middle of his usual mind-bending insanity, and I’m hooked. Also, if anyone can recommend other work by artist Philip Bond, please do so immediately. I. Want. More.