Now, I admit that any comic featuring my boy Northstar is a comic I will willingly spend money on no matter how crap it is, but I don’t suspend my critical faculties just because he’s in there. I bought X-Men #190 with a trembling hand, terrified that Carey and Bachalo wouldn’t be able to keep up the standards they’d set for themselves — but they did, praise be to God, and I was most pleased. (They even had Northstar meet with Victor! SO AWESOME!)

I’m sure that squid thing shows up sometime in the next 2 issues.

Maybe.

~P~

P-TOR

Also, Frank Quitely’s Parasite is amazing. I’m never going to be anything but disappointed in the look of the “real” Parasite.

re: Action: On another T.-related note, this comic has probably the coolest Nightwing I’ve seen in years. T. will point out that isn’t saying much, but still.

Nobody tell Chaykin.

All Star Lex was indeed awesome. I did not expect him to completely steal the show like he did, though Clark certainly did some cool stuff too.

Again, I chalk up some of the differences to the circumstances Luthor is living under in each issue. In #1, I get the impression he’s isolating himself in a lab and focusing all his attention on developing new technology, leading to a more gaunt appearance, while in #5, he’s been focusing on bettering himself physically as well given the limited facilities for invention present at the prison, leading to a more physically imposing appearance.

And dear God, it *is* G’Nort.

Quitely’s fine design sense on that two-page spread, recalling a bit of Chris Ware as Lex and Clark walk down the prison steps — well, that’s just gorgeous. Bravo gentlemen. Yes I’ll wait for that.

(Plus: While the All-Star Superman issues have an ongoing arc in the background, they’re still basically done-in-ones. Unlike, say, Whedon’s much more tightly wound Astonishing X-Men, which really suffers from being bimonthly.)

Which is EXACTLY why I DO buy it, finally. For the first time in, probably, ever. I LOVED this issue (particularly because I love the way Morrison writes Lex, and his All-Star Lex (as an evil-genius scientist) is even more delectable than his DCU Lex (as an evil-strategist mogul)). and the longer their encounter continued and Lex didn’t connect the dots, the more I began to appreciate this aspect of Kal-El. He doesn’t need some silly 1980s Byrnesque excuse for people not recognizing him; he just ACTS, and nobody figures it out because he’s that good. (It’s like — I dunno — seeing “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” years ago and being stunned afterward to learn that Leonardo DiCaprio isn’t retarded in real life.)

The distinction Grant and Frank make between Superman and Clark is so much fun, so simple but so brilliantly done. I was even thinking about it again this morning as I made my breakfast. They’re taking something suggested by pitch-perfect performance of Christopher Reeve in the first two films (and to some degree, also by Brandon Routh’s decent job on Clark, though both were a bit too handsome — they needed worse hair and thicker glasses or something), and they’re really playing it up. Quietly nails it the best, “acting” through his pencils.

If Morrison doesn’t blow it at the end, this run is going to stand up as one of comicdom’s all-time best.

Keeper of the Fortress – I just don’t know about that. I wonder if it was intentionally humorous. If it was, it’s a strange place to put it, especially coming on the heels of a guy getting sliced up by throwing stars. It didn’t really piss me off, like it did Bryan, and I don’t have anything against ninjas in the same way I don’t have anything against the Joker – I just wish writers wouldn’t use them as much.

What the heck happened to my covers? They weren’t that big earlier!!!!