Kabuki I've never managed to get interested in. Nice art, no hints of a story I would particularly enjoy, heavy whiffs of Weeaboo Syndrome.

I don't think about other comics at all when I write Criminal, so it never occurred to me that it might be jarring at all.

Consider, weren't all of the Mike Hammer books written in first person? Weren't many of Dashiell Hammett's novels likewise writtten in that manner?

Even though the narration IS in third person, couldn't it possibly make sense to introduce a character who, it turns out, has BEEN the narrator the whole time?

Greg is correct about first person narration giving a more noirish feel to a book. However, that's not to say that regardless of the choice of narrator, Criminal is not an excellent work. It is.

For this story, I didn't feel like Tracy was a guy who would narrate his own story, as such, so I went with third person, because it creates a slight distance.

But the best thing I read this week was the Crossing Midnight trade from Vertigo. First five issues for just ten bucks. Intriguing stuff! I like the characters and find the new (to me) mythology really captivating. Check it out.

He also has one of the coolest super powers in the entire world of comics. Super strength? Flight? Super speed? Bah, Tenzil can EAT ANYTHING. It's hard to get cooler than that.

Return of Tenzil aside, though, Bedard's opening issue left me fairly lukewarm. It wasn't bad, but it didn't really stand out. And we already have a blatant error with the Waid run in the Legion handing out extra flight rings, when it had always been a major point that the rings are so expensive it's insanely hard to get more. Still, it's not terrible.

Meanwhile, Blue Beetle continues to be one of my favorite books out there right now. Jaime's ultimate power fantasy... I can't remember the last time I laughed so loud when I was reading a comic book. I actually got some weird looks. This book deserves to be around far longer than a fringe title with a new character replacing an obscure hero likely will.

There's actually a real disease which causes continual bone growth and the conversion of soft tissue to bone. Joints freeze up, the body gets contorted, and the person dies young.

Not so much with the giant bone spikes projecting from the body, though.

I think I was the only one nitpicking about "Dreamgirl", but I support you in the phase/faze thing.

Anyway, like a lot of books out there, this is a perfectly competent superhero comic, but it doesn’t really grab me. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I really have never been into the Legion, or if the fact that not a lot happens

Aah, well. It wasn't as good as I hoped it was going to be (although not bad). Believe me, Legion comics can get a lot better than that. Bringing Calero in instead of Sharpe will help (or it should, anyway), but I was hoping for something a bit snappier from Bedard. Oh well; there's still time.

I had no idea who the character is that was revealed on the last page.

He's nobody new; he's the lawyer guy from earlier in the issue.

(Longtime Legion fans will recognize him (his name's Tenzil Kem) easily; in the original Legion he called himself Matter-Eater Lad and was a Legionnaire himself. He had the power of being able to eat anything. He also appeared in the reboot Legion with the same power but wasn't a superhero. But you don't really need to know that for this issue.)

I'm pretty sure this was just a production error with the word balloon switched. It took me a second to figure out what was going on as well. I was a little dissapointed with this issue, mostly because of the art. I just didn't enjoy it as much as Barry Kitson's.

If you enjoyed this issue at all, but haven't been reading, I'd say go and check out one of the earlier trades. Kitson's art is great and there's a lot of good superhero stories.