You got me dead to rights, Greg ... but as god as my witness, I will never buy Kick-Ass again. Millar's insistence on the ground-breakingness of this ... this ... thing is either a symptom of sheer delusion brought of by self-obsession *or* an elaborately cynical put-on.

ZORRO is pushing all of my buttons right now. I'm loving Dynamite's "pulp rebirth" mojo. The backstory is simple and powerful and I enjoy the fact that the central theme is about the concept of HEROISM... yeah! In a comic book! These funny books aren't just for continuity-wank anymore.

I thought it was pretty entertaining myself and I usually skip crossovers.

I'm just having some fun, Evan! I'm the last person to criticize people for their choices, so if everyone really wanted to read Secret Invasion, far be it from me to stop them. Read what you like, say I! I'm actually mulling over writing something about the whole idea, because something occurred to me about it this week. I have no interest in it, but I know a lot of people do. As usual, I just don't like people buying something because they only buy Marvel or really, really NEED the latest crossover. That's just silly. But if you like the issue, fine by me!

Casanova deserves all the praise it gets and more. Just a heartbreakingly lovely issue. Fraction is my favorite writer right now: his ability to combine the big, mad ideas with a relatable, human core is amazing.

Metal Men was also pretty good this week, and gives me hope that it just might make sense when read all together. The art has been beautiful throughout, so at least it's easy on the eyes.

-- Sean

Other than that, very good stuff. Hopefully Catwoman can be extracted from all the Salvation Run-related silliness, because I can't see Dini resisting the potential of having her and Zatanna in an issue together at this point.

Other than that: well, Action was a nice way of ending the arc even if it underwhelmed a bit on the art side (Gary Frank seems to draw everyone BUT Superman well, but that might be me seeing too much of his Supreme Power work in this). Nightwing was fun, but felt like a bit of a repeat from last time (if they're trying to build a new status quo, they need more intermixing of elements from the other plotlines). That was about it for me.

But the way Wagner gets from Point A to Point B is a bit disappointing, because it involves what we might expect - tragedy visits the Hacienda de la Vega, and women bear the brunt of it, in two different ways, but both ways aren’t terribly interesting. We can figure out what Diego’s mother will do, and we can also figure out what Bernardo’s mother will do. I guess that there has to be tragedy in the boys’ lives (although I don’t completely agree with that), but does it have to come in so common-place a fashion?

He's following Isabel Allende's origin from the novel, beat-for-beat. That's why. Wagner noted it in #1, but it WAS in really tiny type.

The new Buffy had some really fun moments.

Also looking forward to reading Clandestine #3. Having skipped the '90s (as well as the '80s & pretty much the first half of this decade, too), I had no idea these characters existed till #1 came out. I was inspired to go buy the original limited series off eBay as well & just finished #3 of that one. Really nice stuff.

Secret Invasion? C'mon ... really, who cares?

Yeah, I know it's a lean week, Tom. I didn't pick up anything for free this week, because I probably would have read Secret Invasion more closely than I did when I skimmed through it. Sorry to disappoint!

Yes, I just could not resist and went ahead and bought the dreaded Secret Invasion # 1, just to see what's all the fuss is all about. Sure HOPE that not only it's better than Civil War, but comes out ON time.

Haven't read it yet, tho'.