Wednesday's Loot - 17 May 2006

Picked up a few books and made a fateful decision today. I will be limiting my purchases and focussing on the occasional trade in order to obtain true villain status as the destroyer of comics.

Batman: Year 100 #4
Daaaaamn, Paul Pope learned how to tell a story. This was on time (or at least it felt like it was on time) and it didn't treat its audience as a bunch of drooling idiots. I've always been a fan of PP's art but the stories tended to be cringe-worthy from time to time. Not so here. This is Batman like he should be done. The spirit is just captured and expressed in near perfection here. He's a mystery to everyone in Gotham and he's as big a mystery to us the audience. I simply love how we're chucked into the story and not bogged down by anything. We know the story of Batman now, but it's been chopped up and served to us in a new form that's just as delicious and is actually new, groundbreaking and, dare I say it, mind-blowing.
I rate this story: The Batman equivalent of John Coletrane playing "These are a few of my favourite things."

Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy #5
Was anyone else sort of disappointed in how Sure-shot or Sharpshooter, or whatever the Native guy's name is, is being portrayed? I'm liking this story despite myself sometimes. There's more of the ever welcome Easy Company killing Nazis, but it's sort of got a black mark on the way the one Native guy is like a mashed up version of a lot of stereotypes - even if they're kind of sympathetic stereotypes.
I rate this story: Rock and Easy killing Nazis, so good.

52 week 2
You know what? I take back what I said about Ralph Dibny. I like where his story is going. And again, you'll be reading about this everywhere else so I won't bore you with my opinion.
I rate this story: One of few to make the cut.

I also bought, Aquaman, DMZ and am giving Shadowpact a shot since I enjoyed the Crisis Special so much. I'll be hitting LCS #2 after work to see if they have any copies of Fear Agent left since the closer one didn't. I'm hoping this doesn't turn into another Northwest Passage #2 debacle.

Okay, now I know I sort of mention how I'm going to trim down my buying habits every couple of months but this time it's for sure. I need to start saving some cash so I'm going to continue down the road of super-villainy and kill off more comics - sorry folks but I'm getting married in October and I need to start saving more than I am at the moment.

Comics that have made the cut:
52
Battle for Bludhaven (it's going to end soon, so I'll stick with it since I'm enjoying it).
Batman/Detective Comics (current arc, we'll see about Grant Morrison's when it comes out)
Godland
Fear Agent
DMZ (until this arc is over at least)
Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy (I can afford one more issue)
The Ultimates (because it comes out so infrequently)
Iron Man: The Inevitable (another mini I'm going to finish up)
Lions, Tigers and Bears 2 (ditto)
Mouse Guard (ditto)
Solo (ditto)
All Star Superman
Ultimate Wolverine v. Hulk (going to finish it out)
Justice (again, it's few and far between)

Iffy:
Aquaman
The Secret Six (I'll probably get this because I liked VU so much)
The Atom (hey I made fun of it and Gail Simone posted in the comments so I owe it to her to pick up at least one issue)
Wasteland (Post-apocolyptic and again, Antony posted in the comments so I'll give it one issue at least since I liked his Queen and County: Declassified story)

I think this is a fair list that will trim down my purchasing habits. 52 means I'll have something that'll entertain, frustrate, enlighten, and whatever else can happen on this formalist exercise. I want to see where it goes. Otherwise I just want to finish up the minis I'm enjoying and focus on the occasional trade like Animal Man or whatever else hits my fancy. It's a hard habit to break but I may just have the spine to do it this time...

I don't particularly want to. It's just my evil nature compelling me to do so.